Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’
A look into the history of how websites came to be;
Where was your business 40, 30, or even 20 years ago? At those times, The Sales Corner wasn’t even an afterthought. And neither were a lot of other places we interact with today on a daily basis. Today many of our businesses, brick and mortar, or just online consist of also having web site counterparts. I’m sure plenty of those out there have paid pretty pennies for their sites. For example, Apple.com paid millions just in pre-research of the market for their web site. That didn’t even include the design costs.
I forget exactly where or how I came across it it at the time, but I ended up getting my brain turned onto this thing called Hypertext Markup Language or “HTML” for short. I remember that when I started learning about this new programming language, at the time it was using version 2.0 tags and markups. As I dug in and learned even more about it, I discovered that this programming language was thought up by Tim Berners-Lee who was at a place called CERN, and another person named Dan Connolly who was with Atrium Technologies Inc. To my current knowledge, I believe you can find both of these guys today at the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). W3C today plays a huge role in how our many web browsers interpret what we see and how they interact with Website HTML, CSS and other web programming languages!
This month is It’s a very exciting on for them, and for The Sales Corner LLC, because this year in 2011 they have announced the first W3C Developer Conference, W3Conf! WooT! Good stuff, hopefully this type of conference will make it easier for web developers going forward!
I’m excited about this too because since I can remember no web browser sees the code in the exact same way as some other browser. It’s odd how interpretations of codes are simply like our human interpretations of our business. Some people see it one way, while others see it in a different way even though the information is in appearance; the same.
You see, I was designing websites several years before a lot of places we know and love today existed. I’ve seen the times change. I’ve seen the businesses online and off change. I’ve seen a lot of places and people come and go with the changes. I know that change is inevitable, and that’s why The Sales Corner LLC has changed over time and today creates a change in how you can change for yourself!
I remember being a part of BBB’s (Bulliten Board Systems) and other like places like various MUDS (Multi User Database System) and text base game environments.
It was late 1995 that I started really digging in and developing with HTML 2.0 after studying bits and pieces of HTML 1.0 and just learning as I went through the process to reach the end goal. I was so excited when I created my first web page that said “hello world!” with a black background! It was amazing! A while after, I went on an endeavor of creating a website in HTML listingPlaystation games and their cheat codes. It was for my friends and I. I had spent hours just scouring the web looking at all the other sites, trying the game cheats for what games I had, borrowing and buying the ones I didn’t, and then aggregating the information into my own web page. By the time I was finished with the bulk of the project, there were over 200 games and cheats on that website. – Aside from the occasional yard sale or store special purchase of a game, what did it cost me to develop the web page? Nothing, except my time. There were no hosting charges, or development fees, or costs of having someone do it for me. I realize now, looking back, that I wasn’t aware what my time was really worth to my friends. That wouldn’t come until later in my life.
Later on my websites continued to evolve into using better coding methods and more efficient skills uses. Eventually I began understanding custom graphics creations and 3d applications, and then also started using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) when those came about.
The crazy boom of Search Engines and being “truly” relevant with your SEO:
When I think about Search Engines, there are two that really come to mind. They are Google, and Yahoo.
Particularly Google had grabbed my attention along with other web developers in 1998. There was this new web based company with a bright idea for a searchable engine on the web that would use web links to determine the importance of it’s individual web pages. It was “the Google search engine”.
This offered web site owners the promise of their websites being found with the simple action of someone searching for a keyword or phrase. This is also what started a lot of the website search engine optimization tactics that are still being practiced by some today. Those that didn’t understand how it worked, couldn’t utilize it and maximize their success as well. Those who did, wanted to exploit it for their own success or that of their clients success. Each one deployed tactics, codes, and website content that although “relevant” in the laymen form, did not provide the value that people expected.
Back then, it was easy to search and get results. The flaw was, sometimes the results didn’t yield what you intended to find. It was possible to identify what search trends were being searched. Therefore it was possible to create a file on your directory with nothing but those keywords and phrases. The Google search engine at the time would identify with those pages being full of words and phrases that really had nothing to do with the content, but still tell you about them, because that’s what you searched for.
During the boom, there were only a few that identified how to stay in tuned with the Google algorithms. They were not always public about their changes. The people that knew how it worked, would charge loads of dollars to get your site listed on the top of the search. They were spawning practices like exchanging links or sharing links on sites and anything they else they could do to get Google searches to pick up on their website. Even if it meant organizing with links that had no relation to the actual website content. Unfortunately, the result for a lot of these places as Google changes, ended up hurting a lot of credibility from reputable sources in the process due to the “fast acting ways to get recognized” which were being practiced by their webmasters.
You’ve heard content is king? But it also needs to be relevant content!
I understand like a lot of people now today, that in order to get great rankings on any search engine, particularly on Google, you need to practice some things on a regular basis. You don’t need to worry about deploying a page full of keywords or link backs to your site. Google’s smarter then that these days! A long time ago I learned some ways to identify how Google will pick your website up long before that of someone who spends all their time on a link exchange. Here’s why!
