The Do It Yourself Webmasters SEO Guide

The Do It Yourself Webmasters SEO Guide
(A Collection of SEO Strategy Articles)
A Practical Guide to SEO, Faster Indexing, Marketing Insights, and Proven Strategies That Save Time and Money.
Dexter Nelson TechDex / Live Minder http://www.techdex.net http://www.mindyourowndata.com (919) 576-9255
Table of Contents: 1. How to Do Keyword Research the Right Way. a. Two strategies for converting your content into products. b. The Google Keyword Tool. c. Google Insights for Search. d. Problem-based Thinking (Thinking like a customer). 2. Optimizing Your Website (Alexa and Data Reporting). a. Google vs. Facebook. Whos #1? b. How to Increase your Alexa Rank. c. A Step by Step Guide to Reporting Data. d. One Important Tip for Higher Ranking. e. How to Get Indexed In Google. 3. How to Get Indexed In Bing. a. A faster way to get indexed. 4. How to Get Indexed In Yahoo. 5. W3C Compliance and SEO. 6. DMOZ Search Engine and Free Search Engine Submissions. a. Free search engine submission sites b. What about backlinks? 7. In Closing Considerations.
2011 Live Minder www.mindyourowndata.com
How to Do Keyword Research the Right Way

All effective marketing efforts begin with research, especially when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). In a world of search, it identifies the quality that people are looking for, and filters out the ineffective and hype-driven content that sound good, but really dont bring about many results, if any. What is keyword research? In layman's terms, it's trying to find out what terms people enter in search engines when they are looking for something, then applying the relevant information to your business. How you do that varies with your business, and the ways of doing keyword research vary from person to person. Some are ok, and others are as crazy as some of the misconceptions and advice out there, which is, in part, is why Im writing this. Here is a stern warning There are a lot of wannabe Internet Marketers out there, and they will lead you down the road of disaster very quickly. I'm sure we're all aware of the phrase, "If you can't dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls..." well, you get the idea. Just because you look good, you have a nice video, rehash someone else's hard work, and use high tech lingo doesn't mean you're an Internet Marketer. There is no cookie-cutter one size fits all solution for business. There are, however, systems and methods that you can use to increase your business and your success. All good business starts with research. You need it in planning your business; planning your product BEFORE you create them; planning your marketing; planning your next sales event... THE RIGHT WAY TO DO KEYWORD RESEARCH How do you decide what to target? How do you decide what keywords to choose? How do you know youre targeting the right market? Obviously, the first thing you need is a basis to make decisions on. If you have your own website, (or content you can convert to web-based content like word docs, PDF's, etc.), you can start right away. If you don't have a website yet, then the best place to start is by looking at your competition.

Note: This guide is making the assumption that you already have at least some content that you are trying to promote. If you dont, then we will talk about content creation in detail soon. CONVERTING CONTENT INTO A PRODUCT Before we continue, let me show you two very useful strategies for converting your content into a product. I use these two strategies myself and I can tell you first hand that it is the quickest way to create a product if you arent tech savvy. The Web Format For those that don't have a website, but have content, convert it to web format. It doesn't take a lot and you don't need to spend a lot of money. Here is a quick and dirty method to convert your content to a web page. If you have Microsoft Office, create a new word document then copy and paste your content to it. Make sure it is well organized and readable and save your document, (youll need this later). After its saved, were going to convert it to a web page. Still with your document open, click "File," select "Save As" and in the "Save as type:" drop down menu, select Web Page and save it has an .htm or .html file. Select your desktop as your destination, and then type a name that does not include spaces or special characters. TIP: I always name my documents by the subject of the content. For example, since Im writing a webmasters SEO guide, I named my web page webmaster_seo_guide.html. There are a couple reasons for this. First, when you post a link to a web page, there arent any spaces or special characters and shouldnt be. A space or a special character can cause 404 Page Not Found errors and a few other undesirable effects. Secondly, by naming your pages based on your content, you will increase the relevancy of whatever you do. People will know what its about just by looking at it, and search engines generally give higher ranking to relevant content. ONE MORE TIP ON RELEVANCY: When you are considering your file structure for your website, just as you would name your pages and documents with the keywords you target, you should also use keywords for everything else.

