Search Engine Optimize (SEO) an AJAX or Web 2.0 Site

Search Engine Optimize (SEO) an AJAX or Web 2.0 Site

One of the three major pillars of Search Engine Optimization is a website’s content, and onsite content optimization. All of the major search engine ranking algorithms have components that relate to the content that is contained on the website. Typically these components relate to Keyword Densities, number of words, content location, and sometimes age of content. In regards to the code that the content is contained in that falls under the topic of structure and not content, and will not be discussed in this article.

Asynchronous JavaScript and XML (AJAX) is an advanced web development method which can be used to create more responsive and interactive dynamic websites. AJAX accomplishes this by making object request calls back to the web server without having to refresh your browser, these object calls are then processed and are typically used to update the content of the page on your website that is currently being viewed. For the sake of this Article I’m going to ignore the XML component of AJAX as the search engines never view any of the XML data. Websites that use Javascript to manipulate content without using AJAX will also suffer from the issues described.

When a search engine sends out a robot / spider to visit your website with the goal of indexing your content it is only looking at what is being presented in the Markup Language. Generally a search engine does not behave like a user when indexing your website, it doesn’t click buttons or links it simply makes note of URLs associated with each page then individually then visits these pages to index them. This largely goes against the goal of AJAX which is to have as few pages as possible by interacting with the web server in a smarter method as the users interact with the website.

To put the last paragraph simply any content that is changed via AJAX or Javascript on a webpage that is not hardcoded in a page won’t be cached by the search engines. This essentially means that if you have great content that the search engines may love but you’re using AJAX you may be missing out on traffic. There are two approaches to rectifying these which may even give you an advantage over sites that don’t utilize Javascript / AJAX.

The first approach is to make sure that your website degrades to normal flat markup language for non javascript capable browsers and search engines. Essentially every time you would have used an AJAX call make sure you have a page with the same content. Unfortunately for a lot of people this could mean a lot of work, for those individual using a database with PHP or ASP it is not too hard to build a site that builds itself with some effective web programming.

The second approach is to use AJAX in a more minimalist fashion. The goal here is to present the search engines with your optimized content while making sure that any AJAX calls a user would do has no bearing on what you want the search engines to see. In fact this can be used to remove content from your website which may negatively affect your rankings such as testimonials. I’ve seen very few testimonials that actually do good things for a sites keyword density, I’ve even been known to optimize testimonials on client’s websites. With Javascript / AJAX you could insert a random testimonial into a page and therefore not affecting that pages keyword density. The only downside to this approach is that some offsite keyword density tools actually use Web Browser rendering engines so they may get false results as it takes the Javascript into account.

Now you may think that I’m anti AJAX from everything that I’ve said, but there are times and places for AJAX, provided it doesn’t affect how the search engines see your beautiful relevant content your trying to rank. AJAX is great to use for Member sections of your website, interactive forms, slideshows, and a lot more it just needs to be leveraged correctly to avoid missing out on search engine visitors. The final thing to keep in mind is that most search engines like to see more than a single page website which many AJAX website appear to be, always strive for at least 5 or more indexable pages as internal links and anchor text can have a lot of value.

Post from: SiteProNews: Webmaster News & Resources

Is social media backlinks really worth?

Is social media backlinks really worth?

Social networking profiles

One of the fastest ways to build backlinks is to register on social media sites with high PageRank: Facebook, Xing, LinkedIn, MySpace, Ecademy, Twitter etc. These sites allow you to set up a user profile with information about you and your company, including a link to your website. The only catch is that not all of these sites' links are 'do-follow' - which means your site will not always receive the 'link juice'.

Links in Twitter posts

If you place a link to a web page in your Twitter post, keep in mind that all of Twitter's outbound links are 'no-follow'. Google and Yahoo do not pass the Trust or PageRank power through the 'no-follow' links. Thus Twittering has limited value for your site.

However, such links do have some value. In May 2009, we witnessed the launch of the Topsy site, a technology that transforms Twitter links into a searchable database. Topsy makes it possible for users to search for information (relevancy is determined based on the number of re-tweets). So, any Twitter link now has a chance to be found and followed by Topsy visitors. Remember, increased traffic is the main goal!

Social bookmarks forever?

