SEO Dance

Writing for the web is different from any other medium. One important element of both print and web writing is the headline or title. Newspaper headlines are usually pretty catchy and are a tease to the story. Web titles do need the grab the readers’ attention as well, but there is another audience that will be taking notice of your title.

Search engine crawlers will be paying close attention to a work’s title. The title is made with special header html tags that signal to crawlers that this is something important. It is important to use keywords or good keyword phrases for search engine rankings in your title. It will be a search engine friendly title that can in return help readers find your post.

I love to write witty titles but that doesn’t help my search engine placement. I might like the title, ‘Hotel heiress lands in the slammer,’ but probably no one is going to search for that term. They are more likely to search for, ‘Paris Hilton goes to jail.’

The title of your web page is also important when it comes to web crawlers. Again, the title tag located in the header gives important information as to what kind of content can be found on that page. The title page text shows up at the very top of the web browser. Sometimes I use a web page for a template for another one, and the title is often a tag that I forget to change. When I check the pages online, I usually notice the title since it’s displayed so prominently.

It is a good idea to check your titles to ensure that they accurately describe the web page and to give your blog postings titles that are search engine friendly.

Light Iris is a search engine that was designed for new Moms. Sometimes searching for information on Google nets results that are unrelated to what you need. Imagine your newborn has a rash, so you type in “rash” only to get thousands of pages of results and not anything that you’re looking for. New Moms face many daily challenges and Light Iris believes finding answers shouldn’t be one of them.

Typing in the word “rash” into Light Iris will give results from AskDrSears.com and KidsHealth.org. Google results feature a lot of websites, but none on the first page deal directly with rashes in children. Instead of having to waddle through pages of Google results, Mom or Dad can find information a lot faster by using Light Iris.

Kevin Burke is the mastermind behing Light Iris. Burke is a father and has a passion for helping Moms. Burke even donned a pregnancy suit for one month to gain an appreciation of what women go through when pregnant. His thoughts on his experience are documented on the Light Iris blog.

Under the ‘About’ section is a form to add your website to their search results. Light Iris is a nice search engine and does give clean results that are on topic for new Moms or Dads.

Search engines, New moms

Wazap.com is a game search engine that has recently opened up their U.S. section. While currently still in beta, the project is now open to everyone. Through Wazap you can find game information or gaming news. Wazap carefully chooses which websites to include in their searches, therefore increasing the odds of finding what you are looking for when searching.

Niche search engines like Wazap can be a great tool for web surfers looking for specific content on a certain topic. Niche search engines are also good for niche websites, too. A gaming website that is indexed with Wazap is likely to receive traffic as well as returning visitors. People who find a website through a niche search engine are already interested in your topic and might even bookmark your website for future reference.

If you sign up with Wazap you can rate games, comment on the news stories, and more. If you are looking to promote and/or connect with other gamers, then Wazap is a good web resource.

Wazap, game search engine

Does you website make the grade when it comes to search engine optimization? With WebsiteGrader.com you can find out if your website receives a passing or failing score.

Just enter your website into the appropriate box and fill in related keywords to your site. You have the option to enter competitor’s websites to get a side-by-side comparison. Enter your email and click Generate Report. In about a minute or so, the results will be displayed on screen. An email sent to you will also include the link to the report.

Your SEO score will be at the top of the result. The score means that your website scores that percentage higher than all other websites that have been submitted to Website Grader. Each section has a summary with some useful information and tips on improving your website score. This free service makes a nice way to get a glance at how your website compares to others on the web.

SEO Tool, Free SEO report, SEO Score

Google’s privacy policy has been rated worst on the web by a London watchdog group that examined several websites privacy policies including Yahoo! and MSN. Google received the lowest rank possible from Privacy International.

Some of the issues Privacy International brings up with Google is the logging and keeping of all search results and IP addresses for 18-24 months. Through their social networking website Orkut, Google has access to user information like hobbies, addresses, and phone numbers that are included in the user profile.

The report didn’t rate any websites with their highest accolade but Google was the one website to rank in their lowest category. Livejournal and eBay were among websites receiving higher marks for their privacy while websites like AOL and Yahoo! were labeled as having substantial threats when it comes to privacy. The Privacy International report is available as a PDF from their website.

Google, Privacy International

Mahalo is a recently launched search engine that is edited by humans. Each search result has been compiled by a topic guide who has carefully researched each website to make sure it meets the Mahalo guidelines. Some of the requirements for a website are that it should be a year old(some exceptions might apply), no spam or phishing websites, and ads placed in a way that users must scroll to get to the content of the page. Mahalo is more like a directory than a search engine because results for a searched keyword will be categorized.

