Proper Use of Heading Tags Will Give Your SEO Efforts More Search Engine Juice

I figured it was time for me to post on a pure SEO topic. When it comes to SEO web site architecture, one of the most over looked techniques is the proper use of heading tags. Many web designers still use the heading tags as a design element or not even use them at all (when I mention web designers I am including the fancy wysiwyg’s that are available too).

In order for you to be able to use the headings properly you need to be able to monitor your work. There are many tools available for you to use to see what your headers look like to the search engines. I actually use 2.
I use the Web Developer Toolbar which is available for both Firefox and Internet Explorer. The screen shot above is one of the outline tool available in the Web Developer Toolbar.

The W3C also has an outline tool connected to their validation tool.

Document Outline

Below is an outline for this document, automatically generated from the heading tags (<h1> through <h6>.)

If this does not look like a real outline, it is likely that the heading tags are not being used properly. (Headings should reflect the logical structure of the document; they should not be used simply to add emphasis, or to change the font size.)
</h6></h1>

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
So use your heading tags properly. Check them with an outline tool like the W3C or the Web Developer Toolbar.

For more information on heading tags please visit one or both of the following posts.

In an earlier post HTML Basic Code for Improved Search Engine Rankings I discussed heading tags and their key factors in search engines and web site usability.

I gave my eleven rules for the use heading tags:

1. Each page must have at least one heading.
2. Each page is allowed only one H1 heading.
3. The H1 heading is always the first heading on the page.
4. The main keyword or keyword phrase is used in that H1 heading.
5. Use headings like you would in an outline, use CSS to style your text.
6. Don’t skip heading levels use them in numerical order (e.g. H1, H2, H3) although you can use multiple H2s H3s and so on.
7. All headings except H1 are subheadings, they should support the main heading and be thematically connected with the previous level headings.
8. Use headings consistently throughout the whole web site.
9. Headings should be simple, concise, easily scanned, and it wouldn’t hurt if they contained some of your keywords or keyword phrases.
10. The headings should actually represent the summary of the text.
11. If you actually extracted the headings and made an outline with them they should actually make sense.

In another post Heading Tags, SEO and Keyword Phrases I discussed using keywords and keyword phrases in headings & subheadings.

I gave examples of headings showing what the code for typical headings and subheadings used for SEO might look like:

<h1>The Right Keywords will Bring Traffic to Your Website</h1>
More information will go here.

<h2>Choosing the Right Keywords for Your Website</h2>
More information will go here.

<h3>Keyword Research will Make or Break your SEO</h3>
More information will go here too.

Use your heading tags properly!

Late,
Gary Pool

One of the Most Over Looked SEO Techniques Heading Tags is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

The Black Text on a Black Background Black Hat SEO Technique Like it says in the Johnny Winter Song is “Still Alive and Well”

With Halloween coming up I figured it would be a good time to dust off my black hat and do a little sleuthing online. One of the oldest black hat SEO tricks in the book is the same color text as the background.

Back on the old days of the early ’90s we used to put the word “free” as many times as possible on a page in white text on a white background. Well the search engines caught on to this and put an end to it. “The same color text as the background was no longer a viable solution.” When they allowed text for some of the colors it ignited a resurgence of using the same color text as the background and it escaped the search engines view at least for a while. (Font color “white” background color “#ffffff” was working.)
(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
As the power of CSS increased so did its use for black hat SEO. There are many techniques using CSS employed today and not all of them are black hat. Just like anything else if something has a function it will be used for both evil as well as good.

Let’s take a look at the site in question.

Beautiful site so where is the text?

There it is hidden behind the header.

Using the search term “paul shipper” this site comes up first in Google so tie black hat SEO used on this site must be working.

The same search term comes up #3 in Yahoo and not in the top 30 on Bing. Does this mean that Bing is better at detecting black hat SEO techniques? That’s a topic for another post.

Here is the text hidden by the class=”paragraph_style” used on a black background.

illustrators, graphic design, graphic designers, graphic, freelance, designers, design, illustrate, product illustration, illustration portfolios, freelance illustrators, theispot, graphic artist, graphic designer, scratchboard, children’s book illustrators, architectural illustrators, logo design, graphic design companies, jordi labanda, renderings, art, web site design, architectural rendering, advertising, artist, designer, buy illustration, custom illustration, illustrations book, illustrators agency, illustrator portfolios, folioplanet, jason brooks illustration, society of illustrators, jason brooks, graphic art, illustrators artist, freelance design, advertising illustration, freelance designer, freelance artist, illustartion, product illustrations, illustration agents, illustrating, freelance web design, ispot, product design, children’s book, children’s books, graphics, books, prints, architectural renderings, artwork, logo, cartoons, flyer design, painting, professional web design,web design company, 3d animation, art line, brochures, caricature, cartoonist, magazine, art gallery, book, fashion, painter, artists, comics, drawings, painting, drawing, gallery, children’s books illustration, fashion illustrators, illustration companies, illustration, illustrations,fashion illustration, children’s illustration, freelance illustration,illustration artists, illustration artist, medical illustration,illustration art, architectural illustration, illustration book, technical illustration, magazine illustration, graphic illustration, digital illustration, illustrator, cartoon illustration, children’s book illustration, illustration work, freelance illustrator, illustration jobs, graphic design illustration, illustration house, stock illustration, childrens book illustration, erotic illustration, the illustration, illustration of, children illustration, illustration books, scientific illustration, woodcut illustration, illustrator illustration, computer illustration, medical illustrator, illustration agency, technical illustrator, illustration design, book illustrator, artist illustrator, illustation, children’s book illustrator, stock illustrations, bible illustration, illistration, sermon illustration, 3d illustration, architectural illustrations, comic illustration, illustration gallery, fantasy illustration, sports illustration, illustration blog, fashion illustrations, ilustration, books+illustration, scratchboard illustration, spot illustration, illustration prints, illustration software, line illustration, illustration blogs, children’s book illustrations, directory of illustration, illustration program, caricature illustration, museum of american illustration, illustration style, illustration class, fashion illustrator, illustration job, illustration designers, illustration designer, illustration major, illustration now, illustrations com, medical illustrations, children’s illustrator, royalty free illustration, christian illustration, editorial illustration, biblical illustration, technical illustrations, jesus illustration, map illustration, illustration mundo, god illustration, sun illustration, painting illustration, city illustration, illustration drawings, illustration definition, illustration paintings, illustration artwork, children illustrations, vector illustration, childrens illustration, illustrationen, pencil illustration, american illustration, architectural illustrator, childrens book illustrator, illustration drawing, illustrator art, illustration annual, face illustration, video illustrations, illustration contest, old illustrations, dickens illustrator, digital illustrations, illustration programs, rose illustration, japanese illustration, illustration styles, monkey illustration, commercial illustration, girl illustration, children’s illustrations, lucas, lucasfilm, key art, key, film, poster, traditional illustration, blt, bltomato, drew, drew struzan, struzan, peak, bob peak, key art, promo art, cd cover, album cover, cover illustration, indiana jones, star wars, dvd, dvd cover art, poster design,

How they get caught by Google if they are not seeing it?
They can be reported to Google’s “Report a Spam Result“.

Now back to Johnny Winter. Just like all the olde black hat SEO techniques and the lyrics to Johnny’s hit song say are “still alive and well“. I am not advocating the use of any black hat SEO in any way shape or form just reporting on their use.

