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Monday, May 30, 2011

Using Site Architecture To Improve SEO

Many times, a site gets very large and its ability to rank well in competitive markets decreases in part because of the size of the site. While we in the business know that content is king, more often than not it is a combination of content and effective site structure which will ultimately help your pages rank.

In this article I look at how to most effectively structure your site to take advantage of this.

I read this great article on layering on the SEOmoz Blog http://www.seomoz.org/blogdetail.php?ID=789 and while it does a good job of explaining what content layering is, I feel it could be improved just a little bit.

I'm not saying it is wrong in any way. In fact the tactic outlined will be very effective for a small to medium sized site, however I have also found another way to organize your site which can be more effective if done properly.

In the article, it explains how you use layers to organize your site. Now we're not talking about CSS layering or anything like that. It's more of a site structure issue than anything.

According to the article, one can layer their site through the use of sub-folders. By creating layers of sub-folders and then placing all related content within that sub-folder you can layer your site to help specific sections of it rank higher.

This is a great way to organize a smaller site because it allows you to place topical pages together, and promote links within the pages to help improve overall positioning of these sections.

Further, it helps reduce the dilution factor often felt by sites that attempt to cover multiple topics in a flat file structure.

For example, if you sell widgets you could organize the sections by some common element, such as color. That way your site could be: http://widgetts.com/blue/page1.html and all blue widget pages would go into this sub-folder. You'd then organize all other sub-folders in a similar style.

Like I said, I think this is a very effective strategy for a smaller or medium site. There would be a much greater chance of blue widgets ranking highly in a structure like this.

However, I feel that for larger sites there's an even more effective way to organize your content.

Through the use of sub-domains one could further organize this content. This would make it even more relevant to search queries and more likely to rank. If one sold a larger variety of widgets yet still wanted to organize them by color then the structure of the site would be: http://blue.widgetts.com and all site content relating to blue widgets would appear within this sub-domain.

The reason I say sub-domains would be more effective is because search engines tend to treat a sub-domain as its own site. In other words, a search engine sees http://blue.widgetts.com and http://widgetts.com as essentially 2 different sites.

Keep in mind that such a strategy is of the most benefit to larger sites. If you don't have a large site, or don't foresee your site growing to become a large site then I wouldn't recommend the sub-domain layering tactic.

This is because, as I've said, the search engines will treat your sub-domain as a unique site. So if you've only got 10 or 15 or even 50 pages in your sub-domain, chances are it won't rank as competitively as it would have as a sub-folder of a larger site.

Now, to make your content even more competitive, why not combine these two strategies – use a sub-domain and sub-folders to provide you even more control in site organization as well as an even greater chance of ranking.

This is because the broader sub-domain can rank competitively for the broader terms while the sub-folder content can rank competitively for the less broad, more specific terms.

What you are doing by combining the two strategies is getting more bang for your buck. This is because you are covering more area on the web, allowing your site to rank for both broad and specific terms.

Then, with some good strategic interlinking you will be able to even further promote the broad areas of your site by linking all your internal pages to the pages above it.

While I'm not entirely dismissing the layered content theory presented above, I am saying consider your situation. If your site is a smaller site, by all means use the layered content approach. If it's larger then use the sub-domain approach.

Also remember that there could be multiple ways to organize the same content.

For example, in addition to organizing your sub-domains or sub-folders by color in the widget example, also consider organizing them by features. This way, a chosen widget could be linked to from multiple related categories.

Not only that but you've now bulked up your site with a bunch of additional pages. These new pages are required to help create the sub-domains and navigation required to drive visitors to the individual widget pages.

This type of multi-category linking is common among many large sites. One good example is Ebay. It organizes its top auctions into sub-domains like antiques, art, autos and clothing. Then, within the categories the sub-folder structure is used to further segment the site.

In conclusion, if you've been looking for a way to most effectively organize your site while helping to improve rankings, consider these options. Through the use of sub-folders, sub-domains or a combination of both you can effectively organize your site, segment your products and target searchers more effectively.

