SEO For ECommerce And Shopping Carts

Search engine optimization on Ecommerce related web sites can be a little different than static web sites. However, other opportunities exist for shopping cart web sites.

Search engine optimization companies often see e-commerce (shopping cart) web sites as an obstacle to their search engine optimization platform.

Shopping carts are generally template based and most content is pulled from the database.

Its not the typical static HTML web site that is seen in the SEO training text book, but is it really possible to optimize a shopping cart? Well, maybe.

Not all shopping carts are created equal. Most shopping carts written in ASP, PHP, or related languages, can be optimized within the limitations set forth by the program.

All of them allow for content pages to be added to the site and some even allow for shopping cart exporting to an HTML format.

There you have it, you have content, link population ability, and opportunity for adding fresh content. But, we are just beginning.

Some problem languages for shopping carts include .cfm (Cold Fusion) and .mvc (Miva Merchant). Both file types are not easily indexed by the search engines so this should be considered before starting your shopping cart project.

With that said, some search engine optimization companies may be able to work out a plan to work around your existing shopping cart.

Aside from search engine optimization, another great means of marketing exist for shopping cart owners.

Online product placement. Getting your site listed on places like Shopping.com, Bizrate, KCove.com, and Froogle is simple and affordable.

Froogle is a free service but your product feed must be updated every month. Other price comparison sites have initial deposits of $50-$200.

These sites work on a pay per click platform which have set price per clicks for various categories.

Using price comparison web sites should not be done instead of search engine optimization but rather complimentary to your search engine optimization efforts.

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8 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Website

Below are listed 8 simple steps that you can take to optimize your web pages. By following these, you will improve your chances of increasing your rankings:

1) Target one word for each page: A huge mistake that many beginners make is cramming numerous keywords onto every page. Instead of doing this, you should focus on one specific keyword for each page. That way, you can make sure that the page is focusing on that one word without any distractions. If you want to target multiple keywords then it is necessary to create a separate page for each.

2) List your major keywords in the links back to your site: Many search engines, Google being the most famous, have started to take into account the words that are mentioned in the title tag of the links that point to your site. So, a great way to improve your rankings for your keywords is to place it in the title tag.

3) Make your first 100 words on the page keyword rich: Another mistake that most webmasters make is to have a menu on the left-hand side of a website. Since search engines primarily focus on the first 100 words of a website, a left side menu is a misuse of valuable space.

Instead of doing this, you should have your title, description and web copy within the first 100 words of your site. An easy way to do this is to have your menu on the right instead of the standard left-hand side. But, since the left-handed menu is now commonplace, you can also choose to put your first 100 words above the left-handed menu, so this text will be the first thing read on your website.

4) Insert the keyword into your title tag: In the source code of most pages are "header tags" (also known as Meta tags), which help search engines understand the content of the page.To fully optimize your website, you can tweak the source code of the page. The first step is to insert the keyword in the title tag. (This is what is shown in the results of a search engine when your site is listed)

5) Insert your keywords in the description tag: The description Meta tag is almost as valuable as the title tag. The information in this tag is listed directly below the title tag in search engine results. As a result, a good description can make your website stand out from other listings. To get the prospect to click on your site, it is important to write a snappy description while using your keyword.

6) Insert them into your keywords tag: Like the title and description tags, keyword tags are used to help search engines understand the content of your web page. Although this Meta tag has become less popular, it doesn’t hurt to put your keywords here.

7) Place your keyword in the header: When writing the actual text of your site, the first part should be the headline. Whenever a search engine scans your site, it rates all words in the headline as being more important then the rest of the web copy. To take advantage of this, you should have your keyword in the page headline. But, since the header tag (h1) is quite large, you should format it so that it is smaller.

8) Write your keyword enriched web copy: Now that you have set up the structure of your page, you can write your web copy. While creating the text, you want to include the majority of the keywords at the top and the bottom of the page. In addition, the keyword should be included a few times in the middle. Basically, the common saying is that the keyword density should resemble an hour glass shape.

The total web copy of your page should be about 300-500 words. Also, the keyword should be about 5-12% of the total words of the page. The percentage varies according to each search engine, so you might want to play around till you find the best results.

Story On Page Ranks

PageRank 0-2 shows that a site does not have many links and needs work, However, and this a big "however," it may not really affect your search engine rankings. I have a client with a page rank of 2 and his site ranks well, even number one, for several search terms in a fairly competitive industrial category. So PageRank is not everything; it may have an impact on your rankings and traffic, but in some cases it may not matter. In any case if you have a PageRank of 0-2, you can work on it through proper link building activity which I will explain at the end of the article.

PageRank 3 can be OK in some cases but in highly competitive industries you should work to improve it.

