Which of the sites (smilies) on the left do you think has the best ranking on a search engine. Yipe, it is the yellow one because of the number of sites linking directly or indirectly to it. Of course it is not as simple as that. If you have a site on travelling in Thailand and you manage to get a link from a site dealing with drug addiction your link will not count for anything - indeed, it could even count against you. Why? It is not the link alone which is important - the site linking to you must be in the same context i.e. a forum on people thinking of going to visit Thailand. That is why webmasters are very interested in getting good "inbound links" to their sites. Alternatively you can exchange links with other websites on a similar topic. Although such an exchange "reciprocal link" does not count as much as an inbound link, it still does count.
Monday, 29 June 2009
One of the most important factors in getting a good position on search engines
It is doubted by no one that knows anything about search engine optimization, one of the most important factors is the actual number of web sites which have a link to yours. 
Which of the sites (smilies) on the left do you think has the best ranking on a search engine. Yipe, it is the yellow one because of the number of sites linking directly or indirectly to it. Of course it is not as simple as that. If you have a site on travelling in Thailand and you manage to get a link from a site dealing with drug addiction your link will not count for anything - indeed, it could even count against you. Why? It is not the link alone which is important - the site linking to you must be in the same context i.e. a forum on people thinking of going to visit Thailand. That is why webmasters are very interested in getting good "inbound links" to their sites. Alternatively you can exchange links with other websites on a similar topic. Although such an exchange "reciprocal link" does not count as much as an inbound link, it still does count.
Which of the sites (smilies) on the left do you think has the best ranking on a search engine. Yipe, it is the yellow one because of the number of sites linking directly or indirectly to it. Of course it is not as simple as that. If you have a site on travelling in Thailand and you manage to get a link from a site dealing with drug addiction your link will not count for anything - indeed, it could even count against you. Why? It is not the link alone which is important - the site linking to you must be in the same context i.e. a forum on people thinking of going to visit Thailand. That is why webmasters are very interested in getting good "inbound links" to their sites. Alternatively you can exchange links with other websites on a similar topic. Although such an exchange "reciprocal link" does not count as much as an inbound link, it still does count.
Sunday, 28 June 2009
Just a scrap of useful info on the length of title and keywords
(Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters) Remember, your title and description should not only be keyword targeted but these are the first contact/impression anyone will see of your site - make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect.
A little bit more on search engine optimization - three very important html tags
Continuing with what I said yesterday, it is important to follow certain recognised rules if you want to be found on search engines like google, yahoo, etc. Never forget that for most users that is their door to your site. How else can they know you exist?
Some basics on getting your site indexed by search engines: Pleas edo nto laugh this is really basic and though who know a bit more about optimization should simply skip this.
In your browser, go to a page on your website and then on the top menu click "View" and in the dropdown menu click "Page code". What you see here is what the serach engine is looking at. Here you will find towards the top of your page three very important tags:
TITLE Social Phobia - Light At The End of The Tunnel TITLE
meta content='Help for sufferers of anxiety attacks, panic attacks and social phobia' name='description'
meta content='panic attacks, anxiety attacks, social phobia,' name='keywords'
Let us take these in turn. Title, dexription and keywords are what the search engines will read when visiting your site. If these are empty the search engine cannot recognise your sit'es content and most probably will nto index your site. So who is going to find you. Lesson No 1 for today. And we will take this optimization process one day at a time.
I am sorry that this is a google image but it has the big piece of the pie among search engines. If you are now saying to yourself, geeh, this is tricky stuff, I will get some one to do it for me, my answer is DON'T. The web is full of quacks saying they will have your website ranked on the first page of google for $49. To be honest I have worked on SEO for quite a number of years and if you were to offer me $49K I could give you no promise that your website would be ranked on the first page of google in six months. SEO you will come to see if you follow this blog is an on going activity which is never complete. There is no such things as perfection in this area.
Now in trying to show you this, this blog detected the html tags and would not let me publish so I will explain in a latter posting what you have to add.
Some basics on getting your site indexed by search engines: Pleas edo nto laugh this is really basic and though who know a bit more about optimization should simply skip this.
In your browser, go to a page on your website and then on the top menu click "View" and in the dropdown menu click "Page code". What you see here is what the serach engine is looking at. Here you will find towards the top of your page three very important tags:
TITLE Social Phobia - Light At The End of The Tunnel TITLE
meta content='Help for sufferers of anxiety attacks, panic attacks and social phobia' name='description'
meta content='panic attacks, anxiety attacks, social phobia,' name='keywords'
Let us take these in turn. Title, dexription and keywords are what the search engines will read when visiting your site. If these are empty the search engine cannot recognise your sit'es content and most probably will nto index your site. So who is going to find you. Lesson No 1 for today. And we will take this optimization process one day at a time.
I am sorry that this is a google image but it has the big piece of the pie among search engines. If you are now saying to yourself, geeh, this is tricky stuff, I will get some one to do it for me, my answer is DON'T. The web is full of quacks saying they will have your website ranked on the first page of google for $49. To be honest I have worked on SEO for quite a number of years and if you were to offer me $49K I could give you no promise that your website would be ranked on the first page of google in six months. SEO you will come to see if you follow this blog is an on going activity which is never complete. There is no such things as perfection in this area.Now in trying to show you this, this blog detected the html tags and would not let me publish so I will explain in a latter posting what you have to add.
Friday, 26 June 2009
A happy blogger here - pleased as punch with my work on traffic exchanges
Not as pleased with myself as I am with you. One of my postings got 17 comments - so I am over the moon and I want to answer some of the questions and comment on your ideas. On my posting on the bad news about traffic exchanges
Carrie made the following comment:
If you use traffic exchange sites to find new blogs, leave comments on those blogs, yes, you might find new readers. you have to network.
search engine optimization? how does one do that? can you give some info?
I think to start with on the topic of SEO it would be a good diea if I were to focus on the question on search engine optimization and how one does that and why it is important for your site. Basically you have to make a major mind jump and know that a search engine sees your site very differently than we humans do. Ask yourself what is the most important thing I want from my website. The answer will always be VISITORS. They are the lifeblood of your site. What is the point of having information on your pages when no one visits them, simply because they cannot find your site.
If you start a new site you have just joined the other 101 million websites - estimated at Febaury 2009. So how are visitors going to find your site. Easiest answer - through search engines. Google is a monster with very specific tastes - if it likes how you handle your site it will praise you by giving you a higher visibility - If google finds you are being naughty - this I will come back to later - it gets very angry and will punish you by giving you a lower ranking. Basically the search engines are the front door to the web. Nice position to be in.
Carrie made the following comment:
If you use traffic exchange sites to find new blogs, leave comments on those blogs, yes, you might find new readers. you have to network.
search engine optimization? how does one do that? can you give some info?
I think to start with on the topic of SEO it would be a good diea if I were to focus on the question on search engine optimization and how one does that and why it is important for your site. Basically you have to make a major mind jump and know that a search engine sees your site very differently than we humans do. Ask yourself what is the most important thing I want from my website. The answer will always be VISITORS. They are the lifeblood of your site. What is the point of having information on your pages when no one visits them, simply because they cannot find your site.If you start a new site you have just joined the other 101 million websites - estimated at Febaury 2009. So how are visitors going to find your site. Easiest answer - through search engines. Google is a monster with very specific tastes - if it likes how you handle your site it will praise you by giving you a higher visibility - If google finds you are being naughty - this I will come back to later - it gets very angry and will punish you by giving you a lower ranking. Basically the search engines are the front door to the web. Nice position to be in.
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