SEO Tutorial

Search Engine Optimization Tutorial - "How To SEO"

Search Engine Optimization -- the process of making a site "search engine-friendly" — also known as "SEO" -- is probably the most important aspect of website design. Many, many commercial websites are designed and set up by people who know little or nothing about search engine optimization — how to give the search engines what they need to see when they index your site. This long page contains the information (or links to it) that web designers SHOULD know about optimizing a website for the search engines.
The most important thing to know about search engines is that SEARCH ENGINES ONLY INDEX TEXT. Make that your mantra while designing and optimizing your website. They don't index images well, and they don't index Flash well. Although there are some exceptions to that rule, as search engines are becoming more intelligent and more able to index files such as PDFs and the captions of graphic files, and some of the text in a Flash file — for all practical purposes just remember that rule: Search engines only index text and you won't go too far wrong in search engine optimization.
For a technical "how to" on optimizing Flash files, see this page from J E Hochman, and for an up-to-date late-2010 summary of the pros and cons of trying to optimize Flash, see this article from WebsiteMagazine. (Note that we use these same techniques when optimizing Flash sites.)
There are a lot of small things you can do when designing or re-designing a site to get better rankings in the search engines — and every little bit helps in the end result. There is no one magic thing you can do to get top placement at a search engine for your website. But you can do a bunch of small things that will add up to excellent placement in the search engines for the key words you select that are relevant to your web pages.
You can and should optimize more than one page of your website for the search engines; it's not something you do on just one page and skip doing on the rest of the site. You can optimize your home page for your single most important keyword phrase and other pages for different key word phrases. If you sell different products on different pages, each page can be optimized for that particular product. That's a good way to organize it. We recommend search engine optimization on at least a dozen main pages of your site, for the best effect. Don't bother optimizing pages on which you do not have public content, or pages such as a "contact us" or "privacy policy" or "copyright info" pages. (No one will be searching for your copyright info.) The pages you want to optimize are the pages you want people to find — those pages with content about your service or product--whatever you are selling.
Note: If you have a database-driven website, there are special concerns. Click here for more info on how to optimize a database-driven site for the search engines.
Also Note: If you have a website that is designed using <frames>, there are special concerns. Click here for more info on optimizing a frames-built website for the search engines.
If you are designing a site from scratch, see also especially this page: SEO Techniques in Web Design.

Search Engine Optimization – Let's get started!

To get a good feel for what is required in optimizing a normal commercial website for the search engines, let's pretend we're creating a website which sells after-market accessories for the "Alfa Romeo Alfetta", a 70's 4-door sports car that provides a snap-your-head-back kind of driving experience. (It is a car with a small but fanatical base of fans.) Our site will sell floor mats, hood ornaments, key chains, steering wheels, and so on -- all for the Alfa Romeo Alfetta.

Alfa Romeo Alfetta

Pick a Good Domain Name

This step is not very important - but every little bit helps. For the perfect domain name match-up in a search engine so that a page of our "Alfa Romeo Alfetta" website comes up #1 in the search results, the website itself would be best named:

http://www.alfa-romeo-alfetta.com

For more info on picking a good domain name for optimum search engine placement, and what you can do if you already have a domain name that isn't very good in this respect, click here. Don't sweat it if you haven't got a great domain name, you can skip this step. This aspect of search engine optimization doesn't count for much, just a little.

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Pick a Good Web Hosting Company

What type of website hosting company do you have? This can be very important to the search engines. Free website hosting is usually bad for search engine rankings, for several reasons. For a detailed article about how your website hosting company can affect your rankings in the search engines by Larisa Thomason (Senior Web Analyst for NetMechanic), click here.
The most important factor is that your website should have its own "static" IP address. In other words, its numeric IP address should be stable, and not be different every time someone types in your URL--that's called a "dynamic" IP Address and is typical of Windows IIS Hosting. Big hosting companies typically use "dynamically assigned" IP addresses which work this way: when someone types in your URL into his browser, the HTTP request is presented to your hosting company's server, which quickly assigns an IP address to your website files on its server and connects the visitor to your files. Some search engines don't like this, for various technical reasons.
But more importantly, if your web hosting company has some "bad hats" (spammers or pornographers or whatever) who have been banned from search engines for good reason, your site could also be banned "by association" because, to the Search Engine your site's IP address looks to be that of the bad hats. In the eyes of the search engines it has an identical numeric IP address -- the one that belongs to your web hosting company.
If you are serious about getting good search engine rankings for your site, you need to have a static IP address of your own. If you don't know whether you do or not, call or email your web hosting company and find out whether your IP address for your site is static or dynamic. If it a static IP address, they should be able to tell you exactly what your static numeric IP address is. Find out what that is. For example, the static numeric IP address for Words in a Row is: 65.38.173.39. You should be able to substitute your numeric IP address after the "http://______", type that into your browser and go directly to your website.
There's another way to find out if you have a dynamic or static IP address, and that is to use this tool provided free by Bruce Clay:

Put Your URL to Check in this box:

it will tell you exactly what the numeric IP address of your site is, and a bunch of other info about it. Did your site pass the test? If not, contact me and I will try to advise you what to do to fix the problem.
You can also "ping" a website to find out the IP address being used. For example, if you open a DOS command prompt window on your Windows PC, you can type the following:

ping:www.wordsinarow.com

and it will return the IP address of 65.38.173.39. You can ping any website, get its IP address, and try to reach it through HTTP:// at that IP address. If it has a static, dedicated IP address, you'll get to the website. If not (and that's usually the case) you'll either get a different website, or a generic message from the server saying that there's no website configured at that address.
Now take the numeric IP address from that report and type it in your browser after typing "http://" — don't put in "www" — just type the four numbers after the "http://" — if it returns a "404 page not found" or some site other than yours! -- you have a dynamic IP address. If your site shows up in your browser, then that four-part number is your static IP address. (Many thanks to Bruce Clay for providing this tool!)
We like the website hosting from Data393 for many reasons - one of them is that they will set up hosted websites on their server with static IP addresses. If your hosting company does not offer static IP addresses, my advice is that you should change web hosting companies. Data393 is a good choice but not your only choice -- you could also use Verio or many others. In 2010, even Godaddy.com offers cheap hosting with a dedicated static IP address for an extra $3.00/month. WebWizards.net also offers inexpensive hosting and a dedicated static IP address. Words in a Row also offers hosting, but only to our marketing or web design clients.
Unless you are locked into a proprietary shopping cart or content management system, it is not usually very difficult or expensive to move your site from one hosting company to another. Just make sure your new hosting company gives you a static IP address and that your site passes through the Bruce Clay analysis tool (the form above) without any problems.
In our experience, with all other factors being equal, the site with its own static IP address will rise to the top at the search engines over those with dynamic IP addresses. This is something your hosting company may dispute--especially if they don't provide static IP addresses. Approximately 97% of all IP addresses on the web are dynamically assigned, so do not be surprised if your site has a dynamic IP address when you check it.
Here's a blog post from BruceClay.com about their tests of static vs. dynamic IP addresses to see if they really make a difference in search engine rankings.
Here's an article from Michael Banks Valentine of About.com, about "Playing Hide and Seek with Search Engines". It explains in detail some of the ways your server setup can make your site a problem in the search engines.

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Figure Out Your Key Word Phrases

Your next step should be to do some homework and figure out what your key word phrases should be for your website pages. You need to make a short list of 1 or 2 key word phrases for each page of the site you want to optimize. Each phrase should be no more than three or four words. It is okay if the same words are in more than one key word phrase, and it is okay if some of the pages overlap their keyword phrases.
For each page you should wind up with a list of no more than two key word phrases, each less than three or four words long. Longer phrases are less effective. Single words are often useless. The word "Software" for example, is ignored by many search engines - it is what they call a "stop" word, like "the" or "a" - they just ignore it when you search for it, unless you put it inside quotation marks or otherwise make it clear it is part of your search.
For more info about picking the right key word phrases for your website, click here. There are several tools that will help you pick the right keywords. One great free tool is the Google External Keyword Tool.

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Set up your Meta Tags

There are several "tags" that go into the HTML code for a page of a website. These tags are placed between the <HEAD> and </HEAD>. These are invisible to the average person browsing the site but are used by the search engines when they come crawling through your site and index the pages--a process called "spidering". These tags should be present on every page of the website. The most important tags are:

• The <title> tag
• and the "description" <meta> tag.

The "keyword" <meta> tag used to be important but is basically useless now.

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Set up your <Title> Tag

Our site would contain a <title> tag like this:

<title>Alfa Romeo Alfetta Accessories</title>

What we put in here is based on the key word phrases we figured out above. It should contain our main key word phrase, "Alfa Romeo Alfetta" at least once. It shouldn't contain more than 60 characters. In fact, if you can make it seven words or less (discounting words like "and" and "for", which the search engines ignore anyway) you're better off.
The <title> tag must contain the main keyword phrase for which you are optimizing that page. Google in particular places heavy emphasis on what is in your page's <title> tag. So does Bing.

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Set up your Meta Keyword Tag

The <meta> keyword tag will contain our key word phrases for the specific page we are on:
<meta name="keywords" content="Alfa Romeo Alfetta, automobile accessories, aftermarket, hood ornaments, floor mats, auto parts, blah, blah, blah">
Don't make this more than about 250 characters long. Don't use the same key word more than twice in it. Vary the capitalization. Don't use all capital letters unless the word is an acronym, like "SEO", which is short for Search Engine Optimization. Don't use words in it that don't show up in the body text on the page. In practical terms, you can delete this keywords meta tag without any consequence. Better not to have a keywords meta tag than one that is filled with keywords that don't show up on your pages; it can count against you!
Note: Don't obsess about the keywords tag. It is mostly disregarded nowadays due to abuse by people stuffing keywords that didn't belong into it. You can almost skip it entirely.

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Set up your Meta Description Tag

The <meta> description tag is a description of the page. It should contain our key word phrases for the specific page we are on:
<meta name="description" content="Alfa Romeo Alfetta accessories, blah, blah, blah">
This tag should describe the specific page it is on, not the whole website. This is the description of the page that shows up at the search engine when someone is lucky enough to find this page in a search. Don't make the description more than about 200 characters long. Make it descriptive, and make sure it contains your key word phrases!
We won't repeat individual key words more than twice in any one meta tag because that can get a site banned from a search engines for something called "spamdexing", which is "spamming" the index of a search engine. It's also known as "keyword stuffing"; don't do it! For more info on how to avoid spamming the search engines, click here.
Note: The description meta tag should include a call to action, such as "Call for a free consultation" or "Click here for a discount coupon" or something else to make it stand out, so people click on it when your listing does show up in the search engine results.

