Here is the presentation that I put together for the Performance Marketing Expo SEO session originally scheduled for the first day of the event. Unfortunately, the entire slate of Monday sessions was canceled, so I am sharing this with you here on The Web Optimist. The target audience is beginners looking for easy, non-technical, best practice SEO tips. I’m transcribing the slides below with additional comments included.

Everyone loves a good tip, right?

Here are some simple, quick, common sense tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Most novices with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to implement these tips without any problem.

Ah, but what is SEO, you ask?

SEO = Search Engine Optimization

SEO is:

• A part of search engine marketing (SEM) with the purpose of building content that is readable and indexed by search engines

SEO is NOT:

• Content just for the search engines
• Using unethical, “black hat” techniques to rank better
• An exact science
• Something you have to be a total geek to do

One more thing to understand about SEO…

SEO is NOT Rocket Science

BUT, it can be complex and is an ongoing process that changes almost daily. There is no such thing as a permanent fix to magically send you to the top of the rankings for good. But here are some of the basics to look for when optimizing your site to drive more traffic, prospects and, hopefully, profit.

First: Turn Off Personalized Search

Content is (Still) King

Be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase. Be sure to include keywords in heading tags and in the first paragraph and throughout body copy.

This is referred to as spider food!

Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

Good Back Links

• If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link.
• Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
• Get links from good, authority sites. The “authority” will rub off on you.
• Avoid link farms and obvious paid links.

Keywords in Hyperlinks

This can’t be emphasized enough! Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrases. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

Link Format Consistency

Did you know that…

http://your-site.com

http://your-site.com/

http://your-site.com/index.html

http://www.your-site.com

http://www.your-site.com/

http://www.your-site.com/index.html

Use Absolute Links

Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.

Title Tag

Among the first things the spiders will crawl on your page is the Title Tag at the very top of your HTML code. This is what you see in the blue bar at the top of your browser when you land on a page. Unique text in this tag on each page is essential and the single most important thing you can do for rankings. If you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end unless it contains the page’s targeted keywords. Keep your title tag under about 70 characters.

Keyword Density

• There is no magic keyword density for a page. That’s so 1998! Make your text natural with your primary keyword phrase included two or three times on a page, ideally above the fold. That’s it.
• Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

Don’t be Obsessed with PageRank

PageRank, or that little green bar you see in the Google Toolbar, is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

Optimize Your Images

• Use captions with your images.
• Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page.
• Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
• Enable “Enhanced image search” in  Google Webmaster Tools. Images are a big part of the blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.
• Use keywords for image file names.

Theme Consistency

Make sure the page Title tag, the HTML title attribute and the ALT attributes retain the scent or theme of the page.

Domain

• Select a keyword rich domain name (keyword.com) if possible. This makes every link to your domain a keyword anchor link, great for SEO.
• Changing ownership of a domain should not affect search engine rankings.
• There’s nothing wrong with .net, .org, .info and other extensions (search engines tend to give them equal weight), but you really want .com. People assume a domain (especially in the USA) ends in .com, so understand that if you get any other domain extension, you’ll probably lose at least some traffic to whoever owns the .com version.

Frames, Flash and AJAX

Unless the Flash you rely on wears red tights and is really, really fast, take care. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

I found this quote online and it perfectly fits my feelings about Flash.

Need Fresh Content? Get a Blog!

If your site content doesn’t change often or you have an all Flash site, you need a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog frequently with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers. And, you can link from your blog text to your main site content or to an all-Flash site.

Bonus Tip for Flash Sites

If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold. This at least gives the spiders something to read.

Call to Action

SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action on your page.  Use action phrases like Register, Free Gift, Shop Now, Deadline, Trial Offer, Upgrades and Order Now!

CEO Blogging

Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!

Social Media

• Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.
• Link to your social media profile pages. Make sure visitors can find your social site pages. Make your very first weighted link to your profile pages a link from your company site.
• Twitter is incredibly powerful for weighting in the search engine results pages, so use it! Just be sure to grab your name before someone else does (this applies to all social sites).

