Questions on Digital Marketing
What is SEO?
SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to techniques that help your website become more visible in organic search results for the people who are looking for your brand, product, or service via search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo.
What's the difference between organic vs inorganic results?
Organic results are the results that appear in search engines, for free, based on an algorithm. Paid or inorganic search results appear at the top or side of a page.
What are meta descriptions and do they still matter?
Meta descriptions still matter, just not in the same way they used to. They used to be a place to optimize for keywords so crawlers would know more about your page contents now, it's more important you write something compelling that makes readers want to click so you can improve conversion rates from SERP results to your website
Should I optimize my domain name to include keywords?
Your primary domain should not include a keyword just for the sake of keyword optimization that can actually hurt your SEO. If your company name happends to have a keyword,that's fine, but don't go buying inbound marketing software blogging social seo email agisoftwaresolutions.com Get what I mean?
How do I know when Iam using the right number of keywords on a page?
Unfortunately, I can't tell you an exact number that is the "right" number of keywords on a page, mostly because that's the wrong way to think about keyword optimization. There's no keyword density you should be aiming for in fact, using a keyword too many times can result in penalization due to "keyword stuffing." Just keep the reader in mind, and only use keywords when you need to. You'll find enough natural opportunities to include keywords that you won't even have to worry about reaching an arbitrary number.
What’s the difference between internal and inbound links?
Internal links are links on a page on your site that go to another page on your site. Inbound links are other websites that link to your content. Both are valuable for SEO.
How many internal links do I need on each page of content?
Just like you should avoid stuffing too many keywords into your content, you should avoid stuffing too many links into your content. Only include them when it improves the reader experience.
Do I need to know code to do SEO myself?
You do not need to know how to code for every element of search optimization. There are some more advanced SEO tactics that you will need a basic understanding of code for, but it isn't necessary for every part.
What is robots.txt?
This is a page that gives search engines information about the pages a company wants indexed or crawled. You can find this page by doing to YOURDOMAIN/robots.txt.
What is the sitemap.xml file?
This file is an index of all the pages on your site. It's a quick reference for search engines of content that you want indexed.
What is the difference between indexing and crawling?
When search engines look through the content on your website, they are crawling your site. As they crawl your site, they index content that will appear in the search engine. However, an important thing to remember is that not all content is indexed. Search engines pick what content they will and won't index as they go through the crawling process.
How can I see what pages are indexing?
It's as easy as typing in site:www.YOURDOMAIN.com to find the pages on your site that are indexed.
Why do you need alt text on your images?
Search engines cannot read images, but they can read text. The alt text helps them figure out what the images are all about. Plus, if a page doesn't load for some reason, people can still find out what the image is by reading the alt text.
How long does it take to see results from SEO?
There are a few different factors that will determine how quickly (or slowly) results will come. This list includes, but isn't limited to.
• How much content you create
• The quality of the content
• How the content resonates class="current"with your audience.
• If you're a big or small site with strong or weak domain authority.
A large site could possibly see results in a couple of days if a search engines is crawling their site regularly. Smaller sites will most likely take longer because they get crawled less frequently. Wait at least a week, but probably closer to a month, before you consider changing your SEO strategy -- a bit longer if you're brand new to SEO. class="current"
• How much content you create
• The quality of the content
• How the content resonates class="current"with your audience.
• If you're a big or small site with strong or weak domain authority.
A large site could possibly see results in a couple of days if a search engines is crawling their site regularly. Smaller sites will most likely take longer because they get crawled less frequently. Wait at least a week, but probably closer to a month, before you consider changing your SEO strategy -- a bit longer if you're brand new to SEO. class="current"
Should I hire someone to do my SEO?
Hiring someone internally or externally to do your SEO can be helpful, but it can also be dangerous if that person doesn't actually know the modern rules of SEO. Google goes into the risks of hiring the wrong SEO person.
What's a good goal to set for your SEO?
