Search Engine Optimization
Although the concept of SEO can be somewhat complex, there are a number of basic search engine optimization practices you should note before starting any SEO related activity. These basic principles are essential for any web page or website for which you are attempting to optimize. Keep in mind that these are just some of the fundamental SEO practices you should consider.
1. MetaTagsMetatags are simple lines of code at the top of your page (source code) that tell the search engines about your page. I recommend that you be sure to include the following meta tags: title (no more than 7 words and unique for each page), keywords, description, author, and robots tag. The robots tag instructs the search engines to read all or some of your website.
2. Create or update your sitemapDeveloping a site map is a simple yet highly effective way of giving search engines the information they need to crawl your entire website. This ensures that the engine has an up-to-date record of your pages and content. The key to improving search engine results is making it easy for your website pages to be located and crawled. There is free software on the web (like www.xml-sitemaps.com) that helps you generate a sitemap. Once you create a sitemap for your website, submit to Google and Yahoo. Additionally, place a link to the site map on your home page.
3. Ensure that all navigation is in HTMLToo often I see navigation in the form of java script or images. Even though the navigation technically still works in this format, it's not optimized. The benefit of creating your navigation in HTML is that you consistently build internal links throughout your website by keeping the navigation constant and easily identified by search engines.
4. Check that all images include ALT textYour image alt text is spidered by search engines. If you're not including your keywords in your alt text, your missing out on a huge opportunity for improved search engine result placement. Be sure to label your images appropriately and they may even show up as the number one result on Google. Additionally, Google has a database of images (Google Image Search) that indexes pictures as well.
5. Use Flash content sparinglyAs mentioned earlier, content generated through java script or flash is a big no-no. Some webmasters like to use flash because of the presentation. It's okay to use sparingly, but only after your site has been properly optimized with basic SEO in mind.
6. Make sure that important page elements are HTMLKeep in mind when optimizing a web page crawlers are basically only looking at your source code. Anything you've put together using an image or other multimedia component is likely to be invisible to search engines. Therefore, the most important elements of your page, where the heart of your content is presented, should be presented in W3C optimized HTML source code.
7. Place keywords in your page content the right wayI'm sure you've heard the importance of placing the right keywords or keyword phrases in your content. To show the search engines that your article is focused on a particular keyword or keyword phrase, be sure to sprinkle it throughout the content. Additionally, include your keyword in headers and sub-heads. That is to say that your keyword should be contained in an h1, h2, or h3 tag.
Learning to optimize your website for search engines takes time and most of all, patience. Start with the basic principles I've outline here and you're off to a good start. If you're new to SEO, or even a well seasoned veteran, begin by prioritizing which pages are most important for you to optimize. Sometimes people think that they need to optimize all their pages right away and the task becomes too overwhelming. Start small, begin with your primary and/or secondary pages, and go from there.
*Michael Fleischner is a Marketing Expert and Search Engine Optimization Specialist. He has more than 12 years of marketing experience and had appeared on The TODAY Show, Bloomberg Radio, and other major media. Visit MarketingScoop.com for further details and more free marketing articles.
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Blog Posts from Google
Here's my favorite link:
Great Stuff on eBay
Fetching new data from eBay now... please stand byNew Buzz Machine
- The death of a curious mind
- Deborah Howell was unafraid to learn in public. That, I think, is her best lesson for us all.
Deborah died today in a roadside accident while vacationing in New Zealand. She had been ombudsman of the Washington Post, chief of the Advance Publications' Newhouse News Service in Washington, and editor of the St. Paul Pioneer [...] - Surrendering advertising … killing bundling
- Two things strike me about News Corp.'s battle to get cable fees:
(1) Again and again lately, the company is surrendering the advertising battle. In newspapers, it is saying that advertising won't support its high costs and so it will sacrifice traffic and advertising the hopes of building build pay walls. In MySpace, the company [...] - The annotated world
- Tweet: A view of our annotated world: Hyperlocal is what's around me and how I search that
There are eight million stories in the naked city and soon every one of them will be available on your phone through visual, aural, and geographic search and augmented reality in our newly annotated world.