Is it possible to get permanent links from social bookmarks? Well, yes and no. Most social bookmarking sites will retain your bookmark until it's popular. But as your bookmark loses popularity over time, it will be moved into the archives. Ideally, a permanent link should stay on the same page with approximately the same PR forever, but in reality, most social bookmarking websites remove links after some time.

Nevertheless, social bookmarking sites are valuable for other reasons. If you have a quality article that becomes popular on social bookmarking sites, people will link to that article in their blogs, and post 'do-follow' links on forums.

You can search the Web for the keywords 'do-follow social bookmarking sites' to find the latest lists. Networkers have also created services like socialposter.com or socialmarker.com for automatic submission to bookmarking sites.

The truth about blog comments

Blog commenting is probably the most popular - and in many cases, most irritating (because of spammers) - technique of getting permanent links.

The Google PageRank algorithm implies that the more outbound links there are on a page, the less authority or power this page can pass to each of those links. That's because the page's PR is distributed evenly between the outbound links. If a webmaster wants to add an outbound link, but doesn't want Google to follow that link or for PR power to be passed on to the linked page, then that webmaster has to add the 'nofollow' attribute to the link. Many bloggers do so to prevent their PR from flowing to the pages cited by commenters. However, this practice is no longer encouraged by Google.

A few weeks ago Matt Cutts blogged about a change in the PR algorithm concerning Google's approach to passing PageRank through the links with the 'nofollow' attribute. Although no PageRank and anchor texts are passed through such links, they are also counted when sharing the outgoing 'link juice'. The only difference is that it's neither passed to the linked site nor kept on the page. This means Google disapproves of the practice of using the rel=nofollow attribute for the purpose of not sharing PageRank.

If you own a blog, setting up the 'nofollow' attribute to all comments means conserving your blog's 'link juice' and getting fewer comments. The 'do-follow' principle can lead to more spam, but it's a good way to attract webmasters to your site. On the other hand, if you are a webmaster trying to obtain more links by commenting on blogs, don't rely solely on this method of link popularity improvement. Use a combination of methods, including the time-proven ways of press releases, articles and site submissions to relevant lists and directories, and the newer techniques for site promotion in social media.

SEO TIPS for Sites and Blogs

SEO TIPS for Sites and Blogs

If you read SEO forums often you hear many posts about a San Diego real estate agent no longer ranking for a generic term such as real estate. Since the term is too generic for most of his target market (and his service would not be fitting for most people searching for that term) it makes sense that the search engines would not want to show his site in those search results. As search continues to evolve, it will get better at filtering out untargeted or inappropriate sites.

I spoke with a search engine product manager who stated that misspellings can flag pages for relevancy reviews and usually misspellings for SEO are not recommended for most websites.

You also can further target your competition estimation by searching Google for allintitle: keyword allinanchor: keyword. Pages which have your keyword phrases in their title may be optimized, and pages which have them in their inbound links stand a good chance of being fairly well optimized.

The Meta keywords tag is not supported by many major search engines. While it is important to choose the correct keywords for your page, the Meta keywords tag itself is not used by many top SEO experts. If you have products in different sizes and colors then other than small differences it is likely you could generate lots of duplicate content which will prevent search engines from wanting to fully index your sites.

Each page should have its own title. Since different algorithms match for different things there is no such thing as a perfect title. Your target keyword phrase should be at or near the beginning of your page title.

Most major search algorithms place far greater weight on the page title than on page content.

Adding unique page titles to a site that did not have them can easily double search traffic.Some directory editors will run a link checker on your site in the background while they review the content. The internet is dynamic and ever changing, and some of your links may break from month to month. I recommend checking your site for broken links before submitting it to any of the major directories.

Place Your Keywords! Where it Makes Sense:

• Place keywords in the paragraphs.
  
• Place keywords in the heading tags.
  
• Place keywords in img alt tags.
  
• When the word is part of a small statement making a specific point, you may bold it or italicize it.
  
• You may also want to include your keywords a few times in bulleted lists.
  
• When possible place the keywords in links, and don't forget navigation.
  
