Effective Googling

Terms	Solutions

Need Exact Phrase use ""	"Kumbakonam temples"

Expand Search use a tilde ~	~Kumbakonam temples

to search by file type use :filetpe:ppt	"Kumbakonam temples"filetype:ppt

Negative Search Terms Use - ve sign	Kumbakonam-temples

Limit your search to particular website use sparshsite	sparch site : kumbakonam-temples.com

search for sites that links to particular website	link:kumbakonam-temples.com

To find a related site use related	related:kumbakonam-temples.com

To find definition or meaning	define: temples

to converter + sitename	1 US$ in INR

to find anchor	allinanchor + sitename

to find title related sites	allinititle + sitename

to find url related sites	allinurl+ sitename

to find text related sites	allintext+ sitename

to find movies and songs	intitle:"index.of"(mp3\|mp4\|dat\|mpeg)movienames

SEO Report Process SERP Reports(Phase 10)

If your business is online, chances are that you've heard about search engine optimization (SEO) and how it's designed to improve your site's rankings for major keywords. What doesn't get talked about as much, however, is that a good SEO engagement will work on how your results appear, and not just where. So, let's take a look at exactly what shows up in a search result on a search engine results page (SERP), and how you can improve it.

Just do a search for whatever term(s) you want — whether you write, “Texas Rangers baseball” or “platform heels,” the way you read the results will be the same. The headline of the result is taken from the page's title tag, and the plain text below it is taken from the page's meta description — or, if the page doesn't have one, from text found on the page. These are both bits of information that can and should be included on every web page in your site. Listed below the meta description — and the easiest to recognize — is the URL of the page in question, along with its size.

Next to the URL are two other links that are provided by the engine to offer more information about the site. But there's one link in particular that can help you learn how much SEO help you might need in order to go beyond just making your results look nice, and to help them rank well — the “Cached” link. When you click on the Cached link, it provides two key pieces of data, which you will find at the top of the following page. One is the date that the search engine last crawled this page. More importantly, however, is the link list, in the lower right corner of Google's gray cached box for a “text-only version.” Here you'll see a better representation of how the search engine crawler saw your site. What you'll commonly find is that the content is not laid out how you'd expect, or is simply missing — you might even be faced with a nearly blank page.

A good SEO company will help educate your coders on ways to make sure that your site's content is seen by the engine, how to emphasize your site correctly so it carries the right weight with search engines, and they can help you rank for the right keywords. Which keywords are the right keywords? It's not as simple as you might think, and it will often surprise you. Is it notebook or laptop? Footwear or shoes? Clothes, clothing or apparel? Also, are there other elements your customers might add to their search query, like a brand name or color? A good SEO engagement will look closely at this, as well.

All effective search engine marketing is built upon providing the best descriptions for the most relevant content. If you can provide that to your customers and build it in a way that engines can read, you'll take away a lot of the mystery of rising both in the ranks of SERPS and in business.

Short for search engine results page, the Web page that a search engine returns with the results of its search. The major search enginestypically display three kinds of listings on their SERPs. Listings that have been indexed by the search engine’s spider, listings that have been indexed into the search engine’s directory by a human, and listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine.

SEO Process - Link Building(Phase 9)

What Is Link Building?

Link Building is the process of creating inbound links to ones own website. This can be done by reciprocal links, being listed in e-zines, newsletters, directories, search engines, etc. Link building is one of the best ways to make your site popular. There are few types of linking one of which is reciprocal links.

Reciprocal links or link exchanges is the process where two webmasters agree to show the other's link on their website. After link building when the number of sites which link to a particular site is known as link popularity which helps in the search engine ranking of a website.

There are many advantages of link building.

1. Link building helps in getting quality traffic from relevant sites which increases sales.
2. Also when there will be high quality incoming links the site will also be seen as a valuable resource.
3. Link building helps in creating awarness, visibility and credibility of your site.
4. The site also obtains wider search engine exposure.
5. It also helps the website get indexed by search engines.

Today links have become important for all websites and they are worth the money. In fact, there are several companies dedicated to selling links (as opposed to companies that you can pay to do link building for you)

SEO Process - Article Promotion (Step 8)

What is article PR?

Article PR is a way of increasing your search engine ranking. It's a completely legal form of Search Engine Optimization (SEO), favored by Google. In essence, you're trading knowledge for backlinks (inbound links to your site).

Here’s how article PR works...

