SEO Dance

Keyword searches are how Internet surfers find what they are looking for. Using keywords in your content will help associate your website with those words, which will help in search engine placement as well as authority on the web.

Use keywords in your title as titles tell what a webpage is all about. It’s tempting to do cute titles and to use cliches but try to refrain. Using keywords related to your content will be much more beneficial.

Use keywords in first paragraph. Think of your writing as how a newspaper reporter writes his story. He applies what is called the inverted pyramid. This means that the important information goes first. Search engines look to the first few paragraphs to get a good idea as to what the content is about.

Relate keywords to the content of your website. A website about games would do well to use sentences that mention the word games every once in a while in it. Sure, readers might can tell by your Xbox 360 banner that your content relates to the video game console, but search engines don’t have eyes - at least not yet anyway. Reiterating your keywords throughout text in your website will not only help with search engine placement but will help to brand you as a source for the selected subject.

Keywords rule when it comes to search engine results. It’s always a good idea to keep keywords in mind when writing content.

Earlier this year, Ask.com underwent an extreme makeover. Ask.com relaunched itself with a sleek and clean user interface loaded with tons of options.

After coming to the conclusion that I use Google way too much for searching only to get lackluster results, I was determined to give some other search engines a try. This weekend I spent playing around with Ask.com and was quite pleased with my search results. Since I needed to write an article about games, I did a search for spooky card games since it soon will be Halloween. The Ask.com results were just what I was looking for. Searching Google with the exact same phrase did not net the same results. In fact, on the first page of the Ask.com results was listed just what I was searching for. I did not have the same luck with Google.

With Ask.com you can sign up for an account where you can essentially bookmark your search results, making it easy to find them later. Add your own tags, so your results will be categorized. It’s an easy interface that makes it simple to find past search results.

For webmasters who want their website crawled by Ask.com, there isn’t a “submit your website” form. Ask suggests that you have a sitemap of your website. This way if they haven’t stumbled upon your site from a link that they can learn about it through your site map. To get more information on Ask.com, visit their about page that is loaded with useful information.

ask.com

Problogger is reporting confirmation from Google that some of the drops are indeed because of paid links. Some blog network websites have also taken a hit in PR.

I do obsess a lot about PR. I’m not sure why but is most likely because PR is a symbol of just how important a website is to the Internet. Well, in light of recent events, it’s really just how important it is to Google. I guess that’s been the case all along, but I was lulled into thinking that it was really something for the greater benefit of the Internet.

I’m disheartened but yet motivated at the same time by this last hit to PR. I did have two websites that increased in PR. Maybe it’s time to spend less time worrying with PageRank and focus more on breaking off my dependency to Google for search traffic. Next week we’ll take a look at some ideas for doing just that.

No doubt you have heard about the drop in PageRank this week of some very prominent blogs. It’s being speculated that Google is cracking down on those websites that sell paid links without using the nofollow tag on said links. Is Google punishing websites or is this something else entirely?

I’m a firm believer that PageRank will change in the future. When PageRank was developed, the Internet was a much smaller place. Now there are thousands upon thousands of new websites created each month. PageRank, with its simple (at least displayed value) scale of 0 to 10, just doesn’t seem to cover it. It might just be the geek in me that would love to see a more complex number.

So just what is happening with PageRank? I don’t know. It could be the Google dance with this influx being ironed out over the next few days. Or it could be Google is making good on their promise that paid links will hurt a websites’ PR. Time will tell I guess. That and official word from Google.

I have to admit that I’m obsessed with PageRank. I wish I wasn’t and didn’t care what my PR was. Every time one of my websites has a lower or higher PR, it renews this hobby of mine to learn all I can about PageRank. The bad news is my websites have only moved in PR once or twice, so I really haven’t done an extensive amount of research on PageRank.

This morning my PR 4 was down to a PR 3. It was a devastating blow. How can this happen? This is the same website that I did very little with and was a PR 5 just over a year ago. What is different and what has happened to my PageRank? And while I’m asking questions, just what is PageRank used for?

I have very few answers for my questions but this is what I have learned. PageRank is a number from 0 to 10 with 10 being the best possible PageRank value. Top websites are given a 10 and I believe set the bar for other websites. PageRank is more like a range that your website falls into. I think this explains the ups and downs of my website. As websites surpass me, they bump down my PR.

What is PageRank good for? It is one of several factors Google uses to determine search engine results. How important is it? Only Google knows if it’s a small part of a big part. Luckily my search engine traffic seems to be about the same as usual, so at least my PR drop is not negatively affecting that.

So, PR is just one of several factors that goes into search engine page results. It’s just a number. It’s a number I would love to see higher but for now my keyword search results are still on the radar, and that is the most important thing of all.

Sometimes Google search results are less than stellar. Some high ranking pages won’t have anything to do with the search term at all. I had thought that I would just have to get over it when this happens but apparently not. I noticed an interesting link located at the very bottom of search result pages.

It’s a link that allows you to voice your concern about the search result to Google. While they will not respond to your comments, it might just help them make Google better. I can’t stand to have a search result that has a 4 year old forum posting as the top result. Now finally I know what I can do about it.