Mahalo.com editors research topics and put together the most relevant webpages that are associated with a category. Users can submit websites for inclusion and if the website meets the guidelines, the link will be added. Sites that are close to meeting requirements are placed to the side of the results and are marked as user-submitted websites.

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Using the right keywords can help more people find your site through searches. Keyword research can help ensure a greater presence in search engine results. One free keyword tool that is really handy is WordTracker.

WordTracker is a free keyword suggestion tool. Just enter the keywords into the box and click ‘hit me’ for the results. WordTracker predicts how many times those keywords are searched for each day. WordTracker also has a list of suggested keywords. I did a keyword search for ‘household tips’ and here are some of the results:

You can check the search engine results for you keyword by clicking on the appropriate search engine. Its clean interface makes WordTracker an easy to use tool that delivers clear results.

WordTracker, keyword search tool

Sometimes I get nostalgic for the good ole days of AskJeeves. It was so nice just to ask Jeeves a question, and he would return categorized results. When Ask.com dropped Jeeves, their search engine seemed to lose all appeal to me as my searches never turned up anything useful.

Ask.com has undergone a web metamorphosis and not only has a new look but a re-engineered approach to searching the World Wide Web. The new look is clean and simple. If that white background isn’t for you, then click on “skins” to add some color to it. The “advanced” tab allows you to search for words in a website’s title or URL. You can also limit a search to one domain. This could be very useful if you visited a website and can’t find some information that you had read previously.

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When adding images to your website, it’s important to include the ALT tag or “alternative text.” The ALT tag can help to bring more visitors to your site as well as display information about a picture. There are good reasons reasons to always remember to add the ALT tag.

Indexing. Since images by themselves are not indexed, the ALT gives a description of the image that helps web spiders categorize it. Pictures that have the ALT tag can show up in Google index searches and potentially bring visitors to your website.

Accessibility. Some visitors to your website might be using a text browser or have a setting that permits images from loading. A slow connection or an old computer could be two possible reasons a person might prefer to surf the web without seeing images. Since the ALT tag text shows in place of pictures that fail to load, the visitor will at least get to read what the picture was and knowing what they are missing.

Give Information about an Image. A mouse hover over an image will result in the ALT tag being displayed in a yellow box. This makes using the alternative text a way to let your readers know a little bit more about an image.

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Recently, Google allowed Saul Hansell who is a journalist for the New York Times to sit in on quality meetings. While a lot of what Hansell saw was off the record, his New York Times article on Google’s search engine is a very enlightening read. While the article doesn’t give away any trade secrets, it does offer a lot of interesting factoids about Google like how the company is always striving to tweak its search engine.

It’s amazing when searching Google it knows that Apple is usually used when users are looking for information on the computer company compared to when a search is conducted for apple, it’s most likely a search for the fruit. There are more interesting revelations about Google in the New York Times article.

Google

If you use the Mozilla Firefox brower, then you probably already know that you can add plugins that can add functionality. Many plugins and tools can be installed to your Firefox browser that enhance your web surfing experience. One add-on that can offer insight into optimizing your website is SEO for Firefox.

This SEO tool will return some valuable information about a website. Once the plugin has been successfully installed and the Mozilla brower restarted, you can access this powerful feature through the Tools menu. Alternatively, you can right-click on a website and select SEO for Firefox, the Look up this page to quickly access information about that website.

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When writing for the web, phrasing is everything. Content writing for the web is different than writing for traditional media. There is no need to worry about how your audience will find your information as you already know the answer. If it’s television, they will tune in or if it’s print, they will buy your publication. When writing content for a website, the reader is most likely to find your information through a search engine. Search engines will categorize your story from the words that you use. Using keywords in your content will help readers find your website.

Think about how you search for information the Internet. Which words do you use to find information? Chances are that you use a couple of words together. If I was searching for the best hotel deals in Orlando, I might use that phrase but there are several others that I might use. For simplicity I might just search Orlando hotels or best Orlando hotels.

When writing content, keep in mind that most of your visitors will come from search engines. They will find your through keywords they use in a search engine query. Take some time to think about your content and what keywords or phrases are most relevant. Then be sure to work those in naturally to your content. This will help to ensure search engine placement for those keywords and when visitors click on your link, they find valuable information on the subject.

Content writing, Keyword search