Posts Tagged ‘seo’

Free SEO Tools to assist you in improving your website

Spoke with a customer this morning and it was during this conversation that the question was asked, what does SEO mean ? What is a backlink ? What is a Blog ? and what the hell is Twitter ?

It is so easy to believe that everybody knows and understands what seo is, or a backlink and not to mention Twitter and more importantly what it can do for you. But alas poor Yorick, that is not always the case and with that in mind, we now pressent a brief Glossary of SEO Common Words.

This Glossary is by no means complete and final and is given purely as a guide.

AdSense – is an effective way for publishers, regardless of size or experience, to display relevant Google Ads within their website’s content pages. The ads are related to your website content and as such, appeal to your website visitors. This helps in monetizing your website. 

AdWords –
Google’s advertising service for displaying Ads of your website as paid inclusion.
More details can be found at http://adwords.google.com/

Algorithm – is an operational program rule that determines how a particular search engine, like Google, Yahoo and MSN, indexes content and then displays it accordingly.

Alt Tag -
A tag that provides alternative text for visually impaired users.
Search engines may pick this text instead of graphical images.Anchor text
Anchor text is the visible text in a hyperlink.
Search engines may pick this up for ranking, although this in itself is no guarantee of a higher search ranking.

Backlink
– As the name suggests are inbound links from another web page, pointing to your website.
 

Blog -
Blogs are also known as weblogs. An online Diary with the owner posting random comments, promoting products, services, or information. Posts are made on a regular basis and are increasing in value to both the users and the search engines.

Crawl
– When a search engine visits your website and extracts your content for search results.

External links
– A link that forwards to a website outside the home domain name (third party).

Flash Intro – An animated short introduction. The website sits behind the Flash Intro and visitors can skip them as a general rule.

Internal links
– An Internal link is a link that points to another page within the same website or Domain. Interal Links can also be utilised for navigation purposes.

Javascript
– A script language that can be embedded into the HTML of a webpage to add functionality.

Link Farm
– A set of interlinked web pages or websites that have been built for the sole purpose of increasing the number of incoming links to a web site, thereby with the aim of increasing link popularity and search engine rankings. TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS.

Meta Tag -
A special HTML tag that provides information about a Web page.
Generally used for search engines to describe your website. Please read more about Meta Tags and their Hidden Advantage

PageRank (PR) –
Google’s method to determine a webpage’s relevance, popularity and importance through the quality of sites linking to it.

Referring Page – A Website visitor clicks a link from another website and is directed to your website. The originating website is called the referring page.

SEO –
An abbreviation for Search Engine Optimisation (Optimization). Involves strategies to optimize and promote your website in a proven technique, all with the aim of improving your search engines ranking.

Spam -
Excessive manipulation to influence search engine rankings.  TO BE AVOIDED AT ALL COSTS.

The above is by no means complete and there are numerous good sources for more detailed explanations.

We trust you have found the above of some benefit.

Until Net Time …
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – “Helping You To Make Money Online” 

Free SEO Tools to assist you in improving your website

Ask as many people as you can find, the following question … what is Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ? and you will receive different answers.

For simplicity, let’s agree to use the following as a starting point. SEO can be defined as the process of making changes to the content, code and structure of your website to make it more accessible to search engines by providing clearly defined keywords and or keyword phrases of your niche.

Search engine optimization is not and never has been about tricking or scamming the search engines.

Granted, in the “Early Days” you only had to place a keyword here or there and you were basically given the number 1 spot. That proved to be both good and bad, however, as search engines evolved and they do and will continue to do so, you will need to ensure that your website is correctly optimised.

Optimisation is about understanding what elements search engines look for on a webpage to help in determining the relevance of that webpage for a particular keyword or keyword phrase. By understanding these elements and making the relevant adjustments to your webpage, you can improve your rank for a search term.

As we all know, Search engines use “spiders” or “crawlers” to visit your Web site and index the information accordingly. This information includes the content, as well as some coding aspects used to construct your webpage or website.