When you think about your goal for SEO, don't just think about the top of the funnel and how many more visits you're getting to your website. Think about your full marketing funnel and how much quality traffic you're getting to your website. Are the people who are finding your website through SEO actually qualified prospects for your business? If not, does it really matter that the traffic to your website has increased? As you create your goals, consider what general traffic vs quality traffic means to you. Set goals not just based on traffic, but based on the entirely of your marketing funnel.
What are the Types of SEO?
There are mainly two types of SEO are present: On Page Optimization and Off Page Optimization.
What are the SEO Techniques available?
Three SEO Techniques are: White Hat SEO, Black Hat SEO which is also called as Negative SEO and Gray Hat SEO .
What is On Page Optimization?
On-page optimization gives outcome to a web page or website ranking on Search Engine Results Page.
What is Off Page Optimization?
Off Page Optimization is a type of SEO which is not regulated by your page coding. Link building, Image Sharing, Blog posting, Document Sharing, Info graphics submission, Video Sharing, Increasing Page Authority or Page Rank, Getting high quality links from relevant sites and Article submission are the few examples of Off-page optimization.
What do you mean by Page Rank (PR)?
For every web page, Google will give a rank, which is called as Page rank. Normally page rank ranges from 0 – 10. Google Web Search Engine algorithm is responsible for calculating the page rank of every web page.
What is a Back link?
Back links are the incoming links to your webpage or website and getting these back links from good PR and relevant site is always better for your site.
What is an out bound Link?
An outgoing link or outbound-link is a link from your own webpage or website to another webpage or website.
What is Anchor Text?
Anchor text is also known as link text or link label or link title, which is a clickable hyperlink. This is used to increase your webpage ranking by receiving the incoming links after clicking the contained keyword.
What is Googlebot?
Googlebot is a kind of software used by the Google as a search bot to index a webpage. This software collects the information from every webpage by doing the crawling, caching and then indexing of a webpage.
What is a Meta Tag?
You can observe many Meta tags being used in HTML coding, but the important ones are the four Meta tags. They are: Meta Title, Meta Keywords, Meta Description and Robot tags.
What tools do you use for doing SEO?
Most common tools used in SEO are: Google Analytics, Google webmaster tools, Alexa, Open site explorer and Website grader. Nowadays you can also find some paid SEO tools like spidermate, seoMoz and bulkdachecker in market.
What are the limitations of title and description tags?
Title tag can be normally between 50-68 characters and Meta description tag can be around 140 – 150 characters.
How will you increase the Pagerank of a page?
To increase the page rank of your webpage, you must build more backlinks from high page rank websites and authority sites.
How will you treat Web standards while optimizing a website?
I usually apply the web standards from the W3C while optimizing the webpage, which help that site to get more points from Google to improvise page rank.
What is 301 redirect?
It is a kind of process to redirect the user from an old page URL to a new page URL.
What is Cloaking?
Cloaking is the procedure of using some deceptive techniques which allows the user with a different version of the website than that presented to the search engines.
What methods would you apply for decreasing the loading time of a website?
We can use the external style sheets, minimum images, decrease the file size of the images that we use without compromising on the quality and use the CSS sprites to regulate the HTTP requests.
What are webmaster tools?
It is a free service provided by the Google to get the information about the indexing data, backlinks,search queries, crawl problems, malware complaints and XML site map.
What is Keyword Density?
It is a very important factor to increase your webpage ranking. Keyword density is the percentage density of a particular phrase or keyword available on a website compared to the total number of words on the particular page.
What is Cross Linking?
It is considered as one of the best strategy that can come in handy to yield high search engine rankings, by leveraging several domains owned by you.
What is LSI?
LSI Stands for Latent Semantic Indexing. LSI looks for synonyms related to the title of your page.
Difference between black hat SEO and white hat SEO ?
