Articles Role in Search Engine Optimization

As I already mentioned about the role of backlink these days. It is difficult to get one-way link these days. But blog services and article directories make it easy. Use of article directories and blogs to increase the backlinks of the website. There are many directories where you can publish your articles.

Please keep few points in mind during article writing for your website :

a) Must check the spelling and grammer. Some article directories provides online spelling check else use ms-word or other free spelling checker tools.

b) Article should be simple and use heading for each section.

c) Donot advertise your product in article. Write the quality, advantages, etc of your product.

d) Write article between 300-700. Some article directories mention the word limit. Article should not be short. Try to explain the product or business your are writing about in meaningfull way.

Here is the list of some free articles directory. Publish your article here. I hope you will get more traffic and it helps to increase the backlinks of your website also :

http://www.articlesisland.com/
http://www.articlesworldonline.com/
http://www.allthebestarticles.com/
http://freearticles101.info/
http://www.thenichearticles.com/
http://www.articlegold.com/
http://www.bigarticle.com/
http://www.goarticles.com/
http://www.easyarticles.com/
http://www.digital-web.com/
http://www.articlecity.com/
http://www.ezinearticles.com/
http://www.articledashboard.com/
http://www.articlebots.com/
http://www.articles-book.com/
http://www.articles4free.com/
http://www.articlesbeyondbetter.com/
http://www.articlesexpress.com/
http://www.article-content-king.com/
http://www.hotlib.com/
http://www.thewhir.com/
http://www.whatsay.com/
http://www.articledestination.com/
http://www.article-treasure.com/
http://www.goarticle.net/

I will update more article directories in future and also blog sites.

Open Directory Project - Dmoz Directory

The DMOZ Open Directory Project or ODP having more than 590,000 categories manage by human volunteers or editors who manage and review the website. You must read the rule before submission otherwise under strict guidelines your website will be rejected. The suggested website carefully reviewed by the human editor before listing.

It could take 3-6 months to review a website but it is not exact. Some websites listed in few weeks, some takes more time.

ODP play an important role in search engine ranking because you have the chance to get link back from the ODP and boost the ranking in google. Also Google, AOL, AllTheWeb, Hotbot and other web directories use the ODP data. So the role of ODP is very important to improve search engine ranking.

Remember few points in the mind. It could be helpful and more chances to get listed in ODP :

1) Donot exchange link with porn websites.
2) The site should not be redirected to other location.
3) It shouldnot be mirror or under construction.
4) Submit the site in most specific category in deep.
5) The description should be relevant to the category. Donot include promotional word.
6) It accept more than one page but the content should unique and relevant to the category.

Role of Social Booking in Search Engine Optimization

Social Bookmarking is another way to increase traffic and even back links. It is the best way to share, store and search the internet bookmarks. It is the websites where we stores our favorite websites and these stored links can be accessible to all other users joined the same social networking website. Users can find the favorite websites through tags.

It is not possible for the automated softwares to add the links in the social networking websites. All the links added here by human user. We can increase the traffic to our websites by social networking websites. Other users of similar interest search our websites by using tags and visit it. Few of the social bookmarking websites are :

simpy.com
del.icio.us
netvouz.com
givealink.org
stumbleupon.com
digg.com
mybookmarks.com
ma.gnolia.com

Create your profile here and add your favorite websites here.

SEO Tools

These tools are very important in Search Engine Optimization. So I want to add the information about these tools and best sites provided these tools free.