PageRank 4 is quite a normal number and indicates that you have enough links in either quantity or quality to make your site competitive.

PageRank 5 indicates that a site has many links or links from authoritative sites, and that Google has good "trust" in the site. It is a respectable and attainable PageRank.

PageRank 6 is very difficult to attain. This rank indicates that the site has many links and links from respected places. Remember the example of www.bobdylan.com, which I mentioned above; it has a PageRank 6, so you can get an idea of the difficulty involved.

PageRank 7-10 is usually earned by large and established institutions or websites which have tremendous authority, due to the quantity and quality of the incoming links. It is extremely difficult to attain this ranking. You really have to be special to get it.

So, don't worry excessively about PageRank. First look at your traffic, then look at your sales and finally at your bottom line. They are the important numbers to watch. If you want to increase your traffic and also PageRank, then here are a few steps that you can take:

1. Add content to your website. Make your website so good and so useful that people will link to you without you asking for a link.

2. Write articles and get them published on other websites and blogs with a link back to your site.

3. Distribute online press releases

4. Judiciously exchange links, or even better, exchange content (containing links back to your site) with other websites.

5. Get your site listed in online directories.

These efforts will certainly help you to build targeted traffic, and they most probably will also help you to increase your PageRank as well.

The Art of Linkbaiting

Ever found it hard to get other bloggers to link to a new blog? Even established blogs need to expand their traffic and influence on a regular basis, and linkbaiting is one way to do it.

In order to bait a link, you need a hook. Hooks come in variety of flavors, some of the more popular would include:

* News hook
* Contrary Hook
* Attack Hook
* Resource Hook
* Humour Hook

There are others, but you see the point. There are two main types of hook in there, the nice hook, and the nasty hook. I'd say in most cases you can get away with a contrarian viewpoint, but not an attack. No one likes an arsehole, so there's no real benefit, as sure you may get a ton of links from outraged blog peers, but they'll likely ignore anything else you write.

Saying that though, it's a judgement call. I've often slammed someone on a blog, but you need to be able to judge it very well. Go just a little too far, and you'll do more harm than good.

The easiest, and safest is the nice hook. And when i say easy, i mean it. Have a look at some examples of each type of hook i've listed:

Resource Hook

* A comprehensive list of blogs in your niche - link out, and links will come in, i promise.
* A practical/useful or even fun tool related to your niche
* A How To based on your niche
* A compilation of news stories on a theme. Sprinkle a little analysis in there, and you're good to go.

News Hook

* A genuine Scoop. Get to the news first
* A compilation of news, as above, its a resource aswell as a news hook.
* Expose a story for a fraud, or to be flawed. You really have to know your subject to do that, but links flow like water if you can debunk a popular meme

Contrary Hook

* Be the only one in your niche to find something to not like about a story, or like about a story/product.
* On the same theme, post "Why is WRONG about..."

Attack Hook

This works much the same as the contrary hook, you just get to be much, much ruder. It's a tough one, because just posting about such a thing could land me in hot water. But then im not here to play nice, i'm here to talk about gaining traffic, and whilst an attack hook is 99/100 NOT the way to go, sometimes it's absolutely killer, and can gain you credibility and reputation overnight.

Really though, careful with that one. It can just as easily go the wrong way.

Humor Hook

These kinds of hooks are just too easy.

* Search flickr, or photoshop a bizzare pic of your subject
* Post "10 thing i hate about..."
* Post "You know you're a when..."

Funny thing is, those things always get links, it's like people never seem to tire of them.
Give and thou wilt receive...

All of the above is utterly useless without being seen by your peers though. Link to them in your post, then click those links if you have absolutely no traffic. You need to get their initial attention.


Source: www.performancing.com/

66 Ways to Build Links in 2007

On-Site Content Creation

Content creation is without a doubt my favorite way of creating great backlinks. The reason these links are great is that you don’t have to ask for them or buy them, they come naturally, are defensible, and last indefinitely.

1. Write an authority article. (Without a doubt the best way to gain deep links.)
2. Write great linkbait.
3. Use numbers in your titles.
4. Spend 10 hours and put together a huge list.
5. Say nice things about people who link out.
6. Start something crazy like “Blogtipping”.
7. Offer awesome resources, free.
8. Spellcheck everything, twice.
9. Link to others, and they’ll link back.
10. Design an award worthy blog or website. (Not just a site you like, a site everyone likes.)
11. Create a contest in your niche. (These don’t have to be SEO related.)
12. Say something stupid.
13. Write a complete “How To” resource. (They get dugg frequently.)
14. Release a Firefox extension. (Make sure you support it.)
15. Interview your industries experts. (Make it easy and quick for them.)

