Q and A: Is a 3 word search phrase counted as 1, 2 or 3 keywords?

Dear Kalena...

Just read your fine feature article at Site Pro news in the Nov 28th issue. In your part 2, would it be possible to include the max character length, max# of keywords that you would recommend be used. Also I was wondering if a three word term such as "widgets in FL" would be counted as one keyword or two or three?

Ed

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Ed

Thanks so much for your feedback on my article. That article is actually half of a larger one I wrote a few weeks ago and you can expect to see the other half in SiteProNews shortly. I think Part 2 will answer your questions, but this recent piece by Danny Sullivan about the keywords tag might also help.

As for "widgets in Florida", there is no official standard in terms of how many keywords you should target on each page or in each tag, but it is generally very difficult to optimize a single page for more than 3 or 4 keywords or phrases. "Widgets in Florida" can be considered a single search term but also covers the individual keywords "widgets" and "Florida" and the phrase "widgets Florida" (search engines consider "in" to be a stop word) so I would describe that phrase as covering 3 or 4 search terms and I would probably stick with optimizing your page for that single phrase and concentrating on other search queries for your other pages.

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VIDEO Q and A: Is our site being penalized by Google?

Dear Kalena...

The problems we are having are mainly with Google. We have 1,000 indexed pages showing in the 'site:' command from Google search. We have already done many things to get our rankings up but we appear to be penalized. Customers can not find our indexed pages by title OR content. We suspect sabotage by another company. We have sent emails and faxes to Google and asked them to investigate. They ignore us. We're out of options.

Darren

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Darren

Click here to see my video answer


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Q and A: What's the best way to optimize a Flash site?

Dear Kalena...

I've got a Web design company, and some clients ask me about SEO. One client has an all Flash designed web site. I've read about Javascript SWFObject and a DIV with search engine accessible primary content. But, is it really a good technique? Some people say it can be dangerous and penalized. What's the truth? Can you help me?

Roberto

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Roberto

Adobe Dreamweaver came out with some search-friendly Flash option a few years ago, but it's still pretty poor, in my opinion. If you have to use Flash, you're best off calling it from a separate (small) file to your search friendly page, which sounds like the method you mention. Nothing dodgy about that.

Better still, let the viewer decide: give them a Flash version and a flat HTML version and let them pick. Search engines will always index the flat version so your bases are covered.

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Q and A: How many times can I repeat a keyword before being penalized?

Dear Kalena...

How many times are you allowed to repeat a keyword within the H1, H2, H3... tags before you are penalized for it?

Emily

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Emily

Ah, this old chestnut. Pardon me for saying so, but you're logic is back-to-front. You are making the classic webmaster mistake of trying to engineer your site with search engines in mind. I know I sound like a broken record, but you should ALWAYS design for your audience first and foremost. Search engines, schmearch engines.

As for your Heading tags, there's no harm in using keywords within them, but create the headings so they make the most sense for your site visitors. Headings are ideal for breaking up the text on a page and making it easier to read. But they've got to be comfortable to read too. If you add too much keyword repetition, it will look and read very poorly. As for the keyword penalty threshold, search engines don't publish precise details of their filters but it's a no-brainer that keyword repetition will be picked up, as will excessive heading tags. Personally, I would stick with a single keyword instance per heading and no more than 2 or 3 heading tags per page.

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World First: Search Engine Wiki

We've done it! After many months of preparation, today we officially launched Search Engine Wiki (BETA). Search Engine Wiki is the world's first vertical wiki dedicated to search engines and search engine marketing. Here is the official press release.

The idea behind the site is to provide a collaborative online library of search engine marketing (SEM) resources, complete with resident librarian, Ms Parker (pictured). Some of the extensive resources found on the site include:

• Lists of international search engines - categorized by country, type and industry.
• A glossary of definitions for common terms used in Search Engine Optimization (SEO),
  Pay Per Click Advertising (PPC) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM).
• A library of search engine marketing articles.
• Employment resources listing SEO, PPC and SEM job vacancies.
• A collection of popular search engine marketing blogs and news feeds.
• Frequently Asked Questions about search engines and SEM.
• Lists of popular search engine marketing tools and time saving software.
• Links to upcoming search industry conferences and events.
• Introductions to well known search industry personalities.

