Attention everybody: it’s time to take out your thesaurus.

We’ve known for sometime how Google uses synonyms to determine the context of the search terms entered by search users. Recently Google Software Engineer Steven Baker brought back the importance of synonyms to focus in his post “Helping Computers Understand Language”. There he discussed how Google recently analyzed just how well their synonyms system works.

According to Steven Baker 70% of search queries made in Google are actually affected by their synonyms system. However, most of the time we don’t even realize it because everything happens in the background. We tend to take the relevance of the results we get for granted, not realizing that a lot of analysis takes place to narrow down the index and spew out those results.

Furthermore Steven baker also said that they found out that out of every 50 queries made that are affected by Google’s synonyms system, only 1 returns a truly bad synonym. That makes for pretty good search results, don’t you think?

However, how should this information affect your SEO approach? Simple. As I said earlier its time to take out your thesaurus and start using more synonyms. Don’t get stuck with technical terms and use laymen’s terms in the same page. This will not only help Google contextualize your pages’ contents but also provide more keywords and key phrases, hence, increasing your pages’ searchability. So don’t get stuck using the same term over and over, expand your vocabulary and do better in SERPs at the same time.

Bookmark to:

If you have been following various SEO blogs and web sites, then I am sure that you are familiar with the description meta tag. After all, it is one of the most basic (and important) considerations when optimizing your site. However, just in case you are not familiar with it, the description meta tag is basically what provides search engines (Google included) with the necessary information as to what a page is all about. You can call it a summary of sorts. In your HTML code, the meta tag is found within the tag.

So what should you bear in mind when using the description meta tag? Here are some tips, again from Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide.

Accurately summarize the page’s content – Write a description that would both inform and interest users if they saw your description meta tag as a snippet in a search result.

Avoid:
• writing a description meta tag that has no relation to the content on the page
• using generic descriptions like “This is a webpage” or “Page about baseball cards”
• filling the description with only keywords
• copy and pasting the entire content of the document into the description meta tag

Use unique descriptions for each page – Having a different description meta tag for each page helps both users and Google, especially in searches where users may bring up multiple pages on your domain (e.g. searches using the site: operator). If your site has thousands or even millions of pages, hand-crafting description meta tags probably isn’t feasible. In this case, you could automatically generate description meta tags based on each page’s content.

Avoid:
• using a single description meta tag across all of your site’s pages or a large
group of pages

The key here is in being as specific as possible. The idea is to provide Google AND your human readers with the necessary information they need to determine whether the page is relevant to their query or not. More than being specific, though, remember to give an accurate representation of the contents of the page. The last thing that a user would want is to think that a page contains certain information only to find out that they have been misled.

Bookmark to:

Here is the continuation of the previous post on some of the best – and easiest – SEO tips. There are actually ten of them in the whole article at About.com but I am only choosing the ones that I myself have done and can attest to. Here goes.

Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines.
This may sound counterintuitive, but hear me out. The search engines are looking for pages that best fit the keyword phrase someone types into their little search box. If those “someones” are typing in search words that relate to what your site offers, then they are most likely members of your target audience. You need to optimize your site to meet *their* needs. If you don’t know who your target audience is, then you need to find out one way or another. Look for studies online that might provide demographic information, and visit other sites, communities, or forums where your target audience might hang out and listen to what they discuss. This information will be crucial to your resulting website design, keyword research, and copywriting.

I have written about this before and I do not hesitate to keep repeating it. The problem that some people encounter is that they become too obsessed with what the search engines want. The human side oftentimes becomes ignored. This, I believe, negates much of the efforts put into the site. So the search engine spiders love your site but who is going to read it and keep coming back for more? People! Need I say more?

Photo courtesy of Martin Heigan

Bookmark to:

We hear this term all the time – search engine ranking – and rightly so.  It is one of the important things that we should pay attention to when engaging in SEO.  That is why it is called “Search Engine” Optimization after all.  So what should we do in order to climb the ranks of the very high search engine ladder?

I am sure that there are countless ways and means by which we can do so – every SEO expert will probably have his own list.  I found a comprehensive – and yet simple – list of tips at About.com.  Let’s take a look at them.

Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to.
Due to Google’s aging delay for all new domains, your best bet is to use your existing domain/website if at all possible. If you’re redesigning or starting from scratch and you have to use a brand-new domain for some reason, you can expect to wait a good 9-12 months before your site will show up in Google for any keyword phrases that are important to you.

This is so true!  That is why there is a very profitable market which peddles domains that have been around for quite some time.  The longer the domain has been around, the higher you should expect to pay for it.  That is also why I suggest buying a domain immediately when you think of a potential idea.  It doesn’t mean that you have to use this domain at once – you can keep it for future use.  In the meantime, for your current needs, try sticking to your existing domain or shopping around for one that is already established.

(to be continued)

Photo courtesy of isriya

Bookmark to:

As many other people have noticed, sometimes, SEO efforts can tend to become too focused on search engines. Though obviously, the search engines should be a prime consideration, we cannot totally discount the importance of the end users – human users. This is what user experience is all about.

In SEO parlance, user experience is also dubbed as UE or UX. To be honest, I only came across this term recently, thanks to Shari Thurow at Search Engine Land. In a post she published, she shares her thoughts on UX:

Search engine optimization is all about the user experience, because the idea behind SEO is to get users to their desired information and destination(s) as quickly and easily as possible by using the users’ language (keywords). Searchers type in keywords at a commercial web search engine. Searchers’ expectations are validated in search results pages and, hopefully, after they click on links within those search results…a perfect, seamless user experience.

