Search Engine Optimization Ethics

Writen by John Tourloukis

There are various techniques of Search Engine Optimization. Broadly, these are referred to as White Hat, Black Hat and Grey Hat.

According to various definitions available, ethical SEO would be:

• a technique that does more good than harm
• one that keeps in mind the dignity and rights of all involved
• one that treats all parties involved fairly
• looks out for the overall benefit of all concerned
• enhances the participant experience in all aspects

But why is this needed? Why should there be ethics defined for something like searching on the Internet? Given the fact that this is an ever-growing area of revenue and traffic generation, the interest in best practices is increasing. And just as well, the ethics that are being discussed and adopted widely are not restricted to the big corporate search engines. In fact, they apply more to those who are optimizing their pages so that they will show up on these engines’ results.

People using a search engine expect to find accurate results when they search. But usage of underhanded (Black hat or Grey hat) techniques, may return a page that does not have the relevant information. This counts as bad user experience and the search engine stands to lose out in its audience. Moreover, a web page that does have the information being searched by a user also loses out. Over a period of time, if there are too few people linking to a misrepresented link, its ranking will fall anyways, but not before it has done some damage to the user’s experience.

One of the most unethical practices is deception of a search engine. This can be achieved by keyword stuffing where only keywords relating to a particular topic are placed on an HTML page. By doing so, the search engine bots index and rank the page but when someone visits it, they find only a list of keywords or content that is not relevant to their search.

Another technique that is often implemented and has been universally termed as Black hat is the practice of hidden text. By putting keywords or text into a web page with the same color as that of the page background (e.g., white text on a white page), search bots will pick up the page as containing ‘x’ content. In reality, though, the content may be entirely different from what the keywords claim it to be.

Both examples have and continue to lead to the banning of companies and their pages on the search engine results pages. Almost all search engines have their techniques by which they identify pages which are fooling their bots. Once found, action is swift and often, severe.

Just to be clear, here is what is expected of the three main parties involved in searching on the Internet:

Search Engine:

• To return the most relevant resources based on the keywords entered by the user
• Index and maintain an index of web pages
• Be honest about links that are sponsored on its search results pages


Web page and site owners:

• Provide content that is relevant to the search made by a user
• Change the content or keywords but remain honest about it
• Adhere to the Terms and Conditions as laid out by various search engines

Users:

• Search only with those search engines that return relevant results and are clear about what they do on the results pages
• Be somewhat aware of what happens on the Internet
• Be fair in case of minor mismatches in search results unless they appear to be done with malicious intent

Yes, the above are ethics but as in the real world, black will continue to co-exist with white and in some cases, overlap to offer the gray areas!

John Tourloukis is the founder of Fast PC Networks an internet consulting and Ethical SEO company. I blog about SEO here

Search Engine Optimization Basics

Writen by Gerrick W

What is Search engine optimization or SEO? It is the science and art of getting your web pages rank high at the search engines. Some people think that SEO is so complex that they cannot possibly understand it. Still others think that to rank high at the search engine depends on a stroke of luck.

Well, these are all misconceptions. Ranking high at the search engines does not happen by chance. There are some basic things you must do to stand any chance of getting your web pages to perform well at the search engines.

On-page factors

1. Use text not graphics for your web design. Web pages that are loaded with graphics are not friendly to search engines' crawlers. Search engines classify and rank pages by text, not graphics.

2. Build your web page content around specific key phrases. Your web pages must have specific themes. It would be very difficult to rank high for generic terms. Carefully research and select 2 or 3 word phrases pertaining to your niche to optimize. Don't just optimize your home page. Work on your sub pages. You want as many pages as possible to be indexed and ranked well.

3. Organize your website internal links. You want all your web pages to be crawled and indexed by the search engines. You want to make it easy for crawlers to find your internal pages. It is best to include text links to these pages from your home page, and to cross-link all your web pages.

If your navigational system uses Java-script or images, then you have to add text links at the top or bottom of your web pages to make sure that the crawlers follow all the links. Double-check all your links to verify they are working.

4. Include your key phrases at the following places…

a. URL and file names. The URL and file names are important indicators to search engines. It is good SEO practice to put your key phrases either in your main domain name or in your file names.

b. Title and description tags. Your title text is displayed in the blue line at the top of your browser. It is located in the head section of the html document. Include your key phrase in your title tag.

Description tags are not visible to website visitors. Search engines often display them as text form to give searchers a cursory glance of your web pages is. Your description tags should be compelling to pull in visitors. It should contain your key phrase.

c. Headlines and subheadlines. Place your headlines at the top of your web pages page. Your headline and subheadline texts should be enclosed with special header tags such as h1, h2, h3.

d. Body Text of web page. Your key phrase should appear in the first paragraph, center and the last paragraph of your body text.

e. Anchor text. These are your navigational links, incoming and outgoing links of your web pages.