Nowadays, Google has their hand in all kinds of things that are web based; and to take advantage of their search engine, why not utilize their tools that are obviously promoted by their search engine criteria! After all, Google loves what Google loves right?!
Google searches have a great ability to show your website on top in the first five which ultimately can give you some really spectacular search engine ranking results and traffic. However, you don’t just get high rankings by paying someone to get you there. You have to do the work. Google recognizes things differently today then they did in 1998. Today, in order to get high SEO rankings I’ve compiled a list of things you’ll need to do every single day……..no, I’m not joking. Every day. If you can’t do it every day, or have someone do it for you every day, you won’t get the results you’re looking for immediately, and it will take more time then you’d probably like to wait.
Here’s that list so you can get started NOW!
Generate new content and deliver something of value every day…
Make sure you generate NEW content every single day. Your content should be 90% or more relevant to your entire site! This includes Saturday’s and Sunday’s. Weekends are one of the busiest times for searches because people are at home, off work, and looking for things that interest them. Each piece of content should be somewhat different in definition, or if the content is the nearly the same, change it in ways so that’s it’s becomes somewhat NEW or SIMILAR to the older version, but NOT THE EXACTLY THE SAME.
Toot your own horn, spread the word, Advertise, then “wash, rinse, and repeat”…
Don’t SPAM! I’m not suggesting you send SPAM messages to people you don’t know or have never interacted from.
Utilize your network, but keep your messages to a minimum. At the same time, you need to find your balance with the people that want to hear from you. When people want to hear from you, it’s not spamming unless you’re always giving them something they don’t care about. You need to tell people in your market or area of like mindedness about your content and drive it to the people for them to find it. Telling people about stuff we like, or enjoy goes back long before the internet was conceived. Spreading the word and word of mouth has become even more valuable today with web applications like Facebook and Twitter. Join or create your own social networks! People that want to hear from you will follow or join over time! The more your active with your site is on a daily basis, the better results you’ll get from page ranking with Google. Google is always looking for highly “active and popular” websites and blogs! That’s one way to spot some really good and relevant content!
Stop just exchanging links with Link Exchanges and start linking relevantly with those around you…
It used to be you could just submit your links to a directory, or write a page on your website with a thousand links on it. That doesn’t work the way it used to. Refrain from this activity. High Rankings about based on relevance and popularity today. Don’t bother just exchanging links anymore, or even submitting to link exchanges! You’ll find this takes more time, or longer time, then it would if you sat down and wrote a 150 word blog post about your work, or your business, or someones work or product etc… You need to get EXTERNAL LINKS and BACK LINKS to your site in other places on your own page, and those that are also providing the same types of content or information you do!! Remember “relevance” (am I being redundant now?..). When you establish good relationships with those in your network and get your link permanently placed on your their pages or client’s web pages, you are creating a “web” of links that reach back to you! The reason you want permanent placement is to help with your “popularity and relevance.” You’ll find that as your online popularity grows, so with your attention seekers looking for your information from other resources they have identified with your links. You’ll rank higher on search engines once you start gathering that traffic!
Install Social Media Tools and Google PLUS into your website, blogs, pages, articles, and everywhere…
In this article, it might be the best advice I can give anyone on today’s platform of advanced tools to get noticed and become popular. There are so many providers of applications now that it’s easy to find tools like those of the Social Media Networks and things like Google PLUS that will be able to help you grow your search engine rankings! Just these things alone have the power to get you listed on top when everyone else is falling off! They are relatively easy to install with little knowledge of development and the companies that make tools like these are very savy and provide very detailed instructions to get you working! With the integration of tools like this, you are most certainly on your way to better and higher Search Engine Rankings!
Good Luck
Matt G
The Sales Corner LLC
For more information on the types of things The Sales Corner LLC can do for your business, website, or brick and mortar, you can can follow this link to our Free Membership Information page, or view our Digital Services and Products Store. If you’d like to become a member of The Sales Corner LLC to get more Free Sales and Marketing or Business help, you can fill out this form now. To go back and understand even more history, there’s a wonderful story about The Sales Corner LLC here that you can review.
Hi everyone,
We’ve recently published our own Alexa Toolbar! It’s compatible with Firefox and Microsoft Internet Explorer.
Alexa.com
Now you can stay in touch with The Sales Corner no matter where you are or what you are up to on the web!
You can download it here.
Please feel free to submit your feedback about this tool!
Thanks.
This article is going to talk to you about Search Engine Optimization otherwise known as SEO.
It’s funny because it seems to me that at least daily I will read one article that talks about how SEO is dying or dead. Then, turning my attention to another website or publication I can find an article that speaks of just the opposite that says SEO is alive and well. The bottom line is that it is going to be something people need to pay attention to, in order to help their sites improve in the areas of page ranking. Especially with places like Google.
