When Seo Meets User Experience
SEO gets a lot of talk and attention these days Everyone seems to understand the importance of high search engine rankings, everyone seems to be optimizing their sites or investing into SEO services and SEO software And there’s no denying that SEO is crucial for any business big or small that wants to succeed online However this laser focus on search engine optimization often makes webmasters and business owners forget about one critical thing - user experience . .User experience is the second set of wheels that spin a website to success If you only do SEO you’re driving a two-wheeled car which won’t take you far But as soon as you start thinking about the ways to optimize your website for human visitors not just search engine bots you’ll find out that SEO and UE (user experience) go well together Here are some tips you can take away and apply to your website to make it more search engine and user friendly . . .Use Short Logical URLs . .There are a number of reasons why logical (and preferably short) URLs are better then extremely long ones with multiple parameters An URL that reads logical and conveys a meaning like www somesite com/sport-cars html is a) more likely to rank for the keywords contained in it b) is more likely to be clicked because users understand what the page they will be taken to is about c) is more likely to be linked to Now compare it to something as awkward as this: www somesite com/index php?u_id=321&sid=3ec32444 5356hdfgssdfg45 would you click or share such link? . .Revise the URLs on your website and see how you can improve them . .Keyword-Driven Navigation . .We seem to understand the importance of keyword research perfectly well We target the right keywords that speak the language of the searchers because they won’t find our website otherwise Yet as soon as the visitor gets on our website he’s supposed to guess what exactly we mean by the names of our categories and site sections . .It’s a much better idea to stick with the logic we use when picking the keywords and use the same names for all the navigation on the site First, because this way the users will easily find the info they are looking for, second, because this will give us an extra boost in the search results . .Fix Broken Links . .No one likes broken links: your visitors don’t like them, search engine spiders don’t like them and I’m pretty much sure you don’t like them too Have you checked your site for broken links yet? Then it’s high time you did . .Create Sitemaps . .Having a sitemap of your site that you can feed to the search engine crawlers to make sure all of your web pages will get indexed is an important task on every SEO’s checklist But it’s an even better idea to create two sitemaps: one for the search engine bots and one for your visitors There sure are pages you want to show your visitors and hide from search engine bots and vice versa . .Customize 404 Error Pages . .Whenever your users get redirected to a non-existent page they get a 404 Page Not Found Message You can customize this page to add some navigational links that will take the users to the pages they seek or will help them return to a relevant section of your website . .These simple tips will help you add some points to the user experience and SEO rating of your site Try to plan your all your SEO activities with the same approach keeping your users in mind and seeking ways to improve their experience on your website .
Source: www.rsstnx.com

Are The Terms Seo And Sem Outdated
Should we still use the terms search engine optimization and search engine marketing? . .Back in the late 1990s, many internet marketing companies focussed only on the search engines There is no denying that the search engines do bring results and hence traffic to a website, but there is life beyond the search engines too! . . .The exceptional, and hence very busy, companies realised that there was far more to marketing than the search engines, and delivered broad and effective campaigns to their clients, using a variety of different strategies and plenty of metrics to assess results It has taken almost a decade for the industry to catch up that search engines are not the be all and end all of internet marketing, and that the terms “SEO” and “SEM” are just part of the mix . .However, most website owners are still stuck in the ‘old school’ way of thinking, believing that, having built a website, all that is required is to be number one on the search engines and that is the end of the game plan This level of thinking has far too frequently been backed up by SEO companies who could see a fast buck in optimising a website and ranking it, often for completely obscure terms, to satisfy the customer without educating either the customer or themselves in the finer points of internet marketing . .Invariably, once ranked on the search engines, the customer discovers that little has changed in the way of traffic, enquiries, sales, brand recognition, and so on, and seeks further assistance to increase the results from all aspects of the website marketing, and generate a return on investment This can become something of a bottomless pit into which to thrown money, particularly if the company being employed to achieve the aims required is only really expert in SEO . .SEO and SEM are just one strategy to deploy in a marketing campaign, and many of the great IM companies take a holistic view to promoting a website, company or product set Not only do they seek to generate valuable and unique content for the client (or advise on how to do this), but they employ a range of strategies and processes in order to deliver consistent, high quality traffic to a website, and increase the number of conversions from each action to maximise the potential results . .When seeking out a website promotion company, you should look for companies which offer that breadth of thinking The services they will offer should include: . .Email Marketing .Forum and blog marketing .Pay Per Click campaigns .Landing Pages .Conversion tracking and metrics .Ebooks and article marketing services .Press release distribution .Optimised content creation .Social networking and bookmarking .Video and audio content and promotion .As well as the good old on and offpage optimisation required to get the search engine rankings . .For every company looking to promote online, there will be a different mix of strategies which will yield the best results, depending on product, brand, target audience and more It is only by understanding your company and the needs of your potential customers that a suitable internet marketing campaign can be designed, tested and deployed . .Just optimising a few pages for some keywords and phrases has never been sufficient to bring appropriate results, but many in the search engine industry have managed to get away with doing just that, and little more, for over a decade Now, with the rise of social networks, and the move away from static to dynamic content, virals, and the rise in popularity of video and audio have meant that any company with too narrow a focus when considering marketing tactics can only achieve so much . .Whether you employ an internet marketing company, or train in-house staff to deliver your website promotion, be wary of any specific focus on the terms SEO and SEM The implication that these are the only methods which will yield results, or the fact that whoever is using them may be unaware of all that is required to deliver an effective online promotion campaign should be fair warning that the person or company using them is still adopting an outmoded way of thinking .
Source: www.rsstnx.com

SEO and Choosing a Domain Name
When it comes to selecting the best domain name for a new website, it is not as simple as just choosing a name that you like or your company name, although choosing a catchy name can be good for branding The domain name itself, along with any page names within the site, can all help or hinder how easily your site will be found by the search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN There are several factors to consider when first contemplating a new domain name . .The first consideration is to try and choose a domain name that sufficiently expresses your services and/or products; it also needs to be a broad enough term that will cover any expansion in the products and services offered by the site Ideally it is best to choose a name that can be easily remembered by people, to encourage repeat visits from customers that come to know your website domain name, along with the products or services that you offer . .From a search engine optimization perspective it is best to choose a name that contains your most significant keywords or keyword phrase This is one of the factors that can help your site to be search engine friendly and therefore, along with other factors, be more easily found and gain higher rankings in the search engines .So how do you determine which is the best keyword to use? . .There are several tools available freely online that can help you to establish the best ones to choose from, my personal favorite is the Google keyword tool To find this simply type, ‘Google keyword tool’ into the Google search box, and it should come up within the first few results . .To use this tool is very easy, simply type in the main two or three keywords or keyword phrases that relate to your business, for example if your business is security and alarm systems and you are located in Nashville, you would type in: . . * ’security Nashville’ . * ‘alarm systems’ . * ‘alarm systems Nashville’ and . * ‘Home security Nashville’ . .Then click on ‘get keyword ideas’ . .The tool will then give you a whole heap of keyword ideas, mostly related to your business Next to each of these will be numbers indicating the number of searches conducted each month on each of the particular keywords There will probably be several that have a significant number of searches per month so if it is possible to combine them to make your domain name that is a good option So as for the example above, these may include ’security alarms’ ‘home security’ and ‘alarm systems Nashville’ A great way to include all three of these keyword phrases would be to choose the domain name “HomeSecurityAlarmSystemsNashville” if that is unavailable you could try putting a dash between each of the words .
Source: www.rsstnx.com