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This is the thirdpart of a series where I will be discussing startup SEO tips. In Part 1 you can find five tips on, analytics, title tag, keywords, meta descriptions and valid XHTML compliance. In Part 2 you can find tips on HTML and XML Sitemaps. These tips are aimed for people and businesses with a startup SEO campaign and not intended for the company that requires hardcore exposure on the web. Browse to our website at http://www.opencircle.co.za if you require a more tailor made SEO solution.

Index:

* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3
* Part 4
* Part 5

Part 3

In Part 2 I discussed sitemaps and that search engine bots crawl XML sitemaps easier than HTML sitemaps. But now you have created your XML Sitemap, now what? In the next section I will explain what you can do with your sitemap and where to submit it for the best results.

1. Google Webmaster Tools
Google Webmaster Tools helps you see how your site is performing in Google’s search results, troubleshoot potential problems, and build Google-friendly sites. With the Webmaster tools you can see “Web Crawl” errors the Google bot has experienced when crawling your site (broken links, http errors and sitemap errors).

Find below the address of Google Webmasters (You need a Google Account to access the Tools)

* http://www.google.com/webmasters/

You can view diagnostics for your website, statistics that includes your websites top search queries (only in Google), indexed stats, crawl stats and subscriber stats. You can even view statistics on what the Google bot sees about your website.

On the Webmasters tool is a dedicated section called “Sitemaps”. On this section you can enter the url of where your XML Sitemap is situated for the Google bot to crawl. Once you have entered the url it takes a couple of hours for the bot to crawl your sitemap and it shows how many pages it has found in the sitemap. After the bot has crawled your sitemap it will show you the status of the sitemap as well as the number of pages in the sitemap and how many pages found on your sitemap is indexed by Google.

The Google bot doesn’t crawl your sitemap only once. This tool also shows you the date when the Google crawled your XML Sitemap and it is quite usefull when you have a large site with regular fresh content to see if the new content has been indexed.

2. Yahoo Site Explorer
Yahoo Site Explorer is similar to Google Webmasters and they have a section called “Feeds”. On this section you can enter the url of your XML Sitemap (Feed) for the Yahoo bots to crawl your sitemap. I have noticed that it takes a bit longer for the Yahoo bot to crawl your sitemap.

On Yahoo Site Explorer you can also view a couple of statistics regarding your website. Crawled pages, Known pages, external and internal links are also shown on the statistics section.

Find below the address of Yahoo Site Explorer (You need a YahooAccount to access the Site Explorer)

* https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

3. MSN Webmaster Centre
MSN has a tool that shows basic statistics for your website. It shows crawl issues, backlinks, outbound links, keywords and sitemaps associated with your website. On the Sitemaps section you can add the url of your website but it doesn’t have a function where you can see how many of the pages found in the sitemap are indexed by MSN.

I have never had much success with MSN so I just stick to the tools provided by Google and Yahoo.

The Google Webmasters Tool and Yahoo Site Explorer are great tools that you can use to further enhance your website. You can view the number of indexed pages of your website and errors found on the links.

Watch this space for Part 4.

This is the fourth part of a series where I will be discussing startup SEO tips. In Part 1 you can find five tips on, analytics, title tag, keywords, meta descriptions and valid XHTML compliance. In Part 2 you can find tips on HTML and XML Sitemaps. in Part 3 Google Webmasters tool and Yahoo Site Explorer are explained.

These tips are aimed for people and businesses with a startup SEO campaign and not intended for the company that requires hardcore exposure on the web. Browse to our website at http://www.opencircle.co.za if you require a more tailor made SEO solution.

Index:

* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3
* Part 4
* Part 5

Part 4

Content is King
Ever heard of the popular phrase “Content is King“? Regular updated and new Content for your website is critical. Search engines and portals are constantly changing and adjusting their algorithms, but one thing has always remained constant and that is Content is king. Search engines value relevant content and they reward websites that have it with higher rankings.

Search engines processes of ranking pages (page rank) means that the relevant content on your web pages matters to your websites ranking.

Well written balanced content with targeted keywords is the key to achieve great search engine rankings. Using targetted keywords on your content in a specific format is one of the elements that are needed for good optimization of your website. This is all achieved by formatted and balanced keywords through your content with the right keyword density.

What is Keyword Density? Keyword density means the number of times that your specifically chosen keywords appears in relation to the total word count on the specific content page. There are tools available on the web for free that can give you statistics regarding the keyword density of your content pages. Now the proper amount of density is a debate that is not totally settled. A good keyword density seems to be around 8% -16% . Less than that keyword density and your content pages may not hold as much density to the specific keywords that are being search for. On a higher keyword density than 16% and it may look to search engines that you are keyword spamming and it can ruin your search engine rankings as well.

A CMS (Content Managment System) and a Blog is a great way for fresh content to be distibuted as you are not limited to a number of pages. With a well written XML sitemap, search engines will find your new content fast. If you use the tools as explained in Part 3, you can view how fast your content gets indexed.

This is the second part of a series where I will be discussing startup SEO tips. In Part 1 you can find five tips on, analytics, title tag, keywords, meta descriptions and valid XHTML compliance. These tips are aimed for people and businesses with a startup SEO campaign and not intended for the company that requires hardcore exposure on the web. Browse to our website at http://www.opencircle.co.za if you require a more tailor made SEO solution.