Search Engine Wiki is designed for interactivity. Wiki users can suggest resources and definitions to be added or sign up to become editors and add these resources themselves. Search Engine College students are also encouraged to collaborate and contribute to the Wiki during their training and beyond.

Search Engine Wiki is now in BETA release and welcomes your contributions and feedback.


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Q and A: How do you know what keywords are adequate for each page?

Dear Kalena...

I am just knowing your blog and I am admiring it because: first, you are a very savvy writer about the SEO subject; second, I can see that you have many readers in the FeedBurner feed; and, well, a PR of 5, not bad at all. My question is this: Many websites have no keywords in their pages. When I see the source code, nada. Of course many of these pages are really sales letters and maybe is not interesting for the owners to concern about meta tags. So, what is the best way to know which keywords are the more adequate for a certain page if I intend to use PPC as an affiliate? Thank you in advance and I would like to read your answer.

Regards,
Jesus in Mexico

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Jesus

Keyword research is a tricky business. Sites that don't use keywords within their visible text and META tags may not be looking to rank well in the organic SERPs. Perhaps they are using PPC landing pages, email marketing or social media to drive traffic. Or maybe they just don't know how to optimize their pages.

Targeting keywords is a different kettle of fish for SEO and PPC. If you are researching keywords to use within your regular site pages to help the site rank in the organic search results (SEO), I recommend using services such as KeywordDiscovery and WordTracker. WordTracker actually have a 15 percent discount offer on until the end of November, so be sure to use coupon code us-annual-15 if you decide to subscribe.

If you are looking for the best keywords to use for your PPC campaigns, I would recommend that you use the Google Keyword Tool, the Overture Keyword Selector and/or the keyword suggestion tool built into Yahoo Sponsored Search. If you plan to use landing pages for your PPC campaign, you don't necessarily need to optimize them for crawlers. If the page content is very similar on each, you might want to prevent them from being indexed by search bots anyway.

No matter what keyword research tools you plan to use, start your search by compiling a seed list of keywords and phrases that you imagine your potential customers/visitors might type in to search engines. Ask your family, friends and colleagues for more keyword ideas and build up your seed list until you feel confident you have exhausted all avenues. Then start using the keyword tools. You'll be amazed at how many more keyword combinations you'll find!


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Q and A: How well have we optimized our site?

Dear Kalena...

Last year I took both your SEO101 and SEO201 courses. They were very informative and I really appreciate your putting them out there for us. Shortly after completing the course we did a complete overhaul on our website and implemented many of the lessons learned from your class. I'd like to continue to improve my rankings on search engines and I'd like to begin by targeting my product pages. Can you have a look at them and give me some pointers, please.

Thank you
Jonathan

Kalena's Answer:

Hi Jonathan, nice to hear from you!

I've taken a quick look at your site and to be quite blunt, I don't see much evidence of our lessons in your SEO implementation. Maybe your web designer has changed things since you sent me this, but looking at the site today, quite a few things worry me:

1) Where are your optimized Title attributes and META tags? There was a whole lesson dedicated to this in SEO101. I can't find them on ANY page. This is mission critical.

2) Where are the search friendly URLs you learned were so important in SEO201? For example, This URL doesn't tell users or search engines anything about the page content.

3) Where's the 250 words of optimized text on each product page?

4) Is there really a need to use session ids? As stated in our lesson notes, Google has stated in the past that they don't index URLs that use session ids.

5) Your home page text seems optimized for a very narrow selection of keywords or the keyword density seems too low. For example I can only find one instance of the word "flower".

I could go on but you get the gist. May I suggest going over your course notes again, particularly Lessons 5 and 6 of SEO101.


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Q and A: What files do I need to transfer from a client site in order to optimize it?

Dear Kalena...

I have a good fundamental knowledge of SEO and HTML, but have no practical experience. As such, I need answers to the following questions please. In order to do SEO from a remote location, it's my understanding that I will need to do a transfer from an organization's storage server drive to my computer, using FTP and Internet Explorer. However, I don't know exactly what should be transferred to do the SEO work. I would really appreciate some input on this please.

Also, once I have made the changes, do I simply save them and transfer the revised work back to the organization? In addition, do I necessarily need to use Dreamweaver or a similar type of program to make the changes, or can I just hand-code the changes? Please add as much detail as you think appropriate when answering these question.