Every address, every building, [...] - Page & Brin: Icons of the decade
- The Guardian commissioned me to write a piece on Google founder Larry Page and Sergey Brin as icons of the decade. My kicker:
To understand the power of Brin's and Page's focus, go to Google's home page now and type "weather in Ed" and stop there. Google will not only understand you want weather in Edinburgh [...] - Bankruptcy squandered
- Tweet: Here's what I think bankrupt newspaper companies should be doing.
The AP lists the status of six newspaper companies that have declared bankruptcy: Tribune, Freedom, Philadelphia, Sun-Times, Journal Register, Star-Tribune, representing 66 daily newspapers among them.
Mostly they are using bankruptcy merely to restructure the debt they shouldn't have gotten themselves into in the [...] - Signs of hope
- David Carr wrote another good and hopeful column today (this, I told him, was his burning bush column). I'm delighted that it ended with a brief report on his jurying in my entrepreneurial journalism course at CUNY:
Meanwhile, journalism schools are no longer content just to teach the inverted pyramid. A few weeks ago, I was [...] - Google’s synchronicity
- On the latest This Week in Google, we talked about many of Google's product announcements and enhancements and though none on its own was earthshattering, as we added them up, I started to see synchronicity approaching — all the moreso last night when TechCrunch reported that Google's negotiating to buy Yelp.
I see a strategy [...] - Google goes local
- TechCrunch reports that Google is in negotiations to buy Yelp. Makes perfect sense. Google is ready to make an assault on local with its Place Pages and QR codes on local establishments and augmented maps and directions and mobile…. This turf was newspapers' and phone companies' to lose and lose it, they will.
Or as [...] - Small c update:
- I just had my three-month check-up after surgery for prostate cancer and the news so far is good: My PSA (a measurement of the antigen produced by the prostate, which shouldn't be there once the gland is gone — unless cancer cells are elsewhere causing trouble) came in at <0.05, just what it's supposed to [...]
- Content farms v. curating farmers
- Tweet: Content farms v curating farmers: Deeper insights in Demand Media's model & finding opportunity in finding quality.
I spent an hour on the phone the other day with Steven Kydd, exec VP of Demand Studios, to understand their model?using algorithms to assign content creation based on search and advertising demand and to minimize cost and [...] - The entrepreneurial journalism class report
- Tweet: Report from my entrepreneurial journalism class: Cause for optimism
Wednesday was the best day of my year: the jurying for my entrepreneurial journalism class at CUNY. The jury awarded four businesses a total of $57,000 (thanks to a grant from the McCormick Foundation). Here's how it works.
Because one of them could be the next Google [...] - Is journalism storytelling?
- It's accepted wisdom in the news tribe that journalism is storytelling. They have become synonymous. Journalists are storytellers. I hear that over and over again, especially in discussions of journalism education, and when I do I see everyone's head nod. Lately, I'm not necessarily nodding.
I'm not so sure journalism is storytelling anymore.
One reason: [...] - MediaTalk USA
- Here's the December edition of the Guardian's MediaTalkUSA.
I give myself much credit for bravery for having somebody who really knows radio — Laura Walker, head of WNYC — and somebody who's funny — Baratunde Thurston of the Onion — on the panel as I'm not good at either. They are great guests. We talk [...] - Investing in local
- I'm delighted to see CNN investing in Outside.in – and in local and in the notion of distributed, scalable networks of content. AOL, Yahoo, MSNBC, NBC, ABC, and other big guys are investing in local. But local doesn't need big guys to succeed and Outside.in is the proof: it is a curation of lots of [...]
- The near future
- Xark raised fair and unfair criticism of our work at the New Business Models for News Project. I'll respond:
Xarc's Dan Conover says that the models we presented look a lot like present models, only different. Fair and true. Our goal was to look at what news in a metro market would look like if the [...] - Get off the lawn
- There's one thing that Rupert Murdoch, Arianna Huffington, Steve Brill, and I agreed on yesterday – and and there's probably nothing else one can imagine this group would ever find consensus around. At the two-day Federal Trade Commission "workshop" (read: hearing) that asked how journalism will "survive" (their word) in the internet age, we all [...]
