Essential Web Usability Basics For All SEOs

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) involves many different areas. From Technical, to On-page elements there's also Link Building and Social aspects to name a few. But from a users perspective many SEOs forget to take into account web usability and basics of web design, that play a very large role also.
With all successful SEO campaigns an effort must be made into not only the building but also it's foundations. This is where web design and architecture plays an important role. SEO in the past was predominately focussed on keywords, but in today's ever changing industry user experience has never played a larger role. Content must be created for human eyes first and search engine crawlers second.
So what are the basic areas of web usability that every SEO must know?
Create A Page For Each Product/Keyword: Each and every web-page must be created to help display and promote each product or service being offered. This will not only help create a simplified web experience for users but also allow targeted keywords, titles, meta descriptions and content.
Create Error Pages: Whenever links are broken or pages no longer exist it's common for users to land on a 404 error page, whether from internal or external links. When this occurs it's vital to help retain users and this can be achieved by creating simple but highly effective landing pages. By creating a 404 error page working links can be included or even a re-direct can be carried out. This can help re-assure the user that the website is still working and will not simply press return, resulting in an increased bounce rate, and enabling the user to visit the next most relevant web page.
Provide A Site Map: Site maps are under rated and offer the chance for viewers to help view the site in full. But there is also an added SEO benefit of including an XML sitemap within the website and also making Google aware by submitting this via the Google Webmaster Tools to help resolve any crawling errors. This will ensure the website has been picked up by the search engine and can help promote any updated content if there are any issues with the website being crawled.
Search Box: First and foremost, the search box is almost always a required component of any website. Allowing instant access to find the content each user seeks. The most common location is top right of a website and can appear in many different forms.
Reduce Web Page Load Speed: During 2011, Google made page speed a ranking signal. Therefore from a search engine perspective it is important. But also from a users point of view that web pages load fast. If there's any unnecessary waiting time then users will most likely go elsewhere, therefore increasing abandonment rates and may be the cause of high bounce rates.
In order to reduce web page load times images and graphics may be required to be removed or replaced with other content. But the problem is not only isolated with images.
Breadcrumb Navigation: By implementing breadcrumb navigation can have both usability and SEO benefits. In most web sites it is placed just above the on-page content below the header and allows the user to follow the path and identifying their current location. A clear and concise URL structure and website layout is essential for consistency and to increase it's effectiveness.
These are only a few of the many different aspects of web usability. Most of which can come down to common sense. For example using the companies logo as a link to always return home is commonly missing, but yet would be expected by many users. SEO web design is more important than ever before, and should never be an after thought and always included into every SEO campaign and with a few simple steps and increasing usability for users can greatly increase not only the user experience but also conversion rates.

Harvey McEwan writes to offer information and advice on a variety of areas, from technology to holiday destinations. Read through Harvey's other articles here to find out more.

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SEO: A 2011 Algorithm Recap And 2012 Algorithm Predictions

Search Engine Marketing has always been an industry that has faced many challenges that are different each year, requiring a careful eye and a wealth of knowledge to help create success for many different types of organisations within the search engines. With 2011 bringing many new algorithm changes, particularly for Google, that have affected millions of websites and how SEO's plan and carry out each and every campaign.
2011 Algorithm Recap
Each and every year it is well known that there are around 400 to 500 algorithmic changes with several being publicised. And 2011 was no exception, there were many big announcements that made the news such as the introduction of the +1 button that launched in March. The +1 button created a social element to the search engine results page (SERPs), that had a direct influence of the results of organic and paid search of every user that has a large amount of members in their Google + circles. As expected the social icons have now become apparent and as standard on many websites that promote sharing to other well known social websites such as Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon.
Another area of the algorithm that gathered a lot of attention was Panda updates that finished with Panda update 3.1, by late November. The initial update involved the rolling out of Panda to all English queries worldwide. Along with many other new signals. Further updates involved many minor changes that lead to the international roll out of Panda for both English and non-English queries, mid-August.
Surprisingly, mid-June support for schema.org was announced by all major search engines. With the goal of creating support for structured data, among all of the search engines.
But, the biggest news story of the year was no doubt the announcement of encrypted search that supports SSL. It was made clear that many search queries would become encrypted. Therefore, anyone signed into their Google account will have all their search queries encrypted and any site visited through Google SERPs will no longer be able to access 'referrer' data, such as search terms. With a percentage as little as 5% of searches this would account for was given. But many found it to be much greater as the days went on.
2012 Algorithm Predictions
There are many different areas that could become targeted throughout the duration of 2012. But one of the most increasing markets is no doubt mobile. With mobile search rising at a staggering rate there will no doubt be major changes ahead, along with social playing a large role as it did throughout 2011. With Google+ still growing month on month it will no doubt begin to challenge Facebook and Twitter as the year progresses but to what extent no-one knows.
Speculation has arrived at the possibility of Google merging different services such as either replacing or combining Google Places and each companies Google+ page. Much similar for Google places becoming combined with Google+. With over 62 million users and a predicted 400 millions users by the end of 2012, this is half of current Facebook followers and only took one and a half years compared to Facebook's eight. Therefore there is more than enough understanding as to the reason for doing so.
As mentioned above, Google's encrypted search is believed to rise from more than the originally given figure of 5% up to 30%. This will be directly correlated to mobile search that will rise throughout 2012. But kn-one can be sure and only time will tell.
No-one knows what that the future holds for search engine optimisation (SEO) but 2011 was an important year for all in the SEO industry and 2012 looks even more exciting, with the star no doubt being mobile search.

