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Add You - SEO Expert Guide - Sitewide Optimization (part 4/10)
One of the most common business initiatives today is being a team player. In fact, I was recently questioned about this at women's leadership conference at Emory University. How do you stand out from the crowd when the company wants you to be a team player?It's an important practice used by today's companies, and it is considered a negative if you are not a team player. The thing that most people don’t understand is that you can’t lose sight of the “ME” factors either.Teams are great. They build consensus, share the workload, and come together for a unified purpose. But where does individuality, initiative, or just plain ego in the team concept?When I say ego, I don't mean the typical appellation the big heads that are full of themselves. I mean the M for "ME". Looking out for numero uno. We all want to be successful and today it's becoming increasingly difficult to find the right path toward that success.Job uncertainty, information overload, and balancing work and fa
It may be a shock to some (particularly those who focus on Page Rank too much), but your home - or "index" - page has very little SEO value. A well ranking root index page is the exception rather than the rule. My advice is to treat the homepage as a pretty site map - pretty becuase it should impress human directory reviewers and a site map so that it directs search engine robots quickly to your sub content.
For opimizing the site map, imagine a droopy banana sat at the top of your page (drooping down the left hand side). This banana zone is where both human eyeballs and search engines will look most. Make sure your links use key words only for anchor text and link directly to your second and third levels. A truncated example version (for Doug) would sit in the top left corner of his home page - and look like this:
Door Hardwares
Brass Door Knobs
Iron Door Knobs
Door Bell Pulls
Door Bell Chimes
Brass Door Knockers
Antique Doors
Edwardian Doors
Victorian Doors
Door Fitting
Surrey Door Fitters
Middlesex Door Fitters
More value is ascribed to internal links (with good anchor text) than many people seem to realize. I am often surprised at how many people spend ages trying to secure inbound links from other sites (more on this later) but have no decent, keyword-rich navigatio
Calendars are used nowadays for marketing purposes. What most people think is that calendars are only used to organize meetings or tasks. But they don’t see the potential that the calendars have in improving the marketing stand of a business. Not all people know that calendars can be a perfect gift or promotional giveaways.Advantages of Business Calendars In essence, there are countless advantages that the calendars offer to business-minded individuals. They are especially intended for advertising. In connection with this, you can use calendars to reaffirm the message you want to convey to your prospects. With calendars, your potential market can remember your company all year-round. It’s like promoting your products and services to customers all the time.However, you should take into account that for you to be able to market your company you will need a well-made calendar. The calendar should have an attention-grabbing design that will easily secure the interest o
Now it is time to start your optimization activities and I am going to start with a hard message. If you already have a site and this is the first time you have seriously looked at SEO, then I would recommend starting again from scratch! Build a new site from the top-down and - when you are done - migrate across from your old site to the new. Don't worry about losing custom or links from other sites - there are ways to avoid that I will show you in the (final) part 10.
(a) Domain name Optimization
A newsflash for you. By far the most effective way to optimize keywords is to have them in the full URL for your page. The highest value part of that URL is the domain name itself.
I know what you are thinking. All the good domain names have gone by now. Well, you might be surpised (as you will soon see with Doug). Your second concern might be that you would prefer to use your business name as your URL. We will deal with both these concerns (in reverse order).
Try typing "search" into Google and you might expect to see Google put themselves first in the results, or Yahoo. It is search.com that ranks highest however! I rest my case. Domain names matter (whatever nonsense you might read on SEO forums).
Try http://www.laserpointers.co.uk and see what you find. If you dig about a bit, you'll find that the company behind this site (and several others) is Blue Sky Marketing.
At http://www.blueskymarketing.co.uk you will find their company website, but guess which of the two sites gets a top five ranking at Google UK for a search on "laser pointers"?
The bottom line is that (after you have done every other piece of optimization right) your domain name selection is perhaps the only area where you can further differentiate yourself from your competitors. As such, it may be your only realisatic chance (in this every more mature market) to achieve a top 10 ranking for some of your key search terms and - believe me - the traffic (and business) impact this has is literally amazing.
