Search Engine Optimization Tips
Thursday, May 22nd, 2008;
-- Janet Meiners |
I spend a good part of my day thinking about and advising clients about how to increase their search engine rankings. InternetRetailer reported on ways to optimize your web site. These tips come from speakers at the ACCM direct-marketing industry conference and trade show in Orlando, FL. I’ve also added my commentary and extra detail.
- Update your web site with good, new content. Search engine web crawlers constantly check for new content on your web site. This affects how your site ranks in natural search results.That’s why I often recommend a blog strategy for most sites - each blog post has it’s own URL and is an easy way to add new fresh content to your site. If you update it you can train search engines to index your site several times a day.
- Put seasonal or changing information you want to be indexed in the center of the site, rather than mixed with other content. The example they gave is Christmas items. If you want it to be indexed for words relating to holiday gifts, don’t confuse search engines by putting it near your privacy policy, or unrelated information on the sidebar. Otherwise a search engine may not pick up the new content.
- Keep URLs simple. Multiple URLs for the same site can confuse web crawlers trying to index a site. A common mistake is to have different URLs for the home page. One is what you type in a search engine, like www.marketingpilgrim.com. Then if you click on a logo or links to the home page on the site, it goes to another version - like www.marketingpilgrim.com/index.aspx. Make all the links consistent and if you change URLs use a 301 redirect to funnel all your traffic to one URL.
- Keep URLs short and intuitive. Long URLs can hurt natural search optimization and aren’t user-friendly (beware of long strings of characters often found product pages on ecommerce sites).
- Tell bots how to index your site and to alert you to issues that can affect your rankings. Tools you can use include a robots.txt file (see Robots.txt.org), a Google webmasters account (www.Google.com/webmasters). Submit and verify your site and then upload a sitemap. Repeat if your web site is redesigned or as it changes.You can also submit the same sitemap at Yahoo! SiteExplorer SiteExplorer.search.yahoo.com and MSN http://webmaster.live.com.
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May 22nd, 2008 at 9:29 pm
This is nice post. Informative and the kind of SEO information Webmasters can use instead of the in-three-days-you’ll-be-on-top-of-the-search-list kind of sales talk. Thank you for a good post.
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May 23rd, 2008 at 12:25 am
Nice post. very useful information is got from this website. I really enjoyed reading this blog. You can also visit other website for this related post.
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May 23rd, 2008 at 2:01 am
Very Useful Information. Looking forward for such a nice post.
May 23rd, 2008 at 3:13 am
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May 23rd, 2008 at 3:18 am
“A common mistake is to have different URLs for the home page.”
I havent thought about this yet. But it seems logical now. I am going to check my projects for this.
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:09 pm
I am fairly new to all this and was suprised to find that although a relevant URL was useful, it wasn’t the be all and end all of SEO. The title and description tags and good content can do the job for you where keywords are concerned, they don’t necessarily have to be in the URL.
One question if I may. If the content of your homepage is fairly static, can you still get good results by regulary updating other pages in the same domain (maybe a news page for example?)?
May 23rd, 2008 at 1:35 pm
You should add “attract linkbait by blogging about SEO”
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May 23rd, 2008 at 11:22 pm
I’ve heard that getting links to your site helps out as well
Sorry, just being a smartalec. I was just surprised to see a blog post about SEO, without a mention of link strategies.
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May 24th, 2008 at 1:51 am
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May 24th, 2008 at 7:24 pm
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May 25th, 2008 at 12:27 pm
Yup, having a blog that is regularly updated definitely seems the best way to keep your site content fresh and interesting, to both the search engine bots as well as surfers.
May 30th, 2008 at 10:30 am
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June 24th, 2008 at 12:02 am
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August 2nd, 2008 at 1:46 am
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