Harvey McEwan writes to offer information and advice on a variety of areas, from technology to holiday destinations. Read through Harvey's other articles here to find out more.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Harvey_McEwan

Social Signals and Search Engine Optimization

By Mandy Buchanan

Social signals are the thing to watch in search engine optimization this year and effectively combine what we believe to be two of the most powerful internet marketing methods available - SEO and social media marketing.
What are Social Signals in Search Engine Optimization?
A few months ago Google and Bing admitted to using social media to collecting information from the social media websites such as Facebook and Twitter for determining the rank of web pages in their search engines. These are what we now term 'social signals'. Although social media sites generally have 'no follow' policies in terms of their links they should still be used when creating an effective SEO campaign for your website.
Creating a Strong Social Presence to Help SEO
So how do you go about creating a strong social presence which will help your SEO efforts? The first step of course is to ensure that you have a Facebook business page and a Twitter account and populating these with informative content that is beneficial to your users. Once you have this in place, you will need to work on growing your followers and fans - I have found Facebook Ads a great way to build your fans and you should also have a link to your Facebook page and Twitter account on your website, link them to one another and advertise them in other means to build a good following.
Response to the Critics
I have seen some articles stating that they don't believe social signals can really have an impact on search engine optimization. My response here is that both these marketing methods are effective in themselves so whether or not social media is actually impacting your SEO campaign there is no harm in using it and creating the best social presence you can - you will still win. Personally I (and many others on the web) believe the search engines are noticing social media and taking it into consideration, if it's not to the extent we believe then you still can't go wrong by doing both.
Social media marketing and search engine optimization are two key methods you want included in your internet marketing strategy this year. Many people believe, and Google and Bing seem to have admitted, that your social presence does affect your SEO results, but even if this is not the case you should still make full use of these tools to improve your online business.

This article was written by Mandy Buchanan, owner of SEO Web Writers. Get your free issue of SEO Web Writers' SEO SEM Monthly Monitor today.

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How Meta Data Can Help Improve Your Site's First Impressions

When making your website you need to consider many things such as the design and layout of the site, what images will give your site impact and what copy you will put on the page to help promote your business. You want your site to look great and give a great first impression when people see it but people sometimes don't even have to see your site to get a first impression.
Before a potential even visits your site they can see your site in a search engine. The content of your site may be enough to get it ranking in search engines but without creating the meta data for your site you have little control of what information will be displayed. Search engines will primarily display the meta description under the link to your site, but if you have not entered any meta data then small parts, or snippets, of text are selected from your page where they match. This can lead to a confusing message to potential visitors who may choose to click on another site with a clearer description.
The next job is to ensure that the description you enter on the page is unique to that page on your site as well as being informative. Search engines don't like it when you use the same description on more than one page as it makes it difficult to decide which page is more relevant and therefore which page needs to be displayed in search results.
Make sure you include any words that you think people may search for to find your site as when these match they are displayed in bold in the search result. The bold text helps encourage potential visitors that the result is an appropriate match to their search term. You can get carried away and try and fit the same word in too many times so there are a lot of matches, but be careful as this could send a bad quality signal to search engines as it thinks you may be trying to spam them.
As well as having the correct terms in your description, you can try capitalising the first letter of the important words. This way, even if they don't match the search term they will still stand out. Don't use all capitals as it may put potential visitors off by seeming too aggressive.
Above all, meta data descriptions should make sense to read and clarify why visitors should visit your site. The description can act as an advert so making it stand out from other results for that term can increase the amount of clicks your site will gain.

