Wed, 20 Jun 2007
A very important SEO (Search engine optimization) tool is the html validator. The "validator" checks the html code and tells you how a robot sees your web pages.				

Pages that look fine to your human visitors, are not fine to robots and the validator. The tool is not perfect, but is very important.				
this page validates
this page does not validate						
					

Thu, 21 Jun 2007
Search engine analysis must identify the common typos and various ways to write the search term. 
Let's look at the following examples (all numbers are according to overture, June 20 2007):
- Search engine optimization - 117,593 searches per month
- Search engine optimization seo - 5,071 searches per month
- Search engine optimisation - 5,854 searches per month

- Ekg - 13,773 searches per month
- Ecg - 11,503 searches per month

The first example tells us that going after the typo (search engine optimisation) will get you more traffic then the obvious choice (search engine optimization seo).
The second example tells us that a heart/ medical web site must catch both terms (Ekg and Ecg) since they are almost the same
					

Fri, 22 Jun 2007
Multiple domain names - Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts is currently the head of Google's Webspam team.

"If the content is truly the same, I would pick one domain and make the other domains do a redirect to the domain you prefer. For example, google.com could do a permanent (301) redirect to www.google.com, and then we would see that and generally choose the destination of the redirect. Having content from two different domains isn't risky if they are in different languages (for example, Chinese and English), but if you have the exact same content on two different domains, it's better to use a permanent redirect from the duplicate domains to a single preferred domain.
If you have mirror pages without a redirect, that can cause issues. It's better to use 301/permanent redirects, because Google might choose to remove or not to show the copy that you liked the best."
					

Mon, 25 Jun 2007
Search engines like SEO - Matt Cutts

Matt Cutts is currently the head of Google's Webspam team.

"It's a common mistake to think that search engines don't like SEO. 
The fact is that SEO within Google's quality guidelines is okay. 
That includes things like making sure that your site is crawlable, 
thinking of words that users would use when searching and including them naturally within the content of the site, 
and doing things like making sure that page titles and urls are descriptive."
					

Tue, 26 Jun 2007
Cloaking sites

Cloaking sites is the technique of showing different pages to search engines bots than to people. 
When a person requests the web page from the website, the site's normal page is returned, 
but when a search engine bot makes the same request, a different page (that was created for the search engine bot) is returned, 
and the regular persons' page for the URL is not returned.

					

Wed, 27 Jun 2007
User interface design

The "User interface design" is very important in the SEO world. if the SEO company gets the traffic to the site, the "User interface design" will keep the clients or make the leave the web site.
The user interface design is based on:

- Functionality - what is the web site supposed to do?
- User analysis - analysis of the potential users. 
	The user interface design needs to answer:
	- What does the user want the web site to do?
	- What would be the web sites normal workflow?
	- How savvy is the user and what similar systems did the user already use?
	- What interface look and feel would appeal to the user?
- Information architecture - the flow of the web site.
- Prototyping - development of wireframes.
- Usability testing - testing of the prototypes on actual users.
- Graphic Interface design - actual look and feel design of the graphical user interface (GUI.) It may be based on the findings developed during the usability testing if usability is unpredictable, or based on communication objectives and styles that would appeal to the user. In rare cases, the graphics may drive the prototyping, depending on the importance of visual form versus function. If the interface requires multiple skins, there may be multiple interface designs for one control panel, functional feature or widget. This phase is often a collaborative effort between a graphic designer and a user interface designer, or handled by one who is proficient in both disciplines.
- Consistency, consistency, consistency.
- Navigation between items is important.
- Navigation within a web page is important.
- Expect your users to make mistakes.
- Your design must be intuitive.
- KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid

					

Thu, 28 Jun 2007
Pay per click (PPC)

Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model used on websites, advertising networks, and search engines 
where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks on an ad to visit the advertiser's website. 
When a user types a keyword query matching the advertiser's keyword list, the advertiser's ad may appear on the search results page. 
These ads are called "sponsored links" or "sponsored ads" and appear next to, and sometimes, above the natural or organic results on the page. 
The advertiser pays only when the user clicks on the ad. 

Pay per click advertising is a search engine marketing technique.

To make the most of this medium the advertiser needs to "steal eye balls". 
The advertiser needs to refer traffic to his/her web site.
The best way to do this is by assigning the Pay per click (PPC) to another web site.

For example,
The Google ads on this web site Driving School are "stealing" the quality traffic that this web site is getting. 
Every click they get is a quality click, since the "eye balls" are already focused on "Driving Schools".

Find a web site that has quality traffic, and locate your ads there.
					

