Engineering Magazines

Search engine marketing is by far the most efficient and effective way to advertise your business. With over 86% of internet users using Google as their search engine, the need for your business to show on the first page of Google has never been greater.

Many people are unaware of search engine marketing and just take for granted the results that appear when they search for something on a search engine such as Google.

However, search engine marketing seems to defy to current doom and gloom of the recession. Think about this:

“The average Britain spends 164 minutes online everyday, compared with 148 minutes watching TV”

Over half the world’s population now has access to the web and nearly 90% of them find what they’re looking for using search engines. 36% of people think that the result at the top of the first page is the market leader and 80% of people make their choice from first page listings alone. With over 21 billion web pages wanting a first page position how can you get your website on the first page.

This is called search engine marketing and I have listed a few techniques and tips to get you started with optimising your website to rank well on a search engine. Remember that this is a basic guide to help to you on your way.

Link building

First we have to look at how search engines rank a website and decide which order to list them. The simple (very very very simple) version is, Google changed everything the way many search engine rank. The initial creators of Google (Larry Page and Sergey Brin) wanted to create a search engine that could rank a website for quality and list them in order of quality to the user. The way they decided to rank a website was to count how many other websites link to it. If other websites link to it then it must be good. So, essentially links mean votes. Like I said, this is the very simple version and there is so much more to it than this but it is a great place to start as it holds the most importance.

See who links to you and then see who links to your competitors and try to muscle in on some of their action. Simply go to yahoo.co.uk, then in the search box type “link:yourcompetitor.com”. This will bring up a list of websites linking to your competitors website. Then contact them and ask them to link to you too. Don’t be stingy. Make sure you have links going out from your website. Important though that you link to high quality websites, i.e. If your website is a property website, have links to the relevant governing bodies, Wikipedia or the largest property portals. Search engines will see your site as being a good place to get good content. Submit your website to online directories. This can be very boring and takes hours. But once you have had your site accepted in to a directory. You’ll have a link back to your website. Remember. The more the better. Subscribe to forums in your niche. You can include a link in your signature straight to your website. Remember though. Do not spam on a forum. Forum users will not like it and the moderator will probably kick you off. If you use a forum properly though you will find it quite engaging. Read blogs relating to you niche market. This is very educational as well as beneficial for link building. Read the blog then leave a comment about that blog. Don’t forget to include a link to your website though. Just don’t make it too obvious.

Social Media (web2.0)

“Facebook”, “YouTube”, “Flickr”, “Myspace” – These are all social media websites. They provide a means for people from all over the world to join online and share information. The way in which people communicate vary though. “Flickr” allow people to upload photos and share them with other users or even comment on pictures uploaded. “Youtube” allow people to upload videos etc. The number of people visiting these websites to share information is in the millions. So maybe you could use these social communities to spread the word about your website. Social media is a great way to connect with hard to reach people that share the same interests. There are a number of ways to do this.

Make your content interesting enough for people to want to view it. Then,unlike search engine optimisation, change the content often, This will make people want to keep visiting you. Make it easy for people to tag or bookmark your new content. Bookmarking is very fashionable at the moment. The most popular way of doing this is by getting an “addthis” button due to its ease of use, however, there are many buttons available. Use more than just text in your site. Create a video and submit it to a video sharing website like “youtube”, Create a PDF version of your content and create an audio version too. Submit it to appropriate websites. Don’t forget the link back to your site. Blog.Blog.Blog then blog some more. The simple truth is that the majority of internet users love blogs. So do search engines. Create a blog and use it. A lot. Submit it to sites like “technorati.com”. If it is good enough people will link to you and then share and tell others about your writings. Make friends. The social media community, are very social and friendly. They will want to talk to you and ask you questions. Make sure you are polite and take time to answer any messages. Negative feedback spreads faster than positive feedback.