For example, instead of putting all of your images in a folder called images, place them in a directory named after the keyword. So if you were targeting widgets, name your directory widgets-images, and all of the images would be named appropriately. Again, instead of naming your images header, or footer, or navigation and so on, name them widgets-header, widgets-footer, or widgets-navigation. You can use underscores as well. Do this for everything including documents, style sheets, audio and video, javascript files and all externally linked content. Most engines do not use the META tags as a factor for ranking; however they do reflect what users see in the search results. Make sure that they are keyword rich and descriptive. And one more thing every image should use an ALT tag. This provides a text description of what the image is in the event the image cant be displayed. Google especially will use these tags, and your images will most likely appear in their image search, linking back to your site. An SEO smart structure will usually have more files, however because of the dense relevancy you are far more likely to rank well in most search engines, including both Google and Bing at the same time, even with their current love/hate relationship. Continuing on Now that you have a decent, web-friendly and relevant name, click Save, then close your document. On your desktop you will see the freshly saved file as a web page, (it usually looks like an internet shortcut). If you used images in your document, you will also see a folder that is associated with the created web page. DO NOT RENAME THEM or you will mess up how it looks. All thats left for you to do now is upload them to your server, and send the link to it. Now that you know how to create a web page, lets talk about creating .PDF files that you can use for e-books and offering downloads. The PDF Format If youre interest is in creating an e-book or a free report like this one, in which you can download, here is the strategy I use. Point your browser to http://www.primopdf.com. It is a free application that converts your word documents into a PDF file.
It installs as a printer, and you can print to Primo PDF and the result is a PDF file. After you have download and installed it, re-open your word document, (the document and not the web page). Once its open, click on File, then click Print. Choose Primo PDF as your printer then click Print. The Primo PDF application will run and you will be presented with a few choices. They are screen, e-book, print, prepress and custom. Select e-book and click the save button. You will be prompted for a destination. Select your desktop once again and continue. On your desktop, you will see a new PDF version of your document that you can upload to your server for others to download, or you can even sell using PayPal. Now, back to keyword research KEYWORD RESEARCH IN A NUTSHELL First, let's talk about what NOT to do. A lot of people make the same mistake. They will do a search and search for what they think their product is about or what they want their product to be about, then trying to target those keywords. This is DEAD WRONG! There is a useful purpose for doing searches, but only as indicators of whats a good market to go into or consider IF YOU KNOW WHAT TO LOOK FOR, (more on that later). There are two types of keyword analyses. 1. You have direct analysis where you analyze your content. 2. Then you have competitor-based analysis where you research a competitor and the keywords they use. You need to understand that no two businesses are exactly alike. Even if you are close competitors, your businesses from A to Z will be different. You can't learn everything you need to know just by examining your competitors. We will be covering direct analysis, because it's the best way to know what people are searching for in your market, based on your own content. Again, assuming you have content you can analyze, just upload the files to the web. If you don't have a host I wouldn't recommend any free ones because they all tend to add their own advertising to your page and it can throw off the results.