Now for the "all the good domain names have gone" issue. Doug makes a visit (as should you) to the excellent Keyword Domain Name Search Tool and, although plurals are out (pity), he finds the following two options are both still available for his top-selling product and biggest possible traffic draw:
http://www.antiquedoorknocker.com; and
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com
If you use your top three keywords as a combination, you too are likely to find a decent available domain (unless you are operating in a highly competitive area like real estate).
So which of these two should Doug choose? To hyphenate domain name or not? There is more disagreement on this amongst web masters than almost any other issue in SEO. In practice, this means that there is evidence supporting both options.. and, as such, you choice isn't critical. However, on balance (and without boring you with the details), I would suggest you do hyphenate in the domain name if you have a choice (if only to help with your page titles; more on this later).
(b) URL name Optimization
You'll remember I suggested a separate page for each product, service or key piece of information. Well, I would also have a seperate directory for each product or service category (limiting the directory name to two, hyphenated key words). As such, Doug settles on three directories, covering his three main categories:
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/door-hardware/
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/antique-doors/
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/door-fitting/
I wouldn't go down to sub-dirctories below this unless you have a particularly large number of products in your catalogue (and therefore recognisable sub-categories). Too many key words will reduce the overall density of any one word within the whole URL.
(c) File extension Optimization
For your (page) file name, I would use up to three key words, again hyphenated. For the file extension I would always opt for static .html file extensions where possible. Dynamiclly generated file extensions (that include "?" or "%" in the query string) have been shown to confuse search engines.
Extending Doug's example, he comes up with 45 different pages under hardware, of which the following five are examples:
../door-hardware/brass-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/iron-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-pulls.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-chimes.html
../door-hardware/brass-door-knockers.html
In some cases, he has duplicate products on different pages. For example, everything on the door chimes page also appears on the door pull page. Doug disdcovered during his key word analysis phase that Americans tended to search on chimes, whilst brits used pulls. Thus he needs both covered at this level.
(d) Navigation, Internal Links and Site Map Optimization
It may be a shock to some (particularly those who focus on Page Rank too much), but your home - or "index" - page has very little SEO value. A well ranking root index page is the exception rather than the rule. My advice is to treat the homepage as a pretty site map - pretty becuase it should impress human directory reviewers and a site map so that it directs search engine robots quickly to your sub content.
For opimizing the site map, imagine a droopy banana sat at the top of your page (drooping down the left hand side). This banana zone is where both human eyeballs and search engines will look most. Make sure your links use key words only for anchor text and link directly to your second and third levels. A truncated example version (for Doug) would sit in the top left corner of his home page - and look like this:
Door Hardwares
Brass Door Knobs
Iron Door Knobs
Door Bell Pulls
Door Bell Chimes
Brass Door Knockers
Antique Doors
Edwardian Doors
Victorian Doors
Door Fitting
Surrey Door Fitters
Middlesex Door Fitters
More value is ascribed to internal links (with good anchor text) than many people seem to realize. I am often surprised at how many people spend ages trying to secure inbound links from other sites (more on this later) but have no decent, keyword-rich navigation
All businesses should volunteer to help out in the community especially to help youth organizations. But what happens when you help a youth organization like the Boy Scouts and find that it is not politically correct? What happens when the Gay and Lesbian Community or a fringe within their community threatens to boycott your company?The episode described above happened to my company and it has long past. Believe me I can hold my own, no worries, really good at what I do and very strategic in marketing, but it is troubling to be put in that situation. I was asked once when I mentioned this was: “What is the Gay Fringe is doing to you!”Well they made it sound like I am afraid, worried or some such non-sense, no way. A little pissed off indeed back then, but hardly worried about my company or our Brand Name in the market place, our customers love us, I know it and I am sure those who threatened figured that out quickly enough. They probably looked foolish in spreading negative comments
Try http://www.laserpointers.co.uk and see what you find. If you dig about a bit, you'll find that the company behind this site (and several others) is Blue Sky Marketing.
At http://www.blueskymarketing.co.uk you will find their company website, but guess which of the two sites gets a top five ranking at Google UK for a search on "laser pointers"?