Go Viral

Inject viral components into your web site or blog

• Ratings & Reviews (User Generated Content)
• Sharing (E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Comments (More User Generated Content)
• Videos (Upload these to YouTube, etc.)
• Podcasts (Distribute these through iTunes, etc.)
• News (Press releases, news feeds, etc.)
• Free E-Books (Who doesn’t like free?)

All of these can help your content be found, linked to and rank better. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore. (In the presentation, a screen shot of search results featuring videos, product pages, blog posts and shopping results from my employer, FramesDirect.com, dominating the page is shown.)

Speaking of Podcasts & Videos…

Transcribe your podcasts and post the text on your blog. The search engines are working on crawling audio, but aren’t quite there yet, so post the textual content (referred to sometimes as “show notes”) where the spiders can crawl it easily.

Same goes for video. Include a transcription of your video content on the page for spidering purposes. By the way, you did know that YouTube.com is the second most used search engine in the world, didn’t you? Charge up your cameras and get to work!

Localize

Local search is getting hot! Create a local listing for all locations if you have more than one. Don’t just create a local listing for the main one. Get them all in there! Start with local listings at Google (through Google Places or Google Maps), Yahoo! and Bing. Include photos, videos, links, web pages and coupons if available.

E-mail Marketing

If you aren’t doing e-mail marketing, consider it. Not only is it the most frequently used form of web marketing, if done right it can be extremely effective and can indirectly lead to social bookmarking and back links to your  site pages.

This is a post from The Web Optimist – SEO in The Desert.

Powerpoint: SEO Tips Even Mom Would Love is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

I’m preparing to do a presentation as VP of Search for FramesDirect.com  for the Performance Marketing Expo in Miami this September and would like a local Palm Springs area test audience for “SEO Tips Even Mom Would Love” – a roughly 20-minute Powerpoint show.

Ideally, I’d like to do this for a business or organization group of at least ten people in a conference room. Yes, that’s the catch. You will need to provide the facility. A projector or large monitor that can be connected to a laptop will also be required.

And, of course, I am offering to do this free for the lucky group. I’ll take questions regarding the presentation and general SEO afterwards.

So, these are the requirements to qualify for the free workshop:

• You must be in the Palm Springs area
• Group of at least ten participants
• Conference room or other facility with either a projector or large monitor that can be connected to a laptop.

So, if your Palm Springs area business, organization, bureau or group wants a free primer on search engine optimization from The Web Optimist (me), drop me an e-mail or call me at 760-641-1501. At this time, only ONE free workshop will be made available, but you never know.

For more information about me, check out my SEO Speaker page where you will find links to even more info about yours truly.

Thanks,

Richard V. Burckhardt
The Web Optimist: SEO in The Desert

Free Palm Springs SEO Workshop for One Lucky Business is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

Unique, keyword rich content is still the best spider food.

Understand that these are my personal top tips as an in house SEO. Another SEO would probably have a different list. You know how it goes, put two SEOs in a room and there's gonna be an argument! Heck, I even get arguments from my own SEO cronies!

Keep in mind that...

SEO is NOT Rocket Science

BUT, it is complex and an ongoing process that changes almost daily. There is no such thing as a permanent fix to magically send you to the top of the rankings for good. But here are some of the basics to look for when optimizing your site to drive more traffic, prospects and, hopefully, profit.