STEP 1	You’re an expert in your field so you possess knowledge that other people want.
STEP 2	You write a helpful article – sharing your hard-earned knowledge and expertise.
STEP 3	You submit your article to recognized 'Article Submission' sites on the Internet.
STEP 4	Publishers of online newsletters, ezines, etc. gather content from these sites for free.
STEP 5	Helpful, well written articles are snapped up by thousands of publishers from all around the world.
STEP 6	The only condition is that they must publish the article with a functioning link to your site.
STEP 7	300 people publish your article – you get 300 links back to your site.

Who is article PR for?

If you’re a business owner, marketing manager, webmaster, or SEO practitioner with plenty of articles up your sleeve, but no idea where to publish them, then this site is for you. Alternatively, if you need someone else to write your articles, this site is for you, too.

Article PR – More links, less time

SEO Process- Blogs (Step 7)

Do blogs help with your SEO efforts? The buzz about them sure implies that they do! While there is some truth to that, blogs mainly just help with your overall marketing efforts. Like anything else SEO related, no one practice is going to make or break you (we'll maybe break you if you're spamming!). We have clients that rank incredibly well on competitive phrases without any blog at all; so one would think they're not needed to rank well based upon that. To blog is to be committed, write daily; supplying good information that keeps your visitors interested as well as entertained.

Why Search Engines Like Blogs:

they are updated frequently and contain up-to-date information
they have an optimized site architecture
they are set up with a clear navigation
every page is inherently set up to link back to the other main pages (interlinking)
because you're writing about your product/service/company, your blog posts will naturally contain great keyword phrases

Why People Like Blogs:

it puts a "face" to your company
it allows users/clients to interact with your company
they can get recent news/information about your product/company/service
they contain up-to-date information

Why You Like Blogs:

they can boost the traffic on your site provided you link to your site from your blog
they're easy to maintain
you can create inbound links to specific parts of your site from your blog
they allow you to reach out to your "people" and put a "face" to your company

Blogging Platforms and Software

B2evolution
Blog.com
Blogger
Boast Machine
Joomla
LiveJournal
Movable Type
Text Pattern
TypePad
pMachine
Vox
WordPress

SEO Report Process (Phase V)

The ultimate guide to directory submissions

Submitting to directories is a great way to build links and increase your search engine rankings. In semi-competitive industries it can produce great results. If you add article creation and social media marketing into the link building equation then you can achieve great results for any industry.

Free or paid directories?

When choosing directories going for the paid ones can be better, mainly because the links seem to last a lot longer. Many of the free directories seem to disappear or delete links after a year or so. However, there are a few free directories out there that should always be used - directories that have stood the test of time.

Niche or general directories?

Submitting to a combination of both niche and general directories is usually a good idea.

For most industries there are a variety of niche directories out there - the best way to find them is through a search engine. Do a search on Google, MSN or Yahoo for directories in your niche area - those that come up in the first few pages of results are usually the best ones to use.

With general directories it's better to go for those that are more established. The older a directory is, the better.

PageRank - does it still matter?

Because directories are generally quite large, they need a certain amount of PageRank to get all of their pages indexed properly. However a high PageRank isn't the be-all and end-all. Google's recent crackdown on directories has made visible PageRank even more irrelevant when it comes to choosing directories. There are directories out there that have no PageRank whatsoever that can offer value.

If a directory is ranking well in the search engines then you can rest assured that it has enough PageRank. If you're unsure then check how many links it has viaYahoo! Site Explorer or another link popularity checker.

Anchor text

Before submitting have a good look around a directory and get a feel for what you can and can't get away with. Some directory owners will let you use a search phrase on its own, whereas others are very strict and will only use your business/website name. In between you have those where you might just be able to slip a search phrase in.It's always best to get the main search phrases that you are targeting in the links to your site. However this isn't always possible and unfortunately many of the best directories won't let you do this. Sometimes you can get around this problem by slipping in a search phrase at the end of your company name.

Doing your homework comes in handy - if you try to use a search phrase on its own and they change it to your business/website name then it's very unlikely you'll be able to get them to change it to your website name with a search phrase at the end. If you'd submitted it like that in the first place you may have got away with it.

Always try to get one of your search phrases in and vary the anchor text as much as possible - this will appear more natural to the search engines.

Varying your description

Many directories will provide you with your own page about your business. If you have the same description on every page across different directory websites then many of these will be seen as duplicate content by the search engines and your links will get devalued.