Late,
Gary Pool

Black Hat SEO – Black Text on a Black Background is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SEO for Your Images – Search Engine Optimization is in the Details

You must be aware that all of the major search engines, including Google, Yahoo!, and Bing have image search engines. So how can we leverage this?

Searches for images can actually generate a lot of traffic, included below are some steps you can take to bring visitors looking for images to your site. “Google images” as a search term actually has a predicted daily count of 11,114 searches. (via Nichebot)

According to a Bing blog article by Todd Schwartz titled “A Picture Is Worth a Thousand Words“:

What many people may not realize is how big the Image Search market actually is. In fact, according to Comscore (June ’09), over 60 million searchers generate over 1 Billion queries a month, driven both by the explosion of image content on the web today, and the increasing need of consumers to use images to help them complete tasks.

There are many people as there are reasons for using image search engines. Searchers looking for pictures of celebrities, album cover art, or that perfect image to emphasize a point on their blog. Shoppers often look for pictures of furniture, vacation destinations, clothing, cars or anything else people buy.

If your site is selling products or services it is these “shoppers” you are looking for. All of these persons are potential customers or subscribers. Who knows, they may even become regular readers. You need to keep the funnel full!

All the major search engines, Google, Yahoo!, Bing, and more, now include image search listings automatically in their regular web search results. If you have taken the time to optimize your images properly, you can get yourself a very attractive top search engine ranking.

Guide the search engine to understand what the image is about

(Post from Search Engine Optimizician.)
If you want a higher ranking for your images for particular keywords or keyword phrases you need to make sure the search engines can understand what the picture is depicting.

Some keyword research would help you to choose some terms that actually have people searching on them.

OK here is the skinny on image optimization

• Use descriptive file names
  Use an image name that actually says what the image is. If the image is the logo for a catering company, use the name of the company not just logo. Use keywords and keyword phrases that actually describe the image.
  : /images/image-1234.jpg

  : /images/portland_catering.jpg
  : /images/logo.ping
  : /images/crave_catering_logo.png
• Make proper use of your HTML alt tags
  (If you are blogging use the description field in your blog or content publishing software when you add an image).
  : <img src=”http://yourURL.com/images/1234.png” alt=” ”>
  : <img src=”http://yourURL.com/images/wordpress_image_description.png” alt=”Screen shot of WordPress image description field”>
  : <img src=”http://yourURL.com/images/1234.jpg” alt=”Image”>
  : <img src=”http://yourURL.com/images/google_orsted_logo.jpg” alt=”Google’s Hans Christian Ørsted logo”>
  If you have a series of related images, use descriptive variations.
  ”Google’s Ivan Kostoylevsky logo”
  ”Google’s Unexplained Phenomenon logo”
  ”Google’s 400th Anniversary of Galileo’s First Telescope logo”
• Adding descriptive text in the vicinity of the picture is a good thing
  In determining what the picture is actually depicting, the search engines will examine the text adjacent to the image.
  : It was actually nether. The new logo was a reference to the birthday of Hans Christian Ørsted. <img src=”http://yourURL.com/images/google_orsted_logo.jpg” alt=”Google’s Hans Christian Ørsted logo”/>
  This text may also be used by the search engine as the snippet describing the image.

• Keep the most important image close to the top of the page, headline, or title
  Embedding the image close to the top of the page, headline, or title will increase your chances of having your picture in Google News.
• Put your photos inside the articles and blog posts
  Search engines have a tendency of ignoring images in headers, sidebars, and other places where they can’t be attached to some relevant content.
  Images placed inside the articles and blog posts have the greatest chance of being recognized by the search engines.

Technical issues that effect your image’s search engine rankings

• Don’t use frame breaking code
  The Bing Blog post referred to above recommends:
  “Watch frame breaking – Sites that attempt to break frames make it more difficult for the image to display correctly within search. Make sure you’re testing your site against the search engines.”
• Use images that will reduce to thumbnails and remain recognizable
  Quality pictures with high contrasts and clear, bright, colors always work best. The search engines generate small thumbnails to be included in search results, and you want images that will actually be recognizable is that small size.
• Make sure your photos are accessible to the search engines
  Be sure the directory containing your images can be accessed by the search engine’s spiders and bots.
  Check your robots.txt file to make sure you are allowing the search engines access to your image folder/s.
  Robot.txt file is explained in “Top Ten Rules for Beginning SEO“.

It never hurts to make use the social sites

You can host some of your images on photo hosting sites like twitpic, flickr, and photobucket. Add links from those sites back to your site.

Flickr, twitpic, and photobucket may even generatate traffic on their own, and the search engines could even include these images in their image search results.

You can check how many of your pictures Google has indexed

To check what images Google has indexed from your site, go to Google Image Search and enter “site:yourURL.com” in the search box.
Replace “yourURL.com” with your domain name.

This post I had been meaning to get around to was inspired by Pandia Search Engine News.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization

Like feathers on a balance beam search engine optimization is a process of adding as many feathers to the scale as you can. This is just one of those bags of feathers that is rarely used. SEO image optimization is a way to get ahead of your competition.

Late,
Gary Pool

Google Images – SEO for Your Pictures is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

SMX Advanced 2009 Seattle – SEO Track – SEO Ranking Factors In 2009 Rand Fishkin

Post from Search Engine Optimizician.
How much does the “H1″ tag really matter, versus the number of links pointing at a domain?
Do “authority” sites always have an advantage over other sites with less reputation?
Is brand recognition now a bigger issue?

On and off-the-page factors that influence web search, what remains useful and what new signals are growing in importance. Part 1 of 3

Rand Fishkin, CEO, SEOmoz

Search Ranking Factors Survey
Answered by 70 Top SEOs Worldwide

Keyword Usage

• Keyword use anywhere in the title tag
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Keyword as the first word or words of the title tag
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Keyword in the Root Domain
  (very strong to moderate impact)
• Keyword in subdomain
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page folder
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page name
  (moderate impact)
• Keyword in page’s query
  (weak impact)
• Keyword in page’s extension
  (not used)
• Keyword in description tag
  (weak impact)
• Keyword in meta keywords
  (not used)
• Keyword anywhere in the “H1″ tag
  (significant to moderate impact)
• Keyword as first words in the “H1″ tag
  (significant to weak impact)
• Keyword in other “H” tags [H2-6]
  (moderate impact)

H1 Tags (Low Correlation w/ Rankings).
Alt Text (Higher Correlation w/ Rankings).
Keyword in URL (Very High Correlation).
Keyword Location (Data Says Closer is Much Better).

While I agree with most of the statements above I would question the “H1 Tags (Low Correlation w/ Rankings)”. Just because they aren’t used properly doesn’t mean that if they were used correctly they wouldn’t have more of a correlation.

Non-Link Factors

• Freshness and recentcy of page creation
  (significant impact)
• Historical content changes
  (significant to weak impact)
• Advertising on the page
  (not used)
• Google AdSence on the page
  (not used)
• Meta description tag
  (moderate to not used)
• Query parameters in the URL vs. static URL format
  (moderate to weak impact)
• Substantive, unique content on the page
  (very strong to significant impact)
• Links pointing to other URLs on the domain
  (significant to weak impact)
• External-pointing links on page
  (weak impact)
• HTML validation to W3C standards
  (weak impact)
• Ratio of code to text in HTML
  (weak impact)
• Use of Flash elements or other plug-in content
  (not used)

Substantive, Unique Content is Very Important.
W3C Validation Not Very Important.
Code to Text Ratio Not Very Important.
Static URLs Somewhat Better Than Dynamic.

