Posts Tagged ‘SEO’

Google Searches Experience Some Improvement Tweaks

Monday, April 26th, 2010

There is little doubt that Google is the dominant force in today’s search engine  market. This does not mean, however, that they should sit back and relax. Luckily for many users of the popular search engine, Google believes in improvement, as evidenced by some recent tweaks made to improve the usability of its search engine that were announced on the company’s blog on Friday, April 16.

In all, there were three major improvements added to Google’s search engine capabilities. The first improvement comes in the way of localized Google Suggest.  Although localized Google Suggest was introduced to users last year, it was done so only in a manner that would suggest localized sites on a per-country basis. For example, users in London might see different suggestions than users in New York.

This time around, however, users in the United States can experience a more enhanced version of localized Google Suggest that will offer results based on the largest metropolitan area they are closest to. So, if a person in San Francisco types in “bart,” they could likely be searching for information on the region’s Bay Area Rapid Transit system, rather than sites related to the popular TV character, Bart Simpson.

Another example would be a web surfer in Miami who begins to type “dolphin” into the search form, which would now yield suggestions related to the area’s local football team, rather than the animal itself. These localized suggestions, new to users within the United States, should definitely add a little speed and ease to searches, and might help them find what they are looking for in a more streamlined manner.

The second major improvement to Google’s search engine revolves around spelling enhancements for names. As of right now, users in the United States will be the first affected by the name spelling improvements, with more enhancements coming in the near future for global users. The name spelling enhancements were made due to the fact that several people have names that are difficult to spell.  With that in mind, Google has added some extra clues within their suggested search queries to help users find what they are looking for.

For example, a suggestion such as “matthew devin oracle” could be given, with “oracle” added at the end as a possible clue or suggestion to the user. Another example could be “simon tung machine learning,” with “machine learning” added to the end as a specific suggestion to the searcher. Considering the difficulty with spelling many names, these added enhancements should help users when searching for people, as they give added clues for the context in which the search is being performed.

The third and final search enhancement comes in the form of spelling auto-correction. While in the past Google used the “Did you mean” link at the top of results in the event of a misspelling, the search engine will now send users directly to the intended spellings’ results. This will happen when there is an extremely high probability that the user misspelled the word, saving them time by omitting the need to click the “Did you mean” link at the top. This correction has been made globally, spanning 31 different languages.

Despite its current dominance, it’s nice to know that Google’s minds are still churning out new ideas for improvement that should not only help them retain their current market share, but also keep users satisfied.

Source: www.seochat.com

Five ways to optimize pages…

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

You think very carefully about your keywords, your phrasing, your titles and links when you create an article or blog post for the Web. When writing with an Internet audience in mind, you’re always sure to optimize your content for best effect with the search engines. SEO isn’t just something you want to use when creating blogs and bits and content for your site; SEO is something you want to use on every single page. Learn five ways to optimize pages all over your Web site.

Search engine optimization is something you want to think about on every single page of your site, not just main content pages. Link pages, navigation pages, search pages and everything else you have to offer should be search-engine friendly and optimized to pull in the most people. You want to draw traffic to your site from every single page. Otherwise, what are those pages even doing on your site?

Five Ways to Optimize Pages

SEO is done for one reason — gaining the attention of the search engines. You want your site to appear in results when certain keywords are typed into search engine browsers, and you want your site to appear high up on that list to get the best possible results. If you’re serious about SEO, don’t restrict your efforts to online articles and blog posts alone. All the pages on your site should feature keywords that help bring in traffic.

Even if you aren’t displaying a piece of content, there are ways you can optimize pages for the search engines. Think you’ve put enough of an SEO effort into your Web site? Learn five ways to optimize pages — and make sure you’re doing all you can to get more traffic.

Content Descriptions. Content that’s optimized for the Web should always have an opening paragraph which describes what the piece of content is about. This description should be rich in the keywords being emphasized in the following piece of content. This is both good writing and good SEO, giving readers a way to find out quickly what they’re about to read.

There’s another reason to include content descriptions (keyword-rich opening paragraphs), however, that has everything to do with the way the search engines see your content. Often, this first paragraph will be displayed on search engine results pages. This is what traffic will see when they make the decision to visit your site — so make it good.

Content descriptions should be visible on all the pages of your site which feature links to the content your site displays. Whether traffic is looking at a list of blog posts or choosing between articles, be sure these keyword-rich paragraphs accompany the titles, both on main content pages and in on-site search results. This enriches the page with a bevy of keywords even as it makes it easy for traffic to find just what they want. You won’t have to create new content to make these pages more SEO-friendly, because you’ve already got keyword-rich opening paragraphs which can do the work for you.

Keyword-rich Navigation

Even when your links are short and sweet, the navigation of your site can be keyword-focused as well. Suppose your site offers content on mystery shopping. Think about keywords associated with this topic as you decide how to divvy up your site.

In this example, you may include links to sections named Sign Up to Be a Mystery Shopper, Find Places to Mystery Shop and Mystery Shopping 101. All of these phrases are rich in keywords and still descriptive enough to drive traffic in the right direction. Include the keywords in your navigation at all times, and you’ve found a very simple way to keep pages optimized for the search engines.

Captions. It’s likely that your site is rich in both words and visuals, pictures and graphics that help capture the eye and the attention of your visitors. Don’t forget to optimize even these for the search engines by including keyword-focused captions for your pictures.

Describe the image with optimization in mind and you can’t go wrong. Captions may seem like a small thing, but every little bit helps when it comes to SEO. Every little thing helps boost you that much more with the search engines, driving your page higher up on the list of results.

META. Don’t neglect META tags at any time. Make sure that every page on your site is there to be seen by traffic and is optimized for best effect. This includes using META tags on every single page of your Web site.

Standard META tags contain a code that makes the page itself available for search engine scans, keywords that describe the content on the page and a short description that traffic will see when the page is displayed on search engine results.

Be sure that every page of your site is optimized with the best META tags possible. Include words and phrases which are displayed on the page, a description which also includes these keywords and make sure that every page is configured to be read by the search engines. Never neglect your META when SEO is your goal.

Page Headings. Page headings are extremely important. Every page of your site should have a keyword-focused title (Mystery Shopping as a Career, using the example from above). The page title will also be scanned by the search engines, along with everything else on the page. Like everything else on the page, this, too, should be optimized with search engines in mind.

Use SEO Everywhere

There are more than five ways to optimize pages, but keeping this group in mind will help you to create more focused, more search engine-friendly pages on the Web. Remember that SEO applies to every aspect of every page on your site, and remember to always keep the focus on your main keyword phrases whenever you add anything new.

SEO can be applied to page and content descriptions, META tags, navigation and everything else that you want to feature online — and it should be applied to all of the above. When you use SEO everywhere on your site, you increase the chances that traffic (via the search engines) will find your site…and why else would you have one, if not to get visitors?

source – http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Five-Ways-to-Optimize-Pages/