Sunday, May 29, 2011

Banner Ads Must Be Visually Irresistible

Nobody clicks on a banner that is not visually appealing. Nobody clicks on a banner that is on a page that it does not seem to relate to either. For instance a banner selling dog food might look kind of weird on a page that sells fake diamonds. The intelligent and humanly intuitive placement of a banner on a web page is what is needed to give it the best chance of receiving some clicks.

The most stunning banner ads are usually the hand made ones. Anyone with computer knowledge can learn how to make a very basic banner ad. To code the banner, simply combine the HTML tag for a link with the HTML tag for an image. You can create the necessary graphics using a simple computer art program, like Paint Shop Pro. Keep in mind that you don’t need to animate this banner. In fact the less animation the better or the search engine spider may read the banner as a frame containing blank space which is poor SEO.

Basis banner ads are so easy to make you can make sores of them for your site in less than an hour. Do-it-yourself banner ad sites work really well for most people, but if you like you can also hire a professional ad designer. You can get a professional banner ad for $50 on a place like http://guru.com or http://elance.com or you can spend upwards of $1,000 depending on what kind of designer you hire to work with.

Still it seems silly to hire someone when it is possible to get good results for free. There are hundreds of Web sites that offer tools for free banner ad creation. These automated sites provide you with all the mechanisms that you need to make your own banner ad, such as backgrounds and fonts. Some of these sites will simply generate a banner for you. Some require that you do a banner exchange with them in return for using their services.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Are Your Banner Ads Working For You?

Banner ads are going out of style as a pay-per-click way of garnering income. However does this mean that you should discard your banner ads and trade them in for another type of SEO.

There are several ways that tell whether or not your banner ad is worth keeping.

You need to somehow keep track of your page Impressions. This term is the number of times a particular web page has been requested from the server. Advertisers are interested in knowing how many page views they are being offered before they do a banner exchange with you. If you don’t have a high rate of page impressions then the banner ad is not doing much for you.

Another thing to do is examine your Click-through rate (CTR). This describes the ratio of page views to clicks. It tells you in the form of a percentage the total number of web visitors who actually clicked on the banner ad. The typical click-through-rate of payment is a measly 1 percent and if you are not even making that then the program is not working for you.

If you are thinking of starting a banner ad click through or pay per click type ad campaign you should make sure that the banner relates to your web content. Otherwise you could confuse both search engine spiders and people looking for you.

It is also a good idea to put banner ads at the top of the page rather than further down. Yet another tip is to link the banner ad to the page on your web page that features the same as it helps raise your rankings in the search engine. The hitch with this and also the reason why trading banners may not be worth your time is that many banner exchanges won't do the trade with you unless you can guarantee that you will place the banner on your home page!

Friday, May 27, 2011

AdWords API and SEO

The Google AdWords program has become such an industry in itself that Google invented pay per click management software to help people manage their various campaigns and accounts. This software is called AdWords API (Advertising Programming Interface)

The whole idea behind this pay per click software is to optimize your maximum return on investment (ROI) by organizing and exploiting all of the features at your disposal at Google Adwords Select. This means that when it comes to SEO this software can help you keep track of which keywords and keyword phrases are making money for you and which are a waste of time.

Adwords API is a custom application that allows you to fully automate your adwords accounts and keyword optimization. AdWords API pay per click software enables you to automate the management of multiple AdWords accounts. With a click of the mouse you can ask this pay per click software program to automatically pull reports for Return On Investment (ROI), Cost Per Acquisition (CPA) and Conversion rates from Google As is the intention of all pay per click software, this software is intended to make your life easier by integrating all of your customized preferences for you to cut down on the small laborious tasks that are often part of using these types of “time-saving” tools.

