19 December 2007
Considerations when building a new site
I have just completed a simple sheet of information for a couple of clients who are looking to build a new website. They needed a little guidance as how to identify keywords and how to use them effectively... If you are a very small, or start up business who can't justify buying in someone like me, then the advice I gave to them will probably stand you in good stead for your website.
Targeting the right market – Keyword Selection
The keywords selected must be used appropriately throughout the website in the main navigation, copy and text links.
This is not a one off approach, analysing your website’s traffic logs will provide data which can be used to refine and improve on keywords selection and targeting.
Optimal Keyword Usage
Directory Structure
Wherever possible the most appropriate keywords must be used in the folder name and file name of each page. With a little additional planning this is quite simple to implement in the directory structure of the site. Content Management systems that place question marks (?) and ampersands (&) in URLs of the web pages should be avoided, while search engines are becoming more adept at getting around these symbols, it is best practice to stick with forward slashes (/), underscores (_) and dashes (-) if possible.
Navigation
A menu across the top of the page or down the left of the page is optimal for both usability and search engines. A text based menu is preferred for the menu items, as this is more accessible and also improves the weighting for the landing pages. However, if an image based menu is used a duplicate of this as a text menu must be placed in the footer of the page.
Page Titles
This is what will show as the ‘headline’ on Google so it’s is important to make this attention grabbing copy while using the most appropriate keywords. At the time of writing using a maximum of 100 characters and a maximum of 3 keywords is optimal.
Page Meta Tags
Page Content
An html sitemap will encourage spiders and robots to index pages that might be quite within the site. Sitemaps (XML & TXT) should also be created and uploaded to Google & Yahoo! upon launch of the new site, with regular updates at least monthly.
Old Pages – Redirect
Prior to launch, all pages listed in the major search engines should be listed and then mapped to relevant pages on the new site. The old pages should then be redirected using search engine friendly 301 redirects and the new pages will likely inherit the PageRank attributes of the old ones.
Every site is different, so there is no real one size fits all approach, but hopefully this will help you if you aren't up for getting in an expert like me to help... if you do need some help, then talk to me about my search engine optimisation service.
Targeting the right market – Keyword Selection
- What Key Words or Search Terms are people using to find products and services similar to those available via your website?
- Which of these keywords already drive acceptable levels of traffic to the site?
- Which of these keywords aren’t working for you, but you feel (or evidence suggests) that they work well for your competitors?
- Which keywords currently provide most conversions?
The keywords selected must be used appropriately throughout the website in the main navigation, copy and text links.
This is not a one off approach, analysing your website’s traffic logs will provide data which can be used to refine and improve on keywords selection and targeting.
Optimal Keyword Usage
Directory Structure
Wherever possible the most appropriate keywords must be used in the folder name and file name of each page. With a little additional planning this is quite simple to implement in the directory structure of the site. Content Management systems that place question marks (?) and ampersands (&) in URLs of the web pages should be avoided, while search engines are becoming more adept at getting around these symbols, it is best practice to stick with forward slashes (/), underscores (_) and dashes (-) if possible.
| Examples |
| "http://www.car-dealer-website.co.uk/php/a3_offer.php" might perform better as "http://www.car-dealer-website.co.uk/new/audi/a3_offer.php" |
| "http://www.car-dealer-website.co.uk/php/special_offers.php#swindon" might perform better as "http://www.car-dealer-website.co.uk/used/audi/swindon.php" |
Navigation
A menu across the top of the page or down the left of the page is optimal for both usability and search engines. A text based menu is preferred for the menu items, as this is more accessible and also improves the weighting for the landing pages. However, if an image based menu is used a duplicate of this as a text menu must be placed in the footer of the page.
Page Titles
This is what will show as the ‘headline’ on Google so it’s is important to make this attention grabbing copy while using the most appropriate keywords. At the time of writing using a maximum of 100 characters and a maximum of 3 keywords is optimal.
| Example |
| <title>Car Dealer Website > New Cars > A3</title> might perform better as <title>New Audi A3 UK Special Offer – Discount Audi A3 – Order Online</title> |
Page Meta Tags
- Description – compose as a sub heading to the Page Title, use up to 100 characters and 3 keywords
- Keywords – use 3 keywords without repetition or punctuation
- Robots – a must to include to show spiders and robots the pages you want indexed
| Example |
| <meta name="description" content="Choose your new Audi A3, select the options and see the discounted price "> <meta name="keywords" content="audi a3 uk discount"> <meta name="robots" content="index,follow"> |
Page Content
- Copy – using keyword rich copy will improve the weighting search engines will apply to the page.