Absolute MUSTS for SEO:

1. Content is (Still) King - Be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase. Be sure to include keywords in heading tags and in the first paragraph and throughout body copy. This is referred to as spider food! Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

2. Good Back Links - If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link.
• Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.
• Get links from good, authority sites. The "authority" will rub off on you.
• Avoid link farms and obvious paid links.
• Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for a site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

3. Link Format Consistency - Did you know that...

http://your-site.com

http://your-site.com/

http://your-site.com/index.html

http://www.your-site.com

http://www.your-site.com/

http://www.your-site.com/index.html

...are all technically SIX different URLs even though each will land the site visitor on the same Web page? Stick to one format, otherwise you are splitting your backlinks and link juice.

http://www.your-site.com/ = YES

http://www.your-site.com/index.html = NO

4. Use Absolute Links - Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it. What are absolute links?

Here's an example of an absolute link:

<a href="http://www.yoursite.com/blue-widgets.html">Examples of Blue Widgets</a>

Below is a relative link:

<a href="blue-widgets.html">Examples of Blue Widgets</a>

5. Title Tag - Among the first things the spiders will crawl on your page is the Title Tag at the very top of your HTML code. This is what you see in the blue bar at the top of your browser when you land on a page. Unique text in this tag on each page is essential and the single most important thing you can do for rankings. If you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end unless it contains the page's targeted keywords

6. Don’t be Obsessed with PageRank - PageRank, or that little green bar you see in the Google Toolbar, is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR. In fact, what you see in this toolbar is NOT what Google sees internally for daily rankings.

7. Optimize Your Images:
• Use captions with your images.
• Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page.
• Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.
• Enable “Enhanced image search” in  Google Webmaster Central. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.
• Use keywords for image file names.

8. Social Media - Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, Twitter, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.
• Link to your social media profile pages. Make sure visitors can find your social site pages. Make your very first weighted link to your profile pages a link from your company site.
• Twitter is incredibly powerful for weighting in the search engine results pages, so use it! Just be sure to grab your name before someone else does (this applies to all social sites).

9. Go Viral - Inject viral components into your web site or blog
• Ratings & Reviews (User Generated Content)
• Sharing (E-mail, Facebook, Twitter, etc.)
• Comments (More User Generated Content)
• Videos (Upload these to YouTube, etc.)
• Podcasts (Distribute these through iTunes, etc.)
• News (Press releases, news feeds, etc.)
• Free E-Books (Who doesn't like free?)

All of these can help your content be found, linked to and rank better. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

10. Localize - Local search is getting hot! Create a local listing for all locations if you have more than one. Don’t just create a local listing for the main one. Get them all in there! Start with local listings at Google (through Google Places or Google Maps), Yahoo! and Bing. Include photos, videos, links, web pages and coupons if available. It’s quick, easy, free and gives you one more opportunity to rank.

There you go. Again, these are my personal top 10 SEO tips. If you don't agree, well, eat dirt.

Just kidding. Feel free to comment.

This article is an original post from The Web Optimist - SEO in The Desert.

Top 10 SEO Must Do Tips is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

Here are some easy, common sense, non-technical ways to optimize your web site that even mom would love!

UPDATED – Everyone loves a good tip, right?

Here are 110 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most novices with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem.

(Note: This list of tips is an update to the original post 55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love. I am republishing this expanded version for the attendees of local Palm Springs SEO training classes.)

1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.

6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new graphics-based site after it is built won’t cut it.

10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

11. Check for canonicalization issues – www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html. Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem – you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.

15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.

17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.

20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings. Google says it can tell the difference between you and the bad guys, but why take a chance?

21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.

23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.

25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.

26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.

28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newsletters and zines.

29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.

30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines, but NOT necessarily more than .com domains. However, they certainly can’t hurt and are frequently authority sites that would carry good link juice. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.

31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.

32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.

33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.

34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.

36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!

37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.

38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.

39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.

40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.

41. To NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results, click on Web History at the top right of a Google results page and then click “Disable customizations based on search activity.”

42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.

43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.

44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary  forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.

45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.

46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.

47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.

48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.

50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.

51. Add viral components to your web site or blog – reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.

52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.

54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.

55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.

56. Use Google Alerts to be alerted about back links – http://www.google.com/alerts.  Add link:www.yourdomain.com to the Search Terms box to get notified by e-mail when someone links to you.

57. Optimize your press releases just as you would a web page. Use your keywords, keyword anchor text and headlines in a way that will  maximize your visibility without being spammy. In addition to possible pickup by major news sites, these releases are archived on the web. And, remember, don’t put out press releases to sites like PRWeb unless you have REAL news to share.

