TIP:  Use the search term “article directories” to find many sites from where you can get free content. Keep in mind one of the requirements for using free articles on your site is that you have to include the author’s resource box. This is no big deal though. The gain you get by providing fresh content far out weighs any impact the author’s resource box may bring.

SEO research and experimentation shows that keyword presence in the URL is an important factor for achieving a high ranking in search engine results (as in front page). By placing keywords in your URL/domain name, you gain a serious presence with search engines. If your URL points to an already established and high-ranked web page, I would not recommend changing it. However, this factor is worth considering when …

you create new pages or sites. Most major search engines favor websites with keywords in the URL; however, remember to use them sensibly and not to abuse them. When optimizing a page for a key phrase, separate keywords in the URL with a hyphen I.E. (www.earn-big-bucks.com/How-to-do-it.html) or an underscore (www.earn_big_bucks.com/How_to_do_it.html), but do not write them as one word. Otherwise, search engines will understand it as a single word (even if the search engine result highlights this keyword in bold), making your work on URL optimization a wasted effort.

Many people use their company name as the URL, while this is good for branding purposes it does no good for SEO. If you wish to use your company name try putting it in the Description Meta Tag.  Search Engines use the text in the Description Tag as the text for displaying in search results. This is a great time and place to display your company name.

Another great place for using your company name is in the page title. Page title is displayed at the top left of the browser and on the page tab of the browser. You can actually display your company name twice! Try to place your main keyword in the page title as well. This gives the visitor confidence they are at a site that is of their interest.

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Google Images has indexed billions of images. If your image can be found for the right keyword, then you will get targeted visitors to your website.Why images can help you to get more visitorsDepending on the search query, Google displays several images above the regular search results. For example, try this search for German Shepherd Dog:The images can be found at the top of the search results and they are linked with web pages. If someone clicks on the image, the person will be taken to the web page that shows the image.How to optimize your images so that they can be found If you have a website about German Shepherd dogs, then wouldn’t it be great if an image from your website was listed above the regular results? You’d get many additional website visitors then. There are several things that you can do to improve the position of your images in Google Image Search: Use a file name that contains the keywords for which you want to be found. In this example, the file name german-shepherd-dog.jpg would be a good idea. Separate the words with a hyphen. Use a descriptive Image Alt attribute text. It usually makes sense to use the same keywords that have been used for the file name. In this example, the Image Alt Attribute would be “German Shepherd Dog”:<img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog”> In the same way, you should use the Image Title attribute:<img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog” title=”German Shepherd Dog”> The textual content on the web page before and after the image also impacts the position of your image in Google’s Image Search. In this example, the text “German Shepherd Dog” should appear close to the image. Bigger images seem to get featured more often on Google’s first result page. The bigger your image, the easier it is to get at the top of Google’s regular result page. Include the Width and Height attributes in your image tag to show search engines the size of the image:<img src=”german-shepherd-dog.jpg” alt=”German Shepherd Dog” title=”German Shepherd Dog” width=”600″ height=”400″> Optimize the rest of your web page for the chosen search term. If the complete web page has been optimized for a keyword then it is easier to get good listings for images that are on the page. Make sure the image you optimize with a keyword is attractive and of good quality. If no-one clicks on the image then you won’t get the traffic boost you’re aiming for. Reprint rights provided by Axandra.com – Visit Axandra.com - Copyright Axandra.com – SEO software

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The Title tag may be the single most important aspect of SEO. Your Title should contain your important keywords and those keywords should be as close to the beginning of the Title as possible. Search Engines use the Title tag as the first factor for determining what your site is about. Making it easy for the search engines to figure out what your site is about is what SEO is about.

The Title is also useful to a visitor as it is displayed at the top left hand side of the Browser and on the Browser Tab. The title should be succinct but loaded with your keywords, keeping in mind there is limited display space in the 2 Browser locations mentioned. 

The Description Tag has a lesser value in SEO but on the other hand it has a high value for traffic. The Description is used by most search engines as the text to display in the search results. You should take the time to develop descriptions as an extension of your site marketing. After all it is likely to be the first content or text seen with regard to your site. Think of the Description as a catch all marketing slogan to get searchers to visit your site.

I’ve read that PR (Page Rank)  is becoming less important these days because of the change in algorithms used by Google and the rest. What’s your take on that?  William Jeansonne, M.B.A.

I’m not so sure about PR becoming less important, don’t really think it was ever all that important to begin with. We are dwelling into what goes on behind closed doors at Google so I can only speculate based on my experiences. Here is an official statement about PR from the Google Webmaster page. 

“When a user enters a search query, our machines search the index for matching pages and return the results we believe are the most relevant to the user. Relevancy is determined by over 200 factors, one of which is the Page Rank for a given page. Page Rank is the measure of the importance of a page based on the incoming links from other pages. In simple terms, each link to a page on your site from another site adds to your site’s Page Rank. Not all links are equal: Google works hard to improve the user experience by identifying spam links and other practices that negatively impact search results. The best types of links are those that are given based on the quality of your content.” 

From my experience and Google’s statement, I believe it is safe to assume that PR has little to do with where a page is placed in search results. Certainly PR is not the leading or even close to the top priority for improving SERP. I have seen many times that good SEO with relevant keywords can easily achieve top placement and place higher than sites with a good PR rating. However if there is allot of competition for your keywords or phrases then a good PR is going to be beneficial in beating the competition to the front page of Google. 

You see search engines place your search results based on a score derived from your SEO efforts for any given search word or phrase. What this means is that if someone is looking for “hat racks” and your site is SEO’d for “hat racks” you will get a specific score based on the quality of your SEO for that term, let’s say your score is 2.78. Now there could be other sites that sell “hat racks” and they too could have a score of 2.78 for the term. So when there is a tie in search scores, which site gets placed highest in the SERP? This is where a good PR comes in handy. The site with the highest PR gets placed higher than those sites with the same search score but lower PR.

While it is true PR has little to do with SERP of your site it is something that should not be ignored. PR alone is not the factor that will get you front page exposure; however, it does provide a measure of the value of your website. The higher you’re PR the more valuable the site is in terms of actual sale value and increased traffic/sales.

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In the first ten years or so of the Internet the best way of getting traffic to a website was by doing On-Page & Off-Page (minus Social Media Marketing) SEO. However it is starting to look like 1st page on Google doesn’t cut the mustard like it use to. So what’s the deal? I still know that being on the 1st page of search engines is a huge benefit but why isn’t it bringing  the tons of traffic we all envision?

Hears my speculative guess. “Social Media“

There is so much social media activity going on these days that people no longer have to depend on search engines to find what they are looking for. By being involved in Twitter, FaceBook, Squidoo, LinkedIn, etc. one has access to thousands of links and other forms of information that lead to what they might be looking for. Instead of using a search engine, people find their way to products, services, and information VIA the social network.

What do you think?  Is there still value in SEO for the search engines. Will social media take over so completely that search engines become fossils of the Internet? Is Social Media networking more valuable to a website then search engine results placement? Should we coin a new term (SMO) – Social Media Optimization?

Jump on board lets hear what you have to say.

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