Improving the keyword density on your web site is one of the fastest and simplest ways to increase your site’s visibility in the search engine results pages. To better explain this reasoning, we will refer to a “keyword” as a word that your typical web surfer will input in the search box when searching for specific information about a product or service. The true definition of keyword density is the ratio of the word that is being searched for, ie the keyword, against the total number of words appearing on a given web page. If your keyword occurs only once or twice in a page of 500 or more words, obviously it has a lower keyword density than a keyword that would occur six or seven times in a page of similar length.
As far as search engines are concerned, if a particular keyword has a higher density on that particular web page, then the chances of that page obtaining a much better search engine ranking increases almost exponentially. Not all search engines compute or evaluate keyword density in the same way and most have their own proprietary algorithm for calculating the average density of a keyword. Nevertheless, the basic principles described in this article are general enough to help any website greatly increase its rankings in the major search engines. Note that today, they all take keyword density into account. (more…)
Introduction To Google
What is the Googles Search Engine, and why are they important in the world of Search Engines and Directories? Brief History. In early 1998 at Stanford University Sergey Brin and Lawrence Page wrote a paper called The Anatomy of a Large-Scale Hypertextual Web Search Engine. Back then there were about 20 major search engines and portals, with Yahoo leading the way.
Yahoo has always had about 1/3 of all search traffic, and in 2002 Google surpassed Yahoo in percent of searches on the web.
Then Google contracted with AOL to provide the results to AOL searches….and then the biggie…in October 2002 Yahoo defaulted to showing Google Result. To explain that simply…do a search on Google, then go to Yahoo and perform that same search, and you’ll see they’re the same results. Same goes for searching on AOL and Netscape. (more…)
Having a Web site that gets found in Google isn’t hard to do, but it can be difficult to know where to begin. Here are ten tips to get you started.
1. Start out slowly. If possible, begin with a new site that has never been submitted to the search engines or directories. Choose an appropriate domain name, and start out by optimizing just the home page.
2. Learn basic HTML. Many search engine optimization techniques involve editing the behind the scenes HTML code. Your high rankings can depend on knowing which codes are necessary, and which aren’t.
3. Choose keywords wisely. The keywords you think might be perfect for your site may not be what people are actually searching for. To find the optimal keywords for your site, use tools such as WordTracker. Choose two or three highly targeted phrases for each page of your site. Never shoot for general keywords such as “travel” or “vacation.” (more…)
From: Carol
Hi Jill,
I emailed you before and you made me understand what was going on. I have another question if you don’t mind.
In one of your recent newsletters, you talked about keywords. If I understand correctly, your keywords should be used within your text,
on the main page, right?
Here is my situation: I am selling microfiber towels, I want to be in the top-10 for car accessories, car care products, but nothing is in text on my main page. So, I noticed the search engines have not picked it up yet. I need more keywords for more exposure for my website, but with microfiber towels, there isn’t too much to deal with. (more…)
Just a few years ago, when asked “How do you drive traffic to your website”, many companies would name banner ads as their main marketing medium for increasing online revenues. In an effort to increase brand awareness, companies spent thousands of dollars on obnoxious banner advertisements on high profile websites in an effort to cement their reputation as the number one company or product in their industry. It didn’t seem to matter that very few people actually clicked on these flashing, animated billboards. What did matter was Internet users saw these ads wherever they went on the web; there was a sense of pride and vanity from having your company’s banner appear more often than your competitors.
Fast-forward to the present day and banner ads have fallen from grace with few companies buying banner ads purely for the sake of one-upmanship on the competition. In their stead, search engine marketing has become the medium of choice for companies looking to increase website exposure. With the steady growth of search engine use, thanks in part to the technology and reliability offered by Google, companies already know that obtaining top positioning on the search engines will result in qualified traffic to their website and increased online revenues. However, there is a new phenomenon rising up to replace the battle once seen with banner advertising; Search Engine Vanity. (more…)
For the past several months now, there has been a new development used more and more by businesses and companies of all sizes: Business Blogs. First, for those of you who may be wondering what “blogs” actually are, they are an abbreviation for “web logs”. First popularized by journalists, tech geeks and by teenagers, “blogs” are now increasingly in use by the business community and Fortune 500 companies.
