The hottest debate raging on presently among webmasters is the pros and cons of the new Google Caffeine, which is being claimed to be a better search index, capable of providing fresher search results than the Google’s previous index, and also to deal with the vast information being added constantly in social portals like Facebook and Twitter. SEO pros have a challenging task ahead of them, in order to orient their search engine optimization strategies to suit the new search parameters of the new Google Caffeine search engine index.
Not too long back, Google was content with updating its search engine index once every month. This meant that every fresh content added to the web appeared in Google search results after considerable time, often after the relevance of the matter ceased to exist. A case in study were the 9/11 attacks on the American Trade Center, when Google was found highly lacking in broadcasting the latest news over the web. This spurred the search engine giant in to action, and it realized the importance of real time web updates. Google Caffeine was thus developed keeping in mind the need to live up to ever increasing users’ and web masters’ expectations to catch the latest content the instant it is published.
Google Caffeine focuses on updating its database on a continuous basis, and also appears to have higher crawling properties. The result is that you may expect to find your search page results quite different from the earlier, for the same keyword, each time you log in. Instead of crawling the entire web at once, Google Caffeine crawls small portions and updates its index constantly, immediately publishing the relevant content which meets all the white-hat search engine optimization requirements.
So what strategies should SEO professionals adopt while working with Google Caffeine? Though Google Caffeine provides fast updates of its database, it will be selective of the matter which is to be published on priority. Websites having a higher page rank will be crawled faster than the others. In addition, news feeds and blogs will be updated ahead of other sites.
Google Caffeine has incorporated a toolbar section for blog listings both above and below the search results, reiterating its affinity for quality content. Web pages reviewed, linked and shared vide social networking and bookmarking sites like Facebook, Twitter, StumbleUpon and MySpace will also get instant visibility, which in turn will ensure more conversions. This is quite understandable, since as the Google SERPs are a major revenue earner for Google, it aims to display the most quality, the most relevant and popular web pages in its results. For the same reason, expect on-page search engine optimization factors like unique content, titles, page navigation, keyword density, alt tags, meta tags, page views to rank your website higher in Google Caffeine. Website speed will also be an important factor for higher rankings.
With Google Caffeine, Semantic searches have become the order of the day. Properly researched SEO keywords and their strategic placement in the web pages will be helpful to get a place in relevant search results.
With Goggle improving its algorithms with a view of encouraging genuine, quality and relevant web pages in its search results, it is clear that short cut tactics in search engine optimization would simply not do. What needs to be seen in future is whether Google Caffeine will place greater importance to keyworded domains, i.e. domain names which have the relevant keyword embedded in them. SEO professionals reason that keyworded domains will have the searched keywords in their backlinks, thus bringing them to the top of the search results.
Sunday, August 22, 2010
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Friday, August 13, 2010
Helpful Search Engine Optimization terminologies
Search engine optimization is a set of procedures adopted to improve the chances of a website appearing in the initial couple of pages in search engine results. Search engine optimization can be offered both as a standalone service focusing on optimizing the keywords, adding relevant content or link building as in an existing site, or as a comprehensive service right from the web building and development stage for new upcoming sites. The strategy for optimizing any site depends on the products or services it provides. It is largely important to understand how search engines view and rank a particular website. Being automated software, they are mostly text-driven; i.e. they crawl the web from one site to another via links and view the keywords to get an idea on what the website is actually about. Later, they index the site in their database as per its relevance and later retrieve it whenever the relevant keywords are searched. Search engine crawlers are unable to see images, Javascript, flash movies, or directories, so it does not make sense to add tons of such items on your website just to increase its visibility for search engines.
While going for search engine optimization measures for your website, it is very important to know the various terminologies which are related to search results, and affect the visibility of the website, so that you know for sure where exactly you need to focus to make your website more search-friendly.
1) Search engine marketing: Also known as SEM, it involves marketing of your website through search engines. It involves online organic search engine placements and pay-per-click advertising through Google AdSense advertising.