Keyword Density Analyzer Tool : If you want to check the percentage of a particular keyword comes how many times in the page, then you can check it by this tool.
Useful Sites :
http://www.keyworddensity.com/
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/keyword-density/

Meta Tag Generator : This tool helps you to generate meta tags and configure them.
Useful Sites :
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/meta-tag-generator/
http://www.free-webmaster-tools.com/Meta-Tag-Generator.htm

Backlink Checker : This tool provides you detail about the websites linking to your site.
Useful Sites : http://www.iwebtool.com/backlink_checker
http://www.build-reciprocal-links.com/backlink_checker_tool.html

Google PageRank Prediction Tool : This tool predict your website future page rank developed by Google.
Useful Sites : http://www.iwebtool.com/pagerank_prediction
http://www.gopagerank.com/pagerank/future-pagerank-prediction.php

Robots Text Generator : A very useful tool for the new webmaster to generate robots.txt file. You already know the purpose of robots.txt file. It is the file that control search engines robots which webpages or directory of a website indexes. There are many websites providing tools to generate robots.txt. Here is the suggested tools :
Useful Sites : http://www.1-hit.com/all-in-one/tool-robots.txt-generator.htm
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/robots-generator/

Page Size Check Tool : It is very important tool for the website designers. Heavy pages takes time to download at user end. This tool calculate the size of the webpage including the size of text, images(GIFs and JPEGs files).
Useful Site : http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/page-size/

SEO Secrets

Less code more content
When a web crawler visits your site, it is there to read your title, description and content. What it doesn't want to do is wade though pages of code in order to find a few lines of content. There are two reasons why this is bad:
1. It looks to the crawler that you are trying to hide something (spammers will use code to hide hidden text or redirects). If the crawler doesn't understand something, it will ignore it and, most likely, your site.
2. The web crawler may think you don't have enough content to put any importance into your site and, if it doesn't think your site is important, then it will not list you too high in the returned search results.
What you should be shooting for is at least a 2/1 ratio in favor of content on 75% of your pages. This will let the web crawler know your site has some sort of relevance and also gives the crawler more content to index, which it really likes.

Frames and Flash
I have addressed this subject before, but I want to go into it again because it is one of those things which a lot of SEO's just don't understand. The major search engines, i.e. Yahoo, Google and MSN, will all say the same thing on their web masters pages and that is "some web crawlers have difficulty reading the context of these pages". What it doesn't say is don't use flash or framed pages because this is a no-no. The reason why I want to make that clear is a lot of SEO's will try and tell you that this is a bad thing and that all your pages need to be flat static pages with lots of alt text behind your flat images. This is not the case. We have gotten many websites in the top ten and number one spots, some of which use both flash and framed pages. Some do not even have any indexable text or links on the home page. So how do we do it? Simple and its something you should be doing anyway. You should have an alternative version of your site which viewers with flash installed will be directed to. For a framed site, you should also have a non-framed version for people whose browsers don't support framed pages. Now that you know how simple it is, here is the temptation. Because your index page will most likely only be seen by maybe 10% of the people that come to your site, the temptation will be to flood that page with keywords and search text to get yourself bumped up the search and that will happen. However, when you get caught (which you will), you will be dumped. This page should only contain a stripped down version of your site and should only contain the same text content as your flash or framed site.

Keyword overindulgence
When writing the copy for your site, write it for your viewer and not for the web crawler. A lot of people get tempted to use the same word or phrase over and over to try and get themselves placed first on an web search. This is a total rookie move and can also get you bumped for what's called keyword flooding. Here are some examples:
Bad : Bay Area Search Engine Optimizing
Bay Area search engine optimizing company, located in the bay area. Our services include search engine optimizing, SEO and search engine placement. As part of our search engine optimizing service, we guarantee you top placement on all search engines within 30 days or your money back. When you chose our company for your search engine optimizing needs we will........ I think you get the point.
Good : Bay Area Search Engine optimizing
Jigsaw design is located in the Bay Area California. We are committed to serving all your design needs. Also, as part of our service, we also include search engine optimization, web hosting and online store solutions...... bla bla bla
I'm sure you notice the difference. Our web site does show up in the top ten for the search term "bay area web search engine optimizing". However, that was before we wrote this article. So how many times can you include the same search term? That only the Search engine companies know for sure. However, based our experience with sites we have successfully placed in the top ten, we would say no more than once every two paragraphs or once every 100 words.