When designing or building your website, there are two simple things to take into consideration. Firstly, your website visitors and Secondly the Search Engines. Told you it was simple. Get those two aspects correct and you are grining. Don’t however, rely on building it once and then leaving it there, to be ranked highly for your keywords, both long tail and short tail, you must constantly work it. Look at it like exercise, if you don’t exercise your body and muscles, they waste away, same with your website, if you don’t consistently add new information, promote it and work it, it to will waste away and join the other forgotten websites languishing at the bottom of the internet pit.

Please feel free to read more on Saerch Engine Optimisation by visiting this link http://www.hostingimpact.com/search_engine_optimisation.htm

and use Our Free SEO Tools here

http://www.hostingimpact.com/free_tools.htm

In the next couple of posts we will talk more about Search Engine Optimisation.

Until Net Time …
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – FREE SEO Tools

Australian Website Design Professionals

Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your website and business, ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your website at least within the first 3 pages and ideally on the first page. Research has shown that website visitors generally do not go past the first three pages of search results and of course being on the first page is a preference.  It basically involves a process of incorporating fine tuning the content of your website along with HTML and Meta tag aspects and also appropriate link building systems.

The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN and when you think about it they have only been around for about 10 years, give or take. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret and change them accordingly. This in itself is not a bad thing as it helps to deter spam pages from clogging those results.  Another good thing from this change is the fact that web designers and SEO Specialists are encouraged to engage in sound seo practices. Of course, there are always those cowboys and self righteous ego manics that believe they can bend the rules to suit themselves, but they will be caught and their websites will be banned, it is just a matter of time. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks #1 in a particular search engine could rank #200 in another search engine. New sites need not be “submitted” to search engines to be listed. A simple link from a well established site will get the search engines to visit the new site and begin to spider its contents. It can take a few days to even weeks from the referring of a link from such an established site for all the main search engine spiders to commence visiting and indexing the new site.

If you are unable to research and choose keywords and work on your own search engine ranking, you may want to hire someone to work with you on these issues. For additional infromation or assistance please contact Hosting Impact.

Search engine marketing and promotion companies, will look at the plan for your site and make recommendations to increase your search engine ranking and website traffic. They will also provide ongoing consultation and reporting to monitor your website and make recommendations for editing and improvements to keep your site traffic flow and your search engine ranking high. Normally search engine optimization experts work with your web designer to develop an integrated plan from the commencement of your website.

Contact Hosting Impact for a free Search Engine Optimisation Report on your current website. 

We trust you have found this information of use and please feel free to contact Hosting Impact fro additional information.

Until Next Time
Happy Blogging …

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact

Australian Website Design Professionals

Who’s To Blame … It aint me, it aint my dog … then it must be the internet. It must be the Marketers. It’s got to be somebody, cause it aint me. 

I have just literally hung up the phone from a potential customer, sorry potential SEO Customer and thank goodness I gave up smoking 12 months ago, drinking 3 days ago and sex, yea right … anyway … otherwise, I would be a chain smoking, bourbon drinking $%^& rat.

Where do potential customers get the idea that if they or somebody else build a $19.99 website and put pretty little pictures inside it and place one or two “keywords” throughout it, then asks, why can I not be number 1 in Google for the “Keyword” hosting.

Probaly because there is approximately 440,000,000 search results, yes that’s right, 440,000,000 results. Nothing wrong with being optimistic and positive and all the other adjectives I can think of, however, the thing that amuses and frustrates me at the same time is that they want to achieve this with a set budget of $400.00

To top it off, they would like to know what references We have, what past results We have and wait for it, can we do it a bit cheaper than the allocated $400.00, because they just spent $7 000.00 in a phone book advertisement. Do we offer a gurantee, that if there website is not Number 1 within 10 days, can they get there money back.

