Internet Consultant

"The Top 10 SEO Tips For Website Success"

2008-09-07T10:10:00.007Z

The title is taken from an article by Matt Bush on Ezine, and some parts of the content as well. Matt Bush knows a lot about various things, including SEO, Depression, Male Yeast Infection etc.

And below we find the 10 commandments of SEO, as he reckons they should be.

1. Do proper keyword research: This is invaluable! Make sure that before you build a site, you figure out exactly what kinds of keywords you will want to target.
2. Use header tags: This is a chance for you to tell the search engines what you consider to be the most important phrase on your website.
3. Use italics and underlining to further emphasize your keywords.
4. Use proper keyword usage: I try to use my main keyword about 2% of the time. Don't overdo it!
5. Have a smart navigation structure: Make it as easy as possible for the search engines to get around your site, have lots of internal links
6. Use contextual links: Do everything you can to streamline your visitors through your site, and push them towards your products.
7. Get as many high quality links as you can: This is incredibly important, links can
make the difference in a high ranking website.
8. Encourage visitor interaction: create some polls, reach for feedback, anything you can to involve your visitors.
9. Update content regularly: No one likes a stale site, keep it fresh
10. Branch out: not every venture is going to be incredibly profitable. Be sure to spread out your "eggs", and once you start making money, put more resources and time into making even more profit.

This is actually very good. However, I have reservations about number 3: You do NOT use underlining in your text to emphazise keywords or anything else. That is reserved for LINKS. Also, italics does not go well on webpages. If you want to emphazise keywords or sentences, use bold letters.

That has worked very well for me and Google rankings have improved to a great extent at "my" site since I started using bold for keywords - not whole sentences, as most often is done. And this has actually been copied at the copycat site, at A2 websolutions, that basically copies the concepts of the A8 site.

SEO: Off-page optimization

2008-08-30T10:28:00.005Z

Some of us are familiar with the difference between on-page optimization and off-page optimization.

On-page optimization relates to the changes one makes on the webpage itself, including changing the layout, text, link subpages together, etc.

Off-page optimization relates to external issues, such as the quality and quantity of pages linking to one's website.

Brad Callen, in one of his latest posts, mentions the most important issues regarding off-page optimization:

Anchor text uses in your link
The title of the page your link is on
The page rank of the page your link is on
The “theme” of the website your link is on
The age of the website linking to you

And so on.

The good news is that this method is highly effective. The bad news is that webmasters do not always have anything to say about how their "link partners'" affairs are handled.

I can ask my "link partner" to put a certain keyword in the anchor text linking to my website. I can not, however, make him do it. It is his choice. But if I respect his wishes regarding that issue, he will respect mine. This is thus of mutual interest to both. However, if my website is "stronger", he will benefit more. Also, I can't change titles, themes and age of another website.

Thus the real question is:

Can I find a link partner that owns a website that is stronger than mine?

This is really the question of success and failure.

White hat

When I started the SEO process of the website of Allra Átta vefumsjónarkerfi and internetráðgjöf I faced some problems. First I must mention that traditional SEO methods to not always work in Iceland, due to language and a small market. Second, that page had a terrible score on Google. No SEO work had been done for a long time, and issues such as dynamic URLs and other problems added to my woes.

Yet, in just a few weeks I managed to not only get the main 10 keywords to the first page of Google / Yahoo SERPs, but most often to the top five. Actually, I had many no. 1 seeds.

I believe that White Hat methods proved successful. I linked to Allra Átta on my own blog (with average ranking from 1-6 on the most read blogs in Iceland - and perhaps in the top 30-40 list in the country), and opened a few blogs, such as this one, on blogspot.com, where I link, with an appropriate anchor text, to Allra Átta homepage and/or subpages.

This actually works.

I do not believe that off-page optimization alone can do the trick. The website needs quality content, intra-links, SEO friendly text and the proper use of keywords.

But with successfull on-page and off-page optimization combined this website skyrocketed on Google. This could also do the trick for you.

ROI

2008-08-21T08:31:00.003Z

Roi means "a king". It also has various sets of meaning, including Republic of Ireland (ROI) and Return of Investment. It simply measures the success or failure of an investment.

Relating to the internet, the ROI is very important. Unfortunately, many web site owners do not think in this way or have no interest in using the web to create more turnover or profit. They simple have a homepage because everybody else does it and "it might be convenient". Thus the homepage is like the company's identity card. Nothing more.

However, a web site can be a source of income. The first step should be getting through to people, i.e. having guest visiting the page. ROI is thus connected with SEO and scoring well on Google and the other Search Engines.

Wikipedia discusses ROI in the following manner:

In finance, rate of return (ROR) or return on investment (ROI), or sometimes just return, is the ratio of money gained or lost on an investment relative to the
amount of money invested. The amount of money gained or lost may be referred to
as interest, profit/loss, gain/loss, or net income/loss. The money invested may be referred to as the asset, capital, principal, or the cost basis of the investment. ROI is usually given as a percent rather than decimal value.
ROI is also known as rate of profit.
ROI does not indicate how long an investment is held. However, ROI is most often stated as an annual or annualized rate of return, and it is most often stated for a calendar or fiscal year. In this article, “ROI” indicates an annual or annualized rate of return, unless otherwise noted.
ROI is used to compare returns on investments where the money gained or lost — or the money invested — are not easily compared using monetary values. For instance, a $1,000 investment that earns $50 in interest generates more cash than a $100 investment that earns $20 in interest, but the $100 investment earns a higher return on investment.
$50/$1,000 = 5% ROI
$20/$100 = 20% ROI

Ok. If you invest some 10.000 USD in out website you should like to regain at least some of that money, if not making a profit.