Black hat SEO refers to techniques and strategies used to get higher search rankings, and breaking search engine rules. Black hat SEO focuses on only search engines and not so much a human audience. Black hat SEO is typically used by those who are looking for a quick return on their site, rather than a long-term investment on their site.Some techniques used in black hat SEO include: keyword stuffing, link farming, hidden texts and links, and blog content spamming. Consequences of black hat SEO can possibly result in your site being banned from a search engine and de-indexed as a penalization for using unethical techniques. White hat SEO refers to the use of techniques and strategies that target a human audience opposed to a search engine. Techniques that are typically used in white hat SEO include using keywords, and keyword analysis, doing research, rewriting meta tags in order for them to be more relevant, backlinking, link building as well as writing content for human readers.Those who use white hatSEO expect to make a long-term investment on their website, as the results last a long time.
What is the Not Found Error 404?
The HTTP 404 Not Found Error means that the webpage you were trying to reach could not be found on the server. It is a Client-side Error which means that either the page has been removed or moved and the URL was not changed accordingly, or that you typed in the URL incorrectly. Put simply , a 404 Not Found Error means that the webpage simply does not exist with the URL entered.
What is Bounce Rate?
Percent of time a client leaves a site/page.
What is URL?
A uniform resource locator abbreviated URL also known as web address is a specific character string that constitutes a reference to resource.
What is Web Page?
A Hypertext document connected to the World Wide Web is called web page.
What is web site?
A website is a related collection of web pages that includes a beginning file called a home page.
What is Domain Name?
Domain name is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computer services or any resources connected to the internet or a private network.
What is Search Engine?
A search engine is a software system that is designed to search for information on the World Wide Web. The search results are generally presented in a line of results often referred to as search engine results pages (SERP's).
What is Canonicalization?
Canonicalization for SEOs refers to normalizing (redirecting to a single dominant version) multiple URLs.
What is Crawling?
Process of fetching all the web pages linked to a website. This task is performed by a software called a crawler or a spider (or Googlebot, in case of Google).
What is Indexing?
Process of creating index for all the fetched web pages and keeping them into a giant database from where it can later be retrieved. Essentially, the process of indexing is identifying the words and expressions that best describe the page and assigning the page to particular keywords.
What is Processing?
The search request with When a search request comes, the search engine processes it i.e., it compares the search string in the indexed pages in the database.
What is Retrieving Results?
The last step in search engine activities is retrieving the best matched results. Basically, it is nothing more than simply displaying them in the browser.
What is Search Engine Marketing?
Search Engine Marketing is an umbrella term referring to all activities utilized to generate visibility in search engine results in order to increase revenue. Common strategies and tactics include search engine optimization (SEO), search engine and directory submission, link development, Pay-Per-Click (PPC) management, shopping feeds, affiliate marketing and online public relations (promotion via blogs, ezines, threaded forums, newsgroups, discussion lists and chat).
Why should I care about Search Engine Marketing?
(Research indicates that a high percentage of the developed world is online, so the odds your potential customers, partners, employees and shareholders are also online is very high. Not only is search engine marketing one of the fastest growing and popular new marketing channels available, it's also the most cost-effective (as compared with both online and offline channels like email, direct mail and broadcast). Search engine marketing both an excellent avenue for brand-building and cost-effective at generating leads and online sales. If your company doesn't currently have a Search Engine Marketing strategy, you're behind the curve. Do a search for your own company, competitors and industry terms and see for yourself.
How do I determine if Search Engine Marketing is right for my company?
Unless your company is headquartered in a cave and your customers are other cavemen, it's very likely that your company will benefit from some aspect of Search Engine Marketing, whether it be search engine optimization (SEO) or Pay-Per-Click (PPC) advertising. Regardless of whether you are interested in generating awareness, new recruits, strategic partners, investors, leads or sales, search engine marketing offers an opportunity to improve your bottom line. A quick assessment by professionals (like Anvil) will help clarify the need and fit.
How do we measure the success of search engine marketing efforts?