Once again I will have to disagree with W3C Validation as not being “Very Important”. I will agree while it is not as important as some of the other on-page factors I feel it is of value. See the Matt Cutts video clip.

Importance of Link Metrics

• Global link popularity of the domain
  (very strong impact)
• Trustworthiness of domain
  (very strong impact)
• Link diversity of the domain
  (very strong impact)
• Links form hubs or authorities in a topic specific neighborhood
  (very strong impact)

PageRank may be important, but TBPR not a great predictor.
Domain Authority may be important, but metrics need work.
TrustRank concepts may be important, but metrics need work.
Domain Diversity may be more important than experts think.

Interesting, I think I am in agreement with all of these statements.

Subdomains vs. Root Domains
Subdomains likely DO NOT inherit all of the ranking benefits of the Root Domain, but neither are they completely separate entities.

Google’s Algorithm
Links, as they pertain to the domain and the individual page, are vastly superior in importance to the page’s content.

Geographic Ranking Factors For Country-Specific Targeting

• ccTLD of the root domain
  (very strong impact)
• Geographic location of the host IP
  (significant impact)
• Links from other domains targeted to the country or region
  (significant impact)
• Registration of the site with Google Local
  (moderate impact)
• Address associated with the registration of the domain
  (weak impact)
• Address in on-page text content
  (moderate impact)
• Geographical location of visitors to the site
  (weak impact)
• Geo-Targeting preference set inside Google Webmaster Tools
  (moderate impact)
• Geo-Tagging of pages via meta data
  (moderate impact)
• Content language used on site
  (significant impact)
• Manual review/targeting by Google
  (very strong impact)

Country TLD
Language
Links
Host IP Address
Manual Review
GG WM Tools Geographic Target Settings
Registration with Google Local

Links will decline in importance, but remain powerful, as newer signals rise from usage data, social graph data and other sources to replace them.

So there you have it. My notes and views on Rand’s presentation at SMX Advanced in Seattle June 2009.
Parts 2 and 3 featuring the presentations from Laura Lippay and Marty Weintraub are in the hopper.

Late,
Gary Pool

Improve Search Engine Rankings – SEO Ranking Factors is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Reference Guides to Make Life as a Web Developer Easier

Rebecca Kelley from SEOmoz first brought this article from Web Design Schools Guide to my attention.

After reviewing this article on cheat sheets or as I call them reference guides I thought you might enjoy some or all of them. I started with all 100 links to the guides but some were broken. Here is a breakdown of the links and their categories.

• HTML (13 links)
• CSS (14 links)
• AJAX (4 links)
• PHP (10 links)
• JavaScript (11 links)
• MySQL (4 links)
• Action Script (4 links)
• Color (6 links)
• Adobe (12 links)
• Miscellaneous (16 links)

100 Terrific Web Design Cheat Sheets that Will Save you Time, Money and Mistakes

Most web designers know that cheat sheets are incredibly useful. You can use them for quick reference, easy learning, and more. In this list, we’ve compiled an incredible collection of the 100 best and most useful cheat sheets out there.

HTML
13 HTML and XHTML reference sheets.

1. HTML/XHTML Characters: Code for various characters on this reference.
2. HTML Beginners – Web Monkey: Beginners HTML cheat sheet.
3. (X)HTML Attributes and Elements: Tags and attributes for XHTML.
4. HTML Help: HTML help sheet from GoSquared.
5. HTML Tags: VisiBone’s HTML tags.
6. Common HTML Elements and Corresponding Codes: Elements in action and their codes.
7. HTML: Reference for HTML tags.
8. XHTML: Clean and easy to XHTML reference sheet.
9. HTML Code: HTML tags quick and easy.
10. HTML & XHTML Tag Quick Reference: Quick referencefor commonly used HTML and XHTML tags.
11. HTML Tags/Codes: Current tags and codes.
12. XHTML Character Reference: Character entities in XHTML.
13. HTML: One page A4 document.
14. XHTML: Common XHTML practices.

CSS
14 quick reference sheets.

1. YUI Library: Yahoo! user interface library reference.
2. CSS Level 1 Properties: Level 1 CSS properties.
3. CSS Help: Help for CSS.
4. CSS: Easily reference syntax and more.
5. Blueprint CSS: Help with Blueprint CSS.
6. CSS Level 1 and CSS P Quick Reference Charts: Level 1 and processing.
7. Apple’s CSS Widget: Mac CSS reference dashboard widget.
8. CSS Panic Guide: CSS help panic guide.
9. CSS: Reference for CSS.
10. CSS: Pete Frietag – really simple and easy look at CSS.
11. CSS Layout: About.com – basics of CSS layout.
12. Cascading Style Sheets Quick Reference Guide: CSS quick reference guide.
13. CSS Shorthand: Shorthand reference for CSS.
14. CSS Level 2 Quick Reference: Quick reference for CSS Level 2.
15. Cascading Style: Basics and beyond in CSS.
16. CSS: Creating CSS files.

AJAX
4 cheat sheets to make AJAX easy.

1. AJAX: Definitions and ideology for AJAX.
2. AJAX Library: JavaScript base type extensions and more.
3. What’s AJAX?: Amy Hoy shares her knowledge about AJAX.
4. AJAX: Simple understanding of the code.

PHP
10 reference sheets basics, tricks, and …

1. PHP: PHP functions one page reference sheet.
2. PHP Basics: Basics of PHP quick reference sheet.
3. Apple PHP: Get a handy little PHP cheat sheet widget for Apple here.
4. PHP: Blue Shoes – useful PHP reference sheet.
5. PHP Tips/Trick: PHP by putting these tips and tricks.
6. PHP 4 Reference Card: Be more productive in PHP 4.
7. PHP Help Sheet: PHP help sheet from GoSquared.
8. PHP Quick Reference Sheet: Quick reference to everything you need.
9. Smarty Cheat Sheet for Template Designers: Smarty to create a template design resource.
10. PHP Skinny Sheet: Visibone’s PHP Skinny Sheet – a lot of information.

JavaScript
11 references covering regular expressions, jQuery, and …

1. Mootools 1.2t: Use this cheat sheet to get the basics of mootools.
2. Regular Expressions: VisiBone’s reference sheet offers some quick excerpts to the regular expressions in JavaScript.
3. Common DOM methods at a glance: You’ll have easy reference to DOM methods with this resource.
4. JavaScript: With this cheat sheet, you’ll get a handy reference and reminder guide.
5. jQuery 1.3: Get quick reference to all of the important stuff you need in jQuery 1.3 from this cheat sheet.
6. JavaScript Reference Card: Quickly reference items in JavaScript using this card.
7. jQuery: Get this cheatsheet in printable form or on your iPhone.
8. JavaScript Reference Sheet: Use these excerpts to make JavaScript a bit easier.
9. Prototype 1.6.0.2: Using this cheat sheet, you’ll have quick reference to events, elements, and more.
10. JavaScript in Ten Minutes: This reference gives you a quick breakdown of JavaScript.
11. JavaScript and Browser Objects Quick Reference: Get an easy guide to JavaScript and browser objects with this reference.

MySQL
4 reference sheets for MySQL.

1. MySQL Commands: MySQL Command reference.
2. MySQL: Reference sheet for MySQL and functions available in PHP.
3. MySQL: Ssimple guide to MySQL.
4. MySQL/Quick Reference: Numeric types and more.

Action Script
4 migration sheets, AIR, and …

1. Papervision 3D: Papervision 3D in Action Script.
2. AS3 Migration: Reference for migrating from AS2 to AS3.
3. AIR ActionScript: AIR in ActionScript card.
4. Fuse: Reference sheet for Fuse.

