Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Archives

E-learning course developers preparing content for migration to learning management system are typically faced with a host of choices to make. Besides the more practical concerns such as navigation and deciding which tools to employ, there are also aesthetic choices. Namely, you’ll have to make choices regarding the course’s style and design. Your courseware logo is just one element in the design–but it’s an important one.

First, a disclaimer: compared to many other e-learning course choices, a logo is really quite unimportant. Your content itself needs to be unique, strong and effective in order to survive and thrive. However, it’s also true that no one says “Don’t judge a book by its cover” for nothing. The reality is we all do it; we make quick, visually-based judgments all the time. We do it when we decide about everything from soap to dinner to cars, to even more important choices involving education and romantic partners. Considering this, it must also be acknowledged that a smart and memorable logo can distinguish your courseware from others. It can pique the interest of potential users, and stick with them in the future.

So what types of logos work the best? Keep in mind this rule: your logo acts as the visual illustration that represents your e-learning course. Essentially, it will embody your learning content. But it will also, after some time, facilitate viewer recognition of (and trust in) your product.

Logos can be a simple name or logotype or an ideograms (visual including icons, signs and emblems). Ideograms are often easily recognizable alone. For example, the McDonald’s arc is easily identifiable without the necessity to see the word “McDonald’s.”

Although some courseware developers and companies rely on pre-packaged logos, your own design might be the best solution–not to mention the most fun to come up with. Remember, it’s your content and your vision. And in any case, a logo can be very easy to design.

The first step in creating a unique and interesting e-learning courseware logo is to brainstorm. Use up lots of paper, and sketch and write out everything by hand. Large design firms use this system, sketching everything out by hand before even referring to a computer. Sketching is the best way to quickly visualize, imagine and produce your courseware logo.

Once you have your simple and aesthetically pleasing logo design, it’s time to play with it. Try many different things. Experiment with different shades and colors. Try different combinations. Put your logo in many situations, adding text in different positions to find out where it looks best. Try out different fonts and sizes.

Throughout it all, keep your users in mind. Create a logo with a bold and unique e-learning course logo design whose integrity and innovation suits that of the learning management system course itself.

SEO Search Spider Defined

People rely on Search Engines to give results and determine if the website has any relevant information on it. In turn, Search Engine Spiders keep data from millions of websites and presents this to its Search Engine in a formula it understands.

The Formula is a mathematical equation that has individual elements (in the case of Google the equation has over two hundred separate elements), that determine a value of the website. That value is referred to as a Page or Trust Rank. Websites that are determined to be relevant and have established a good history with the Search Engine will be presented at the beginning of the Search Results.

Major Search Engines just don’t take snapshots of date from websites. It actually stores the information it gets to its own database. Imagine how difficult this job is if it were done by humans given the number of websites that exist today. It’s the very reason why a massive computer storage is required for this. After a data is saved, it gets compared to all the other relevant information found from other websites.

Couple that with then retrieving those sites, ranking them in importance and relevance for a given search anytime a user like you wants to do a search and you begin to understand the complexity of the task. Since a Search Engine is only good as the results it produces for a search, you can see why some websites don’t even get stored in the data base.

Keep in mind that the website you submit for search engines are not always sufficient for instant recognition. You have to prove your site is as worthy to be included in the game. The main thing you have to remember is that the Search Spider easily scans and indexes your website for customers to see. This is where SEO becomes important. The Search Engine Optimizer knows the elements and language the Search Spiders are looking for and knows how to present a website to be relevant.

Search Engines continually look for websites it can assimilate. Since it has its own Spiders, it’s more like scouts. Remember the Borg? It’s from the TV series Start Trek. The Search Spiders and Borg are quite the same in what they do. Through links, a Spider follows through and assimilates websites continually – similar to how a Borg looks for galaxy to assimilate.

In the TV show the Borg were often quoted as saying resistance is futile. However in the case of Search Engines and your website, you want to be assimilated, found by the Borg. The trouble comes when the scout Borg, Search Spider, gets to your site and skips it without assimilating it. What has happened can either be that it, The Search Spider, has determined that your site has nothing unique to offer or that has been blocked by some information it found in the website information.

