SEO - Description Tag Tips

If your title tag is considered the headline then think of your description tag as the ad copy below the headline. A good description tag will compel the reader to visit your website.

Google cuts off the displayed description tag at about 150 characters, but may index up to 185 characters. Other engines may go up to 250 characters, but will still only display about 150. Therefore, try to say what you've got to say in 150 characters or less, but feel free to use up to 180, and even up to 250 if you're not concerned with the entire thing getting indexed by all the search engines.

Your description tag is not only sales copy for people to read, deciding to click your ad or not, but it's also food for the hungry search engine spiders. There's probably no stronger or more important meta tag than the description tag.

However, one mistake I see a lot is people trying to stuff too much information into their meta description tag, then reusing that meta description in multiple places on their website. Don't describe your whole business, just describe the page in question.

For example, let's say you're a contractor, and you provide plumbing, remodeling, and electrical work. You would want to have a completely different meta description tag on each of your service pages. Don't make the mistake of using one description for all your pages.

Use your primary keyphrase in the beginning of your description tag too. This gives a higher keyword prominence percentage to the search engines and your site will rank higher. Don't OVERuse your keyphrase though, or it can be considered webspam. Higher then zero keyword prominence is good, but higher still is not always better.

Use natural sounding language, proper grammar, and try to peak interest in the subject. Remember, you want the reader to click your ad, not just to be found. how many times have you skipped over a search result because the two lines of text you see in the SERPS were just gibberish.

Finally, if you're a local business, i would encourage you to put your address, including your zip code in your description meta tag. I usually put it after the 150th character, but complete it before the 180th. the reason for this is that there's strong evidence to suggest that this will help your local search results. as more and more search engines are trying to determine what their visitors want, local search matters now more than ever.

About the Author:
Scott Hendison is an internet consultant that specializes in search engine optimization and internet marketing. He has written over 100 articles that are available on his website. He has also developed a tutorial area for beginning search engine optimization, at 'SEO101'
Submitted: 2006-10-23
Article Source: GoArticles

Top Five Tips for Successful Link Building

Good search engine optimizers (SEO´s) understand the importance of building a network of incoming links to their page in order to improve ranking results in the major search engines, but in their scuffle to push their web pages to the top, some of them are forgetting the old adage “work smarter, not harder” and they end up wasting countless hours getting links that do little - if anything at all – to help.

Here are five shortcuts that will help anyone engaged in a link building campaign to get better results, faster.

1) Remember The “Link Building Exponential”

Google has many ways of telling when a webmaster is creating an artificial network of links to a page, but savvy SEO´s will avoid trouble by considering the “link building exponential”. This is a measurement based on the premise that incoming links to a page should increase more or less at the same rate as the popularity of the page. In other words, adding too many links too fast to a page that does not seem to merit them blow-up in your face. Avoid this setback by taking your time and get quality links.

2) Get Links From Pages That Are Closely Related To Your Own

My experience has shown me that some of the most valuable links you can possibly get are from web pages that use not only the same key words that you do, but which have links from the same pages that link to you. Get links from these “perfectly related” pages and the effect on your rankings will seem almost magical.

3) Identify Directories That Are Relevant To The Content Of Your Page

There must be tens of thousands of directories on the web and that number will only continue to grow. Some SEO´s waste their time by registering their web page in any directory that will accept the listing, but I have found that it is worth spending the extra time to register the directories that have a direct relationship to the web page I am trying to place. I do not get as many links, but the links I do get have a much stronger effect on my rankings.

Finding the directories that are a good fit for the page you want to place is easy if you use two of Google´s operators: INURL and INTITLE.

Say, for example, that you are trying to position a web site dedicated to graphic design, logically you would want to find all the directories that have a “Graphic Design” category and see them ordered by relevancy:

INURL: “phrase” – returns all of the pages that contain “phrase” within its URL.

The search in Google would be:

INURL: “web design” + “add url”, or, INURL: “web design” “add url”, or, INURL: “web design” + “add your site”

Another option to find directories relevant to your web page is to use the operator “INTITLE” which shows all the pages that have the keywords in the title.

In this case the search would be:

INTITLE. “phrase” , which returns all the pages that contain “phrase” in its title.

The search in Google would be:

INTITLE: “directory” + web design

These simple steps can save countless hours in finding the right directories, and the links you can build from these focused sources will give your page more weight.

4) Position For Certain Regions Or Countries

Google determines the location of a page by the extension of its domain (ex. .uk, .es, .com.ar, etc). In the case that the domain has a generic suffix, (such as .com, .biz, .net, .org, etc.), Google will assume that the country of origin is the same as the country where the page is being hosted.