To avoid this, write a unique and substantial description for every single directory (200+ characters works best). Make sure the descriptions accurately mirror your products and services and that they read well.

Deep linking

Many directories allow you to add extra links directly to internal pages of your website. You should take turns in linking to different pages of your website using different variations of the phrases you're targeting on each page. Using the same anchor text to link to the same page over and over again will appear unnatural to the search engines and this could work against you.

How many directories should you submit to?

There's no fixed number of directories that you should get listed in. Work out a 12 month directory submission budget for each site and then do so many each week or month for the full duration.

When you're building links to your site via directories or any other method, you should do it over time. Submitting to 100 directories in a week and then forgetting about it won't be as effective as spreading the 100 directory submissions over a 3 month period.

The top 10 directories

Finally, here's a list of the top free and paid general directories to get you started.

5 of the best free directories include:

5 of the best paid directories include:

Directory Submission Is Complicated

Automated services make search engine submission a snap, but directory submission is more difficult - and takes longer. Human editors review each submission for quality and content before accepting it into the directory. The volume of new site submissions is so huge that they can afford to be selective. Increase the chances they'll choose you by submitting a first-rate site and following submission guidelines exactly.

Select The Proper Category

You must submit your site to the proper category and sub-category to have it reviewed by the proper editor! Directory editors are overloaded with submissions: they won't do your job for you and research the proper category for your site. Inappropriate submissions are much more likely to be rejected instead of forwarded to another editor.

You may also increase your chances if you submit to the regional portion of a directory. For instance, imagine that you own a real estate agency in Alabama and want to submit your Web site to Yahoo. In the main directory portion - Business and Economy/Real Estate - there are 343 sites listed already. However, if you look at the regional portion of the directory - Regional/US States/Alabama/Real Estate - there are 11 sites listed. In general, editors are more willing to accept sites into categories that have relatively few listings.

How To Register with Yahoo

Yahoo is the largest and most popular directory. It is also one of the most difficult to get into, so read the instructions carefully at Yahoo's site and follow them exactly:

http://help.yahoo.com/help/url/

You have two choices at Yahoo: free or paid submission. When you use the free option, you submit your site to Yahoo and wait (and wait, and wait some more) for a Yahoo editor to evaluate it. In fact, Yahoo's backlog is so large that the directory doesn't guarantee that anyone will ever look at your site.

The paid submission option costs $299 and does guarantee that an editor will review your site within 48 hours. It does not guarantee that your site will be accepted! However, Yahoo does report a much higher acceptance rate from its paid submissions because - in general - higher quality sites are willing to use this option.

How To Register with LookSmart

LookSmart was the first directory to stop accepting free submissions from commercial sites. Nonprofit sites can still submit for free (if they are valid, tax-exempt organizations), but LookSmart doesn't promise to evaluate the site within a certain time period.

Like Yahoo, LookSmart guarantees a look, but not a listing. You have two paid submission choices with LookSmart:

Express Submit: $299 - Guaranteed site review in 24 hours
Basic Submit: $149 - Guaranteed site review within 8 weeks.

LookSmart provides a complete explanation of its submission process at:
http://submit.looksmart.com/info.jhtml?synd=US&chan=lshomepg

Although many people are unfamiliar with LookSmart, it is an important directory to be in. LookSmart powers the search directories of many leading portals including Excite, AltaVista, and MSN. This means if your site is not included in the LookSmart database, you won't show up in directory searches at these other engines.

How To Register With The Open Directory Project (ODP)

You may never have heard of the Open Directory Project, commonly referred to as ODP, but it provides supplemental results for some of the Web's top search services including AOL Search, AltaVista, DirectHit, Google, HotBot, Lycos, and Netscape Search.

The Open Directory Project's motto is "Humans Do It Better." Their goal is to produce the most comprehensive Web directory available by using a huge number of volunteer editors to evaluate submitted Web sites.

Submit your site for free to the ODP after reading the instructions:

http://dmoz.org/add.html

If the category that you're submitting to doesn't already have an editor (there will be a "Become An Editor" link at the top of the page), then consider donating some of your time as a volunteer editor.

How To Register With Overture

Overture, formerly called GoTo, is a "pay for placement" search engine in which top placement in search results is given to the highest bidder. It is being included in the Directory Submission area because top bidders on Overture get high visibility placement (usually in the form of Sponsored Links) on the top of Yahoo and other directories partnered with Overture.