To use the Borg analogy, each scout had a defined mission, if a person was not part of that mission, a borg scout would ignore them. The same is true of the Search Spider, it too has a mission. You as a person can look at a website and see that it pertains to what is being searched for. But the Search Spider is not a human and it sees the same website through the eyes of a program and a mission. If a website does not adhere to the elements of that program and mission it is invisible to the search spider and will never rank well in search results.

You can get great service and visible back links to your website while allowing you to make money online via effective aninternet marketing strategy.

Orange County Search Engine Optimization

There are many benefits to your business and your website to hiring a great Orange County search engine optimization company.

In the last few years a lot of people have begun to take notice of this industry that has started to take off. A lot of websites that may use to rely on more traditional methods of advertising have been starting to take notice of all of the great benefits that these companies provide. The basic idea of these types of services is to utilize what we know about search engines in order to increase the traffic to your website.

This concept came out of the fact that most people these days use search engines to surf the web opposed to other methods. This means that it is more important than ever to make sure that you rank well in major search engines. This is what an Orange County search engine Optimization Company will do. They will allow you to use their services in order to get a high ranking in these search engines for specific keywords that relate to your website and the content or service that it provides.

The methods of advertising your site with a search engine optimization company will give internet users that are interested in your services or products the ability to quickly find your website without every having heard of your company. The basic concept of this results in the number one goal of all advertising. It increases the exposure of your website to internet users that are searching for the products that your site provides. This is also very cost effective in comparison to a lot of the traditional forms of advertising. This means that you will be able to have consumers that are interested in your services discover you and not have to guess whether these people will see your advertisement.

This has been a proven way to increase the traffic to your website and increase the sales of your products or services. This is the reason that so many websites and companies have been using the services of an Orange County search engine optimization company in order to have these great advertising methods work to their advantage. If you are considering starting a website or advertising an existing site, you should definitely consider all of the great services that are being offered to you by these services.

If you find the right company that is skilled in these methods of optimization, you will be bound to not regret your decision and have your company’s websites success increase rapidly. Most professionals agree that these services are quickly starting to phase out most of the traditional forms of advertising that use to be considered industry standards. This is why it is better to educate your staff on these services now and take advantage of them immediately. This has proven to be the best way for new and old sites alike to build their reputation and have a long lasting following.

Meta Tags

Meta Tags are information placed within the head area of webpages. These tags are not visible to normal visitors (non-spiders) when viewed directly from the browser window, but can be seen by viewing the source code of the website); they give search engine robots (eg. Googlebot, MSNbot) and Internet browsers (like Mozilla Firefox, Internet explore) the specifics and overview of what the pages of the site are all about. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what “character set” to use or whether a web page has self-rated itself in terms of adult content. There are several meta tags within the HTML world.

If you think searchers will see your New Orleans website because you design one and throw it up there, think again. There are over eighty-two million results in a Google search for New Orleans and tacking a phrase at the end of it for your site name only narrows the results somewhat.

While some websites have no optimization and do extremely well, consider what those sites have going for them:

- They’re a well-established site (five or more years).

- They’re a branded company, such as Wal-Mart or Pizza Hut, and customers just type in their name.

- Their niche is so specialized that it only brings back a few results.

So what can you do?

Before you even put your website on the server, figure out where it fits.

Location: The fact that you’re based in New Orleans doesn’t mean anything; you’re using the World Wide Web. Are your clients going to be in New Orleans, Louisiana, the world?

Services/Products: What do you sell? Do you sell copywriting services or website design? Are you specialized in logo design? If you sell products, what makes your products stand out? Design, material and colors are good examples.

Keywords: Using what you came up with for location and services/products, build up a list of keywords and key phrases. Twenty to forty keywords and phrase are a good working base.

Competition: The companies competing for your spot may not be who you think they are. To find your competition, enter the top ten keywords and/or phrases, and then look at the top three results for each one. The websites you come up with are your direct competition. If you come up with too many results, however, you may want to reassess your top ten.

Optimization

With the keywords and phrases you’ve built, optimize your New Orleans website design:

Meta tags – if nothing else, at least use the title and description tags. Make them interesting, and use at least one keyword or phrase that describes the page. For instance:

Title: Website Design In New Orleans – Optimization Facts and Figures

Description: With just a few changes, we can optimize your New Orleans Website Design and double your site’s traffic!