Damm, I suppose so, yea hell why not and while you are there, why not just bend me over and #$%^&* me. Oh by the way, I asked this potential SEO Customer, if he placed the same demands onto the Phone book company, ie: if he doesn’t receive an inquiry every day from the phone book, will they get their money back. I don’t believe he appreciated that, I don’ know why, I was smiling when I said it.

If it was as easy as that, don’t you believe that we, Hosting Impact, would at least have a look at doing that for us, but noooooo, we wouldn’t even consider it, because we know the market is far too competitive and we don’t believe our targeted customers would type in that word.  We know the advantages in long tail keywords and that they can produce good sound results. These results allows us to build a foundation to at least start with.

I am missing an important component, yes, yes, apart from the “Keyword” Hosting and the Budget of $400.00, they would like it achieved in about 7 to 10 days, because that is when they will be starting their business. I remember now, they are still working for somebody else and want their Hosting business to be up an running and getting new customers every day, so they can pay for their new offices and wages.

Give me a break people, I know a lot of us receive emails saying that you will be Number 1 for blah blah blah in 1 week and it will cost you $19.99… GO FOR IT … EMBRACE IT … BUT LEAVE ME ALONE.

Search Engine Optimisation is a legitimate business and we do enjoy the challenges that we face everyday. Challenges with our customers websites, challenges with our own websites, but we do enjoy it and when we have positioned our clients website, within the search engines, where we said they would be within a reasonable time frame, that is pure joy. No Cheap Tricks, no sneaky black ops, just quality workmanship, time and effort.

So to all of the snake oil salesman out there claiming they can do this and this and this for only $19.99 and within a week you will be number 1, I say, GO $%&^* yourself.

I can not really blame the customer, because the interent does look simple and in many ways it is, however, common sense applies people. The business that has invested time, effort and money into marketing and search engine optimisation techniques, will really give up their number 1 position for their selected keywords…just because you have built a brand new website. No, I don’ think so either.

Until Next Time…
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact

Creating Your Website Presence

One of the biggest bugbears and time consuming aspects of Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) back in the old days, was the time required to alter, add and or change the content. This change of content allowed the search engines to identify numerous aspects of your website and more importantly being able to find and subsequently rank it. However, it was at times a long, drawn out process and at times not enjoyable.

With the advent and development of Blogs, the ability to change and or alter the website content with relevant and fresh content have moved the goalposts significantly so that it is no longer necessarily the case!

The website owner now has the ability to create fresh, new relevant keyword rich content at any time of the day or night.  

Now, that is not to say that SEO is a tactic that you no longer need to consider. Indeed, with ever increasing competition in online market places, Search Engine Optimisation is  something that needs greater thought and consideration with every passing day.

Hosting Impact has made another giant leap in technology with the introduction to Video Blogs. Please view our brief Welcome message.

Unfortunately, we were unable to get Brad Pitt for this starring role, so you are stuck with me.

httpv://au.youtube.com/watch?v=CoPlFOA84RM 

Over the coming weeks, we will be presenting tips and techniques on all aspects of SEO. No gimmicks, no cheapshots, just honest, tried, tested and proven Search Engine Optimisation methods.

Until Next Time …
Happy Blogging

SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – Australian Search Engine Optimisation

Search Engine Optimisation Specialists

A backlink is a link which directs others towards your site; they are also referred to as inbound links (IBL’s).  So, the number of backlinks that your site has is an indication of how popular or important it is according to your peers (other site owners).  These are especially important for SEO, as search engines such as Google will give more credit to those sites with a good number of quality backlinks.  So they will then consider these sites more relevant than others in the results pages of a search query.

Most search engines will want websites to have a level playing field, and so will more often than not look for natural links that have been built slowly over time.  Although it can be fairly easy to manipulate the links on a web page in order to achieve a higher ranking, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from another site.  This is why these feature so highly in a search engine’s algorithm.  Today it has gotten even harder to achieve these inbound links because of unscrupulous webmasters.  Such people try to achieve these links by deceptive or sneaky techniques (through either hidden links or through automatically generated pages).  Such pages are known as link farms and they are generally disregarded by search engines.  But if you are linked to such a link farm, then you may find your site being banned entirely from these search engines.