58. Move JavaScript and CSS to external files whenever possible. This will make your code tighter, move your content up higher, the page will load faster and the spiders will have fewer possible roadblocks in their quest to devour all that good content you wrote for tip #2.

59. Build pages around phrases like Where can I or How can I because there are a TON of searches for variations of these. Just search for one of these phrases using the free WordTracker Keyword Suggestion Tool and you’ll see what I mean.

60. If you write articles for distribution to article sites for mass distribution (a great way to get back links), be sure to publish the article on your own site first and give the spiders a chance to crawl it. That identifies you as the originator of the content. Then push the article out for distribution across the web, making sure you have a link back to your site in the article content.

61. Tweak and test. Make one change at a time and evaluate what effect it had on your ranking, if any. Changing too many things at once can confuse things to the point where you don’t know which change you made did what.

62. Local search is getting hot! Create a local listing for all locations if you have more than one. Don’t just create a local listing for the main one. Get them all in there! Start with local listings at Google (also known as Google Maps), Yahoo! and Bing. Include photos, videos, links, web pages and coupons if available. It’s quick, easy, free and gives you one more opportunity to rank. Frequently, a local map with business links will be the top search result. For example, try a search in Google for “palm springs bars” and see what comes up as the first results.

63. Don’t try to fake it. Those 50 domains you bought in 1998 with dummy content all linking back to your main site might have made you #1 last decade, but now they can get you booted from the rankings altogether. The “mini-net” is dead.

64. If you aren’t doing e-mail marketing, consider it. Not only is it the most frequently used form of web marketing, if done right it can be extremely effective and can indirectly lead to social bookmarking and back links to your site pages.

65. Test domains should be invisible. It you are using a domain simply for testing new designs, functions, etc., be sure it is not accessible to spiders or users, who will both be confused about which domain is the real thing. If the spiders can get to it, you could be in for big duplicate content issues. A simple way to block all spiders is with the robots.txt file.

66. For the most part, short domain names with your primary keyword or phrase are best. Something like your-keywords.com will work, but your-keyword-phrase-plus-more.com will be pushing it. The advantage to having your keywords in the domain name include perceived authority and keyword-rich back link juice.

67. Although there’s nothing wrong with .net, .org, .info and other domain extensions (search engines tend to give them equal weight), what you really want is the .com extension. People just assume a domain (especially in the USA) ends in .com, so understand that if you get any other domain extension, you’ll probably be losing at least some traffic to whoever owns the .com version.

68. Make sure your web server is fast. A dedicated server is best because if someone on your shared server gets slammed with traffic, it can affect your site, too. Plus, the faster the server, the more likely you’ll get lots of social media back link love. No one likes to click on a link and have it time out!

69. Google is NOT your competition. Your competition is the list of sites ranking above you for a keyword or phrase, so research what they are doing to outrank you rather than try to game Google.

70. Avoid link farms, where you participate in mass link exchanges. These are usually automated and frowned upon by the search engines. You can actually be banned for participation in these.

71. Need to do a redirect? Use a 301 redirect rather than a meta refresh or javascript redirection. A 301 redirect is seen as a “permanent” redirect that is more SEO friendly.

72. Offer a good, easy to navigate sitemap for your visitors. Not only will it help them find what they want on your site or blog, but search engine spiders will follow it, too.

73. Only bold text on a page when it makes sense to do so and use <em></em> or <strong></strong> instead of <b></b> which is apparently being deprecated, meaning you won’t get much value from it SEO-wise.

74. Be sure that the text in your meta tags match the copy on each and every page.

75. Select a keyword rich domain name (keyword.com) if possible. This makes every link to your domain a keyword anchor link, great for SEO.