Pay Per Click

This is a method in which you pay to get people to your website. Have you ever done a search on Google and found there are two columns. The Colum on the right is called sponsored links. They are adverts from businesses. They do not pay anything for appearing there but they do pay when you click on the advert (pay per click). This is a very fast way to get people to your website but you do have to pay. I would recommend getting a pay per click company to help here. It will save you a lot of money. However, if you must have ago your self here are some very basic tips.

Budget. Make sure you create a sensible budget and stick to it. Don’t get in to a bidding war. Don’t just rely on pay per click as the be all and end all for your business marketing. PPC is great for promoting specific products and services very quickly but you always have to pay for the result. Analyze your cost per click and cost per acquisition closely. Then compare it to your other marketing activities. See which one works best. Remember that sites such as Google take into account the quality of your website content being marketed more than how much you are bidding. PPC is my favorite part of search engine marketing due mainly to the sheer speed of return on investment BUT make sure it is done properly other wise it can be devastating. Always have two ads running at the same time for each product but with different ad text. Google will use the most successful advert for you and show that advert more often, helping you gain more traffic. Change to poorest performing advert and see if it improves. Keep repeating. This will eventually lead to you having the best possible advert showing.

Search engine optimisation

Remember the two columns we just mentioned. Search engine optimization is the are of optimizing your website enough for Google to rank it on the left hand column. This list is ordered on how relevant your website is. And you don’t have to pay for these listings. Ever noticed how all the big companies appear at the top of the first page. Now we should as “which came first – The chicken or the egg?”. Search engine optimisation is generally split into two categories onsite optimisation and off site optimisation. The first, when done property is very important but it will only get you to the starting line. Offsite optimization is the race itself. A good search engine optimisation campaign should include all the search engine marketing techniques mentioned and when you really get into it you can learn the more advanced techniques. Below are a few basics.

Include your keywords in your domain, title, meta tags. The first thing a search engine spider will read is your domain name. i.e www.yourdomain.com. This doesn’t mean anything to a search engine so ideally use www.yourdomain.com/your-key-words, or even better www.your-key-words.com . Then the next part is your title. Don’t just have “home Page” or “Front Page”. I would have “your domain – your key words”. This also matches the domain name. Then repeat the same in your meta data. And sprinkle it throughout your web page. Keep it readable though. Make each page different. This helps search engines differentiate them and should lead to them indexing each of your pages separately. Get a site map and submit it to major search engines. Don’t pay for this service though. It amazes me that people actually charge for this. Just type into Google “sitemap” and you should be presented with website that will generate you a sitemap for free. Keep going. Older sites generally rank better than new sites. It is believed that older websites must be more reliable. As there is nothing we can do about this just focus your time on other offsite optimisation such as link building, social media optimization and if you just can’t wait, Pay per click. Search engine optimisation is a long term solution but boy is it worth waiting for. Validate your HTML code. Visit “validator.w3.org/ “.This will ensure that web browsers show your website correctly and helps search engine to index your site. There is no point in optimising your website if it doesn’t work properly.

Other useful tips

Get Google analytics. It is one thing having a website but you need to know what people are doing when they are on it. Google analytics is very comprehensive and FREE but it does not report in real time. Woopra however does report in real time. The choice is yours. Before doing anything else you should get one of these other wise how will you know your efforts are paying off. If you decide to use a company to undertake your search engine marketing campaign (recommended) make sure you choose your search engine marketing company wisely. Don’t just go on recommendation. It is going to be a long working relationship so the important thing is that you get on with them. Do your own research on the industry. Think twice about search engine marketing firms that say they can guarantee a first page listing in a short time, the methods they use WILL end up in your website being banned. BMW found this out the hard way.

Search engine marketing is not an easy option but when done properly will bring untold rewards.

This is by no means an exhaustive list but it will give people new to the concept a few things to get on with and research. Look out for more articles that will start to break the subjects down into more detail.

There is no black magic or knowledge of rocket science required to building websites that are easy for search engines to navigate round and give you the best possible ranking.

