Posts tagged with web analytics

The SEO Importance of Interlinking Web Pages

May 20th, 2009

Interlinking your web site pages plays an important role from the SEO point of view. Proper linkage of web pages helps search engines understand the “meaning” of the linked pages as well as the whole website theme. Therefore, this SEO technique should be used to assure that it receives desired attention from the various search engines such as Google, MSN and Yahoo. Many webmasters, site owners and SEO professional spend a lot of time in optimizing the internal linking structure.

To optimize a website, webmasters use both on-page and off-page tactics. The factors that are considered in on page optimization are heading tags, title, keyword density, alt tags, meta tags, etc. On the other hand, the off-page factors for optimizing a web page are based on the number and the quality of inbound links from other websites. Apart from the home-page interlinking, the webmasters should spend some time in optimizing the inner web pages as well, like category or subcategory pages. For e-commerce web sites, on the product page you can display links to similar products. There should be a balance between what search engines will consider similar and what visitors will. For example, the anchor text “red iPhones” is similar for both users and search engines bots an the product page of your White iPhone, but the anchor “rechargeable batteries” may not be a good choice for both types of visitors.

There are many techniques to interlink the web pages. Some of the most used are:

* Image or Navigation links – The ALT attribute of the image tag provides web page interlinking through images. This link is considered to be equivalent to anchor or text links. The image or navigation link is used to create the right keyword density by using appropriate text links.

* Breadcrumb links – The breadcrumb links appears on the top of web-page. Under this technique, the visitor first clicks on the main category then on the sub-category and lastly on the link. With the help of this technique, you can put sub-category under a main category. This link provides keywords as headings for each main category and sub-category.

* Individual links –This type of link is very important in terms of interlinking as they are directly linked with the web-pages. Therefore, each web page is linked to other with the help of navigation menus. For instance, “about us”, “contact us” page links are provided on the home page of different websites.

* Subject area link – This link is helpful in the content websites that have information on varied subjects. The subject names can be used as anchor text as it increases link-based SEO relevance.

* Related categories/products/article– useful for e-commerce websites or newspaper websites.

Lastly, interlinking web page helps search engine spiders to navigate on the website and evaluate it in a realistic manner on the basis of keywords and phrases that are used as anchor texts. This improves the page rank of individual web page and decides the overall ranking of the website.

Pitstop Media is a Vancouver based company, providing Internet marketing services. We offer SEO Vancouver services, PPC Vancouver Services to companies of all sizes, from start-ups to corporations. Please contact us at http://www.pitstopmedia.com if you need assistance.

Importance of keyword in bold or strong tag: Learning more about SEO tactics

May 1st, 2009

The keyword in bold or strong tag specifies that it has slightly more importance than other text on the web page. These bold keywords are given a second look and taken into account by the search engines. Therefore, with specific SEO algorithms, the search engines such as Google, MSN, and Yahoo will give emphasis to the keywords that are highlighted using bold or strong tag.

The bold tag <”b”> represents the encapsulated keyword in “bold” font. But, with the change of font, it does not change the semantic meaning of keyword. If you read the sentence that contains keyword inside <”b”> tags for instance, then you will read encapsulated text with no special stress at all. The syntax for bold tag is:

your text is typed here .

The strong tag <”strong”> represents the encapsulated keyword in “bold” font. Unlike the bold tag, it changes the semantic meaning of keyword. If you read the sentence that contains keyword in side <”strong”> tag for instance, then you will the read encapsulated keyword louder and more boldly when compared with bold tag. The syntax for strong tag is

<”strong”>your text is typed here

According to Matt Cutts’s SEO video on qualities of a good site video, he said that Google treats the bold and strong tag with the same weight-age. Well, if you are into the finer details of the semantics of markup then it is prefer to use <”strong”> tag. On other hand, if you are into minimizing typing time then it is prefer to use <”b”> tag. Therefore, <”strong”> tag is used to maximize the compliance with standards and recommendations.

On the internet, there are many websites that have bold the entire web page or paragraph. Many people do the same to make the letters stand out, but in return it affects their web page as they can lose the effect of using these tags. It does not give priority to the words that you may want to stand out for readers. Therefore, it is necessary to use “b” or “strong” tags to emphasize on particular keywords on a web page rather than irrelevant words. By bolding the keywords, the search engine bots scan the page and gives more importance to the keyword in the bold or strong font.