- Compare/contrast
- Tweet: Compare/contrast Rupert Murdoch on the internet (and me) then and now.
In 2005, Rupert Murdoch gave a rousing speech to the American Society of Newspapers Editors calling on them to listen to digital natives. Yesterday, his deputy, Les Hinton, gave a speech to the World Association of Newspapers in India warning them to beware geeks [...] - First, do no harm, government
- Relevant to today's FTC workshops (read: hearings) on the "survival" (their word… I would have said "rebirth:) of journalism in the internet age, Geoffrey Cowan and David Westphal issue a good set of principles for government involvement (read: meddling or support):
First and foremost, do no harm. A cycle of powerful innovation is under way. To [...] - Media after the site
- Tweet: What does the post-page, post-site, post-media media world look like? @stephenfry, that's what.
The next phase of media, I've been thinking, will be after the page and after the site. Media can't expect us to go to it all the time. Media has to come to us. Media must insinuate itself into our streams. [...] - The new divide: Walled v. open
- Tweet: The new divide in media is walled v. open. Here's why I think walls are bad for the builders and us all.
In the discussion about news, there's always a divide – because news loves divides. The splits have been old v. new, MSM v. blogs, professional v. amateur, institutional v. entrepreneurial, and lately paid [...] - Rupert has balls
- Tweet: Rupert has balls. Well, he used to.
That's the essence of Murdoch: balls. It's the essence of the culture of News Corp., which I learned from working there (at TV Guide): Australian macho seat-of-the-pants instant decision making.
That is the secret to Murdoch's success. It is also the secret to his failure: Sometimes his [...] - Worthless readers
- Tweet: Worthless readers. And what to do about Murdoch et al's whining about them.
One response publishers make to my argument that Google drives value to them and their content in the link economy is that the readers Google sends are worthless.
Worthless readers. WIliam Randolph Hearst, Joseph Pulitzer, Joseph Medill, Katherine Graham, and C.P. [...] - Corporate punctuation finds its home
- Companies have stupid fetishes about their names. Tribune Company isn't The Tribune Company, it's Tribune Company – no damned "the." Time Inc. isn't Time, Inc., we were informed when I worked there, it's Time Inc. In a corporate dining room, there used to be a memo from one of the company's founders with a rubber [...]
- Murdoch madness
- I've had a fair number of press calls on the Murdoch/Bing sillliness and here are the points I've been making:
Were Bing to pay News Corp. to drop Google, it would be a double-play in Google's favor: Microsoft would lose money and gain little. News Corp. would lose traffic, shifting away from the search engine with [...] - Murdoch madness
- (I double-posted the Murdoch Madness post but won't kill this entirely because there are comments now attached….)
New Gapingvoid
- evil plans and big companies
- I have a feeling that I'm going to be asked the following question a lot in the next couple of years:
?How do I execute my EVIL PLAN within the limits of my current job at a big company??
I'm probably the wrong person to ask? I've never fitted into corporate culture very well. But I [...] - personalized porn
- Have a story. And make sure it's a good one. A DAMN good one.
I have a very old, dear friend in New York, call him Andrew.
Andrew is about forty, and a pretty successful film director. One of his films aired on HBO recently. He also has a thriving corporate video business, which he works on [...] - the pressure to “not be shit”
- I'm in the final stages of writing EVIL PLANS. Got a thousand words or two left to write, then I send it off to my publisher.
Earlier today on Twitter I wrote:
Man? writing books is exhausting. The pressure to ?Not be Shit? overtakes your life. *SIGH*
Kinda says it all. And I don't think it just applies [...] - content wants
- [About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my ?Daily Cartoon? Newsletter.]
- the valley of the shadow of death
- [About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my ?Daily Cartoon? Newsletter.]
- i’m not dead
- [About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my ?Daily Cartoon? Newsletter.]
- untitled 091231b
- [About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my ?Daily Cartoon? Newsletter.]
- don’t worry if you don’t know “absolutely everything” before starting out
- ?DON'T WORRY IF YOU DON'T KNOW ?ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING' BEFORE STARTING OUT.?