If you have new ideas or a new product your company would like to promote, business blogs are a good, inexpensive vehicle. And there are many other advantages to using blogs too: major search directories and search engines such as Yahoo, Google Alta-Vista and most of the others crave on fresh and new information that is frequently updated, sometimes many times a day. Business Blogs consist of many links, written with fresh content that is propagated everywhere on the web. (more…)
In the process of my day-to-day job optimizing and positioning corporate web sites for my clients, I often get emails and correspondence similar to the one you are about to read. The field of search engine optimization is littered with so-called “SEO experts” and people that promise you high search engine rankings with techniques that are forbidden by most search engines. The following is a true story.
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Hello Serge!
Just wanted you to know that I diligently read all your articles that you write on search engine optimization and I have learned so much from you since. I’m writing you regarding an article you wrote on your website about doorway and gateway pages. After listening to a number of people around me, I had planned on getting increased visibility from search engines to my site and some have told me that making a mirror of my existing site or a few “duplicates” might help me in the engines. They also told me each site should have a new, unique URL and unique domain name, a unique title and description tag, and body text “slightly” modified to focus on different keywords and key phrases might be a splendid idea. While I am at it, I also taught of a newer, fresher “look” with different background colour and font. (more…)
As highlighted a couple of weeks ago, I have decided that with the growth of the search engine optimization (SEO) industry, it is important to ensure that we don’t forget the many newcomers. With many new business owners and webmasters exploring SEO for the first time, this series of articles looks to assist with the basic information needed to start a search engine marketing campaign.
In the first part of the series, I wish to ensure we discuss the importance of a solid foundation. When starting any SEO campaign it is tempting to leap straight in and start tweaking meta tags and changing text. However, like any successful marketing strategy, it is vital to ensure that you know whom your audience is and how to reach them. In the same way traditional advertising agencies survey their demographic audience, search engine marketers must ensure that their SEO campaign targets the correct keywords or search phrases. Target the wrong search phrase and you could end up with great search engine rankings for keywords that have no search requests. A few hours now spent ensuring that the correct search phrases are targeted, can save months of useless optimization. (more…)
Monday, July 14 may very well go down in history as the day that the search engine industry grew up and finally gained the respect it so deserved. It was this day that Yahoo! announced that in a deal, comprising of $1.63 billion in cash and stock, it had acquired the popular pay-per-click company, Overture.
With rumors circulating for some months that Yahoo! had built a “war-chest” and was preparing to make a significant acquisition, investors have been watching and waiting for the Sunnyvale, Calif.-based company to make its move. With Google increasing its audience reach and MSN announcing that it had recently started spidering the web with the intent of launching a revamped search engine, Yahoo! knew that in order to compete in the search engine industry it would have to make a move to increase its arsenal and improve investor confidence. (more…)
When I first started this site, it was “APLAWRENCE.COM”. That’s the name of my company, it’s not overly long or hard to spell, so it seemed to be a good choice. However, later on I registered “PCUNIX.COM” thinking that that name is more related to what I do, is shorter and easier to type, and perhaps is more memorable.
Both domains point to the exact same content. The Apache configuration file at my web server just treated them both as virtual domains having the same filesystem location. There was no difference: no matter what domain name you used, you’d get the same pages. These are just duplicate domains.
For several years I flopped around, using the names inconsistently. When I’d refer people to my site, sometimes I’d send them to pcunix.com and sometimes to aplawrence.com, depending on my mood. Of course other sites that made link references to pages on my site were just as inconsistent: some of them point to pcunix.com, some to aplawrence.com, depending upon their whim or how they happened to find me. (more…)