76. Check your source code for any legacy or left over code that might include links that are invisible to the user, but visible to spiders. Sometimes web developers/programmers leave invisible code on pages that not only bloat the page size, but can contain links that only the spiders see. This can get you into trouble as it looks like you are hiding content whether you mean to or not. Clean up your code and offload any CSS or javascript that you can to external files as mentioned in tip #58.

77. Flash is like wine. When used appropriately (and in moderation), it can enhance the user experience. Used inappropriately, it’s a serious distraction that leaves the user with a nasty headache.

78. Want to link to a certain scene in a YouTube video? You can. Let’s say you want to jump 25 seconds into this video, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqXdDVqCQ10, to the scene where Olympian Kerri Walsh is featured. Simply add #t=0m25s to the YouTube link so that it is http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqXdDVqCQ10#t=0m25s. The extra code translates to zero minutes and 25 seconds.

79. Treat your YouTube videos just like HTML pages. In other words, give them a title, description, tags and make sure the very first thing in the description is the URL you want folks to land on.

80. There is no magic keyword density for a page. That’s so 1998! Make your text natural language with your primary keyword phrase included two or three times on a page, ideally above the fold. That’s it.

81. Keep your site structure as close to the root as possible. In other words, don’t create subdirectories that aren’t absolutely necessary.

82. Link to your social media profile pages. Make sure visitors can find your social site pages. Make your very first weighted link to your profile pages a link from your company site.

83. Realize that social search is different than web search because in social search, it’s about sourcing information from trusted people as opposed to general information that is dished out by a search engine.

84. Twitter is incredibly powerful for weighting in the search engine results pages, so use it! Just be sure to grab your name before someone else does!

85. Make sure your database is spider friendly. The last thing you need is to spend time, money and effort developing your site only to find the database or shopping cart functionality is not search engine friendly. Test before you commit. Use online tools like SEO Chat’s spider simulator tool or client spidering tools like the one built into iBusiness Promoter (IBP) to test spidering.

86. Get visitors to take action. Include clear calls to action on the page (Add to Cart, Shop Now links) and make them obvious and easy to find. Make the offer compelling with incentives (free shipping, bonus items, etc.) and make ways to contact you easy and upfront (800 number, e-mail link, address, online chat). Too many online sites make contact too difficult by hiding behind a contact form and providing no other way to be contacted. That’s not a recipe for trust from either the visitor or the search engines. And, to be an authority, you need trust.

87. Keep in mind that a log-based analytics tracking system will track every action on your site – clicks, server calls, spidering, whatever. If you want to use analytics that depend on tracking code on your pages, be sure you have the code on ALL pages. Anything without the tracking code will be invisible to your analysis software or service.

88. Customize your YouTube video thumbnail. YouTube gives you a selection of three images from your video to use as your thumbnail. These are pulled from the 1/4, 1/2 and 3/4 marks in time in your video, so try to work it so that a scene in your video shows up in one of those points that would be appropriate for the thumbnail. Consider having your URL or telephone number show up at one of those points.

89. YouTube tells you popular related phrases in the search drop down as you type. In a way, they are doing your keyword research for you. Pay attention!

90. If you are planning to advertise with Google Adwords, make sure your landing pages don’t have the BACK button disabled. Google will not let you advertise sites whose landing pages disable the BACK button.

91. Buy text links. I can already hear the SEOs moan! There’s a twist to this recommendation, however. Buy the text links to point to, say, your video to generate traffic. As long as the video, podcast or whatever is on one of the major media sites like YouTube, you’ll have no fear of being penalized by Google since the purchased link points to the media site and not your site or blog.

92. Did you know you have a Personal PageRank? You do. Google assigns values to you as a searcher based on your search history (See tip #41 for opting out). Pages you stay on longer get more weight in your personalized search results. All the more reason to keep make your site sticky and keep visitors there. Google reads Google Bookmarks, too, so try to get your visitors to Google Bookmark your site.

93. Link out to authority sites of your choice. I know, conventional wisdom has it that you don’t want to leak link juice, but in this case, Google thinks the visitor found what they wanted on your site and gives your site the weight.