Color
6 Quick reference color code, and web safe color charts.

1. Color Reference Hexagon Mouse Pad: Colors right at hand on your mouse pad.
2. RGB Hex Colour Chart: Codes for RGB Colors.
3. Web Safe Color Chart: Colors that are safe for use on the web.
4. RGB Values for Macbeth Color Checker: Values for a variety of colors.
5. RGB Hex Colour Chart: RGB color chart with 216 web safe colors, printable on an A4 piece of paper.
6. Color Reference Guide: Veign’s is a great visual reference guide for color codes.

Adobe
12 cheat sheets will help you with Adobe products including Photoshop, Flash, & Illustrator.

1. Pen Tool Cheatsheet: Quick reference for the pens in Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign.
2. Photoshop CS3 Keyboard Shortcuts: Shortcuts available in Photoshop CS3.
3. Photoshop CS4 Keyboard Shortcuts: Shortcuts available in Photoshop CS4.
4. Photoshop Brush Tool: Photoshop reference for all of the brush tools and what you can do with them.
5. Flash CS3: Visual reference for Flash CS3.
6. Flash CS4 OS X Keyboard Shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts for Adobe Flash CS4 on OS X.
7. Illustrator Keyboard Shortcuts-Mac: Illustrator keyboard shortcuts for the Mac.
8. Dreamwaver Quick Reference Guide: Get things done in Dreamweaver CS3.
9. Photoshop Toolbox Reference: Toolbox reference – what icons mean, their shortcuts, and what they do.
10. Layers Palette Keys: Layers palette reference guide.
11. Photoshop FAQ and Short Tips: Photoshop made a lot easier.
12. Black and White: Convert your images to black and white.
13. Photoshop Lasso Tool: Various Lasso tools and their functions.
14. Dreamweaver CS3 Mac Quick Reference Guide: Quick reference for Dreamweaver on the Mac.

Miscellaneous
17 reference sheets covering everything from Ruby on Rails to grammar.

1. Grammar: Pete Freitag’s common grammar mistakes.
2. Perl: Ssimple Perl reference sheet .
3. The Web Developer’s SEO: Essentials of SEO for web developers.
4. Web Designer’s Font Chart: Web browser fonts – web designer’s font chart.
5. mod_rewrite: Directives, regular expressions, common rules, and server variables.
6. .htaccess: The essentials of the .htaccess file.
7. Apache .htaccess: Help for about any .htaccess situation.
8. WordPress Help: Plenty of help for WordPresst.
9. What Goes Where: Sheet to remember where everything goes.
10. InVisible Ruby on Rails Reference: Guide to important functions, classes, and methods in Ruby on Rails.
11. Windows fonts/Mac fonts/Font family: Common fonts and their equivalents on Windows and Mac.
12. Approximate Conversion from Points to Pixels: Conversion rates from points to pixels.
13. Megapixels Chart: Calculate how many megapixels you’ll use.
14. W3C DOM Compatitbility Tables: Reference compatibility tables.
15. Will the browser apply the rule(s)?: Will your rules actually work in various browsers.
16. Google Advanced Operators: Google search advanced operators.
17. Perl: Reference for beginning Perl programmers.

If you’d like to visit the original article you can access it here.

Late,
Gary Pool

HTML, Ajax, Adobe, PHP, JavaScript and More is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Technical – On-Site Insight! Technical SEO Advice from the Pros

Moderator: Sean McMahon – EngineWorks

Sean McMahon is President and Chief Executive Officer at EngineWorks, Inc.

Sean is also a founding Director of SEMpdx, an organization based in Portland, Oregon whose mission is to inform and educate area businesses on the benefits of SEM to bottom line revenue.

Aaron Kahlow – Online Marketing Summit & BusinessOL

Most people start thinking how to make money right now.
Most people don’t understand the world of search but they really need to wake up to the alarm not just hit the snooze button.

Top 10 – with Ray Catfich Comstock

• Duplicate content destroyer rel= canonical
• Domain choice www.
• Cookie it not session IDs
• No Old School JavaScript use css dropdowns
• Flash and Java Upgrades
• Page has importance rel=nofollow
• 301 please
• Site Map 2 ways xml & html
• 5 or less
• Check it twice

Susan Moskwa – Google

“Too many slides and too much coffee”

URL issues

• Avoid maverick coding practices
• Remove user-specific details from URLs
• Optimize dynamic URLs
• Rein in infinite spaces
• Disallow actions Googlebot can’t perform

• Get your preferred URLs indexed
• Get feedback in Webmaster Tools
• Webmaster Central

Vanessa Fox – Nine by Blue

Vanessa is the one responsible for us having Google Webmaster Central.

Diagnosing Search Issues

Problems with ranking or traffic

Identify Problems

• sudden traffic drops
• not getting traffic where you expect
• Content in SERPs does not look appealing
• Customers have bad click-through experience

Male Sure It’s a Problem

• Toolbar PageRank drop
• Number of indexed pages drop
• Indexation ratio change
• Make sure you are looking at the right data.
• Traffic drop – is it a indexing problem or a ranking problem?

janeandrobot.com

Crawl Time Issues

• Indexing Issues
• Submit your xml sitemap

If you submit your xml sitemaps in categories you can get some interesting information.

What really matters – CONVERSION

Late,
Gary Pool

What is Killing Your Google Rankings and What You Can Do About It! is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Using Keywords and Keyword Phrases in Headings & Subheadings

The purpose of using keywords in headings and subheadings throughout your web-page is two fold.

1. To give your reader a quick way to scan your page and know what it is all about
2. So the search engines will know what are the most important topics on the page

Do you see a theme developing here?

The purpose of your web-page is to convey information to your readers and the purpose of SEO is to let the search engines know that this information is available.

Headings Should be Like an Outline of the Web-page

The code for typical headings and subheadings used for SEO might look like:

<h1>The Right Keywords will Bring Traffic to Your Website</h1>
More information will go here.

<h2>Choosing the Right Keywords for Your Website</h2>
More information will go here.

<h3>Keyword Research will Make or Break your SEO</h3>
More information will go here too.

Heading tags run from H1 to H6. H1 is the largest font with H6 being the smallest. The default style for heading tags is really ugly.

Heading tags can be styled with CSS so they will go nicely with your website.

The Practical use of Keywords in Heading Tags

Your headings should be used thematically. I usually try to get my primary and secondary keyword phrases and similar phrases in my page heading as well as in many subheadings

I use the page’s main topic keyword phrase (usually the most general) as well as one of the secondary keyword phrases in the single H1 heading on each page. You can use as many H2, H3, H4, H5, and H6 heading tags as you wish.

The text on your page should also be thematic and follow the topics presented in the headings. You should naturally use your keywords and keyword phrases in the rest of the text on the page.

Use a single H1 tag on each page. Try to use many H2 or H3 tags to break up the page copy, help structure the data and make your page easier for you readers to scan.

Break the Page into Subgroups

H1 (consisting of primary keywords and a modifier and/or a call to action for your readers). Only use one H1 tag per page and do not bold or emphasize it. Your H1 heading will work best if the wording is slightly different than your page title.

