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Webmaster Tips
By Sharon Housley (c) 2006

According to Matt Cutts, there are over 100 factors that affect
search engine ranking. For those of you who don't know, Matt is
a Google guy guru, he is employed by Google but writes an
independent blog and shares information related to Google and
search engine optimization. Unfortunately, of those 100 items
that account for search engine ranking, there are only a few
that webmasters can actually control.

Unless you are a interested in an exercise of futility, it is
important to only focus on those ranking factors that you, as a
webmaster, can control and influence.

What Search Engine Factors Do Webmasters Control?

Outside of the obvious (webpage title and description) those
items over which the webmaster has the most control are:
PageRank, TrustRank, Anchor Text, Keyword Density, Domain Age,
URL, and Relevant Links.

How Can a Webmaster Use These Items to Help Ranking?

First off--the obvious, each and every web page should have a
descriptive page specific title and description. The title,
description, and header tags are channels to communicate the
most important details of a specific webpage. They should be
used effectively, but not be abused. The web page should make
use of h1 and h2 tags (header tags) to emphasize pertinent
keywords and phrases.

Particular attention should be paid when formatting urls.
Keywords related to the webpage can and should be used in the
webpage urls. Use hyphens rather than underscores between the
keywords. Search engines are designed by developers and
programming languages will recognize a hyphen and distinguish
separate words, while an underscore blends the words. Keywords
in the URL should not be abused, as search engines do not
appreciate excessively long urls. Avoid using characters like
ID= in the URL since many search engines will see it as a unique
session ID and not spider the contents of the webpage.

The website's navigation depth should not exceed 3-4 levels. The
shallow website depth will make search engines deep crawl easier,
ensuring that they will be able to spider the entire content of
your website. If you add a new page and wish for it to be
spidered quickly, add a link to it from an existing spidered web
page.

Domain hosting and location do matter! A .uk domain and a
webhost located in the UK will increase the domains search
engine position in any .uk search engine. If you are targeting
a specific region or market consider purchasing a local domain.

Obviously you control the websites content; bad content or no
content means no incoming links. Good content has the potential
to attract good quality unsolicited links.

What Kind of Content Generally Attracts Quality Links?

The idea is to develop quality content that will result in
incoming links. Think of JibJab (http://www.jibjab.com). They
portrayed a controversial subject in a humorous way without
alienating their audience. While JibJab was able to garner a lot
of attention, it's a tricky tight-rope to walk. Consider adding
tutorials that explain a specific technology, create a niche
directory or a topic specific glossary, post industry news,
maintain a blog with fresh content, or write how to articles.

Take advantage of your content. If you write a press release
don't just send it to the editors, add it to your website in
a press center. Submit the press release to public relations
websites. There are a number of press related websites like
PRWeb that are really good and all will result in good quality
incoming links back to your website. Also add your press
release(s) to an RSS feed. Not only will this communicate to
your customers that new products or updates are available, but
you will also benefit from RSS search engine and directory links.

When you post a release or content that has genuine value, use
social bookmarking tools (like digg, del.icio.us, furl) to
bookmark the content. These social bookmarking sites are
becoming increasingly important in weighing the value of a site.
The large search engines do not yet use social bookmarking in
their algorithms, but it is quite possible, and highly likely,
that they will in the future. If the webpage/content has genuine
value, others will social bookmark it as well. The bookmarks are
viral and with increasing popularity there is more emphasis
placed on content. Additionally, bloggers notoriously skim
social bookmarking sites for content to write about which will
result in additional links. Keep in mind that in order to
bookmark a webpage, it really must have genuine value.

Before we talk more about links, there are a few warnings worth
mentioning.

What are the Link Warnings?

The first is to attain links gradually. Search engines prefer
links obtained over time rather than links achieved all at once.
Avoid link schemes, link farms, or overt reciprocal links. They
can be time consuming and have very little benefit. Avoid links
on the C block. If you own multiple domains, be sure not to
triangulate links. Search engines have become wise to this and
they prefer a linking scheme that is more like a star (or web).

What Keywords Should You Optimize For?

When determining what keywords to optimize a website for, there
are a number of tools that will assess the number of times that
a keyword or phrase is searched on, the number of websites/
webpages competing for that keyword or phrase, and rate the
phrase. Obviously, the terms that have more searches and less
competition are the best to optimize for--if, and only if, they
relate to your product or service. If you optimize for terms
that are too broad, you will likely increase traffic but
decrease your conversions.

It is really a balancing act. Two of the more popular tools
available are Keyword Discovery and Word Tracker. Also, talk to
friends or family members and ask what phrases they would use to
describe your product or service. You might be surprised at the
terms they use. Consider optimizing for regional variations.
Look at the variety of terms used to describe soda - tonic, pop,
soda, soda pop, or cola are all relevant and popular, but only
within a specific region. Examine web logs to determine what
your users are using, look at the language used in emails and
forum posts and consider optimizing specific pages for popular
descriptive terms.

And finally, use competitive intelligence to locate links and
keywords. What are your competitors using? Analyze the adwords
they bid on, look at their meta tags, look at their anchor
links.

There is a wealth of information out there. No real mystery to
it, so use it to your advantage.
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Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll
http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing,
publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages
marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text
messaging software company.
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