2) SERPS: It is an abbreviation for Search Engine Research Panel, which denotes the organic search results which are displayed whenever we type a keyword in the search engine.
3) Anchor text: It is the text which is hyperlinked to take you to another web page. The number of inbound links a particular website gets from other trusted sites is an indication of its popularity and reliability. It plays a very significant role in improving the Google search ranking of the recipient web page. However, excessive stuffing of links with the same anchor text on the same website is taken as an indication of poor search engine optimization, resulting in banning of the site by Google.
4) Backlinks: In SEO terminology, back links mean the number of inbound links that connect from another site to yours. They are important because they measure the popularity your website enjoys amongst the web audience. Backlinks can be good or bad. Backlinks obtained from reputed websites hosting a theme similar to yours is considered good, and helps in boosting your page ranking; while backlinks from shady places like link farms are likely to harm your prospects of building up respectable link popularity.
5) Link exchange: In link exchange, two or more websites place each other’s links on their web pages. In reciprocal link exchange, two websites interlink each other. Three way link exchange programs are also possible, wherein website A links to website B, website B to C, and C links back to A. Generally, such types of link exchanges are hard for Google search engine to track. Google search engine generally places less weightage to reciprocal and closed loop links, as these are often the result of link trades and do not portray the actual website quality. Google looks for quality one way links to decide on the ranking.
6) Page rank: Page rank (PR) is Google’s patented procedure of assessing the importance and relevance of a particular website. Though the exact methodology adopted by Google to arrive at a page rank is not clear to anybody, it is clear that Google provides a decent page rank to sites having healthy link building policies.
7) Keywords: Keywords are the most important on-page SEO factors for any website. Search engines match the website’s keywords against search strings. It is therefore of utmost importance to optimize your website for the proper keywords. With millions of websites offering the same products and services, it is next to impossible to achieve good page ranks with a single word search string. It is also quite difficult to let the reader know about your website with a single word search string. To achieve good results in keyword optimization, go for 2-3 word search strings which tend to aptly describe your product. Also think from the customer’s perspective to find out what keywords are likely to be searched more, and use them properly in your website content.
By getting yourself acquainted with all the terminologies used in search engine optimization techniques, along with the role each term has to play in getting good visibility and quality traffic to your website, you can suitably optimize each factor in your favor to gain prominence in search engine results, and in the bargain, boost your online sales quite remarkably.
While going for search engine optimization measures for your website, it is very important to know the various terminologies which are related to search results, and affect the visibility of the website, so that you know for sure where exactly you need to focus to make your website more search-friendly.
1) Search engine marketing: Also known as SEM, it involves marketing of your website through search engines. It involves online organic search engine placements and pay-per-click advertising through Google AdSense advertising.
2) SERPS: It is an abbreviation for Search Engine Research Panel, which denotes the organic search results which are displayed whenever we type a keyword in the search engine.
3) Anchor text: It is the text which is hyperlinked to take you to another web page. The number of inbound links a particular website gets from other trusted sites is an indication of its popularity and reliability. It plays a very significant role in improving the Google search ranking of the recipient web page. However, excessive stuffing of links with the same anchor text on the same website is taken as an indication of poor search engine optimization, resulting in banning of the site by Google.
4) Backlinks: In SEO terminology, back links mean the number of inbound links that connect from another site to yours. They are important because they measure the popularity your website enjoys amongst the web audience. Backlinks can be good or bad. Backlinks obtained from reputed websites hosting a theme similar to yours is considered good, and helps in boosting your page ranking; while backlinks from shady places like link farms are likely to harm your prospects of building up respectable link popularity.
5) Link exchange: In link exchange, two or more websites place each other’s links on their web pages. In reciprocal link exchange, two websites interlink each other. Three way link exchange programs are also possible, wherein website A links to website B, website B to C, and C links back to A. Generally, such types of link exchanges are hard for Google search engine to track. Google search engine generally places less weightage to reciprocal and closed loop links, as these are often the result of link trades and do not portray the actual website quality. Google looks for quality one way links to decide on the ranking.