Thank-you very much.

Peter

Kalena's Answer:

Hi Peter

Geez, I would've expected a cup of coffee or two to answer all these! Here goes:

1) If you have no practical experience in SEO, you have no fundamental knowledge, it's that simple. Until you have actually optimized code, you really have very little knowledge of SEO.

2) Again, if you don't understand what needs to be transferred in order to do the SEO work, in my opinion, you don't know enough yet to successfully optimize a site.

Basically, to SEO a site, you need access to the HTML code of all pages being optimized. What I do is ask my client for FTP access to their site and then I download a full copy of the pages to be optimized, including the CSS files, javascript and any images used on the pages. This is so that the pages render correctly in my WYSIWYG page editor while I'm working on them.

I generally hand code the title and meta tags first, then do the actual code optimizing in a text editor (EditPlus is my current favorite), before importing all the changes into the HTML code and tweaking any on-page optimization in my WYSIWYG editor. You might find you don't need to view the page in WYSIWYG and that hand coding is all you need. Every SEO works differently.

3) Before you start the SEO, you should find out from your client whether they are happy for you to have full FTP access to their site and simply upload the optimized pages, or whether they want their in-house site admin to implement your SEO changes. If the latter is the case, I create detailed code instructions for each page, hand them over to the client and then check the integration for errors. Some clients will want to see what the page will look like before it goes live so they can approve/edit your changes. That's when a WYSIWYG version comes in handy - you can upload your optimized page versions to a test area on your server or theirs and highlight the changes for them. Other clients will be happy for you to just edit their live site. But you should always make a backup of the old versions of their pages, just in case.

If you are serious about SEO, I strongly suggest you take up one of our SEO training courses which take you through the optimization of a site, step-by-step, with set assignments to test the practical side of your knowledge. You should also volunteer to work on some sites while you find your feet. Practical experience should help you decide how much you know about SEO and how much left there is to learn.

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Q and A: Which type of page formatting is best for SEO purposes?

Dear Kalena...

For SEO and other purposes, in a simple medium sized site, using Dreamweaver - which method of formatting is best: using CSS, style, format or manually? Does it matter if a mixture is used, a result of having different people designing the site?

Thanks
Peter

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Peter

In terms of search engine compatibility, you should try to keep as much of your page formatting off the page as possible. The aim being to keep the HTML clean and reduce code bloat to ensure search robots can index it more easily.

So this means using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and external JavaScript files if you are using JavaScript menus. Need more info? Read this page about formatting web pages for better SEO.


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Q and A: Where can I find search engine optimization services at low cost?

Dear Kalena...

How can I find someone to optimize my site at a low cost? You listed 11 things (a Google penalty, dodgy code, hidden text, new competitors, 404 errors, keyword stuffing, fast acquisition of links, domain issues, major hosti­ng outages, over-optimization and code bloat) in your Site Pro News article. I wouldn't know where to start.

I am going to Africa for three months and I need someone to optimize my site while I am gone. How do I find someone to work on my site at a low rate?

Don

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Don

There are plenty of smaller SEO companies and freelance SEO experts that I'm sure would be interested in helping you. A good place to start is ELance, where you can post your project and let people out-bid each other to do the work. You can choose who you want to complete the project based on costs, experience and a host of other factors.

Failing that, you can search the SEO Consultants Directory for a lower cost SEO provider. All companies listed in the Directory are required to meet stringent ethical and professional SEO standards before being listed.

Keep watching our Search Engine College Jobs Board because soon we will be launching a new projects area on there where companies can list small jobs and SEM projects they need help with.

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Q and A: Do you really need to hide optimization from Google?

Dear Kalena...

What do you think of this article by Jill Whalen? This goes against everything I’ve learned; you need to SEO your sites but “under the Google radar” so that they don’t think you are SEOing but optimized your site by accident?

What’s a SEOer to do?

Thanks,
Reid

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Reid

I've known Jill a long time and I get where she's coming from. Basically, she means you shouldn't follow a particular formula for optimizing web sites. There are no strict rules, don't get bogged down counting keywords or the number of characters in your META Descriptions. Don't stress about having keywords in your ALT IMG attributes or using H1 tags on every page. Just improve the compatibility of your pages with searchers and visitors.