The bottom line is that (after you have done every other piece of optimization right) your domain name selection is perhaps the only area where you can further differentiate yourself from your competitors. As such, it may be your only realisatic chance (in this every more mature market) to achieve a top 10 ranking for some of your key search terms and - believe me - the traffic (and business) impact this has is literally amazing.
Now for the "all the good domain names have gone" issue. Doug makes a visit (as should you) to the excellent Keyword Domain Name Search Tool and, although plurals are out (pity), he finds the following two options are both still available for his top-selling product and biggest possible traffic draw:
http://www.antiquedoorknocker.com; and
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com
If you use your top three keywords as a combination, you too are likely to find a decent available domain (unless you are operating in a highly competitive area like real estate).
So which of these two should Doug choose? To hyphenate domain name or not? There is more disagreement on this amongst web masters than almost any other issue in SEO. In practice, this means that there is evidence supporting both options.. and, as such, you choice isn't critical. However, on balance (and without boring you with the details), I would suggest you do hyphenate in the domain name if you have a choice (if only to help with your page titles; more on this later).
(b) URL name Optimization
You'll remember I suggested a separate page for each product, service or key piece of information. Well, I would also have a seperate directory for each product or service category (limiting the directory name to two, hyphenated key words). As such, Doug settles on three directories, covering his three main categories:
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/door-hardware/
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/antique-doors/
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/door-fitting/
I wouldn't go down to sub-dirctories below this unless you have a particularly large number of products in your catalogue (and therefore recognisable sub-categories). Too many key words will reduce the overall density of any one word within the whole URL.
(c) File extension Optimization
For your (page) file name, I would use up to three key words, again hyphenated. For the file extension I would always opt for static .html file extensions where possible. Dynamiclly generated file extensions (that include "?" or "%" in the query string) have been shown to confuse search engines.
Extending Doug's example, he comes up with 45 different pages under hardware, of which the following five are examples:
../door-hardware/brass-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/iron-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-pulls.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-chimes.html
../door-hardware/brass-door-knockers.html
In some cases, he has duplicate products on different pages. For example, everything on the door chimes page also appears on the door pull page. Doug disdcovered during his key word analysis phase that Americans tended to search on chimes, whilst brits used pulls. Thus he needs both covered at this level.
(d) Navigation, Internal Links and Site Map Optimization
It may be a shock to some (particularly those who focus on Page Rank too much), but your home - or "index" - page has very little SEO value. A well ranking root index page is the exception rather than the rule. My advice is to treat the homepage as a pretty site map - pretty becuase it should impress human directory reviewers and a site map so that it directs search engine robots quickly to your sub content.
For opimizing the site map, imagine a droopy banana sat at the top of your page (drooping down the left hand side). This banana zone is where both human eyeballs and search engines will look most. Make sure your links use key words only for anchor text and link directly to your second and third levels. A truncated example version (for Doug) would sit in the top left corner of his home page - and look like this:
Door Hardwares
Brass Door Knobs
Iron Door Knobs
Door Bell Pulls
Door Bell Chimes
Brass Door Knockers
Antique Doors
Edwardian Doors
Victorian Doors
Door Fitting
Surrey Door Fitters
Middlesex Door Fitters
More value is ascribed to internal links (with good anchor text) than many people seem to realize. I am often surprised at how many people spend ages trying to secure inbound links from other sites (more on this later) but have no decent, keyword-rich navigatio
Scales are the important equipment or instrument or device needed to get accurate measurement for the object produced or manufactured. In this economy, more number of products is produced to satisfy the wants of the people or industrialist. Scales are the essential part in every body part of life, particularly in business people life. To know the weigh of any particular object produced or carried through freight, weighing scales like floor scales, platform scales, platform bench scales and many other types of scales are used. These scales will measure the weigh of the object placed on the scale accurately. Weighing scales are produced in different types, sizes, capacity and model. It measures the mass from one beam to another.Floor scales, bench scales, platform scales, economical scales, rail scales, counting scales and many other types of scales are designed to give accurate results. These scales are designed in different sizes, capacities, models, load cell and category. Weighing scales
http://www.antiquedoorknocker.com; and
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com
If you use your top three keywords as a combination, you too are likely to find a decent available domain (unless you are operating in a highly competitive area like real estate).