Subheadings Should Contain Keywords & Keyword Phrases

H2 (similar subtopic idea with some related keyword phrases in it)
More information will go here.
H2 (another subtopic with some thematically related words).
More information will go here.
H2 (Subtopics do not have to have the same keywords as the page title and H1 heading. If you are writing for conversion, not all of them will, which is also good for SEO. If your page title and your headings contain the exact same keyword phrase it will possibly look like an attempt to manipulate the search engines. Keep it natural looking.
H2 (Change word order and use plural and singular versions)
More information will go here.
Subheadings will focus on a keyword phrase that is slightly more specific than the main heading or what is considered as long-tail.

Descriptive, reader-focused subheadings improve the usability of your website for both the search engines and your human readers. Headings should help structure the information, but don’t get carried away and start placing all your content in an H1 tag, using bold on the H1 tags, or using bold or strong tags on every occurrence of your keywords. You could be giving search engines a reason to consider your page as spammy. This will be more likely to hurt your rankings since your content may look less appealing to search engines and your site visitors.

Late,
Gary Pool

Heading Tags | SEO | Keyword Phrases is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Heading Tags – Key Factors in Search Engines and Web Site Usability

One of the most valuable basic SEO keys that is often either overlooked or misused are the rules for heading tags.

Heading tags not only give keys to the search engines about the web-page but even more importantly they should give your reader a way to quickly scan the page and understand why they should read it.

The syntax for heading tags are:
<h1>Main Topic</h>
<h2>Sub Topic Related to Main Topic</h2>
<h3>Sub Topic Related to Sub Topic h2</h3>

Here are my eleven rules for the use heading tags in a web-page for both web site usability and SEO.

1. Each page must have at least one heading.
2. Each page is allowed only one H1 heading.
3. The H1 heading is always the first heading on the page.
4. The main keyword or keyword phrase is used in that H1 heading.
5. Use headings like you would in an outline, use CSS to style your text.
6. Don’t skip heading levels use them in numerical order (e.g. H1, H2, H3) although you can use multiple H2s H3s and so on.
7. All headings except H1 are subheadings, they should support the main heading and be thematically connected with the previous level headings.
8. Use headings consistently throughout the whole web site.
9. Headings should be simple, concise, easily scanned, and it wouldn’t hurt if they contained some of your keywords or keyword phrases.
10. The headings should actually represent the summary of the text.
11. If you actually extracted the headings and made an outline with them they should actually make sense.

The tool I use to check the heading tags on a page is an add-on for Firefox.
This tool is the Web Developer add-on by Chris Pederick. There are many more uses for this Firefox add-on than just checking out heading tags.

Late,
Gary Pool

HTML Basic Code for Improved Search Engine Rankings is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Valid HTML code to improve search engine rankings straight from Matt Cutts

Every one would like to have higher search engine rankings. Wouldn’t you?

In this video snippet Matt Cutts from Google answers a question about HTML codes validating through the W3C and whether your HTML code can improve your search engine ranking.

OK. HTML code validation isn’t the end all when it comes to SEO and higher search engine rankings. Improving search engine rankings isn’t a one step process it is a lot of little ones.

Let’s look at your search engine rankings as a balance scale and each of your SEO optimization processes as feathers. True some feathers will be heaver than others but they are still all feathers and the more you can add to the scale the more it will tip towards improved search engine rankings.”

Search Engine Optimizician

You can check and see if your HTML code validates by using the W3C HTML validator.

Late,
Gary Pool

Will W3C Valid Codes Lead to Improved Search Engine Rankings? is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Google Maps can Make a Good Marketing Tool.

Hand your audience the world. Google maps can be placed on a website, emailed, and used as a marketing tool.

Have you created your custom Google Map yet?

I have a client that needed a map for his new business Taco Miendo. Taco Miendo is a Mexican food fast and served your way drive in and drive thru restaurant in Oregon City.

I figured I would take you along with me as I created a custom Google map for Taco Miendo. You will need a Google account and a small amount of time.

Building your own custom Google map is painless and easy.

Here are the basic steps:

1. Go to Google Maps.
2. Click My Maps > Create new map.
3. Add a title and description for your map. You can make your map public or unlisted. Learn more.
4. Use the icons in the the top left corner of the map. These include:
   1. Selection tool. Use this to drag the map and select placemarks, lines, and shapes.
   2. Placemark button Placemark tool. Use this to add placemarks.
   3. Polygon button Line tool. Use this to draw lines.
   4. Shape button Shape tool. Use this to draw shapes.

Click My Maps > Create new map.

The create a Google Map interface is basically simple and straight forward.

It really is that simple they even allow you to edit the balloon text in html, rich text with a wygiwyg editor, or plain text. Google also gives you the html code to embed in your page and/or a html link to publish. To access this code you just click on the “Link” text in the upper right hand corner of the blue bar above the map.

When you are done you have a Google map with the description you have entered you can share place in a blog post, on a website, a Google map to link to, or your imagination will allow.

Here is the Live version of the Taco Miendo Google Map

View Larger Map

I am sure that the Yahoo and MSN maps are just as easy and simple to customize as Google Maps but they just don’t have the volume search traffic attached to them.

Late,
Gary Pool

Create a Custom Google Map is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Sculpt your google PageRank with the “nofollow” tag

Google PageRank sculpting has began gaining a lot of momentum lately. It is also the topic of many debates, The question is whether it really works or is just a time consuming futile attempt to control the search engine’s valuation of your website’s internal page values. To understand you will have to have a handle on google PageRank

PageRank

PageRank was developed by Larry Page, google founder, and is one of the multitude of factors that determine your sites position in the google SERPs (search engine results pages). Google assigns a numeric value of 0 to 10 (10 being considered the most authoritative) to each page on the web, this value is used to help in determining the amount of link juice each page will pass on through it’s out going links.

PageRank Technology: PageRank reflects our view of the importance of web pages by considering more than 500 million variables and 2 billion terms. Pages that we believe are important pages receive a higher PageRank and are more likely to appear at the top of the search results.

PageRank also considers the importance of each page that casts a vote, as votes from some pages are considered to have greater value, thus giving the linked page greater value. We have always taken a pragmatic approach to help improve search quality and create useful products, and our technology uses the collective intelligence of the web to determine a page’s importance.

Mathematical PageRanks (out of 100) for a simple network (PageRanks reported by Google are rescaled logarithmically). Page C has a higher PageRank than Page E, even though it has fewer links to it: the link it has is much higher valued. A web surfer who chooses a random link on every page (but with 15% likelihood jumps to a random page on the whole web) is going to be on Page E for 8.1% of the time. (The 15% likelihood of jumping to an arbitrary page corresponds to a damping factor of 85%.) Without damping, all web surfers would eventually end up on Pages A, B, or C, and all other pages would have PageRank zero. Page A is assumed to link to all pages in the web, because it has no outgoing links.

PageRank Sculpting – Siloing

PageRank sculpting is act of using “nofollow” tags on internal site links to focus page or link value to the pages and anchor text that the site owner wants in a search engine. PageRank sculpting is accomplished by done by adding the rel=”nofollow” attribute value to a (a href)(/a) link tag. Other tools that can be added to your PR sculpting arsenal are the robots.txt file, META noindex tags and even javascript. The concept for the specification of the attribute value “nofollow” tag was designed by Google’s head of webspam team Matt Cutts and Jason Shellen from Blogger.com in 2005.