I don't agree with her idea that Google may penalize any sites they think are optimized, but I do agree that Google probably looks for over-optimized sites, especially those that use keywords in their domain names and things like that. I also agree with this statement:

"If you've done it right, an everyday user should not have any idea that a page has been SEO'd."

It's quite true - a beautifully optimized and copywritten web site should no show obvious signs that it has been SEO'd. As I say in the SEO courses I teach, I don't recommend you obsess about keyword density or backwards engineering the search algorithms. Just design and optimize a web page with your visitors in mind and the rankings will usually follow.


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Q and A: Should we outsource SEO or take it in-house?

Dear Kalena...

Our company is looking into doing SEO for all of our publication and trade show websites. They feel that we need to outsource because a consultant did it for their company, versus keeping the knowledge in-house (either hiring or training staff).

Do you feel that if writers are trained to write for the web and a staff member is adequately trained, we need to outsource? We have about 45 websites.

Thank you
Gabrielle

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Gabrielle

The decision of whether to outsource SEO or manage it in-house is a difficult one. There is no "right way" because the requirements of each business are so different. But the job of optimizing 45 web sites is a large one and I doubt you could manage this effectively in-house without hiring several specialist SEO staff.

If the company you work for has used outside SEO consultants in the past, you need to discuss how well that relationship worked for them and whether it was cost-effective. Were the desired results achieved? Was it value for money? Could in-house staff have achieved the same results for less cost?

Unless a company is willing to hire a dedicated staff member to look after search engine optimization for their site/s, or send their existing staff for fast-track SEO training, my inclination is to recommend outsourcing, for the following reasons:

1) SEO has a steep learning curve and it could take your in-house staff many months and/or years to learn the ropes. Outsourcing it to professionals will save a lot of time (and therefore money).

2) A little bit of SEO knowledge can be a dangerous thing - the person/s optimizing your sites need to know *exactly* what the consequences are of the code changes they are making, or else they could end up doing your site more harm than good.

3) Successful SEO requires very specific knowledge and experience gained from years of trial and error optimizing web sites. It is unlikely your in-house staff have this knowledge and so you will likely get much better results by outsourcing to professionals.

4) Optimizing web sites is not your core business. Your staff should be focused on the core business of your company. Also, staff members assigned a new task of SEO are unlikely to dedicate themselves fully to the task if they have other responsibilities as well.

In my opinion, the best balance could be achieved by outsourcing a percentage of the work (e.g. the optimization of 5 web sites) to a professional SEO firm with a solid reputation and have them work closely with your in-house copywriting team to ensure the optimized web sites accurately reflect your business without compromising search engine compatibility.

If the arrangement works well, you can outsource optimization of the remaining web sites or bring it in-house if you feel that would serve you better. Best of luck!


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Macho SEO Pissing Competitions

I really can't stand SEO competitions. You know the ones, where somebody picks a search query and SEOs compete to have their site rank the highest within a certain time frame. They're nothing but look at me! macho pissing competitions, in my opinion. Participants might as well just unzip their pants, compare sizes and get it over with.

I said as much to the instigator of the latest comp who sent me an email this week hyping up the latest competition and telling me I'd been "selected" as a potential participant due to my status as a "skilled SEO provider". The latest silly competition is promoting (laughably) the title of World's Best SEO for the winner.

Oh come ON! I can assure you that any SEO worth his or her salt will be waaaaay too busy with real clients to take part in such juvenile, time-wasting antics. And no, I'm not going to post the URL.

Ok, bitchfest over.


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Q and A: Where can I find a draft SEO contract?

Dear Kalena...

I’m looking for a good draft of an SEO contract. Do you have any suggestions about where I can obtain one? I’ve found a few on the internet but they’re not quite what I was looking for. I know that whatever I get I will end up adapting it.

Gary

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Gary

I was on a similar search for a good SEO contract a few years ago when I stumbled across Proposal Kit. They include a very detailed SEO contract within their Proposal Kit Pro product and their Contract Kit Pro.

Here is the review I wrote about Proposal Kit's SEO contract. Please note that the links in that article are my affiliate links so I get a small commission if you purchase from them.

But if you happen to like their proposal packs and DO decide to purchase, make sure you mention coupon code WEBRANK to get 10% discount on your purchase.

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Q and A: Why isn't my blogging helping my SEO efforts?