Depending on the content of the page I am working on, I will sometimes want to position the page in international AND country specific search engines. If this sounds like a strategy that would help you, simply concentrate your efforts on obtaining links from pages and directories which, in the eyes of Google, “reside” in the country you want to target.

5) Vary Your Anchor Text

Too many SEO´s use only their main keywords in the anchor text that links to their page. I have found this to be bad practice, since search engines interpret these links to be “unnatural” when they find too many of them.

Get around this by switching the order of the key words in your anchor text to create new variations. For example, say you want to build links to a web page that specializes in link building, your anchor texts could read: “link building service”; “cheap link building”; “effective link building”, or “link building company”. Get 500 links using these four different descriptors, and you will get more than twice the effect as 1000 links using only “link building”. This strategy has worked for me, and it should work for you, too.

About the Author:
Carlos Marruffo is in charge of link building at BeGlobal.biz, an e-commerce firm that specializes in search engine optimization and web page translations.
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Yahoo SEO Techniques

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.

About The Author:
Matt Jackson
About WebWiseWords
WebWiseWords specializes in SEO writing geared toward any search engine or any SEO guidelines. They can create website content pages, articles, blog entries, and more that utilize search engine optimization rules to help promote your site with all of the major search engines, not just Google.
Article Submitted On: October 19, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

How To Improve Conversion Rates On E-commerce Sites

As competition increases in the online market space, more companies vie for Top 10 placement on the search engines, driving up costs per click. In such an environment it is imperative for companies bidding on top positions to convert as many visitor clicks into customers as possible. This article discusses a few measures all companies can take to improve conversion rates on their e-commerce sites.

1. Keyword Research

• Ensure that your keyword research is thorough. If you only select the most obvious keywords, you will pay more, since all your competitors will also be bidding on them.
• If you select only generic keywords, you will suffer low conversion rates since visitors typing such words in are often not yet ready to buy.
• If you miss out the unique keywords which no one else is bidding on, you will miss the opportunity to sell to visitors that search on these keywords.
• Use negative keywords to discourage irrelevant searches from displaying your advertisement.

2. Effective Ad Copy

• Ensure that your ads describe your product or service precisely.
• Do not lie in your ads to attract visitors. If visitors don't find what your ad promised on your site, they will leave, making your conversion rates fall.
• Use your ad to discourage the wrong sort of people from clicking. E.g. if you sell a premium product, don't use words like "cheap" or "bargain".

3. Consistency

• Deliver what your ad promises. Always.
• Make sure that your offline and online advertising image is consistent.
• Most importantly, for e-commerce sites, ensure that the price quoted is consistent throughout your site and through the entire checkout process.

4. No Hidden Costs

• Make customers aware of any extra costs at the very start of the checkout process.
• VAT and postage should be clearly mentioned as extras.
• If the amount quoted at the start is unexpectedly different from the final total, customers will abandon the checkout process and shop elsewhere. This will make your conversion rate suffer greatly.

5. Comprehensive Search Engine Marketing

• Customers often browse and return for products. If they can't find you when they return, you will loose the conversion.
• Top 10 placement in the natural and paid listings often reinforces customer trust in your brand, making them more likely to buy from your site.
• Ensure that your search engine marketing campaign also builds a brand in the minds of browsers, so that when they are ready to buy, they will come to your site since it is the only one they recognize.

When you increase conversion rates on your e-commerce site, you can automatically afford to bid more per click without suffering a loss. If you find CPC's rising and profitably diminishing rapidly, the first step you should take is to review your site to ensure that you are converting as many visitors as possible. The maths is very simple:

If you currently pay £1.00 per click on Google, convert only 1% of these clicks, and the profit you make on each conversion is just £100, your total cost = total profit, meaning you just break even.

If you have to raise your CPC to £1.10 per click in order to maintain your top 10 position, you will suffer a loss.

However, if you just raised your conversion rate by 1%, you would actually find yourself making a profit, since your cost would now be £110 for 100 clicks but the profit made from 2% conversion, i.e. 2 sales would be £200!

Other articles to read:

• The advent of RSS advertising
• Website accessibility important for disabled visitors

SEO Weekly

About the Author:
Farhad Divecha
Before founding AccuraCast, Farhad worked for and provided consulting services to a number of large and medium sized enterprises in the UK and USA including 3Com, Proctor & Gamble and Household (HFC, HSBC). He has over 7 years of experience marketing products and services online and offline.
Added: 24 Oct 2006
Article Source: http://articles.simplysearch4it.com/article/40260.html