Off-Site Content Creation

16. Presell and content pages. (My content page on your site.)
17. Write and submit articles. (Don’t forget your byline link.)
18. Submit articles to specialized sites. (Big sites in your niche, ESPN, SEJ, Scrapbook.com, etc.)
19. Write and submit a press release. (Don’t forget your byline link.)
20. Offer to be a guest blogger. (Almost anyone is up for free content.)

Spending Money to Build Links

Spending money isn’t anything new for 2007, but it can still be effective.
21. Buy under the radar direct links. (You can email website owners asking to buy links.)
22. Buy in-content links on old pages. (Ask to buy a certain word on a certain page, make it simple for the owner.)
23. Buy old sites and link to your site. (Can be expensive.)
24. Pay for a sponsored post.
25. Buy direct directory listings. (Some directories are better than others.)
26. Pay for bulk directory submission. (You can find people willing to submit your site at forums usually for less than $20 to 400 directories.)
27. Trade something for a link. (Often times you can buy an office staff pizza on Friday in exchange for a link on their website. Or maybe you can sponsor an office contest or promotion in exchange for publicity on their website.)
28. Pay a link builder. (This will involve substantial cost and results aren’t guaranteed.)
29. Send your product to potential reviewers at no cost to them.

Finding Free Links

30. Post your link in forums. (Use footer links on forums that allow links.)
31. Post your feed in forums. (Many vBulletin forums show your latest post (on your blog) by your name, in your “User CP>Options scroll down to the bottom and put your feed address in.)
32. Comment on blogs. (Pick a reasonable number, and try to post that many every day.)
33. Submit to generic directories. (Directories without major branding.)
34. Submit to the big free directories. (Everyone’s invited here.)
35. Ask for a link. (You’d better have a good resource, or be the authority in your niche.)
36. Sign guestbooks. (I know this just reminds you of Geocities, but there are thousands of guestbooks on sites with PR that are abandoned. Go get yourself a free link.)
37. Find out where your articles are shown, and offer exclusive content. (This only works when real sites, not article-only sites, pick up your article. Explain why an exclusive piece would benefit them.)
38. Ask friends to read a new post, and reference it if they like it. (This can go over really well if you are well connected.)
39. Leave a testimonial. (Do it for every product you use, be specific when necessary.)
40. Support a non-profit website/company. (Make sure they have a website and will link you first.)
41. Build a website for a non-profit organization. (I’ve built 3 non-profit websites. You might also get paid for this work.)
42. Form partnerships with online “friends”. (I have 6 people on my gmail chat list that I chat with regularly, I don’t mind asking for a link to a new site, or a great post. In exchange, I Digg their articles, post links to their good articles, etc.)
43. Create an awesome tool. (This is just one example of the many free tools out there)
44. Send targeted emails. (Make sure the first email asks a question, or helps them. Then ask for a link.)
45. Create a Del.icio.us account and start tagging. (Del.icio.us Popular Pages can send as much traffic as Digg.)
46. Talk to manufacturers or retailers that you buy from about linking to you. (This could work with #36, leave them a testimonial.)
47. Post a listing on Craigslist. (Posts below are pretty spammy but do have links.)
48. Post a helpful post with a link at Google Groups. (Gotta love the straight html links.)
49. Post link spam helpful posts to Yahoo! Answers. (Do they ever moderate this stuff?)
50. Join your local Chamber of Commerce. (Every city has one.)
51. Join the Better Business Bureau. (Join your local chapter, most have a directory of members with links.)
52. Talk to similar but non-competing businesses offline, and ask for a link. (Explain how, by linking to you, their customers will see their site as the complete resource and are more likely to return.)
53. Create a free template or theme. (Wordpress or CSS/XHTML are both popular in the free template sector.)
54. Review a product or service. (Bonus points if you have authority in the niche, and are one of the first to review it. Many times you’ll rank right behind the product.)
55. Have a privacy policy. (Every reputable company does.)
56. Create a contact page. (Mine is coming…I never said I was perfect!)
57. Don’t post spam content. (This includes PLR articles, only RSS feeds, or just “borrowing” content.)
58. Hire writers who are better than you. (Especially important when you have multiple sites and don’t know what to do.)
59. Get 1 link per domain. (Sitewide links are SOOOO 2006.)
60. Stay ahead of the curve. (You’ll get thousands of links if you have the first and oldest site about new technology.)
61. Link out, especially to blogs. (I always read people who link to me. Technorati keeps great track of who is linking to you.)
62. When writing, never lose sight of the “Super Digg”, and write accordingly. (Who doesn’t love a good super digg?)
63. Install a page translator. (Anyone have a recommendation?)
64. Submit to a sub-category on Reddit. (Submit to the sub-cat and the homepage.)
65. Ping appropriate sites with every new post. (Wordpress and Typepad make this easy.)
66. Be creative when link hunting. (You’ll be getting links nobody else is even asking for.)