6) Page rank: Page rank (PR) is Google’s patented procedure of assessing the importance and relevance of a particular website. Though the exact methodology adopted by Google to arrive at a page rank is not clear to anybody, it is clear that Google provides a decent page rank to sites having healthy link building policies.
7) Keywords: Keywords are the most important on-page SEO factors for any website. Search engines match the website’s keywords against search strings. It is therefore of utmost importance to optimize your website for the proper keywords. With millions of websites offering the same products and services, it is next to impossible to achieve good page ranks with a single word search string. It is also quite difficult to let the reader know about your website with a single word search string. To achieve good results in keyword optimization, go for 2-3 word search strings which tend to aptly describe your product. Also think from the customer’s perspective to find out what keywords are likely to be searched more, and use them properly in your website content.
By getting yourself acquainted with all the terminologies used in search engine optimization techniques, along with the role each term has to play in getting good visibility and quality traffic to your website, you can suitably optimize each factor in your favor to gain prominence in search engine results, and in the bargain, boost your online sales quite remarkably.
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Most useful SEO tools
Explained in layman’s terms, Search Engine Optimization is a combination of processes adopted to highlight a website to major search engines, in order to attract maximum traffic. Unless you have a website offering niche products, you have to continuously upkeep your SEO efforts and keep on inventing new ones, to maintain a decent placement in the search engine results.
While some search engines offer a paid service in order to highlight your website, all the top search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN use automated software programs called spiders or bots to crawl the web and index all webpages in their database. Some others like AOL search engine access the Google database for their online search results, while AltaVista and Lycos use the Yahoo database.
The internal ranking factors such as website structure, keywords, keyword density, the title tag, Alt attributes in images, Meta tags, as well as external ranking factors like inbound links, link importance, anchor text, and relevance matter the most when it comes to achieving a good probability of getting a preferential position in search engine results. A good indicator of your website popularity is the Google page rank, which denotes a number between 1 to 10 to show how popular your site is among web users.
SEO professionals endeavor to analyze your website and incorporate various on-page and off-page optimization factors to make it search friendly. However, it may be kept in mind that there is no magical way to create the best site out of thin air, without consistent efforts and without patience. It is recommended that you analyze your website yourself with respect to its architecture, content, keywords, back links and URLs placed on it, so that you can gain an insight on where your website stands, and what needs to be optimized. Google always encourages the use of organic SEO techniques to bring your website at par with the best in the business in terms of visibility. Before you entrust the job of updating your web pages for good search engine rankings to a Search Engine Optimization company, you should first check up where you stand in terms of all the above factors, so that you are clear about where you need to improve. Google provides a lot of SEO tools for free, which you may use in order to analyze your website.
1) Google Webmaster tools: It provides you the Google’s view on your website and how the Google Spider views it. It lists out the specific problems the Google Spider is facing while crawling and indexing your site, which you would be required to address. You also get access to comprehensive data about how your website appears in Google search results, with helpful inputs on how to create the most descriptive page titles, and meta tag descriptions which make your website speak for itself in Google Search results. Google Webmaster tools even allow you to analyze your sitelinks to check which ones bring in the most traffic to your website, and block unnecessary sitelinks. And in case you would like your customers to locate you on Google site maps, you can also submit your URL for even better visibility and accessibility.
2) Google Analytics: It is enterprise-class software designed to turn your web pages in to profits. Basically aimed for internet marketers rather than webmasters, Google Analytics generates detailed statistics about the visitors to your website. Using this free tool, you can track visitors from all your referrers, such as search engines, pay-per-click campaigns, e-mail marketing, backward links, etc and analyze the ROI from each of these sources. Its advanced analysis tools utilize pivot tables, filtering and multiple dimensions in order to display where your website stands vis-à-vis your competitors in terms of usage metrics. This tool is best used integrated with other Google tools like Adwords, Adsense, Web Optimizers and Webmaster.