- Links – using keyword rich links will improve the weighting search engines will apply to the landing page. Utilising the ‘Title’ attribute will also improve this.
- Images – acceptable ‘Alt Text’ is essential for accessibility.
An html sitemap will encourage spiders and robots to index pages that might be quite within the site. Sitemaps (XML & TXT) should also be created and uploaded to Google & Yahoo! upon launch of the new site, with regular updates at least monthly.
Old Pages – Redirect
Prior to launch, all pages listed in the major search engines should be listed and then mapped to relevant pages on the new site. The old pages should then be redirected using search engine friendly 301 redirects and the new pages will likely inherit the PageRank attributes of the old ones.
Every site is different, so there is no real one size fits all approach, but hopefully this will help you if you aren't up for getting in an expert like me to help... if you do need some help, then talk to me about my search engine optimisation service.
Labels: better search engine rankings
18 December 2007
Interesting interview with Google chap
When optimising your site to achieve higher rankings in Google, you'll often have an amazing idea about how to fool Google into thinking your site is bigger, better and more important than it actually is.
If you're one of my clients I'll often (tactfully) tell you that you cannot use your "revolutionary" technique as it has been used by people who have tried to (or are trying to) fool Google for more nefarious purposes and therefore it will be considered 'spamming'.
While the article below is probably too detailed for many end users, it is a great interview with Matt Cutts, of Google's antispam team and is pretty interesting... which these interviews have a tendency not to be, normally.
Stephan Spencer interviews Matt Cutts
Enjoy!
If you're one of my clients I'll often (tactfully) tell you that you cannot use your "revolutionary" technique as it has been used by people who have tried to (or are trying to) fool Google for more nefarious purposes and therefore it will be considered 'spamming'.
While the article below is probably too detailed for many end users, it is a great interview with Matt Cutts, of Google's antispam team and is pretty interesting... which these interviews have a tendency not to be, normally.
Stephan Spencer interviews Matt Cutts
Enjoy!
Labels: better search engine rankings, news
17 December 2007
What keywords should I use in my website?
A client and I are working on her new website... and we're trying to make sure that she features highly in the search results for her chosen market. It's great to be in as part of the build process, because website optimisation is so much more effective when it is part of the framework of the site.
So, her question is "What search terms are people using to find products like mine?" In short, what keywords should we target?
Whatever stage you are at, keyword research is an essential component of search engine optimisation. Without it, your efforts to rank well in the major search engines may be misdirected to the wrong terms and phrases, resulting in rankings that no one will ever see.
I find the most effective method to research keywords include:
Brainstorming - Thinking of what your customers/potential visitors would be likely to type in to search engines in an attempt to find the information/services your site offers (including alternate spellings, wordings, synonyms, etc).
Talking To Customers - Surveying past or potential customers is a great way to expand your keyword list to include as many terms and phrases as possible. It can also give you a good idea of what's likely to be the biggest traffic drivers and produce the highest conversion rates.
Use information provided by Keyword Research Tools - Several tools online (including Wordtracker, which is one of the ones I use) offer information about the number of times users perform specific searches. Using tools like this can offer concrete data about search trends. However, while it can help you see broad information about search trends, if you're looking
to estimate traffic numbers, use programs like Google's Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing to test the number of impressions a particular term/phrase gets.
Search Term Analysis - The next step is to create a matrix or chart that analyses the terms you believe are valuable and compares traffic, relevancy and the likelihood of conversions for each. This will allow you to make the best informed decisions about which terms to target.
Performance Testing and Analytics - After keyword selection and implementation of targeting, analytics programs (like Google Analytics) that measure web traffic, activity and conversions can be used to further refine keyword selection.
Keyword targeting is then an ongoing process, you should continually refine the words you target and add new ones, based on your changing products and services and the conversion rates of particular phrases.
If you're stuck on getting any of this sorted out yourself, perhaps you are too busy, or simply not as sad as me, then talk to me about my search marketing services
So, her question is "What search terms are people using to find products like mine?" In short, what keywords should we target?
Whatever stage you are at, keyword research is an essential component of search engine optimisation. Without it, your efforts to rank well in the major search engines may be misdirected to the wrong terms and phrases, resulting in rankings that no one will ever see.
I find the most effective method to research keywords include:
Brainstorming - Thinking of what your customers/potential visitors would be likely to type in to search engines in an attempt to find the information/services your site offers (including alternate spellings, wordings, synonyms, etc).
Talking To Customers - Surveying past or potential customers is a great way to expand your keyword list to include as many terms and phrases as possible. It can also give you a good idea of what's likely to be the biggest traffic drivers and produce the highest conversion rates.