Matt Cutts in response to a Rand Fishkin question:

The nofollow attribute is just a mechanism that gives webmasters the ability to modify PageRank flow at link-level granularity. Plenty of other mechanisms would also work (e.g. a link through a page that is robot.txt’ed out), but nofollow on individual links is simpler for some folks to use. There’s no stigma to using nofollow, even on your own internal links…

The “nofollow” tag is currently recognized by all three major search engines, google, Yahoo, and Live (MSN). Just because you are using the “nofollow” tags on your links you shouldn’t assume that the search engines won’t follow the links or even index the pages at the end of the links. The “nofollow” tag is not intended for blocking access to content or preventing content to be indexed by search engines. It is used to curtail the passing of link juice or page value from one page to another. Regardless you should always have both HTML and XML sitemaps to make it easy for the search engines to find your pages. It is best to make sure that you have a “nofollow” tag on all links pointing to your HTML sitemap.

5 PageRank Sculpting Tips

Michael Gray at SMX Advanced 2008:

1. Make Good Use of Your Time – PageRank sculpting, if done correctly, takes time and planning. Make sure to have a game plan.
2. Sculpt from the Beginning – Sculpting should take place while a site is being built it is easier, and has a more immediate impact. The earlier you sculpt, the better.
3. Pay Attention to Detail – Sculpting isn’t something you can do casually. You need to have complete and undivided attention to do it properly.
4. Use More than 1 Tool to Sculpt – Don’t rely on just the “nofollow” tags use the robots.txt file, META noindex tags and javascript to shape your sculpting efforts.
5. Sculpt the Entire Site – PageRank comes in from manhy sources and directions. Don’t assume that sculpting the flow from your homepage is all you need to do.

Even with all the stuff mentioned above Google PageRank sculpting still remains an art. As an art the beauty is in the eye of the beholder, there are no set rules as to what should be nofollowed and what should not it is done on a case by case instance. The sitemap.html and user login pages would be a good place to start though.

The following are NOT reasons to use PageRank Sculpting.

• A way to cut corners in your SEO – You will still need a well thought out SEO strategy. PageRank sculpting should be considered from the beginning.
• A replacement for bad internal linking structure – PageRank sculpting is not a Band-Aid for a poorly designed linking structure
• A link building substitute – It is the incoming links that you are sculpting for, not the other way around.

Late,
Gary Pool

Website | Goolgle | SEO | PageRank | Matt Cutts is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

With the Beta 2 release of Internet Explorer 8 Microsoft is hoping to stop the flood gates that are going right to Firefox.

Will Internet Exploder 8 be successful?

It has been downloaded by many and the reviews are mixed. If you’d like to test it out yourself Internet Exploder 8 can be downloaded from Micro$oft. As expected there is no Mac version but XP and on both the 32- and 64-bit editions of Vista, Server 2003, and Server 2008 are all supported. There are different downloads for each OS, so be sure you choose the right one.

In my opinion like most of the new Micro$oft releases they are just trying to copy the ones that are already out there doing well. (i.e. Longhorn Windoz OS X I mean Vista or is it Mojave now?) This is still just a Micro$oft copy of Firefox and Safari. Sometimes a copy is a good thing.

10 things about IE 8 that stand out good and bad

1. IE 8 loads faster than IE 7
2. IE 8 much more stable than IE 7
3. Firefox like crash recovery
4. InPrivate browsing feature (porn mode)
5. Tab Grouping (right-click a tab, you have options)
6. Accelerators (little add-ons to make it quick and easy to apply tasks to highlighted text)
7. Firefox like suggestive search
8. New Security (hey it’s a M$ product)
9. Tool bars become part of suggested sites bar
10. Like Firefox and Safari has become W3C compliant

Microsoft Updates Internet Explorer to the 21st Century

Well at least for us that work with code if IE 8 takes off it will help by not having to create IE specific CSS and other oddities like IE 6 and 7 have required. Does any one still design for IE 4.5, 5.0 or 5.5?

Will IE 8 stop the migration to Firefox? We will have to revisit this question upon the release of IE 9. Regardless, my hat is off to Micro$oft for updating Internet Explorer into the 21st century.

Late,
Gary Pool

Internet Explorer | Microsoft Updates | 10 Features? | W3C is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

WEBVISIONS

WebVisions explores the future of design, content creation, user experience and business strategy to uncover the trends and agents of change that will shatter your assumptions about the Web. Be ready to network, share ideas and be inspired by an all-star lineup of speakers.

All Hail the Digital Frontier

Explore the future of Web design, user experience and business strategy for two days of mind-melding on what’s new in the digital world. Get a glimpse into the future, along with practical information that you can apply to your Web site, company and career.

Last years Webvisions was great but the line up for this years is fantastic.

Keynote Speakers

• Lynne d. Johnson, FastCompany.com
• Jeffrey Veen, Google

Speakers

• Andy Baio, Waxy.org
• John Beaston, EasyStreet
• Roger Black, Roger Black
• Kimberly Blessing, PayPal / Web Standards Project
• Kerry Bodine, Forrester
• DL Byron, Textura Design
• Sean Cowne, ISITE Design
• Ward Cunningham, AboutUs.com
• Bill DeRouchey, Ziba Design
• Scott Fegette, Adobe
• Nick Finck, Digital Web Magazine
• Jason Grigsby, Cloud Four
• Aaron Gustafson, Easy! Designs, LLC
• Matt Haughey, MetaFilter
• Tjeerd Hoek, frog design
• Kevin Hoyt, Adobe Systems, Inc.
• Brian Jamison, Open Sourcery
• James Keller, ISITE Design
• Phillip Kerman, phillipkerman.com LLC
• Scott Kveton, Vidoop LLC
• Dan LaCivita, Firstborn Multiimedia
• Jensine Larsen, World Pulse
• David McFarland, Sawyer McFarland Media
• Jim Meyer, Cucina Media
• Erica O’Grady, Peanut Butter Media
• Brian Oberkirch, Like It Matters
• Sarah Rich, Dwell Magazine
• Dan Rubin, Sidebar Creative
• Kelsey Ruger, PopLabs
• Andi Rusu, IF/THEN
• Dan Saffer, Adaptive Path
• Christopher Schmitt, Heatvision.com
• Kit Seeborg
• Rashmi Sinha, SlideShare
• Gene Smith, nForm
• Tyler Sticka, TylerSticka.com
• Jim Turner, OneByOne Media
• Bryan Veloso, Sidebar Creative
• David Verba, Adaptive Path
• Christina Wodtke, Cucina Media
• Mark Wyner, Mark Wyner Design
• Dave Yewman, Dash Constulting

With a line up like this you have to attend. More Information about Webvisions registration.

WebVisions 2008 will be held from May 22-23 at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland, Oregon.

See you there.

late,
gary pool

Webvisions | Portland, Oregon | May 22-23 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Tip 5 of my Top 10 Tips and Tricks for building a search engine optimized (SEO) website from the ground up is Site Architecture.

Site Architecture is not only the way the site is presented but the underlying code structure that allows the website to be navigated, read, searched, and viewed. In this tip we will concentrate on the underlying code (HTML xhtml …).

Now you have done your Keyword Research, Keyword Selection, Theme Selection, and URL Selection. This research and selection will be used later on during the Text Structure Tip 6. We will start at the bottom level and focus on the code that makes your website work on the World Wide Web. (consider this the frame work of your website house)

The way in which your code is written will determine how your site is displayed to both your human visitors as well as the search engine spiders or bots. For this tip we will focus on the search engine spiders and bots. This brings up a chicken of egg comparison. If your site is written just for your visitors, how will they find you? If your site is written just for the search engines, what good is bringing people to your site and have them leave immediately?

Your site should be written for your customers or clients with the search engines in mind.

