Search Engine Optimization News

Reaching a Desirable Rank in Search Engines

2006-06-21T16:46:00.000-07:00

What works best for great ranking in one search engine may differ from that of another search engine. Yahoo, Google, and MSN are currently the top searching sites used by Internet users.

Yahoo isn't in and of itself a search engine, rather, it is a directory, and therefore, a site's rank is not primarily influenced by the words that are on your pages. The words that matter are those that are on the listing that you submit. Search results come from a few sources including those in the Google database, sites in the Yahoo index, and Yahoo categories that match a query. Just because your site may show up in the search, doesn't mean it is indexed by Yahoo. If Yahoo doesn't have it indexed, matches from Google are displayed.

To get listed and achieve a high rank with Yahoo, there are some tips to think about:

Construct an aesthetically pleasing website
Choose the most appropriate category for your website
Include keywords in the title of your site

Yahoo and many other search engines offer a new search engine marketing method called "Paid Inclusion." The company charges fees to a website owner for a guaranteed inclusion of the website in the search engine's index. Depending on the search engine, a pay-per-click fee may also be charged. Yahoo mixes paid inclusion with results from web-crawling to determine rank. Controversy is alive about paid inclusion. The argument remains that the most economically well off sites remain at the top of the rankings, rather than the most relevant of sites to a specific search. There is a great deal to consider before using this tactic, primarily a close look into your budget and intentions for your website.

Google has its own unique criteria for ranking websites. One way to stand out is to utilize a Google Sitemap. Visibility is improved because you are able to log in and inform Google of changes made. This allows for fresher search results for Internet users. You can also inform Google about how often a page is changed; this all helps to improve the ranking of your site. Another way to increase your ranking is to grow the number of high quality sites that link to your pages. Use rich and accurate content that utilizes vocabulary appropriate for your site and its intended users. Don't get bogged down in repeating certain words throughout the pages. Google goes beyond how many times a word appears by looking at all aspects of the page's content and the content of the pages linking to it. Together, it is determined if and how important and relevant they are to a specific search query.

Aside from tactics used by other search engines to determine rank, MSN uses various "web catalogs" for its search results. Along with specific algorithms (or criteria the engine uses to rank) applied to your page, a ranking is given to your page for the search engine.

Regardless the search engine, there are motions a web owner can make to help them stand out in rank from their other counterparts such as link development, an extremely important part of getting your site recognized. You need to have quality sites linked to you, and you need to link to quality sites.

HTML META tags help engines determine what your page is all about and can therefore help increase your visibility and rank when accompanied by other SEO tactics. These tags must be carefully made so that they fit the parameters of the algorithms specific to the search engine. Always use the best keywords possible in making tags. This will help ensure that work being done behind the scenes to do with your META tags is to your advantage.

SAMSA can help you achieve great ranking in search engines with our Internet Marketing and Copywriting Services.

Important Information For Those Who Have Used Google's Online Advertising

2006-05-23T08:29:00.000-07:00

A class-action lawsuit, Lane's Gifts and Collectibles et al. v. Google, Inc. et. al. is in the process. The plaintiffs claim that Google has breached its contracts, unjustly enriched itself, and engaged in a civil conspiracy by failing to detect and stop "click fraud" and other improper clicks on online advertisements. Google denies the claims saying that all payments received for online advertising were legally and properly charged and that they haven't breached contract. Google also says that a majority of invalid clicks are detected and filtered before they reach an advertiser's bill, and if an advertiser detects additional invalid clicks, Google's click quality team investigates and provides refunds when appropriate.

Anyone who has purchased online advertising from Google between January 1, 2002 and the present is considered a class member in the lawsuit. The court will decide whether or not to approve the settlement. If approved, Google advertising credits will be awarded to class members who certify that they have been victims of the alleged fraud and improper clicks on advertisements during the specified time period. If an appeal occurs, credits will not be awarded until the appeal is resolved. The hearing for this settlement is scheduled for July 24th and 25th.