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Put Key Words in Headings

Back to our Alfa Romeo Alfetta site: It will have "headings" like the one at the top of this section. It was created using heading tags that look like this: <H2>Put Key Words in Headings</H2>.
These "headings" make your browser display the text larger and set it aside from the rest of the text, on its own line. Search engines will look for and index our headings when they index the pages on our site, so our headings should ALSO contain the main key word phrases for our site, like this:

• <h1>Alfa Romeo Alfetta</h1>
  
• <h2>Alfa Romeo Alfetta - Hood Ornaments</h2>
  
• <h2>Alfa Romeo Alfetta - Maintenance Manuals</h2>
  
• <h2>Alfa Romeo Alfetta - Floor Mats</h2>
  
• and so on through as many headings (in this case our products for sale) as we can think of that we want to include on that page.

Headings like that are weighted heavily in the search engines -- many of them use a formula that LIKES the key words in headings more than elsewhere in the site. Don't neglect these. Use them to set off areas of text, in the same way this page you are reading is divided up by headings.
Note: Some people detest using headings because they tend to be big clunky elements in web designs, and they can add a lot of space down the page. You can easily bypass this using a simple inline style command, like this:

<H1 style="margin-bottom: 0px; font-size: 12px;">This will make a small heading with no space after it!</H1>

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H1 headings should be used for branding of your site. H2 tags should be used for keywords, to help outline what's on the page visually. Don't use more than one H1 tag on a page.

Use Key Words in Your Text

Our optimized page would contain TEXT of at least 250 words, with the key word phrase "Alfa Romeo Alfetta" occurring several times near the beginning of the text. If a page doesn't contain at least 250 words, some search engines won't bother to index it. It's preferable to have 500 words or more if possible, on a page. You'll get better results from the search engines if you have more text.
It also seems to help to put the key word phrase near the end of the text, too. Search engines use a factor called "key word density" to determine how relevant that key word you're using is to the page. If it shows up a few times in the text, it is more "dense". Key word density is a good thing, up to a certain point. The main thing is to make sure you have some text that describes what you do or what you're selling - that makes your page a resource worth indexing.
In the HTML code for the page, the text should be as close to the beginning of the page as possible, because there is a limit to how far down into a page a search engine spider will go to try to find text. It is generally agreed that this is 3kb. That's only about 80-100 lines of code! So make sure your text comes before some really long JavaScript menu in the code for the page, or else the search engine won't make it far enough into the page to index the text. They'll never see the text if it is buried way down at the end of the code.
There's a trick of the <table> one can use to keep your menu bar on the left side of the page (where most people put a navigation menu) and still have the text of the page come first in the code. Normally to display to the left, the nav bar has to come first in the code. But not if you use this table trick. Of course if you use HTML/CSS only (no tables) then you won't need the table trick.

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Put Key Words in Alt Tags

Pictures on a website can and should contain a little text description that only shows up when you move your mouse over the picture. That little description is called an "ALT tag" ("ALT" is short for "alternate"). Hold your mouse over the picture on the right for a couple of seconds and your browser will display the ALT tag for the picture in most browsers.
Some search engines index those ALT tags, so we will make sure we label every picture with an ALT tag--every last picture. Wherever it is possible and appropriate, each ALT tag will contain our main key word phrase — "Alfa Romeo Alfetta".
Note: Some people surf with "pictures" turned off, to speed up their browsing. The visually handicapped also use the ALT tags to "see" what's on a picture--there is special software for the blind which reads aloud to the person what's on the page. If there are no alt tags, the pictures are invisible to them, so it is worthwhile to put an alt tag on every picture. If you can appropriately place some key words in those alt tags, so much the better.
This article by Robin Nobles quotes SEO researcher Jerry West's research showing that the alt tag is not used by the main search engines at all. My own research tells me that alt tags are only a small part of what the search engines do look at. Even so, I still recommend that you put alt tags on all images (because that is one thing needed to make your HTML code "valid", and that you put keywords in the alt tags of any images that you use as links where using keywords would be appropriate in helping to describe the image to someone who cannot view the image (i.e., someone who is visually impaired or who is using a text only browser). My research shows that some search engines do use those alt tags describing the image used as a link to determine what the page they point to is about.
Keep image names real, don't stuff keywords into them. You need to have an alt tag on every image (in order to have valid HTML code), but page design element images (such as lines, color blocks, etc.) should just have an empty alt tag, like this: alt="". Also, if you give design elements names that are just numbers, such as 1.jpg, 2.jpg, etc., Google won't bother indexing them, and they won't dilute the importance of images that you DO want Google to index, such as your product images. Don't use numbers as the names of product images if you want Google to index them. Try to use keyword-rich image names and alt tags, of any image that you want Google to index.