Now on to the CODE. The site’s code should be structured so that the main focus of each page is actually at the top of the code. This is called the linear view of your website. When a search engine visits your site they will read your site’s code from the top to the bottom. They figure the most important information is on the top of the page.

If your navigation is listed in the code before the main section of the page it will get more value than the topic of the page. As the search engine views more pages and this structure is persistent through out the site they will figure the pages are very similar and you will not get much value for the subjects of each of the pages. [see image on the right] This image is what the search engines see on this particular site before they even get to the main product on each page.

If you are using table less structure you can lay out the visual elements of the site with CSS placement. If you are using tables you can force proper linear alignment by adding a blank cell above the navigation. Either one of these solutions are acceptable to the search engines. You are not trying to put any thing over on the search engines just creating the proper liner alignment for the subject of each page.

Now that you have the subject value of your web pages taken care of you will need the help of the W3C. Matt Cutts even gives us a hint to the value of the value of valid code in his video Optimize for Search Engines. He slips it in towards the end of the video so if you watch it pay close attention. The argument for validation is, since the spiders and bots built by the search engines use the W3C rules as their foundation, it is easier for them to search your site if your code validates. If it is easier for them the will most likely reward you in some small way. My thoughts on the subject are if everything else is equal the site with the valid code will get the nod in the rankings.

The W3C will also help you check your code validation. Using the “show source” and “verbose output” together the W3C will walk you through your code errors and give you information valuable for fixing them. I would not recommend the use of the “clean up markup with HTML Tidy” option. The object of valid code isn’t just validation but valid clean code.

Now that you have an understanding of Site Code Architecture we can move on to the next in the series, the Text Structure and how it relates to the Site Architecture.

late,
gary pool

Top 10 SEO Tips and Tricks | Site Architecture Tip 5 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

As promised here is a list of the top SEO things you should DO!

There is still a canyon between understanding SEO and actually doing it. I have tried to bridge that gap by building a bridge. Here is the “to do” list that will help you whether you are actually planning on doing the SEO your self or are going to hire a SEO company.

1. If you are going to hire a SEO Company check them out with some of their clients. Ask for their opinions. Ask the SEO company to show you some case studies of previous clients. Ask for phone numbers of current clients for references.
2. Implement your SEO strategy when you are in the planning stages of your site. Research keywords for your field using one of the free research tools or for $1 you can get a 2 week account with, in my opinion, one of the best services available NicheBot2. Your site is already up! It is never too late to implement a good keyword strategy.
3. Submit your site to directories not search engines. There are plenty of good directories out there and a lot of them are free. DMOZ should be your number one priority. The DMOZ isn’t easy to get in to but it is free and it’s The Place to be listed. Always look for directories that are relevant to your site. Don’t know how to find relevant directories? You can search for "your field" submit URL or "your field" add site.
4. Make your site easy for the search engines to crawl. Use a robots.text file and a sitemap.xml file. Following the W3C standards for your code won’t hurt either. If it is easy for the search engines to crawl your site they will reward you by indexing more of your site.
5. Use keywords that are relevant to each page on that page. Use them sparingly and in groups that have coherent meaning. Use your keywords like fine polish, only where you need them and to make your content shine. Make sure your keywords are words that people search on, not jargon specific to only an elite few in your field.
6. Choose your page titles carefully and make them unique to each page and short. Use your limited keywords and/or phrases in your titles and your page description meta tags. Don’t over look the importance of your description meta tags. Some search engines use your description tag as the text under your title in their search results. Make them compelling. Remember you are trying to entice the reader to click on your link.
7. Make your site usable and navigable. You can have 1,000,000 visitors per day and if they can’t find what they want or how to get to what they want they will leave. Easter eggs are fun, but they have no role in your website, providing your site isn’t a gaming site or something similar where this is the content of your site.
8. Build your site for your users with the search engines in mind. Provide compelling unique content for your visitors and you will be well on your way to getting traffic to your website. If you trick your visitors into coming to your site and your content isn’t what they are looking for, poof they are gone.
9. Use your analytics and explore what your visitors are doing on and with your site. There are plenty of free site analytics available (Google Analytics to mention one) if your host doesn’t provide them.
10. Continue your SEO campaign on a daily or weekly basis. Remember SEO isn’t a do it once and you’re done process. Always keep track of your competition. Check your SERPs?

Well, there’s my top 10 list of SEO DOs. I hope you enjoy them. You can download a pdf version of this list. I am still offering a free 1 hour consultation, for a while anyway. Call me and set an appointment 503-616-4SEO (503-616-4736).

Check out our really cool White Rose Productions gear.

Late,
Gary Pool

Top 10 List of SEO Things To DO! is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Most businesses are often hard-pressed for time and money. If you are a small business, a home based business, or even a medium size business, this statement is even more applicable. There has been a growing interest in search marketing and understanding the benefits of SEO. But there is still a big gap between understanding SEO and actually doing SEO. I have assembled this list to help you whether you are actually doing the SEO your self or are planning to hire a SEO company.

Here is my top 10 list of the most important SEO Don’ts.

1. Don’t reply to the spam you get in your e-mail promising SEO
   Submitting to 1,200 search engines or 800 directories is ridiculous and will get you nowhere. You can’t buy 2,000 quality links for $50. No reputable SEO can or will guarantee a number one ranking on any search engine for keywords that matter. You don’t want a SEO company that sends out spam
2. Don’t wait too long to implement your SEO strategy
   Whether you’re launching a new Web site or upgrading your current site, SEO considerations should be part of the discussion from day one.
3. Don’t waste your time submitting your URL to search engines
   Today’s crawler-based search engines will find your site more quickly as soon as you get a link from another web site already being crawled. Search engine submission died many years ago.
4. Don’t make your web site uncrawlable
   This can can be attributed to an incorrect robots.txt file, having session IDs or too many variables in your URLs, using a complicated navigation menu that spiders can’t (or won’t) follow, or developing an all Flash, all graphic, or all database driven site.
5. Don’t target overly general keywords
   A lawyer and/or law firm in Gresham has no chance at ranking for the word "lawyer," a real estate broker and/or agency in Sherwood has no chance at ranking for the phrase "real estate." Optimize for relevant, specific keywords and phrases that will bring targeted traffic to your site.
6. Don’t stuff keywords in your meta tags, image alt tags…
   This used to work in the dinosaur days of the search engines. Today, it is considered keyword spam and can loose you search engine juice.
7. Don’t use the same title on every page
   Variety is said to be the spice of life and it is on your website too. When combined with relevance, it is extremely important and will help in avoiding duplicate content issues and Google’s supplemental hell.
8. Don’t ignore usability
   Proper site structure, logical navigation, descriptive link text, and so on, are good for both users and search engine spiders. If your potential customers and/or clients have trouble with your site how long do you think they will stick around?
9. Don’t give up on creating great content
   No matter what business arena you’re in, you can add great (link bait) content to your web site. Use a glossary it is an easy way to create a page of great, keyword-rich content. Some more considerations might be, a frequently asked questions page, a testimonials page, how to articles, just use your imagination.
10. Don’t use the same exact anchor text on all links to your site
    The search engines will see this is an obvious sign of unnatural link building. Your link building should look natural, and using varied anchor text will help.

You can download a pdf version of this list.
Stay tuned for my next top 10 list, Top 10 SEO Do’s!

I offer a free 1 hour consultation call 503-616-4SEO.

Late,
Gary Pool

SEO Top 10 List of Things Not to DO! is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

I was surfing the net and watching some older Matt Cutts videos looking for some tidbits. They are all very informative and well worth watching. Here is a list with links.

