Archive for December, 2010
December 27th, 2010 | 
Author: Se Tactics: How To Avoid Alienating The Major Search Engines
Each of the major search engines Google Yahoo and MSN have quality webmaster guidelines in place to prevent the unfair manipulation of search engine rankings by unscrupulous website owners. These webmaster guidelines change frequently to weed out any new deceptive practices and those websites found engaging in these illicit practices are consequently dropped from the search engine rankings of the major search engine they have offended.
Being banned or dropped from the search engine rankings can have dire effects on your website traffic online sales generation and site popularity. Especially if your website is classified as a bad neighborhood site you can then kiss your reciprocal linking campaign goodbye as existing and prospective link partners will not want to be associated with your site for fear of their own rankings dropping.
If you wish to avoid alienating the major search engines then do not engage in the following SE tactics:
1.Cloaking or sneaky redirects displaying different content to the search engines than shown to your normal website visitors including hidden text and hidden links. Often this is achieved by delivering content based on the IP address of the user requesting the page when a user is identified as a search engine spider a sideserver script delivers a different version of the web page to deceive the search engine into giving the website a higher ranking.
2. Doorway pages created specifically for the search engines that are aimed at spamming the index of a search engine by inserting results for specific keyword phrases to send the search engine spider to a different page. With doorway pages a user doesnt arrive at the page they were looking for. Similarly avoid cookie cutter approaches that direct users to affiliate advertising with little or no original content.
3.Dont create pages that install viruses Trojans or badware. Badware is spyware malware or deceptive adware that tracks a users movements on the internet and reports this information back to unscrupulous marketing groups who then bombard the user with targeted advertising. This type of spyware is often unknowingly downloaded when playing online games or is attached to software or information downloads from a site. They are often difficult to identify and remove from a users PC and can affect the PCs functionality.
4.Avoid using software that sends automatic programming queries to the search engines to submit pages or check rankings such as Webposition Gold. This type of software consumes valuable computing resources of the search engines and you will be penalized for using it.
5.Dont load web pages with irrelevant words.
6.Dont link to bad neighborhood sites who have:
Free for all links pages
Link farms automated linking schemes with lots of unrelated links
Known web spammers or the site has been dropped or banned by the search engines.
7.Avoid broken links or 404 errors your site will be penalized for them.
8.Dont display pages with minimal content that is of little value to your site visitors.
9.Do not duplicate content unnecessarily.
10.Do not use popups popunders or exit consoles.
11.Do not use pages that rely significantly on links to content created for another website.
12.Do not use cross linking to artificially inflate a sites popularity. For example the owner of multiple sites cross linking all of his sites together if all sites are hosted on the same servers the search engines will pick this up and the sites will be penalized.
13.Do not misuse a competitors name or brand names in site content.
14.Sites with numerous unnecessary virtual host names will be penalized.
15.Do not use techniques that artificially increase the number of links to your web pages ie. Link farms.
16.Display web pages with deceptive fraudulent content or pages that provide users with irrelevant page content.
17.Using content domain titles meta tags and descriptions that violate any laws regulations infringe on copyrights trademarks trade secrets or intellectual property rights of an individual or entity. Specifically in terms of publicity privacy product design torts breach of contract injury damage consumer fraud false misleading slanderous or threatening content.
For more information on search engine guidelines see my SEO ebook the Insider Secrets of Rank 1 Websites by Rosemary Donald for just 29.95 AU. Rank1 Website Marketing promoting positive SEO tactics on the Internet.
Rosemary Donald Rank1 Website Marketing 25th September 2007
www.rank1websitemarketing.com
About the writer:nbsp;nbsp;Rosemary Donald is an SEO Consultant with Rank1 Website Marketing www.rank1websitemarketing.com and author of the SEO ebook ‘Insider Secrets of Rank1 Websites’ available for 29.95 AU. Rosemary is a regular contributor to online article sites on the topics of SEO website marketing ecommerce search engine marketing and small business development.