Here's a recent exchange on LiveHelp with blog reader Jerry, who is concerned that his blog efforts aren't paying SEO dividends:

Jerry: Hi kalena, I'm writing like crazy but not bumping my seo juice. I was hoping for advice
kalena : how are you syndicating your articles?
Jerry : I'm not. I'm just blogging.
kalena : Ah. Have you registered your blog with as many blog directories as possible?
kalena : Do you make it super easy for readers to find your RSS feed?
Jerry : technorati and blogpulse
Jerry : yes, I use addthis
kalena : do you Digg etc your own posts?
Jerry : No, i haven't figured digg out yet. That's one I want to work on
Jerry : What about syndicating?
kalena : If you think your post is unique enough, you should Digg it yourself. Digg will tell you if there are posts on the same subject, but usually you can Digg your own
Jerry : Okay. That sounds like a good tip. I think it's very unique
kalena : yes, if you can encourage other sites and bloggers to syndicate your own blog feed, that's a good way to get traffic
kalena : It helps if you can get bloggers in the same industry to link to or comment on your posts
Jerry : How do I find them to ask them? My blog about memoirs is so unique I have not found too many like it
kalena : Do searches for popular sites and blogs on your subject matter and simply email them and ask for a link. Or send them a post that you think they'd like.
Jerry : Okay. But I get stuck in blogosphere when I search. I've been doing this for 4 months and still haven't got the hang of finding similar blogs
kalena : Try writing a few longer posts or mini articles on your blog. They are the ones that usually get traffic. Or create a useful tool for other memoir writers to use
Jerry : They are ALL articles
Jerry : I'm cranking out some of my best writing ever
kalena : Try creating a free account at helium.com. They are looking for new writers and you can link back to your blog.
Jerry : huh. That's new. Okay I'll try that
kalena : Hold on for a sec, I have a great list of article distribution sites...
Jerry : NEAT!
kalena : Ok, here is the URL: http://www.searchenginecollege.com/hub/weblinks.php?cat_id=52
kalena : Also, you can join Yahoo Groups and do a search for Article Announcement groups. These are places where you can submit your articles for free to thousands of sites who will re-publish them with your link
Jerry : That sounds perfect.
kalena : Glad to help.
Jerry : Thanks so much for your time!! This is awesome. I think I already have you on my blogroll
Jerry : If you have a moment I have a couple technical questions
kalena : Just a quickie as I am grading assignments
Jerry : Thanks! I started with the ugly default slug
Jerry : Should I go back and fix them with pretty permalinks?
Jerry : AND another question. Can I repost them, or does that get me in trouble with google for double posting.
Jerry : permalink
kalena : Re permalinks, if you have a look at the titles of my blog posts, they are permanent links.
Jerry : yes, they look great. All my first 4 months were ugly
kalena : You can add code to your Blogger template to ensure all your article/blog post headings are permanent links
kalena : Don't know about double posting, but why would you want to do that?
Jerry : Two reasons. I had SO LITTLE traffic my first few months, I don't want them to be lost
Jerry : And 2, the permalinks the first time were those ugly looking ?p=232" or whatever
kalena : I'll email you the code to create permalinks out of your blog post titles:
Jerry : Thanks Kalena. You've been awesome. Thanks for taking the time.
kalena : ok I'll shoot it through when I get time.
kalena : You're welcome. Good luck with the syndication
Jerry : Thanks
kalena : bye


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Q and A: Is it better to use a database or build individual web pages for each product?

Dear Kalena...

I was thinking of starting an e-commerce site and wanted to ask for your opinion regarding information of the individual products. Is it better to simply build a separate web page for each product rather than storing them in a database? This way search engines should be able to crawl them and I may get more visitors.

Thank You,
Daniel

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Daniel

It's difficult to answer this question without knowing your range of products. Assuming your product range doesn't extend into the hundreds and the specs for your products won't change regularly, I would create a dedicated web page for each product that has it's own URL e.g. www.site.com/catalog/product74855.htm rather than having a single catalog page with dynamically generated product pages like www.site.com/catalog.asp?productid=74855 and www.site.com/catalog.asp?productid=74856 etc.