There are two ways to get listed with Overture. First, to get the best results, you can bid on a set of keywords, and pay based on the number of people that find your Web site by searching for those keywords. For example, a top bid for a given keyword might be $0.25. If 10 people find your site by searching in Overture for that keyword, you would pay $2.50. Payment is based on clicks, so you don't pay unless someone actually clicks on a link to find your site through Overture. This is the best way to get traffic from Overture.

To learn more about Overture's paid placement, visit this link:

https://signup.overture.com/s/p/esf?promoCode=U2022D&s=efs

The second way to get listed in Overture is to submit to a common base database provided by a company called Inktomi. The easiest way to do this is to submit to Hotbot. So, while your site may not be at the top of Overture's search results, you can get listed in the engine simply by submitting to any Inktomi search engine. Search Engine Starter submits to several search engines powered by Inktomi, so using the tool should get you included in the basic Overture database.

Summary

Submitting to Directories is more time consuming than submitting to search engines. You have to keep in mind that directories are edited by humans, not computer programs. So, how your site looks to a human and having good content is especially important. Of course, since there are so many interrelationships between directories and search engines, you still have to optimize your page for good search engine placement. Be sure to run your pages through Page Primer before submitting to a directory.

SEO Report Process (Phase IV)

One of the most useful utilities that the engineers and think tank at Google have ever devised is the Google Sitemaps program.

The said program, which is a product of their much publicized and much vaunted policy of allowing its engineers to spend 20 per cent of their paid time on personal projects, has been a boon to many webmasters, website operators and SEO professionals because it has made certain aspects of their work far easier and more intuitive.

Google’s decision to come out with Google Sitemaps is based mainly on the desire to present more intuitive and better search results to users. Because of the current limitations presented by web crawling, there is a high probability that not all pages in a website will be noted and registered with the search engine. There are also many variables and factors that are not addressed with the current methods and technologies used for website submissions. These limitations are what Google Sitemaps seeks to address.

Google Sitemaps was officially started in June 2005. This handy utility makes the submission of web pages to Google easier. The added features though are the detailed reports that is also generated by Google Sitemaps. In order to use the Google Sitemaps program, a person need only download a free open source tool called Sitemap Generator or use one of the many3rd party applications. These utilities are what helps in creating a sitemap of the webmaster’s website using the Sitemap protocol that is being backed by Google itself.

The complement of new features that are part of the Google Sitemaps programs also means that it has become a great tool for search engine optimization professionals. The automation of these features has made it easier for SEO professionals to do their job and formulate the proper strategies to increase the page ranking of a website.

For example the “top search queries” feature of Google Sitemaps allows you to see the top search queries that not only returned the client website as a result as well as those that Google searchers actually clicked on. This feature also allows you to see the top position for the website in the search results generated for either set search queries. The positions indicated are an average of the movement for the last three weeks.

Since any type of error can have a detrimental effect not only on the functionality of the website but with the page ranking of a website in Google, the report function of Google Sitemaps is a big help to SEO professionals. With the new feature, a webmaster or SEO professionals can download information straight from the Sitemaps account into a comma separated value (CSV) file. This file, which can be accessed through any text editor or spreadsheet software can contain the specific details of the website, including the errors generated (via dead links, broken links, etc) or statistics. The good thing is the file can even contain the information for all of the websites operated by SEO professional and included in the Sitemaps account. This is monumentally beneficial because it fully automates the search for any dead or broken links that may otherwise be a tedious chore if done manually. The good thing here is that this is periodically updated so you will know if the changes incorporated into the website will produce broken links.

SEO Competitive Analysis (Phase III)

Many SEO clients are focused on receiving ranking reports for their keywords as a major deliverable associated with a properly managed SEO campaign.

But ranking reports don't mean nearly as much as they once did. Search engine rankings change regularly, are different on various data centers, and won't generate traffic to the Web site, much less generate leads and sales, especially if a site ranks well for keywords that aren't often searched.

So, I preach to my prospects and clients that they should be focused on analytics and measurement of SEO much like they would (try to) measure any form of marketing effort. Is the SEO program generating qualified traffic to the site? Is the SEO effort generating phone calls (yes, you can track this)? Is the SEO effort delivering a solid ROI (for what I'm spending on these efforts, either in internal resources or outsourcing)?