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Why Good SEO Is Like Weight Loss

The amount of information about what search engine optimization is, is as varied as the motivations of the companies that employ it. To help companies understand the various aspects of SEO, I often make comparisons to things just about everyone can relate to. So here are a few reasons why effective SEO is like successful weight loss.

1. No pain, no gain. Losing weight takes work. You have to make changes in order to make a significant improvement. If your web site doesn't rank well, you will have to make changes and those changes will cost time effort and money. In most cases there is not a simple, "painless" solution. Same goes for weight loss. For a great SEO program, expect to make an investment.

2.Changes must be long term. The current fads for weight loss often involve quick solutions like pills, concoctions and other "magic" programs, but they don't work long term. The most successful weight loss programs include lifestyle changes, not some kind of quick trick. The same principle applies to search engine optimization. SEO is a long term strategy. Quick tricks and algorithm loopholes might get you results in the short term, but you'll be right back where you started (or worse) as soon as the search engines discover them. How many people have you heard of that have lost a lot of weight only to put it back on? In both cases, the solution is a long term commitment in order to be successful. If you need short term search marketing results, use Pay Per Click. If you're not in it for the long haul with search engine optimization, then don't bother starting.

3. No spam. Spam in a can is going to make you fat. (My opinion - sorry Hormel ) Spam in your SEO is going to get you in trouble with the search engines and alienate your users. Just say no to spam.

4. Value meal SEO. Different people respond differently to attempts to lose weight. Genetics, metabolism and overall health all affect how your body will respond with a weight loss program. Value meals, aka fast food, are certainly of no help for weight loss. "Value meal SEO", or pre-packaged SEO solutions are not much help either. Web sites are often as different as people. What would be an appropriate SEO program for a 5,000 page ecommerce site selling dog and cat toys may not be the solution for a 100 page, static B to B web site for a systems integration IT consulting firm. There is a unique aspect to almost every SEO program and therefore require unique solutions.

5. Fundamentals are key. With weight loss it's food and exercise in the right proportions. With SEO it's content and links. Those things have always been true and will always be true in the forseeable future. While the fundamentals have pretty much stayed the same over the years with search engine optimization, it's the execution that has varied a bit. Start and stick with the fundamentals, but pay attention to small changes needed in execution to accommodate for changes in search engine ranking methodology.


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The Critical SEO Checklist

1. Check Search Engine Crawl Error Pages

It's important to monitor search engine crawl error reports to keep on top of how your site and its pages are performing. Monitoring error reports can help you determine when and where Googlebot or another crawler is having trouble indexing your content - which can help you find a solution to the problem.

2. Create/update robots.txt and sitemap files

These files are supported by major search engines and are incredibly useful tools for ensuring that crawlers index your important site content while avoiding those sections/files that you deem to be either unimportant or cause problems in the crawl process. In many cases we've seen the proper use of these files make all the difference between a total crawl failure for a site and a full index of content pages which makes them crucial from an SEO standpoint.

3. Check Googlebot activity reports

These reports allow you to monitor how long it's taking Googlebot to access your pages. This information can be very important if you are worried that you may be on a slow network or experiencing web server problems. If it is taking search engine crawlers a long time to index your pages it may be the case that there are times when they "time out" and stop trying. Additionally, if the crawlers are unable to call your pages up quickly there is a good chance users are experiencing the same lag in load times, and we all know how impatient internet users can be.

4. Check how your site looks to browsers without image and JavaScript support

One of the best ways to determine just what your site looks like to a search engine crawler is to view your pages in a browser with image and JavaScript support disabled. Mozilla's Firefox browser has a plug-in available called the "Web Developer Toolbar" that adds this functionality and a lot more to the popular standards-compliant browser. If after turning off image and JavaScript support you aren't able to make sense of your pages at all, it is a good sign that your site is not well-optimized for search. While images and JavaScript can add a lot to the user experience they should always be viewed as a "luxury" - or simply an improvement upon an already-solid textual content base.

Create Links that Link to Your Site Automatically

5. Ensure that all navigation is in HTML, not images

One of the most common mistakes in web design is to use images for site navigation. While for some companies and webmasters SEO is not a concern and therefore they can get away with this, for anyone worried about having well-optimized pages this should be the first thing to go. Not only will it render your site navigation basically valueless for search engine crawlers, but within reason very similar effects can usually be achieved with CSS roll-overs that maintain the aesthetic impact while still providing valuable and relevant link text to search engines.

6. Check that all images include ALT text

Failing to include descriptive ALT text with images is to miss out on another place to optimize your pages. Not only is this important for accessibility for vision-impaired users, but search engines simply can't "take a look" at your images and decipher the content there. They can only see your ALT text, if you've provided it, and the association they'll make with the image and your relevant content will be based exclusively on this attribute.