Rosemary is also a successful online trader and owner of www.sabujewellery.com a top ranking on site on Google Yahoo and MSN with experience in online marketing export sales importing growing customer bases ecommerce customer service online sales generation and Rank 1 search engine marketing.
Howto: Free Tips On Search Engine Optimization Seo – Getting Visitors!
Being new to the world of Blogging I have been stressing on how to get visitors. What good is it to have a site I put time and effort into if nobody knows it exists? Of course there are many ways to include wordofmouth commenting on other blogs newsletters etc but the way this article will focus on is called Search Engine Optimization or SEO. SEO is a major deal and many companies pay their web designers high dollaramounts to get their site noticed!
So what is Search Engine Optimization? SEO is a method or an art really of discovering the innerworkings of search engines such as Google or Yahoo! so that we can understand what exactly to do to our site to get it topranked on the search engines.
For example let’s say we go to Google and search for “SEO.” Google returns as of today 248 MILLION results of SEO. The number one on the list for me is Wikipedia.org followed shortly by many companies who offer services in Search Engine Optimization. These sites have spent countless dollars having programmers optimize their site to reach those rankings. But why throw your money away when you can find plenty of sites online like mine that offer tips on how to do it yourself? So where do we start?
Before we begin I should point out that visitors will not arrive at your site overnight. I have been upandrunning for about 2 weeks now and I see around 45 visitors a day. Just in the last few days I’ve begun trying to actually get word of my site out there but I expect at least a month or more before I start seeing real results. Also I should point out to not give up. The number one reason why the sites that fail go downhill is because the authors start giving up which leads to less updates and eventually a complete vanishing act.
Web Design: You want to thoroughly check your site for spelling errors problems in the code or any other minor errors. You want your meta tags to be clean with proper keywords to your site. Don’t flood your keywords with irrelevant words to try to create traffic. Search engines used to fall for that but they are much more intelligent nowadays.
Study Habits: Take the time to study and learn all you can! If this is the only article you have ever or will ever read maybe you should pack your bags. SEO is a big deal and if you want to be successful you need to constantly try to get better even if you think you have it down!
Include a sitemap. Sitemaps are basically a page this can be a .html file or XML file or whatever method you have found that works that has a link to every page on your site. This allows search engine spiders the term used for their software that “crawls” the web and indexes sites to easily see every link on your site and get it all right the first time. http://www.xmlsitemaps.com/ provides an easy free way to create sitemaps to your site.
Write Understandable Titles and Descriptions on every page This is VERY important. Why would a user click on a site that says “SEO Tips” and expect something different? Make sure all of your page titles are related to the content contained. Visitors will not want to come back if they find themselves in a pool of marketing schemes or whatever your flavor may be.
Participate This is yet another very important factor. If you want to create a blog and have visitors come to your site shouldn’t you visit other sites as well? This is key to success. Visit sites see what others are talking about: it might inspire you. And don’t forget to leave comments. Don’t leave comments like “Come to my site” but try to leave actual constructive comments. This will develop your character and web surfers will be more likely to visit your site.
Diversify your Content Having a site specialized in a single topic can be fun to maintain especially if it’s something you enjoy to do but what happens when people just aren’t interested in reading the same old stuff over and over? Try to mix it up a bit talk about different things. It doesn’t have to be different every time but keep in mind that readers like reading new content.
Media I can’t really confirm if this helps or not but I have read that YouTube videos on your site increase your site ranking. That being said whether it increases your ranking or not videos on your site help your visitors visualize what you are trying to say which makes them want to come back more!
Get Help http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/ is a great place to start if you have a new site. Google has spent the time to develop these tools to assist you in optimization of your site. It will tell you detailed statistics about your site including broken or missing links code errors links to your site and much much more. Take advantage of these tools they are there for you!
