What is a Keyword?
Posted on | November 12, 2009 | No Comments
The entire SEO world revolves around ‘Keywords’. To know what keywords are and how important they are in search engine optimization, you have to answer a question.
How do you search for products, services or information on the internet? Most people would answer that: they go to a search engine, type few words related to the product, service or information in the search box and press enter. The search engine returns results and they go through the pages one by one.
The word that you type in the search engine to find out what you are looking for is called ‘Keyword’ – if it consists of multiple words, it is called ‘Keyphrase’ as well.
All the search engines are text based – they identify a web page via the keywords or the text written on it. Hence, as an expert SEO consultant, it is your responsibility to ensure that the keywords are properly used on the website.
You have to prepare a list of keywords first; for this you have to think of some words and phrases prospective customers may use to find your website. There are many Keyword Research Tools that help you find out keywords for a website. Once the keyword list is ready, optimize the Title tag, Meta description, Meta keywords, Alt tags, H1, H2, H3 headings and page content properly.
To rank high in search engines for all your targeted keywords, you have to use the keywords as link text while acquiring backlinks from other websites. Confused? Don’t know what is link text? Hold on, we will discuss link anatomy in our next post. Stay tuned!
Choosing the keywords – SEO Basics
Posted on | November 5, 2009 | No Comments
The first step in SEO is to choose the keywords. Whether it is your own website or a client’s website, you have to prepare a list of keywords which your target audience will be using to find your product or service.
Keyword selection is a crucial step in SEO – if you fail to choose the right keywords, your entire effort will render useless. Thousands of people use internet to search products, services and information everyday. You have to find out the words people use to search the type of products, services or information you are offering on your website. Once the keyword list is ready, your search engine optimization process should be planned accordingly.
Keywords should be used in both on-page and off-page optimization processes. Meta tags, URL, H1, H2, H3 tags, image alt tags should contain keywords. The content of the website must have the target keywords included in it. At the same time, you should concentrate on acquiring links from other websites with keywords in the link title. Combined force of on-page and off-page optimization helps a website secure top rank in search engines.
Some of the webmasters perform keyword research even before buying a domain. Keyword in domain name is of tremendous help; websites that have the target keywords in the domain name generally perform well in the search engines.
Hence, do the keyword research as early as possible. Prepare a list of useful keywords of high search volume and optimize your website around them. Prepare the base of successful online marketing.
Learn about the importance of web content optimization
Posted on | October 19, 2009 | No Comments
In SEO content is said to be the king. It is the key to search engine rankings. Though search engine algorithms are based on a number of factors, content remains a constant factor for ranking. Proper web content optimization can contribute immensely to promote your website rankings.
Kind of Content Given Importance by Search Engines:
Search engines look for contents which are relevant. Once it realizes that your content has little to do with outright or blatant promotion, it backs your site hugely. Unique and well-written are entertained the most. This is primarily because the search engine knows that visitors are looking for well-written content. Now how does a search engine know about the uniqueness of content? The fact remains that every articles are backed with links. With quality content you get better links. What search engine does is to keep a count of the better links pointing to a site.
How to Write Unique Content?
You can write good content if you keep the following facts in mind.
- What do visitors want to find from your site?
- Is it necessary to do additional research?
- Do you need a professional writer to make write ups highly attractive?
Once these three needs are met, you can safely presume that your content is unique.
Content and Keyword:
Optimization primarily begins by choosing the keywords that describe the content of your site best. Again the keywords must be such that they are likely to be used by users to find you. As you are aware of your domain of users, you can make correct guesses about what search strings they are likely to use to search for the product or service. It is good to optimize with synonyms. But do not rush to optimize for every synonym you can think of. Search engines can sniff your clever ways and may ignore your site altogether. Use your keywords and synonyms only when required. Avoid forcing it on the content.
What Keyword Density is to Be Used in Content?