7. Use Flash content sparingly

Several years ago Flash hit the scene and spread like wild fire. It was neat looking, quick to download and brought interactivity and animation on the web to a new height. However, from an SEO standpoint, Flash files might as well be spacer GIFs - they're empty. Search engines are not able to index text/content within a Flash file. For this reason, while Flash can do a lot for presentation, from an accessibility and SEO standpoint it should be used very sparingly and only on non-crucial content.

8. Ensure that each page has a unique < title > and meta description tag

Optimization of < title > tags is one of the most important on-page SEO points. Many webmasters are apparently unaware and use either duplicate < title > tags for multiple pages or do not target search traffic at all within this valuable tag. Run a search on a competitive keyword of your choice on Google - click on the first few links that show up and see what text appears in the title bar for the window. You should see right away that this is a key place to include target keywords for your pages.

9. Make sure that important page elements are HTML

The simple fact to keep in mind when optimizing a page is that the crawlers are basically only looking at your source code. Anything you've put together in a Flash movie, an image or any other multimedia component is likely to be invisible to search engines. With that in mind it should be clear that the most important elements of your page, where the heart of your content will lie, should be presented in clean, standards-compliant and optimized HTML source code.

10. Be sure to target keywords in your page content

Some webmasters publish their pages in hopes that they will rank well for competitive keywords within their topic or niche. However, this will simply never happen unless you include your target keywords in the page content. This means creating well-optimized content that mentions these keywords frequently without triggering spam filters. Any way you cut it you're going to need to do some writing - if you don't like doing it yourself it's a good idea to hire a professional copy writer. Simply put: without relevant content that mentions your target keywords you will not rank well.

11. Don't use frames

There is still some debate as to whether frames are absolutely horrible for SEO or whether they are simply just not the best choice. Is there really a difference? Either way, you probably don't want to use frames. Crawlers can have trouble getting through to your content and effectively indexing individual pages, for one thing. For another, most functionality that the use of frames allows is easily duplicated using proper CSS coding. There is still some use for a frames-based layout, but it is still better to avoid it if at all possible.

12. Make sure that your server is returning a 404 error code for unfound pages

We've all seen it. We're browsing around at a new or familiar site, clicking links and reading content, when we get the infamous blank screen that reads "404 page not found" error. While broken links that point to these pages should definitely be avoided you also don't want to create a "custom error page" to replace this page. Why? Well, it's simple: if you generate a custom error page, crawlers can spend time following broken links that they won't know are broken. A 404 error page is easily recognizable, and search engine crawlers are programmed to stop following links that generate this page. If crawlers end up in a section of your site that is down through an old link that you missed, they might not spend the time to index the rest of your site.

13. Ensure that crawlers will not fall into infinite loops

Many webmasters see fit to include scripting languages, such as Perl, Php and Asp to add interactive functionality to their web pages. Whether for a calendar system, a forum, eCommerce functionality for an online store, etc. scripting is used quite frequently on the internet. However, what some webmasters don't realize is that unless they use robots.txt files or take other preventative measures search engine crawlers can fall into what are called "infinite loops" in their pages. Imagine, if you will, a script that allows a webmaster to add a calendar to one of his pages. Now, any programmer worth his salt would base this script on calculations - it would auto-generate each page based on the previous month and a formula to determine how the days and dates would fall. That script, depending on sophistication, could plausibly extend infinitely into the past or future. Now think of the way a crawler works - it follows links, indexes what it finds, and follows more links. What's to stop a crawler from clicking "next month" in a calendar script an infinite number of times? Nothing - well, almost nothing. Crawlers are well-built programs that need to run efficiently. As such they are built to recognize when they've run into an "infinite loop" situation like this, and they will simply stop indexing pages at a site that is flagged for this error.

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Universal Search Optimization Strategies

The focus on personalization and universal search requires more emphasis on social media SEO strategies because of user interest in creating content and the vast amounts of new multimedia content created daily on the Web. Marketers are beginning to drive traffíc via social networking sites, and these efforts are known to enhance search engine optimization campaigns. Strategies include creating multimedia content such as blogs, videos and podcasts, and then getting them listed on social search sites like Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon, as well as niche search engines like Technorati, Podzinger and Blinx.

When creating multimedia content, you must ensure that it is tagged and cataloged correctly. Multimedia content is optimized through established fundamental SEO techniques, such as creating keyword-rich, user-friendly content, unique Meta tags, good site navigation and structure, and implementing a successful linking strategy. Below are a few suggestions for creating and submitting multimedia content for several of Google's vertical databases to gain extended reach through universal search.

