You cannot simply build a website and wait for visitors to come. You need to market your website online – meaning you need to take action to make your site highly visible to search engines so it gets found by potential customers.

Here are some quick ideas on maximizing your web site through simple optimization.

Keyword research – where to begin? – There are a number of inexpensive keyword research tools that will help you find the keywords and keyword strings for a specific product or service.  My favorite tool has always been Google Keyword Tool - but, Wordtracker is also very popular and very effective. 

Aligning with competitors – Determine how many other sites will be vying for similar keywords or keyword strings. To validate findings, simply type the words into Google and review the number of results. That’s your competition. The higher the position within the result page, the more difficult it will be to rank on that keyword. If you are still having difficulty determining keywords, you can open your competitor’s web site and view their keywords by selecting “View” and then “Source” from the menu. The third line in the source code typically says “Keyword Content” and then lists the keywords used for that page.

Start small – If you are new to the game, it is always advisable to start with 1-2 keywords per page on your website. Reason simply, you want to find the right balance in search volume, review how you’re faring against the competition and grow your program based on sound statistics. Likewise, insure that the content that is written for the site contains an appropriate usage of the keywords.

Site structure – In order for any search engine optimization program to work and track, you’ll need to insure that the site structure is conducive for optimization. To rank higher in search results for your target audience, you must identify the most effective keywords and then place them in the right areas of your site’s content and HTML code including page titles, headers, meta-tags, links and page content.

Site updates – ‘Content is king’ philosophy still rings true for optimization success. Keep your site updated regularly. What is the rule of thumb?  Minimally, weekly!

Linking – I still believe that linking can effectively, and quickly, increase page rankings. If you have a lot of other web sites linking to your site, the search engine spiders will visit your site more frequently and find new content quickly. You can find out who links to you already by typing “Link: yourdomainname.com” in any major search engine.

Measure – It’s all about effectiveness and ongoing metrics. Let your initial search engine optimization initiative run for about 2-3 months. Track how your rankings change week-over-week or month-over-month, and then decide whether more words need to be added or eliminated. Use tools like Google Analytics for web site metrics and SeoDigger for wordtracking performance.

Best,

Denice MacDonald 

Let's face it, successful SEO is hard.  Reason simply, SEO is not a want, it is a necessity.  According to Jill Whalen, CEO and founder of High Rankings, "...a sick web site leaves money on the table".

Without proper web page optimization, an organization is losing out on search engine visibility and possible customer conversion.  One of the first diagnostic tests in your SEO checklist is to see how Google views your home page (or any page of your site) by taking a look at how it looks in Google's "text cache."

Additional warning signs (symptoms) include:

• Missing page content
• Missing navigational links
• List of unlinked words
• Keyword stuffed paragraphs that aren't normally visible

Although a good exercise, it is only the first step in elevating an organization's web page rankings.  

For more information and Search Engine Guidelines visit:

• http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/
• http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/index.html
• http://search.msn.com/docs/siteowner.aspx

Lastly, stay connected on latest SEO trends, reviews and content sharing at:

• http://www.SEOMoz.org

Best

Denice MacDonald

[Credit: Jill Whalen, CEO and founder of High Rankings]

KeywordSpy^TM - a powerful web-based keyword intelligence system - has announced the unveiling of KeywordSpy Version 3.0. 

What’s so great about this upgrade? Version 3.0 is a compilation of user feedback – elevating the product version to an all new level based on customer interaction and use. 

New features include:

1. Daily scans of over 127 million keywords in our database.
2. Advanced searching options including destination url and ad copy searches.
3. ROI Indicator to easily pinpoint profitable keywords and ad copy combination.
4. Competitor sub-domains related & misspelled keyword results.
5. Support over 80 major affiliate networks for a high-end affiliate research.

 If you are interested in learning more about this great product, sign up now for a free trial.

About KeywordSpy

KeywordSpy currently operates in USA, United Kingdom, Australia and Canada. Through this keyword tool and keyword software, you can perform advanced keyword research and keyword tracking to study what your competitors have been advertising in their Adwords campaigns and Other PPC campaigns. You can now get complete in-depth analysis, stats, budget, affiliates & ad copies of your competitors. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

According to Susan Moskwa, Webmaster Trends Analyst, Google Webmaster Central Blog: “URLs are like the bridges between your website and a search engine's crawler.  Crawlers need to be able to find and cross those bridges (i.e., find and crawl your URLs) in order to get to your site's content”. 

If your URLs are complicated or redundant, crawlers are going to spend time tracing and retracing their steps. However, if your URLs are organized and lead directly to distinct content, crawlers can spend their time accessing your content rather than crawling through empty pages, or crawling the same content over and over via different URLs.

Susan provides exceptional learning in a slideshare that can be accessed here.

More tips:

Length of URLs - keep your URLs as short as possible and try to remove all unnecessary folder names. The shorter the URL, the higher the keyword density and the better for your placement in search engine results. Likewise, the closer your main keywords are to the beginning of the URL, the better.

Keywords in URLs - use the same main keywords your webpage is optimized for as this should be the search phrase you want to rank high on. Expanding the range of keywords should not be done in an URL, this should be done in <h2> or <h3> tags or plain text.

Use Hyphens - try not to use underscores in URLs as they are not used as dividers by Google. Use hyphens, periods, or commas instead. Hyphens or dashes are more user friendly and people will find your URL easier to remember. If you use underscore, you will actually have to search on “keyword1_keyword2” to find your webpage. Using hyphens will allow your pages to be found using “keyword1-keyword2” etc. 

Best

Denice MacDonald

There has been a lot written recently on optimization -- so much that most online marketers have a hard time getting their head around all of it. Where to start, what will get more ROI -- or better yet, conversion. Well folks, it's as simple as choosing the right headline. 

When it comes to content created for web sites, headlines ranks as one of the highest priorities. Reason simply, a headline is not to sell, but to connect and resonate with visitors¹. Headlines aid in the visual task of scanning and skimming, which helps visitors organize the information presented².^. Persuasively worded, headlines encourage and guides visitors to go deeper into content within web sites - specifically, headline > subhead > web page content. 

No need to sacrifice integrity 

Headline copy to placate search engines and spam filters can lead to keyword-laden, uninteresting language. But, well thought out headlines targeted around keywords will make the difference between getting somewhat noticed versus noticed and acted upon. If you maintain clarity, relevance and credibility, you are guaranteed you will connect with visitors. Access the links below for specific tips on how to create successful headlines. 

Test your headlines 

Lastly, like any strategy, you will need to test your headlines with Google Adwords or a similar metrics tool. By doing so, you can really hone in on exactly which words are highly rated and resonate with visitors. 

Credits

¹Optimizing Headlines by Marketing Experiments

²Top 10 Ideas for Testing Your Headlines by Josh Hay

More Resources

How to Write an Effective Headline - Part 1: Basic Principles by Dr. Ralph F. Wilson, Web Marketing Today

Writing Headlines That Get Results by Brian Clark

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Common Tag is an open tagging format developed to make content more connected, accessible and engaging. Unlike text tags, Common Tags are references to unique, well-defined concepts, complete with metadata and their own URLs.  

Specifically, Common Tag format is based on RDFa, a standard mechanism for placing structured content within HTML documents. The format uses the URIs of concepts defined on the Web as a way of anchoring the meaning of Tag objects. Common concepts can be found, among others, in two big databases of structured content or controlled vocabularies, as librarians call it – Freebase and DBpedia.  

According to the Common Tag web site, "The Common Tag format was developed to address the current shortcomings of tagging and help everyone - including end users, publishers, and developers - get more out of Web content. With Common Tag, content is tagged with unique, well-defined concepts - everything about New York City is tagged with one concept for New York City and everything about jaguar the animal is tagged with one concept for jaguar the animal.” 

Faviki is involved in the development of the  new open tagging format – Common Tag, together with AdaptiveBlue, DERI (NUI Galway), Yahoo!, Zemanta, and Zigtag. This is the first time that this number of web companies have stepped together from day one to introduce a tagging standard.

Resources:

Common Tag - The New Semantic Layer by Website Magazine, June, 2009

Will You Implement Yahoo's Common Tag? by Search Engine Roundtable, June, 2009

Best

Denice MacDonald

How are you really going to fare during this tough recession? Simply by measuring everything you do on the web. So to help you out, I'm providing all the great tools that will accelerate conversion rates and increase web ROI -- not to mention tools to help you keep an eye on your competition! 

Once you start diving into a few of these, you will get the gist on which ones will meet your needs.

1 -- Rankings, Demographics and Usage

• http://www.quantcast.com/

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2 -- Key Organic Words and Adwords Traffic

• http://www.semrush.com/

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3 -- How Your Site Fares Against Your Competition

• http://www.compete.com/

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4 -- Reciprocal Links/Keyword Ads and Variations

• http://www.alexa.com/

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5 -- Paid Words

• http://www.keywordspy.com/

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6 -- SEO Competitive Analysis/Benchmarking

• http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

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7 -- Sign up for Website Grader

• http://website.grader.com/

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8 -- Web Analyzer (analyzes customer web logs – this one is free)

• http://www.quest.com/funnel-web-analyzer/

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9 -- All types of SEO Tools for Free

• http://www.seomoz.org/

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10 -- Web Analytic Thought Leaders

• http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/

Best

Denice MacDonald

When search engines visit your web site, they take into consideration the number AND type of web sites that link to and from your site. A higher quality backlink will have more weight than a lower quality link. 

Backlinking with reputable web sites 

Backlinks from highly reputable sites on a given topic are highly valuable. If both sites have content around keyword topics, the backlink is considered relevant and believed to have a stronger influence on search engine rankings. Careful, though, you don't want to just backlink with anyone. The key to backlinking is assuring that you are in the right neighborhood; that is, you are attracting top notch visitors from comparably valued web sites.  

Double the SEO bang by including keywords in anchor text 

A high quality backlink will include one or more of your web site keywords in the anchor text (the anchor text of a link is the actual part of the link that is clicked and takes the person doing the clicking to your web site). The reason a link with the keyword in the anchor text is given more weight than links without your keywords in the anchor text is that it appears that the links are coming from sites with related information when the keywords are found within the anchor text. 

Where to start 

Step One:  Research! 

Determine how your links are working now (see tools below). Take some time to unearth keywords on your current web site and those of your competitors. 

Step Two:  Existing web content, relationships or campaigns 

Begin linking with existing channels including social networking sites such as mySpace and Facebook, blogs or company press releases. Include links to trade shows, reputable vendors, and even web sites that the company may have given donations. Be very selective about directories though - they need to be scrutinized and directly related to your products or services.  

Step Three: Niche site links 

Begin looking for those valuable web sites that mirror topics or keywords. Take the time to get to know the link owner - call or email. Lastly, don't forget to take advantage of RSS feeds.  

Tools for keyword search and backlink analysis: 

• WebCEO (Free! Download)
• Wordtracker (Free Seven Day Free Trial)
• Backlink Analysis Tool (Membership required)
• Track Your Rivals and Eat Their Lunch! (By Compete.com) 

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Flash and AJAX are two technologies that enhance the user experience on a web site and are supported by almost every browser and operating system.  Only pitfall -- this technology is not SEO-friendly.

However, in early July, Adobe Systems Incorporated announced the company is teaming up with search industry leaders to dramatically improve search results of dynamic Web content and rich Internet applications (RIAs). Adobe is providing optimized Adobe® Flash® Player technology to Google and Yahoo! to enhance search engine indexing of the Flash file format (SWF) and uncover information that is currently undiscoverable by search engines.

This will provide more relevant automatic search rankings of the millions of RIAs and other dynamic content that run in Adobe Flash Player. Moving forward, RIA developers and rich Web content producers won’t need to amend existing and future content to make it searchable — they can now be confident it can be found by users around the globe.

BUT, a few technical bloggers out there say that the technology is not quite there yet:

Flash's New SEO is Over-Hyped by IckyDime

Flash indexing and SEO; Remember testing? by "Dion"

This blogger definitely has some sound solutions for Flash and SEO challenges: 

4 SEO Solutions for Flash by Benj Arriola

Best,

Denice MacDonald

Does your Web site deserve to succeed? According to Sarah at OneUpWeb, it doesn't if you're not constantly testing to make sure that it is easy to navigate, delivers the right kinds of information and snags conversions (be they subscriptions, lead generations or actual sales).

Hours of SEO work and carefully researched pay-per-click campaigns are practically worthless if the landing page doesn't convert users -- or they get lost in the process somewhere else on the Web site. Sarah suggests testing factors like your site's checkout process (if there is one), conversion click paths, as well as multiple image and text layouts to KNOW which features are working -- not just assume. She also offers a strategy for determining which site factors are most important for you to test, from products, to presentation to channel factors. 

In summary:

Test your site post launch to insure the user is getting to where they need to go (click paths, conversion etc. – including checkout if e-commerce enabled) 

Supplement highly interactive ads with contextual ads (measure both)

Two Word Searches: Nearly 32% of all searchers around the globe use two-word search queries, according to research from Amsterdam-based OneStat

Search engine ‘boxes’ can have both word search and ‘suggested’ search for optimum user interaction to sites 

Read Full Article Here

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Need help - try out these guys:

Charlie Sweet, Web Technology Manager at Aloha Inc. (specialty: full service)

Eric Herzberg, Owner, Linkage Internet Consulting (specialty: pay-per-click)

Denice MacDonald, President, MacDonald Consulting (specialty: link building and search engine marketing)