94. Use descriptive verbs in your body text. These are great for catching long tail searches. And remember to write for the reader, not just spiders.

95. Previously the Big 4 search engines said that 301 redirects carried 100% link juice, but Matt Cutts of Google now says in this interview that there is some decay when they are used. Bottom line is to only use them when absolutely necessary (in other words, don’t do a zillion of them).

96. Changing ownership of a domain should not affect search engine rankings.

97. Your search engine optimization strategy WILL be messed with by your I.T. department, so plan for it.

98. Try to keep your directory structure no more than three levels deep. Search engines will see links buried deep as not as important.

99. Before you request a link from a related site, check to make sure the links are followed and don’t have a nofollow attribute attached to them. A quick, easy, code-less way to check for nofollow links on a web page is with the NoDoFollow Firefox extension, which will highlight nofollow links on a page. You want to maximize the link juice you get back from links by getting as many as you can that are followed. With a link with a nofollow attribute, you don’t get any of that backlink credit from the search engines.

100. Make sure the page title, HTML title and ALT attributes match for each page..

101. Check case in your URLs. Let’s say you have URLs that look like this – http://www.yoursite.com/SamplePage-qamb-pr-l.html. Check to see if an all lower case version – http://www.yoursite.com/samplepage-qamb-pr-l.html – works, too. If it does, you have potential for major problems. First, all it takes is for one link to the lower case version to cause the entire site to be respidered in an all lower case version in addition to your upper/lower version. Second, not only do you wind up with two spiderable versions of your site, you’ll be splitting you link juice with some links going to each. If you see this issue, get with your I.T. folks and come up with a strategy to 301 redirect to your preferred URL version.

102. Use synonyms in your body copy. These are great for catching additional related search queries. One easy way to find synonyms is by using the “~” operator in a Google search. For instance, to search for synonyms to “SEO” on my The Web Optimist, I’d search for ~seo site:weboptimist.com .

103. Transcribe your podcasts and post the text on your blog. The search engines are working on crawling audio, but aren’t quite there yet, so post the textual content where the spiders can crawl it easily.

104. Same goes for video. Include a transcription of your video content on the page for spidering purposes.

105. Google can now crawl on-page javascript links, so use external javascript instead if you want certain links to not be crawled or even identified by the spiders as links.

106. Place the index page for every section of your site in the root. This keeps them higher up in the hierarchy. Other pages for each section can still go in the appropriate folders.

107. Robots.txt is case sensitive, so make all site URLs lower case. Less chance of spiders slipping through that way. See tip #101 for other good reasons to use lower case URLs.

108. Be sure your keyword phrase is included in the first paragraph and evenly distributed throughout your body copy. Use the keyword phrase in your header tags (H1, H2, etc.) but only as necessary. Don’t over do it.

109. Specify image dimensions. Always include the width and height attributes (width=”300″ height=”172″). This one is easy and can help optimize the page for faster loading. And these days, Google likes fast loading pages more than ever.

110. Be sure to also check out my Free eBook: The Web Optimist’s S E O 101

This article is an original post from The Web Optimist – SEO in The Desert.

110 Quick SEO Tips Even Mom Would Love is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

1. Keyword Tool - I have tried them all and this is the one I always go back to for my keyword research. Not only does it give you variations on the keyword phrase you are searching for, but also provides the WordTracker count and daily estimated searches on Google, Yahoo and MSN along with shortcuts to various tools like Google Trends, Keyword Discovery and several other online tools. And, you can export the thing as a CSV file. Way to go Aaron!

2. Check Server Headers Tool – Quick and easy way to check on whether your URL is being seen and followed properly by the spiders. For instance, I recently installed a WordPress plugin which appeared to work fine in a browser, but when I checked the page URLs that it produced here, I found that those pages were producing 404 errors, meaning the web surfer could see the pages, but the spiders couldn’t. Naturally, I ditched the plugin. The site also includes a batch URL processing capability (up to 25 URLs at once).