Important note: Don't use the same key phrase in your URL, filenames, title tags, description tags, headlines, body text and text links. Search engines may penalize you for keyword spamming. Use variations of your key phrase or terms related to it.

5. Add fresh content to your website regularly. Both search crawlers and your website visitors feed on content. Web pages with fresh informative content tends to be bookmarked. If you add fresh content regularly, other webmasters would naturally link to your web pages.

Off-page factor

Link Popularity is an important factor, used by almost all of major search engines to rank websites. Link popularity can be increased by link exchange or acquiring one-way incoming links.

Since link popularity is an important factor in determining search engine ranking, plan it carefully. Don't just exchange links indiscriminately, link to web pages that are similar to your niche. Also have your incoming text links centered on your key phrase.

It is not only the quantity of links that counts, but also the quality of the links. So, you will be better off with a few links from good quality web pages (those that ranked high by the search engines) than many links from low-ranked web pages.

How to acquire one-way incoming links? You could either purchase them or do it the organic way – write articles related to your niche and post them at article directories that command high web traffic.

Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Get your basic SEO right. Try the steps listed above. Good search engine ranking does not happen overnight. Be patient. Depending on the competitiveness of your key phrases it could anywhere between 3 to 6 months, in some cases a year, for your web pages to rank high at the major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

SEO can be time consuming if done manually. The good news is there are softwares like Web Position Gold and Web CEO, just to name two, available to automate most of your SEO tasks. Or if you have a big marketing budget, you may want to hire an SEO company for your search marketing campaign.

Gerrick W

Information and Software Tools You Need
to Effectively Promote Your Online Business.
Visit: http://www.1stinternetmarketingsolution.com

Search Engine Optimization --- An Overview

Writen by Prabuddha S Raychaudhuri

Search engine optimization is one of most popular online marketing tool for any website. With most websites looking forward to increasing the online sales of their products/services, search engine optimization can be a very cost-effective tool to target and procure your customers online. In this paper, we will discuss about search engine optimization, its benefits and how you can optimize your website for top search engine rankings.

What is search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization (also known by various other names like search engine ranking, search engine promotion, website promotion, SEO etc.) is a method through which a website is given top rankings in various search engines. According to a recent industry study, 1 in every 20 people go to the second page of search results pages, but only 1 in every 100 people go beyond that. So, by top search engine rankings, we mean that your website should be within the first two pages of the search results, preferably in the first page (i.e. within top 10 rankings).

2. What are the prime benefits of search engine optimization?

ง Top search engine rankings result in more pre-qualified business leads coming to your website which in turn can convert to greater sales for your organization.

ง Search engine promotion is one of the cheapest methods of advertizing for your organization. Compared to advertizements in the newspapers/magazines or in the television, search engine promotion costs many times less and can bring more traffic to your websites, thereby providing greater ROI.

ง Search engine optimization enhances online brand identity of your organization.

3. What are the key factors for your website to have top search engine rankings?

Search engines change their algorithms frequently, thereby forcing the search engine optimization companies to re-strategize their search engine optimization techniques. However, the following attributes are basic and play a major role in procuring top search engine rankings.

a. Keyword Research – Keywords play the most vital role in your search engine optimization campaign. Keywords (can be 1, 2, 3 or more words) are the search terms which a surfer types in the search box of a search engine to reach your website. Let us consider that you are an “India-based Outsourcing consultant” interested in optimizing your website for top search engine rankings. The following are some of the keywords which surfers will type to reach your website -

Keywords

bpo

bpo india

bpo outsourcing services

business outsourcing services

business process outsourcing

offshore companies

offshore outsourcing

offshore outsourcing services

offshore services

outsource india

outsourcing companies

outsourcing consultants

outsourcing india

outsourcing services

outsourcing services company

Keyword research tips –

• Always target keywords that best describe your products/service.

• Try to find multiword potential keywords compared to single keywords.

• Try formulating keywords which give answers to as “why/how/what …….?”

• Utilize your server log files to know what your customers searched most while visiting your site.

• Use keyword generator softwares like Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) or Overture (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)

• Include popular common misspellings (e.g. viagra typed as viagara etc.) in your keyword list.

b. Title of the webpage - …… - Title has a deep impact on your website’s search engine rankings. Experience shows that most companies use the following as title of their index page which can prevent them from getting top search engine rankings.

Welcome to the website of XYZ.com

For example, let’s continue with the above example of “India-based Outsourcing consultant”.

An ideally optimized title should contain the top 3-5 keywords of your business, e.g. outsourcing consultants, outsourcing india, outsource india

Optimized Title - Outsourcing Consultants, Outsourcing India, Outsource India

c. Description Meta tag of the webpage – Description of a webpage also plays important role in getting top search engine rankings.

