Search Engine Optimization(SEO)process is a powerful strategy used by webmasters to maximize its potential in page ranking under the major search engines today such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. This effort was necessary for sites visibility to increase its marketing value in the end. But how really SEO and search algorithm works and how it manipulates the sites' popularity. Here's a bit of discussion from the pinoy SEO group.
Different Search Engine Means Different Algorithm
All search engines have their own algorithms to determine the value and, therefore, positioning of websites. While the majority of SEO work tends to concentrate on Google because of the sheer weight of searches they receive it would be foolish to discount or ignore the other major search engines. Yahoo is considered one of the big three along with Google and MSN and by concentrating a little more time and effort on Yahoo optimization it is quite possible to gain a good amount of traffic. With ultra competitive keywords it may actually provide an easier way to generate search traffic than gearing all your efforts solely towards Google.
The Most Important Yahoo Optimization Factor
The first, and most pertinent point is that Yahoo judges content to be the most important factor in their algorithms. They do still consider inbound links and other factors but they are attuned to the way of the content site and they love sites that provide keyword-optimized content in large mass. While that may make it sound easier than concentrating on generating a huge base of inbound links as you would for Google, Yahoo optimization presents its own challenges and its own unique quirks that you should consider.
Looking At Keyword Density
Because of the relevance that Yahoo places on the content within your site, the keyword once again becomes a vitally important aspect of your research. While Google have been striving to promote sites that use organic content and webmasters and SEOs have been optimizing with around 2% to 3% keyword density Yahoo prefers a much greater density level. The danger, of course, is that giving Yahoo what they want may cause Google to deem your content as being keyword stuffed but there is another difference between the two algorithms that can help to counteract this problem.
Using Stems, Inflexions, And Variants Of Keywords
Yahoo is very heavily language based. This means that it is, strictly speaking, more aware of the nuances of the written language. It will include synonyms and inflexions of a keyword when considering your keyword density; something that Google does not consider to the same extent. This means that it is possible to optimize for both without diminishing your ranking with one another.
How To Optimize For Yahoo Without Getting Penalized By Google
Google likes a density of around 2% and Yahoo likes a density as high as 7% or even 8%. This means that you can effectively use 4 variations of a single keyword or phrase and a density of 2% for each. This offers further advantages. With Google you are now gearing your content towards four different keywords and offering the level they want, and you are still providing Yahoo with the much higher density rate that they require. Because you can include plurals and further stems of keywords this means you can write in a much more natural tone.
Using The Near Forgotten Meta Tags
One area that a lot of SEO professionals and webmasters alike now tend to overlook is the Meta tag. However, Yahoo appears to still give consideration to the keyword and description tags in particular. This is quite rare in the case of most search engines and Google certainly do not look for keywords in your Meta tags. Do not attempt to dupe Yahoo, though, and only include keywords that genuinely appear on your page and are relevant to your topic.
Regular, Fresh Content Is King
You’ve probably heard the saying that “content is king” and this is even truer when considering Yahoo optimization. The more content you provide the better. This may mean making regular additions to your site but it will generate the kind of results you are looking for. Blogs are also a very good way to continue adding relevant content to your site that Yahoo will smile down on.
The Lazy Yahoo Bot
Compared to other search engine spiders the Yahoo bot is a comparatively lazy animal. It doesn’t crawl as often as other bots and it certainly doesn’t crawl as deep into your site to find all of your pages and index them. This means you should pay extra attention to creating a legible sitemap and keeping it updated as regularly as possible. Yahoo has a sitemap submission feature that is similar to Google’s and using this is heavily recommended to try and ensure that Yahoo stays on top of the infrastructure of your site and ranks you accordingly.
Inbound Links And Controlling Them Yourself
Inbound links are still important to Yahoo, but again a lot of emphasis is placed on content. Textual relevance seems to be one of the most important factors so having control over your inbound links and being able to determine the pages where they appear and the anchor text of each is important. Perhaps the best way to generate inbound links for Yahoo optimization is to use the article directories to your benefit.
Yahoo Optimization Conclusion
Google may be the search engine that everyone talks about and optimizes for but ignoring Yahoo would be foolish. This is especially true because while the Yahoo algorithm is quite different to the Google one and other algorithms, it is still quite easy to optimize for both. The most important factors to remember are to use relevant Meta tags for every single page of your site, include as much content and update your site with new content as often as possible, and update a sitemap both on your website and with the Yahoo sitemaps function.