Out of style sheets
Style sheets are one of those things that are easy to abuse and can get you in trouble. When use correctly, they can really help you when optimizing a site. To abuse the use of style sheets is simple. All you have to do is make your H1 tag the same as your normal text style to try and make the crawler think that all your text is important. The trouble is crawlers are not as dumb as the used to be. They figured out that nobody has a header that lasts 5 paragraphs. The proper use of the H1 tag is your main page header. For example, this page is "SEO Secrets". Sub headers like "out of style sheets" should use the H2 tag and your content should always be normal text. Never, no matter how tempting it is don't make any text hidden by use of style sheets or any other method because your site will be bumped. Also do not make the folder that your style sheet is in hidden or private because, if the web crawler can't read your style sheet, it's not going to trust that everything is legitimate.

Stale content
ou may be able to get your site listed in the top ten within 30 - 60 days, but that's no guarantee it will stay there. If your site is not continually being updated with fresh content and growing, then the search engines will simply dump it in favor of newer fresher sites. You should be adding a new page to your site every time the crawler visits and updating your old content as much as you can. Daily is preferred, but weekly at the very least. This will mean that the crawler will have fresh content to index and new links to explore. Thus, it will never see your site as stale and drop it.

NOT AS IMPORTANT AS A LOT OF SEO'S WOULD HAVE YOU BELIEVE

Page Rank
If you have downloaded Google's toolbar, you will see a bar at the top of each page which gives you a rating from 1 to 10 of how Google ranks your site. This means absolutely nothing when it comes to search engine optimizing. Some search engine companies think that getting a high page rank means you are going to be listed higher in the search. This is not the case. In fact, it couldn't be further from the truth. What this little bar indicates is simply how important Google sees your site and it makes that judgment on the quality of sites that link to you. The single most important thing about your site is not page rank, it is not how many incoming links you have and it is not how long your site has been up. It is your content, plain and simple. If your content matches the search criteria, then you will be listed. The more relevant content you have, the higher your site will be listed. There are a lot of sites listed in the number one spot that don't have any page rank.

Incoming links
Don't believe a word you hear about incoming links, the quality of the link or anything to do with link exchange because the truth is; it doesn't really matter how many links you have to your site and what sites link to you. What does matter is the way the sites link to you and how often new links show up to your site. If you wake up tomorrow and, overnight, 1 million other sites decided to link to you, that would not affect your position in any way (what it may do is hurt your listing because it will look like spam). Here is how links work for you:
1. If you are a plastic surgeon and another plastic surgery site links to you, that will give you a boost because you are being linked to a site that has some relevance to yours.
2. If your site sells used network equipment and the link to your site is like this used network equipment that will give you a boost because the link is a search term.
3. If you acquire new links slowly over the course of time, that will give you a boost because it looks like your site is gaining popularity.
4. If people link to internal pages of your site, as well as your home page, that will give you a boost because it looks like you have lots of pages of relevant information.

crawler

A program that automatically fetches Web pages. Spiders are used to feed pages to search engines. It's called a spider because it crawls over the Web. Another term for these programs is webcrawler.
Because most Web pages contain links to other pages, a spider can start almost anywhere. As soon as it sees a link to another page, it goes off and fetches it. Large search engines, like Alta Vista, have many spiders working in parallel.
Also see How Web Search Engines Work in the Did You Know . . . ? section of Webopedia.

What is SEO

search engine optimization, the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results, so where a site ranks in a search is essential for directing more traffic toward the site.
Good search engine optimizing (SEO) is a combination of design, user friendliness and content

Design:
All content including links, headers, alternative image text, alternative frame text and content text on a well designed website is viewable to the user and, more importantly, in terms of SEO, the web crawler.