There are many ways that your business can profit from the use of Adwords software, however it is particularly valuable for business that sell a number of products online and have many ad groups and pay per click campaigns to manage at once. Without software using Client Center of Google at Google, which can turn into a full time job in itself with all of the clicking, and surfing that you would need to do manage everything. If you use pay per click software such as Adwords API it can integrate with the client center to offer you additional efficiency and functionality.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

SEO for Adsense

If you've been using Google's AdSense on your pages you obviously feel the need to somehow generate even more traffic for your website, which in turn would translate to more AdSense click and a higher income.

But who do you do this? Well, the major way you'll get visitors to see your website (other then using AdWords, which is encouraged as well) is to use some techniques to have search engines send more and more users towards your page, by ranking high in search results for your topics of interest.

Believe it or not this is a technique, better known as search-engine optimization or simply SEO. So here are a bunch of tips that come handy under every amateur or professional optimizer's belt.

The first thing you need to take care of is the actual source code and layout of your page. This has to be kept as simple as possible. The problem comes when AdSense and the search engines themselves begin to have troubles in extracting the most relevant keywords on your site because of a too complex layout.

Secondly, try to have each one of your pages target only one specific topic. This way it is a lot easier for them to get indexed properly and for the AdSense ads to be consistent with the content of the site itself.

Also, try not to include too many hyperlinks in your page as well. This also means you should try not to use too many AdSense ads on your page either.

If there are certain keywords you wish to target, make sure the word you wish to target is present in the title, in the first paragraphs as well as in the name of the file. While you're at it you might want to ensure the word springs up in the page's last paragraphs.

And of course, it's very important for your content to have original and compelling content. How do you do this? Well the easiest way to do it is to find something you're really passionate about. That way, providing you give it a lot of effort you're bound to have a great page quite fast.

If the content you use in your site is in the public domain (which is highly discouraged) make sure that you at least give it an original title, and add an opening and a closing paragraph of your own.

This takes a little while, but if, after waiting, you still can't find your page near the top, you should try rewriting your title and your first and last paragraphs. It doesn't take much, often just changing a few words will give you the right results.

And of, course there's the use of keyword tools that may aid you in finding some good keywords to include on your page that will drive visitors to your site more and more.

So those are about the basic techniques in search engine optimization. You can find a lot of computer tools to aid you in doing this, and of course, Google is a great place to search for this.

In the end, you'll find that SEO is a complex topic, and entire books have been written on the topic as well. You might find that you have a lot of optimization you need to do in order to get more and more visitors to your site and clicking those precious AdSense banners.

You need to have optimized niche website templates for best results. You may find the best adsense templates and blog templates at www.AdsenseTemplates.com (http://www.adsensetemplates.com). They are offering 100 fresh new templates every month.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Internet Terms of SEO for Newbies

A newbie is someone who is new to something and SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. So if this is you, here are some terms you will be hearing and need to be familiar with.

A couple of years ago, SEO did not even exist, so in some way we are all newbies. It’s just that some are more new than others.

This list of terms, is by no means exhaustive but is meant as a basic introduction to the language used in SEO. At the rate new terms area appearing, by the time you have finished reading this list someone will have probably invented a new term, but at least you will have the basics. So lets get started.

above the fold
This is derived from the reference to the top part of a newspaper. Above the fold is used on the Internet to describe the top part of the page that the visitor can see without scrolling down.

AdSense
Google's contextual based ad program. Use AdSense, by placing the ads on your website and earning revenue from when visitors click on the ads.

AdWords
Google's pay per click (PPC) advertising program. Use AdWords when you want to buy advertisement to send traffic somewhere.

Algorithm
Algorithms are complex sets of rules based on mathematical equations. With regard to SEO the algorithm is how the search engines rank web pages in it’s search results. Some SEOers feel that is they can figure out the algorithm, they can obtain higher search engine rankings.

Anchor Text
Also called link text. Is the blue underlined text on web pages that you click to go to another page or site. (Note: The link does not necessarily need to be blue or underlined but this is the traditional standard).

Backlinks
A link on another page that links to the page you are viewing. Also known as inbound link.