What Would You Receive From the Settlement?
By submitting a valid claim form in a timely manner, the percentage of ads that you believe were affected by "click fraud," you will be awarded with a percentage of the total available credits based on how much in total you paid to Google for the ads.

What Your Options Are:
Remember, your legal rights are affected whether you choose to act or not

Do Nothing - You will automatically be eligible to submit a claim form for Google advertising credits and will give up your ability to sue Google over the subject matter of this case. Between June 19, 2006 and August 4, 2006, visit www.clicksettlement.com to submit a claim form.
Exclude Yourself - You will not be able to submit a claim form for Google advertising credits and will retain your ability to bring or participate in another lawsuit against Google about the subject matter of this case. To opt-out from the class, mail a signed letter asking to be excluded postmarked no later than 30 days after the date the Notice was sent to you to:

Google Settlement Opt Out
c/o Gilardi & Co. LLC
P.O. Box 808070
Petaluma, CA 94975-8070
Object - You will write to the Court and parties about why you disagree with the settlement no later than 30 days after the date the Notice was sent out. Letters must be mailed to the following 3 addresses:

Clerk of the Miller County Circuit Court
400 Laurel
Texarkana, AR 71854

George L. McWilliams
Patton, Roberts, McWilliams & Capshaw, LLP
2900 St. Michael Drive, Fourth Floor
Texarkana, TX 75503

Daralyn J. Durie
Keker & Van Nest, LLP
710 Sansome St.
San Francisco, CA 94111

Increased Search Engine Optimization and the Pursuit for Tip-Top Text

2005-12-29T08:38:00.000-08:00

SEO, a component of Internet marketing, is more than website layout, design, and putting "stuff" on your site. The "stuff" is actually a crucial part of determining the potential level of search optimization your site has. The major objective of search engine optimization is to make your site as search engine friendly as possible.

It takes a lot of hard work to get the results you want because there is no short cut to success when personal creation is involved. A serious evaluation of internal and external resources must be conducted when deciding how your business will obtain its website text content. It's often beneficial to seek an outside professional who is specialized in copywriting.

The cost to seek assistance in writing content or having content edited is incalculable because in the long run you will not be risking such a high chance of teeter-tottering on the brink of failure and success. Writing produced by an internal source requires immense devotion to "keeping it up". Because the web is growing and search results fluctuate, a business must keep up with the pace by adding new content regularly or it will fall in rank or disappear altogether on search engine results. This is where an external source can be most helpful; a skilled copywriter is competent and will take on the responsibility of creating fresh text specific to your needs so you can focus on other tasks. SAMSA offers a copywriting service to fulfill this need.

Focusing your content on your target market is first and foremost. Attempting to reach everyone by blasting un-related popular search words will only be setting yourself up for failure in terms of low rank on search results and attracting an obscure market of visitors to your site. Content must be unique, appealing, understandable, and pertinent to your market. In drawing visitors, words that are important to strategically place throughout the site are ones that potential customers would be searching for to find what it is that you provide. Bad grammar, structure, word choice, etc. defeats the intention of trying to optimize your site.

Because the Internet is a text-based medium, the information a site contains is what produces the site as a search result. Graphics, flash, etc. are important in creating an aesthetically pleasing site but these components alone will not make your site show up in a search engine. Tip-top text is the foundation for bringing traffic to your site and giving your site a rating in search engines.

With the popularity of search engines, it is possible to increase your businesses' visibility and traffic on the web provided you are committed to making the most of all that search engine optimization has to offer. Don't let your website become just another site floating out in space.

For more information about SAMSA's copywriting service visit http://www.samsa.com/internet/copywriting.htm

Build it and they will come... or not!

2005-12-10T11:11:00.000-08:00

Back in the early days of the Internet, the phrase "build it and they will come" was something many web site owners believed in. Many people thought they don't need to market their site they just needed one built.