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Put Key Words in Anchor Tags

Hypertext links on your site usually look something like this:

<a href="floor-mats.html">. Those are called "anchor tags" — that's what the "a" stands for. You can put some other information in there, which will show up when one mouses over the link. It would look like this:

Sample Anchor Tag:

<a href="blah.html" title="Alfa Romeo Alfetta floor mats"> Alfa Romeo Floor Mats </a>

-- if the link points to the floor-mats.html page. When someone mouses over the link, they will see what you put in the title. These "titles" for the anchor tags get indexed by the search engines. Every little bit helps! Make sure the words that you wrap the anchor tag around are keywords, too, whenever possible.

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Is a Robots Tag Necessary?

In our experience, a Robots meta tag with instructions to index and follow the links on the page is simply ignored by the search engines. You can safely omit the robots tag if that's all you have been using it for. In the old days of the net (a few years ago) you would have put this tag in the head of your document:

<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">

It might have done some good a few years back - in today's world it can safely be omitted.
The robots meta tag is more useful for pages you do not want indexed. If you don't want a page to be indexed -- such as a test page, or a page you put up for your own use, then put this robots tag in the head of your document:

<meta name="robots" content="noindex">

That will keep the page out of the search engines that recognize and follow these tags. Of course, to actually prevent the page from being indexed by the search engines, you need to add the page name to the robots.txt file as one of the disallowed files. A robots meta tag is not enough to prevent the page from being indexed by some of the search engines that ignore them completely.

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Use a robots.txt file

Make an empty file. Name it "robots.txt". Put it in the root directory of your server; usually this is the same directory where your index.html file is kept. (But not always - sometimes your index.html file is in a sub-directory. In which case, make sure you have a copy of the robots.txt file in the root directory - usually the root directory is as high as you can go in the directory tree on your server.
While it is possible to set up a "robots.txt" file to exclude some or all of the search engine robots, what you probably want it to do is to allow every robot that comes along to index your site. If you do want to exclude specific robots from indexing certain directories or certain files, you will have to put some commands into the robots.txt file. For more info than you probably want about the use of the "robots.txt" file, go here. If you want every robot to be able to index your site, just leave the robots.txt file completely empty — but make sure it is there!
Experience has taught me that on some servers, it is wisest to put something in that robots.txt file and put it in both the root directory and in the directory where your index.html file is located. This text works inside the robots.txt file, to allow robots to access everything except what is noted:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /cgi-bin/

Disallow: /tmp/

Disallow: /private/

That example lets the robots coming to your site index everything except what is in your cgi-bin directory, your tmp directory, and your private directory.
To see the robots.txt file in place on Words in a Row, click here
Here is an article called "Search Engine Spiders lost without Guidance" by Mike Banks Valentine, which covers in detail many aspects of creating a robots.txt file.
You can validate your existing robots.txt file using this robots.txt validator tool.
Note: You should have a line in your robots.txt file that says where your sitemap.xml file is. That line looks like this, on my site:

Sitemap: http://www.wordsinarow.com/sitemap.xml

You'll want to put your own domain name in there, of course.
Note: If you have a huge site, you may need more than one sitemap.xml file to list all the pages of your site in it. Here's an explanation of how to set up a sitemap index

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Validate your HTML code.

Everybody knows that robots, in general, are not too smart. The search engine robots which gather information from your site can really only do two things: 1. Read text. 2. Follow links. That's all.
These days, modern browsers are much, much smarter than robots. So while you may be able to look at a page using the latest version of Firefox, Safari, Google Chrome, or Internet Explorer, the search engine robots are too dumb to see anything at all if there is a big error in your HTML code. If you have an unclosed HTML tag - for example if you have complicated nested tables, any of which aren't closed -- then that may be the point where the search engine robot gives up trying to read your site. To validate your site, use this link: http://validator.w3.org/. This will tell you where your HTML code is "busted" and needs to be fixed so you don't confuse the search engine robots. There's plenty of advice there on how to make your HTML code validate. If you or your webmaster can't figure out how to make your HTML code valid, we can help with that. Note: this page you're looking at right now has valid HTML code.
Click this button to validate now!

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Register by Hand with the Search Engines and Directories.

As soon as the website is finished and up on the web, it should be submitted to (registered with) the search engines (like Google and MSN) and directories (like Yahoo! and the ODP). Most of these are free -- some of them charge up to $300 for submitting your website. Don't scrimp here. If people can't find your site it is doomed.
There are several programs that can automate this process for you -- but we don't recommend them because, in our experience, they do not get as good of results as you get when you register your website by hand.
We've set up a page to make it easy to register with the search engines and directories by hand, here.
Here's a website that offers a service to get your site listed in 300 small directories, for $450. It's a fair amount of work to get all these inbound links. You can do it yourself, but your site will definitely need links to do well in the search engines.
Then it will take some time (expect it to take several months) for the search engines to actually index and begin listing our site. Some of them only take a day or two, others take months. We have to be patient. But eventually we would be highly placed in a search for "Alfa Romeo Alfetta", on the first page of the search results in most of the search engines. We could expect to be the first result on some of them for our keyword search for our keywords, "Alfa Romeo Alfetta"!

Register in the Search Engines

Here's where to go to register with the main search engines:

Register my website at Google

Register my website at Yahoo

Register my website at Bing

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Don't Neglect The Little Things

What are the three most often neglected opportunities for getting better rankings in the search engines? Click here to find out.

