SEO CheckList

A lot of people are asking what long-tail in SEO talk means. In essence, long tails are keywords or key phrases which are not widely used in your niche (or in short, non-competitive) but can rake in some traffic. Think of it as a catch-all key phrase. If a potential client has keyed in a very specific query, you’re at an advantage if you had used that long key phrase as part of your content. It’s like fishing in deep waters — you cast the fishing line and HOPE someone bites. For beginning sites and small sites, they use this strategy to increase their conversion rates and registration. As your site becomes more competitive then, you could upgrade the current keywords you use for the site to include the more competitive key words in your niche.

Why should you use the long-tail strategy? Well, it’s a way to try and capture a wider audience — anything to increase readership and potential client base. Those who might have breezed past by you could have been brought to your doorstep by long-tail key phrases. The downside, perhaps of using the long tail strategy is the doubling of efforts — not only do you have to have content made directly relating to your keyword but also content related with your long-tail key phrases. If you want to curtail your efforts, however, you could always have a preferred target market so instead of focusing on catching everyone else’s attention, focus on how you can get attention from the people you’re specifically targeting.

Long tail strategy has proven to be beneficial by web masters both in the short and long run. But don’t jump on the bandwagon haphazardly, just like keywords need proper research, key phrases used for long-tail SEO strategy do too.

A lot of people use anchor texts without even knowing its true value for search engine optimization. I know, I speak from experience. Long before I even know such a thing as SEO exists, I was already using anchor texts for my earliest web sites. In the more recent years however, anchor texts have become much more important, thanks to Google’s PageRank technology.

What are Anchor Texts?

Anchor texts are the texts you use as hyperlinks. For example, in your html file, an anchor text would appear like this:

<a href=” http://www.domainname.com “> insert anchor text here < /a>

In the web page itself, only the anchor text would be visible to visitors while the link would remain encoded.

Why Are Anchor Texts Important for PageRank?

The simplest most direct answer I could give is — relevancy of links. Think of it like this; when you link to a specific web site, Google recognizes this as your vote of confidence. Now, imagine you’re voting in the national elections. Surely, you have a reason why you vote for a candidate. It’s the same as anchor texts. Anchor texts serve as the “reason” why you vote for a particular web site. Google then analyzes this and adds your link as a point to the site for that particular keyword you used.

That doesn’t stop there, of course. Google also analyzes YOUR web site’s relevancy to the linked web site. So if your web site is about real estate and you link to a web site about Paris Hilton, the link will score much lower for Google.

The anchor text for links is very powerful because it’s one of the driving forces behind Google’s PageRank. A study conducted by seomoz.org lists anchor text by

This is probably one of the latest and largest buzz in SEO recently. This post in SEObook generated a big response from SEOs all over. The debate on whether an exact domain match with a specific keyword or key phrase boosts one’s ranking in the SERPs has, in my own humble opinion, reached its zenith. A lot of questions have been raised before regarding said issue and both sides — those who believed it to be true and those who don’t — have had their say on the matter.

Prior to this, domainers thought it was best to use exact matches because people tend to enter keywords into the URL box and type the “.com” after it. This was, perhaps, true during the early days of the internet when people aren’t used to using search engines yet. During the more recent years, however, a lot of speculation cropped up about exact name matches ranking higher in the SERPs, so what used to be just simple intention of making it easier for internet surfers to remember a domain name turned out to be very fruitful and profitable.

Now, WHY do exact name matches rank high in the SERPs?

1. It serves as anchor text. Using anchor texts in SEO is game of relevancy, people. Since exact name match is, obviously, relevant, it boosts your rankings.

2. According to the article in seobook, it might be because exact domain names are brand-associated.

Getting exact match domain names would be difficult (not to mention expensive) if your niche is already saturated. You can avail them by buying from individuals but take note it might even reach five figures. People who have the foresight on what would be hot in time have it lucky because they can avail of domains for $5-10 a pop and build a brand around it. Now THAT’s the way to do it.

This SEO factor will probably not propel you to the top of the SERPs in your niche, but it has the potential to bring in additional traffic which, I’m sure, you won’t refuse. Since you’re bound to optimize your site for the search engines in the first place, why not ensure you do everything you can to help rake in the traffic, right? I think this is an SEO factor most easily overlooked and many web masters think little of its potential. I believe, however, that you should do everything to induce traffic and not overlook even the tiniest detail.

Read the rest of this entry »

Last time, I discussed about the importance (or lack thereof) of title tags to on-site search engine optimization. This second part of the topic is specifically aimed at those who are sold on the idea of title tags being a prime SEO factor. So, how do you capitalize on title tags’ ability to boost your rankings in the SERPs? Here are some guidelines to give you a general idea 

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s all over the internet — on the web master forums, on every SEO advice web site, on every SEO newsletter you get. The title tag is one of the most important on-site search engine optimization factors. One can never stress its significance enough. I’ve been asked by newbies one too many times on their importance and effective methods of usage. To save myself time and headache, I’m writing it all down for future reference. This post would serve as the first installment for this week’s topic.

2 Reasons Why Title Tags are Important:

1. Search engines rely on keywords for a web site’s indexing. Including relevant keywords in your title tag boosts your web site’s chances into ranking higher in the Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERPs). There are, of course, many who don’t agree to its potency in boosting a web site’s ranking. However, most would agree that using bad or poorly searched keywords in the title tag or not using title tags at all could devastate a web site’s ranking.

2. It increases click-through. Search engines (The big G, at the very least), displays the first 60-90 or so characters of your title in the SERPs. Which means that if you used highly relevant keywords on your title tag, people tend to click on the link to your web site’s link. And if you’re exactly what they’re looking for, then you got yourself a new visitor. Great content turns one-time visitors to regulars but that’s a story for another time.

Speaking for myself though, using appropriate title tags for my web site propelled it from the fifth page to the first in its niche. Of course not everyone shares my sentiments. To see different opinions on title tags and their efficacy, check out this study conducted by SEOmoz.org.

An important question just came up on Digitalpoint forums in regards to the comparison of on page SEO and link building. Which one is more important in regards to the overall SEO of a site. Well, I agree with some when it comes to the on page at the beginning of a site because you need to know what keywords to target when you start your link building campaigns. Once you have all your on page done (at least for the time being), then you can move onto link building, which never really ends. I have found in my work that if you start the on page SEO and also the link building, then when your site is ready to kicked off, you already have some backlinks. The key is to make sure you site is completely functional before you start to link build or it will not work. This is because most places will not link to a site that doesn’t work.

What do you think is the most important? I know right now that most will probably say that link building is the most important because of the way that Google has their algo. If they change it, then all the webmasters are going to have to change with it to keep on top of the Google game. We have had to adjust to changes before in the past, when Google found out that webmasters could sway results and I am sure that they are going to be doing it again!

The new Page Rank update is keeping some webmasters up late at night wondering what is going on.  Though some have said it already has passed, other say it hasn’t happened yet.  I believe that it hasn’t happened yet.  Yes there are some sites that have been updated, but not the vast majority of them.  Come to find out, this update is getting close to the record for the amount of time between updates.  I think the record is 122 days and we are at 112.  I know a lot of us hope it is going to happen soon because everyone has put a lot of time and I’m sure money into getting the necessary backlinks in order to increase that PR.

Now some of you may ask, why do so many of you webmasters care so much about PR.  Well, if you have ever sold advertising space on a site, then you would understand.  PR and price coincide with each other.  Without the PR, people will not be as eager to advertise on your site than others that have plenty of PR.  Now do not get me wrong, you can still sell ad space if you have the traffic, but not everyone does.  PR helps out a lot.  Let’s just hope this PR update comes by the end of the month.  If you are eager to find out if your PR is increasing, check out Digpagerank.com and see what it looks like on multiple datacenters.

There are a lot of you out there that are running a website and still trying to figure out how to make money without comprimising the intregrity of the site.  Sometimes you have the option to selling links on your website to other websites in order to make a little more money, but that doesn’t always work because it depends on the niche of your site.  The ultimate alternative is to monetize your site with Google Adsense.  This program is great for webmasters that have a lot of visitors to their site and want a way to monetize the site.  It is extremely easy to implement due to Google providing the code to put in your site, wherever you want it to show up.

You do not have to be the most seasoned webmaster in order to implement the code, you just have to know the basic HTML.  After you implement the code, then you are off to the races.  The great thing about the Adsense program is that it will match the topic of content on each of your pages.  You do not have to try and match it, it does it automatically.  The best way to earn the most is to use Adsense on a topic that pays a lot for clicks.  As a visitor clicks on an ad, then you get paid.  What could be better than already using the visitors you have to make a little extra cash.  So, if you have been looking for a great way to monetize your site, then check out the Adsense program!

Flash is a great way to spruce up any website and to make any website look professional. With flash, you have to remember that there is a point where it can be too much. There are many people that design whole websites in flash, but most of those people do not understand the seo factors involved. There is a major difference between web designers and website optimizers. The major issue with designing a website in all flash is that it becomes extremely hard to provide seo on. You might have a great looking site, but no one will come to it from natural search engine results. Search engine spiders cannot understand how to decifer flash websites and thus you will not recieve any results because of it. If not getting search engine traffic is not a concern to you, then by all means, go with all flash. If you are interested in having a quality website that brings in the traffic, then make sure you keep your flash under control. A lot of the quality websites out there leave the flash to just the header and that is it. That leaves the rest of the page to be optimized for the search engines. If you want to get some quality templates that use flash headers, then check out Templates Box. They provide a wide range of templates that utilize flash and they will still be able to be optimized. Do not get me wrong, you can still optimize all flash websites, but it is a lot harder than normal sites. So, just make sure you know when to use flash and do not let it get out of control!