User Friendliness :
Everything the viewer wants to know on your site should be no more than three clicks away (important information like contact info should always be one click away). In terms of SEO, a web crawler can only see the pages on your site that are directly linked, so a well optimized site will have text links as well as any graphical links such as flash or java script.

Content :
As well as the body content of your site, a web crawler will also look at the page title, page description, keywords, and file name. It will make its judgments on how to list your site based on these factors. A well-optimized site will have a page title that briefly describes the content, a description tag that will describe the content in more detail, keyword tags that will pull select keywords and key terms from the content, a file name that reflects the page title and content that is clear and relevant to the user and the web crawler.

More About Content :
The biggest mistake most people/companies make when optimizing a site is overdoing it, i.e., repeating keywords, duplicating image tags, flooding the backend with descriptive code and trying to fit as many keywords/terms into the meta tabs as possible. Not only is this a messy practice. but it can also get your site penalized and may be dropped from searches altogether. When building/optimizing a site, the first person you should be thinking of is the user and not the web crawler. Not only will this be better for your SEO efforts, it will also be a better experience for your potential customer.

What is a Web Crawler?
The best way to describe a web crawler is a blind child with a clear sense of right and wrong. It is blind because it doesn't see all the fancy graphics and creative flash. It only sees the text and alternative text on your site. It is a child because it has to be guided around your site by clear paths that it understands. The sense of right and wrong comes from it having the ability to determine if something is not right. i.e., if it comes across some red text that is on top of a red background it will see it as hidden text or if it sees a page redirect to a different site without any reason for it, it will see it as a gateway page, both of which are no-no's.
So to sum up on what is good SEO, the short answer is we will design your site for your customers first and web crawlers second taken into consideration browser compatibilities, text-only browsers and blind viewers. The result is a clear, informative experience for your users and a friendly experience for your web crawler.

Image Optimization

whether the use of ALT text and keywords in image file names have any effect on rankings. In two words - they do.
For those who don't know what Universal Search is, Google is now blending search results from all of their search properties - web pages, images, books, videos, etc. Where a search in Google used to bring up a page of HTML results, you will now get all of the above. This means everything on your site must be optimized these days, not just your web pages.

1.Context is extremely important. Images can rank based on what surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc. on the page. Image-only sites generally only work well if it is an extremely well-known brand or product. Otherwise, you need keyword rich text.

2.URL content text is important, too. The text of your URL is looked at as part of the context surrounding the image. The domain name, directory name and filename of the image (name it with keywords) are taken into consideration as far as relevance.

3.Use captions if possible. Take a tip from newspaper photos and place keyword rich captions with your images. Make the text good, quality content, not keyword spam.

4.Proper image type is crucial. Make absolutely sure your photographs are .jpg and not .gif. The .jpg format is standard for photographs whereas the .gif format is normally used for graphic images.

5.Images can effect reputation management. Non-flattering images can really hurt you. Optimizing your images can help push any images you would rather the public not see off the results pages.

6.Create a sitemap feed of images. As with web pages, the search engines can follow a sitemap that you create of images that you want spidered.

7.Use descriptive ALT text. Search optimizers used to debate over whether ALT text had any influence on rankings. That debate is over. Optimize your images using descriptive keyword-rich ALT text. Don't stuff the ALT attribute. Make it short and to the point. The keyword rich ALT text for your images could be the tie-breaker over who gets the top spot, so always use it.

8.Use the word "picture" or "photo" in your ALT text. Some searchers do use those words when they search for images.

9.Label images with your brand or URL. This will capture some home page traffic for you. Watermark the images or just add your URL somewhere.

10.Use high quality images. Unique images with good contrast tend to be the best.

11.Add photos to Google Maps. Fluff up your Google Maps listing with photos and images. These can influence visitors who find you through local search, etc.

12.Post images to Flickr. Open a Flickr account and put unique photos in your account. Basically, each photo you put up is its own web page with a title, description and tags. You can include a link back to your site and share the photos with other Flickr users and social sites.