Get Links Pointing To Your Site

After our website is created and put up on a server and registered with the search engines, we would then go out and find as many other websites as possible that might have an interest in linking from their site to ours, contact them and convince them to set up such links. We might have to offer reciprocal links back to their sites in order to convince them. There's no harm in that, you WANT lots of links from your site to other sites--that's one easily-provided free service you can give away.
Here's some good advice from About.com on the subject of "How to Request Links".
Don't bother with the Free For All Links pages. FFA links pages don't work, and no one actually uses them. You want websites that are similar to yours, or which provide related services, or which contain specialty listings or directories of your type of business.
The rule is: The more links there are to our site, the more relevance it will have in some search engine results and the better placement it will get. A lone website with no links to it is a sad thing. It has no friends. Get plenty of links to your site. Ten links to your site is a good start. A thousand wouldn't be too many.
To see which sites are currently linked to your site, go to Google and type in your domain name like this:

mydomainnamehere.com

Of course, you'd substitute your actual domain name instead of mydomainnamehere.com.
Then click on the link to "Find web pages that contain the term 'mydomainnamehere.com'." That will give a list of websites that Google shows linking to yours. [Note that the Google toolbar's "backlinks" function is broken and has been for a few years — it gives incorrect results.]
MarketLeap's link analysis tool lets you put in your URL and find out the number of links to your site that are being reported by Google, Hotbot, Yahoo, AOL and MSN all at once.
We list several places to get inbound links on our page covering how to get links.
Here is a helpful article on how to get worthwhile in-bound links, Link Building Strategies

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Page Rank and Links

Page rank is Google's way of measuring your rank in terms of links to your site from other sites, based on both quantity and quality. Google page rank varies from 0 (terrible) to 10 (ideal). If you have lots of links from sites with low page ranks, they will mean very little to your page rank, whereas even a few links from other sites with good page ranks can make a difference. That doesn't mean you should cancel existing links -- they still have value.
Your page rank is a good indicator of how your link campaign is going. You want to be at 5 or above. Here is a link to a free page rank tool that tells you any URL's page rank across all the Google data centers.
Having a good page rank at Google is great, as it will help you place above similar sites at Google (page rank is likely a strong part of the algorithm that decides placement when other factors are equal). However, we recommend you track it primarily because the factors that Google tracks as part of your page rank are universal. Improving your page rank will improve your entire web presence, in addition to your placement at Google.
Underhanded sites can now fake their page rank (that displays in the Google Toolbar). So, if a site with a great PageRank contacts you about trading links, we recommend checking their actual PageRank as part of your standard actions. Use this page rank fraud detection tool from SEO Logs. The tool works by telling you the correct page rank for the site that you input, so whatever it displays is the real page rank, regardless of what displays in the Google Toolbar when you browse to that site.

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Disclaimer

Disclaimer: While SEO is very important in order to get visitors coming to your site from the search engines, it is not the only thing you should be doing to get traffic to your site. Here's an excellent article about some of the other important avenues to use to get visitors to your site.

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SEO Tutorial - Summary

In a perfect world, no other site could receive higher placement in a search for "Alfa Romeo Alfetta" unless the designer of it did exactly as we have done above, only more of it! In THIS not-too-perfect world, our website might get dropped out of a search engine for no good reason because of human error or a glitch in a program somewhere. Murphy's Laws can't be avoided, even on the web. Or another site that should get kicked out of the search engine for "spamdexing" might not get kicked out. (You've seen this kind of thing when you do a search and the same site comes up 50 times in the first 60 results, obscuring all the other relevant sites.)
For help in optimizing your website for the search engines, contact us. It's our specialty and a niche we fell into because too many website designers have not studied up on how the search engines work.

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"Yeah, But Does It Work?"

By now you might be thinking, "Does all this stuff really help, in the long run?" or "Is all this really necessary?"
Using these techniques we have gotten top placement at Google for our client, Miami Condo Lifestyle, for the highly competitive keywords "miami condos".
To give you an example of the relevance of headings containing keywords, on the Chandler's Natural Soaps website there is a glossary in which each ingredient of the soaps is defined within a specially created <h2> heading tag.
The Chandler's Soaps site routinely gets visitors looking for a specific ingredient, even though that ingredient may be mentioned only a few times in the whole website. Putting key words into headings brings in traffic to the site.
The way this works is that a person searching through Yahoo! (or any search engine) for a particular ingredient (like the herb "chamomile") sees our page come up in the search results and sees that our page is in a website featuring natural handmade soaps. She may not be looking for soap at all, but if she is curious or it sparks her interest, she'll visit the site anyway and maybe buy something. It's a form of impulse shopping via the web. It's human nature to get distracted during a search for something specific by something related that looks appealing. (Witness the success of all the shopping malls out there with stores feeding off of each other's customers.)
Also note that we optimized the Handcrafted Soapmakers Guild website, and it usually ranks at #1 at Google for the phrase, "handcrafted soaps" - click that link to see where they rank today.
Read our search engine optimization client testimonials for more info about how Search Engine Optimization might help you.
Want more proof? This page you are looking at right now often ranks #1 at Google for the term "search engine optimization tutorial". Click that link to see how this page you are looking at ranks today at Google.
So -- Yes, all this stuff works! And yes, it is necessary to use as much of it as possible. These are the guidelines we use when designing a website to optimize it for the search engines. And no, despite the length of this page, this is NOT a complete listing of all the factors that go into optimizing a website for the search engines, only the most important ones.
To make it even more confusing, all of the search engines do things a little differently, one to another.
Thanks for reading all this. We hope that it will help you design (or re-design) your website to optimize it for the search engines. If you need help doing that, you can contact us here. SEO is our specialty.
There's a lot more that can be done to effectively optimize a commercial website in a very competitive market; not every SEO technique is listed here, just the basics that we try to use on every site we optimize.
Those of our competitors who read this information and are savvy enough to apply it well are welcome to it! Good luck!

