Michael Small asked:


Since the day Tim O’Reilly (founder of O’Reilly Media) first used the term “Web 2.0″ rumors have flown faster than fact could catch up. Within weeks there were dozens of so called “definitions.” So what is Web 2.0? It’s really just a concept. Web 2.0 is the idea that the Internet can be used for bigger business than viewing simple Websites and sending email, if the right technologies are employed. Chances are you’ve been using Web 2.0 technology for a couple years already via shared multi media, social networking, and online collaboration sites.

Primary tools of Web 2.0 include video sharing sites such as YouTube; Wiki sites like Wikipedia; blogs and various “live face” technologies. We will cover 3 of the quickest, easiest ways to optimize for Web 2.0, beginning with blogs.

1.) SEO for Blogs

Optimizing a blog is one of the absolute best ways to capture Google’s most coveted top spots very quickly. You can hit number 1 on Google in a matter of days. Here’s how you do it…

a.) First, find a good blogging tool. There are plenty out there. I use WordPress (http://www.WordPress.org.) I originally picked it because it was so quick and easy to setup. And soon I realized the platform does 50% of SEO by its very nature. It’s free and you can get thousands of themes, to fit any style you wish, also for free.

b.) Next, make sure your hosting provider can support your blog. I’ve never seen one that can’t. If you are starting fresh, do a Google search for “WordPress blog hosting” and you’ll find great packages that only cost $25 for a whole year. Just avoid the freebie hosts since you are almost guaranteed to be sharing server space (and likely an IP range) with sites banned by Google, which can cost you your ranking.

c.) Once your blog app is installed, turn on the “permalink” option from the control panel. This way each posting you enter will also get its own URL. Finally, begin entering posts of 200 or more words, focusing on only 1 or 2 keywords per post. Try to begin each post title with the primary keyword for that topic.

d.) To best optimize your keywords and content follow the steps outlined in SEO cbt’s release “Google Domination” (http://www.SEOcbt.com). This is a free computer based training module for SEO do it yourselfers that works extremely well. It was not written specifically for blogs but all the information is perfectly suited to them.

Inside Tip: Register your domain name for a five year period or longer. Just extend it if needed. Google has been known to check “whois” records and assumes the longer the domain is registered in advance, the more “real” the site is.

2.) SEO for YouTube Videos

YouTube accounts for more than 60% of ALL online videos watched in the US. And your YouTube videos can be found in Google’s search results just like any normal Web page. This means they can rank number 1 in just days, with the right SEO.

If you’re looking to capitalize on SEO for Web 2.0, this is a fast and free way to do it. I won’t get into how to upload the videos and optimize the frame size, etc. That said; let’s assume you have signed up for your free account at YouTube.com and are ready to upload your first video using their easy to follow instructions. This is all the SEO you need to know…

a.) When forming your title, think in terms of “long tail” keywords, meaning keyword phrases of three or more words. Be sure these are in the same order people would search for them (eg/ “long tail keywords” not “keywords long tail.”) Also try to anticipate what the user will type in his search. “How to” is one of the most common search phrases people use in Google and YouTube to get answers quick.

b.) Think of “tags” as keywords and enter them like you would the Meta keyword tag of a web page. Select only the most likely search terms people are using and keep the words in the order people use them. Don’t just use random words separated by commas. Use full length search phrases exactly how people search for them. And don’t go too crazy here. Excessive tags tend to confuse the YouTube engine. Incidentally, if you have “how to” as a tag, also add “howto” (without the space.) If “how to” returns a bunch of unrelated junk your “howto” tag can better cut to the chase in YouTube’s search engine.

c.) The description is where you have the most freedom. It’s best to begin the description with your main keyword (and title) as close to the beginning as possible. Something like this works well… “Learn how to…” then follow up with several sentences rich in long tail keywords (the same ones from your tags.) Good grammar isn’t the biggest deal but try to make it friendly for people who might actually read the description before they decide to watch the video. Also remember that Google uses a natural text algorithm that can spot unnatural keyword spamming a mile away.

Real Life Example: I just saw a commercial on TV for a spy movie and someone threw a knife. I went to Google and entered “how to throw a knife” (without quotes.) The top three matches include a YouTube video and Wiki entry. Wow! Welcome to Web 2.0!

3.) SEO Using “Live Face” Technology

One of the biggest reasons for the dot com crash of ‘01 was that Websites became way too impersonal. One of Web 2.0’s strengths is the ability to help people relate to people once again. One of the most successful technologies leading the way is “Live Face.”