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8Crucial Elements To Ensuring You Acheive Incredible On Site Search Engine Optimization Success

In this article you will learn the eight critical steps to ensuring your on-site search engine optimization success. Search engine optimization is one of the most powerful forms of traffic generation. It is also the most complex and difficult to pull off correctly. I want to be completely upfront and honest that getting on the front page of Google for any keyword can be difficult.
There are three different components of SEO. The first part is to do proper keyword research and select either buyer keywords or traffic keywords. A buyer keyword relates to a person searching for a specific type of product or review on the product. A traffic keyword does not necessarily mean the person is searching to buy something. A traffic keyword does have a lot of traffic coming to the keyword.
The second part of search engine optimization is on site proper SEO. To do proper on-site optimization you will need to follow the eight crucial steps I will give you below. The third part of search engine optimization is off page SEO. Off page SEO is letting Google or whatever search engine you are targeting know that you have tons of back links linking back to your site for the relevant keyword you're targeting. Let's get right into the eight crucial steps to do on-site search engine optimization.
1. Anytime you put out a piece of content for search engine rankings make sure that the content is at least over 400 words. You want your content today to be over 500 words if you really want to please the search engines.
2. When you're putting up content online make sure you focus on one keyword as the root of your article. If you're not doing content to achieve search engine optimization do not worry about focusing on one keyword. If you are trying to rank on the front page of Google you will need to target only that one keyword for each piece of content.
3. When you're preparing the content make sure that the main keyword is in the title. If you are targeting the keyword "search engine optimization," you will want it to be inside the title and preferably the first word used.
4. To do proper keyword density it is best to get a 1 to 3% density rating of your keyword. You can use SEO pressor to find the keyword density percentage. That is important to let Google know how often the keyword is used and how important it is to the body of content.
5. You want to use the keyword in the H1, H2 and H3 tags. In the back office of any word press account you will have the ability to put your writing in different formats. The H1 is considered the title. H2 is considered a sub headline. H3 is considered another sub-headline. Make sure you have your keyword listed for each one of the different types of tags.
6. Add your keyword in the first and last sentences. This is important when the engines robots are crawling through your content. You want the search engines to give you the best on site score to rank you higher in Google. This instruction helps them do that.
7. Have your keyword listed in the meta description. The easiest way to achieve this is by making sure that you have your keyword listed in the first sentence so it is listed in the general description.
8. If you include a picture inside your content online, make sure you have the keyword listed as the alt text. If you are in word press and you upload a picture this will be the second box down. Simply put the keyword inside of that second box listed as alt keyword and you will increase the score of your on site search engine optimization. These eight tips will help you achieve an incredibly high-ranking on-site search engine optimization score.

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3Most Crucial Components To Having Success With Search Engine Optimization For 1st Page Rankings

  

In this article you will learn the three most important components to having success with search engine optimization. If you're interested in learning about search engine optimization you must be interested in getting to the top of Google for the keywords that you are targeting. You will learn about the most important components that you will need to focus on to become an expert at this area of traffic generation.
1. The very first step in understanding search engine optimization is doing proper keyword research. Keyword research is a whole other article in itself. I will give you some key information in this article that will help you do better keyword research in the future.
To start off, go to Google and search "Google keyword tool." The two types of keywords that you should focus on are buyer keywords and traffic keywords. A buyer keyword is when a person is searching for a specific product or variation word with the product involved.
Buyer keywords are great keywords to target because they let you know that the person searching is looking to buy. Buyer keywords are also very competitive to rank for. Traffic keywords are keywords that have high search volume but don't necessarily target products. To do proper keyword research to find the best keywords it is required that you find keywords that you have a chance of ranking on the first page for in a relatively short amount of time. If you are a brand-new site you will not be able to rank for anything unless there is literally no competition.
If you want to shortcut the process of building your site into an authority site for the next couple of years you can use high page rank sites like EzineArticles as a way of leveraging your content to achieve higher search engine rankings. The only disadvantage of that is you will not be focusing all of your energy on building your own site into an authority site.
2. The second crucial part in achieving search engine optimization success is on page SEO. To achieve on page search engine optimization you will need to follow several steps. I will give you a brief description of the several steps.
You will need to have your content be at least 400 words. You will need to focus on one keyword per piece of content. You will need to use the keyword in your title. Make sure you use your keyword 1 to 2% of the time throughout your article. Make sure you use your keyword in your H1, H2, and H3 tags. Put your keyword in the first and last sentences. If you include a picture in your article make sure you include the keyword in the alt text.
3. The last step to getting search engine optimization success is off page SEO. This has become a backlink war in the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Google likes a variety of links like: article directories, video sites, forum sites, blog commenting, social bookmark directories and more. Follow these 3 components as a blueprint to achieving first page rankings for keywords that you can rank for.