Search engine marketing efforts are highly measurable. If your objective is to generate awareness, you can track "impressions” and "clicks” on organic and paid search engine listings. If your objective is to measure brand preference or performance of text ad creative, you can measure "click through” and "conversion” rates. If your objective is to generate qualified leads, you can track online registrations (for newsletters, events or white papers), downloads (trials or demos) or email inquiries. If your objective is sales, you can track ecommerce sales or offline sales via printable coupons or phone call tracking.
How do we determine if we should manage search engine marketing activities in-house or outsource to an SEM vendor?
Generally speaking, most companies prefer to outsource their search engine marketing efforts to SEM professionals to ensure their programs are properly managed and remain cutting-edge. Larger companies tend to have an in-house resource like a Webmaster or Internet Marketing Manager who is responsible for implementing search engine marketing programs, but often times, this person outsources the day-to-day SEM activities to a trusted vendor to free up their time educate and manage internal resources, develop long-term strategies and to create optimized content. Factors influencing the decision process include objectives, timeline, available marketing budget and internal resources.
What criteria should we use to evaluate an SEM vendor?
There are a few key criteria utilized to evaluate search engine marketing vendors. The following are just a few of the most important: length of time in business, collective industry experience, number of employees, number of clients, size of clients, client and employee turnover, depth and breadth of service offering, pricing, proprietary services, industry credibility, client testimonials, success stories, strategic partners, philosophy and process. Look at their client's visibility versus their own, as "search engine marketing” is a highly competitive term, and those that perform well probably have a little too much time and not enough client work to keep them busy. Be sure to ask for references if they don't have testimonials and success stories.
What does a Search Engine Optimization campaign involve?
There are 3 essential components of a Search Engine campaign:
1.Text component. A web site must contain the words that your target audience is typing into search queries.
2. Link component. Placing keywords on a web page is useless if the search engines do not have a means to index that text. Therefore, your site design must be "spider friendly."
3. Popularity component. All of the major search engines measure popularity.
Therefore, before beginning a search engine campaign, we often have a corresponding directory submission and link development campaign as well to assist with popularity. A successful, long-term SEO campaign is not possible unless all 3 of these components are addressed. After all of these elements are in place on a web site, we submit to the major search engines in a non-spam manner.
1.Text component. A web site must contain the words that your target audience is typing into search queries.
2. Link component. Placing keywords on a web page is useless if the search engines do not have a means to index that text. Therefore, your site design must be "spider friendly."
3. Popularity component. All of the major search engines measure popularity.
Therefore, before beginning a search engine campaign, we often have a corresponding directory submission and link development campaign as well to assist with popularity. A successful, long-term SEO campaign is not possible unless all 3 of these components are addressed. After all of these elements are in place on a web site, we submit to the major search engines in a non-spam manner.
Who should read Search Engine Visibility?
Search Engine Visibility is a must have book for people to read before they begin designing or redesigning a web site. Search engine marketers and web site designers can learn how to design and promote web sites in a non-spam manner, i.e. in a way that the search engines and directories approve. Advertising agencies, who often outsource search engine marketing, need to have a basic understanding of how search engine marketing works, and what they should and should not promise their clients. All too often, ad agencies confuse search engine optimization with search engine advertising. This book will help them with any confusion they may have. It will also help firms that hire advertising agencies who provide SEO services. Being well educated about the entire search engine marketing process will help you make a better Marketers and marketing agencies, in particular, will benefit most from Search Engine Visibility since the responsibility of online marketing falls squarely on their shoulders. The submission section will be particularly valuable to them.
What information does Search Engine Visibility offer that is not currently available?
No other book explains how to create a search-engine friendly web sites. Search Engine Visibilites web site design, site usability, and search engine marketing with long term business goals. The book focuses on quality, qualified web site traffic, not a large volume of hits that do not benefit a firm's bottom line. Also, Search Engine Visibility is the best practices book on search engine marketing.