While the competition back then wasn't as overwhelming as it is today, some site owners actually got lucky getting their sites listed in search engines. The Internet now consists of billions and billions of sites... just go and do a search at your favorite search engine and you will see for yourself. Now, even though the Internet is growing at lightspeed, many people still believe in that trusty old phrase..."build it and they will come".

Wait!

It's time to put this phrase to rest because this couldn't be further from the truth! In order to be profitable with your site, you need a good solid marketing plan. This plan also needs to include a good plan for search engine optimization. Why? Well, you could just put up your site and spend money on pay per click programs to get traffic to your site, or you could optimize your site for the search engines and get free traffic! Getting free traffic to your site can save you tons of money! Don't get me wrong, PPC is good for your sites plan, but it should only be a small part.

So where do you start with your marketing plan? If you are new to website ownership, there's a vast amount of information out there that can help get you started, and it will probably take you a long time to learn by trial and error in order to find out what will work best for you. Or you can simple contact us here at Samsa.com and we can help you get on the right track right away. If you are a veteran to the web and your marketing plan just isn't working for you, we can help you and revise a new strategy for you.

Which ever way you decide to go, the bottom line with selling your products and/or services on the web is that you need to have exposure for your site so that you get qualified traffic to your site. You can't just build it and expect them to come... because they won't.

Pay-Per-Click Advertising Is It Right For Your Site?

2005-10-14T11:36:00.000-07:00

Anyone with a Web site should take advantage of the advertising on the major search engines using the pay-per-click model. The reason I say this is that advertising this way is very cost effective because you can set your own budget (most of the time) and drive qualified traffic to your site for pennies a day. Many times I have heard that site owners would rather rely on organic search results because it's basically free advertising. This is true, however if you are not ranking in the first 3 pages of the search results, chances of getting traffic to your site is practically null. Then you have to get your site ranked for the keywords that users are searching on which is not always easy, especially if you have a new site. Pay-per-click is great method to use while you wait on your organic search rankings. You can read more about advertising on search engines here: http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2005/oct/12.html
Then come on back to Samsa.com and we can manage your PPC campaigns for you!

Blogs: Why All The Hype?

2005-10-02T15:04:00.000-07:00

For those that aren't sure what a blog is; it is a journal that you can post on the Web. The topics can be about anything you want it to be and whatever you enjoy writing about. Many people have Blogs that are personal intrests; such as hobbies, games, skiing etc... Blogs are also useful to businesses as well. They can use them for updates about their products, news, about what's happening at the company, and so on.
So why are they so popular? What we are finding out is that search engines love content, and therefore tend to index your blog site quickly. If you are running a business on the 'Net, starting a blog for your site can be beneficial. To find out more, this article may be of interest to you:
(http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2005/sep/28.html)

Researching Keywords

2005-09-23T11:43:00.000-07:00

There are many keyword tools and tutorials out there that can keep you reading for months and testing new techniques. My two favorite tools for keyword research are WordTracker(http://www.wordtracker.com) and Nichebot (http://www.nichebot.com/). In my personal opinion I like to use Nichebot the best. The reason for this is it's a free tool, but it also uses the WordTracker database and Overture keyword base, you can check your Google rankings on the fly, and you can do a keyword analysis on specific keywords. This site has a lot features that most keyword research sites/tools don't have and gives you faster results.
When chooing keywords keep in mind the competitiveness of the word. You don't want to choose words that are really competitive because it will just make it harder for your site to rank for them and will take a lot longer. Instead look for words that are still related but are low in the competitive area. Nichebot tells you at the bottom of the page what each column represents and how the numbers will effect your site. Remember.... When choosing your keywords it is important to choose words that are related to your sites' content for each page.

Submitting Your Website

2005-09-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

There are many submission services and submission software programs out there for webmasters to use in submitting their site to the search engines for indexing. But are they safe for you to use? Well as far as software programs are concerned, many search engines can detect if it is an automated submission or if a human is submitting the site. Some even have security codes you must enter when submitting to prevent the automated process. I don't believe that your site will be tagged as a spammer; it just won't be submitted to that particular search engine. Now, if you are repeatedly submitting to the same search engine then yes there is a chance you could get tagged.