Now, that's not to say that a firm you've outsourced your SEO efforts to shouldn't be delivering reports. They absolutely should. But, let's try to focus on things that actually matter. These include things like solid keyword research, a competitive analysis, a site structureanalysis and analytics reports that "mean something" (making sure that analytics programs are set up properly and tracking what matters).

Today, I'll touch upon one of the most overlooked aspects of a successful SEO effort: the competitive analysis.

Determine Who Your Competitors Are

Many CMOs are quick to list off a number of competitors (those that they think of as competitors in the traditional sense). In the SEO landscape, we lean towards those "keyword competitors" -- Web sites that are ranking for keywords we'd like our client to be found for.

A good example of this would be a client from my former life who sold "signs" (banners, billboards, etc.). One of their main keywords was (is) "signs." At the time, the movie "Signs," starring Mel Gibson, was released. Obviously, the movie isn't a direct competitor for this keyword, but a page devoted to this movie ranks number one in Google for "signs," and the movie still has several mentions in Google's top 10.

How to Compete for Various Keywords

Once you've determined the keyword competitors, you need to determine the factors that might be in play to help these Web sites to rank, while yours may not.

It's possible to get carried away with this type of analysis, as there are over 100 factors in play to determine why a Web site might rank, and the factors (and the weight of the factors) will fluctuate in the search engine'salgorithms.

With that said, there are some pretty consistent things that you can look for to better compete for various keywords:

Age of Domain: Many people getting into business on the Web for the first time don't know this simple rule. Buying an aged domain saves you a great amount of time. While you're at it, buy a domain that already has links pointing to it (links from within your chosen industry, ideally). When you look at the Web sites that are ranking for your selected keywords, you'll most likely see a trend that those listed on the first page of the search results are many years old. This could be because it took that long to generate enough quality links/content, but an aged domain is certainly one of the most important factors that goes into getting a Web site to rank.

Pages Indexed: This is what I refer to as the "Wikipedia effect." Wikipedia is an extremely deep Web site, with only one page relevant to your search. Why does it keep showing up when you're searching? Because the search engines have determined that the Web site -- as a whole -- is an "authority" site. That is, it's deep with quality content (there are a number of other reasons why this Web site ranks, but the depth of the Web site is certainly key among those reasons). Wikipedia has more than 380 million pages indexed in Yahoo.

Linking: Through an easy "site:www.sitename.com" search on Yahoo, you can see the pages indexed and links indexed for any Web site that you're analyzing. Click on the "Inlinks" link and use the drop down to select "except from this domain," so that you aren't counting those internal links in your analysis.

By following these three simple steps, you'll gain a greater insight into what it takes to rank for the keywords you're interested in ranking for, and help you better understand the steps/tactics that you'll need to employ to compete with those that are showing up in the SERPs.

URL Checker, Product Page Checker -- to check saturation (# of pages indexed)
PageRank Lookup, PageRank Search, Webmaster Eyes, SEO-Links -- to run bulk checks of PageRank scores, to analyze PageRank flow
Neat-o -- to review anchor text of inbound links
Link Checker, Yahoo Site Explorer -- to check link popularity and review inbound links
Alexa -- to check Alexa Rank and review traffic trends on someone's site
What's That Site Running -- to determine what server software a site is running
Check Server Headers -- to see what type of redirect (301 or 302) is being used; to see if a 404 is being served when it's supposed to be, etc.
Keyword Ranking Tool -- to track positions in the SERPs

keyword research and analysis. (Phase II)

The second step in the search engine optimization process is keyword research and analysis. Finding the right keywords is key to the success (and profitability) of any search engine optimization campaign. Below you will find a list of tutorials designed to teach you the strategy of finding the best keywords for your search optimization campaign.

The Basic Keyword Strategy

– Part I: Valuable Keywords

– Part II: Relevant Keywords and Customer Motivation

– Part III: Keyword Competition

– Part IV: Keyword Popularity

Building a Keyword List

– Part I: How to build a Keyword List

– Part II: Finding base keywords

– Part III: Finding qualifying keywords

How To Analyze Your Keyword List

Initial Analysis

The first thing a SEO should do when they start working with a client is analyze the website in question and develop an initial website SEO analysis report. There are three major reasons to do that. First of all every website is specific and should be approached individually. You can’t estimate the amount of work that has to be done and quote the price for it by just looking at the website. Like any other campaign SEO efforts need to be thoroughly planned and that is impossible unless you know what you are dealing with.

