Free Website Content - Webmaster Tips
Webmaster Tips
By S. Housley
According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that
affect search engine ranking. For those of you who don't
know, Matt is a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google
but writes an independent blog and shares information related
to Google and search engine optimization. Unfortunately,
of those 100 items that account for search engine ranking,
there are only a few that webmasters can actually control.
Unless you are a interested in an exercise
of futility, it is important to only focus on those ranking
factors that you, as a webmaster, can control and influence.
What are Search Engine factors do webmasters
control?
Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description) those
items which the webmaster has the most control are: PageRank,
TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age, URL,
and Relevant Links.
How can a webmaster use these items to
help ranking?
First off--the obvious, each and every web page should have
a descriptive page specific title and description. The title,
description, and header tags are channels to communicate
the most important details of a specific webpage. They should
be used effectively, but not be abused. The web page should
make use of h1 and h2 tags (header tags) to emphasize pertinent
keywords and phrases.
Particular attention should be paid when formatting
urls. Keywords related to the webpage can and should be
used in the webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores
between the keywords. Search engines are designed by developers
and programming languages will recognize a hyphen and distinguish
separate words, while an underscore blends the words. Keywords
in the URL should not be abused, as search engines do not
appreciate excessively long urls. Avoid using characters
like ID= in the URL as many search engines will see it as
a unique session ID and not spider the contents of the webpage.
The website's navigation depth should not
exceed 3-4 levels. The shallow website depth will make a
search engines deep crawl easier, ensuring that will be
able to spider the entire contents of your website. If you
add a new page and wish for it to be spidered quickly add
a link to it from an existing spidered web page.
Domain hosting and location do matter! A .uk
domain and a webhost located in the UK will increase the
domains search engine position in any .uk search engine.
If you are targeting a specific region or market consider
purchasing a local domain.
Obviously you control the websites content;bad
content or no content means no incoming links. Good content
has the potential to attract good quality unsolicited links.
What kinds of content generally attract
quality links?
The idea is develop quality content that will result in
incoming links. Think of JibJab, http://www.jibjab.com they
portrayed a controversial subject in a humorous way without
alienating their audience. While JibJab was able to garner
a lot of attention, its a tricky tight-rope to walk. Consider
adding tutorials that explain a specific technology, create
a niche directory or a topic specific glossary, post industry
news, maintain a blog with fresh content, or write how to
articles.
Take advantage of your content. If you write
a press release don't just send it to the editors, add it
to your website in a press center. Submit the press release
to public relations websites. There area a number of press
related websites like PRWeb that are really good and all
will result in good quality incoming links back to your
website. Also add your press release(s) to an RSS feed,
not only with this communicate with your customers that
new products or updates are available but you will also
benefit from links from RSS search engines and directories.
When you post a release or content that has
genuine value, use social bookmarking tools (like digg,
del.icio.us, furl) to bookmark the contents. These social
bookmarking sites are becoming increasingly important in
weighing the value of a site. The large search engines do
not yet use social bookmarking in their algorithms, but
it is quite possible and highly likely that they will in
the future. If the webpage/content has genuine value others
will social bookmark it as well. The bookmarks are viral
and with increasing popularity there is more emphasis placed
on the content. Additionally, bloggers notoriously skim
social bookmarking sites for content to write about which
will result in additional links. Keep in mind that in order
to bookmark a webpage, it really must have genuine value.
Before we talk more about links, there are
a few warnings worth mentioning.
What are the link warnings?
The first is to attain links gradually, search engines prefer
links obtained over time rather than links achieved all
at once. Avoid link schemes, link farms, or overt reciprocal
links, they can be time consuming and have very little benefit.
Avoid links on the C block. If you own multiple domains,
be sure not to triangulate links. Search engines have become
wise to this and they prefer a linking scheme that is more
like a star (or web).
What keywords should you optimize for?
When determining what keywords to optimize a website for,
there are a number of tools that will assess the number
of times that a keyword or phrase is searched on, the number
of websites/webpages competing for that keyword or phrase,
and rate the phrase. Obviously, the terms that have more
searches and less competition are the best to optimize for--if,
and only if, they relate to your product or service. If
you optimize for terms that are either too broad, you will
likely increase traffic but decrease your conversions. It
is really a balancing act. Two of the more popular tools
available are Keyword Discovery and Word Tracker. Also,
talk to friends or family members and ask what phrases they
would use to describe your product or service. You might
be surprised with the terms they use. Consider optimizing
for regional variations, look at the variety of terms used
to describe soda - tonic, pop, soda, soda pop, or cola all
are relevant and popular but only within a specific region.
Examine web logs to determine what your users are using,
look at the language used in emails and forum posts and
consider optimizing specific pages for popular descriptive
terms.
And finally, use competitive intelligence
to locate links and keywords. What are your competitors
using? Analyze the adwords they bid on, look at their meta
tags, look at their anchor links.
There is a wealth of information out there,
no real mystery to it, so use it to your advantage.
About the Author:
Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com
software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and
podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage
http://www.notepage.net
a wireless text messaging software company.
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is included and the links are active. A courtesy copy of
the issue or a link to any online posting would be greatly
appreciated send an email to sharon@notepage.net
.
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