Click Through Rate (CTR)
Often used in Internet marketing to describe the percentage of users who click on a link or advertisement. IF a page has 100 visitors and 12 click on the link then the page has a CTR of 12%.

Cloaking
The practice used by some web sites to send one page to a search engine for indexing while serving an entirely different page to everyone else. So what the search engine sees and what you see are two different things. It should be noted that the practice of cloaking can get your site banned from the search engines.

Conversion Rate (CR)
The percentage of site visitors that deliver your most wanted response (MWR). The CR is an important measure of the effectiveness of your online sales effort. If your site is selling an e-book and if 3 out of every 100 visitors buys your book then your site has a CR of 3%.

CPC
Cost per click. The total cost of an advertising campaign divided by the resulting number of unique visitors.

CPM
Cost per thousand impressions (M= Roman numeral for 1000). A pricing system often used in the banner advertising industry.

Dead Link
A link to a page, that no longer exists or has been moved to a different URL. Search engine spiders regularly remove dead links.

Deep Linking
The practice of linking to the inner pages of another web site - as opposed to linking to the homepage.

Google bomb / Google bombing
The practice of using anchor text to make a page show up in the Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) under keywords that are out of context for that page. It should be noted that Google is taking steps to prevent this practice.

Manual Submission
The practice of visiting each search engine and directory and submitting the registration form by hand as opposed to using a software program. Some systems will not accept automated submissions. Same as Manual Submission.

Heading Tag
A HTML tag represented by , etc, to H6. These tags denote a text size with H1 being the largest. The heading tags may have significance in SEO with search engines appearing to assign more weight to keywords within heading tags.

Hidden Text
Text on a web page that is visible to spiders but not to human visitors. The aim is to load the page with keywords without deterring from the visitor's experience. This is mostly done by making the text the some color as the background. Most search engines can now detect hidden text and consider it a form of spaming. Pages that contain hidden text are penalized or even de-listed.

Hit
One hit is one request for a file on a web server. A visitor opening a page with 3images will in the process generate 4 hits.

Hot Linking
The practice of displaying images files, video files etc. on a web site when those files are on another (usually someone else's) server. Effectively the site displays content that uses up someone else's bandwidth. Hot linking is generally considered unethical unless prior permission is obtained.

HTML
Hypertext Markup Language is the primary language used to write web sites. Consists of tags .

HTTP
Hypertext Transfer Protocol is the most common transfer protocol used to facilitate communication between servers and browsers.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

What is an SEO

SEs or Search Engines are one of the basic ways that web users find sites. That's why a site with effective SE listings might see a spectacular growth in traffic.

Everybody desires those fine listings. Unluckily, a lot of sites come out poorly in Search Engine rankings or might not be listed at all as they fail to consider how Search Engines works.
Particularly, submitting to search engines is only part of the challenge, acquiring a good Search Engine placement. It's also significant to develop a site by "search engine optimization."

Search Engine Optimization means ensuring that your Website is approachable to search engines and is optimized in a way that increase the chances they'll be found.

While a marketing strategy as increasing a web site relevancy, SEO looks at how search algorithms work and what searchers look for. SEO deeds might involve a web site coding, presentation, and structure, likewise fix a trouble that terminate indexing programs from fully spidering a site. Other sort of methods, called black hat SEO or spam dexing, apply formulas such as link farms and keyword blocking that tend to damage search engine user experience. Search engines search web site that use these methods and may dispatch them from their indices.

The initialism "SEO" could also name to "search engine optimizers", termini followed by an industry of consultants who go through optimization tasks on behalf of clients, and by employees who execute SEO services in-house. Search engine optimizers might offer SEO as a stand-alone service or as separate of a fuller marketing campaign. For efficient SEO might require modifications to the HTML source code of a web site, SEO tactics may be incorporated into web site development and design. The term "search engine friendly" may be used to describe web site designs, menus, CMSs, web address*, and shopping carts that are easy to optimize.