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Make Money In Freelance Fashion Photography

Make Money In Freelance Fashion Photography

 

Fashion photography is all about having an eye for trendy styles. If you live in a jet-setting city where stylish people live in their posh homes, you might consider being a fashion photographer. Women’s magazines and clothing manufacturers look for the newest and upcoming trends. If you develop a reputation as a photographer on top of emerging developments, then you can earn a decent wage. Remember, to get your foot in the door, you’ll probably have to send material “on spec”. Once you’ve established that you possess a good eye for fashion trends, and a proven professional your business will succeed. Become the Best
To become successful in this field, you should learn everything you can about the craft of photography. Practice your craft daily. Develop your skills to achieve the level you envision yourself to be. Become familiar with digital photography as well as manual photography.
Enroll in classes to stay on top of the latest techniques and equipment. Learn all the latest digital techniques, color management, processing, and compositions. Have a voracious appetite for reading and browsing through images. Read lots of books on the subject of photography as well as looking at industry specific magazines.

Equipment
Buy a good, quality digital camera which feels good in your hands. One of the best lenses to purchases for fashion photography is the F2.8 70-200 mm lens.
The Business Side
Learn everything you can about editing photographs. Even your best images sometimes could use a little extra correcting. Always take the extra time to make your photos better. Buy computer software to make your job a little easier. On the flip side, know where the balance is when editing. You don’t want to overdo an aspect of editing and have your work come across as gimmicky.
Build a professional portfolio
As an entry level photographer, you will need a professional portfolio to showcase your work. Whenever you have a shoot for fashion photos, you will need to place these pictures in your portfolio. These images need to be of your best work. Look for photos which stand out from all your other images. If any of your photos are published you will need to include the photos. Published photos show that someone has been willing to take a chance on your work.
These photos need to be organized into a folder. Buy a discreet three-ring binder with protective sheets. The protective sheets should have three-ring-hole punches on the side.
Build a website
If you can afford to spend money on marketing, then you should consider creating a website to showcase your work. Upload your best work for an online portfolio. Add a shopping cart to your website to encourage transactions online.
Have color brochures printed, presenting many photos of different age groups you have taken. Make sure you have personalized business cards made.

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Make Money As a CADD Designer

CADD stands for the term Computer Aided Design and Drafting. This type of design uses computer software which aides in designing three-dimensional projects. With this type of designs engineers and architects can turn an object into an electronic representation more quickly and more accurately than by using pencil and paper. Once these objects are digitalized the engineers and architects can resize and rotate them. CADD designers draw parts, buildings, or landscape. With the right education you can begin a new career. Requirements
To become a CADD designer you will need to obtain a bachelor’s degree in Engineering, Architecture, or Manufacturing. Any of these types of degrees can help you with your career as a CADD.

Research the area schools and online programs to find courses in CADD. You will need this course to help you become familiar with the CADD software. The more experience you have using this type of software will help you become a success.
Mentoring
You would benefit from finding a mentor to help you bridge the gap from educational study into field knowledge. Visit local firms asking if you can volunteer your time for practical knowledge. Hands-on experience will help you become a success for when you begin your own business.
Licensing
File your business name with the local government and then see if there is any licensing or registering you need to do for your newly formed business. There may be applications to file and fees to be paid.
Shop around for best insurance prices. You will need liability insurance to protect yourself in case of a law suit.
Equipment
You will need computer-assisted drafting systems software or drafting machines. Most all CADD systems are supported by the popular operating systems. You will also need compasses, dividers, protractors, triangles, and other drafting devices.
Obtain a high speed CPU with large amounts of RAM. You will also need good, quality graphic cards. Consider buying a pen and digitizing graphics tablet. You may need a spacemouse or spaceball.
Employment
According to the government, drafters hold about 251,900 jobs in the United States. About 13 percent of those jobs were held by electronic drafters, such as CADDs. Even though the employment growth in this career is slow, you will have better success at landing a CADD position with a college education. Granted, this career has an emphasis on computer training with specialty software, but most employers and clients want designers who have a strong background in well-developed drafting and mechanical drawing skills; knowledge of drafting standards; mathematics; science; engineering technology; and a solid background in CADD techniques.
CADD designer’s wages depend upon specialty, location, and level of responsibility. Most designers earn between $35,000-$55,000.
Conclusion
You can make money as a Computer Aided Design and Drafting. If you love working with software and gadgets with a passion for drawing you would love a new career as a CADD.