That is what SEO helps you to do, and ROI helps you to understand.

Article Submitter Review

2008-08-16T14:14:00.003Z

While article submission isn't anything shockingly new to the world of SEO, many people STILL don't do it... and for good reason. It takes so incredibly long to do manually.

I'll admit, I had tried article submission at one point, but after I finally found a few article dircetories to submit my articles to, and then after manually copying and pasting my information into the required textboxes on each submission site, I quickly realized that my time could be better spent doing something else.

Then I came across a free program created by Brad Callen and Bryxen Software, Inc. that allows you to automatically submit your articles to hundreds of article directories with a few mouse clicks. Basically all I had to do was input my article criteria into the software, ONCE! Then, the program would automatically fill in all of the required data at each of the submission websites. Pretty incredible if you ask me.

The only part I didn't understand was why the program is free... but I can't argue with that I suppose.

The software currently contains around 700 article directories, all free to submit your articles to. It is the most straightforward program that we've come across, in that all you need to do is:

1. Input your article details (i.e. title, article body, bio, etc.) into the software

2. Click on the directory you want to submit to

And then the program will automatically fill in your article details. Then, you simply click the submit button and your article is instantly submitted to the directory. Then, you can move to the next directory, go through the list, and by the time you're finished you'll have roughly 700 one way links pointing to your website.

I can't think of an easier way to get links. Of course, if you're going to get links this quickly, it's important to submit different variations of your articles, to make things look more natural to the search engines.

You can do this very easily via Article Submitter when you create your project in the beginning.

The software is constantly being updated and their is an incredible community of users established that all work together to make the software better and better, so you know you're getting great value for the money.

To check out the software, go here:

The basic elements of SEO

2008-08-15T14:03:00.001Z

The basic elements of SEO consist of, in my view, rich content with appropiate use of keywords and links, both inbound and outbound.

These can be divided into many issues. I am, however, only going to discuss, in a few words, one point that webmasters can use in order to boost the rankings of their pages.

One keyword - one page

Doing the "keywords work" is the basis for SEO and any successful marketing of web pages on the internet. What keywords describe best the product or services you want to highlight?

And are those keywords carefully chosen?

Let's say, for the sake of argument, we pick the best keywords possible for our SEO work. But how to proceed?

There are many ways to proceed but the best possible groundwork is to allocate a special page to each individual keyword or chunk of keywords. And go from there, making a rich content with a carefully planned layout and textual setup, trying to present the keyword within a bullet list, anchor text and in bold letters, at least occasionally. And place the keyword in the first sentence of that page. And try to place that keyword also within the meta-text and the title of that particular page.

This is a good start. Now that keywords can be indexed by Googlebot and other spiders.

But the SEO work in only beginning.

SEO for beginners

2008-08-14T08:20:00.000Z

I was telling a little story on my Icelandic blogsite on how SEO for beginners can work, even for those of us who are in fact newcomers in this field of occupation.

In Iceland, the word "leitarvélabestun" has been to describe SEO, with the meaning of "making the best use of search engines", i.e. Search Engine Optimization. One of the leading SEOs in Iceland came up with a new word, leitarvélagreining, meaning really Search Engine Analysis.

This word has not been adopted by many SEOs and this man's company has basically monopolized the first and second rank pages at Google and other major search engines. Recently a rival company staged a coup d'etat and the self-proclaimed king was overthrown, relegated to 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th etc. place.

I decided to try to stage another coup and added this word to a relevant site I am working on. I did the usual SEO work in haste, but only the groundwork. I do not have time to mount a serious SEO campaign just to be visible at this scene.

However, the following day my site had somehow reached into the 4th place. I was thrilled. I was doing something right.

This morning I was in 1st and 2nd place.

Sometimes SEO can produce good results very fast, especially when the competition is not doing the job right.

P.S. Ok, very strange indeed. Down at 3rd and 4th place. I will return!

Competitor Analysis

2008-08-13T17:28:00.000Z

Competitor Analysis

Every company has to deal with competitors; rival companies that offer similar products or services, and focus on the same market.

Before the advance of the internet, competitors would often enjoy their own sphere of influence, i.e. in relation to location or tradition. The internet has changed all this, since rival companies now find themselves located side by side on the Web, where the actual battle takes place.

Competitive Analysis

Internet consultants use competitive analysis to assess the web pages of their customers' competitors. That way they define the existing situation and determine how to alter the balance.

By using competitive analysis, internet consultants will suggest ways to make your Web page capable of competing on the market. That process includes the assessmant of the following issues:

The accessibility of information

Design and layout of the webpage

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Internet marketing (SEM)

How the product or service is promoted

Updates and additions

How the webpage reflects the respective company’s image.

In order to succeed, one must know the competitors, the actual opposition. And knowing your adversary is the first step to victory.

Originally written for Econ (2007).

The SEO is working well

2008-08-12T17:14:00.000Z

Nice morning for some SEO work. Week ago I started working on a website which did not appear frequently on the first, or even the second, ranking pages of Google and Yahoo.

I was looking forward to this since there were some interesting prospects.

I did all the necessary work on keywords, links and the relevant content.

Now, about a week later, those keywords I was working with have skyrocketed. They do not only appear in first twenty, not only somewhere in the first ten. Most of those keywords were in the top five. Some even at the very top of Google results.

In only a week!

Well, it was somewhat easier than for most people since the keywords were in Icelandic and were opted for the local market. Thus the competition was not as tough as might have been expected.

SEO is "leitarvélabestun" in Icelandic, not very easy to pronounce for foreigners, yet, the same laws do apply.