Archive for August, 2009
Link Building and Industry Relevance
by Bob Stone on Aug.25, 2009, under Link Building
Search engines have very specific criteria that determine how they rank websites when a user performs a search. As many people know, having more sites linking to you means that search engines will generally rank you higher. However, there are special rules that apply to this process. One of the rules, which all web promotion services companies know, has to do with a thing called industry relevance.
Search engines will give more value to links to your site if they come from a site that deals in a similar industry as you. For instance, if you run a site focused on computer hardware, then the best site to get a link from is another site dealing in hardware. Computer software sites or other electronics sites will also be a pretty good match and help boost your page’s rank. However, if you were to get a link from a site about gardening, for whatever reason, it would be of minimal benefit to you.
This process is called applied semantics. It is a technology that browses through each page, searching for keywords that indicate would industry the page is associated with. It’s not an exact science, but it is pretty accurate. It views links that cross from one industry sector an unrelated one as suspect, and thus ranks them lower. This is yet another reason you should take care in choosing how you build your link network. You don’t want to invest time and effort into a link partnership that won’t provide you any meaningful benefits.
What is Link Building?
by Bob Stone on Aug.21, 2009, under Link Building
One of the things that many beginners, but not a professional SEO company, overlook when promoting web sites is link popularity. The benefit of having other sites linking to yours is fairly obvious – increased traffic directed your way from those sites. However, building link popularity actually has a much more important function. Search engines pay very close to attention to how many sites are linking to yours, and how popular those sites are. Thus, in order to maximize your ranking on search engines, you have to dedicate some effort to building links.
The easiest way to build link strength is to make a deal with another website. The trouble with this is that you need links that fit with your sites niche, and most of the people looking to exchange links will be competitors. You may have to work hard to find sites that are within your niche but different enough that you’re not in direct competition. Another option is to purchase link space from more popular sites. They’re easier to find, but the disadvantage is that they cost straight out-of-pocket money. You can also outsource the process. Many companies will do the required legwork to help you build your link network, for a fee.
Regardless of the path that you decide to take, link building is too important to ignore. The boost in traffic that you’ll see after putting together a proper link network is significant. In the long run, you can save a lot of money on your internet advertising costs by aggressively pursuing a link building strategy.
Understanding Domain Names
by Bob Stone on Aug.03, 2009, under General Webmaster
Even people who are relatively unfamiliar with the Internet are familiar with the basics of a domain name. Domain names are a defining aspect of websites, so much that many people refer to sites by their domain names. Despite their surface simplicity, there’s actually a lot more going on with domain names than what most people are familiar with.
Every web design company domain name consists of three or more parts: the subdomain, the actual name, and the suffix. The most common subdomain is the ubiquitous “www” which stands for “World Wide Web.” However, it’s possible for sites to have multiple subdomains in addition to, or in place of the standard “www”. The suffix is what’s at the end of the domain name. Most commonly, this is .com, but it can be a number of other things such as .org, .net, or .info. Many countries also have their own suffixes.
The name is quite simply a name chosen by the site’s owner. Most people choose the name of their business or site as their domain name, but this isn’t always the case. For instance, if someone wanted to create a site called Bob’s Corner, they might end up with the domain name “www.bobscorner.com.”
In truth, the domain name is only shorthand. A number, not a name, denotes the place where your site is located on the Internet. The number is called an IP address. Once you’ve settled on a host for your site, the host will point your domain name toward an IP address that they provide, and voila, your website makes its debut.
Standards for Quality Websites
by Bob Stone on Aug.03, 2009, under General Webmaster
While catering to your site to search engines is important to a degree, it’s important never to sacrifice the user’s experience just to increase your search engine ranking. Some companies, such as Ecommerce Web Design New York, understand this. Fortunately, the search engines also realize this, and take precautions to prevent this sort of behavior. There are a number of shady techniques that can be used to divert traffic, but engaging in them will often result in having your site removed from the rankings altogether.
One such negative technique is known as “cloaking.” Cloaking is when your site displays one set of information to the user, but another to the search engines. Usually, people attempt to hijack popular keywords to redirect people to their site. This results in users mistakenly being directed to a site that they weren’t searching for. One way that cloaking is performed is by putting invisible text or links on a site – the search engines can read these, but users don’t see them.
Another bad practice is to create multiple sites using duplicate content. This can create a situation where a user searches for something, only to find multiple results with the exact same information. This is problematic when none of those several, copied sites provides the information that they need.
The golden rule to consider when instituting any new tactic on a site is to ask yourself, “Will this help the user?” If the answer is no, and you’re just doing it to reap more search engine traffic, you should rethink the idea.