Search Engine Optimization

A great reference for search engine algorithm factors/signals. I have found many of these to work well for me.

http://www.seomoz.org/article/search-ranking-factors#ranking-factors

Digitalpoint used to check search engines (currently supporting Google, Yahoo and Bing) for search engine ranking and track those ranking historically, which as you probably know is critical when doing Internet marketing for your website(s).

Go here: http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords/

Swoosty SEO Tools for Firefox

Automatically displays the Google pagerank and Alexa ranking of each site you visit, and provides essential tools for SEO and analysis: indexed pages, backlinks, related links, keyword density analyser, nofollow highlighting, Alexa infos, WHOIS...

Page Rank Display for Google Chrome

This extension gets the toolbar PageRank of the page open in the current tab. If it fails it tries getting the PR of the hostname instead, and if that succeeds it shows the PR followed by the letter h. If neither succeeds (if the site doesn't have a PR or for some reason the extension isn't working as it should) it will show a greyed-out question mark.

When you click the extension icon it will bring up a popup/overlay with links to several things interesting when analysing a site, such as pages indexed by Google, Alexa information and backlinks from Yahoo! Site Explorer.

Link: http://www.galido.net/blog/index.php/coolblog/2009/12/14/jingle-bells-played-backwards

See original post: Jingle Bells Backwards

Be on the top of Google using Digg

Here's how:

1. Determine what keyword(s) you would like to appear under. You can use Google's keyword tool (Google Google Keyword Tool). Do some analyzing by Googling the keywords that catch your attention. If the keywords appear in the millions+, there is high competition for those keywords, and it may be difficult to get to the top. Also, if there is high advertisement competition, it will be more difficult. Keep analyzing until you find keywords that have low advertisement competition, as well a results in the 100,000's and write them down.

2. Create a Digg Account and log in. On the top of the page click on Submit New. Enter the url of the website you are promoting. In the title box, type in the keyword you would like to focus on. In the description, type a description about your website and enter the keyword you are focusing on 2-3 times. Under choose a topic, choose a topic. Follow and answer the next few prompts.

3. Do the same by creating a profile at linkedin.com as well as popular forums and directories.

"Moguling.com has marketing tools and features you won’t find in other blog platforms."

http://moguling.com/

Keywords are text entered by the user into a search engine or directory. Found matches (known as hits) appear in a list. To get an idea of what top keywords users are currently entering, view some of these sites:

AOL Hot Searches (Top current queries, or see those in the last hour, last day and within particular categories.): http://hotsearches.aol.com/search/hotsearch.jsp

Google Trends (Allows you to tap into Google's database of searches, to determine what's popular.): http://google.com/trends

Lycos 50 (Long-standing service showing top searches at Lycos each week): http://50.lycos.com/

MSN Search Insider (Top 200 queries on MSN Search): http://www.imagine-msn.com/insider/

Yahoo Buzz Index (Shows you what's hot and what's not in terms of search topics at Yahoo): http://buzz.yahoo.com/

These sites display keywords that people have entered to search each specific search engine.

Search Engine Optimization - Key Suggestions

1. Submit Site to search engines

2. Submit site to directories (yahoo directories, dmoz project). Participate in forums and include links to your site.
Option: It is an option to get on the list by yahoo and dmoz for a fee of $300. This help you greatly in increasing your page rank and will help move traffic to your site.

3. Analyze page titles and keywords. Find high traffic keywords and optimize your site according to those keywords.

4. Insert search engine friendly meta tags; create robots.txt file and urlist.txt to tell search engines what links are available on your site
Note: Companies like google, altavista, msn, etc. do not look at meta tags as high priority when determining page relevance; they are heavy on alt tags and content;

5. Optimize your content. Use tags; ex. give your images alt tags with keywords

6. If products are advertised, create a ror.xml file that lists all your products and descriptions of products; this information is pulled by the search engines

7. Create a sitemap to help expose available links on your site

8. Page Rank: Page rank is increased by how popular your site is on the internet. Page rank is calculated depending on how many site have linked you to theirs. If you site appears on a high ranking website, your rank will also be increased
You: Start exchanging links with other industry sites to help improve your page rank