SEOnotes

Now that most webmasters have upgraded their websites using Content Management Systems or CMS, they often face the dilemma of finding out that some of their old pages (that they no longer want the visitors to see) are still up there indexed by Google.

How do you bring out a positive out of this negative situation?

Keep in mind that this is not exactly a negative situation especially when the “old unwanted pages” are getting good rankings from the search engines. You can benefit from this in 2 ways:

1. Applying 301 redirect, or what they call as permanent redirection. That way you lead visitors to your newly-made pages as you benefit from the good rankings of the old pages. Good rankings = good CTRs (click-through-rates) more often than not. 301 redirect is SEO-friendly, and the most recommended method.

2. Now if you are optimizing someone else’s site and you find irrelevant pages (out of the niche or something) that you think must be removed, simply delete these unwanted pages/files, and create a custom 404 page. The 404 page must be customized in such a way that:

a. It has the presentation feel of your website’s theme.

b. Your visitors will follow an obvious link to your most important page, or the most relevant page in relation to the old page that you want to delete.

A custom 404 page or Error Page achieves 3 things:

• It benefits you from the old pages’ probable clicks from visitors.
• It provides a link going to your most important page (or which ever page you want people to visit).
• Traffic from broken links that you might have in the future will be safely rescued because of the obvious link in your 404 page.

A 404 page is known as the ‘error page’ that shows up for pages that do not exit anymore or for broken links.

It is important to customize your 404 page so that you will rescue those traffic received by those deleted pages of yours that are still indexed in the search engines. How do you create a customized 404 page:

Go to your site’s main directory

If you already have an 404 page, find the file named .htaccess and you may now edit or customize this.

If you do not have an existing 404 page, create one by opening notepad and inserting this code:

ErrorDocument 404 http://www.yourdomain.com/custom_page.html

Save as .htaccess and upload it to your site’s main directory

Tip: 404 page must be customized in such a way that:

a. It has the presentation feel of your website’s theme.

b. Your visitors will follow an obvious link to your most important page, or the most relevant page in relation to the old page that you want to delete.

Driving traffic is a way easier task for SEOs today due to the advent of several social media marketing and social networking sites. The challenge is, apart from translating this traffic into conversion, is the building of one’s authority. Google’s parameter for this are: domain age, and number (and quality) of incoming links.

For newbies and their freshly created websites, age is time bound. The best bet is to invest on incoming links. The results may also be time bound, but at least one can do something about it while waiting.

So how does one drive traffic and authority to a website?

Tip1: Bank on optimized original content - after creating a reader-friendly content with the right combination of target phrases and related terms, it’s time to send them all to the social media sites, post ads on social networking sites, blog, and post announcements on classifieds. Don’t forget to inform other bloggers by commenting onto their blogsites, and posting messages to your communities at mybloglog.com

Tip 2: Link to authority sites - inbound links can now be as important as out going links by mentioning links of the industry’s honored authorities. That way, it will appear to Google that you are part of that community of legitimate websites. Also, dropping (and linking names) of the important personalities and figures is flattery, that will most likely win you of incoming links from them.

Tip 3: Offer Freebies - yes, do offer free content helpful to your readers. Ask them to download a file, or sign-up for a series of email containing your free content like newsletters. That way, they get an impression that you are a source of valuable information that they’d most likely return to.

Tip 4: Email the webmasters - They can be more friendly and more willing to respond to you if you send that well-written and kind email saying you like their content, and finds it relevant for your website. Most likely than not, they’ll gonna link you up if you ask them too. This can be a taxing task, but it can still work.

Tip 5: Create feature articles on Aboutus.org, or your very own profiles at various social networking sites in order to gain that branding/authority presence.

Driving traffic can be fun and easy, it builds up authority in the process too.

Content still reigns as the king in the world of Search Engine Optimization. Some websites get on top of SERPs because of high-powered link building campaigns, but when you talk about visitor loyalty and traffic retention (and yes, public consumption), it will always require that good ol’ optimized content.

How does one manufacture a SEO-friendly (optimized) Content?

1. Readers first, then keywords.

In the previous years, SEOs follow this trend: “keywords first, then content”. Now that Google has integrated Latent Semantic Indexing in its algorithm, webmasters found out that it ain’t just the keywords that matter, but the related terms that revolve around your content. That means you can’t just repeat the word, “cheap cars for sale” twenty times in your paragraphs. It needs more substance (and related words) than that. It’s almost like writing for your readers alone, and not the search engines. But of course, it’ll be Google and the others who will determine your rankings.

