search engines

Home  /  search engines

•

Free SEO Tools: Stompernet Site Seer

Posted on May 21, 2008 by SEO Consultant (admin) in Blog, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consultant 8 Comments

Free SEO Tools: Stompernet Site SeerIf you have decided that SEO Costs are too much for you, here is another free SEO tool for you: Stompernet Site Seer. A web site contains a lengthy movies that describing the ‘Get Rich Quick’ scenarios of tons of the site’s users. You will learn how Lucy increased the revenue 5 times in a few months, how Mark had to hire the assistant to cope with the increase of the business. And all that thanks to the Stompernet Site Seer!

How does Free SEO Tool: Stompernet Site Seer work?

Well you put your URL and you email in the box on their web site, and an hour later you get an email with a report of your site. The report tells you what Meta and Tile you have on the home page, and how many back links different search engines show to your site. It shows your Alexa ranking, your Google PR, the numbers from Digg, Delicious, and similar social bookmarking sites.

And all that is packaged in tons of text, that explains what all those figures mean. The report will again show you a video about some of the Stompernet Site Seer staff (presuming by the T-shirt logos), who will tell you how will you benefit greatly from their excellent and free tools, or service,.. or something anyway!

Compared to the Website Grader we looked into earlier this week, Stompernet Site Seer, is perhaps good for someone who is not 100% sure what does SEO really stand for!

PS. In most cases, ‘the decision maker’ or ‘the buyer’ of the SEO service is someone who is not too sure what the SEO really means. So the Stompernet Site Seer web site is a good thing to spend 15 minutes on if you are a SEO consultant – and what to learn the language of the ‘ordinary people’. The people that go out, mingle with other people in real world as opposed to Second Life, do outdoor sports outdoors, and not on Wii,… those strange people, you know!?


SEO Budget? How much does it all cost?

Posted on May 21, 2008 by SEO Consultant (admin) in Blog, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consultant 8 Comments

The vast majority of the web sites have almost no traffic at all. How about yours?

Almost anyone who published a web site realised after the hype in the office quieted, that there is something missing. There was no visitors on the web site. You learned to be patient, and have been watching the web logs, but time is passing and there is still just a ‘flat line’ A few visitors, mostly from your own IP. When a first referral from a search engine showed up, it gave you hope, but in reality the keyword used was you domain name. Months pass by and still nothing really. No visitors, and a spider visiting a home page and a few more pages only, once in a week or a month.

Then you realise, I need to do something to bring this visitors to my site. SEO is the magic word there. Let’s invest in it, but…

How much does SEO cost?

I have been asked that question a million times so far. And still there is no definite answer, but here is the sentence that made me thinking today:

The budget for marketing a site in the first month should be equal to the budget for building the site in the first place.

To anyone who has just purchased a new web site this is most likely shocking, to say at least. You have paid through the roof for the web site, and now you need to spend as much into online marketing of it. And all that in the first month only? What happens the next month, and any other month later on?!

SEO is Expensive

Paying a few dollars per inbound link to a company in Asia is cheap. Every day you receive an offer for such services in your inbox. Just check your SPAM or Junk folders. Will that bring you any good visitors? Quite unlikely!

SEO is Time Consuming

A SEO Consultant will most likely have to rewrite the majority of the content on the site. In some cases the whole site (code) will have to be replaced by something the search engines can read and understand. The top SEO Consultants will, if at all possible look into replacing the whole web site with a completely new one. The look and feel will be the same, the content will be retained, and a lot of new one added (in most cases), but the code will be completely replaced in the end product.

Is SEO for You?

SEO is not for everyone. That is the fact. SEO is a viable investment to any web site owner who will make a return on investment from the direct on indirect sales from the traffic on the web site.

What is your SEO Budget?


Dynamic MetaTags, Dynamic Title, URL Rewriting, H1, H2,… are all a MUST HAVE for any CMS today.

Posted on April 11, 2008 by SEO Consultant (admin) in Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consultant 3 Comments

Is your Content management System (CMS) search engine optimised (SEO)?

Here is a short check list to help you answer the question:

1. URL Rewriting
Long gone are the days where there was gibberish in the web addresses or the URLs. Funnily enough all content management systems still work with those long and complex URLs. The smart CMS-es today have a built in URL Rewriting. What does it do? It changes your URL from the gibberish looking long one to something that looks like http://domain-name/page-title. It is nice to read to both the search engine and to human. It is also memorable as opposed to the long strings of numbers and symbols. When used properly, by placing the search keywords in the parts of the URL like the domain name itself and the title of the page, a great search engine optimisation results are achieved.
2. Dynamic Title Tag
Title is a HTML tag of a huge importance in relation to the search engine optimisation of each of your page. Notice the word ‘each’ here highlighted. Since there is very little sense in having two pages on the same web site with the same title. If your CMS does not let you create the unique title tag to every single page, your web site will not be very well optimised.
3. Dynamic Meta Tags
Meta Keywords and Meta Description are the two met tags important for the search engine optimisation. As well as the title tag, if your CMS should allow the author to define the both Meta Keywords and Meta Description uniquely for each page. Note that search engine often use the Meta Description as a description of your page displayed next to the link in their search engine results pages. Therefore it is vital to write a Meta Description ‘inviting’ the surfer to click on your listing.
4. H1, H2 Styles
Search engines assign ‘higher importance’ to words used in the top highlighted styles on the page. Placing your main keywords in those styles is crucial part of the onsite search engine optimisation. If your CMS does not let you control what text gets displayed in what style your web pages will not be well optimised for the search engines.