Get the fundamentals right and you will be ahead of the vast majority of websites created.

Originally there was SGML (Standard General Markup Language). This was the standard to which all information was displayed on the Internet. It is still the basis to which HTML and XML adhere. The Algorithms that Search Engine Spiders use to analyze sites are designed to recognize this standard and very little has changed! It is therefore imperative that you design your WebPages with this in mind. If you use it, not only will you produce WebPages that Search engines will love but will vastly improve the chances of your site being ranked highly for your desired keywords and phrases.

TEXT FORMATING TAGS

OK here are the three most important tags used for formatting your text:

[H1] the Main Heading Tag, tells the SE the pages main topic

[H2] a Second Heading and slightly smaller (e.g. subheading)

[p] paragraph and the body of text and content

A typical layout of your HTML code, and therefore your text, should look like this.

[HTML]

[HEAD]///////I’ll explain what need to go in this bit later on //////// [/HEAD]

[BODY]

[H2]Title of Your Page Starting with you Keyword Phrase[/H2]

[H3]Subtitle Including Some other Keywords/Phrase[/H3]

[p] Lots of useful information with the odd keyword thrown in but good useful information is what really makes a site successful, after all, Content is King – I’m now starting to waffle on. [/p][H3]Next Subtitle Including Some other Keywords/Phrase[/H3]

[p] Lots ore useful information with the odd keyword thrown in but good useful information is what really makes a site successful after all Content is King – and again I seem to be waffling on. [/p]

[/BODY]

[/HTML]

There are other basic HTML tags that you can use of course but these three are so obvious that it makes it an absolute breeze for Search Engines to look at your web page and instantly know what your site is all about and how to rank its content. OK, there is one slight problem though. If you used these tags as they are on your pages and in particular the text on them isn’t going to look that good on the eye and certainly won’t win any design awards. This is where Custom Style Sheets come into play in a major way.

ALT TAGS

These provide the Search Engine Robots with a description for any images you have on your page. They look as follows:

[img src="" alt="blue beach ball " width="50" height="50" /]

Place in good descriptive key words here without going over board i.e. no spamming the same words in every images alt tag 3 times each.

META TAGS – TITLE, DESCRIPTION AND ROBOTS

The Meta Tags and Title go in the Head section of your HTML and let Search Engines know what was important on a Webpage and so how to rank its importance. They can also tell the Search Engine what language it is written in and other files it needs to take into account. Typically it will look something like this:

[HEADER]

[TITLE]Greek Holidays Idyllic and Very Cheap[/TITLE]

[META name="description" content="Very Cheap Prices for Idyllic Greek Holidays and Vacations in Greece"]

[META name="keywords" content="budget cheap greek holidays vacations europe Greece sunshine"]

[/HEADER]

The Title Meta Tag is extremely important and is widely used by the SE’s most importantly Google. Make it between 5-10 words and put your best Keyword/Phrase at the beginning e.g. ‘Greek Holidays’.

The Description Meta Tag should be less than 150 characters in order to suit all Search Engines. Anything more than this will simply be missed out with some SE’s. The “description” is what most SE’s use to describe your site when listed in its results. Make sure it is ENTICING for potential customers. It should include at least 5 of your best keywords but DO NOT simply repeat all of them in your “description”.

The Keywords Meta Tag should be a string of keywords and 2-or-3 word phrases that people surfing the net might use to find pages like yours. It is a very common opinion amongst many experts that the “keywords” Meta Tag is used very little if at all by SE’s these days. This is very true but since some SE’s do still use them to some degree DO NOT repeat your keywords more than 3 times in either your “keywords” Meta Tag or your “description” Meta Tag. Some SE’s will consider this as ‘Keyword Spamming’ and your site could be seriously penalised.