Google Image Search: It has always been a good idea to use images on your site for illustrating your products and services. Now, this becomes a way for your customers to find your site via Google Image Search. Optimize your images with descriptive, keyword-rich file names and ALT tags. Use accurate descriptions of your image files for the benefit of the vision impaired and others who might need to view the site with text only.

Google Video (beta): As with optimizing images, use descriptive, keyword-rich file names for your video files. Also create a keyword-rich title tag, description tag, and video site map. Create a Web page to launch your video, optimizing content for SEO and using anchor text wherever possible. Besides submitting to Google Video, also include Blinkx and other social networking and search sites like YouTube and Podzinger (audio and video search engine).

Google News: Here's where you can submit your press releases for display as "news" and subsequent indexing. Issue press releases containing current information about new products and events your site is involved with and Google News will likely pick it up.

Google Maps: This is also known as Google Local, a vertical that has been included in Google search results for a while. Give your site a local presence through the Google Maps Local Business Center where local businesses can get a frëe basic listing to extend their reach in the SERPs.

Google Blog Search (beta): You all have a corporate blog, right? This is how modern companies communicate with their customers and stakeholders. Tag it (digg, del.icio.us, stumbleupon, etc.), submit to Google Blog search, and extend your reach for Web searches on Google.

In closing, there are many ways social and multimedia content can enhance your SEO efforts. Experiment and learn how to use social media to extend your SEO rankings. As you become aware of the many niche databases for submitting multimedia content, this can go a long way toward gaining visibility through Google's personalized and universal search.

Get Indexed by Search Engines in a Week

Contrary to all beliefs, you can get listed in search engines very fast, provided you follow the right guidelines. You can get indexed by Yahoo & MSN search engines within a week. Getting listed in Google is tougher and takes a longer duration but following the right steps will help you get there faster.

First, I will discuss the steps to get listed in Yahoo and MSN within a week. To do this, you need to have a RSS feed for your website or blog. If you don't make one right now. Do a search to find out how to create one. Its really quite simple.

RSS feeds are going to be a powerful tool for internet marketing, at least in the near future. Ok lets get back to the original topic. Once you have a RSS feed, 90% of your work is done.

Now you have to go to your My Yahoo and My MSN accounts. You will find a link saying "Add Content" after logging in. In the search box, copy the link of your RSS feed and search for it. Once Yahoo/MSN retrieves your feed, just add it to your account.

And that's about it. Within a week's time Yahoo and MSN will send their feed crawlers looking for the fresh feed that you just added to your account. And unlike Google, they crawl your website along with the feed. Voila, you just got noticed and indexed by Yahoo and MSN. Simple and effective.

Getting listed with Google is a longer process but you can still do a few things to hasten it. The first step is to create a blog for your website. Use Blogger to create one and start making regular posts to it. But how will this help you get indexed in Google quickly? This is what you need to do.

Every time you make a post you need to ping blog directories to let them know about the updated content. Don't be scared - it's pretty easy. Go to pingomatic.com , fill in a few details as required and you are done pinging. Repeat this exercise with every new post.

Every time you use pingomatic, it informs various popular blog directories about your new activity. Search engines love fresh content and this activity helps them pick up blogs with new content. I have got sites indexed within 2 days in Google - but that was when I got quite excited about a new site and submitted 10 news posts in the first day itself.

I have had fairly good success in getting my websites indexed quickly using the steps mentioned above. Blogs and RSS are tools which you can use time and again to get indexed and good search engine rankings.

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The top 4 search engines now support Sitemaps auto submission

What are sitemaps and what is the official Sitemaps protocol?

Sitemaps are an easy way for webmasters to inform search engines about pages on their sites that are available for crawling. In its simplest form, a sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL:

* when it was last updated
* how often it usually changes
* how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site

That information helps search engines to more intelligently crawl your site. The Sitemaps protocol is a standard that makes it easier to create a sitemap that can be parsed by all search engines.

How can the Sitemaps protocol help your website?

Web crawlers usually discover pages from links within the site and from other sites. Sitemaps supplement this data to allow crawlers that support sitemaps to pick up all URLs in the sitemap and learn about those URLs using the associated metadata.

The sitemap allows you to inform search engines about the pages on your website. Depending on how your website is structured, it can be easier for search engines to find all of your web pages if you use a sitemap.

How do search engines find my Sitemaps file? What's new?

The big four search engines Google, Yahoo, Live/MSN and Ask will now automatically index your Sitemaps file if you add a link to your Sitemaps file in your robots.txt file.

All the major search engines regularly check the robots.txt of a website. Just add the following line to your robots.txt file:

Sitemap: http:/www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

Of course, you can also actively inform Google and Yahoo about your Sitemap file. This is not possible with Live/MSN and Ask.