Optimized Description - Develop a suitable description based on your top 3 keywords

d. Keywords Meta Tag of the webpage - This meta tag was of great importance at one time. But rampant manipulations (i.e. multiple, often non-relevant keyword stuffing in the “keywords” tag), leading to abuse has resulted in search engines giving lesser importance to “keywords” tag while ranking sites. Nevertheless, you can always place top 3 – 5 keywords of your site in the “keywords” tag.

Optimized Keywords -

e. Importance of Content/Keyword-enriched optimized pages for top search engine rankings –

Well, if there is one aspect which holds supreme importance in search engine, specially in Google ranking, then it is this. Yes, content! The popular industry say – “Content is King” was perhaps devised by watching Google’s love for content. Develop content based on the top keywords related to your business. While developing content for your web pages, keep in mind the keyword density (KD).

Mathematically speaking, Keyword Density is the ratio of the total number of time a keyword is repeated divided by the total content words. Since KD is normally represented in percentage, the above figure is to be multiplied by 100

For example, if you have developed a web page of around 250 words on the keyword “search engine optimization”, and that particular keyword (search engine optimization) is repeated 10 times, then

Keyword Density (KD) = 10/250 * 100 = 4%

As a thumb rule, Keyword Density of an optimized page for top search engine rankings should vary between 2 – 7 % (this figure varies among different search engines)

4. Submission of Keyword-enriched optimized pages – After you have finished content development for the optimized pages based on the keywords targeted for top search engine rankings, submit those pages to various search engines.

1. Google - http://www.google.com/addurl.html

2. AlltheWeb - http://addurl.alltheweb.com/add_url

3. AltaVista - http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new

4. MSN - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

5. Role of Link Popularity in top search engine rankings –

Link popularity has assumed tremendous importance for getting good ranks in Google now a days. In fact, what started as a friendly reciprocal link exchange program among various webmasters has now become a sub-industry within the SEO industry itself, with thousands of link farms popping up every day! Yes, if you are interested in getting top ranks in search engines, especially Google, then you must pay effort in building up links for your site.

Create a html page, preferably named as “Resources/Links/Partners” and place a link of this page from Index Page of your site. This page should never be more than 1 click away from the index page of your site, else webmasters won’t be interested in participating in the reciprocal link exchange program.

Target both “industry-related” and “non-industry-related” websites as your link exchange partners. For example, if you are providing outsourcing services, then try getting links from “industry-related websites (i.e. websites dealing with outsourcing services, maybe your business rivals!). This is important, because if 10 of your rival sites give links to your site, then Google will surely pay importance to your site, because getting links from rival companies are difficult. Your site MUST be of some high caliber, else the other 10 sites won’t have linked! Also, try procuring links from top ranked general informative websites as well.

Always exchange links with websites which have high Google PageRank (PR) of at least 4, the more the better! (both Index Page as well as Resources/Links Page of the Link Partner’s site should have PRs of >=4) [PageRank is a proprietary tool that Google uses to determine the importance of a page and varies in a scale of 0 (least important) to 10 (maximum importance)].

Have a link code ready for participating in link exchange program. Here is a sample link code for an India-based Outsourcing consultant.

- Indian outsourcing consultant providing guidance to companies willing to set up outsourcing centers in India.

Always prefer a text link (as given above) in comparison to a banner link, where your chance of Google and other search engine spiders finding the potential keywords is limited only to the “alt tag” of the banner. Also, Google pays importance to the text of the incoming link/anchor text (i.e. the incoming link text must contain high potential, relevant keywords), so develop a link text with title (”indian outsourcing consultant“) which will help you in Google Ranking.

Refrain from javascript link code because Google spider finds it difficult to index.

Key SEO Factors

• Targeting the right keywords for your website

• Title of your webpage

• Description Meta tag of your webpage

• Keywords Meta tag of your webpage

• Quality, Informative Content

• Link Popularity

Conclusion -

With Google’s numero uno position in the search engine market being threatened by arch-rivals Yahoo! [bought Overture, the largest PPC search engine recently, who in turn bought Altavista and Alltheweb] and Microsoft’s MSN [believed to be developing its own search engine], it is no doubt that the search engine industry is going to experience tremendous changes in the next few months. The recent Google “Florida” Update is just one of the many upheavals that we may be witnessing in an industry where the only constant factor is the “change”. However, the various techniques outlined in this paper are basic and are we believe that following them you will be able to achieve top 10 ranks in Google and other search engines.

About The Author

Prabuddha S Raychaudhuri is the Founder & CEO of Search Engine Optimization Guru Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.searchengine-optimization-guru.com), a premiere Search Engine Optimization and Marketing (SEO/SEM) consultancy firm, catering to clients which range from Fortune 500 to small home business start-ups. Our services include Top 10 Google and other search engines rankings, Pay Per Click (PPC) targeted traffic campaign, Paid Listing Management, Keyword Advertizing. Prabuddha holds a Bachelor Of Engineering (B.E.) in Construction Engineering and can be contacted at prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com.

prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com