Want The SECRET To Earning $625 Per Person At 100% Commissions Without Having To Be A Technical Genius Or Marketing Guru? >> CLICK HERE <<
Learn For FREE By Visiting My Website At JimmyRich.com/insane

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jim_Richardson_II

A Beginner's Guide to Do It Yourself Search Optimization

Some start-up owners may choose to build or maintain their own websites, due to the tight constraints of a small business budget. These individuals often resort to "web site builder" tools they find online, however these tools are usually lacking in the most important area - search engine optimization or SEO!
In this article, basic search optimization techniques for beginners will be covered. We will focus on basic items that many "do it your self" web site builders may leave out of your site.
When creating a website on your own, it is important that each page has a proper title tag. In your "HTML" or "source code", a title tag looks like this:
&lt;title&gt;My Web Page Title and Keywords&lt;/title&gt;This line of code must appear between the
&lt;head&gt; and &lt;/head&gt; tags in your HTML files for each page. It is important that you include keywords relevant to your website content in your title tags. Also, it is important that your title tags are 70 characters or less, as search engines will not "read" more than the first ~70 characters.Your title tags should be different on each page of your website. For example, if you are a retail clothing store, your home page title may be
&lt;title&gt;Women's Designer Clothing and Accessories in Chicago&lt;/title&gt; while another page on your site listing some of your merchandise may have a title tag that says "Sun Dresses, Tops, Jeans, and Accessories for Women".Another important piece of code to include in your HTML files is a "meta description" tag. Similar to the
&lt;title&gt; tag, this tag should be within your page header code. This tag should be formatted as follows:&lt;META NAME="Description" CONTENT="&lt;strong&gt;Your descriptive sentences go here&lt;/strong&gt;"&gt;You should replace the
&lt;strong&gt;Your descriptive sentences go here&lt;/strong&gt; portion with one or two sentences describing the content on the page. It is important that you do not remove the quotation marks from the sample code shown above. Only change the content inside the CONTENT="blah blah" area (shown here in bold).It is a good idea to write different descriptions for each page on your website, so that search engines know the content on each page is unique.
Many web site builders do not allow users to customize the title and description tags we've discussed in this article on a page-by-page basis. If the site builder you are considering using does not allow you to customize these pieces of code for each page, it would be well advised to avoid using this software to build your website. At the very least, you should modify the "HTML Source Code" of each page to edit this information before publishing your site on the internet, if the website builder gives you source code access.

Jake Kushner is the founder of Michigan-based web design firm Kinetix Design (http://kinetixdesign.com). Kinetix has been providing custom web design, e-commerce design, and search engine optimization services to small businesses for over 7 years! Visit http://kinetixdesign.com/contact/freeconsultation/ for a free consultation.

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A Beginner's SEO Tutorial

Search engine optimization techniques are a collection of methods used to index websites in search engines and ensure that websites get internet traffic. Optimizing websites can increase result in increased revenue in various ways. People who choose to optimize websites usually sell products or services on their website; however, there are many other ways to earn revenue by using SEO techniques. This SEO tutorial will help you understand how to use SEO to improve your online revenue.
SEO techniques involve using both on page methods and off page methods. Each of these methods is crucial and both these techniques have to be used while optimizing websites. On page SEO techniques include using keywords, tags, headers, footers and back links. While using on page techniques, one must remember that using the right number of keywords or tags is as crucial as using the right type of keywords and tags. This means that the website in question should use content that has limited number of keywords and tags. The approved keyword density is between 1-3% however some people are known to use a keyword density of 4%. Off page SEO techniques include using anchor text, link building techniques and paid links. Using anchor text to promote websites is also part of off page SEO techniques.
There are various tools available that are offered to users who are interested in promoting their websites. These tools include but are not limited to Keyword Discovery, Keyword Volume and Back link Trackers. These tools can help you understand your requirements and can help you achieve your goals. These tools can also help you save time and get results in as less as a week.
SEO Tutorial Tip #1 - Purchasing the number one sponsored link on Google AdWords is part of promoting websites but this is not part of search engine optimization. Creating back links that link to various reputed websites is part of search engine optimization and this can indeed increase your website's ranking on Google.
SEO Tutorial Tip #2 - This SEO tutorial encourages users to opt for the slow and steady method of using white hat optimization techniques since these techniques ensure that the selected website gets indexed and stays indexed as long as the user optimizes his website from time to time. Social indicators are becoming increasingly important in indicating a website's importance. Therefore adding your website to social sites such as Facebook, Twitter or Google+, and encouraging readers to share your articles on these sites will have a positive impact on your SEO rankings.

Find out some of the SEO strategies effective for internet marketing campaigns at http://www.eminentonlinemarketing.com.au/blog/

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