How to gain a good page ranking on the major search engines
Well I guess nobody - even SEO experts - can say or demonstrate the exact search engine algorithm. This article, at least will give us hints on how we can rank well in search engines like what we're doing in this ituloy angsulong seo contest.
Here it goes:
What is the secret for gaining a high page ranking in the major search engines? In essence, it's nothing more complicated than doing what the search engines want you to do. In other words, it's making things easy for the robots when they come crawling around your site.
Let's talk first principles.
One.
The search engines don't operate for the benefit of webmasters. Their main function is to provide good information to the public at large. This means that any website you submit to them must reach their 'good content' criteria. Therefore, to achieve a high ranking, it is imperative that your website has better, more illuminating content than your competitors.
Two.
Search engine robots are pretty rigid in their approach to sites. The robot crawls your HTML from top to bottom. Given this, it is important that the first stick of body copy it comes across (the stuff your readers also see) contains copy which is relevant to, and reflects: (a) the Title of your web page and, (b) the meta keywords and meta description phrases contained in the "Head-tag" of your HTML.
To put it simply, the first few lines of copy will often be grabbed by the bots and used as a description of your site in their listing. So, if this copy says nothing in particular about your products or services, then you'll be banished to page 97.
Three.
Some webmasters are obsessed by keywords. They drive themselves nuts attempting to coin exactly the right set of words with which to describe their site. This approach is essentially flawed. It's not keywords you want, but key phrases.
Allow me to explain. Let's say that you are in the market for a good book on copywriting. You open Google search and you type in....what? Copywriting? Not really, because that will result in approximately one-and-a-half million entries from copywriters looking for work. Thus, the obvious thing is to type the phrase Books on Copywriting, which will cut the list to about half. But this list will largely be relevant to what you are looking for.http://www.transformers-movies.com/
Research shows that people generally use phrases in their search requests - they rarely employ a single word. It makes sense, then, to populate your meta keywords with phrases you feel people will employ in their search for products or services.
And the easiest way to figure out what key phrases are optimal for your products, is to ask yourself what phrases people would use to find you, then try them out on the search engines.
One other point worth mentioning about keywords and phrases is that some search engines - Google, for instance - no longer take them into account at all! On the other hand, many others do. So it is generally better to incorporate them.
Four.
The "title tag" in your website HTML is the phrase you choose to name your site. The general rule in framing your title is: 'what's right for people is generally wrong for search engines'. Essentially, you should try to incorporate your major key phrases into the "title tag". Just make a list of them and try to incorporate them in the title.
The fact is it really doesn't matter whether your site title is a million miles away from your own name, or the actual name of your business. It's simply a device for gaining the attention of the bots.
A title tag can contain up to twenty words; but more doesn't mean better. Eight to twelve well chosen words is more than sufficient. For best results, the first (short) phrase of the title tag should be geared towards the human reader, while the remainder can be key words aimed at the bot. Bear in mind that the search engine will display only the first few words of the title tag anyway (whatever suits their house-style).
Five.
It's a terrible old cliche, but with robots, you never get a second chance to make a first impression. As mentioned above, the crawler will grab the first thing it comes across and then use it to describe your site. Good enough reason to make the very first paragraph on your site as key-phrase rich as you can. Indeed, the first para should recap and enlarge upon all the material in your title and meta tags.
All right, this first paragraph also has to be read by your visitors, so it has to make sense. Writing this para so that it is acceptable to both robot and human is an art in itself. But perseverance can pay large dividends insofar as search engine placement is concerned.
In addition, your opening para should be designated by an H1 paragraph tag so that its importance is obvious to the bot. If you hand-flog your HTML, just drop in "H1-tag" and "H1 end-tag" at front and back of the paragraph.
Six.
Now a word or two about how often you should post your site to search engines. Some authorities believe that if you post too often, your efforts may be seen as spam by the engines and you'll be banned. On the other hand, it seems to be the consensus that you should post every time you make changes to pages or add pages.
Generally speaking, whenever you tweak your site - particularly the index page, you should post straight away. The search engines seem to like changes and they react accordingly by shoving you farther to the front of the listings. The more you do, the better they like it.