Another way of achieving quality backlinks to a site is to entice quality visitors to come to yours. 

There are a number of ways in which back linking can be achieved.

1. Reciprocal Linking – this is where you link to another site that provides the same service or product as you and they in turn have a link to your site on theirs.

2. Site Submissions.  Submit links for your site to directories which allow free submissions, or if you can afford it, some paid directories.  There are many sites around which offer a service where you can submit your site details to numerous sites.  Plus, if you want, you can always create your own directory of similar websites. 

3. Articles.  This is another way of getting great backlinks.  So if you have a reputable looking site that contains informative, well written reviews, then there is a good chance that your articles will receive high search engine rankings also.  But it is vital that any articles you write are on the subject, informative and thorough in relation to your site.  Also you could always write a few articles for submission to article sites such as EzineArticles.com or SearchWarp.com.  This is another great way of getting even more backlinks to your site.

Below are a few tips you will need to consider in order to write good articles for your site.

a. Write in a way that your intended target audience will understand what you are trying to say.  In other words, don’t write it like you were a teacher talking to a class of 10 year olds, but don’t be overly complicated.

b. Check your spelling, grammar and punctuation.

c. Consider an article of between 300 to 500 words.

d. Always include a resource box at the end, as this will include that all important backlink to your site.  This resource box should also include a short biography regarding you and your site.

4. Blogging.  This has now become an integral part of the internet and is one of the most effective ways of linking.  You either have the choice of placing a few words of comments on to someone else’s blog, or you may want to link to them from your own blog.  In fact, you will find that most blogs will be happy to link back to you.  However, it is important that you try to update your blog regularly and post interesting content to ensure that people will want to link back to you.

Trust you have found this article helpful and should you require additional information or assistance please feel free to contact us accordingly at Hosting Impact.

Till Next Time…

Happy Blogging
SEO Steve
Hosting Impact – Australian Search Engine Optimisation Specialists
Backlink. (2008, October 14). In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 01:13, October 25, 2008, from http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Backlink&oldid=245192050

Search Engine Optimisation Specialists

Good Relevant Content

This is probably the single most important point you should remember when doing Search Engine Optimisation (SEO), especially if you want your website to be found on the web.  Although your site may be technically perfect so that the search engine robots find it, you will find that it will not help if the actual content of your site is not good.

For the content of your site to be good, it should be factually, as well as grammatically correct.  But this is not really necessary for every site that is on the web today.  However, what is important is that whatever your site is about, the content actually needs to be unique and specific so that it will appeal to people.  Moreover, it in fact needs to be particularly appealing to those people looking for information or who want to find your site.

By having good content on your site, visitors will return and eventually these visitors who return are more likely to link to your site.  Having lots of inbound links is not only great for your site, but for search engine rankings also.  It is even better if those links are from more highly ranked sites than your own. 

Additionally, not only do you need to have good content on your site, you also need to have fresh content also. If you add relevant new content to your website on a regular basis, you are giving your visitors more reasons for returning to it.  Because of this, search engine robots will also visit your site more often as soon as they notice that you are updating it regularly.  So what this means is that any new content you add, will then be indexed much quicker in the future.

Check your Spellings 

If your site is written in English, then you are probably aware of the differences in spelling between American and British English.  Where in the UK they will write “colour”, in the USA it is written as “color”, and the same can be said of “optimisation” and “optimization”.  So if you can, why not establish your website to accomodate the differences accordingly. Is this a good thing, We do not know, however, what we do know though is that it may provide you with another keyword phrase that may bring in traffic and after all isn’t that what it is all about.

Until Next Time…

Happy Blogging 

Australian Search Engine Optimisation Specialists

Although there are literally 100’s of ways to increase traffic to your website, we have included 5 for your immediate consideration.