The list actually goes on and on. Image names and Alt Tags of the images, link structures of the internal links are also very important. The problem with the content management systems is really in drawing the line between the features that will help the user in using them quickly and easily, and allowing the user to control the code of the web site. That line is hard to place, and the result is that most of the content management system simply fail since they do not find the way how to give a lot of control to the end user, while making the user interface and the usage in general easy to learn and to use day by day. From the SEO perspective, there should be as much control as possible of the final code, but from the usability point it is the opposite. A good user interface for the CMS should be easy to use and let you control the above points easily as well.


The Content is The King! (Is onsite web site optimisation more important than the offsite optimisation?)

Posted on April 11, 2008 by SEO Consultant (admin) in Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consultant 1 Comment

The Content is The King! –

Everyone working in the search engine optimisation industry (SEO) is asking themselves the same question: Is onsite optimisation more important than the offsite optimisation today? Are those inbound links from other sites really crucial in determining the sites ranking? Should one invest his time to do the optimisation of the page itself at all if the ranking is determined by the number and the quality of the inbound links?

Here is a test to answer to the question:

1. Register a new domain name.
2. Install some blogging software on it.
3. Set up your blogging software so that is sends a PING to the search engines when a new post is published.
4. Setup and configure the XML Sitemap generation and automatic submission after a new post is published on a blog.
5. Setup the SEO optimisation of your blog posts page – Title, Meta, URL rewriting, H1, H2,…
6. Write your first article with a Title of your blog post as the phrase you want to rank high in Google. For the purpose of this test take an easy 4 or 5 word phrase.
7. Wait from a few minutes to a few days, make a search for the phrase that is a tile of your blog post.
8. If everything is done right – you should have your blog post listed on the No 1. In Google within a week of registering a domain.

Note: there isn’t a single inbound link to that domain at all, and jet it ranks on top of the search for the specific phrase.

Conclusion:

Inbound links are important for your web site search ranking. But inbound links, regardless of their quantity or their quality (importance of the sites linking to you, and text they link to you with) cannot replace the content on your site. The test above proves the opposite scenario – where there are absolutely none inbound links, and the content on a well optimised web page itself made the page to rank on top in the search engine for the relevant keyword.

The Content is The King!


Search Keywords Length

Posted on March 27, 2008 by SEO Consultant (admin) in Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consultant 2 Comments

There are two major approaches when optimising a web site for the search engine:

1. Low hanging fruit
When a web site is being optimised for a search phrase that almost no other web site is optimised for (at least not intentionally) it is usually fairly easy to get super high ranking super fast. Take a 3 or 4 word search phrase and you can rank almost any web site high for it in no time. The approach is called a ‘Low Hanging Fruit’ since you can really easy get the ‘juice’ (traffic) out to the search engine for a very long phrase.

2. Big Boys SEO
Optimising a web site for a highly used single word search phrase like Cars, Jobs, Travel or Insurance, is the other end of the search engine optimisation. It does differ quite a lot from optimising a web site for a multiple words phrases. Usually far more statistical analysis are utilised. A very definite and precise methodologies are required. Why? Simply because you are not the only one in the playing field here. All your competitors will be optimising for the same keyword. The time required for a decent ranking result is very long, and no stellar success is to be expected. Search engine results pages do not change that much for the single word search phrases at all. Some single words when entered in the search engine generate the same search results listed in the same order for many months!

Should you optimise a web site for a single words phrases or for a multiple words search phrases? The following statistics published by OneStat.com will help you:

Search Keywords Length

The 7 most used word phrases in search engines on the web are:

1. - 2 word phrases - 32.58%
2. - 3 word phrase - 25.61%
3. - 1 word phrases - 19.02%
4. - 4 word phrases - 12.83%
5. - 5 word phrases - 5.64%
6. - 6 word phrases - 2.32%
7. - 7 word phrases - 0.98%

Two word phrases are the most used search phrases in the search engines. And now even more surprising to the most of us is the fact that the three word phrases are closely following! Only then do a single word phrases come in the picture with less than one fifth if the overall traffic. Having a insurance web site listed 1st in Google for the word ‘Insurance’ will only bring one fifth of the (possible) traffic for that single word listing. Optimising your pages forthe two and search phrases containing two and three keywords will bring the majority of the traffic to any web site.


Canonical URL

Posted on February 22, 2008 by SEO Consultant (admin) in Search Engine Optimisation, SEO, SEO Consultant 5 Comments

The Canonical URL issue that is talked about a lot lately since even Google itself it has a huge impact on the search engine ranking of your web page is all about defining one page and one URL of your web site to help the search engines define what the real Home of your web site is, and pass on all the links to any other pages to this one Home page.