We at SEO Management realize the importance of initial analysis. That’s why we take the time to have a close look at each website and provide our clients with an initial website SEO analysis report. In order to implement a successful SEO campaign you need to know which way to go and how long this way is. Just like a doctor needs to take some tests and diagnose a patient, a reputable SEO should first diagnose a website before starting the treatment course. Basically the initial website SEO analysis report can be broken down into two parts: the current condition of the website (diagnosis) and the recommended optimization efforts (cure

n order to diagnose a website search engine optimization specialists look at a number of components. You need to find out how the website currently ranks in the major search engines and see if all the pages are properly indexed by the search engine crawlers. Another important thing to do is to figure out if the website has any search engine penalties and work out ways to eliminate them. Website design is analyzed from two aspects: from the point of view of search engines and users. In order to generate targeted website traffic that converts well has to be appealing to the users as well as have high rankings.

Finding the Cure and Making Repairs

The second component of the initial website SEO analysis report deals with the planning of the optimization process. Having identified all the upsides and downsides of a website, SEO experts can tell what has to be done to move the website up in the search engine results pages. Each SEO strategy is tailored according to the needs of a particular business and specific features of the website. Our SEO company determines the ways to optimize the design and navigation of the website as well as its content, develops an efficient linking strategy and above all analyzes the keywords to target with due account to their competition and popularity.

Initial website SEO analysis report is also a great tool to measure the progress of your SEO campaign.

Seo Work Process

1 Initial Analysis 2 Keyword Research And Analysis 3 Competitors Analysis 4 Sitemap 5 Search Engine +Directory Submission 6 Social Book Marking 7 Blogs 8 Articles Submission 9 Link Popularity 10 SERP Report

Search Engine Guide

For the purposes of brevity this piece starts with a few assumptions. The first assumption is a single, small business site is being worked on. The second assumption is that the site in question is written using a fairly standard mark-up language such as HTML or PHP. The last assumption is that some form of keyword research and determination has already taken place and the webmaster is confident in the selection of keyword targets.

Believe it or not, basic SEO is all about common sense and simplicity. The purpose of search engine optimization is to make a website as search engine friendly as possible. It’s really not that difficult. Basic SEO doesn’t require specialized knowledge of algorithms, programming and taxonomy but it does require a basic understanding of how search engines work. There are two aspects of search engines to consider before jumping in. The first is how spiders work. The second is how search engines figure out what documents relate to which keywords and phrases.

In the simplest terms, search engines collect data about a unique website by sending an electronic spider to visit the site and copy its content which is stored in the search engine’s database. Generally known as ‘bots’, these spiders are designed to follow links from one document to the next. As they copy and assimilate content from one document, they record links and send other bots to make copies of content on those linked documents. This process continues ad infinitum. By sending out spiders and collecting information 24/7, the major search engines have established databases that measure their size in the tens of billions. Every day, both Yahoo and Google claim to spider as much data as is contained in the US Library of Congress (approx. 150million items).

Knowing the spiders and how they read information on a site is the technical end of basic SEO. Spiders are designed to read site content like you and I read a newspaper. Starting in the top left hand corner, a spider will read site content line by line from left to right. If columns are used (as they are in most sites), spiders will follow the left hand column to its conclusion before moving to central and right hand columns. If a spider encounters a link it can follow, it will record that link and send another bot to copy and record data found on the document the link leads to. The spider will proceed through the site until it records everything it can possible find there.

As spiders follow links and record everything in their paths, one can safely assume that if a link to a site exists, a spider will find that site. Webmasters and SEOs no longer need to manually or electronically submit their sites to the major search engines. The search spiders are perfectly capable of finding them on their own, provided a link to that site exists somewhere on the web. Google and Yahoo both have an uncanny ability to judge the topic or theme of documents they are examining, and use that ability to judge the topical relationship of documents that are linked together. The most valuable incoming links (and the only ones worth perusing), come from sites that share topical themes.

Once a search spider finds your site, helping it get around is the first priority. One of the most important basic SEO tips is to provide clear paths for spiders to follow from “point A” to “point Z” in your website. This is best accomplished by providing easy to follow text links directed to the most important pages in the site at the bottom of each document. One of these text links should lead to a text-based sitemap, which lists and provides a text link every document in the site. The sitemap can be the most basic page in the site as its purpose is more to direct spiders than help lost site visitors though designers should keep site visitors in mind when creating the sitemap. Here is an example of the basic sitemapused on the StepForth site. Google also accepts more advanced, XML based sitemaps, providing a wealth of information on their Sitemap FAQ page.