Index:

* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3
* Part 4
* Part 5

Part 2

In the second part I will be discussing HTML Sitemaps and XML Sitemaps.

1. HTML Sitemaps
Sitemaps are exactly as the word describes Site-Map. It consist of a page where you have all the pages on your website listed as links. If you have a website with hundreds of pages, users can quickly jump to a page via your sitemap. These sitemaps are called HTML sitemaps. To view an example of a HTML sitemap click here. You will noticed that all the pages on that website is listed on the sitemap.

HTML sitemaps are intended for users. I will repeat that “HTML sitemaps are intended for users”. Most of the times it is difficult for search engine bots to crawl your HTML sitemap as it contains lots of jibber jabber (funny html tags, text on images, etc).

Google and Yahoo came up with a plan to create a sitemap which they both can read by writing an additional Sitemap in the programming language called XML. These Sitemaps are known as XML Sitemaps.

2. XML Sitemaps
Search engine search bots can easily crawl your XML Sitemap as it is written by using the Sitemap Protocol. To view an example of a XML Sitemap click here. XML Sitemaps are not intended for users and it is a simple way for search engine bots to crawl your website as it is written in a language that they understand.

For dynamic websites (a CMS system, Blog, E-commerce site, etc) this is a great feature as you can create a script to create a dynamic XML sitemap everytime you add a new page. This way you can be sure that the search engines will find your new content fast.

You might be wondering “How will the search engines ever know about my XML Sitemap?”. I will discuss this in great detail in Part 3 where you can submit your XML Sitemap and you can view how many pages are indexed via the Sitemap.

Watch this space for Part 3, where I will be discussing a few tools where you can submit your XML Sitemap to the search engines.

This post will be the first in a series where I will be discussing basic on page SEO (Search Engine Optimization) tips and techniques. These techniques are not aimed at the hardcore web marketer or for the company that is considering extreme exposure for their online profile. if you require additional SEO information, browse to our site at http://www.opencircle.co.za or contact us to discuss it with you.

Index:

* Part 1
* Part 2
* Part 3
* Part 4
* Part 5

Part 1

1. Google Analytics (or any other analysis plugin)
I strongly suggest you get an analysis plugin from day one for your website. What does itl do? It shows critical information regarding your site’s visitors. It show’s how users browsed to your website, unique visitors, returning visitors, which keywords were used in the search engines, which pages were viewed, time spent on the site, etc. This tool is important from day one as you can exactly view statistics regarding your website and it gives you a rough indication for areas of improvement.

Most analytics tools has a section where you can setup automated reports to be emailed to required recipients. I usually let the reporting get emailed weekly when I start a new SEO campaign and when I’m satisfied with the statistics I switch it to monthly reports.

2. Title tag
Second on the list is the title tag. When you are viewing the search results on a search engine, the title is the link that contains the url for that specific page. In the beginning it is a good idea to keep your company name in the title tag followed by information regarding the page. For example you have a page listing all the services that your business has to offer you can create the title tag like this “Company name, services information as well as the area your company resides in and does business in”. The reason for this is so that search engines can associate your services with your company name. At a later stage when you are well known online, you can make way with your company name and insert extra keywords describing the contents of the page.

3. Keywords
Third on the list is “keywords”. Keywords has been in the SEO world from the beginning and is most likely the most important factor regarding SEO. I will discuss “keywords” in more detail at a later stage and might as well be a topic on it’s own. You search on search engines by using keywords describing what you are looking for. It is very important to only use keywords found on the content for the page where you are adding them. Please take note: Don’t use more keywords than it is necessary. One powerful keyword is worth more than twenty rubbish keywords. Study your page carefully and think which keywords the user will be using on the search engines to browse to your site.

4. Meta Descriptions
Fourth on the list are Meta Descriptions. Meta Descriptions goes hand in hand with keywords as it is what is displayed to the user when they have searched using keywords on the search engines. Ever noticed the small description underneath your link in the search engine results page? Most search engines uses a maximum of 160 chars for the description. Select a sentence or two found on the specific content for the page you are creating it for.

5. Valid XHTML Practices
Not everyone are professional web developers that knows the in’s and outs of valid XHTML practices but a good HTML structure is the foundation for building a strong SEO campaign and to enhance your visibility online. Search engines can’t read your website links if you have a menu structure that is written purely in Javascript. It makes it difficult for them to crawl and see the pages listed on your website. There are other ways to sidestep this (XML Sitemaps), but that will also be discussed in detail on another post.

Ask your web design/development agency if they are using correct XHTML practices and ask them to explain it in detail with you.

Web sites designed with a heavy emphasis on graphics, frames and Flash or other codes that are not HTML compliant, can make your website’s page rank suffer. Search engines can’t view text on images or flash animations and these kind of pages require strong keywords and meta descriptions associated with them. By doing it this way, you lose a couple of hundred points for the optimization for your site as the golden rule still stands “Content is King”.

Well this was it, the first post in a series where we will be discussing on page SEO techniques. Watch this space for the next 5 tips and techniques.