Note: If you need cheap hosting, one of the things I do is offer web space and temp hosting. Simply contact me using the information on the cover or the end of this e-book and ask. To analyze your content, (such as the web page you created and uploaded to your server), let's look to the Googleplex in Mountain View, California, and the Google Keyword Tool, (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal). If you have a Google account, go ahead and sign in, then create your Adwords account. If you dont then the external keyword tool will work all the same, however, with a CAPTCHA. When you go to the site you can find keywords based on a word or phrase, a website, or both. I leave all settings as default when I do my search. Mine is defaulted to Location: United States and Languages: English. Feel free to add and change settings. Enter the URL of your web content and click search. The keyword tool will scan that page and bring up a list of keywords and phrases. The two columns that you want to pay attention to are Global Monthly Searches and Local Monthly Searches. Global Monthly Searches is the approximate 12-month average of user queries for the keyword on Google search. This data is specific to your Keyword Match Type selection. Local Monthly Searches, (if you specified a country or language for your search), the approximate 12-month average number of user queries for the keyword for those countries and languages and it's specific to your Keyword Match Type selection, meaning this changes depending on what your options were. Both columns vary, however if you are trying to target local markets, you should use the local monthly searches, as it returns results specific to your area, otherwise sort by global monthly searches. You do this by clicking on the name. Some people say that you should show 100 results, (by selecting the Show rows: option at the bottom of the page), but Google will show the highest numbers regardless. In that list, just because there are a lot of results, doesn't mean that you should start targeting every one.

We need to make sure that the keywords you choose are valid choices. You do this by comparing the keywords that are relevant to your site against search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, time frames and properties. In layman's terms, you want to make sure that the keywords you use are relevant to your site are actually being searched for. For that we need another Google tool called Insights for Search, (http://www.google.com/insights/search/), which does exactly that. This is what you do. On the page with the Keyword Tool results, write down ten keywords that are most relevant to your site, product, or service. If you don't have ten results, (which isn't uncommon), you need to do a little bit of work. Problem-based Thinking Nobody who ever bought a drill wanted to buy a drill hole. they wanted to make a
There is an explicit distinction between the keywords you would choose, and the keywords that people search for. As a product creator, your focus is on the product and the benefits, but consumers dont care about the bells and whistles if it doesnt relate to how it solves their problems. Ask yourself why someone would buy your product or use your service. Put yourself in the shoes of a customer and figure out what they want. What do they want to accomplish? What problems do they have? By figuring out the end result, or by relieving some problem, you can better target what people are looking for; and most often, the problems you solve will be the keywords that are searched for and it's a great place to start. This plays directly into your marketing and understanding that is a HUGE step towards seeing results. I often turn problems right back into my marketing and target the problems that my market has. If Im selling a drill and I know my customers want to make a hole, I wouldnt talk about the RPM and the technology use to create the drill. I would talk about how my drill makes more precise, faster, etc. holes, and then elaborate the features in relation to making holes. But before we continue on that tangent, lets continue
Insights for Search only allows you to search five keywords at a time, so start by entering the first five of them, but before you click Search, make sure that you select the country you want to target from the filter on the right. I like to make sure that both the keyword tool and insights have the same country. Leave everything else the same. After you click search, you will notice that the results gives you very useful data about usage, including interest over time, regional interest, search terms, and rising searches. Rising searches are searches that have experienced significant growth in a given time period, with respect to the preceding time period. In it you will find "Breakout" searches as well, or searches that are now starting to rise. Search Terms are related to the filter that you selected, (time, location, etc). What you want to pay attention to is the regional interest, which shows a search term's popularity. The graph and bars next to the regions show the Search volume index. In short, the more popular a search term is, the higher the index, and it shows in percentages from 0 to 100. The keywords you choose should have the highest indexes. You should play around with these two tools, testing different demographics and looking at the different results. You can break down the information as detailed as by city or make it as broad as world wide. Also, don't be afraid to try variances in the keywords. A little change can reap a high index reward. For example market analysis and marketing analysis have completely different scores. One has an index of 48 and the other has an index of 17. Often times, just by tweaking a word here or there will give you extremely different results.