Allowing spiders free access to the entire website is not always desirable. Good SEOs should also know how to tell spiders that some site content is off limits and should not be added to their database using robots.txt files. (To learn more about setting up your Robots.txt file, start with Jennifer Laycock's article about Robots.txt basics)

Offering spiders access to the areas of the site one wants them to access is half the battle. The other half is found in the site content. Search engines are supposed to provide their users with lists of documents that relate to user entered keyword phrases or queries. Search engines need to determine which of billions of documents is relevant to a small number of specific words. In order to do this, the search engine needs to know your site relates to those words.

There are four basic areas, or elements, a search engine looks at when examining a document. After the URL of a site, the first information a search spider records is the title of the site. Next, it examines the Description Meta tag. Both of these elements are found in the section of the source code.

Titles should be written using the strongest keyword targets as the foundation. StepForth’s primary keyword target is Search Engine Placement. A glance at our index page shows that phrase is used as the first three words in our site title. Some titles are written using two or three basic two-keyword phrases. A key to writing a good title is to remember that human readers will see the title as the reference link on the search engine results page. Don’t overload your title with keyword phrases. Concentrate on the strongest keywords that best describe the topic of the document content.

The Description Meta tag is also fairly important. Search engines tend to use it to gather information on the topic or theme of the document. A well written Description is phrased in two or three complete sentences with the strongest keyword phrases woven early into each sentence. As with the title tag, some search engines will display the Description on the search results pages, generally using it in whole or in part to provide the text that appears under the reference link. Some search engines place minor weight in the Keywords Meta tag however, it is not advisable to spend a lot of time worrying about the keywords tag.
After reading information found in the section of the source code, spiders continue on to examine site content. It is wise to remember that spiders read the same way we do, left to right and following columns.

Good content is the most important aspect of search engine optimization. The easiest and most basic rule of the trade is that search engine spiders can be relied upon to read basic body text 100% of the time. By providing a search engine spider with basic text content, SEOs offer the engines information in the easiest format for them to read. While some search engines can strip text and link content from Flash files, nothing beats basic body text when it comes to providing information to the spiders. Very good SEOs can almost always find a way to work basic body text into a site without compromising the designer’s intended look, feel and functionality.

The content itself should be thematically focused. In other words, keep it simple. Some documents cover multiple topics on each page, which is confusing for spiders and SEOs alike. The basic SEO rule here is if you need to express more than one topic on a page, you need more pages. Fortunately, creating new pages with unique topic-focused content is one of the most basic SEO techniques, making a site simpler for both live-users and electronic spiders. An important caveat is to avoid duplicate content and the temptation to construct doorway pages specifically designed for search placements.

When writing document content, try to use the strongest keyword targets early in the copy. For example, a site selling the ubiquitous Blue Widget might use the following as a lead-sentence; “Blue Widgets by Widget and Co. are the strongest construction widgets available and are the trusted widget of leading builders and contractors.”

The primary target is obviously construction applications for the blue widget. By placing the keyword phrases “blue widgets”, “construction widgets” and “trusted widget” along side other keywords such as the singular words, “strongest”, “trusted” and “builders” and “contractors”, the sentence is crafted to help the search engine see a relationship between these words. Subsequent sentences would also have keywords and phrases weaved into them. One thing to keep in mind when writing basic SEO copy is that unnecessary repetition of keywords is often considered spam by search engines. Another thing to remember is that ultimately, the written copy is meant to be read by human eyes as well as search spiders. Each page or document in the site should have its own unique content.

The last on-site element a spider examines when reading the site (and later relating the content to user queries), is the anchor text used in internal links. Using relevant keyword phrases in the anchor text is a basic SEO technique aimed at solidifying the search engine’s perception of the relationship between documents and the words used to phrase the link. A good example is found on towards the bottom of pages in the StepForth site. Note the use of the words “placement services”, “seo results”, “SEO Faq” and the topic of the internal pages these links point to.

In a nutshell, that’s pretty much it to the basics of clean, search engine friendly SEO. The foundation of nearly every successful SEO campaign is simplicity. The goal is to make a site easy to find, easy to follow, and easy to read for search spiders and live-visitors, with well written topical content and a fair number of relevant incoming links. While basic SEO can be time consuming in the early stages, the results are almost always worth it and set the stage for more advanced future work.