3. Web Page Analyzer – This online tool checks the speed of your site and lets you know what the download time would be at various connection speeds. Granted, most folks have broadband these days but you still don’t want a page to take several minutes to load on a 56k dial up connection. The test gives you suggestions on ways to speed up your site for visitors and spiders. Both will go away if your site is too slow.

4. Yahoo Site Explorer -Yes, Google gives you some information on sites that link to you, but not like Yahoo’s Site Explorer, which is easy to use and just requires a Yahoo login. You can filter inbound links to see internal or external linking, number of pages Yahoo sees and more.

5. Spider Simulator – Just one of many free online tools offered by this site, I jump here when I need a quick look at what the spiders are seeing. A more comprehensive spider simulator report is available in the iBusinessPromoter client software on my PC, but this online utility serves my purpose most of the time.

6. Tweetscan - These days keeping up with what is said about you and your clients is a must. I use Tweetscan to search for references to me or my clients in Twitter for reputation management, goodwill and networking opportunities.

7. SearchStatus - This is a Firefox plugin that, among other things, allows you to highlight and see nofollow links. This comes in real handy when checking backlinks or sculpting the links on your own site. The plugin includes utilities to check backlinks, Alexa rankings and so forth, but I primarily use the nofollow highlight feature.

8. MyBlogLog - Although the community aspects of the social site are free, I do use one paid service that this Yahoo owned site offers – statistics. For about $25 per year, I can get almost real time traffic stats coming off of web sites. I can see my site traffic nearly as it happens, where surfers are coming from and where they are going. From this, I can see if there is a trend or if something is wrong on a site now, not tomorrow when my Google Analytics stats are refreshed. I mentioned this service in my post on Web Analytics. This is the only non-free tool I mention in this list, but it’s such a bargain, I had to include it.

9. Google Chrome - Though not technically a tool, Google’s first attempt at a web browser has one feature that keeps it open on one of my monitors all day – the ability to log into different Google accounts in different tabs. I keep my domain e-mail, which is hosted through Google Apps, in one tab and Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics for my work accounts in other tabs. Now, if Chrome would just pick up some cool plugins!

10. Google Webmaster Tools - For something that I paid little attention to when first released, Google Webmaster Tools is now also open on one of my monitors all day. It just keeps getting better. From tracking down dead URLs on my sites to testing a robots.txt file, I can locate site issues that I wouldn’t otherwise know about. Though far from perfect, it’s just about the most valuable online tool I use these days.

SEO Tools & Tips is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

Hopefully, you’ve got your blog up and running and chock full of great content by now. If you’re just getting started, read the post above first, then come back to this one.

In addition to providing a platform for terrific information (for humans and search engines), a blog is a natural pathway to the world of social media. Blogs are interactive, encouraging posts and information from visitors, and syndicated through RSS feeds, spreading your content (and links) across the web to be found in search engines, dedicated blog searches, news feeds, you name it.

So, here are some advanced tips to help get your blog on the road to good rankings.

1. Socialize. Interact with your visitors. Don’t just publish your posts and sit back. Answer questions, link out to their sites when they offer good content, respond to their comments in a timely, informative manner, etc.

2. Own a niche. It’s a lot easier to dominate a space if you start out with a smaller, less competitive, narrowly focused subject area. For example, you’re more likely to become a dominant player with a blog about “rechargeable outdoor power tools” than you are for simply “tools’ which is way too broad a term with a lot more competition.

3. Work your titles for both audiences – readers and searchers. Be sure you start out with the title of your post to attract readers. After the post has some history and has fallen into the archive section of your blog, go back and optimize the title for SEO.

4. Keep the post slug the same. Write this yourself, don’t let WordPress generate it. Don’t go back and change it at a later date because this is what determines how your post link is formed. Writing your own post slug allows you to create an easy to read, optimized URL.

5. Optimize for the Google indent. We’ve all seen Google search results where a page from a domain ranks with another page from the same domain just under it, but indented. Focus on getting a post ranking well using standard SEO, anchor text links, etc. Then find another, similar post to optimize. Link the ranking post to the second post to try to pull it up.