Optimizing Your Website (Alexa and Data Reporting)

This is one of those topics that I get several questions about, and to be honest, when it comes to Alexa, there is a lot of misinformation out there, and I will do my best to stay within the context of what Alexa has published. But even more than that, there are several things to learn and to take into consideration. OPTIMIZATION AND ALEXA RANKING Most people, when they create their website first buy their domain name, then they pick a design, then add content, then make a few posts, join groups and so on, then they try to do SEO and Optimization and worry about ranking as an after thought. This is where they get into trouble, and this is where it's easy to be taken advantage of by those who over-charge for work you can do yourself, given the time and care. As part of my business and my history in the IT field, I have always been able to get websites with low ranks and even no rank, to be ranked on Alexa and have improved ranking for many of my customers. So what's the big deal anyway? Why is Alexa so important? Well? For starters they calculate the top sites on the Internet and it's used by several people. Ranks are, in part, affected by their community of users - that's people like you and me who help them collect data. So whenever you hear someone talk about the top sites on the Internet, chances are it was reported by Alexa.com. I would even venture to say that they are "THE" authority on things like Internet trends, because of their large user participation. For this reason, their demographics, statistics, relevant links and more, are a very important piece of marketing, because they report very accurate trending data. And just for fun, let me settle this debate. All of that marketing hype about the Google slap and how Facebook is this, that, and the other is nothing more than marketing hype. When you put the numbers to the grind, according to the users and Alexa, Google is still #1 and Facebook is still #2.
With that said... How do you increase your Alexa rank? It is after all a decent indicator that your site is growing and the reputation from being one of the top million sites on the globe, and being in the top 100 thousand sites in your respective country is something to be proud of. So how do you do it? There really is only ONE answer to that - get more traffic! That's it. Forget all of the "guru" talk and the hype - ignore the endless blog posts that promise a higher ranking in "10 easy steps" - when you get down to it, there is only one factor that affects your Alexa rank - traffic. But what if you get a lot of traffic and you don't have an Alexa rank at all? THIS I have seen happen, and it's one of the most common questions I get, so let's address that right now. The answer is to quantify your site and report data. No question about it, you have to let the big players know you exist or you don't show up on the radar. You can wait for their crawlers and users to find your site on their own, or you can take an active role and make let them know you are there. MY STEP BY STEP OPTIMIZATION GUIDE FOR REPORTING DATA What follows is a step by step guide to quantifying your site so that you can start reporting data to increase your rank, (and don't be surprised if you go from no rank to having a rank in one day). And for this guide, there are four sites that I believe are very important. 1. First, go to http://www.quantcast.com and register for a free account then log in. There is a lot you can do with Quantcast.com, however in this coaching session we're only going to do one thing with it. o On the right side of the page there is a box that says "Quantify a site." Click on the Generate Tag button. o A small window will open with a code snippet. Copy it to notepad or your favorite text editor, then open a new window or tab, but don't close the quantcast.com page! (You're going to need this page in a minute. 2. Next, you're going to use Google's webmaster tools, so go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/. o If you have a Google Account, go ahead and log in. If you don't, create an account, (it's also free).
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Once youre logged in and looking at the Dashboard, click on the Add a Site option and enter your site's URL. o You will have to verify ownership. I would suggest using the ad a META tag to the home page. o Again, copy your text editor below the Quantcast code and open a new browser tab, (don't close this one either). 3. Google has a second tool that you need to set up. o At the top of the webmaster tools page, click on the "Analytics" link. o Log in to Google Analytics, then, on the right had corner where it says "My Analytics Accounts" select the "Create New Account" from the list. o At the bottom of the next page, click on "Sign Up" in the Sign up for Google Analytics box. o Fill in your websites URL, Account Name (this can be anything you want so make it easy to remember), your country or territory, and your time zone, then click "Continue." o You will then be asked to fill in your contact information. Do so and click "Continue." o Check "Yes" to their agreement if you agree with their terms, and click "Create New Account." o You will be given a tracking code to copy to your website. Copy this and paste it to your text editor, and open a new tab again. o Click Save and Finish! It is easy to miss this step because it is at the bottom of the screen. 4. Go to Alexa.com, and on your home page, do a search for your domain name. o On the results page, scroll all the way down to the bottom. o What you're looking for is the "Is this your website?" section. o Select the "Update your Listing" section and then proceed to "Claim your Site". o You will be prompted to create a new account. If you already have an account just log in. You can also select the "Sign in with Facebook" option to log in or register. o Repeat the process just as you did with the others, and once you are done, you will again be given a META tag to add to your site's home page. o Copy and past that too to your editor.