Alt tags – Alt tags are alternative text for browsers that can’t show pictures. Imagine a website full of pictures that you can’t see – it’d be a confusing, blank page. To make up for this, coders use the alternative text. So, while you may not see a design portfolio, you’ll at least see the text “website design sample”. If possible, try to use a keyword in your alt tag.

Graphics – For optimization, it’s better to have less flash. While flash is impressive, search engines can’t read it. If you place all your content in flash video, or – heaven forbid – your whole page is flash, search engines look at the page and see nothing.

Content - Never forget content. Strong updated content draws the search engines and visitors. Use your keywords, but don’t over-do it. If you’ve picked the right ones, they should show up in natural writing.

Optimizing your New Orleans website design isn’t that hard. It’s not even that time consuming. For traffic and search engine purposes however, it places in the top five for importance.

Article by Walsaq Inc

Keyword density

is the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a web page compared to the total number of words on the page. In the context of search engine optimization keyword density can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant to a specified keyword or keyword phrase.

In the late 1990s, which was the early days of search engines, keyword density was an important factor in how a page was ranked. However, as webmasters discovered this and the implementation of optimum keyword density became widespread, it became a minor factor in the rankings. Search engines began giving priority to other factors that are beyond the direct control of webmasters. Today, the overuse of keywords, a practice called keyword stuffing, will cause a web page to be penalized.

Many SEO experts consider the optimum keyword density to be 1 to 3 percent. Using a keyword more than that could be considered search spam. The formula to calculate your keyword density on a web page for SEO purposes is (Nkr / Tkn) * 100[citation needed], where Nkr is how many times you repeated a specific keyword and Tkn the total words in the analyzed text. This will result in a keyword density value. When calculating keyword density, be sure to ignore html tags and other embedded tags which will not actually appear in the text of the page once it is published.

When calculating the density of a keyword phrase, the formula would be (Nkr * Nwp / Tkn) * 100, where Nwp is the number of words in the phrase. So, for example, for a page about search engine optimization where that phrase is used four times and there are four hundred words on the page, the keyword phrase density is (4*3/400)*100 or 3 percent.

There are so many internet marketing possibilities for promoting
an online business, or even a traditional business. The ability
to engage in internet marketing has truly opened the door for
women in business and has made working from home a lot easier
than it used to be.

Internet marketing can be much less expensive than traditional
marketing and it can reach a huge, precisely targeted audience.
Because there are no geographic barriers in internet marketing,
it is truly possible to do business worldwide and to sell
anything from anywhere, even from the comfort of your own home.

Following is a simple explanation of some of the most common
internet marketing options that you can use to promote your
business.

Article Distribution

Distributing professional articles with a resource box that
directs readers to your website is a very valuable and effective
method of internet marketing. The articles can be given away with
permission to reprint at-will under the terms that the article
content and resource box cannot be changed. Many website
operators will post these articles on their websites which will
direct visitors to your website as well as enhancing your
internet marketing link campaigns.

Directory Listings

Directory listings are a form of internet marketing that can be
very useful. Directories are a lot like search engines, only
listings in the directories are managed and ranked by people
rather than by automated, electronic means. Many directories
accept directory listings free of charge, so they can be an
inexpensive and effective form of internet marketing.

Email Marketing

Email marketing is a viable internet marketing technique that is
very similar to direct mail. Generally, it is best for internet
marketing messages sent via email to be sent to opt-in or
subscriber lists. However, third party lists can be purchased for
the purpose of email marketing.

If using third-party lists, check into how the email addresses
were collected and make sure that they are truly targeted lists
with content gathered from individual who opted to receive
information relevant to what you are sending.

Ezine Advertising

Ezine advertising, as an internet marketing option, is a lot like
advertising in a magazine; only the “magazine” is delivered to
subscribers electronically rather than through the mail.
Companies that distribute online newsletters often sale
advertising in their newsletters as well, and some may even trade
out for an advertisement in your newsletter.

Link Campaigns

Building links to your website from other websites that have
information relevant to your target market should be a part of
your internet marketing plan. Link popularity, the number of
links coming in to your website, and link relevancy, the
relevance of the website that is linking to you, can improve your
website ranking in the search engines as well as directing
targeted traffic to your site.

