Web Marketing Stuff » SEO

Paying Attention to Website Details with HTML Tags

Chris — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 15:38:15 +0000

As you learn more and more about websites, css, html, php etc. it’s interesting to uncover simple ways to enhance your website. I have a short list of friends that get tired of me calling or emailing them with questions about how to do something or how to fix something on a website and they always have the answer. While trying to “learn it on my own” I’ve started following a few great websites for information about html tips. My trouble is remembering all the great details….so blogging about it means I’ll remember where I looked;)

Yesterday I found a great article entitled “10 Rare HTML tags You Really Should Know” that answered a few burning questions for me. Those of you who know these answers can now consider yourselves lucky that I won’t be asking these questions again any time soon. My two favorites are:

5. and

John likes LOVES his new iPod.

4.

Paying attention to the details of your site and making them part of your regular “website steps” can only help with all things search engine optimization and if they become a regular part of what you do, they will help your site stand out against the competition.

The SEO Process – Keeping It Simple

Chris — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 21:29:50 +0000

If you like SEO, know SEO or do SEO then you know who Aaron Wall is and about SEOBook.com. A few months ago, Aaron discovered SmartDraw and went to down with the SEO Flowchart. Being able to look at SEO at that level was helpful for a lot of people (if you don’t believe me check his comments) and sparked a lot of thinking as far as SEO relates to my various websites.

Earlier this week he posted the SEO Process chart (below) and again, it’s not as hard as people make it out to be it’s just one of those marketing elements that requires action. Without action, your site won’t rank higher, your site won’t improve and you won’t stand out against the competition. I wanted to share his Process chart and recommend following his blog:

SEO Process by SEOBook.com

Learning SEO by using Yahoo Site Explorer

Chris — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 01:04:22 +0000

For a new web marketer Search Engine Optimization can feel overwhelming. Everywhere you look (and read) there are new strategies, old strategies, strategies that help in the short term but could hurt you in the long term….maybe or maybe not and there are always companies willing to help you do it. Taking some simple initial steps helps take away the “overwhelming” feeling and pretty soon you realize you know enough about SEO to be dangerous and successful with your online ventures. Using Yahoo Site Explorer is a great first step.

I always say that SEO is like a High School Popularity Contest (think high school musical for a minute). If everyone else says you are cool, you’re cool. The football team’s quarterback is loved by all and even if you’ve been at the school a single day, because everyone else refers to Mike as the quarterback, you know Mike as the quarterback. For websites, a fundamental rule of SEO is: what other people call you is what you will most likely rank for. This is also where link building falls into play.

Blog posts about your product or service tell the search engines that people like your product (and your site). Newspaper stories with a link to your product (on your site) tell the search engines that a trusted news source is describing your site a certain way. Other sites linking to your site using words like “San Francisco Dentist” or “San Francisco Family Dental” (called anchor text) tells the search engines that you are a San Francisco Dentist. Then search engines do their magic and when someone looks for a San Francisco dentist, they will look at what others are describing as a San Francisco dentist site, does that site have the content of a San Francisco Dentist site and how many other trusted sites recommend it as a San Francisco dentist site. Now that we are all clear on “popularity” and how it relates to SEO, let’s talk Yahoo Site Explorer.

You know your competitors. Go to Yahoo Site Explorer and insert their domain name (ie: www.jjcarlosdmd.com ranks #1 in Google for San Francisco Dentist) . Click on the “inlinks” section (below):

click on the inlinks button

Now you can identify many of the incoming links to this site (see below):

You don’t know which ones are making a difference and you don’t see how their internal linking strategies (the process of linking words on your site to subpages also in your site) however you are able to export all the incoming links and identify sites that you need to work with or advertise on to get the same credit.

Yahoo Site Explorer doesn’t solve all your problems but it is a great and easy to use tool to help get your feet wet with SEO and link building. Enjoy!

Top 10 and Top 25 Website Design Lists are my FAVORITE

Chris — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 18:10:06 +0000

Because I subscribe to and read from so many resources it’s always fun for me to pull a few things from each and every Top 10 and Top 25 list that appears (usually monthly) from someone. Here are some of my favorite “Top” lists from the last few weeks:

25 Design Best Practices for Your Small Business Web Site – I really like this list because it’s for a small business and by a small business owner. My two favorite recommendations are # 22 – Location of business should be prominent/obvious on the page — town, region or even a regional colloquialism. For example: Finger Lakes, SoHo, DIA, Orange County. and #1 – Install Analytics! Notice how I bolded that one? It’s so important it’s at the top of the list! I am constantly amazed at how many small business sites don’t have analytics of any kind on them. Bolding it makes it even better!

Link Building Strategies – 69 Solid Tactics for 2009 – With a combination of old school, new school techniques and the ever important INTERNAL LINKING STRATEGIES this combination of multiple “Top Lists” should be read by every website owner.

8 Don’ts and 7 Do’s for the ecommerce Holiday Season - Brad Geddes puts on a number of AdWords seminars around the country and is one of the best at sharing his knowledge with everyone. This was posted back in early November but since this is the season if it helps one more business with a better holiday ecommerce season then I’m glad I brought it back. I really like the reminder to not change things during the holidays “just because”. Everything is better in the holidays so don’t make any drastic decisions about your site because of holiday traffic.