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You should now have a few code samples. This is what you do with them. 1. The two verification codes go before the tag ON YOUR HOMEPAGE ONLY. 2. The Google Analytics and Quantcast snippets, even though they tell you should go before the tag, place at the bottom of the page before the tag ON EVERY PAGE YOU WISH TO REPORT DATA FROM. I do this so that traffic isn't counted until after the page is fully loaded.
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There is a lot of debate about where to put it, however I have noticed that placing it at the bottom gives me less traffic results, but slightly higher accuracy. Test it for yourselves and be the judge. Here is where the magic happens... Once they are all in place, go back to the tabs you left open, starting with Quantcast. Click on the Scan your site option for quantcast.com, and then repeat the process for all of the others until they are all verified. If you've completed the steps and get success messages for all of them, all of these sites will begin monitoring the data your site is reporting. Now that the big boys know that you're there and reporting, don't be surprised to see a rapid change in you global ranking. JUST ONE MORE TIP Have your friends, co-workers, partners and associates leave their positive comments and ratings on Alexa! There is no better way to increase your rank than to gather positive feedback and have people report it. Here is what I do. When I have a satisfied customer or someone I help, I ask for their email and send them this link, thanking them for working with me and I ask them to leave a positive review. In that email, I include this link, (replace the techdex.net with your own of course). http://www.alexa.com/write/review/techdex.net When they click on it, they will be taken to a log in page, similar to the one where you can connect with Facebook. After they do, they can leave a comment and review or testimonial, and then click Submit. Alexa reviews comments, but if it is approved, it will show up and in my experience, I've seen improvements in rank when I receive positive feedback. GETTING INDEXED IN GOOGLE After adding a site in the Google Webmaster Tools, you can have Google crawl your website so get faster indexing. Heres how you do it. Go back to the dashboard and click on the domain name you just added. You will be taken to the dashboard for that domain name.
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In the left column there is a menu of options. Click on the Diagnostics link. It will expand and you will see more options. They are malware, crawl errors, crawl stats, fetch as Googlebot, and HTML suggestions. Click on the Fetch as Googlebot link. You will see your domain name with an input text field. That text field is for directories and specific pages on your site. Leave web as the default option and click the Fetch button. Googlebot will then go out and fetch that page. If its done successfully it will appear in the list below. Submitting your site to the Google Index is the next step. Many people believe that once Googlebot has fetched a page, that it will be automatically indexed. At some point it may have been true, however Google instructs that after a page is fetched, then you can submit it to the Google index. In order to do that, point your browser to this URL. http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl You will see a form on that page. Enter the URL and Comments, solve the CAPTCHA, and then click the Add URL button. Google values relevancy above all else. Their business is giving people the most relevant information, so it helps if the page you submit is relevant. For comments I always enter a brief description about what the page is about. I would advise against leaving it blank.
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How to Get Indexed In Bing

For a very long time now, there has been a debate in SEO about which is better, Google or Bing? While I may not have a definite answer to that, what I do know is that BOTH are important to SEO and when it comes to online marketing and getting exposure you want to be listed in both. A lot of people will charge you to get your site indexed on Bing; however that is something you can do on your own if you're willing to use a little bit of elbow grease. Just as Google has it's webmaster's tools, Bing has its own toolbox and webmaster tools, it is just as easy to use. INTRODUCING THE BING WEBMASTER TOOLS First, point your browser to this URL: http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmaster/ You will need a Windows LiveID to sign in, so if you have a Windows Live service like MSN Messenger for example, use that. If not, go ahead and create one, then sign in.
Once you're signed in to the Webmaster Center, you will see two sections. At the top you will see Message, (similar to Google's notifications), and below it you will see Sites. Let's go ahead and add your website. Click on Add Site.
