The Five Most Common Seo Mistakes
Search engine optimization (SEO) is the art and science of improving a site’s ranking on search engines like Google, Yahoo! and MSN’s Bing Many companies try to improve their sites’ rankings with basic techniques such as keyword rich copy and link exchanges Some techniques (like link exchanges) are minimally useful, not useful or actually hurt site rankings Others are effective, but can’t overcome common mistakes GILL Media is an SEO firm that provides complete marketing solutions After years of working with businesses, they’ve identified the following five most common SEO mistakes These are errors that GILL Media’ developers often have to fix to help clients hit the coveted first page of search results . .SEO Mistake #1: Image Headers . . .Search engine spiders can only read text and Meta data Image recognition is in its infancy Unfortunately, many sites persist in using images for headers Search engines can’t read pictures of words Even if you have a big, clear image banner that clearly says "welcome to my home page" the spider just reads the file name of your jpeg or gif Switch to real text headers or use them in addition to image banners Otherwise, search engines can’t clearly associate your site with keywords and categories Spiders assign weight to text headers using the H1, H2 and H3 tags, so make sure your header text accurately represents the site . .SEO Mistake #2: An SEO Unfriendly CMS . .Joomla, WordPress and other content management systems (CMS) can make it very easy to add and change site content - but it can interfere with your SEO efforts, too For example, if your CMS automatically sets up your headers, URLs and page titles you can’t adjust them to fit your target keywords Some CMS offer "SEO friendly" items that automatically pick your keywords, but these don’t work very well either Either go with a pure web design from the ground up or customize your CMS to let you choose every title, header and piece of Meta information An SEO that never creates a page more than one layer deep is also highly recommended because search spiders index sites more easily when they don’t have to crawl through too many subfolders . .SEO Mistake #3: Blank Titles . .Page titles (as listed in the top bar of your browser) are perhaps the single most important Meta information field on your entire page The title becomes the text for the page’s search engine link, and is given significant weight by search engines when they associate pages with specific keywords If your page’s title is blank or uses default information it will almost always rank behind a site with any title If your site has a title that incorporates your keywords you greatly increase your changes of ranking higher . .SEO Mistake #4: Other Blank Meta Data . .Titles are only one piece of Meta data Meta keywords are not as important as they were, but are still useful - they can act as "tie breakers" between two sites with similar authority levels Meta descriptions often appear in search results Image alt tags are invaluable; search engines can’t see pictures, so they rely on you to describe them Leave any of these blank and you’re not doing everything you can to improve your site’s rank . .SEO Mistake #5: No Target Pages . .Don’t try to improve rank for every single web page, and don’t use a "cookie cutter" approach for every page on your site You don’t want your privacy policy or user login pages to rank and when they do, they use up site authority that should be channeled to pages that are designed to attract new visitors Each site only has a limited amount of authority to spread around, so you don’t want to waste it on pages that don’t drive business Use commands such as robots txt and nofollow tags to exclude pages that aren’t meant to generate new business and pick a few pages to be your specific SEO targets Give each one its own focus and strategy .
Source: www.rsstnx.com

SEO and Choosing a Domain Name
When it comes to selecting the best domain name for a new website, it is not as simple as just choosing a name that you like or your company name, although choosing a catchy name can be good for branding The domain name itself, along with any page names within the site, can all help or hinder how easily your site will be found by the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN There are several factors to consider when first contemplating a new domain name . .The first consideration is to try and choose a domain name that sufficiently expresses your services and/or products; it also needs to be a broad enough term that will cover any expansion in the products and services offered by the site Ideally it is best to choose a name that can be easily remembered by people, to encourage repeat visits from customers that come to know your website domain name, along with the products or services that you offer . .From a search engine optimization perspective it is best to choose a name that contains your most significant keywords or keyword phrase This is one of the factors that can help your site to be search engine friendly and therefore, along with other factors, be more easily found and gain higher rankings in the search engines .So how do you determine which is the best keyword to use? . .There are several tools available freely online that can help you to establish the best ones to choose from, my personal favorite is the Google keyword tool To find this simply type, ‘Google keyword tool’ into the Google search box, and it should come up within the first few results . .To use this tool is very easy, simply type in the main two or three keywords or keyword phrases that relate to your business, for example if your business is security and alarm systems and you are located in Nashville, you would type in: . . * ’security Nashville’ . * ‘alarm systems’ . * ‘alarm systems Nashville’ and . * ‘Home security Nashville’ . .Then click on ‘get keyword ideas’ . .The tool will then give you a whole heap of keyword ideas, mostly related to your business Next to each of these will be numbers indicating the number of searches conducted each month on each of the particular keywords There will probably be several that have a significant number of searches per month so if it is possible to combine them to make your domain name that is a good option So as for the example above, these may include ’security alarms’ ‘home security’ and ‘alarm systems Nashville’ A great way to include all three of these keyword phrases would be to choose the domain name “HomeSecurityAlarmSystemsNashville” if that is unavailable you could try putting a dash between each of the words .
Source: www.rsstnx.com

SEO For Any Sized Business
There seems to be 3 types of people in the business world when it comes to SEO work Those who love it and live by it, those who think it is a waste of money, and those who don’t know/care about it I would like to take a minute to say those who are in the “Love IT” category, we need to do a better job of letting others know about all the great things that can happen from SEO . .One of our clients can’t stop talking about it For the mere $500-$700 a month that they spend on AdWords (and this is the ONLY form of marketing they do) they see an average of 4-7 new clients a month!! It is not unusual for them to see income double or triple what they spent on AdWords PER CUSTOMER!! So for the $500 that they spent on AdWords per month, they see $10,500 in new revenue Not a bad ROI if you ask me . .For those who don’t know/care about SEO, let me try to explain briefly what you are missing out on In a nutshell, a consumer goes to the Internet looking for a service or product in a certain geographical region So they type in “widget fixer in Kickapoo” and the search engine crawls the web looking for those words buried in content on the web and list the results . .If you have a good web presence, and content that carries those exact words, you might make it to the first page If not, you could be on the second, third, or farther down the line As a consumer, do you research ALL the companies listed? Nobody does, and that is why search engine optimization (SEO) is so important If you used SEO and AdWords, and were the best widget fixer in Kickapoo, we would make sure you are on the first page every time, potentially even the very first (and most often clicked) web listing . .Finally, for those of you who think it is a waste of money, I apologize It sounds like someone took advantage of you, or didn’t work with you well enough to make sure you needs were met .
Source: www.rsstnx.com