In the form you basically write what results you were expecting. There is also a box to add any websites that you were hoping to find from that result. So if there is a relevant website that has content on the subject you are searching and you think it should be in the results, you can suggest it.

Now at least maybe I have a sounding board to voice my disappointment when searching with Google.

Digg is a social media portal where users share stories from various websites. Of course, you probably already knew that, and there is no doubt that you know that Digg can drive a lot of traffic to websites. For a website to garner Digg traffic, it needs to be fairly popular on Digg. How do some stories seem to acquire so many diggs while other ones never seem to take off? Digg is basically a popularity contest, so to have a successful Digg story, you must first do some homework on the Digg community.

Digg has many rivals from websites like Bumpzee to even more specialized websites like Writersbase.com. It might be worth the trouble to check into other social media websites or it might be better just to full concentrate on Digg.

Just where to start with figuring out Digg? The key to Digg success is to use the service. Submit stories and add friends to your profile. When submitting a story, throw caution to good SEO writing and think more of a newspaper headline. The headline should be catchy and complete. It should be related to the story but not give too much away. You want to pique the interest of Digg users to click on it to learn more.

Before you begin submitting every story that you read, hang out on Digg for a few days to see the type of stories that become hugely popular. This will help you gage just what seems to make it in the Digg community. Instead of hanging out on Digg all day, configure a widget like the one below to keep an eye on the top stories of a certain category.

It is easy to get discouraged with Digg if you don’t build your network. Work on adding friends, digging good stories, and submitting popular content to help you get noticed. Sign up for the RSS feeds of popular blogs that have a lot of Digg submissions. That way you can hopefully be on top of the big news of the day and be able to digg it before someone else.

To be successful at Digg takes a lot of work but doesn’t it with everything? It’s best to evaluate the stories on Digg to see if your content will even be popular on the website before getting too involved. Digg can be a powerful resource for website traffic if it’’s done right.

Exchanging links is a common practice among website owners. But before agreeing to a link exchange a little background check will make sure that you want to exchange links. You wouldn’t invest in a stock without doing your homework or let your teenage daughter go out on her first date with a total stranger. Then why link to a website that might be a suspected bad neighborhood.

Just what is a bad neighborhood on the World Wide Web? It’s a website that either takes part in black hat SEO practices or could be a spam website with no real content just links or ads. You can use a text link checker to see just exactly the website links to and if any of those sites are suspected as being questionable. It’s simple to conduct a check. Just enter the website you want to know more about.

You’ll then get a summary of all the outgoing links on the website. Listed at the bottom of the results will be any questionable links. You can then judge for yourself if the website is still one you want to link to. When I did my website, some of the questionable links were to websites that were perfectly fine but have a category entitled “sex,” so it garners them to be flagged by this checker. So, look over the results before making a decision about linking with a website. Some flags might just be the wording of a category and not necessarily an indication of content.

Technorati can be a great tool to use for blog promotion. It’s simple to add tags to your blog. You can either check to see if your blog software supports tags, install a Wordpress plugin, like Simple Tags, or add tags manually to your post. Using Technorati tags will ensure that your blog post is filed and indexed with them. Not everyone is sold on the idea that Technorati is worth the extra work needed to tag their blogs. Deceth over at WebDevNotes talks about his feelings on the subject of using Technorati tags.

Tags can be thought of as categories. In fact, if you are not tagging your stories, your category might be used as your tag. This can be fine for some posts but if you have a “general” category or “MISC” then it really doesn’t tell what the post is about. Tags should be short and sweet, usually one word will do the trick. I like of tags to my stories this way. I think of the game show Password in the final round where the one teammate can only give one word clues to get their partner to say the phrase on the big money board. If I write a post about a subject, what words have I either used or what words would get person to think of this subject.

I believe Technorati is here to stay, or at least as long as blogging is around. So, using tags in your post could be a wise move to garner traffic and exposure through Technorati.

Technorati

Matt Cutts of Google recently answered some questions about the elusive PageRank. Some have been speculating that a lack of an update to us civilians that this might just be the end of Google’s PageRank. Apparently, PageRank is happening at any given moment. It’s just the push of those numbers outside the Googleplex that is taking so long.

Cutts answers are interesting and an education on PageRank. For more information on PageRank, read his insightful answers. I try not to obsess over PageRank but it’s hard when the gamer in me takes over and wants to know how my latest standing. At least with having a few answers about PageRank I can be satisfied at least for now.

PageRank

When I was in college, the one element of building a website was always the site map page. The site map is like a legend in that it lays out all in one place what can be found on the whole website. It makes navigating a website very easy for visitors. Having one in place is not only extremely helpful to visitors but can help with search engine indexing.

Since the site map holds a link to every page on your website, it’s like one-stop shopping for a search engine crawler. Site maps or site indexes save visitors from having to search all over your website for just the right page they are looking for. Here is a look at a site map.

Site maps do not have to be fancy, just functional. Group pages together by subject, then list subjects alphabetically with links under corresponding heading. Since web pages can have thousands of pages, to keep your site map manageable, either just include the most relevant web pages link with their best keyword or have keyword links that will direct a visitor to an unabridged site map.

Since site maps may seem like a way just to create internal linking, it can also be useful to both search engines and web visitors.

sitemap