The five methods are tried and proven methods of increasing traffic, but the overall message that we are attempting to convey is, try something, anything. Something or Anything is far better than doing nothing. 

Traffic is the lifeblood of all websites and great traffic flow is the difference between so so results and outstanding results. 

So here they are, in no particular order or preference:

1. Invest in good advertising with Search Engines.

Google’s Adwords as an example, provides great advertising opportunities that are very  popular and assures great traffic. Although with this way to increase your traffic it would cost some money. While some would shy away from spending money to increase traffic, it can pay for itself many times over as a general way to increase your traffic.

2. Search and use correct keywords or keyword phrases for your sites content.

Search Engines look for certain keywords that they would show in their results page. In doing so, having the right keyword and keyword phrase is a high requirement in ranking in high in Search Engine results. You could write your own content or you could hire someone to do it for you.

3. Write Articles that can lead traffic to your site.

Submit articles to sites that would contain the same subject that your site deals in. If you sell car parts write press releases and articles about cars and car parts. Attach your sites description and services at the end of the article as well as the link.

4. Join forums and form online communities.

Capture a market and show your expertise and credibility. When you have formed a good foundation for your site, people will trust you and your site and will pass it on to many people they trust. Traffic will certainly increase because they know that you can provide what they need.

5. Lastly, Offer newsletters or E-zines.

If many people know what you are about and your existence is shared with many others, you will find a loyal traffic that can provide you with more traffic by recommendation. If you arouse the curiosity of your customers they would be pushed to help you with your traffic. 

We trust you find the abovementioned methods helpful and in the event that you have tried other methods and would like them included and or added here, please feel free to contact us accordingly.

Until Next Time

Happy Blogging 

Australian Seacrh Engine Optimisation Specialists

Search Engine Optimisation is a competitve business. You have to arm yourself with not only the proper knowledge but also the correct tools to make your web site stand out from your competitors.

Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings and if you lose your guard, or worse, not continue to work your website and add relevant new content to it, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many non effective websites.

Search Engines and in particular the big three, Google, Yahoo and MSN are the most widely used Internet tools used today by internet users. The Search Engines use certain algorithms to index or crawl websites and it is every website owner or webmaster’s goal to be number 1 for a particual search string.

The majority of people that use Search Engines use only the first page top ten search results, when looking for a particular thing. It is generally acknowledged that people do not normally search past the first three pages. So being found within the first page and in particular the top three, for a specific search string, should be everyones aim.  Being found within the top three three is considered a barometer of a sites success in Search Engine optimization.

You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site equals more leads for your Business and the more leads you receive equals more potential sales.

However, it is essential to grab a hold of that top spot or make your ranking even better. Each day is a new day for all websites and with each new day comes the opportunity to make them rank even higher or better using correct Search Engine optimization Techniques. Be ever mindful, that the major Search Engines and indeed all Search Engines constantly change or alter their algorithms to prevent manipulation by spammers and the like.

So just what is Search Engine optimization and why do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need correct Search Engine optimization to rank your website highly within the (SERP) Search Engine Ranking Position. Simple, Higher position means more exposure, means more potential sales or leads.

Implementing correct Search Engine optimization techniques allows you the benefit of generating potentially higher traffic volumes. If you can increase your traffic to your website by 10% over a two month period and increase your sales as a direct result of that increase in traffic, then that can sometimes be the difference in just getting by and making a substantial profit.

So once again, what is Search Engine optimization? Search Engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of Search Engines.

Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site’s existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.

Search Engine optimisation requires a lot of work to be fully realised. There are many aspects you have to change or add within your web site to receive higher or better Search Engine optimization results.

With the upcoming Posts, we will discuss in detail the many factors that make up Search Engine Optimisation, which include keyword phrases, keywords, meta tags, title pages, alt tags and our favourite, content. Not just any old content, but relevant, keyword rich content that is directed towards a specific product, service or solution. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site’s content applicable and conducive to Search Engine optimisation and we will address this in due course.