It is safe to use a keyword density of 3% to 7 %. However it must be stated that using your discretion to include the number of keywords is very important. Make sure that the writing doesn’t get overstuffed with keywords or sounds repetitive. When possible, include your keywords as close to the top of the page as possible. Use keywords in naming images, in internal page links, in footer, page titles, headers etc.
Other Important Factors:
- Promote content through RSS
- Mark your content with Italics and Bold wherever you deem necessary
- Every image must be accompanied with proper ALT tags within the content.
Heading Tags:
Using heading tags (h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6) are very effective for content optimization. H1 tags are the most important and must be used to focus on your primary keywords. They must occur once per page. You can use h2, h3, tags for associated and secondary keywords.
Content Frequency:
Creating new articles and resources on a web site adds immensely to your sites value. Adding new content increases the number of pages that can be indexed by search engines. This gives you a better chance to rank. It even increases the frequency at which spiders crawl your site.
Domain Name Selection – A to Z of Starting a New Website
Posted on | October 18, 2009 | No Comments
If you are new to the field of website design and web development, let me tell you that it is easier than algebra of 9th standard and a lot simpler than inorganic chemistry! Trust me.
You do not need be a computer expert to start a new website. A lot of tutorials are available on the internet that guides you on how to begin. However, to help you begin from somewhere, I have outlined some steps.
Steps to start a new website:
- Select a domain name and book it
- Buy web server space
- Design the website and make it live on web server
However, the process is not that simple – all the steps have many more sub-sections and some of the sub-sections can be classified further. We will discuss about them one by one. Let’s start with domain name selection.
How to select the domain name before starting a new website:
This is the first thing you need to do when it comes to start a new website. Domain name is a unique name that refers to your website only. Google.com and Yahoo.com are the examples of popular domain names we all are familiar with.
If you are going to set up a website for your own enterprise, it is wise to go with the business name. Like abccompany.com OR abc-company.com. Alternatively, you can come up with attractive phrases that describe your business well. For example, if ABC Company sells Jewelry in Canada, you can select jewelry-saler.ca OR jewelrysaler.ca OR anything else. I am sure you can come up with more creative domain names.
Then you have to visit any of the domain booking services to check whether the domain name you have selected is available or already taken by someone else. If it is available, you can buy the domain for 1 year by paying $10 registration fee.
Domain name selection is a crucial step as it influences your success in online business and marketing directly. Domain name selection itself is a subject. We will learn about how to select profitable domain names, various parts of domain names and what not to do with domain names in the coming articles.
Why you should have a website?
Posted on | October 17, 2009 | No Comments
The internet has grown into the most powerful and inexpensive medium of communication. Billions of people, all over the world, log on to the internet everyday. Therefore in order to succeed today an internet presence is absolutely necessary. Without it, you simply do not have any existence.
Why a Website?
A website helps to introduce yourself or your enterprise to the world. It helps to create first positive impression. This sends the right message across. The ultimate advantage you have with a website is that it is available or has a reach potential 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. So you need not remain awake to spread message about you. It gets done automatically whole day and night. So having a website is very important to any organization, business, or individual.
Cost Factor Advantage:
Websites are a very cost effective medium of advertising. Annual maintenance charge of a website is less than the cost of a one-time print ad. It saves a lot of time and money.
What can I do with a website?
Websites are not limited by physical factors like cost of size, printing and weight. Unlike newspapers or journals they are interactive and can be easily updated anytime you want. This allows you enough room to be creative and introduce new ideas and products. To sum it all, a website is simply an opportunity to take your organization, business, or opinions to the world.
What you do with your website will depend entirely on you and your business. A religious group may use it to spread their message; a socialist may use it to garner support for his cause; a small business may use it to sell products. It wouldn’t be wrong to say that a website helps the world to be at your fingertips.
The advantage of a well-crafted website is huge. As every man or business is unique you can always have a website which is unique. Each one offers wonderful opportunities for creation and business. It also enhances the chance of enrichment. However it demands lot of hard work and dedication.
So start your own website to let the world know more about you and your business!