When a database is used to generate content, some search engines will only ever index a single page. For example, in the situation above, the URL www.site.com/catalog.asp would be indexed but the product pages wouldn't be viewed as pages in their own right. Having flat product pages also gives you the opportunity to optimize each one for unique target keywords relating specifically to their content.

With the increasing uptake of the sitemaps protocol, search engines are getting better at indexing dynamic content, but why take the risk? You might as well make your site as findable as possible right? With large e-commerce sites, you've rarely got any choice but to use a database. The solution here is to use one in conjunction with mod_rewrite to ensure each page has it's own "static" URL.

If your product information changes on a regular basis, another solution that a colleague of mine uses is to have a database that generates a dynamic main page for each product, but to manually create a flat product description page that appears when persons click on a "more information" link within the main page. This description page can have a product image on it and optimized descriptive text that can be edited whenever the product is updated. As long as you provide a way for search engines to easily find it, this type of content makes juicy spider food.

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Q and A: What can I do to improve ranking results on regional Google sites?

Dear Kalena...

I am doing some very basic SEO work for a South African website that targets the local market only. The majority of local searches are done on google.co.za, not google.com. What can I do to better my results on google.co.za for popular keywords?

Marco (a happy subscriber of the Search Light Newsletter)


Kalena's Answer:

Dear Marco

Glad you like the newsletter. Re your question, the best thing you can do is ensure the site is published on a regional domain ending in .co.za. This is because Google gives ranking priority to regional sites where available on their local search engines. It would also help if the site was hosted in South Africa as sometimes Google will check the physical location (IP address) of a site to determine its relevance to a regional search query.

Apart from that, try to use regional keywords in the visible content of the pages to ensure Google recognizes the regional market you are targeting and will match it to related search queries. And of course make sure the site is submitted to and indexed by the most popular regional search engines servicing South Africa.

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Q and A: Do we need to start over with our web site?

Dear Kalena...

Thank you very, very much for the thorough analysis of our site. That is just what we were looking for. We built the site with Microsoft Frontpage 2003 (and still use it) a few years ago. I thought 'tables' were the staple of all websites, what is CSS? So you are saying we need to start over right? What web building software should we use? Do you ever do this sort of work (correcting all the problems you described with our site)? The background and a few other small things we can fix now. Can we use a light grey background or does google like white better? Also what is "anchor text link" and "Your internal links could also use some work from an anchor text angle." How do I find these "Trusted Sites"?

Thank you very much Kalena!

Mike

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Mike

That's a lot of questions! Think I'll need some more caffeine :-)

Let's take them one by one:

1) What is CSS?

CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is a way to store the design and layout code for your site in a separate file so you don't have to include it in the HTML code of every page. Instead, each page simply refers to the CSS file. It's a much neater way of designing a web site than tables and search engines prefer it too because there is less code for them to index and less chance of your code tripping up a search engine bot while it's indexing your site.

2) So you are saying we need to start over right? What web building software should we use?

Yes, preferably. Tables are old technology and very difficult to design with. Also, the site could use an overhaul - no offence but it does look a little "home made". I have a confession to make - I am also a Front Page junkie! But I have learned over the years that Front Page adds a lot of unnecessary code to web pages and most sites built with FP aren't very search engine friendly so I try not to use it anymore. It's best if you build a site from scratch using HTML code and CSS or hire a designer who can build one for you in PHP or HTML. There are web site templates you can purchase online, but often these are built with tables. The alternative is to use an Open Source Content Management System (there are available free of charge) but it will require a steep learning curve. If you'd like some recommendations for reasonably priced web designers that understand how to build search engine friendly sites, please let me know.

3) Do you ever do this sort of work (correcting all the problems you described with our site)?

Yes, I offer search engine optimization services via my hourly consulting rates and my company Jordan Consulting Group can provide a quote for web design using a Content Management System. Use the Ask Kalena link again and ask for a quote on either service if you're interested. If you want to learn quickly how to optimize your own site from scratch, consider taking one of our online search engine optimization courses.

4) Can we use a light grey background or does google like white better?

Light grey should be fine, as long as it has a different HEX color to your table background in your HTML code.

5) What is "anchor text link" and "Your internal links could also use some work from an anchor text angle."