Pay-Per-Click Search Engine Marketing

Pay-per-click search engine marketing is one of the most
successful forms of internet marketing. Basically, pay-per-click
search engine advertising is a process whereby you bid on
specific keywords that will direct targeted traffic to your
website. You are listed in the search engines based upon the
amount you bid for the keyword. You are charged the bid price
each time a visitor clicks on the search engine listing, through
to your website. This is a good internet marketing option because
you only pay for successful click-throughs which result in
traffic to your website.

Portal Listings

Portals are similar to directories but are generally specific to
a topic or industry. Because visitors to portals have interest in
the topic, getting listed in a portal that is relevant to your
business can be a very effective internet marketing technique for
driving targeted, qualified traffic to your website.

Search Engine Marketing

Search engine marketing is a much preferred internet marketing option because the majority of visitors to just about any website come via the use of a search engine. Search engines use what is
called spiders or crawlers which are really just software
programs that index websites and determine their relevance, based
on the search engine’s rules, to the information a person using
an internet browser is looking for.

There are also meta search engines that draw from the results of
other search engines, and specialty search engines that are
geared to a particular topic or industry. To get listed in search
engines, a website needs to be optimized and submitted to the
search engines. Major search engines include Google, Yahoo!, MSN,
Alta Vista and others.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.com

So you’ve built your website, you know what keywords you want to target (i.e. what words your customers are searching for), and you’re ready to write your copy. You’ve been told that you should use your keywords frequently so that you appear in search results for those words. But what does “frequently” mean?

How many times should you use your primary keyword? This case study helps answer that question.

Some background on ”Keyword Density”

In order to understand optimum keyword usage, we first need to have some way of measuring keyword frequency. In the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world, frequency is actually referred to as density. Keyword density is a measure of the number of times your keyword appears on a page expressed as a percentage of the total wordcount of that page. For example, if your page has 100 words, and your keyword phrase appears 5 times, its density is 5%. So when you hear someone say “keyword density”, that’s normally what they’re talking about. (TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your page at LiveKeywordAnalysis.com.)

However, there is another, more complex measure of keyword density which takes into account the text components in the HTML of the page (i.e. the meta tags: Title, Keywords, Alt Text, Description, and Comments). When using this measure, you don’t just count the words your visitor sees; you also count the words in your meta tags. For example, if you have 100 words on your home page, 10 words in your Title tag, 20 words in your Description tag, 70 words in your Alt tags, and 10 words in your Comments tag, your total wordcount for the page is 100 + 10 + 20 + 70 + 10 = 210. Similarly, when counting keywords, you don’t just add up the number of times a visitor will see your keyword, you also count the number of times that keyword appears in your meta tags. For example, if your keyword appears 5 times in the home page copy, 3 times in the Title tag, 5 times in the Description tag, 30 times in your Alt tags, and twice in your Comments tag, your total keyword count is 5 + 3 + 5 + 30 + 2 = 45. So with a total wordcount of 210 and a keyword count of 45, your keyword density is 45/210 x 100 = 21%. It is argued that this measure of keyword density is more relevant as the search engines measure density in this fashion. (TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your page using this more complex measure at GoRank.com.)

As you can see, you need to be very aware of which measure you’re talking about when you’re talking “keyword density”. But let me reiterate; mostly when people talk about keyword density, they’re talking the simple measure.

What is the optimum keyword density

And now down to business… What keyword density (of either kind) should you be targeting on your website?

There’s a lot of debate surrounding this issue because the search engine companies don’t disclose the details of their algorithms (as that would allow people to abuse the system). Instead, people working in the SEO world are left to figure it out based on their experience.

A recent article by respected SEO and Blog expert, Wayne Hurlbert, (see Keyword Density: SEO Considerations) suggests that Google sees pages with a keyword density of greater than 2% as spam. It was this article which prompted me to analyze the keyword density of my copywriting website.

CASE STUDY

The Website: This case study analyzes the website for my advertising copywriting and SEO copywriting business, Divine Write – http://www.divinewrite.com. For my primary keyword, my site is now on page 1 of Google.com (out of approximately 900,000 search results).

Number of pages on site: At the time of writing, my website contained a total of 53 pages.

Primary keyword phrase: “copywriter”

Average keyword density: Using the simple measure of keyword density discussed above, the average keyword density of my copywriting website is 1.9%. Using the complex measure it’s 4.9%.

