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List of Great How To Guides from Mashable

January 3rd, 2010 seotrade Posted in Blogging, SEO 101, SEO Tips, Social Networking Comments Off

How to do just about anything on the internet for 2010

HOW TO: Live Inside Twitter and Still Stay Productive

HOW TO: Start a Petition on Twitter

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Image optimization

November 24th, 2009 seotrade Posted in Google News, SEO 101, SEO Tips Comments Off

Get more visitors by being listed at the very top of Google’s search results

Google Images has indexed billions of images. If your image can be found for the right keyword, then you will get targeted visitors to your website.

Why images can help you to get more visitors

Depending on the search query, Google displays several images above the regular search results. For example, try this search for German Shepherd Dog:

How Google Images can help you with SEO

The images can be found at the top of the search results and they are linked with web pages. If someone clicks on the image, the person will be taken to the web page that shows the image.

How to optimize your images so that they can be found

If you have a website about German Shepherd dogs, then wouldn’t it be great if an image from your website was listed above the regular results? You’d get many additional website visitors then.

There are several things that you can do to improve the position of your images in Google Image Search:

  1. Use a file name that contains the keywords for which you want to be found. In this example, the file name german-shepherd-dog.jpg would be a good idea. Separate the words with a hyphen.
  2. Use a descriptive Image Alt attribute text. It usually makes sense to use the same keywords that have been used for the file name. In this example, the Image Alt Attribute would be “German Shepherd Dog”:

    <img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog”>

  3. In the same way, you should use the Image Title attribute:

    <img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog” title=”German Shepherd Dog”>

  4. The textual content on the web page before and after the image also impacts the position of your image in Google’s Image Search. In this example, the text “German Shepherd Dog” should appear close to the image.
  5. Bigger images seem to get featured more often on Google’s first result page. The bigger your image, the easier it is to get at the top of Google’s regular result page. Include the Width and Height attributes in your image tag to show search engines the size of the image:

    <img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog” title=”German Shepherd Dog” width=”600″ height=”400″>

  6. If the complete web page has been optimized for a keyword then it is easier to get good listings for images that are on the page.

Make sure that the image that you optimize for your keyword also looks attractive. If no-one wants to click on the image then it won’t help your website if the image can be found on Google’s first result page.
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The right SEO tactic for low and high competition

November 17th, 2009 seotrade Posted in SEO 101, SEO Tips Comments Off

Depending on the keywords for which you want to get high rankings, you have to employ different tactics. Keywords with less competition require different tactics than keywords with high competition.

The effect of different SEO tactics on the position of your website in the search results

If you target long keyword phrases with little competition, then the relative value of on-page web page optimization is very high.

For example, if you want to be listed for the search term “buy black adidas samba sneaker in knoxville” then it is enough to optimize one of your web pages for that search term because the competition for that search term is not high. You don’t need many inbound links to get high rankings for that keyphrase.

The more competitive the targeted keyword is, the higher is the effect of inbound links on the position of your website in the search results:

Diagram: the effect of the tactic on your search engine position

The importance of an SEO tactic is not the same as its relative effect on your search engine positions

By taking a look at the chart above you might get the impression that web page optimization is not important to get high rankings for very competitive keywords. That is not the case. Optimizing the contents of a web page is the essential basis for high search engine rankings.

By optimizing a web page for a keyphrase, you tell search engines that the web page is relevant to that keyphrase. If more than one web page has been optimized for that keyphrase (which is usually the case) then the web page with the best inbound links will get the highest position in the search results.

For example, the website www.cnn.com has 46,600 inbound links according to Google. Although CNN.com has so many inbound links, they do not rank for the keyword “buy black adidas samba sneaker in knoxville” because the website has not been optimized for that keyphrase.

If you want to get high rankings for a keyphrase, the first step is to optimize one of your web pages for that keyphrase. Then work on the links that point to the optimized web page to outrank other websites that have been optimized for the same keyword:

Diagram: the importance of different SEO tactics

Which tactic should you use for your website?

1. The best web page optimization tactic:

When you optimize your website, optimize different pages of your website for different keyphrases. Start with longer keyword phrases that don’t have much competition and then proceed with more competitive keywords.

For example, start with the keywords “buy sneakers in knoxville”, “buy cowboy boots in knoxville”, “buy pumps in knoxville”, “shoe shop knoxville”, etc. When you have managed to get high rankings for many of these keyphrases, Google will know that your website is relevant to the topic “shoes”.

As soon as Google knows that your website is relevant to the topic, it will be much easier to get high rankings for more competitive keywords such as “buy shoes” or even “shoes”.

The more pages of your website you optimize for different but related keywords, the better.

2. The best link building tactic:

It’s not always necessary that you have more links than your competitors. You need better links.

Try to get links to your website that use the targeted keyphrase as the link text (also called anchor text) and that point to the web page on your website that has been optimized for that keyphrase.

Don’t focus on quantity, focus on quality. Getting hundreds of links from a link farm won’t help your website as much a few dozen links from relevant web pages with authority.

If your website has both optimized web pages and good inbound links then it will be easy to outrank web pages that only have one factor.

Now go optimize your individual pages!

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