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A small pop up box will appear. Enter your URL, (example http://www.howtoreadandwritemusic.com), the click Submit.
After clicking Submit you will be taken to a new page that asks you to verify ownership. You have the option to upload an XML file on your server, or copy and paste a tag to your default web page. I personally choose to upload a file to my server, but if you don't have a file manager or FTP access, you will want to choose to copy the tag. DO NOT CLICK VERIFY YET!
I've run into a bug where if your site fails verification, I couldn't get back to this screen unless I deleted the site, then started over! So make sure you have either upload the file to your website's default directory, or copied and pasted the META tag before the closing tag on your default or index website page. Once you've done that, click the Verify link, and Bing will verify your site ownership. Once it's done, you will be taken to the Dashboard for that site.
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Here you will be able to monitor all of the information about your site including the Traffic Summary and Index Summary. I would suggest you spend some time exploring the Bing Webmaster area. There are some very cool tools to become familiar with. For example Submit URL's is one that I use often for making sure that my client's pages are indexed. NOTE: Bing automatically indexes sites that are W3C Compliant, but there is faster way to getting your site crawled by Bing. If you're looking at the dashboard for your site, you will notice that there are four new tabs at the top, Dashboard, Crawl, Index and Traffic. Click on the Index tab link. There will be a menu just below it. Index Summary, Index Explorer, Submit URLs, Block URLs, Inbound Links, Deep Links, and URL Normalization. Clicking on Submit URLs allows you to submit individual pages for Bing to crawl. Simple enter one URL per line and click continue. This is a VERY useful tool.
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How to Get Indexed In Yahoo

Im sure by now much of the information has been pretty overwhelming, especially if you arent a tech savvy person. There is a lot that goes into SEO and a lot to consider when planning your marketing. This part isnt very long, but it is very important, and not many people know how to do this, and in fact, many people focus strictly on Google. Just as Google and Bing have webmaster tools, Yahoo has their own similar tool called Site Explorer. I won't go into all of the features but there are two important things that you do need to know. Introducing Yahoo Site Explorer First, here is the website. http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com. Any action will require you to sign or create an account, so if you have a yahoo account go ahead and click on My Sites on the left hand menu and do so. Once you are logged in, you will be looking at your dashboard.
The first step is to add your site to My Sites so you can manage them. So here is my simple guide... 1. Enter your sites URL into box at the top and click Add My Site. 2. You will be taken to a verification screen, (Authentication), where you have the option to verify by META tag or by uploading a file to the root directory of your website.
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3. I prefer to upload a file as my authentication method, (no messing with code), however not everyone has a host that will give ftp access to upload files. If you choose the uploading method, you will be given the option to download an html file that you would need to upload to your server. Likewise, if you select the META tag option, you will be given a piece of code to paste to between the <head> and </head> tags of your home page. 3. After you have uploaded the file, or copied and saved the META tag to your home page, click the Ready to Authenticate button. The page will go back to the upload/meta option page, but wait and don't do anything! It takes about 20 seconds to verify, and after it does, it will go back to the dashboard. 4. Once Authentication is complete, you will see your domain name in the list, and next to it, there is the Explore button. Click it. Yahoo will then fetch your site for pages and links, and it will show up in a list where you can get more details and remove URL's from being indexed.