Live Face allows a video spokesperson to meet, greet and inform your Web page visitors. As far as SEO benefits, any sort of video has usually involved heavy RealTime or Flash files that block search engine spiders and hurt rankings. Now however, there are services like Live Face for Web (http://www.LivefaceForWeb.com) that can add full length videos to your site without it interfering with onsite SEO one bit (due to the file’s location) while greatly enhancing offsite efforts such as acquiring the highest quality one way and reciprocal links.

Most sites employing this technology report conversion increases of up to 5x. This means they are converting up to five times the number of sales they did before using Live Face technology.

Real Life Example: The SEOcbt.com site mentioned earlier uses Live Face for Web and they hit number one on Google for all of their major keywords within two weeks of site launch.

That’s a good start to SEO for Web 2.0. Good luck!



Elsie

Justin Pinkus asked:


With the advent of computers and internet, an all new meaning was given to the term globalization. Websites came into being and what was initially seen as a sales gimmick for large scale companies, is today taken as an essential sales strategy, even for a local small scale businesses. Almost everyone in the commercial sector is aware that websites are essential if one is looking to succeed and grow in their business sphere. It is no wonder then that right from Coke to a small scale bulb producer in Holland, everyone has a website to boast of.

Today, advertising strategies are developed keeping in mind not only the regular prospect but also those who use the virtual market for their shopping needs. Right from furniture, flowers, food to feet care products everything can be bought online.  Instead of confining ones business to only those in the vicinity the need to is to go global. Business persons have realized that depriving your business of a website can translates to depriving your business of clients. The entire globe is a consolidated market, all one needs to do is to set up an efficient web site and tap potentials worldwide.

Sounds easy? It is. Whether you hire a web development agency to do the job or adopt a DIY web building software in order to launch your website, the trick is to maximize its exposure. An effective web site is one that ensures maximum traffic and develops content that helps make converts. This is where Search Engine Optimization steps in. Search engine optimization is the art of developing web content by adopting certain keywords that help in attracting traffic to the site. There is no doubt that there are several other forms of diverting traffic towards your website like Pay per click adds, link advertising, etc. However, it has been observed that search engine optimized content development, is one of the most effective as well as easy methods of increasing web traffic.

A few facts about SEO development will help understand the importance of the strategy as well as learn how to develop appropriate search engine friendly content.

1) Most prospects come via search engines- Irrespective of how easy to remember your website name is, it is probable that sometimes even 90 % of the traffic the site witnesses, is via search engines. Most people use keywords to look for providers, and then conduct a comparison between the names that come up. Therefore, it is imperative that you do not loose out on these prospects, who may not have heard of your company, but are looking for products that you sell. It is a fact that ignoring search engine optimization will lead you to loose out to competitors who sell similar products.

2) Registered search engines work the best – There are several search engines out there, but ask around and most people will stop after naming Google and Yahoo. Not only are these search engines registered but that is what makes them authentic too. Registered search engines will ensure that the host site is functional 99 % of the time. A host site that is frequently down repels prospects, which automatically translates to less traffic for the website begin hosted. So the trick is to ensure that you select search engines that are registered, popular and keep their site operational almost always.

3) Most users use more than one keyword to search – Another important fact about SEO is that the keyword selection must be attacked from the point of view of the users. It is a known fact that most users use a search phrase rather than a single word. It is therefore imperative to organize content that is not keyword rich but rather key phrase rich. Instead of using a keyword as common as say, ‘shoes’ it would be better to use ‘red shoes’, ‘cheap shoes’ leather shoes’ and so on. Statistics show that 32.58% users use two word phrases when using a search engines.

4) Tracking the user- The golden rule of commercial success is to deliver in accordance with the clients needs. If you know what the customer wants, then you will be able to tap in on the potential of a sale much more. Similarly, search engine optimization can also be mastered if you know what the prospect is looking for and what are the means adopted by the prospect for this search. Interestingly there are several methods that allow you to track your target customers. Tracking will enable you to assess which search engines are being used by your prospects and what type of keywords are they employing in this search. Armed with this knowledge you shall be able to capture the SEO demon easily. Develop content around the popular keywords that prospects are using to search for products similar to yours. Once the content has been developed, place it on your site and then on the search engines that the prospects are using the most.

5) Multi search engine hosting – Choosing a single search engine to host your site will be like placing all your eggs in one basket. While it is true that one must employ a popular search engine, this does not mean that you can afford to ignore all the others. A more coherent SEO strategy would be one where several search engines are employed as means to deliver the site to the prospect. Each person visiting your site has the potential to convert into a client. Therefore the more search engines you use for this purpose the more traffic you add to your site.