Fri, 29 Jun 2007
Traffic reporting tools

There are a few traffic reporting tools to see your web site traffic. 
I will mention 3 that I like
1. The software that is used by your hosting company. 
	Your hosting company might have webTrends or similar software.
	I prefer these, since they are accurate and show you (almost) everything.
2. Google analytics - a very popular solution and rightfully so.
	You can register here http://www.google.com/analytics/. 
	The reports are for savvy users and the new reporting version is even more complicated. Overall this is a wonderful (free) solution.
3. Another solution in Beta is "Enquire", you can find it here http://www.enquisite.com/
	It gives you great reports, but only about people that came from search engines.
	There is nothing about people that came from "referring sites".
	
You can have them all or just one.
They are all good traffic reporting tools.
					

Tue, 3 July 2007
Is my site indexed by search engines?

To see if Google bot picked up your web site, you need to search for:
site:nameofsite.com
The results page would look like this:
Google - Dogs World
Yahoo! - Dogs World

These search results show you which pages on your web site are "known" to the search engine.
					

Wed, 4 July 2007
Site-targeted campaign

I wrote about Pay per click (PPC) and about "stealing eyeballs" through Google ads. 
I was asked how to do it with Google ads.
The instructions are here
Google site-targeted campaign

Happy stealing...

					

Thu, 5 July 2007
RSS in Plain English

This is a wonderful video that explains RSS in plain english.
RSS in Plain English

					

Mon, 9 July 2007
Spam technique - Noscript

This spam technique is very simple to apply, and very simple to catch by search engines.
The web page has a paragraph full of the keywords between <noscript> and </noscript>.

					

Tue, 10 July 2007
Spam technique - Hidden text

This spam technique is very simple to apply, and very simple to catch by search engines.

A hidden text is simply a piece of text robots could read, but is not visible to the web surfer.
Hidden text could be a pixel by pixel paragraph.
Hidden text could be keywords written in the same color as the background.

Matt Cutts is currently the head of Google's Webspam team: Nearly hidden text

					

Wed, 11 July 2007
Cell Emulators

The world is moving forward. Cell phones are browsing the internet and are creating new challenges in web site building.
While most web companies build web sites for IE, the front-line web companies build web site for many more browsers:

- Sony K750, Nokia N70
- iPhone
- Opera Mini

					

Mon, 16 July 2007
Reciprocal link

A reciprocal link is a mutual link between two websites in order to ensure mutual traffic.
For example:
Driving Schools Directory
Toronto Limousine

					

Wed, 18 July 2007
Europeans embrace Firefox

Firefox has made huge inroads in Europe over the past year, to the point where Internet Explorer is in danger of losing its market share lead in some countries. According to French web metrics firm XiTiMonitor, Firefox's overall market share in the 32 European countries it measures has grown to 27.8 percent, up from just over 20 percent in January 2006.
read the whole article
					

Thu, 19 July 2007
Img Alt / Image Alt

Img Alt is the alternative text to browsers that do not see the image. 
Browsers like "Lynx", browsers used by the blind etc.

This is what Google gas to say about img alt:
Images: Use the alt attribute to provide descriptive text. 
In addition, we recommend using a human-readable caption and descriptive text around the image.

					

Wed, 15 August 2007
Robots.txt

Robots.txt file does not improve your search engine positioning. 
It provides robots with information concerning which files you will not allow to be crawled and indexed in the search engines.
When the search engine robot crawls your site it looks for the robots.txt file. 
If it doesn't find one it assumes automatically that it may crawl and index the entire site. 

This allows all robots to crawl all files.
User-agent: *
Disallow:

This Disallows all robots to crawl a folder called /cmsbuffet/ .
User-agent: *
Disallow: /cmsbuffet/

This web site validates your Robots.txt
http://tool.motoricerca.info/robots-checker.phtml

					

Thu, 23 August 2007
Web site Stickiness

Stickiness is the amount of time spent at a site over a given time period.

Stickiness is often measured in the average minutes visitors spend on your web site. 
Sometimes stickiness is measured in terms of page views.

Getting quality traffic is great, but you need to keep your audience interested. 
This is where the stickiness factor plays an essential role.

Stickiness is achieved by the following elements:
	- Good user interface (UI).
	- Good content.
	- Changing content - if the web site content does not change you will not get many re-visits
	- Your content needs to answer the web visitors question.


Looking for a deeper analysis of your web site? the Diagnostic Program can help you.

					

Wed, 19 September 2007
Sub Domain SEO

SEO (Search engine of a sub-domain) is like promoting a completely new web site.
The sub-domain stands by itself and needs its own SEO plan.
The sub-domain can be for another language: for example www.artefac.ca and french.artefac.ca
The sub-domain can be for another province / state: for example http://california.traffic-schools.net/ and http://newyork.traffic-schools.net/.
Each sub-domain is a world of it-self.

Make sure the UI (user interface) of the domain and subdomain are accessible and easy to navigate.



Looking for a deeper analysis of your web site? the Diagnostic Program can help you.