The Robots Meta Tag is a simple instruction that goes in between the [HEAD] and [/HEAD] tags of your web page and tells any visiting Search Engine Robots whether than can index that page (INDEX, NO INDEX) or follow the links leaving that page (FOLLOW, NO FOLLOW). There are basically 4 variations of these instructions:

1. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,FOLLOW"]

2. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,FOLLOW"]

3. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="INDEX,NOFOLLOW"]

4. [META NAME="ROBOTS" CONTENT="NOINDEX,NOFOLLOW"]

The simplest way of using the tags is to use example 1. above on every page of your website that you want the search engine seeing and then put example 4. above on every page that you do not wish the Search Engine to see yet alone index for the world to see.

ROBOTS.TXT FILE

The Robots.txt file is actually the first thing Search Engine Robots will see when they visit your site. With the use of a Robots.txt file we can tell Search Engines what areas of your site are out of bounds. There are also many other uses for the Robots.txt file but I won’t talk about it here.

Using a text editor (notepad, BBedit etc) create a new file and name it, yes you guessed it: robots.txt. Place in it the following syntax:

User-agent: *

Disallow: /cgi-bin/

Disallow: /pictures/

Disallow: style.css

This syntax tells Search Engine that it may not look in to the folders “cgi-bin” or “pictures” (these could actually be any directories you name). Save the file, upload it to the root of your website i.e. yourdomain.com/robots.txt and that’s it.

The SEO benefit to you is not so much to give you a higher ranking but to make your site more Search Engine friendly… Think Kudos!

SITE LAYOUT – THEMED BASED WEBSITES – THE ULTIMATE SEO TECHNIQUE

Establishing a theme for your site and the contents’ structure can produce a dramatic increase in your sites ranking amongst Search Engines. All of the big search engines use a ‘Themed’ based algorithm in their ranking criterion. This is basically essential for them in order to return the most relevant results when a user enters certain ‘keywords/phrases’ into their search engine. Basically a Search Engine will spider every single page on your site and index it as one. It is therefore imperative to concentrate your sites content on the around the main theme and not to diversify too much.

SITE STRUCTURE

The structure of your site, i.e. how your content is categorized and linked together, is meant to support and strengthen the overall theme of your site. Let me explain how you achieve this.

There are 4 main types of pages you need to be concerned with:

* Index

* Sitemap – (a.k.a. Table of Contents)

* Hallway Pages

* Doorway/Content Pages

View your site as a Shopping Complex. The theme is “Shopping”. It has an entrance (Index page). At the entrance there is a map showing you the different areas, stores, and the stores contents (Sitemap). From the entrance there are 3 possible hallways you may walk down one for “Sports”, one for “Home”, and one for “Toys”. Each has its own description of what specific shops you’ll find (Hallway Pages). As you walk down the Hallways you’ll pass the doorway to each shop on which is a very detailed explanation of what is inside the store (Doorway Pages). I’ll explain these pages in closer detail.

Index Page – Most Search Engine Optimization experts agree that your websites’ initial page of entry (index.htm default.htm etc) will never be the definitive page that Search Engines will rank highly. Make sure it looks good, introduces your visitors to your site, and lets them know what they can expect to find deeper within it. E.G. If your site was about Holidays in Spain, all you want to say here is “Come to Greece for your Holidays its great!”

Sitemap – A single page that is linked only off your Index page and links to every single page on your site. It should be laid out like a Table of Contents but with one or two keyword specific sentences for each and every link. This should be linked off your main page but DO NOT call/name the text in the link as “Sitemap”. It’s often thought that Search Engines will penalize this. Instead simple call it “Table of Contents”.

Hallway Page – This is basically the first page of each Sub Category. It should give a brief summary/paragraph of each specific topic within that Sub Category. E.G. Staying with the Spanish Holidays theme Hallway1 would deal with “Accommodation” and Hallway2 “Excursions”. A rule of thumb would be to focus these pages on keyword phrases containing 1-3 words.