What about submission services? I can't say that I have first hand experience with these, but a few things to watch out for is if the service does submissions by hand or if it's all an automated process; some search engines you must submit by hand entry. One other thing that you should be concerned with is the number of times this service submits your site. In all honesty, once your site is indexed in the major search engines is there really a need to keep submitting? I would say the answer to this would be no. If you keep your site updating regularly then the spiders and bots will continue to visit your site on a regular basis. Submitting your site monthly is not going to increase your rankings. You should keep watch on your site access logs and make sure that the bots are hitting your site regularly.

So what is the best way to submit your site? The best way that I have found is not to submit to search engines but let them find your site naturally and one way to do this is through a link from a site to your site. If you still haven't been indexed after a month or so then I would go ahead and do a manual submission from the search engines submission page; once should be all that it takes.

You may also want to check out Googles new sitemap feature that lets you tell Google how often certain pages in your site are updated, important pages that should be indexed by Google, and more. For more information visit Google: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login?source=gsm&subID=us-et-seo

Happy submitting!

Meta Tags - To Use or Not To Use

2005-09-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

Back in the day meta keywords and meta descriptions were a very important aspect of Search Engine Optimization. You needed to have the right combination in order to get your site to rank well for specific terms; but are they still just as important today as they were then? With search engine algorithms changing and continously improving, some say no they are not important and others say yes. So what's the real answer? It's both, let me explain. In some search engines Meta tags do not make a difference. The search engine gathers their information from the title of the page and the actual page content. Other search engines still use this data for their descriptions etc. So how do you make sure you are giving the search engines what they need to index your site properly? Well simply put, use the meta tags. You are not going to get penalized for using them by search engines that don't rely on them; they will simply be bypassed during the crawl, but at the same time you are giving the search engines that do use them the needed information.

How Important Is Reciprocal Linking?

2005-08-28T16:47:00.000-07:00

As tedious as reciprocal linking is, it is a very important part of your search engine optimization campaign. Many will link with any Web site and build thousands of links just to build up their Google Page Rank. But what is not realized that many times this doesn't help your rankings or your PR. It's important that when you are building links you do it the correct way.

A few things to remember is that you should choose sites to link with that are related to the theme of your Web site. For example if you have a Web design site you may choose to link with a site that also does Web design and hosting. Now you might think that "this is a competitor and why would I want to do that!" Many have a different opinion when it comes determining if they should link to a competitor or not. In my opinion, linking with a competitor can be beneficial and chances of sending away your customers is not likely. You should be cautious though and make your own judgement before doing this.

Another important factor in your reciprocal link campaign is that you should create variations your link text periodically so that you are not displaying the same text on a bunch of sites, but remember to keep your keywords in that text. One of your main goals with linking is to make your link building look like it is naturally done to the search engines.

So what about one way links? These are better than reciprocal links because it means you have less outgoing links, but it is a lot harder to do because many site owners don't give you a link without linking back to them. One way to resolve this is to build great content that people will want to link to as a good resource of information. Another resolution is that you can purchase text links. Be careful when doing this because Google is now figuring out a way to detect these and may not be counted as a link; well it may be counted but not have an impact on your rankings or Google PageRank.

Remember... Keep it related, natural, and build great content! Happy linking!

AskJeeves Launches Pay Per Click

2005-08-25T12:38:00.000-07:00

Now that AskJeeves has launched their own pay per click model, how will this affect your Google Adwords? Your Google ads will continue to show up on AskJeeves but now you have a little more flexibility with your ads. For example you can set your options in Adwords to have your ads only show in the Google search and then open an account at AskJeeves and run your ads on their network too. So is it worth doing this? That's up to you really, According to Nielsen//NetRatings reports (http://www.nielsen-netratings.com/) AskJeeves has 1.6% of searches. I think if you are not showing your ads network wide on Google you should definitely give their program a try. AskJeeves Sponsored Listings is located at: http://sponsoredlistings.ask.com/