I would like to schedule you as a speaker. What topics do you currently speak about?
Glad you asked. I like speaking engagements, especially since I used to teach at two major universities. Some of the topics I cover are: * Understanding search engine marketing * Search-engine friendly web site design * Successful site architecture * Optimizing Flash and non-HTML content * Search engine visibility and usability * Web copywriting for search engine visibility Some of these topics are available as 1-hour seminars, tutorials, and training.
Where can I purchase Search Engine Visibility?
Search Engine Visibility can be purchased directly from my publisher, New Riders. You can also go to other well-known book stores such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.
How important is website traffic vs Web design?
No amount of web design will overcome the lack of traffic for a website, or lack of content on pages. With web analytics, we can determine how many visitors you've had and what they looked at, and for how long. What you find is, the real challenge is getting relevant visitor traffic to begin with. And then even within the web site, the next challenge is to appear credible.
Is not SEO just about meta-tags and submissions?
It used to be. Back in the earlier days of search, AltaVista used meta-tags to index a site with keywords in the meta-tags section of a page. Then you would submit it and have a reasonable chance of being listed. However, it was soon evident that this could be abused (with meta-tag stuffing, spamming etc) and also not very useful as users would get to a legitimate site and not find the pages they were looking for. Google and other search engines followed with algorithmic criteria that made the search experience much more relevant.
What is the difference between email marketing and search engine marketing?
Email marketing is used much differently than search marketing. Email can be used for demand creation, and as a friendly notification of the products and services you provide. Search marketing is more efficient for acquiring visitors, and is based on the premise that the visitor is looking for what you offer.
What is the difference between Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Pay-For-Inclusion (PFI)?
PPC is much like advertising, and are those links that come up when you enter a keyword in a search field. Also known as sponsored links or recommended links, the advertiser pays a fee to the search engine every time it is clicked on. PFI is more like paying for a web site to immediately be considered for indexing. Using PPC and PFI can significantly increase the number of visitor you get. You can help you with both.
What is a natural search?
Also known as an organic search, these are the search results that most people think of when they use a search engine. Unlike a sponsored link or a paid for placement, natural search results get presented as a direct result of the search engine's indexing and search algorithms. Usually you do not pay for a natural search listing.
What is the Return On Investment (ROI) justification?
When using professional consultants, the justification is abundantly clear - without properly executed online marketing, your web site will only be a marketing expense rather than a marketing weapon. With professional online marketing services, we have seen return on investment payback in as little as 3-6 months.
Why is search engine optimization and marketing so important?
For return on investment, search engine optimization and marketing is unsurpassed. it will deliver much larger numbers of new, qualified and targeted traffic to your website over the long term than any other marketing strategy. You can expect traffic to grow anywhere from 50% to 1000% after an implementation. One thing is for sure - without it done right, expect little traffic except from spiders attempting to index your pages.
How soon will some one see results?
It depends on your current status with the search engines and email lists. If your site is fundamentally search friendly, you could see results within a matter of weeks. And if your email marketing lists are current and in place, we can set you up in a few days. You can speed this up with a number of strategies.
What does Index mean for a single page of your site?
(1) Google has found a link to your page from another page and has predicted the contents of your page based on the text in the link and the context in which the link appeared. You may see your pages in the SERP's with no text description or title.
(2) Google's spider Googlebot has visited the page. You can track this by looking for the presence of Googlebot in your web logs. Just because the Googlebot has visited your page, don't expect to see your page in the SERP's.
(3) Google has indexed the contents of your page and has pulled data about the page into its database. Google is aware of the page and may show the page in search results when you search for all pages from your site using the "site:www.yoursite.com" search query. In this case, you should expect to see your new title in the SERPs and a snippet pulled from the actual text or meta description tag of your page.
(4) Google is showing the page in the SERP's for general searches i.e.. Google has fully evaluated the page and it's relationship to all other pages on the Web.