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CRAWLING WITH YAHOO You have just one more step to follow. That is to manually send Yahoo to crawl your site. In the left column menu, under My Sites click on Submit Your Site. If the site is already in the list, then it will go fetch your site and extract pages and links that they missed when adding your site. You have two options. The first is to submit a website or web page, and if you run a blog, you can submit your site feed. Select one, (or both), enter your URL, then click the submit button. After, you will be taken to a thank you page. NEWS: There is magic happening in the world of Yahoo. According to their blog, Yahoo Site Explorer now works with Bing Webmaster Toolkit, and if you are already using Site Explorer, you may see the words "submitted to Microsoft" when you look at your blog feed details. http://www.ysearchblog.com/category/site-explorer/
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W3C Compliance, SEO, Internet Marketing and the Advancing Internet

As a developer for almost eleven years now, W3C Compliance has been something of a developer's niche and a big advantage to people who have made search engine optimization their business. History: So what is W3C Optimization? In 1994 Sir Timothy Berners-Lee, (the inventor of the Internet), headed the World Wide Web Consortium, whose makeup now includes more than 400 members including all of the major search engine and global corporations from Toshiba, HP and several others. The Consortium determined to create a set of standards for the Internet. What they did was develop, and continue to advance the technical specifications and guidelines related to content, to ensure the quality of information on the web. This began with coding specifications and now includes standards for the following, and we can expect to see that list grow as technology advances. 1. 2. 3. 4. Web Design and Applications (CSS, SVG, AJAX, etc) Web Architecture (including URIs and HTTP) Semantic Web (Web Data - more on that later) XML Technology like XML, XQuery, XML Schema, XSLT, XSL-FO, Efficient XML Interchange (EXI), and other related standards 5. Web of Services (SOAP, WSDL, etc) 6. Web of Devices 7. Browsers and Authoring Tools
How Does This Affect SEO? First, it's important to understand that not being W3C Compliant affects a lot more than the search engines, but to get back to the question... I recently began optimization for a few clients' websites and to my horror they all failed W3C Compliance, meaning that they didn't meet the requirements set by the World Wide Web Consortium as being quality websites. I spent several days going over the code, page by page and showing my clients the possible impact non-compliance could have. All of the major search engines are part of the Consortium, and with that in mind, quality is a factor in how search engines index and rank your sites. While some engines weight compliance more heavily than others, engines will most likely
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give you a lower ranking or even not index your site at all. But as I mentioned, it's much more than just indexing. Readability is one of those factors that come along with quality and many browsers including Mozilla, Firefox, Opera, and Lynx, and as I found out recently, Google Chrome will not display your pages properly. Many contend that W3C Compliance is a long term effort and more study is needed, however we have already begun to see the effects of non-compliance. In fact many of the SEO tools now factor in compliance as a required element to ranking. Which, if you are a blogger should bring up an interesting dilemma; is your blog platform W3C Compliant? If not, it's definitely something to inquire about. There may be a reason why your blogs aren't ranking highly, or even showing up in the search engines. So whats all the concern now about compliance? Quite frankly, it's the direction the web is going. As a career engineer and programmer and Internet Marketer I have a unique perspective and I've noticed that there seems to be this emerging battle between marketing and the path the Internet is going. On one hand you have marketers still trying to capitalize on existing technology, and on the other you have technology itself saying, "Keep up. I'm going this way." There's already a big play towards the term Web 3.0 and in this author' opinion it's just another marketing play for the next big buzz term, however there is some truth behind the advancing web. Many believe that we've barely scratched the surface of the potential to the Internet, (myself included), but Internet Marketers seem to lag behind technology. For me, it's always a race to keep up with both, but it's given me a rather keen edge and what's turning out to be a big advantage in both development of software and Internet Marketing. February of last year Tim Berners-Lee participated in TED Talks with a discussion on the next web. Here in his words is the next emergence on the web. Keep in mind that I just listed the Semantic Web (linked data) as part of the W3C Standards governed by the Consortium. Take the time to watch it. It's not very long, but very insightful.