• The key focus of the page should be on readability. If the page does not make sense to human eyes then it is no good for a search engine and it will not make sales. You want to use keywords often, but not to the point

Where to Get Links:

Creating an extremely useful web based tool or paying a programmer to create one for you is one of the most effective ways to build content which will help you build a linking campaign. Writing articles will also help you build up your link popularity.

Writing articles about your topic and placing them on other websites can give you inbound links via the article signature. If you submit articles to other sites you may also want to have a longer or slightly different version of the article on your site so that you are not fighting against duplicate content issues when others syndicate your articles.

Writing press releases can give you inbound links.

People interested in your site may eventually link to you without you asking. You can participate in forums which provide signature links.

Participate in communities and leave relevant useful comments then eventually people may want to link to you if they start to like you. Since forums change rapidly they often get indexed frequently. This will help your site get indexed quickly if you ask a few questions at a few of the various SEO forums.

Google Sandbox:

Many new sites or sites which have not been significantly developed have a hard time ranking right away on Google. Many well known SEOs have stated that a good way to get around this problem is to place a site on a sub domain of a developed site and after the site is developed and well indexed 301 redirect the site to the new location

Anchor text: (inbound link text) is the single most important element in Google’s current algorithm and is worth far more than Page Rank alone. Good anchor text combined with on topic links will eventually yield strong search engine rankings.

Since Google began delaying the effect of inbound links to new sites it can take up to 3 months from when your inbound links begin to age for it to pay off in the Google search results for competitive terms. With Google you want to build linkage data over time to minimize the chances of it appearing unnatural. If Google believes your site to be a trusted authority the delay time is not as noticeable and may not even exist.

Yahoo! usually lists a site within about a month. The best way to get your site submitted is by building a strong linking campaign. If you need to get your site indexed quickly Yahoo! does have a paid inclusion program which I generally do not recommend using for most websites.

Page Optimization

• Use your keywords in your page title. Place the most important keyword phrase at the beginning of the page title. Do not put your site title on every page of your site unless you are really trying to brand that name. In that scenario it still is usually best to place the site name at the end of the pages.
  
• Shorter site titles are usually better than really long ones. Often times I overlap keyword phrases in the page title.
  
• Overlapping keyword phrases in the page title can help you pick up multiple search phrases. For example, “Professional search engine marketing services” helps me obtain good rankings for:
  
• search engine marketing
  
• professional search engine marketing
  
• search engine marketing services
  
• & professional search engine marketing services
  
• Meta tags are not extremely important but they can help some. The Meta description should be a few sentences to a paragraph describing the page contents. The Meta description tag can be seen in some search results so you want to write it for human eyes. The Meta keywords tag should contain misspellings and synonyms. Each keyword phrase in the keywords tag should be comma separated.
  
• Target your most competitive keyword phrase with the home page.
  
• Link to your home page from every page of your site. Include your home page’s primary keyword phrase in the text links pointing at it.
  
• Link to the major theme pages from your home page.

Link Building

• Link building is the single most important part of achieving a high ranking website.
  
• When possible try to get your keywords in the links pointing at your pages.
  
• Trade links with topical hubs and related sites.
  
• Look for free links from related sites and directories.
  
• If you have some good internal content try to get direct links to your inner pages.
  
• Write articles and get them syndicated at other sites.
  
• Participate in forums which provide signature text links with your posts. If you are knowledgeable enough and a good communicator you can make many friends in the forums who will link to you free.
  
• Issue press releases with links into your site.
  
• Leave super glowing testimonials for people and products you really like. Often times when they post them they will include a link back to your site.
  
• Leave relevant comments in blogs that do not send their comments through redirects.
  
• Sponsor charities, blogs, or websites related to your site.
  
• Consider renting links through a link broker if you are in an extremely competitive industry. Adult, gaming, credit, or pharmacy categories will likely require link rentals and / or building topical link networks.
  
• Mix your link text up. Adding words like “buy” or “store” to the keywords in your some of your link text can make it look like more natural linkage data and help you rank well for many targeted secondary phrases.

When Changes Occur

Your rankings will improve. They will also get worse. Many people rush off to change things right away when the algorithms change. Sometimes they role in new algorithms more aggressively than they need to and then later roll them back.