3) Google Website Optimizer: It is a free website testing and optimization tool, where you get to test which site, image and text combinations drive the maximum traffic to your website. With its multivariate testing facilities, Google Website Optimizer tracks all the incoming traffic to your site and provides you concrete feedback on which elements are working on your website. Graphical reports show which type of content interests your site visitors and leads to most conversions. By making the necessary changes in your page layout, button sizes, shopping cart placements and intra-site navigation as suggested by this tool, you can aim to drive up your on-site sales more efficiently.
By using these free Google tools, you will be able to grasp exactly what you need to do with your website in order to bring it in line with the best practices of SEO.
While some search engines offer a paid service in order to highlight your website, all the top search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN use automated software programs called spiders or bots to crawl the web and index all webpages in their database. Some others like AOL search engine access the Google database for their online search results, while AltaVista and Lycos use the Yahoo database.
The internal ranking factors such as website structure, keywords, keyword density, the title tag, Alt attributes in images, Meta tags, as well as external ranking factors like inbound links, link importance, anchor text, and relevance matter the most when it comes to achieving a good probability of getting a preferential position in search engine results. A good indicator of your website popularity is the Google page rank, which denotes a number between 1 to 10 to show how popular your site is among web users.
SEO professionals endeavor to analyze your website and incorporate various on-page and off-page optimization factors to make it search friendly. However, it may be kept in mind that there is no magical way to create the best site out of thin air, without consistent efforts and without patience. It is recommended that you analyze your website yourself with respect to its architecture, content, keywords, back links and URLs placed on it, so that you can gain an insight on where your website stands, and what needs to be optimized. Google always encourages the use of organic SEO techniques to bring your website at par with the best in the business in terms of visibility. Before you entrust the job of updating your web pages for good search engine rankings to a Search Engine Optimization company, you should first check up where you stand in terms of all the above factors, so that you are clear about where you need to improve. Google provides a lot of SEO tools for free, which you may use in order to analyze your website.
1) Google Webmaster tools: It provides you the Google’s view on your website and how the Google Spider views it. It lists out the specific problems the Google Spider is facing while crawling and indexing your site, which you would be required to address. You also get access to comprehensive data about how your website appears in Google search results, with helpful inputs on how to create the most descriptive page titles, and meta tag descriptions which make your website speak for itself in Google Search results. Google Webmaster tools even allow you to analyze your sitelinks to check which ones bring in the most traffic to your website, and block unnecessary sitelinks. And in case you would like your customers to locate you on Google site maps, you can also submit your URL for even better visibility and accessibility.
2) Google Analytics: It is enterprise-class software designed to turn your web pages in to profits. Basically aimed for internet marketers rather than webmasters, Google Analytics generates detailed statistics about the visitors to your website. Using this free tool, you can track visitors from all your referrers, such as search engines, pay-per-click campaigns, e-mail marketing, backward links, etc and analyze the ROI from each of these sources. Its advanced analysis tools utilize pivot tables, filtering and multiple dimensions in order to display where your website stands vis-à-vis your competitors in terms of usage metrics. This tool is best used integrated with other Google tools like Adwords, Adsense, Web Optimizers and Webmaster.
3) Google Website Optimizer: It is a free website testing and optimization tool, where you get to test which site, image and text combinations drive the maximum traffic to your website. With its multivariate testing facilities, Google Website Optimizer tracks all the incoming traffic to your site and provides you concrete feedback on which elements are working on your website. Graphical reports show which type of content interests your site visitors and leads to most conversions. By making the necessary changes in your page layout, button sizes, shopping cart placements and intra-site navigation as suggested by this tool, you can aim to drive up your on-site sales more efficiently.
By using these free Google tools, you will be able to grasp exactly what you need to do with your website in order to bring it in line with the best practices of SEO.
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