If all of this leaves you somewhat cold, not to mention baffled, you may be wiser to employ a professional Search Engine Optimizer. Somebody who knows what they are doing. The modest cost could save you a lot of heartache.
And that's that. If this has been useful, maybe you'll let me know. But if it seems that I've been teaching you to suck eggs, perhaps you'll let me know that also.
Why Bother With SEO For MSN?
One of the most common preconceptions with SEO is that if you optimize a site for the benefit of Google then you will rank well with other search engines. However, the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) all use different algorithms that demand different things. Google has a mixed bag but certainly leans towards inbound links whereas Yahoo loves keyword dense content sites. This leaves us with MSN, whose primary consideration when determining their search results seems to be heavily based on internal linking structure and inbound links. But these are far from the only SEO techniques you need to consider.
MSN The Meta Search Engine
MSN Search is a meta search engine. Whereas Google openly ignores your meta tags in the majority of cases MSN blatantly uses them to index your pages and discover your keywords. At the very least you need to include the “keywords”, “description”, and “title” meta tags. Your main keywords should be included in all of these with your primary keyword appearing first in the “keywords” meta tag. All tags must include the keywords you consider the most important to your site.
Also, because MSN uses the meta tags, you should be careful not to spam them with numerous instances of your keyword or the use of incorrect or inaccurate keywords. At present, meta spamming doesn’t seem to be an issue with the MSNbot but it is only a matter of time and when the change occurs you won’t receive any warning before your site is penalized.
Page Layout And Code
The coding of a page is always an issue with search engines and, therefore, should be important to you as well. If a crawler can’t crawl your site then you are unlikely to be indexed and you certainly won’t receive the high ranking you want. Keep the amount of HTML or any other programming language on your page down to an absolute minimum and ensure that page sizes are below 150KB at the very most.
Another slightly contentious issue is the use of tables. Again, this leads us back to a crawling problem. MSN does not condemn the use of tables on the whole. However, the MSNbot does not like to see tables within tables within tables. This can be a problem if you don’t use CSS and rely on tables to keep your page neat. Including another table in the layout of your page begins to make things look messy from the point of view of the MSNbot.
Keyword Density
Keyword density is an area of SEO that always causes arguments. No search engine openly publishes their requirements in this area but it is widely accepted that while Google has stringent rules in place that require minimal use of keywords both Yahoo and MSN have a much greater tolerance for higher levels. Google prefers only a 2% to 3% density while MSN and Yahoo allow 5% to 6%, possibly even a little higher.
Of course this raises the problem that optimizing for MSN may have you flagged as spam with Google. Fortunately, MSN and Yahoo, both take keyword stemming and keyword variants into account when doing their calculations. Use keyword plurals and stems, and try to ensure that you don’t go above the Google ideal of 2% for each of these variants. Also, it is absolutely imperative that your SEO writing does not prevent you from writing copy that is appealing to human visitors.
Website Infrastructure And SEO
Your website infrastructure is important to MSN. Many sites, my own included, have shown excellent results in MSN based on the internal text links and associated anchor text. Try to use the primary keyword for a page as its title and ensure that you use this keyword in all of your navigation bars on your site. This will have a very positive influence on the MSNbot.
Also, as with all search engines, MSN wants to be able to reach every page of your site quickly and easily. Text links are best for navigation and all pages should be reached within three clicks from your home page. If you use graphical navigation bars then you should consider either changing them to text links or including a sitemap that is one click away from your homepage.
Inbound Link Importance
Inbound links count as votes for your website. The more votes you get from sites the better, but moreover the more influential the sites that provide a link to you the greater your search engine results. In all honesty, MSN currently appear to favor the quantity of links over the quality but search engine algorithms are renowned for evolving so try to plan ahead and get relevant links from popular pages. The most important aspect of any individual inbound link is the anchor text. You must get webmasters to use your primary keyword for the page that the link points to as the anchor text.
MSN SEO Conclusion
MSN Search is gaining a little ground on its major competitor, Google. Microsoft is unlikely to sit back and be happy with only taking a small share of the market so optimizing for MSN in order to ensure that you get beneficial results from their search engine is a very good idea. It is possible to optimize pages and content for all of the major search engines if done properly and carefully.
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