Submitedge - Search Engine Optimization Blog |
| Posted: 01 Dec 2011 09:55 PM PST
There are plenty of websites out there that are really quite pathetic in terms of optimization and content – aggrgate sites with no quality control like helium are the worst. It doesn't take an SEO expert to tell when someone has slapped together a homepage for their website without a clue as to what they were doing. It just becomes a pile of crud that takes up space. You end up with off topic content, lousy graphics, crazy color schemes and font sizes, absurd "expert garbage" and the whole thing gives no clue as to what the website is for or what you should do next. When an entire homepage is filled with blocks of graphics and images and a heavy Flash header that takes over 60 seconds to download, people get bored and skip away. When a site features pictures of some weird French woman or employee no one cares about rather than actual content, people leave. When a site promotes content that turns out to be little more than page filler, people leave. They want to know fast if your site has the goods, and a bunch of pretty pictures is not going to do it for them. You need strong text that immediately captures their attention and lets the know they have come to the right place – not a stupid kitschy headline and half a sentence text bite that tells a visitor nothing. The best way to avoid pitfalls like this is to engage a reputable SEO company from the initial stages of website development, to develop an SEO friendly website and to ensure that decent content is present on your homepage that will help your search engine rankings to rise. Don't take the word of a guy within the company that "thinks" he understands SEO or someone that "read an article" about SEO and knows a term or two. Get an actual professional – your company deserves it! Your homepage is the gateway for the search engine spiders as well as human visitors. It needs to very clearly convey what your site is about. You need keyword rich content on the homepage, starting with a minimum of 200 words that describes your purpose and services/products and includes all major services/products as keywords. This helps your website to become more relevant to the searches made by your potential customers. Some companies may have good copywriting on their homepage, but it may not be SEO friendly. They use copywriters who do not have any SEO knowledge to fill their pages with lovely content that is perfectly pertinent to their services and only after the completion of the development of the entire website do they approach an SEO company to find out why their rankings are low. The answer is obvious – print journalists are dinosaurs that need top re-learn writing or perish. They have no business billing them self as SEO experts until they learn what SEO is. An SEO Firm should review the website and suggest changes to the content to incorporate keywords. Going the rout of just 'plugging' these in can cause the text to lose its natural flow and become awkward. To avoid that, start from scratch and seriously consider hiring an experienced SEO copywriter. If your site is lacking relevant, optimized content on your home page, there is no reason for the search engines to present your website for relevant searches. Optimize now for better rankings and more traffic! Don't go the way of the dinosaur – don't rely on some print journalist with an idea – the Internet is different and requires people that understand how it works and how to make it work for you! |
| Have You Checked Your Website’s Security Lately? Posted: 30 Nov 2011 09:52 PM PST
Website security is not directly linked to SEO, but it can and will affect the traffic rate to your websites and that is something that will get attention every time. No one likes to consider losing traffic or missing out on traffic over something that can be easily addressed. Online users that don't feel comfortable and safe using your websites will hesitate to visit or to make a purchase assuming they ever do stop by your site. This can obviously cripple your ability to turn a profit which is why you are in business – to make money! When a website is not secure, hackers can take advantage of the loopholes in the website's security and use it for their own purposes. This is an everyday occurrence on the web, and hackers know how to get around cheesy security systems. Several things they might try to do to breach a site include: * They can install scripts and malicious software The last thing anyone wants is for innocent users to visit a website only to find out their computers got infected with viruses or spyware. Either could be installed fairly easily, thus converting their computers into spam generating machines. Similarly, it could be your system that is hacked and actions taken in your name that could destroy your site and get you banned from search engines. Some black hatters are not above linking stuff to your site to make you look bad or sending out spam from your website to get you in trouble. There are even people that pay to have this done to their competition. If you are even just suspected for hosting such harmful programs, search engines could ban you or place warnings next to your listing which could lead to people not clicking on your site. Few people still visit a site after the huge warning page with a stop sign shows up – that's just fact. This is commonly seen when a display comes up stating that a 'website may harm your computer'.. No one in their right mind will go ahead and visit your website after reading such a warning. This results in no traffic. That results in all the work and money you put in on your website and all your SEO efforts being ruined. All from an insecure website which could have been avoided. If you make it to the top of Google, be aware that hackers target highly ranked sites to bring them down – or to spread malware since they know you will get lots of traffic. It is just a matter of playing the odds. If they get you, you will lose positions and PR quickly as your website becomes publicly known for installing malware and people stop coming. If you work hard to get top rankings in Google and other major search engines, you should put equal effort into site security. Don't reach the top only to fall victim to a hacker because you have made it easy for them to plant their malicious programs in your site. Be smart! If needed, hire professionals to check your website's security. |
| Posted: 29 Nov 2011 09:42 PM PST
So what exactly is LSI? LSI is an algorithmic determination of the words and phrases used in each section of text that takes into consideration patterns that appear in proportion between words and phrases. In theory, quality can be set based on how keywords and phrases are used in relationship to one another. Compared to just using 'quantity' to determine rankings, this takes a broader view. This way, webmasters have the ability to provide high quality content that is written naturally. This means that there is a way to compete with and even outrank the sites that rely on a formula for writing which creates content that has no natural flow but is rich in keywords. Using synonymous words and phrases in content allows search engines to assess the value of your site. LSI views website relevance by analyzing the content and comparing relationships between words and phrases. If you build a themed website, in particular, this will be an effective way to help your ranking attain new heights. Themed websites consist of articles that focus on a central topic be it pets, sports, cars, style or whatever you can think of. A website about cats as pets shouldn't have a bunch articles about dogs or hamsters unless they somehow directly tie back into cats. If there is no relationship, there is no relevance and it does hurt your site. LSI evaluates the quality of content and basic factors such as grammar, spelling, etc. Gone will be the sites using cheap writers to spawn huge amounts of 'SEO' content. Instead, internet users will be presented with the sites that give valuable information they want and can read naturally, while site owners will have a strong incentive to fill their sites with well written, relevant content. The days of keyword stuffing are over. Good research and well written articles are the way to get higher search engine rankings in the new world order of algorithmic ranking systems. |
Optimizing your home page is one of the most important things you can do, but doing it RIGHT is imperative. As they say, anything worth doing is worth doing right.
What do you know about LSI? Latent Semantic Indexing, or LSI, is not a new concept by any means. If you have been doing SEO on your site, then you have researched keywords and phrases that are likely to help your website rank better on Google. High search engine ranking involves more than keyword density and selection – and that is a statement you can take directly to heart. Search engines adapt to changes and get smarter after seeing the abuse of their original algorithms. Now, they rely on a concept called latent semantic indexing to determine rankings.| You are subscribed to email updates from Submitedge Blog - Search Engine Optimization Blog - SEO To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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