The Bing/Yahoo switch was flipped on Tuesday, August 24th. Searches performed on Yahoo.com are now showing Bing results n
Did you notice? Me neither, but keep that in mind when analyzing traffic and positions.
View a comprehensive intro to SEO from the one and only Rand Fishkin, posted now on SEOMoz.org.
There are two key points to how search engines get information about your site. You can use this information to update your site at the correct times and avoid downtime at the worst possible times.
First they crawl, then they index. Crawling is done by spiders (or also called robots) that automatically view all content & follow links on your website.
While crawling involves exploring your site and indexing is saving that data on their servers for quick retrieval. Many web servers track when your site is visited by a spider. If you don’t have that insight into your log files, you can get the information in a roundabout way following these quick steps:
1. Search for your site.
2. Click on the link that says “Cached”
3. View the date & time of the last crawl at the top of your framed in page.
Bing shows this as well:
So now that you know how to find when your site was crawled, create a simple spreadsheet to keep track. Get a good idea of frequency and you will know the best times to update your content, make server upgrades or any other changes you have planned.
This question came to me yesterday, so I thought it would be good to address it here.
“A client wants to put all releases on press release websites for the sole purpose of improving their SEO. How does that work?”
In a word, no. The content & links contained within a press release are not going to affect your site’s organic ranking. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do them.
Press releases can generate additional content on the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) and another opportunity for your content sites to dominate the available real estate. Press releases can also help journalists, news papers and digital content sites to find out more about you and put that content on their site. These third party links do help SEO, but it is a very roundabout approach.
In conclusion, do press releases, but don’t expect them to give a major boost to your ranking.
There are many ways to make certain words or phrases stand out. They stand out for users, they stand out for search engines too. For phrases you want to stand out:
1. Put it in a header or sub-header (more to come on this later)
2. Bold
3. Italics
But use these wisely. If you put everything in bold or italics, nothing will stand out.
If you are unaware of what an anchor tag is, it is simply the text you click on. In both internal and external linking, the anchor text you use can be very important. If at all possible, the text should contain your targeted keywords.
If you doubt the power of anchor text, simply do a search for “Click Here”. The answer may surprise you; but once you stop to think about it, it makes sense. Think about how many hundreds of thousands of websites out there say “Click Here to download the latest version of Adobe Reader” or something similar.
Bottom line: Be deliberate & smart with how you link to other pages knowing that it is being paid attention to and it affects your rankings.
To keep the spirit of this post succinct: no one likes stale content.
Update your website regularly.The search engines love new content and consider the site to be relevant and new, and therefore, rank the site higher.
Here are a few ideas for fresh content:
1. Literally rewrite the content at regular intervals
2. Integrate a Twitter or Facebook feed
3. Integrate a news feed
4. Keep a blog either on the home page or linked from the home page
5. Include a calendar of events
Whatever it takes, keep the content updated.
One of the first things I look at when I visit any site is the title tag. And, yes, I realize I’m in the minority. Most people, including developers, don’t realize the impact of the title tag outside of the code. The search engines apply a lot of weight to keywords used in tags. Because of this, everyone who has a website should follow this rule of thumb:
Effectively use title tags to your advantage.
This means you need to purposely title your pages in a consistent, relevant & keyword-rich manner. This can typically be accomplished in the following template as a guideline:
[Keyword you want to rank for] – [Page description] – [Site name]. Feel free to replace the hyphens with pipes or whatever. That’s simply aesthetics. Here is why I recommend this set up:
1. Words closest to the front get a heavier weight, so know & use the keywords you want to rank for.
2. Page description section can still be seen in a search results page so the user knows what they are clicking
3. Site name just for good measure. This can be excluded for the purpose in #4.
4. Too many words dilute the overall affectiveness of the tag. Don’t cram everything into the title. only the core terms.
5. Avoid simple terms like “Welcome!” or “Home”. These tell the user nothing about that page. Give them the information they need pre-click.
If you lack the ability to customize title tags, talk to your developers or look into your CMS and figure out a way to gain this ability. Title tags are often cast aside by developers without knowing the incredible power they have over how the site ranks.
In a rare moment where the plumber is fixing his own pipes, Google has taken a step back and performed an SEO audit on their own product offering. They don’t give a typical ABCDF grading scale, but if they did, it wouldn’t be great. Common sense best practices became mistakes, corners were cut & mistakes were admitted.
Watch the video here:
Google shows class in finding their mistakes, admitting to them and putting a plan of action in place to correct them and make sure they don’t happen again. But if you need any SEO advice, I know a great guy who can help you out.
With the iPad finally recently dropping and the ensuing blogosphere explosion surrounding it over the past couple months, my take on the iPad still stands from when it was first launched. WARNING: It’s not polarizing.
Here is my advice:
The iPad is a tool. If you have a use for the tool and want it, get it. If you don’t, don’t get it and don’t complain about the people who do.
That is all. Return to your regularly scheduled lives.