6) Check and re check – Once you have created search engine optimized content and posted it, you cannot simply put your feet up and expect conversions. You must check and recheck to confirm if the content is actually working. For this once more tracking comes in handy. E- commerce supporting software that allows you to analyze how many hits the site managed, what were the keywords used by the prospects, which search engines were employed, how long did the prospect stay on the site, which pages did the potential client view, how many converted, what were the services that they were looking for, etc, are a must. The answers to these questions will help you develop a better website by epitomizing your SEO strategy.

7) Update constantly- Time is never still, it is in constant flux and this holds true for the internet too. Things on the net change continuously. What was good enough last night may have been beaten by your competition by today morning. Indeed then, you must at all times keep pace with this change. It is therefore necessary to update your search engine developed content often. Maintaining your website is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Continuing with an outdated site, content or keywords will fail to attract prospects.

High page rank – Most users rarely go beyond the first or the second page of the search results. Unless you maintain a high search rank chances of attracting prospects via the search engine will be highly diminished. It is very important that your site comes up as high as possible on the results page of the search engine. For this an effective keyword density will need to be adopted along with the use of popular keywords and phrases.

9) Appropriate keyword density- Keyword density is the number of times that the keyword appears in all of the content. It is this density that decides the search engine page rank that the site shall enjoy. However, this does not mean that only the keyword density is to be given regard while the quality of the content maybe completely ignored. Remember unless your content is good, even if you do manage to pull in prospects using keywords, you shall not be able to make converts. Since it is the final sale that is the backbone of any commercial venture, you cannot ignore the quality of the content at any given time. Today there are highly intelligent search engines that have been developed, which are able to choose websites that are authentic instead of simply falling for high density keyword rich content. On an average a density of 3% to 4 % is considered a safe option.

10) Keyword placement – As important as keyword density, is keyword placement. Placing the keyword in the right area rather than simply bunching them all together will go a long way in ensuring good quality search engine optimized content. On an average, it is safe to say that ensuring that the keyword appears once in the title, once in the first and last sentence of the content and once every 100 to 150 words in the body of the content is fairly good keyword placement. At no point should the keyword override the quality of the content. Remember most readers can be lost or captured by the first few sentences of any write up.

While these ten pointers listed above are the basic facts about SEO content creation, it is not to say that they are the only steps one needs to follow. Search engine optimization is the latest trend of E- commercial activities. Developing on these pointers and adopting your own special qualities, will help in creating high quality search engine optimized content and therefore generating added traffic for your website.



Sarah

John Buchanan asked:


If you are new to the internet, often times things can seem quite overwhelming. People throw around terms like IP Addresses, Nameservers, hosting, ftp, etc.

In this article we are going to cover IP Addresses. You’ll learn exactly what they are and how they apply to search engine optimization (SEO).

IP Address stands for Internet Protocol Address and is currently made up of four “octets” or numbers separated by a period. Each octet can be a number from 0 to 255

Some examples of valid IP addresses are - 1.123.150.243, 35.35.36.10, 240.216.1.80

There is also a new standard for IP addresses that is slowly being launched called IPV6 (IP version 6). IPV6 numbers look quite different from our current IP addresses.

An example of an IPv6 IP address is - 2001:0db8:85a3:08d3:1319:8a2e:0370:7334

You will notice each it is much longer with MANY more possible variations. The new IP system is designed to give us enough IP addresses so that we will not run out of unique IP addresses any time in the foreseeable future.

So why do we need IP addresses? Quite simply, an IP address is like your physical home address. It designates a specific computer that is connected to the internet. Every computer connected to the internet has an IP address. This is necessary for it to send and receive information.

When you type in a website name, for example mine, http://www.sesecrets.com that name is translated into an IP address that is then used to “find” my site. In the current set of IP addresses, going from left to right, the first “octet” is the most broad, with each successive octet getting more and more granular or specific.

To explain that a bit better.

134 - is VERY broad

134.125 - is still quite broad, but getting more specific

134.125.244 - is getting more specific and probably refers to a specific web host.

134.125.244.1 - is as specific as you can get and refers to a specific computer

You will often hear different classes such as class A, class B, and class C talked about when dealing with IP addresses. Below I’ve given some examples of what people are referring to when talking about classes.

Class A

134.XXX.XXX.XXX

240.XXX.XXX.XXX

22.XXX.XXX.XXX

Class B

134.254.XXX.XXX

36.36.XXX.XXX

36.37.XXX.XXX

Class C

254.210.135.XXX

36.36.1.XXX

36.36.2.XXX

It’s often easiest to think of IP addresses as physical addresses, with the Class A octet being similar to country, Class B, being a city in that country, Class C being a street in that city, and the last octet being a specific house on that street.