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Make Money by Launching a Small Airplane Detailing Service

you can make money by launching a small airplane detailing service. This type of work allows you the chance to be your own boss and experience the pride of that ownership. Detailing airplanes requires a lot of research as far as the chemicals and cleaners used as well as the laws and regulations surrounding this type of business. Honestly, this business may be expensive to begin. If you have capital or have access to a small business loan, then this venture is for you.

Step 1
If you are new to small aircraft detailing, then you should learn more about the subject. Research online and discover many opportunities for you to study the craft of cleaning. With all the federal laws and regulations, you need to be up to date on how to clean effectively and safely. Enrolling in courses, workshops, or online classes will help you learn.

Step 2
Research the proper chemicals and cleaners you will need to use. Household cleaners and degreasers can cause damage to the paint and perhaps the structure itself. Prepare your budget for the cleaners you need to purchase. Some can be quite expensive.
You need to educate yourself on the types of products available on the market. Which wash, spotless rinse, and wax can you buy which will produce the best results? Are there products on the market which will help you conserve water?
Step 3
You’ll need to apply for a small business loan, unless you have working capital. You will need professional aviation cleaning supplies, a truck or van, possibly a portable water tank, and you may want a mobile pressure washer.
Step 4
Make sure you take the time to detail a business plan. You need to have a clear idea of the equipment and inventory needed. It is important to obtain information on recordkeeping, tax, and local governmental regulations. You need to make sure the area you’re working in is not in drought conditions. Once you know the local government regulations, you should apply for a business license and any permits you need.
Research the price of Aviation Insurance. The most reasonable prices will require you to continue your training.
Step 5
Before ever beginning your work, check with your local airport authority, to make certain you are within their rules for cleaning aircraft. Ask about using the water on their facility.
With stringent security these days, you need to check proper conduct for entering and exiting an airport legally. Check the proper distance you need to be away from other planes, so your cleaning or your work area doesn’t affect other aircrafts in the area.
Step 6
Once you have your business supplies and equipment in place, it is now time to find customers. Network with people. Print out business cards. You can even print them using your home computer and printer. Business cards are the most inexpensive type of advertising.

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Make Money as a Logo Designer

 

Designing logos is a great way to earn extra money. You don’t have to spend an exorbitant amount of money to set up this business adventure. A degree in graphic design is also not necessary but could be beneficial. To successfully operate this business, you will need some background in graphic design with a proficiency in designing tools such as, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Indesign, Adobe Illustrator or other similar computer software. Most importantly you need to have an eye for design and the ability to visualize the purpose of the logo. Logos need to enhance the first impression of a business, establish brand identity, and express professionalism. You can earn money by building loyal customers through a trustworthy logo for your clients.

Education

If you don’t have a background in graphic design, then consider going back to school. Even enrolling in continuing education courses or workshops should help strengthen your skills. Consider taking art classes to sharpen your eyes to see symmetry, pleasing color palates, and workable graphics.

Logos
When it comes to designing logos there are three basic types. First, the font-based logo displays letters in a certain font in front of a background. Second, the illustration logo uses graphics to showcase the type of work they perform. Last, the abstract logo uses abstract graphics to identify a brand.
Before beginning your own business, sketch out your own logo first. Begin by writing a mission statement for your business. Use this statement to assist you in designing your own logo. Know that this logo will represent you and what your business will do. Your logo will inspire trust, recognition, and admiration for your business.
License
Check with your local government about setting up your business. There may be applications to fill out and fees to be paid. Determine what your requirements are for beginning a new business. You may need to be licensed and bonded. Some states require you to register with the state as well.
Marketing
Market yourself. Purchase or create from a home computer, business cards, brochures, and/or a website, these items will help you in obtaining customers. Consider taking adds out in your local newspaper or a commercial on your local television or radio station.
If you decide to create a website, make sure you upload a portfolio of your work to display. Customers need to see previous work to make certain that you are the person to design their logo. Also, make your website user friendly. Customers need to have a shopping cart accessible to pay for services rendered through an online format.
When marketing your services don’t forget to network. Find places online where you can visit with other people of the same interest. Visit blogs, social medias, and forums to develop relationships with potential clients and create name recognition for yourself and for your business.

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Make Money-Become a Fashion Consultant

A fashion consultant has an eye for clothing and accessories. They can work an entire clothing ensemble together from head to toe. Their clients range from college graduates needing attire to attain the right job to stay-at-home moms re-entering the work place to celebrities needing to project the right image. Qualifications
People wanting to enter the field of fashion need to attend college. Seek out a degree in fashion design or merchandising. Some degrees can be 2-4 year programs. A degree can help you get a higher paying job.
However, some consultants never set foot in a learning institute. They prefer to receive their education with on-the-job training. Many consultants have worked their way up the ladder through working at high-end department stores.