An important point that we should put under consideration is the difference between UX and the perceived UX, the former being what human users actually experience and the latter being what SEO experts may think their users want to experience. Though sometimes, these two factors jive, more often than not, there is a disparity. That is why it is important that when working on SEO, you have to bear in mind UX – the real deal. Do not be limited by your own perceptions, actually open your mind to reality and adjust your strategies accordingly.

Bookmark to:

Outsourcing your site’s SEO is a big decision that’s made harder by the fact that there are so many SEO companies to choose from. When deciding one of the most critical factors to consider is of course the companies’ approach to SEO. Though everyone knows the hazards of using black hat techniques there are still SEOs out there that continue to use them in order to get “fast results” whether the client knows about it or not. Do not fall prey to these SEOs!

If you find that the SEO company you are currently dealing with or is considering employs any of these techniques then run away as quickly as possible. The list below is from Google Webmasters Help pages. If Google says run then run!

* owns/uses shadow domains
* puts links to their other clients on doorway pages
* offers to sell keywords in the address bar
* doesn’t distinguish between actual search results and ads that appear on search results pages
* guarantees ranking, but only on obscure, long keyword phrases you would get anyway
* operates with multiple aliases or falsified WHOIS info
* gets traffic from “fake” search engines, spyware, or scumware
* has had domains removed from Google’s index or is not itself listed in Google
* requests your FTP account information or root access to your server

Bookmark to:

When it comes to choosing your site URL you’d better make the right choice because it definitely has a significant effect not only one your website SEO but also on user-friendliness.

To make things clear right off the bat let me state that you should use STATIC URLS.

Static URLs have clear advantages over dynamic URLs but before I point out the differences let me make it clear that Google can crawl both URLs even though they also do recommend the use of static URLs.

So why are static URLs preferable over dynamic URLs? Because according to a post in SEOmoz static URLS have the following advantages:

• Higher click-through rates in the SERPs, emails, web pages, etc.
• Higher keyword prominence and relevancy
• Easier to copy, paste and share on or offline
• Easy to remember and thus, usable in branding and offline media
• Creates an accurate expectation from users of what they’re about to see on the page
• Can be made to contain good anchor text to help the page rank higher when linked-to directly in URL format
• All 4 of the major search engines (and plenty of minor engines) generally handle static URLs more easily than dynamic ones, particularly if there are multiple parameters

Note though that according to Google if you already use a dynamic URL it is best to leave it alone since re-writing it just to make it look like a static URL can lead to more problems. As their search quality team said, “If you transform your dynamic URL to make it look static you should be aware that we might not be able to interpret the information correctly in all cases. If you want to serve a static equivalent of your site, you might want to consider transforming the underlying content by serving a replacement which is truly static…However, if you’re using URL rewriting (rather than making a copy of the content) to produce static-looking URLs from a dynamic site, you could be doing harm rather than good.”

Bookmark to:

Image Search is becoming more and more important with search engines realizing that users are using image searches with greater frequency. Maybe one of the reasons for this is the fact that users can process search results with images 30% faster than results with plain text (at least Microsoft says so).

With this in it is very important that you also think of how well your images rank. According to WebProNews some of the things you can do to rank in Google’s image search include:

*Adding images to your Google Local Business profile;
*Enabling Google Image Labeler in your Google Webmaster Tools account;
*Adding images to local business citation source; and.
*Adding images to blog posts or news articles for syndication in Google news.

On the other hand if your focus is ranking in Bing’s image search they say that you should:

*Name image files appropriately – For improved relevance, make sure that the file name describes the image appropriately.
*Alternative image text (alt text) matters – For increased optimization, make sure photos are properly described with alternative text tags, and ensure that test within any images is also
*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.

Bookmark to:

For the past couple of posts, we have been taking a look at some factors that may be hindering your SEO efforts from bearing fruit. Just to recap, we discussed the use of appropriate keywords and the frequency of your updates. These apply to both blogs and web sites in general. Today, let us take a look at inbound links.

We have had several discussions on this topics, especially when we had that series on increasing one’s Google PageRank. More than just simply focusing on what Google thinks, though, why don’t you think about the core idea of having other sites link to your own site or blog. What is the implication of having people link to your site? I would say that this is a measure of your blog’s relevance to those people. They link to your site because they think your site holds information that can be useful to them and their readers as well.

Going back to search engines – which is the focus of SEO – you really need inbound links to increase your visibility online. The idea is, again, simple. The more external sites that you have linking to your site, the higher your chances of getting up in the SERPs. That translates to better chances of being discovered by people who conduct searches.

The bottom line is that you have to continue building links that point to your site. This is part and parcel of SEO and if you have overlooked this point, then it may be the reason your SEO campaign is not working as you would like it to be.

Bookmark to:

Some people do not do well when it comes to long-term planning.  I have to admit that I can be one of them.  There are times when I can barely plan my activities a month from now.  Then again, I do know the importance of planning for the long run and I do my best to do that.

When it comes to SEO, long-term thinking may be the best way to go.  Anyone who has had any experience with SEO and all its intricacies would know that sometimes, short cuts just don’t work.  Oh, they may get short-term results, that’s for sure.  But in the long run, what a web site owner wants is to build a lasting impression online.

Think about it, why are you maintaining that web site or blog?  Do you merely want to reap the benefits within a few months time?  Perhaps for some specific purposes, that would be enough.  But for many, the idea is to keep the blog or web site up and running for as long as it could.  More than that, you would want to keep that site popular and alive for years to come.

The only really clean way to do this would be to plan for the future.  This is where white hat SEO has the most advantage over black hat and gray hat SEO, I believe.  The latter two activities may bring about quicker results but in the long run, they may also be the downfall of the site.  Believe it or not, Google would probably catch up on these shady activities and bring the hammer down on the site.  What happens to the long-term growth then?

If I were you, I’d look into long-term results before deciding on any SEO practice.

Bookmark to: