John Pozadzides of One Man’s Blog recently posted Matt Cutts’ presentation “White Hat SEO Tips for Bloggers” from 2007 WordPress WordCamp. Matt is currently the head of Google’s Webspam team.
Keyword research is arguably the most important component of search engine optimization, and yet, also one of the most time-consuming, and many times, the most frustrating. As the foundation for all search engine marketing efforts, in-depth research into a site’s most relevant keywords ensures that your optimization enhancements achieve prominently positioned Natural search listings for search phases that get results.
Social media offerings and buzz words are flying around as fast as Harry Potter books are flying-off the shelves. However, an interesting study by the American Advertising Federation (AFF) reveals that of all the current “new online media†services (which includes search, and Web 2.0 methods such as online video, podcasts, and blogs), search engine marketing is consider by U.S. advertising executives to be the most effective.
Last Saturday (07.21), Matt Cutts announced at the Wordpress Wordcamp that Google now recognizes underscores (_) in URLs as valid word separators. Previously, Google only recognized hyphens (-) as a word separator. So feel free to use either word separator in your search engine friendly URLs.
The following is a list of common mistakes that may prevent your site from achieving excellent rankings within the search engines.
First off, let me say that having a background in Web site design and development, I understand the unique and often complex issues that both designers and developers face when approaching a new site project. Secondly, I’m still amazed at the number of poorly designed sites I see every day.
In the early days of search, meta description tags were a significant part of search engine optimization. Years ago, they were one of the many factors used by the search engines to determine rank. Today, however, meta description tags are important for a completely different reason. Currently, today’s sophisticated search engines often display the meta description on their search engine results pages (SERPs). This, in turn, can have a significant impact on click-through rates (CTRs).
HTML title tags are arguable the most important on-page elements pertaining to effective search engine optimization (SEO). Not only do title tags have a significant impact on search engine rankings; they also have a substantial influence upon click-through rates (CTRs).
Here is a short list of best practices to keep in mind when creating your HTML title tags:
Yesterday, Google updated their Google Webmaster Guidelines, which provide basic information on how to help Google find, index and rank your site. While most of the quality guidelines are similar to the previous iteration, Google now provides more specific information about illicit practices that may lead to a site being banned or penalized.
Today, there is an excellent post at Search Engine Land. The post outlines the choices a small business owner must make to be competitive within the natural search results.