(5) Google has assigned a PageRank value to your page.
(2) Google's spider Googlebot has visited the page. You can track this by looking for the presence of Googlebot in your web logs. Just because the Googlebot has visited your page, don't expect to see your page in the SERP's.
(3) Google has indexed the contents of your page and has pulled data about the page into its database. Google is aware of the page and may show the page in search results when you search for all pages from your site using the "site:www.yoursite.com" search query. In this case, you should expect to see your new title in the SERPs and a snippet pulled from the actual text or meta description tag of your page.
(4) Google is showing the page in the SERP's for general searches i.e.. Google has fully evaluated the page and it's relationship to all other pages on the Web.
(5) Google has assigned a PageRank value to your page.
What does index mean for your full site?
It can take several months for Google to fully index your new site. In the process, Google will find pages that are new and will discover pages that were part of the old version of your site that are no longer there. As Google maps out your site, you will see the PageRank of individual pages changing over time. It depends on the extent to which your footprint has changed. If the change is dramatic, you can expect to see dramatic changes in your rankings until the new footprint is fully appreciated. Install the Google Toolbar and look at the PageRank of your individual pages. Your new pages are likely to have no or zero PageRank. Over time, as Google comes to more fully understand your site, PageRank will start to appear on all pages.
What exactly is Search Engine Optimization?
Search engine optimization is the practice of guiding the development or redevelopment of a website so that it will naturally attract visitors by winning top ranking on the major search engines for selected search terms and phrases.
What is search engine spam, or SEO spam?
In the search engine world, spam is defined as the manipulation of a web page to give it an artificial boost in the search engine rankings. Generally, spam is what the search engines say it is i.e., defined by the search engines themselves. Each of the major search engines provide specific guidelines describing what webmasters should and should not do to their web pages in order to achieve a better search engine ranking, though that has not always been the case.
What is hidden text?
Hidden text is textual content which your visitors cannot see, but which is still readable by the search engines. The idea is to load a Web page with keywords and keyword phrases that would be unsightly to visitors but that would improve the page's rankings in the search engine results, and to do so without letting your visitors see the text. Hidden text is identified as search spam by each of the major search engines.
Can I hide text in HTML to get a top ranking?
The simple and direct answer to the second part of the question is that you should not use hidden text. You may be able to trick the search engines for a brief period of time by hiding keyword stuffed sentences on your page, but you will risk having your site permanently banned from the search engines. As we state on our SEO Services page, search engine optimization is not a process of manipulating or tricking the search engines.
What are meta tags?
Meta tags are HTML codes that are inserted into the header on a web page, after the title tag. They take a variety of forms and serve a variety of purposes, but in the context of search engine optimization when people refer to meta tags, they are usually referring to the meta description tag and the meta keywords tag.
What are meta keywords? What is the meta keywords tag?
Though meta keywords tags are not a major factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. Both the meta keywords tag and the meta description tag contribute to your search engine ranking. A meta keywords tag is supposed to be a brief and concise list of the most important themes of your page.
Does the length of time that a site or domain name has existed play in search engine placement?
If you spend enough time looking at search engine results, eventually it will occur to you that sites seem to be ranked in part based upon the length of time they have existed. It can appear that older sites tend to rank higher than newer sites, and one can be tempted to conclude that age is a factor in the search engine algorithms.
Do search engines index ALT text descriptions for JPEG and other image files?
Yes, most search engines, including Google, look at your ALT tags when indexing your Web page. For many sites, particularly image-heavy sites, ALT text is one of the few elements available for the search engines to index. If your page has no text at all on it, it can still get a high search engine placement by using ALT text.
What are doorway pages, and should I use doorway pages?