Lastly, while preparing the web page, one should not bold the entire page or paragraph by using “b” or “strong” tag. Importantly, one should only bold keywords or links with anchor text.

Pitstop Media is a Vancouver based company, providing Internet marketing services. We offer SEO Vancouver services, PPC Vancouver Services to companies of all sizes, from start-ups to corporations. Please contact us at http://www.pitstopmedia.com if you need assistance.

The Alt Tag: Improving The Relevancy Of Your Web Images

April 16th, 2009

In the web accessibility, images need an alternative text – called the alt tag – assigned to them. This is because search engines cannot read images, but they can read the “alt” tag that is assigned to them. Internet browsers like Internet Explorer will display the alt tag when the cursor moves over the image.

The alt tag provides a textual description for images, for both humans and search engine spiders. Using the alt tag in conjunction with your keywords will improve your website’s usability and will also help with the rankings in the search engines. Search engine optimizers should not forget to use the alt attribute, if they are trying to optimise the websites for the search engines. The HTML code used to create the alt tag is:
img src=”image.gif” alt=”short description of image is written here”
The image tag allows to display information about images, no matter the format of the image:as .gif, .jpg, .png and more. The alt tag is intended to provide alternative information about an element and is generally required for image and image maps.

Some guidelines before using the alt tag are:

•    if the image contains important information then one must use alt tag to describe the image

•    alt tag should be used when the image is serving as a hyperlink to a particular page

Benefits of alt tag:

•    increases your page keyword density score
•    it improves relevancy for targeted keywords
•    images will be optimized for Google’s or Yahoo’s image search, only if the keywords are placed inside alt tags.
•    helpful for defining images along with local content in the search engine itself.

Importantly, if you want your website to be ranked higher for the targeted keywords use the alt tag, as it will make sure that important sections – images – of your pages are not missed out. Search engine crawlers also use alt tags to decode image description i.e. what an image is or what it is representing. For more information about Internet Marketing Company Vancouver, Vancouver internet search engine optimization visit http://www.pitstopmedia.com/

Keywords in Domain Names – Are They Helpful in Branding or SEO?

April 11th, 2009

To choose a domain may sound like an easy task but it can have a crucial influence on your website rankings and branding perception. In today’s internet market when everybody is internet savvy, the importance of keywords usage in the domain name can give your website the needed advantage over your competition. Nowadays, Internet is used for almost all kind of research, from products researching to getting health advice. Thereby entrepreneurs are becoming more conscious of bridging the gap between their targeted clientele.

Search engine algorithms are quite sensitive to what they can “read” about your website, and the domain name is one of those readable things. One of the first factors search engine will get to know about your web site is the website name itself, or technically speaking, the domain name (www.mydomain.com). On the other hand, the first thing people will look at when they land on your web site is the company logo. So, if you are selling used cars in Kentucky, one of the best domain names you can choose, for both search engines and your visitors will be www.usedcarskentucky.com .

It is advisable to display a text logo on the upper left side of the page, which reads “used cars kentucky.com” accompanied by a small icon. This way, your most important keyword will be present on each and any of your site pages. Search engines will get the text they need, visitors will notice your business name (some basic branding). You can reinforce your keywords by repeating them in a nice tag line like: “selling used cars in Kentucky since 1966”.

You could get a domain name registered that matches your business needs so that you can tap in the desired clientele. Browsing through the web to find an affordable option of domain can be a good start. It is a good idea to register some variations of your domain name like www.usedcarkentucky.com or register the domain names with dashes used to separate words: www.used-cars-kentucky.com. Try to register the .net, .org and .biz version also. Once you secure the important domain names do a permanent (301) redirect to the main website.

It is not essential to choose a generic name for your website, because the web might be crowded with such domains. On the other hand, usage of certain brand or popular products in the domain name or page could also be an ideal approach. This does not necessarily means that the domain name has to be too complicated for the customer to remember or associate.

The domain name must be at least 2 characters long and not more than 63 characters maximum in length. The total length is excluding the top-level domain (.com, .net, etc). The characters in domain can include any combination of letters, numbers or hyphens but starting and ending of domain name should not be a hyphen. Importantly, domain names are not case-sensitive. In this manner, it would be short and easily recognizable. Nevertheless, some argue that longer the name of the URL the better chances it has of its rankings in the search engines.For more information about SEO Vancouver, PPC Vancouver visit http://www.pitstopmedia.com