6. Re-purpose posts and pages. Let’s say you did a post on social media way back in 2005 and you want to do a similar, updated post. If the 2005 post is just way out of date and not of particular use these days, write over it with your new content. The old post has history and back links that can give you an immediate bump.

7. Use a single category. I know it’s tempting sometimes to place your posts in multiple categories, but get over it. You risk duplicate content issues with multiple categories, so make it easy for Google and concentrate on one.

8. Use a folder. Unless there is a very good reason to put your blog on a separate domain or subdomain (like your site is just a blog or you really believe a separate domain will give you more credibility), put it on your main site as a folder. This keeps link juice targeted to your main domain.

9. Got a Flash site that won’t rank? Start a blog on the domain to create the related content and links to the Flash pages. Chances are your blog pages will be what rank, but they’ll link back to and guide your visitors to your Flash pages.

10. Create your own custom footer. If you’re using WordPress, try the Feed Footer Plugin. With it you can create your own custom footer content, complete with HTML, for your posts that will show up in your RSS feed. This is great for plugging favorite posts and monetizing your feed.

One final thought to consider. Blogs are all about sharing, so if a visitor shares something really good, promote it to the front page of your blog. Do a post all about it and thank them for the great content. Your visitors will love it and come back for more.

Remember, you can turn active users into free SEOs who write content for you.

Advanced Tips for Optimizing Your Blog is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

Unlike a certain recent political candidate we’re all familiar with, I know when it’s time to concede. John Carcutt is the winner of the Search Engine Journal Blog Off. John’s finalist post Are S E O Forums Still Needed? beat out my own 25 Blog Optimization Tips Even Dear Old Dad Could Ace to take the top prize.

What can I say? John has this ability to come up with topics near and dear to an SEO’s heart, write great content about them and attract Sphinns like a magnet.

Great work, John!

I really don’t see coming in second for the competition as a loss, though. Far from it. I blog because I love to share what I know. That’s really what blogging is all about. Every time I get the opportunity to publish some of the things I have learned in a subject I am passionate about (in this case, SEO), I’m a winner. It’s such a feel-good thing for me. As far as I am concerned, sharing amounts to taking the prize!

That’s what my blog, The Web Optimist, is all about. I certainly don’t make money with it. It’s just a place for me to share the tips and tricks I pick up along the way as an in-house SEO. I also manage, optimize, edit and write most of the content for The Eye Zone, the eyewear blog of FramesDirect.com, my employer, so I do a LOT of writing every week for it. Squeezing time in to write for my own blog (or something for Search Engine Journal if I think I’ve got something good), can sometimes be difficult. But, when I can, I love doing it.

So, we’re all winners here. Lots of great content and tips came out of this competition. The folks over at Search Engine Journal are the best!

Now, I think I’ll retire to the chaise lounge by the pool and console myself with the bright California sunshine, clear blue skies, gorgeous Palm Springs mountain views and a glass of White Merlot (or two).

Loser? Naw…

Losing to Win: Taking the Prize by Blogging is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

So, being someone who believes in sharing knowledge, I decided to add an expanded version of this article to my free eBook section. As time goes on, like with the previously released SEO 101: The eBook , this one will be updated from time to time. Who knows, it might become 200 or 1000 tips before it’s over.

Anyway, feel free to download the 108 Quick S E O Tips Even Your Mother Would Love PDF file.

Enjoy!

Thanks again to Loren and gang over at Search Engine Journal for using my piece!

Free eBook: 108 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO

Sphinn, Digg, Stumble and post to delicious at will! Check out my finalist post – 25 Blog Optimization Tips Even Dear Old Dad Could Ace (Plus 10 More Tips for Mom!).

Vote! (Pretty please with sugar on top!)

Blog Off – Blogging Tips for Dear Old Dad is a post from: SEO in The Desert | More about Palm Springs SEO