Doorway Page – This is an individual page that is only concerned with a specific Topic of that Sub Category as mentioned in the Hallway Page. These pages are full of very specific topic related content. They will also be keyword/phrase rich focusing on 3-4 keyword phrases. E.G. Following the Hallway Page of Accommodation, Doorway1 could be “Hotel Rooms” and Doorway2 “Apartment Flats”.

How to Link your Pages

All linking should be done vertically throughout the site. The only exception to this rule is the Sitemap (which links to every page). Doorway Pages should be linked to the Hallway Pages above them and the Hallway Pages in turn should be linked to the Index Page.

Always use the Hyperlink Title tag. Its another great excuse to drop a few more keywords to describe the page you are leading the Search Engine Spider too.

Similar to the Alt Tag the Titale tag is placed within the syntax of the hyperlink and looks like this:

Title=”some useful keywords to describe the link”

LINK POPULARITY

Arguably the most important factor in getting a high search engine ranking. This has basically been Google’s little baby that most of the other Search Engines have also begun to adopt. OK the concept is simple: If Search Engines can see that other sites are linking to you, then they think that you’re popular. The more other sites link to you, the more popular you look. The more popular you look, the higher ranking the SE will give you.

Not all links are equal though. If the sites linking to you are about the same topic e.g. “Holidays in Greece” then Google is going see these as highly relevant links. Further more, the bigger the site that links to you, or the greater its Page Rank, the more weight Google will give to these links and so your Search Engine Positioning will benefit greater.

SEARCH ENGINE SITEMAP

Not to be confused with the traditional Site Map or Contents page, this page is designed specifically for the Search Engines and not for visitors to your site. Similar to the Robots.txt file, this file does not so much give your site higher rankings as it does make your site more easy to navigate for a Search Engine. Search Engine Sitemaps do require some basic knowledge of xml if you wish to build one by hand but do not fear, there are many tools available online to help you build automatically. If you are new to Google Sitemaps I would recommend reading their overview: google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/siteoverview.

SUMMARY

If you can create a website that provides a clear understanding of the theme of its content with an easy to follow navigational system, you will have accomplished the fundamental basics of your onsite Search Engine Optimisation.

Search engine optimization is a marketing strategy that many websites are employing to make their sites’ ranking go up during searches. Actually, search engine optimization employs many methods to ensure that the website has constant traffic.

Search Engine Optimization for Search Engines

Before anything else, it is better to understand how search engine optimization works. Initially, webmasters would present a URL or a web page to the search engines operating in the Internet. From then, the search engine would try to gather relevant links and information regarding the website or URL. The information and other relevant data that these crawlers would get from the website are what the search engines would use to catalog or index the site. The relevance of the site and the rate of which it is visited has an effect on its ranking during search engine results.

Initially, search engine optimization first turned out to be a highly maneuverable business where webmasters would put irrelevant meta tags and keyword on their site to rank higher and to attract traffic. These black hat methods were soon found out by search engines and nowadays meta tags have lost their relevance in search engine optimization. Many revisions were done with search engines in order to avoid webmasters’ tactics and tricks used by search engine optimization firms which have no relevant information at all for those searching for serious ideas and materials.

Some search engines have also refused to be used by SEO companies and their blatant inappropriate ways of marketing their clients. Search engines are repeatedly banning search engine optimization companies and their clients who are noted to use black hat techniques to raise their rankings. Consistent banning of sites and SEO companies who optimize these sites can ruin a site’s integrity and bring about lesser traffic since search engines are usually what most people use to scour the Internet. Not appearing in search engine results will create a vacuum for your company and you will have to create another site if you are continuously banned from search engines.

SEO companies who repeatedly go against the search engine rules will ultimately lose clients because search engines might automatically block off their clients without any reason other than that this certain SEO company has a reputation of using black hat techniques to manipulate higher rankings for their clients. Search engine optimization can be easily manipulated just by submitting content which are rich in keywords and key phrases but have less relevance. Spamdexing is also one way of immersing the Internet with irrelevant information designed to raise rankings.

