What is a Google sitemap?
A Google sitemap is a simple XML document which lists all the pages in your website, but it serves a very important purpose. Google sitemaps provide a window into the way Google indexes an entire site. They can also tell you quite a bit about what Google thinks of your website.
Can Your Site Rank Well in All Four Major Search Engines?
One of the most frequent concerns when it comes to SEO is whether or not your website is optimized to meet the needs of each of the four major search engines. Google, Yahoo, MSN, and Ask.com all rank things differently, but not so differently that you have to dedicate specific SEO to each of them. The differences in how these search engines work can cause a bit of confusion, especially when it comes to optimizing well for all four of them at the same time.
Will Google Suggest Change The Playing Field?
Google could very well be changing the entire SEO game on us very shortly thanks to their improvement on the Google Suggest tool. If you’re not already familiar with it, we’ve seen it very active in Google Chrome and every other Google toolbar out there as a way to offer up suggestions as to what the user is actually looking for. The Suggest tool manages to negate a lot of the issues that people had been having with entering in misspelled words and what not. This will specifically cut out those website owners that managed to make their site what it is today due to the use of misspelled domain names.
Optimize Your Website For Yahoo! Search
When building your site up with search engine optimization in mind, it’s easy to forget all the other sites that aren’t Google. Understandably so, as much of your search engine oriented traffic will be from the big G anyways. But for the amount of time it takes to put a little more focus into a few things, or even just add a few additional touches, you can make your site that much more appealing to the Yahoo! bot that will be crawling through your pages.
Optimize Your Website For MSN Live Search
MSN/Live is considered to be one of the most abused search engines currently operating. While i can bring you some traffic, it’s probably not going to compare to the traffic you receive from Google or Yahoo!. While this doesn’t mean you should ignore MSN/Live completely, you don’t need to tailor your focuses specifically to gaining visitors from their search engine. Much of what you do for other search engines will actually pay off just as well on MSN/Live, however there are a few tips that won’t hurt you to take advantage of for those extra few visitors you receive.
How Important Are Short Tail Keywords?
Targeting keywords for your website can be rather difficult at times. There are a lot of direct keywords that you’ll want to focus on as a long term goal, but what about keywords that you can capitalize on in the here and now? Long tail keywords, or basically search phrases, often include your keyword or synonyms for it and are searched by individuals looking for something specific. “Toyota” probably wouldn’t be the term you start with when searching for a new car, but what about “Buy Used Toyota Yaris In Massachusetts”? That’s a perfect example of a long tail keyword. If your site fits that keyword phrase and you can capitalize on it, the visitor to your site is infinitely more important than the one who trails in from “Toyota”. Your site isn’t about Toyota, is it? But it is about selling cars in a specific place.
10 Tips For Refreshing Your SEO Knowledge
New to SEO or just looking for a quick refresher course? Perhaps you’re looking to point someone in the right direction so they don’t take the wrong first step forward?
Taking Advantage Of Page Strength
We’ve all come to accept the fact that Google really is the top dog when it comes to the search engine world, but that doesn’t mean that their tools are the best way to find out your sites visibility and reach. Relying on one source for this information is never smart anyways, the guys over at SEOmoz created what they call the “Page Strength Tool”. Where Google relies only on its own information, the Page Strength Tool pulls its information from not only Google, but Yahoo, Wikipedia, DMOZ, Alexa, de.licio.us, and Technorati to compile its information. Read the rest of this entry
Google Insight For Search A Keyword Polling Substitute?
With the recent knock to those using 3rd party tools to get keyword results back from Google, it’s interesting to see that they’ve at least launched a solution that may fill the gap in some way. While you’re not going to get as direct of a readout and be on your way as you could do before, the launch of Google Insight For Search has at least improved upon the information you had previously gleamed from their Google Trends service.
Caroline Melberg’s False Claims On Over Posting Content
You’ve always been told that the more content you add to your website, the better off it is. But have you grasped the fact that it needs to be done both consistently and in a timely fashion? Doing otherwise may actually hurt your chances of reaching your desired rank.