Does a Sitemaps file improve your search engine rankings?

Using the Sitemap protocol does not guarantee that your web pages are included in search engines, but provides hints for web crawlers to do a better job of crawling your site.

A sitemap helps search engines to find your web pages but it does not help you to get higher search engine rankings.

When search engines index your web pages, they must find optimized web page content and good inbound links. Search engines will only give your web pages high rankings if they have both.

The Sitemaps protocol can help you to inform search engines about your web pages. Further information about the new sitemaps standard can be found on the official sitemaps web site.

which web page elements lead to high Google rankings?

The German company Sistrix analyzed the web page elements of top ranked pages in Google to find out which elements lead to high Google rankings. They analyzed 10,000 random keywords, and for every keyword, they analyzed the top 100 Google search results.

Which web page elements lead to high Google rankings?

Sistrix analyzed the influence of the following web page elements: web page title, web page body, headline tags, bold and strong tags, image file names, images alt text, domain name, path, parameters, file size, inbound links and PageRank.

* Keywords in the title tag seem to be important for high rankings on Google. It is also important that the targeted keywords are mentioned in the body tag, although the title tag seems to be more important.

* Keywords in H2-H6 headline tags seem to have an influence on the rankings while keywords in H1 headline tags don't seem to have an effect.

* Using keywords in bold or strong tags seems to have a slight effect on the top rankings. Web pages that used the keywords in image file names often had higher rankings. The same seems to be true for keywords in image alt attributes.

* Websites that use the targeted keyword in the domain name often had high rankings. It might be that these sites get many inbound links with the domain name as the link text.

* Keywords in the file path don't seem to have a positive effect on the Google rankings of the analyzed web sites. Web pages that use very few parameters in the URL (?id=123, etc.) or no parameters at all tend to get higher rankings than URLs that contain many parameters.

* The file size doesn't seem to influence the ranking of a web page on Google although smaller sites tend to have slightly higher rankings.

* It's no surprise that the number of inbound links and the PageRank had a large influence on the page rankings on Google. The top result on Google has usually about four times as many links as result number 11.

Can you use that information to get high rankings for your own website?

While general advice can help you to get higher rankings, it is much better to get detailed advice specifically for your website and your keywords.

It might be that your keywords trigger slightly different ranking filters at Google and that the algorithms have been changed since Sistrix performed the study.

For that reason, we recommend that you use IBP's Top 10 Web Page Optimizer to optimize the content of your web pages. IBP's Top 10 Web Page Optimizer has several advantages:

* You'll get concrete advice for your website and your targeted keywords.

* You can specify the search engine on which you want to get high rankings (Google.com, Google.co.uk, Yahoo.com or any other major search engine in many language variations).

* The Top 10 Web Page Optimizer analyzes many more web page elements than the study above.

* The results are tailored to your specific situation. You'll get specific advice that helps you to reach your goals.

High rankings on Google are the result of optimized web page content and good inbound links. The problem is to find the right web page elements that have to be optimized. In addition, the type of the inbound links is important. IBP's Top 10 Inbound Link Optimizer helps you to get the best links for your site.

13 Reasons Why NoFollow Tags Suck

The NoFollow link attribute (rel=”nofollow”) was originally created to block search engines from following links in blog comments, due to the amount of blog comment spamming.

The theory is that if spammers are spamming in blog comments to get better SEO and anchored links for their sites, NoFollow would render such spam useless. Problem is, spammers still spam.

Now, NoFollow has been adopted beyond blog comments. Wikipedia is now using NoFollow for external links and Google recommends that paid links use a NoFollow attribute.

Here are 13 reasons why NoFollow is a failure

1. NoFollow = NoWorky. Using NoFollow in blog comments, the original intent of the tag, does nothing to discourage comment spammers. Using other anti-spamming tools such as question, math and plugins such as Akismet and SpamKarma for Wordpress is much more effective.

2. If a blogger moderates comments, there is no need for a NoFollow attribute. “Everyone who passes a human inspection should get the link love.”

3. Since the use of NoFollow in comments on Wordpress blogs is default, many bloggers do not even realize they are using NoFollow.

4. NoFollow=NoValue. Why use NoFollow on sites, text ads, and blogs if there is no value in terms of search engine indexing? What if they made the Yahoo! directory nofollow? Would anyone continue to purchase listings? Obviously the value of that directory would be zero of nofollow tags were applied to the listings.

5. Linking to someone with a NoFollow attribute is a sign of not trusting them. It’s like reaching to shake someone’s hand, but stopping to put on a pair of latex gloves.

6. No Follow sucks because the search engines (particularly Google) can’t make up their mind about when and how it should be used, thus causing confusion among inexperienced webmasters who do STUPID things like No Follow ALL outgoing links from their website to “protect the site from page rank leakage” and other silly ideas.

7. No-follow is a poor search engine’s solution to conceal its own failure to rank websites appropriately. What’s next, No-linking?

Search engines should be able to develop a method of identifying and devaluing links to spam sites which were placed in blog comments. Why should everyone who posts in blog comments suffer from the actions of a greedy few spammers.

8. Commenting on a blog post is the same as adding more relevant to that blog post. A thought provoking one sentence post can lead to pages of comments. If someone takes the time to help build your site’s content via posting comments, it is professional courtesy to give them some link love.

9. Putting NoFollow on Wikipedia is like putting Grey Poupon on a Spam sandwich.(Or like putting perfume on a pig.)

Taking Wikipedia to task over nofollow is fun but ultimately you need to take them to task for why they implemented nofollow in the first place - that is, to prevent spam. Which in turn means that the way Wikipedia was setup was flawed because it opened itself up to easy spamming.

Therefore, instead of just letting Wikipedia take the easy way out (because ultimately it’s an important resource for many people and replacing it would be tough), they should look at ways into changing their systems so they are not as open to spamming any more.

10. Text link advertisements which use a NoFollow make no sense. If you want to spread your Google juice, why use a link-condom?

11. Even Wordpress founder Matt Mullenweg says NoFollow was a failure; “In theory this should work perfectly, but in practice although all major blogging tools did this two years ago and comment and trackback spam is still 100 times worse now. In hindsight, I don’t think nofollow had much of an effect, though I’m still glad we tried it.”

12. Search Engines follow NoFollow. Yahoo has been known to count NoFollow links as backlinks in SiteExplorer. So, if you’re goal in comment spamming to to build backlinks, which builds your site’s value in terms of selling advertising (TLA, ReviewMe, SEOmoz’s PageStrength and other metrics programs use Yahoo Backlinks as valued criteria), NoFollow is useless.

13. NoFollow Sucks. Check It!

Source: www.searchenginejournal.com/

8 Tips To Create a Landing Page

The Structure

People arrive at your site looking for answers. They scan to see if they're in the right place and assess whether it's going to be a quick and easy visit or a long grinding one. Your landing page is the welcome wagon inviting them in and feeding them the information they need. The structure of the page will either pull them in and encourage them to fulfill your goal, or distract and cause them to cut out of there before getting the whole picture.

The structure of the landing page in general should be matching that of the banner, ad or link they clicked on to get them there. So for example, if your PPC Ad is targeting SEO articles, your landing page should discuss exactly that. If a Victoria Secret's Ad for lingerie shows up and you click on it, you will be transferred to a landing page with the exact image and structure of the ad.

The Visuals

* Copy placement – Strategic use of copy and graphics will catch the visitor's attention. Don't muck up the page with large, distracting graphics. Use plenty of whitespace and place your message in the central portion of the page rather than placing information down the sides, where the focus can be lost quickly. Keep the copy short. The visitor expects a precise message, so don't choke it up with tons of mindless prose.

* Beauty is in the eye – Use a consistent color palette. If you have advertising or banners that link visitors to your website, make sure the concept and color scheme match across the board. It's also a great visual indicator for the visitor because they can easily identify that they're still in the right place.

* Simplify – Remove any distracting elements like advertising banners, links, or additional blocks of information from the page and get down to the specific message.

The Goal

Before you design the landing page, decide what the goal of the page will be. If you're looking for newsletter subscribers, the goal will be to have the visitor enter their information and become a member of your mailing list.

Be a Sleuth

Do your research. Keep your visitors in mind when building your landing page and tailor it to suit their needs. By narrowing your options and focusing on your visitor, you'll stay on target.

Keep Your Focus

Keep the focus on you. You've dangled a large poster board over their head and pulled them in. Now that you've got them, don't give your visitors a reason to wander.

Use a Call to Action

A call to action, such as 'subscribe now' or 'get this offer' reminds the visitor why they are on your website. Place them toward the top of your page. For users that want to click, it allows them to find it easily. For those who are still deciding, it's a great reminder.
Many sites place the consultation form or contact form directly on the landing page, which may not be such a bad idea. Again, you need glaring calls to action. Don't add several useless links on the page that will take the visitor back to your main site; rather include the links that will get them to actually purchase your product/service.

Write Like a Pro

No, you don't have to hire one to look like one. What's the best way to come off like a professional? Create landing pages with no grammatical or spelling errors. I recently hit a website offering 'discount holideys.' As I clicked out of there, I pictured the four-star flea-bag motel by the swampland I might have booked if I stayed.

Reassure

People get leery when they're asked for their personal data. If you're asking for personal information, make sure you have a credible privacy policy to back you up.

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