Doorway pages are Web pages designed and built specifically to draw search engine visitors to your website. They are standalone pages designed only to act as doorways to your site. Doorway pages are a very bad idea for several reasons, though many SEO firms use them routinely. As a rule of thumb, if you can't reach the page by following the site navigation, then it is a doorway page. You are not supposed to "visit" the page. Instead, you are just supposed to find it in the search results and then click through to get to the site in question. In essence, a doorway page is no more than a one-page click-through advertisement for a website. However, when you are searching, you don't want to visit one-page click-through advertisements for a website. You want to visit websites. Think of doorway pages as giant banner ads, only worse. You're searching for "widgets" and instead of getting a widget site, you get a page that says, "click here for widgets." You just did that! Now they're asking you to do it again. Are you going to click?
What are meta descriptions? What is the meta description tag?
Though meta description tags are not a major factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. Both the meta keywords tag and the meta description tag contribute to your search engine ranking, and the meta description tag influences the likelihood that a person will actually click on the search engine results page and visit your site. The meta description tag is intented to be a brief and concise summary of your page's content. Think of the Yahoo! directory You see your site title followed by a brief description of your site or business. The meta description tag is designed to provide a brief description of your site which can be used by search engines or directories.
What are meta redirect tags or meta refresh tags?
The meta redirect (meta refresh) tag is a meta http-equiv tag which, when inserted into the header of an HTML document, will cause the visitor's browser to load a new web page after a specified number of seconds have passed after the initial document has loaded, basically redirecting the visitor to the new page. The webmaster specifies the new page to be loaded and the number of seconds that must pass before the new page is loaded. The meta redirect or refresh tag.
How important are meta tags now?
Though meta keywords tag and meta description tags are not the main factor search engines consider when ranking sites, they should not be left off the page. A meta description tag is supposed to be a brief and concise summary of your page's content. A meta keyword tag is supposed to be a summary list of the most important words on your page. They were both proposed in order to make using the web easier. Unfortunately, webmasters over the years have abused meta tags so much that search engine creators have had to de-emphasize their importance in their algorithms.
What exactly is a spider?
A spider is a piece of software that follows links throughout the Internet, grabbing content from sites and adding it to search engine databases. Spiders follow links from one page to another and from one site to another. That is the primary reason why links to your site are so critical. Getting links to your website from other websites will give the search engine spiders more opportunities to find and re-index your site. The more times they find links to your site, the more times they will stop by and visit. This has been true since spiders began. Recently there has been an incredible amount of attention paid to links. That's because Google came clean and said in public that the number and quality of links to your site will directly impact its rankings in the search results.
Does the spider program run through all links on a Webpage?
No spider ever has indexed every link on the Internet. The Internet is growing so fast that it is difficult for any to keep up. There is a strong chance that every page on your website will be indexed, and that every link on each of your Web pages will be followed. Generally, when a new site is launched, a search engine spider will index the home page only. On subsequent visits, the spider will go deeper and deeper into your site, over a period of time that is determined by the number and quality of links from other websites that point to your website. Getting your site listed in the major directories will accelerate the time it takes to have your site fully spidered. Remember, links from directories are links to your website. Google specifically recommends submitting your site to Yahoo and to The Open Directory if you're having trouble getting indexed by the Google spider.
Is there any way to prevent a spider from grabbing URLs that you want to keep off search engines?
Absolutely - there are many ways, and you should use them all. For a quick overview, search for robots or spiders on Google, visit The Web Robots Page, or visit B.4 Notes on helping search engines index your website from the World Wide Web Consortium. The most fool-proof method to block spidders is to password protect any files that you don't want indexed by the search engines. See Can a search engine index pages that are password protected? In general, you should create a robots.txt file for the root folder on your site, use the robots meta tag on pages you don't want indexed, and password protect any files you're serious about protecting.
How do I get my site listed in the Google Directory?
To get your site listed in the Google Directory, you need to get your site listed in the Open Directory. The Google Directory is created from the data included in the Open Directory.
How do I submit my site to The Open Directory (ODP or DMOZ)?