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Tim Berners Lee on the next web http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_on_the_next_web.html Just a few months later we saw a remarkable change Tim Berners Lee - The year open data went worldwide http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/tim_berners_lee_the_year_open_data_went_ worldwide.html In such a short time, you can already see the huge difference in where marketing is and the direction the Internet is going. Already there are applications that use Linked Data like dbpedia and statistics used by Hans Rosling in his TED Talks - the best stats you've ever seen, (a video worth watching). So the question is Is W3C Compliance important enough to pay attention to, and put out effort on? In my sincerest opinion, yes it is, and it will become even more important in the very near future. As I said, having professional experience in both development and marketing, if I had to give advice and not just make people aware of what is going on behind the scenes it would be this. The World Wide Web Consortium is defining the Internet including data and applications as to what is quality, (a growing factor in the major search engines). The major search engines are part of the Consortium and as a result, striving for compliance can only benefit you and your audience and give you an advantage as technology advances. Will the gap between Internet Marketing and Internet Technology ever sync up? I personally thing it will be hit and miss for the next several years. Lined Data applications are a whole new emergence of the Internet and I'd bet we haven't even begun to see the new Internet's potential. Resources and Links 1. World Wide Web Consortium - http://www.w3.org/ 2. Markup Validation Service - http://validator.w3.org/ 3. TED Ideas Worth Spreading - http://www.ted.com/
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The Do It Yourself Webmasters SEO Guide DMOZ Search Engine and Free Search Engine Submissions
You cant talk about SEO without talking about submissions, and youre probably wondering why I didnt mention AOL search, right? The answer is quite simple. They are in partnership with another engine that you should consider being a major player. That is DMOZ, the open directory project, (http://dmoz.org). It, like Alexa is a human powered search engine, meaning that every site listing, (almost five million to date), is approved and edited by an editor, and not a robot. Needless to say, being listed in DMOZ is a very big boost to your online presence and increases your web rank. Submitting to DMOZ is pretty straightforward. Simply go to their website and browse to the category in which you would like to be listed. At the top of that page, click on the suggest URL link. If you click on that link, you without first browsing to the directory, you will be taken to a page that tells you to browse to a directory then click the link again. A good strategy I suggest is doing a search for the keywords that you researched, and then submitting your site in the most relevant directory for your content. Your submission will be reviewed by an editor and then listed if approved. Unfortunately there is no guarantee of being listed in DMOZ because, even though they are supposed to be neutral, I have run into editors that were biased in one way or another. A FREE PLACE TO SUBMIT YOUR URL There is no explaining to be done here. This link allows you to submit your website for free to 50 search engines and directories for free. http://freewebsubmission.com/ What about backlinks? Backlinks are definitely a hot topic because of the value that is placed on them by search engines. Im not going to give you a tutorial on backlinks here. Instead I am going to give you a link to a free tool that will let start building backlinks. You will get email confirmations that require your confirmation! Its from Reilly Labs and it is a very good tool called Website Indexer. http://reillylabs.com/website-indexer-tool/
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In Closing
Considerations
The world of SEO and marketing is constantly evolving and as I continue to adapt with it and learn new things, I will gladly share what I am learning. And of course, if you have any comments or questions, please feel free to contact me through my website or calling and leaving a message. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dexter.nelson Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/dexterwebn LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/dexterwebn The Live Minder Traffic Pack At this time I would like for you to consider a solution I have created that, in my opinion is one of the most complete and affordable solutions. It is the ONLY service that combines strategies from several online marketing resources, including local marketing, social media, search engine optimization, CPA networks, Pay per click, article & blog marketing, web 2.0, and much more into ONE SERVICE. I do the research and analysis, make sure your website is optimized, reporting data and is W3C compliant, and then I use all of the above strategies to build backlinks, grow your rank and drive traffic, all for less than $200. For more information, please contact me or visit http://www.mindyourowndata.com/trafficpack/. Thank you for your interest and taking the time to read. Warmest Regards, Dexter Nelson TechDex / Live Minder http://www.techdex.net http://www.mindyourowndata.com (919) 576-9255
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The Do It Yourself Webmasters SEO Guide (A Collection of SEO Strategy Articles)
A Practical Guide to SEO, Faster Indexing, Marketing Insights, and Proven Strategies That Save Time and Money.
Dexter Nelson TechDex / Live Minder http://www.techdex.net http://www.mindyourowndata.com (919) 576-9255
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