The Sales Corner certainly does not officially take a stance on either side of it being good or bad idea, but what I can tell you is that SEO is certainly needed for any website. I would only argue that even if you have years of experience behind the tips and tricks and all there is to consider about it, the result your going to achieve will still vary from person to person and website to website.
I always have to look funny when someone tells me that search engine optimization techniques are not good for them or their site because it simply isn’t working for them, and they view it as a time waster. Proceeding to ask that person questions often results in their eyes glazing over from lack of real knowledge about what tools or tricks they are trying to use. You eventually discover that they only did a couple of things that did show some results. Of those results, the person failed to improve on them to make them better with some change, or failed to further address the optimization on their website or blogs by overlooking the idea that they need to use their keywords in articles or posts etc… There conclusion to their SEO problems is just them saying “my SEO isn’t working for me so it must not work, or I don’t know what I’m doing so I cannot achieve results, or both….”
I certainly don’t think anyone should feel negative about something they have tried and failed at, or tried and gotten under estimated results. Simply look at it like you’ve found something you know not to do anymore, or repeat history.
So, what can you do to become a better Search Engine Optimizer for your website or blog? We’ve provided a list of things you can do to keep up with algorithmic changes (which shouldn’t affect you much as long as you’re always reviewing your optimizations..) that may occur in the process.
Use these 5 pointers below to help you address SEO for your website or blog and see where you stand in the mix of things.
1) Utilize and learn from Google’s Webmaster Central’s SEO Page
This is off their first paragraph: “SEO is an acronym for “search engine optimization” or “search engine optimizer.” Deciding to hire an SEO is a big decision that can potentially improve your site and save time, but you can also risk damage to your site and reputation. Make sure to research the potential advantages as well as the damage that an irresponsible SEO can do to your site.” Truth is, The Sales Corner could not agree more. You can find the page I speak of here: http://www.google.com/support/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=35291
For anyone beginning to look at SEO or becoming familiar with it, I would highly encourage reading up on the following which are also referenced on the page link above;
Google Webmaster Guidelines
Google 101: How Google crawls, indexes and serves the web.
2) Get Back links to your Website or Blog!
ALWAYS be working to get back links to your website. Be talking to people and building relationships with other websites and blogs in your niche. Back links are (you) = (posting a link for someone else to their site on your own) When Google Bot goes out to index your page, it will identify the back link, and follow it to that person’s page…. One of Google’s many algorithms that it looks at is “link popularity” or in other words “Google: How many “external” links to your website can we find that are not on your own website?”
3) Use Specific Keywords and Search Phrases
Please do not use just one or just two keywords for your optimization. Our rule of thumb is that you have at least 5-7 (minimum) of them not including search “phrases” which are tracked separately by Google. These are what people type into the search bar on Google, and google will pop up that window showing you similar searches. Google tracks “keywords” and “keyword phrases” so use them both to your benefit!
A sub point to this is ALWAYS be watching for new keywords or phrases that can bring you more traffic!
4) New Content, New Content, New Content
Google is very keen on NEW content and NON DUPLICATED content for your website. If you can publish something new and different every day, you’ll be a leg up over the website and blog owners who only post once or twice a week!
Content creation drives traffic, traffic drives leads, lead’s drive sales!
5) Creating Links to your own pages or websites: Intra Linking
You’ve heard of those site maps right? What is a site map? It’s a road map of what your website looks like, without all the fancy looking stuff. It usually looks like a bunch of links to various places on your website. So how can knowing this help your SEO? Well, when you write about a particular subject or topic, later, you may right something else related to it, you post a link to that first topic inside the second article…… That’s an intra link (linking to your own site, or site pages, or site content, from your own site)
The Sales Corner hopes that this provides some additional insight and tips for doing better SEO for your website or blog. Please feel free to utilize us in the event you’d like further education or resources to help with your SEO endeavors. Email us for more info thesalescorner@gmail.com – “Free SEO Help” in the subject.
Regards,
Matt G
The Sales Corner
Here are ten tips that you can use to write your Blog.
- Make your opinion known to the World Wide Web. Don’t be shy!
- Have links and more links. Links drive traffic!
- Write with passion about your subject matter. This can be for any blog writer!
- Frequently post articles about things that relate to your blog. This can generate great buzz!
- Make your article and post headlines catching! People like to know bits before reading!
- Include special notes and comments in your posts. Make them personable, it’s your blog!
- Frequently edit your posts and keep them updated. People like freshness and to know that it’s not stale!
- When you write, make your posts easily scannable. Should anyone want to find anything on a whim, that is why!
- Show a lot of relevant catagory keywords in your post. They are a great type of SEO!
- Make sure you frequently accept input and change your blog regularly! Dynamically changing content is key!
These are just 10 tips that you can follow to make your Blog improved. Most of these tips can cross over into any Blog. Go at it and have fun with your blog. Be sure to stay professional, but also personable and approachable at the same time. Readers will not come back if they are not grabbed by your Blog with the content you provide.