Matt wrote about it even back in 2006 here: SEO advice: url canonicalization

Some people got it, some did not. Some people take advantage of it and some do not. IT’s a bit like saying:

Some companies care about their ranking in Google and some not.

Canonical URLThere is one domain (company) that actually took the canonical URL issue to the whole new level. What they have done is they have created two completely different web sites that show in the two versions of their URL. When the domain is accessed with a domain name that contains the ‘www’ part in it –one site shows up, and the same domain name without the ‘www’ part of the address shows a completely different web site.

At first it looked like a mistake made on the web server configuration, but contacting the company in question revealed that that was actually done intentionally.

An interesting and original approach to URL canonicalization. I do not remember anyone ever trying anything similar jet. Could they be on to something? It is clear that both versions of the web site will dilute the value the Google assigns. The Google Page Rank (PR) will be lower on both sites than it would be if one site would have been redirected to the other. The search engine ranking of both versions will again be lower than if the redirection was in place. Also by having the completely different content and the code on the two versions of the site, Google will have to index and therefore rank them completely independently.

There are no obvious benefits of doing splitting your web site into the two different versions. On the other implementing the two versions of the web site will definitely hurt your Google rankings.

The user / visitor of the site will also get extremely surprised with the two so different versions on the web site. Different company name, address, email, phone, fax number and everything really. It does really look like another company. It is only the call to their IT department that assured of their intentional ‘splitting’ of the domain name, and creation of the canonical URL.


Search Engine Optimisation vs. Search Engine Marketing

Posted on February 18, 2008 by SEO Consultant (admin) in Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimisation, SEM, SEO 3 Comments

Online Marketing Budget:
Search Engine Optimisation vs. Search Engine Marketing

Any web site owner wants to get visitors on their web site. Therefore the web site owners are competing for the same visitors. There is a definite total number of people surfing the web. The number of web sites is growing relatively faster than the number of the new surfers. The majority of the new visitors to most of the web sites are brought by the search engine.

The search engines realised long ago that not every web site can get to the top of the searches for their relevant keywords so they invented the Search Engine Marketing to enable the web site owners to pay for the inclusion in the listing on the right hand side (and sometimes even above!) the natural search engine results.

There are therefore two ways of getting your site listed in Google. One is to optimise your web site and wait for Google to index it and rank it higher, or you can just pay and get listed as high as you want instantly! The problem with the SEM approach is that the moment you stop paying to Google, you have stopped the flow of the new visitors. The problem with the SEO is that it is far less transparent, the results are far from instant. The majority of the SEO Consultants use the month as a measurement unit to describe the best case scenarios of your future ranking increases.

That brings us to the conclusion that both search engine Marketing and search engine optimisation have it’s place in increasing the visitors numbers on your site. It purely depends on the web site goals. If you are in the game for a long term, and are ready to wait for months for the results, but are dedicated to get the majority of the traffic for a set key phrase, the SEO is for you. If ou have a need to get as much traffic as you can ASAP, the SEM is the definite way to go.

The real life examples:

Search Engine Optimisation
If you are a site that sells a product or a service, where there are number of sites selling the same in your market, the SEO is your best friend. In the long run it will deliver far better return on the investment.

Search Engine Marketing
If you have a new product or a service that no one else has jet in your market, and you want to capitalise on your unique but probably time limited position SEM is the way to go for you. SEM sill instantly start delivering, and the cost per visitor is very transparent and manageable. The SEM budget is probably the easiest marketing budget to manage, since it the transparency if the costs. That is why marketing people just love it. Instant setup and delivery and no minimal investment required. In the marketing world the search engine marketing is truly unique.

The attractiveness of the search engine marketing compared to the search engine optimisation made it win many battles. It is far easier to put X% of your budget against SEM that you know what (and when) to expect from, but SEO that is as undefined as …. well, probably nothing a marketer has encountered jet. SEO to be performed on the web site involves editing the web site itself. That means that either the IT department or an external web development company needs to get involved, and the complexity of the project is just growing out of hands or a marketing person who controls the budget.

Search engine optimisation is a strategic decision that has to be made above the marketing department to be able to function. It involves higher management whose time is precious, and since this is a new task for them, it is not likely they will get involved. They will fail understanding that the SEO should not be left to the marketing department to manage, or especially the IT people. SEO consultant will require the IT department to perform a serious of task, so if the IT manages SEO consultants who then delegates back to them – it is a guaranteed formula for troubles and nothing done in the end.

For all those reasons far more companies have invested in search engine marketing than in search engine optimization. The result of that is that there is more and more competition in the SEM. Since SEM operates as an auction, the more the interesting parties, the higher the (bids) prices. The hike in the prices for the important keywords driven by the volume of the advertisers is now making advertisers rethink their online marketing strategies. Search engine optimisation is of course the obvious way to go for those who are in the online marketing game for a long run.


« Previous   1 2