So, by looking above you should be able to see that when some talks about a Class A IP address they are referring to the first “octet” and when they say that two IP addresses are on different Class A subnets, it simply means the first set of numbers are different.

So for example

255.123.124.255

34.123.124.255

Are on different Class A’s. While the rest of the IP addresses are the same, because they are on different Class As, they are VERY far apart (remember, Class A is the most broad).

The same goes for Class B. Class B refers to the second octet of numbers. When someone says that two IP addresses are on different Class B’s it simply means that the the second octet’s of each IP is different. The IPs may be on the same Class A or it may be different, but the second Octet of numbers is different. To better explain…look below.

255.123.124.255

255.34.124.255

34.34.124.255

In the above example, the first two IP addresses are on the same Class A, but different Class B’s. The third IP address, has the same Class B number (34), but because the first Octet is different, it is also on a different Class B ( as with physical addresses, two countries can have the same city names, but they are still different cities).

For class C we are looking at the third octet.

255.123.124.255

255.123.34.255

34.42.124.255

Again, the first two above are on different Class C’s, while the third has the same class C number as the first, but it’s first and second octets are different, so it’s also on a different Class C.

I hope the above makes since to you. I’ve tried to give plenty of examples to make it clear no matter what your tech background is.

The good news is, that you hardly ever have to mess with IP addresses. When you get a web hosting account for your domain name, your host will assign your domain name an IP address. You often don’t even HAVE to know it. Generally your host will set all this up for you without you having to understand any of it. From that point on, when someone types in your domain name, that name will then be converted to your assigned IP address and voila…your visitor winds up at your site.

I’ll cover some of the other basics such as web hosting accounts, nameservers, etc. in later articles.

I’ll see you at the top!



Bernice

Dharmender Kumar asked:


Even our dear WordPress which so many search engine optimization professionals sincerely love and prefer as a blogging platform, is misinformed or at least, subject to making sweeping generalizations. This is the “banned” category:

And here are some examples of blogs that are banned from WordPress.com (all of these fall under the general heading of “spam blogs”, or splogs, and we will be deleted as soon as we find them or they get reported):

•    Scraper blogs: Blogs that take content from other blogs and re-publish it without permission (this is sometimes called scraping). If a blog contains all or mostly stolen and unoriginal content, it’s gone!

•    SEO blogs: Blogs that are written for search engines instead of humans. These blogs are dedicated to trying to fool Google and other search engines into ranking them highly. WordPress.com is not meant for this type of activity.

•    Affiliate marketing blogs: Blogs with the primary purpose of driving traffic to affiliate programs and get-rich-quick schemes (”Make six figures from home!!”, “20 easy steps to top profits!!”, etc). To be clear, examples like people writing original book or movie reviews and linking them to Amazon, or people linking to their own products on Etsy do NOT fall into this category.

•    Warez blogs: Blogs that promote pirated copies of ebooks, software packages, music, movies, games, etc

C’mon WordPress.com, just because some overzealous SEO noobs used (likely experimented and exploited) your free blog hosting service at wordpress.com doesn’t mean all SEO blogs are suspect and shady.

With literally hundreds and hundreds of reviews we’ve done on SEO blogs over the past year, I think I have a fairly good sense about what most SEO bloggers are writing about and the vast majority are on the up and up. I suspect I wouldn’t need to look far to find a sinister “Politics” or “Personal” blog or two or two hundred on the WordPress.com service. That said, I’m not sure whether any of the 500 or so SEO blogs on our BIGLIST are hosted at Wordpress.com. Of course not, they were probably banned - LOL.

The warning is, of course, directed towards blogs setup at WordPress.com and not blogs using the downloadable WordPress application. Regardless, WordPress is such a great piece of software, this just seems a bit over the top. So here’s my suggested alternative:

SEO blogs: Blogs that provide tips, news and insights into how web site and blog owners can make it easier for search engines and users to find and interact with their sites resulting in improved traffic levels and repeat visits. With literally hundreds and hundreds of reviews we’ve done on SEO blogs over the past year, I think I have a fairly good sense about what most SEO bloggers are writing about and the vast majority are on the up and up. I suspect I wouldn’t need to look far to find a sinister “Politics” or “Personal” blog or two or two hundred on the WordPress.com service. That said, I’m not sure whether any of the 500 or so SEO blogs on our BIGLIST are hosted at Wordpress.com. Of course not, they were probably banned - LOL.

Then they can make a statement against blogs in general that provide mis-information or violate published policies instead of making such a sweeping statement. What do you think? Am I too “glass half full” and idealistic in my characterization of SEO blogs?



Jo