That is just a few of the massive amounts of tips that can be found all over the internet. Google SEO Optimization tips is a great search to begin with if you want to learn more.
Good luck and I hope we all see some traffic soon!
About the writer: Visit me at http://www.jonathanplumb.com
What Are The Characteristics Of Good Web Site Design?
There are many different and often contradictory views and perceptions of the qualities that make for good Web site design. One also has to take into account current trends and popular styles in modern design which can differ according to personal preferences.
Despite these variables there are some central characteristics of good site design that have emerged in the last few years and which are generally perceived by pundits as being core features of good design. While design and creative layout remains an area dictated by personal taste and perception it is important to be aware of generally accepted characteristics in order to assess the comparative visual creativity of ones own Web site.
A feature that is emphasized repeatedly by many designers is the tendency towards simplicity of design and structure of a Web site. Achieving simplicity of design however is not as easy as it might sound. The modern trend is towards a more minimalist interface and page layout which facilitates ease of access to the site and usability features. One of the reasons for this trend is that as the number of Web sites proliferates at an even increasing rate there is a need to create sites that have a clear and obvious message and aim.
Simplicity of layout is therefore a characteristic that is evident in some of the best Web sites around. Very often this refers to a simple one or two column structure. Pages are also read from top to bottom. The days of the complex and involved site structure that requires time to figure out in order to navigate are definitely outdated. A good example of the modern stylistic approach is a site like Protolize Protolize.org.
One of the main design principles that many Webmasters have lived by in recent years was that it was wise to reduce the amount of scrolling necessary to view a page. However the modern tendency is for a centered orientation in Web design rather than the previous left aligned fixedwidth layouts. Many top modern sites have the content centered on the page which often requires some scrolling. While excessive scrolling is certainly not a good design characteristic the modern view is that some scrolling is acceptable when it is offset against the better use of white space and content that is situated around a central axis.
In line with the above there is also a relatively new tendency to focus on the design of the content and not the page itself. In other words there is less focus on designing a page background for instance and rather paying more attention given to the way that the content is presented on a Web page. This follows from the view that effective communication and not mere decoration should be the main focus of a good Web site.
As designer Phil Brisk states designers often become focused on detail rather than on paying attention to the way that the content is presented With your ‘design’ head on concentrating on crafting and perfecting style elements it’s easy to forget to step back and see things through the eyes of your users.http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/dont_decorate_communicate.cfm He also makes the important point reflected in many modern successful Web sites that while it is important to make use of eyecatching design elements to create flair and excitement on a site these elements must always be relevant and appropriate and not distract from a clear coherent whole effect. http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/dont_decorate_communicate.cfm
This statement encapsulates a central aspect of the modern trend in site design. In more practical terms this refers to aspects such as more open and less boxedin page layouts as well as the use of color and visual effects to draw attention to the content rather than the aesthetics of the page. As another pundit states the focus is on making the site’s subject look good rather than making the web designer look good. http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/currentstyle.cfm. In the light of these views aspects such central content alignment become important as it focuses attention on the content as well as providing a sense of balance and simplistic creative design. A good example of a site that takes this view to the point of minimalism is that of Garrett Dimon’s blog GarrettDimon.com. This site is designed for maximum access to content.
There are many other design aspects that conform to the modern perception of a good website that are worth mentioning. Navigation is conventionally situated on the left side of the page or on the topbar. The latest trend is to rather place navigational elements on the right side of the page. This may be a trend that is linked to the way that navigation in most Blogs function. Similarly right side navigation also has the advantage of making the content more visible and prominent.
There are many other aspects such as color usage which have tended to become more low key and less garish. In terms of font size the general trend has been to move away from very small illegible font sizes to larger fonts to make online reading more userfriendly. All of these trends point towards the central factor in contemporary Web design; namely that content and access to instant information are key factors in modern Web design.
About the writer: Sandra Prior runs her own websites at Beginners Bodybuilding Guide and Florida Computer Hardware Classifieds.