• Crawl dates in Google cache
  4 min – Sep 6, 2006
  Matt talks about how Googlebot crawls the web, and what "crawl date" is shown on cached pages. In this video: – Red candy is a 404 page – Purple candy is a 200 (OK) page – Green candy is a 304 status code (page has not changed)
• Qualities of a good site
  6 min – Jul 30, 2006
  Matt Cutts answers Google questions: – Does Sitemaps depend on pageviews? – What are the top things to do in SEO? – How does Google decide to use a DMOZ snippet versus the description from a meta tag? – Should I use bold or strong tags?
• Optimize for Search Engines or Users?
  4 min – Jul 30, 2006
  Matt discusses SEO VS. User Opitmization, Site Spam, and Code Validation and the W3C.
• Recap of SES San Jose 2006
  9 min – Aug 28, 2006
  A short review of news from SES San Jose, and some educational or funny moments.
  Some of the changes happening to people or companies recently – Fun moments
• Matt Cutts Warns Against Buying Links
  51 sec – Jun 15, 2007
  Matt explains that link buying IS against the practice of link buying and warns those who are participating in such schemes may face tough times ahead as Google works harder to remove them.

During my Google searching of various SEO topics I ran across a series of videos with the keyword "Algorithm" using the related topics link. Curiosity got the best of me, so I watched some of the videos on youtube. These are great. I even uploaded one of the videos to myspace. It’s called the Algorithm March check it out.

This is a clip from a japanese kids show called "Pythagoras Switch" or "Pitagora Suicchi".

One last tidbit. Searching this morning I found a Google result for a Matt Cutts blog post that wasn’t uploaded yet… Uhmm.

Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO
I also got Matt-jacked into a dark room by Rand for the “SMX Diaries” video interviews. And WebProNews had some snippets of me from the Q&A session. …
www.mattcutts.com/blog/ – Jun 19, 2007

The latest post on his blog is or was:

Terry Semel stepping down
June 18, 2007 @ 1:45 pm · Filed under Web/Net

Well thats the story of Matt Cutts MySpace, SEO, Youtube, and the Algorithm March.

Late,
Gary Pool

The Story of Matt Cutts, MySpace, SEO, Youtube, and the Algorithm March is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Wow! WebVisions 2007 day 2.

Today I am going to report on 2 presentations Ruby on Rails and Location Based Content. My head is still spinning from Robert Reinhardt’s Flash Video workshop from yesterday.

MVC Demystified: Understanding the Essence of Ruby on Rails

by Michael Jones

Ruby on Rails is a clever open-source web framework that is taking the web on by storm. So what makes this powerful framework so effective? How can we gain a deeper understanding of how the Rails framework functions? How can we be more effective Rails developers?

This session will examined the model-view-controller (MVC) design pattern explored what the pattern is, how it works, and why it’s such a good design pattern for web applications. We then looked specifically at how Ruby on Rails utilizes the MVC pattern, examined the various components in the full Rails stack. Then we examined the common mistakes developers make that go against the MVC pattern.

This was a very interesting presentation. Once again I am giving you my notes in bulleted format.

• Ruby is a language
• Rails is a framework

MVC
Model – View – Controller

• Model is the data and the business logic
• View Data presentation and user input
• Controller controls application flow

MVC advantages

• Separation of interests
  • Model centralizes business logic
  • view centralizes display logic
  • controller centralizes application flow
• Clean separation of content/style
• Improved decoupling
• Easier testing
• Allow multiple people to work

Rails and MVC

• Capistrano software for rails
• textmate for rails development on Mac

Location based content via mobile devices

by Kinan Sweidan of ximida

Searching and filtering the vast amount of information on the web is one of the greatest obstacles to its utility. Initially, ranking pages based solely on their content, using algorithms like Google’s pagerank were enough. Then with the introduction of rolling content like weblogs, the need to prioritize current information over stale information became important and sites like technorati emerged. Now, the web is going local and search tools like yahoo local allow people to find static content around them – nearby services and content. Finally, with location based services linking the web to mobile devices, this local content becomes dynamic and ever-changing, based on the people who are nearby.

One statement Kinan made that I really don’t agree with is that the laptop will be replaced by the cell phone. I don’t even use the calendar in my cell phone I use a PDA. I used to carry a keyboard to take notes on my Palm. Now I have an iBook and I can’t live without it. Kinan stated that one of the problems with a laptop is that it has very limited battery life. Just try to do the kind of computing I do on my iBook with my cell phone and see just how long that battery will last. I’m sorry Kinan, unless they come up with a mental interface with my cell phone it will never replace my laptop.

Now that I have my rant out of the way here are my notes. (in bulleted form of course)

• Content relevancy
• GEO LOCATION
• Why Mobile?
• Let’s see him take notes on his cell phone!
• Geo IP
• WAP cell phone simulators

See you at Webvisions 2008!

late,
Gary

Webvisions 2007 – Day 2 | Ruby on Rails | Location Based Content is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

An article on search engine land states “Search Engines Unite On Sitemaps Autodiscovery”.

Last November, Google, Microsoft and Yahoo united to support sitemaps, a standardized method of submitting web pages through feeds to the search engines. Today, the three are now joined by Ask.com in supporting the system and an extension of it called autodiscovery. This is where the major search engines will automatically locate your sitemaps file if the location is listed in a robots.txt file. Announcements are up from Google and Ask now Yahoo and Microsoft.

This is really great news for the SEO, Webmaster, or Website Owner.

It is a really simple process. All you have to do is add a little code to your robots.text file already on your server.

The code looks like this:

Sitemap: http://www.yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Would like to have more information on robots.txt files?

This little bit of code tells the search engines the exact location of your site map. (SWEET)

Don’t have a sitemap? If you would like to know more about sitemaps you can visit sitemaps.org.

Keep your robots.text and your sitemap.xml files up to date.

late,
Gary

Search Engines Unite On Autodiscovery for Sitemaps is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

If you can get to Portland and have a website or work on a website this is a must attend event.

Search Engine Marketing Seminar Portland Oregon – SearchFest 07

SEMpdx SearchFest 07

Event Overview

SEMpdx brings you SearchFest 2007, a full-day search engine marketing conference featuring multiple learning tracks, workshops and expert panels to help you leverage search engine marketing (SEM) in your organization. Whether you are an SEM professional, work in an Advertising Agency or part of an in-house marketing department, SearchFest 2007 will connect you with the leading thinkers and practitioners in SEM today.

See you there,
Gary

Search Engine Marketing Seminar Portland Oregon – SearchFest 07 is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

Best Practices for Title Tags
Have you ever wondered about your title tag and if it has any relationship to your search engine position? Here is a great article on how to make sure it does. Whether you are brand new to SEO or a seasoned pro in the field, this is a worth while read.

How to Make the Best Title Tag Possible:

1. Brand your traffic
2. Limit length to 65 characters (including spaces) or less
3. Incorporate keyword phrases
4. Target longer phrases if they’re relevant
5. Use a divider
6. Focus on click through & conversion rates
7. Target searcher intent
8. Be consistent
9. Repeat in the headline

Thank you SEOmoz.org!

Late,
Gary

Best Practices for Title Tags is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician

David Pogue on Vista – Video
You have to see this. It expells the idea that M$ ripped off Apple OS X when they developed Windoz Vista!
Late,
Gary

M$ Vista did not rip off Mac OS X – New York Times Video is a post stolen from the Search Engine Optimizician