So which of these two should Doug choose? To hyphenate domain name or not? There is more disagreement on this amongst web masters than almost any other issue in SEO. In practice, this means that there is evidence supporting both options.. and, as such, you choice isn't critical. However, on balance (and without boring you with the details), I would suggest you do hyphenate in the domain name if you have a choice (if only to help with your page titles; more on this later).
(b) URL name Optimization
You'll remember I suggested a separate page for each product, service or key piece of information. Well, I would also have a seperate directory for each product or service category (limiting the directory name to two, hyphenated key words). As such, Doug settles on three directories, covering his three main categories:
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/door-hardware/
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/antique-doors/
http://www.antique-door-knocker.com/door-fitting/
I wouldn't go down to sub-dirctories below this unless you have a particularly large number of products in your catalogue (and therefore recognisable sub-categories). Too many key words will reduce the overall density of any one word within the whole URL.
(c) File extension Optimization
For your (page) file name, I would use up to three key words, again hyphenated. For the file extension I would always opt for static .html file extensions where possible. Dynamiclly generated file extensions (that include "?" or "%" in the query string) have been shown to confuse search engines.
Extending Doug's example, he comes up with 45 different pages under hardware, of which the following five are examples:
../door-hardware/brass-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/iron-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-pulls.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-chimes.html
../door-hardware/brass-door-knockers.html
In some cases, he has duplicate products on different pages. For example, everything on the door chimes page also appears on the door pull page. Doug disdcovered during his key word analysis phase that Americans tended to search on chimes, whilst brits used pulls. Thus he needs both covered at this level.
(d) Navigation, Internal Links and Site Map Optimization
It may be a shock to some (particularly those who focus on Page Rank too much), but your home - or "index" - page has very little SEO value. A well ranking root index page is the exception rather than the rule. My advice is to treat the homepage as a pretty site map - pretty becuase it should impress human directory reviewers and a site map so that it directs search engine robots quickly to your sub content.
For opimizing the site map, imagine a droopy banana sat at the top of your page (drooping down the left hand side). This banana zone is where both human eyeballs and search engines will look most. Make sure your links use key words only for anchor text and link directly to your second and third levels. A truncated example version (for Doug) would sit in the top left corner of his home page - and look like this:
Door Hardwares
Brass Door Knobs
Iron Door Knobs
Door Bell Pulls
Door Bell Chimes
Brass Door Knockers
Antique Doors
Edwardian Doors
Victorian Doors
Door Fitting
Surrey Door Fitters
Middlesex Door Fitters
More value is ascribed to internal links (with good anchor text) than many people seem to realize. I am often surprised at how many people spend ages trying to secure inbound links from other sites (more on this later) but have no decent, keyword-rich navigatio
I recently had a chance to see and feel how a few simple words can really make the difference in changing and enhancing your Customer Service interaction.I had been in Dallas for an extremely exciting and fun convention. (see, already simple words at work. “Exciting and Fun”) I was tired and ready to head home. I arrived at the airport, feet dragging, sleepy and a little early. After waiting two hours, we were boarded and ready to go.After we had pushed from the gate, the captain came on, and I was expecting the usual pre-flight “Welcome to our Airline” spiel, when I was pleasantly surprised.The Captain announces “Welcome to our Airline, and briefly I want to tell you a little about our plane and crew.” This is different I thought to myself.“This plane is a Super 80 aircraft and is designed to provide you with the quietest and nicest ride.” Wow, nice and quiet ride. “Our crew is the happiest and friendliest crew and on behalf of them and myself I invite you to sit b
I wouldn't go down to sub-dirctories below this unless you have a particularly large number of products in your catalogue (and therefore recognisable sub-categories). Too many key words will reduce the overall density of any one word within the whole URL.
(c) File extension Optimization
For your (page) file name, I would use up to three key words, again hyphenated. For the file extension I would always opt for static .html file extensions where possible. Dynamiclly generated file extensions (that include "?" or "%" in the query string) have been shown to confuse search engines.