Another way to learn is to interview top image consultants in your nearest large city. Ask if the firm has a mentoring program. See if you can obtain guidance by a professional in the fashion business.
Subjects
All fashion designers need to keep up-to-date on the latest fashion trends. This not only includes clothing and accessories but also grooming, such as hair styles, nail polish, and make-up. Also, non-tangible items like manners, etiquette, and communication. The object of your job is making your client look and act like a professional.
Membership
Consider joining an organization for professional image consultants. This type of organization will help you get information needed to run your business. Most offer professional development courses which will give you information, such as what to charge your clients. Organizations also give you the ability to network with other fashion consultants, plus give you names of hairstylists, nail technicians, and make-up artists.
Marketing
Create business cards and brochures. Spend the money to have them professionally created. Your reputation is on the line when becoming a professional fashion consultant, so do not be frugal with your marketing image. Since you are in essence marketing yourself cultivate your look. Your outward appearance needs to catch the attention of others. Consider strong words you want your image to project, such as professional, sophisticated, or trendy and tailor your clothing and accessories to match this concept.
Your inward appearance need to project your capabilities to transform others into a mannerly professional. If you need help with speaking to others, consider joining Toastmasters or enroll in a continuing education speech class. Read books on the subject of manners and etiquette.
Begin your services by offering consultations free of charge. One way of getting name recognition is to offer your services to job corps or employment agencies to give prospective unemployed individuals a step up in obtaining a job.
Advertise your services in the local newspaper, telephone directory, and television. Create a website. On the website add a video of you transforming a customer with before and after interviews.

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Make Money Offline

Make Money Hosting a Kid’s Night Out

Planning and hosting a Kid’s Night Out for elementary age kids creates cash into your coffers. This money making idea takes little planning, preparation, or start-up cost. There are some overhead expenses in getting the project off the ground however, the price-per-child cost will cover those expenses, leaving you with a profit. If you love children and relish the chaotic rush of children’s giggles with a heavy dose of excitability, then this project may be for you. Step One
Gather pricing information from local community gyms, school gyms, or public gyms. The rental cost of community centers and community gyms run anywhere from $18-$50 an hour. A recent trend becoming more popular across the nation is schools renting out their gyms to the public. Usually, the price for a school gym is lower in cost than a community facility.
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Make Money Selling Hickory Wood Chips

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Chopping wood is an excellent way to earn money for the winter months when people are burning wood in their fireplaces. But did you know you can earn money by chopping hickory wood into chips during the summer months? During the hottest part of the year, many people enjoy grilling in the outdoors.  Nothing gives meat more flavor than barbequing over wood chips. This style of grilling is popular in Texas where they grill over mesquite wood chips instead of charcoal. That same style can be mimicked with other woods, like hickory. Make money by chopping hickory trees and then cutting them into chunks or chips. Take the bits of wood and package them into the bags to sell.
Hickory
Decide where you can find hickory trees. If you already own land which hickory trees grown on, then you are in good shape. The trees belong to you and you can get busy with the cutting. If you do not own hickory trees, then visit nearby properties and speak to property owners. Considering that one hickory tree can produce 10,000 small bags of hickory chips, you don’t have to chop down many trees.

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Earn Money  Through Web Advertising

One of the easiest methods to make money on the net is by means of Internet Advertising. Anybody could do this. Internet knowledge helps, but yet it is not necessary to get going. In actual fact, the operation of Advertising on the internet is generally figured out as you go along.

Hundreds and hundreds of people today generate income online via Web advertising. If you are not Web savvy, the easiest way to think of this procedure is simply by comparing it to television.

Television shows make money by way of showing ads. The cash comes through the commercial advertisers. Business advertisers compensate to have their own advertisements run throughout a particular tv program or time slot. As a rule they do so because they feel as if this particular program or time slot will likely have the best market for their particular product or service.

Internet Advertising is considered the Web equivalent of tv advertising. You are merely furnishing a message board on which marketers will advertise their own product or service. As an alternative to making a television show, though, you make a website.

You don't have to even make a website from scratch to try to make cash online by way of Advertising on the internet. You can simply sign up for a cost-free website hosting program, like a weblog. (Simply make certain the blog website is actually capable of enabling you to run ads within your blog.)

It's ideal if you purchase your own website name which will correspond with your blog. This isn't completely necessary, but it does help to protect your own financial concerns. This also helps with seo, which will help customers find your website more quickly.

After that, choose a subject or style for the purpose of your site/blog. It's best to stick with one particular subject: "Organic Farming" is one example of this. Grant your blog some sort of name that would be reflective of the topic. This also aids in search engine optimization and even with luring marketers whose products/services are related to your website's topic.

At this point you will need to produce plenty of subject material for your site/blog. Generally you do this by just writing articles which are based on your own topic. An "Organic Gardening" blog would possibly produce and publish content relating to the vitamins and minerals of organically grown vegetables, the perfect dirt to nurture certain foods in, or perhaps the simplest way to start an natural vegetable company. Plan to publish a minimum of two short articles (350-500 words each) to begin with.

At this point, sign on through an Internet Marketing program. Every one of the big search engines (such as Google, AOL, etc.) have their own individual marketing programs. Also you can sign up with an affiliate marketer, for example Amazon or Clickbank. Seek to go for an online marketing application which focuses on the ads that show up on your site to the subject(s) of the website.

The company you ultimately choose will give you a distinctive line of html code. You merely embed this code into the site's html and advertisements will begin running. You will be making money whenever visitors to your site click on these advertisements.

The more specific the advertisements are to the topic of your site, the more inclined your website visitors are going to be to mouse click on them. The more these people click, the more cash you are making.

You're likely to boost your Web advertising profitability if you supply brand new information to your site consistently. To really make cash online, plan to publish new content articles at least one time weekly. It will help boost your ratings in the various search engines, which in turn drives even more prospects to your blog.

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