If you are unsure of what just happened then you may not want to start changing things until you have analyzed what happened. Sometimes when algorithms are rolled back or made less aggressive many sites still do not rank well because their webmasters changed things that were helping them. Nobody is owed a good rank, and just because a ranking temporarily changes it does not mean that a site has been penalized. It is far more likely that the ranking criteria have shifted and the site may not match the new ranking criteria as well as it matched the old ranking criteria.

SEO Video Strategy

Time changes and accordingly everything in the nature redefines itself. So, the latest magical marketing innovation or SEO (search engine optimization) are also upgrading itself. We already are enough aware about traditional bookmarking, link building, submission, etc sorts of stuffs but recently introduced video SEO work is gaining tremendous response and almost all premier SEO service providers have welcomed it.

Video on internet was not a new concept and a many people substantially cashed it. Even, it is obvious to understand that people love to watch video instead of reading books and reports on internet. Initially, low internet speed was a great hurdle but now it is gradually being removed. So certainly in coming season, there may be chances that television also would be replaced by internet. In concluding words, it must be quoted here that video market is hot and in every following day, it is being hotter. So, competition is simply heating upwards amongst all video websites and they feel need of search engine optimization.

SEO Meta tags and titles play crucial role in the optimization of video. The real video SEO action begins with the shooting of video. After shooting of spicy and catchy video, you have to look for proper video sites. However, there are hundreds of websites that may offer you video uploading service as an ad but each one can not be worthy. On the contrary, they will consume huge amount of time. So, save your time and choose good PR website. If video website is relevant with your target than it is damn good. For instance, if you have uploaded video on ‘youtube’ then start posting in links in forums and blog. You can even bookmark video. A press release is also good idea for the promotion of video.

Recent market reports are quite encouraging for video marketing and video SEO work. New York Times estimated that more than 70% traffic on internet is attributed to video. Google was so much concern towards this issue that it has purchased youtube for a whopping 1.65 billion dollar. There are speculations or we can say rumor that Google has prominently formed a team of best minds to analyze keywords from audio that are digitized. It would be just like an analysis of keywords in written roman scripts.

Summary:- You Tube take over by Google and market report of New York Times has certainly encourages video SEO work. In fact it was predicted as video websites were already extremely popular amongst internet users. So, this article explores different aspects of video SEO work.

Google Upgrades Custom Search Box On Blogger

Google’s blog publishing platform, Blogger, is bringing its Custom Search Box gadget out of its beta version, also known as Blogger in Draft. The search gadget a blog’s readers search posts, web pages linked from the blog, other blogs on the blog roll, as well as pages on the shared links list.

Google initially launched the gadget on its Blogger in Draft platform, which offers users a version of Blogger where Google tests out features and new interfaces. Google says it has upgraded the search gadget to provide simpler defaults as well as the ability for the box to integrate with the aesthetics and color of your blog. The Search Box gadget uses AJAX Search APIs to power the feature and also automatically updates the custom linked search engine when you update your blog, blog lists, or link lists.

Custom search can be a useful tool for blogs because it allows readers to not only search a blog’s content but also any pages or favored sites that are linked to, giving readers a related, but still-focused, search experience

Google Local Lures Small Businesses

Google wants more small businesses to claim their listing profiles on Google Local (which is basically listings that pop up in Google Maps and local search results). To entice them, starting tomorrow it will give local businesses in the real world with physical addresses a free dashboard akin to what Websites get for free with Google Analytics (see screenshot above). Except that it will show stats such as how many times their business comes up as a search result, how often people click through, as well as how many times people generate driving directions to their business son Google Maps and where those people come from.

In return, all they need to do is claim and verify their listings at the Google Local Businesss Center. It takes about as much time as setting up a new email account, maybe a little more. Google gets clean data (and, thus, better results), businesses get free analytics and an opportunity to train Google’s search engine. Right now only a few hundred thousand businesses in the U.S. have been claimed out of approximately 20 million.

The other benefit to Google is that the more that small businesses can measure the impact of search, the more likely they will be to buy search ads. The dashboard shows the top search queries that result in a business’ listing showing up. The next obvious step is to start buying those keywords or optimize a business’ site to make sure they are on the page. There is no integration yet with Google AdWords (like there is on Google Analytics), but you can see that one coming from a mile away.