Extending Doug's example, he comes up with 45 different pages under hardware, of which the following five are examples:
../door-hardware/brass-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/iron-door-knobs.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-pulls.html
../door-hardware/door-bell-chimes.html
../door-hardware/brass-door-knockers.html
In some cases, he has duplicate products on different pages. For example, everything on the door chimes page also appears on the door pull page. Doug disdcovered during his key word analysis phase that Americans tended to search on chimes, whilst brits used pulls. Thus he needs both covered at this level.
(d) Navigation, Internal Links and Site Map Optimization
It may be a shock to some (particularly those who focus on Page Rank too much), but your home - or "index" - page has very little SEO value. A well ranking root index page is the exception rather than the rule. My advice is to treat the homepage as a pretty site map - pretty becuase it should impress human directory reviewers and a site map so that it directs search engine robots quickly to your sub content.
For opimizing the site map, imagine a droopy banana sat at the top of your page (drooping down the left hand side). This banana zone is where both human eyeballs and search engines will look most. Make sure your links use key words only for anchor text and link directly to your second and third levels. A truncated example version (for Doug) would sit in the top left corner of his home page - and look like this:
Door Hardwares
Brass Door Knobs
Iron Door Knobs
Door Bell Pulls
Door Bell Chimes
Brass Door Knockers
Antique Doors
Edwardian Doors
Victorian Doors
Door Fitting
Surrey Door Fitters
Middlesex Door Fitters
More value is ascribed to internal links (with good anchor text) than many people seem to realize. I am often surprised at how many people spend ages trying to secure inbound links from other sites (more on this later) but have no decent, keyword-rich navigatio
Affiliate Marketing provides a perfect opportunity for people to begin their own online business. One of the many draws to affiliate marketing is the fact that you do not have to possess the ability to produce your own products. As an affiliate marketer you have the ability to promote and advertise products on behalf of different merchants. This is a very appealing aspect to many new online entrepreneurs. As an affiliate marketer you do not have to worry about maintaining, updating, or delivering products to your customers. In other words, an affiliate does not need to maintain physical ownership or inventory of the products in order to promote them.Yet, almost all affiliate marketing experts advise that as an affiliate you should own the products in order to successfully promote the product. Do not take this to mean that you need to become involved in the manufacturing process. What it does mean is that, as the affiliate for a product or service, you must believe in the benefits that can
It may be a shock to some (particularly those who focus on Page Rank too much), but your home - or "index" - page has very little SEO value. A well ranking root index page is the exception rather than the rule. My advice is to treat the homepage as a pretty site map - pretty becuase it should impress human directory reviewers and a site map so that it directs search engine robots quickly to your sub content.
For opimizing the site map, imagine a droopy banana sat at the top of your page (drooping down the left hand side). This banana zone is where both human eyeballs and search engines will look most. Make sure your links use key words only for anchor text and link directly to your second and third levels. A truncated example version (for Doug) would sit in the top left corner of his home page - and look like this:
Door Hardwares
Brass Door Knobs
Iron Door Knobs
Door Bell Pulls
Door Bell Chimes
Brass Door Knockers
Antique Doors
Edwardian Doors
Victorian Doors
Door Fitting
Surrey Door Fitters
Middlesex Door Fitters
More value is ascribed to internal links (with good anchor text) than many people seem to realize. I am often surprised at how many people spend ages trying to secure inbound links from other sites (more on this later) but have no decent, keyword-rich navigation within their own site (where, after all, everything is under their own control).
Search engines uses the anchor text on inbound links to determine the relevance of the target page. In fact Google even has a special operator: ‘allinanchor:keyword’, which picks up text only from within the anchor text of indexed pages. Try comparing any straight search in Google with it's allinanchor equivalent. For example, "swimming pools" versus "allinanchor:swimming pools".
You'll probably notice that the top-ranked straight search site is invariably the top-ranked allinanchor site (whilst others further down the list may vary substantially). Don't neglect to focus on this area in your SEO strategy!
Next we turn our attention to page optmization...
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