That's probably the last thing you need?
A lot of people massively postpone their EVIL PLANS, for the simple reason that they don't have an answer for every possible contingency.
They don't know enough about the industry. They don't know enough people in the industry? especially the [...] - one night stands
- [About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my ?Daily Cartoon? Newsletter.]
- 90%
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- f-ing muse
- [About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my ?Daily Cartoon? Newsletter.]
- death makes
- [About Hugh. Cartoon Archive. Sign up for my ?Daily Cartoon? Newsletter.]
- gapingvoid prints: the new marketing campaign
- [Rough banner ad ideas I wrote earlier today etc.]
Things here at gapingvoid Central have been busy. In order to spread the word on our fine art prints, we're talking to a few people about some possible advertising and affiliate marketing deals.
It's fairly virgin territory for gapingvoid, certainly, but I'm finding it an interesting experiment so [...] - “evil plans” are not products. “evil plans” are gifts.
- You were given a gift by The Creator, God, The Universe, Whatever. Until you have returned the favor, Life will have a certain, feckless emptiness to it.
So sooner or later you're going to have to explain to your friends and family EXACTLY why you decided to quit your stable 401K job and go off on [...] - print profile: “c.f.a.”
- From the gapingvoid Gallery:
I drew this when I was living in New York, in the late ?nineties.
If you actually listen to me speak, if you actually read my prose writing, you'll find I don't swear very often. But somehow it works in cartoons. Especially ones created in New York.
This print is one of four prints [...]
New Seths Blog
- Now available as an iphone app
- Is there a fear shortage?
- Without them
- Evolution of every medium
- Welcome to the frustration decade (and the decade of change)
- Seven years gone
- Cheapest reliable alternative
- Put a name on it
- It's not the rats you need to worry about
- How far away is your future?
- Represent
- Learning from bad graphs and weak analysis
- We were waiting for you
- The difference between hiring and recruiting
- First, organize 1,000
- It's no wonder they don't trust us
- Fear of bad ideas
- In search of customer intimacy
- You don't have the power
- Think like me, agree with me
- Different kinds of work
- Save the date: January 15 in New York for the book launch
- Dancing with entropy
- 8 questions and a why
- It's still too difficult
New Scobleizer
- PLEASE SUBSCRIBE TO MY NEW BLOG
- Hello, we know you're still subscribed to this blog (9,000 of you are on Bloglines, for instance). So, please unsubscribe from this blog and come over and visit me in my new home at http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
My new RSS feed is here: http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/feed/
I have permanently moved over there, so please do come and visit! - Come visit me on my new WordPress blog
- I should have been clearer. My new blog is over on WordPress's new hosted service, which is still in beta. I've been posting frequently over there. http://scobleizer.wordpress.com/
I'm still playing around, though, and learning the new system. I'm also setting up a separate blog over on TypePad to learn that blog tool. And have yet another one over on DABU too.
Oh, and of course, there's our book blog (which is also on TypePad) and the Channel 9 video blog, done on modified version of Community Server. So, I'm getting around to a variety of blog tools and services. I find I don't like a lot about all the tools. It's interesting to me that no one has really come out with a big blog breakthrough lately.
I'm getting another demo of Flock tomorrow, too.
Oh, and ou might check in on Channel 9. I just uploaded three videos, including my first Xbox 360 one, an interview with a Vice President in charge of half of our developer division (we're shipping Visual Studio "within days" I hear).
Reader Feedback
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Reply
- Alan Toaca Alan Toaca Oct 20, 2008 @ 3:20 am
- Great Squidoo lens here! Thanks for posting my videos here!
Alan Toaca
Alan Toaca dot com
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Reply
- Retro_Loco Retro_Loco Sep 29, 2007 @ 5:31 pm
- Great tips, Tony! I added you to my faves. Glad I found your lens. ~Vicki~
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Reply
- CliveAnderson CliveAnderson Sep 15, 2007 @ 2:50 pm
- Really interesting and informative lens. You've certainly outlined your subject with a detailed and comprehensive manner. Some of these links are amazing, top stuff, love it. Easy 5 stars. Clive Anderson.
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