Keyword density range: Using the simple measure, my density ranged from 0.4% to 7.6%. Using the complex measure it ranged from 1.6% to 17.5%

Some comments on the figures

• The figures and corresponding ranking detailed in this case study may not be directly relevant to every site. There’s a lot I don’t know about the algorithms and there are bound to be other factors at play which I don’t know about.

• With regard to Wayne Hurlbert’s article, it would seem that he is referring to keyword density as calculated using the simple method discussed above.

• The range figures are noteworthy because they suggest that you don’t need to be paranoid about having some pages with a very high density and some with a very low density.

Review any publication on insurance social networking and they exhibit lead sources that aren’t new. A social network can reroute a new local lead source. Start socializing, using time wisely, and networking properly to develop a source for top leads..

Insurance social networking, cold calling, and a consistent lead generation program are the 3 methods engaged by insurance sales women and men to find prospects to sell insurance. Now, you should nearly eliminate cold calling. Lead generation and social networking are career tried and tested ways. However, the 2 ways need to be applied in the correct demeanour and proportion.

Otherwise, it is too easy to say that building a social network only points to success. It may be wise to compare insurance social networking with getting referrals. Referrals are a bonus for work formerly done.

You need to impose quality conduct, time, and truth. Most networks are simple to join and become accepted into, thus choose cleverly. Do a self-analysis of why you need to join a group. Be honest to oneself about this.

It needs time to develop this into a lead source. The time you invest should benefit you and the group. Interacting with the members, advances the time for your sincere interest to be rewarded. Be careful to think about first if any new group is a close enough match. A community real estate group might be convenient, but unless you’re selling homeowners insurance there’s not very much of a match.

Do not do something stupid like putting your card in the collection plate or putting flier on all of the vehicles in the carpark. Think of planting roots which will blossom. The more you volunteer, the more folk will start to associate your name with trust. Nonetheless, never invest all your time in one just one social network.

Other common, yet valuable social networking groups include the local chamber of commerce and changing into a member of the welcome wagon. Start one, if one no longer exists. Join the area watch board, a food bank, or an adopt-a-pet center. In fact, look for anywhere you can group along with other members to discuss issues. Try helping folk you otherwise wouldn’t have had an opportunity of meeting. It isn’t hard to turn insurance networking into an advantage. A powerful commitment from you of determination and time to build contacts is required.

How To Analyze Keyword Density For Web Content Writing?

Before getting into the issue of what the ultimate keyword density would be, it is first obligatory to grasp the meaning of a keyword. A keyword is a word or a phrase that is entered by the user into the search engines in order to search for information one is seeking for. Keywords are one of the vital tools that help in the working of the search engines. They help the web crawlers in researching the significance of a web page.

The frequency of repetition of keyphrases on a web page in accordance to the total number of words on a{n internet | web | web page is called word density. While some search engines permit larger keyword density, others such as Google puts a restriction on it and therefore needs to be abided by the site so as to avoid the suspicion of spamming due to bigger keyword density.

However, there’s nothing like an accepted ideal keyword or keyphrase density as the algorithms of search engines change often. So, there are different keyword densities that are allowed by different search engines. While MSN and Google don’t permit more than two percent of keyword density, Yahoo gives liberation of 5% word density on one web page. Also, some search engines stress more on the usage of keywords in Meta tags, title and web copy, others like Google prefers to search keywords in the text of the web page.

Perfect keyphrase density also keeps on varying according to the kind of keywords that are used. On the one hand, one very competitive keyword is sufficient for a single page, a frequency of 2-3 is appropriate for the less competitive ones. Reasonably competitive keywords are especially part of keyword phrases and therefore should be utilized on home page and must also be linked to other internal pages.

1%-7% of keyword density is what should be directed for on a single web page. 1% of keyword density in a hundred words can be accomplished by inserting the keyphrase just once. However, insertion of keyword only once in thousand word will not prove to be of any use to rate higher with search engines.

One keyword for one page is the best policy for a higher SEO ranking. These tricks work well, but when it comes to very competitive keywords, even a higher keyword density will not do any good for a better SEO ranking. Other elements such as anchor text and inbound links are also crucial for a higher SEO ranking.

 Page 78 of 79  « First  ... « 75  76  77  78  79 »