These methods are frowned upon by search engines and your site may be banned for a period of time if you or your SEO company indulge in underhand techniques. Other black hat ways that some search engine optimization firms use to raise a site’s ranking is to insert a hidden text in the site itself which human browsers can not see or detect but robotic spiders or crawlers can easily find and include in their indexing. Search engine optimization does not actually have a lot of fixed rules and regulations regarding what to do and what not do when optimizing a site.

Search Engine Optimization Methods To Raise Rankings

There are actually many methods of search engine optimization which is why there is actually no need for black hat techniques and other underhand techniques to raise rankings. The varied ways of optimizing a site is to have relevant keyword rich content, having articles title rich in keywords, have images and pictures scaled down to a size that does not require long waiting time to load. Other methods for search engine optimization are website redeveloping, putting links and submission to search engines.

Choosing a Search Engine Optimization Company

Many SEO companies deal with marketing a site using white hat methods, which is to say that they do things aboveboard and without offending any of the search engines. You would just have to make your choice well when you are in the market for a company to do your search engine optimization work.

One of the ways to check and see if the SEO company you wish to contract with has no underhand dealings is to get recommendations from older sites that have used the search engine optimization methods of the said company. More recent sites might not have had results yet regarding ranking and traffic so it is better to evaluate the SEO company through sites which are already more than two months old. You will also benefit by learning a little about ways of search engine optimization so you will be aware of any underhand techniques employed by the SEO company.

A very picky motorcycle collector might say: “never anything used for me!” But to others, Used Motorcycle Engines are actually not so bad, provided you know how to pick them and know what you’re doing when you’re assembling your motorcycle with the used parts. Some Used Motorcycle Engines are in quite acceptable (sometimes, even excellent) condition so you would be getting a good deal, under those circumstances.

It also depends a lot on how and where you get your Used Motorcycle Engines. A very scrupulous motorcycle assembly hobbyist might not be satisfied with the promises of online suppliers (who, after all can only back up their promises with pictures until the real thing arrives at the client’s mailing address.) Such a careful motorcycle assembly hobbyist might want to look at Used Motorcycle Engines in salvage yards instead, because then he can inspect a host of Used Motorcycle Engines at his leisure until he finds acceptable ones.

Salvage yards are also better sometimes than online suppliers because they might have mechanics who can install your Used Motorcycle Engines on the motorcycle being assembled for you, and inspect the whole motorcycle for any safety issues or quality problems – sure, you may have to pay for this service (aside from the purchase price of the Used Motorcycle Engines) but at least you know you’re getting expert advice from very experienced mechanics. Hobbyists might not have as much experience as full-time mechanics (though, if you feel really confident about your assembly skills, go right ahead and assemble your own motorcycle yourself and see the results of your work.) You can always return to the salvage yard if things don’t work out.

Can Used Motorcycle Engines originally made by one motorcycle manufacturer be installed on the same motorcycle with parts from other motorcycle manufacturers? Some hobbyists would probably try this out at some time. But generally, mechanics would probably caution you against doing that, because each manufacturer has their own way of making motorcycles so you might come up with a working prototype, but the question then is: how long would that prototype function? You might have put a lot of effort making something that will last only for the short term. It is best to use Used Motorcycle Engines from one motorcycle manufacturer with parts from the same manufacturer to get consistent results.

Some salvage yards work in cohesion with one another, rather than against one another. This is great, because it means if you need a part that one salvage yard lacks, they can contact salvage yards friendly to them for assistance. Where on salvage yard is deficient, another salvage yard could be strong. It is like a marriage of convenience, with perks going to you (the customer) as well.

One downside of salvage yards is that they may have higher overhead than online suppliers. So do examine the price difference and see if it is worth it. Also, salvage yards may be limited by how far they can ship the goods you bought from them, unlike online suppliers who often have a global market. So ask if the salvage yard can ship the goods for you to your mailing address or if you have to handle that yourself.