How to submit step-by-step: 1) Go to http://dmoz.org. 2) Use (a) the search engine or (b) the directory links to find the perfect category for your site. 3) Look in the upper right-hand corner of the directory page for a text link that says, "add URL" and click on it. 4) Carefully read the page. If you've used all of your visits, and you are truly at the most appropriate category for your site, then fill out the form. Just put your URL in the text field labeled "Site URL" which already includes" Then put the title of your site in the text field labeled "Title of Site." Put a description of your website in the field marked "Site Description." Put your e-mail address in the field marked "Your E-mail Address," and hit the button at the bottom of the page marked "Submit." That's the whole process. Following are tips for ensuring that you get each step right, which is harder for some people than many would guess.
What information does Search Engine Visibility offer that is not currently available?
No other book explains how to create a search-engine friendly web sites. Search Engine Visibilites web site design, site usability, and search engine marketing with long term business goals. The book focuses on quality, qualified web site traffic, not a large volume of hits that do not benefit a firm's bottom line. Also, Search Engine Visibility is the best practices book on search engine marketing.
I would like to schedule you as a speaker. What topics do you currently speak about?
Glad you asked. I like speaking engagements, especially since I used to teach at two major universities. Some of the topics I cover are: * Understanding search engine marketing * Search-engine friendly web site design * Successful site architecture * Optimizing Flash and non-HTML content * Search engine visibility and usability * Web copywriting for search engine visibility Some of these topics are available as 1-hour seminars, tutorials, and training.
Where can I purchase Search Engine Visibility?
Search Engine Visibility can be purchased directly from my publisher, New Riders. You can also go to other well-known book stores such as Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Borders.
How important is website traffic vs Web design?
No amount of web design will overcome the lack of traffic for a website, or lack of content on pages. With web analytics, we can determine how many visitors you've had and what they looked at, and for how long. What you find is, the real challenge is getting relevant visitor traffic to begin with. And then even within the web site, the next challenge is to appear credible.
Is not SEO just about meta-tags and submissions?
It used to be. Back in the earlier days of search, AltaVista used meta-tags to index a site with keywords in the meta-tags section of a page. Then you would submit it and have a reasonable chance of being listed. However, it was soon evident that this could be abused (with meta-tag stuffing, spamming etc) and also not very useful as users would get to a legitimate site and not find the pages they were looking for. Google and other search engines followed with algorithmic criteria that made the search experience much more relevant.
What is the difference between email marketing and search engine marketing?
Email marketing is used much differently than search marketing. Email can be used for demand creation, and as a friendly notification of the products and services you provide. Search marketing is more efficient for acquiring visitors, and is based on the premise that the visitor is looking for what you offer.
What is the difference between Pay-Per-Click (PPC) and Pay-For-Inclusion (PFI)?
PPC is much like advertising, and are those links that come up when you enter a keyword in a search field. Also known as sponsored links or recommended links, the advertiser pays a fee to the search engine every time it is clicked on. PFI is more like paying for a web site to immediately be considered for indexing. Using PPC and PFI can significantly increase the number of visitor you get. You can help you with both.
What is a natural search?
Also known as an organic search, these are the search results that most people think of when they use a search engine. Unlike a sponsored link or a paid for placement, natural search results get presented as a direct result of the search engine's indexing and search algorithms. Usually you do not pay for a natural search listing.
What is the Return On Investment (ROI) justification?
When using professional consultants, the justification is abundantly clear - without properly executed online marketing, your web site will only be a marketing expense rather than a marketing weapon. With professional online marketing services, we have seen return on investment payback in as little as 3-6 months.
Why is search engine optimization and marketing so important?
For return on investment, search engine optimization and marketing is unsurpassed. it will deliver much larger numbers of new, qualified and targeted traffic to your website over the long term than any other marketing strategy. You can expect traffic to grow anywhere from 50% to 1000% after an implementation. One thing is for sure - without it done right, expect little traffic except from spiders attempting to index your pages.