Anchor text, (sometimes known as the link label), is the visible, clickable text in a hyperlink. The keywords you use in a link to a site can have an impact on how well that site ranks for searches utilizing those keywords. In other words, if you want your site to rank well for "gold dipped roses", then you should incorporate links within your site that use "gold dipped roses" in the anchor text of the links. You can do this by linking from internal pages of your site to other internal pages of your site with such anchor text. But the keywords you use in your link text should always be relevant to the page content you are linking to. You should also try to encourage other sites to link to you using anchor text in their links.

6) How do I find these "Trusted Sites"?

Ah, that's a time-consuming task. You need to research and look for popular directories to submit your site to and approach sites that have a similar theme to your site to ask for a link. Try looking for niche directories, regional directories and industry portals relating to your business as a source of one-way incoming links Some sites will require a reciprocal link placed on your site to theirs before they will link to you, but reciprocal links don't have as much search engine value as one-way incoming links. If you don't have time, you can hire a company to run a link building campaign on your behalf.

Good luck!

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Q and A: Why haven't I profited from my site?

Dear Kalena...

This is Parthiban from India. I have a site which is relating to home based business and about personal loans, because I'm working in a private finance company.

My question is why I haven't I profited from my site, even though I have a Google Adsense account? I get very few visitors to my site. Please tell me how to increase my site's traffic and how to add meta tags to my site. What is search engine optimization? How do I add my site to get listed in Google's search engine? Please guide me to get some income from this site.

Thanking you
Parthiban

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Parthiban

I've had a look at your site and I'm not surprised it hasn't made you any money. Let me take your questions one by one:

1) Why I haven't I profited from my site, even though I have a Google Adsense account?

Because you don't take the site seriously. For starters, your site is hosted on a free hosting service and doesn't even have it's own domain. Next problem is that it's covered in ads. I can't see the content at all because it's totally buried in AdSense units and referral links. Visitors aren't going to try to find your content amongst all those ads.

2) Please tell me how to increase my site's traffic and how to add meta tags to my site.

Get your own domain. Search engines won't take the site seriously until you do. Clean up the site and put some real useful content on there. Delete 80 percent of those ad units, they are putting people off. Build links from sites in your industry. Write articles. Start a blog. Download this free SEO lesson. It will teach you how to develop title and meta tags from scratch.

3) What is search engine optimization?

How long is a piece of string? Why is the sky blue? All these questions have endless answers. Best if you take our SEO 101 course to learn the answers for yourself.

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Breaking news: Google Rolls Out Predictive Search

Just got the scoop from Marketing Pilgrim that Google has rolled out what they're calling a Universal Search Model that incorporates web search results with related results from Google Images, Google News, Google Video, Google News and Blogger in the one search interface.

Why is this important? Three reasons off the top of my head:

1) It is the first step towards a true predictive search model, based on a new algorithm integrating user search patterns and predictive formulae.

2) It will change the way people search as a whole, therefore impacting the existing business models of SEO and SEM firms.

3) It will boost the importance of non-text content within web sites - image and video content will become a major marketing channel in it's own right, rather than a tool to attract visitors to text content.

Wowsie!

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Q and A: Does changing the name of a site impact search rankings?

Dear Kalena...

I am thinking of changing the name of my internet business site so as to direct more traffic because the current name, while nice, doesn't really spell out what we do. It is now Gilt-Edge Luxury Tours and Travel and I would like to change it to DC Luxury Tours. However, we have had this site for 10 years and it well indexed by the search engines. Does changing the name (but not the url which would stay the same) have any impact on the search engines? Or would I have to start all over from scratch if I changed the name?

Gilda

Kalena's Answer:

Dear Gilda

A site name change is not necessarily a problem. It would be different if you were changing your domain or changing your name from one with keywords in it to one without. Losing the word "travel" from your site name may slightly impact your site's rankings for searches involving the word "travel", but only if you no longer include that word prominently in your site. Your main site heading will no longer include "travel", but you can compensate by making sure that the rest of the site is optimized for travel-related keywords.

The other area that might be impacted is your link popularity. If other sites are currently linking to you using your old name, it might be contributing to your site's relevancy for "luxury tours and travel". But if ranking for "DC luxury tours" or "DC tours" is actually more important to you, then you should encourage sites already linking to you to change the anchor text of their link to your new site name and of course any new link partners should link to you using your new name. DC Luxury Tours is certainly easier to remember than your old name, so the change should be good from a marketing and usability perspective.

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