13.Use Feedburner. I know this might sound strange since Feedburner is for RSS feeds, but if you handle your RSS feed through this free Google-owned service, you can also have images you post to your Flickr account included in the e-mail updates that are sent to e-mail subscribers of your RSS feed. This is all set up in your Feedburner account admin.

Off-Page Factors

Links
If Content is King, then Links are Queen. Search engines look at links pointing to your site as verification that you are an important authority site. It’s not just the quantity of links but the quality that counts. You can have thousands of links pointing to you, but if they are all from link farms or spammy sites, they won’t do you any good. Try to get back links from quality sites. If you have good content, a lot of links will come your way naturally, but if you want to speed things up, you’ll need to actively pursue those links. One way is to contact theme related, non-competitive authority sites and request a link. The acid test for a potential link is if there is a natural, logical reason for that site to link to you. If not, then you don’t want the link.

And, you want the links back to your site to use your keyword text in them. This is extremely important. If the keyword you are targeting is “widget” then you want the link back to your widget page to use that text and not “click here” or something like that.

Another way to use your content to get back links is by submitting articles to other sites for publication (A blog and RSS feed are great for this). Just be sure the content includes links to your site.

Submitting to trusted directories is also a good place to start. Most of the best require a fee for a listing, but they can be a great first step in your link building campaign.

There’s no simple, easy one-step way to gain links. It’s really about networking and relationships and your useful content is the key.

Competition
Keep track of your competition by searching for your primary keywords and study what they are doing. Don’t copy them, but you can analyze what they are doing right and you are doing wrong. See who is linking to them and investigate getting your own link. If you are a new site, you’ll be playing catch up for a while, but have faith. That guy in the #1 spot had to start from scratch at some point, too.

Training & Support
If you are on a shoestring budget and don’t have money to hire an SEO, you’ll have to do it all yourself. SEO changes daily and if you think all you have to do is tweak Meta Tags, you’re several years behind and have a LOT of catching up to do. You’ll be learning as you go. You’ll probably want to invest in some SEO training.

You can get ideas, updates and recommendations from my blog and from SE O forums and blogs online. Don’t rely on the forums as a solution for all of your website problems, but as a place to go for advice from SEOs and others who are also asking questions.

Analysis & Statistics
Sounds boring, but all of your hard work is worthless if you don’t know how you are doing. Chances are your hosting company will have some sort of web statistics feature where you can check basics such as unique visitors, where your traffic is coming from (referrals), page not found errors, etc. One mistake newbies make is to consider “hits” as the number of visitors they are getting. In actuality, “hits” are useless information. Hits are simply server pulls. As an example, if you have ten images on a page each time the page is loaded each image results in a server pull or “hit.” What you really want to look at is the number of “unique visitors” to your site, not hits, as an indication of your traffic.

If you are an e-commerce site, you’ll also want a way to track conversions, which will require something more than your basic hosting stats. Google offers free web analytics that could be adequate for many site owners, but there are also commercial applications available that offer greater functionality.

Whatever you do, don’t leave the site on autopilot. Check your stats frequently. You’d be surprised at the little things you’ll see that will help you bring in more traffic.

History
There is evidence that the search engines actually look at your domain history in their ranking algorithms (How long the domain has been up, how many years you’ve renewed for, if you’ve changed IP addresses frequently, etc.). The more stable you are the more they consider you a trusted site.

If you’re in it for the long haul, renew your domain for several years at a time (not just annually) and get a dedicated IP address and keep it. The best situation is to have a dedicated web server, but not all of us can afford that. The next best thing is to pay for a dedicated IP address with your host so that you are no longer sharing the hosted IP block. It usually doesn’t cost that much. Not only will the search engines see you as stable, you don’t run the risk of the IP being banned if one of your shared hosting neighbors is naughty.

Don’t bounce from host to host because that screams SPAMMER to the search engines. Find a good hosting company and stay there.