2. Diversify Anchor Text Links

As Aaron Wall pointed out, there has to be some variations in the text when one creates those blue-highlighted anchor text links. The links on a page are what the search engine spiders follow in determining your website structure. Most likely, the text used in the links are being considered in figuring out what a page is all about. You may also set some keyphrases in bold letters. That tells the spiders which terms you’re trying to emphasize, just don’t overdo it.

3. Take note of word count

Although it’s been a classic rule that “readers online do not read”, it simply doesn’t mean that one has to deprive the online users of good, meaty content. Stick to at least 250 words a page. SEOs know that writing down for an appropriate length of text means being more able to include more related terms for the target keywords.

And now, how do you offer your optimized content for consumption?

1. Social Bookmarking

If the content is real good (i.e. controversial, substantial, significant to a great part of the crowd), then it’s best to digg it, make people reddit, and tag people at delicious. News items are great at Netscape.com. How to’s and tips are perfect in Wikihow

2. Social Networking

Share your blog announcements, latest promos, or any significant tidbit of a fact at your bulletin and Group posts at MySpace, and any other social networks you find helpful in bringing traffic to your site. Just a tip: Make it short and sweet in your bulletin posts since a bulletin is supposed to be quick.

3. Content Submissions

Good quality traffic from reputable websites like ezinearticles, goarticles, and isnare will help out in traffic and visibility. It might hurt your rankings though, because these sites are deemed “authorities” or of great value by Google.

Blogging does a good job at sharing and syndicating content. If you have a website, and a separate blog (checkout: Link Building with your Blog), it’ll ease out the load in gaining visitors.

A SEO-friendly content is no longer the restrictive, robotical-sounding content it used to be. Search engines, in their aim to continuously refine search are catering more to the online readers, the social aspect of the World Wide Web. Content comes out to be more human-centered, and ready for consumption.

SEO is not a grand grand field. It involves careful study, and an honest gauge of what is achievable and what is not. So before you aim at that generic, lucrative keyword, take a step back and find out if it’s really lucrative.

The key? Know which court you’re supposed to play at. Are you ready for the big players’ court? Sometimes it’s wiser to bring your game in that little (yet thriving) court if you really want your website to sell. Go for the conquerable niche rather than aiming for that big big playing field, where you are but a small participant.

Take this scenario:

I want to rank for the keyphrase: web design specialist. Overture returns with results of about 401 searches last January 2007, and now with 65,600,000 competitors in Google’s SERPs.

But if I focus on my primary target market say, web specialist Philippines – I’d get an estimated 108 searches (Overture, Jan 2007), but with fewer and more forgiving number of competitors in the SERPs of about 1,270,000 (Google).

Keyphrase                               Search Volume        Competition

web design specialist                 401                           65,600,000

web specialist Philippines           104                           1,270,000

If you wish to go further, check out the Page Rank (PR) of the top 10 websites appearing as you search for your main keyword. That’ll say if your key phrase is worth the fight.

The key is to find your niche. In this particular case, the Philippine web industry is the focus. Next step is to study the market online, know who’s competing, and with what keywords, then strategize.

It’ll save you a considerable amount of time, effort, and frustration.

Sometimes it’s more worthwhile to make it big in the small court.

So you have a website. It offers fresh helpful content for your target audience. It passes the usability test and ranks well in your chosen keywords. As a benefit of good rankings, you get considerable traffic for the website.

Fast forward… (more…)

The Title tag wins your rankings, as they say it’s still the undisputed and ever consistent factor in search engine rankings. It really takes skill and ability to achieve that rare blend of an optimized title and a title that invites your lookers to bookmark your website, in other words excellent branding or site recall. Take a look at some SEOnotes regarding meta titles.

1. Keyphrase | keyphrase | Company Name

- maintained same level of ranking, increased visibility for more search terms, quite low CTR

2. Keyphrase Company Name Keyphrase

- confused the reader all through out! (joke! That’s just a guess for that very low CTR). Achieved good rankings, however. That makes me wonder if special characters really hurt you.

3. Keyword + in + Keyword | Company Name

- Uhm… medium ranks, looks quite amateur for me though (IMO only). Still works for CTR, site usability.

4. Company Name: Keyphrase

- Nice for the index page. It lets people see what your site is all about. Good CTR. Good for branding. Rankings would need more link building.

5. Keyphrase: Company Name

I use this pattern for the inner pages of the site. It says more about what the page is all about.

The recommended 65-character title tag and your 150-character description should contain the same keywords, and should be both cater to search engines and the actual target audience - if your goal is conversion, and not just mere traffic.

Look up: SEOmoz Best Practice for Title Tags.