Use information provided by Keyword Research Tools - Several tools online (including Wordtracker, which is one of the ones I use) offer information about the number of times users perform specific searches. Using tools like this can offer concrete data about search trends. However, while it can help you see broad information about search trends, if you're looking
to estimate traffic numbers, use programs like Google's Adwords and Yahoo! Search Marketing to test the number of impressions a particular term/phrase gets.
Search Term Analysis - The next step is to create a matrix or chart that analyses the terms you believe are valuable and compares traffic, relevancy and the likelihood of conversions for each. This will allow you to make the best informed decisions about which terms to target.
Performance Testing and Analytics - After keyword selection and implementation of targeting, analytics programs (like Google Analytics) that measure web traffic, activity and conversions can be used to further refine keyword selection.
Keyword targeting is then an ongoing process, you should continually refine the words you target and add new ones, based on your changing products and services and the conversion rates of particular phrases.
If you're stuck on getting any of this sorted out yourself, perhaps you are too busy, or simply not as sad as me, then talk to me about my search marketing services
Labels: better search engine rankings
11 December 2007
UK Shoppers spend over £750,000 online, in one minute
It's true.... see the original story here
Perhaps you should make your site a bit better for next year, if you have e-commerce!
Perhaps you should make your site a bit better for next year, if you have e-commerce!
Labels: news
10 December 2007
Improve your site's PageRank with contextual back-links
I've briefly touched on this in my previous article on Link Popularity. To reiterate, link popularity is used by many search engines to calculate the importance of a particular web page, and therefore that page’s rankings in the search results. And when I talk about back-links I mean those links from other websites that link back to your web site.
Since it’s by far and away the market leader, we’ll concentrate on Google’s PageRank system (see my article “What's my site's Google PageRank?” to find out your site’s PageRank if you don’t already know it), to get a handle on your website’s link popularity.
This diagram hopefully gives an idea of how PageRank calculates the popularity of your web pages.
In the diagram above, Mathematical PageRanks (out of 100) for a simple network (PageRanks reported by Google are rescaled logarithmically). Page C has a higher PageRank than Page E, even though it has fewer links to it: the link it has is much higher valued. A web surfer who chooses a random link on every page (but with 15% likelihood jumps to a random page on the whole web) is going to be on Page E for 8.1% of the time. (The 15% likelihood of jumping to an arbitrary page corresponds to a damping factor of 85%.) Without damping, all web surfers would eventually end up on Pages A, B, or C, and all other pages would have PageRank zero. Page A is assumed to link to all pages in the web, because it has no outgoing links. (Thanks Wikipedia)
So, it’s important to remember that PageRank is Page to Page, not site to site.
Getting your PageRank improved then, is a matter of getting more back-links to your web pages from more sources each with a high PageRank.
There is an additional (and possibly more important) way to boost your PageRank. Include your most important keywords in the anchor text of the back-link. The anchor text is the text which the visitor would click to follow the link... For example in this link: www.bbc.co.uk the anchor text is www.bbc.co.uk , but in this one: News and information the anchor text is news and information. Both links point to the same page, but the second example will boost the landing page’s relevance for the keywords news and information.
So utilise this knowledge about anchor text to boost to place well for your chosen keywords. The best way to take advantage of this is to request that your keywords are placed in your back-link anchor instead of your domain name.
Here’s the code you need, just fill in the relevant bits about your web page:
<a href="http://www.mydomain.com/" title="keyword">Keyword</a>
There’s a lot to take in, so if you need more help call the web consultancy
Since it’s by far and away the market leader, we’ll concentrate on Google’s PageRank system (see my article “What's my site's Google PageRank?” to find out your site’s PageRank if you don’t already know it), to get a handle on your website’s link popularity.
This diagram hopefully gives an idea of how PageRank calculates the popularity of your web pages.
In the diagram above, Mathematical PageRanks (out of 100) for a simple network (PageRanks reported by Google are rescaled logarithmically). Page C has a higher PageRank than Page E, even though it has fewer links to it: the link it has is much higher valued. A web surfer who chooses a random link on every page (but with 15% likelihood jumps to a random page on the whole web) is going to be on Page E for 8.1% of the time. (The 15% likelihood of jumping to an arbitrary page corresponds to a damping factor of 85%.) Without damping, all web surfers would eventually end up on Pages A, B, or C, and all other pages would have PageRank zero. Page A is assumed to link to all pages in the web, because it has no outgoing links. (Thanks Wikipedia)
So, it’s important to remember that PageRank is Page to Page, not site to site.
Getting your PageRank improved then, is a matter of getting more back-links to your web pages from more sources each with a high PageRank.
There is an additional (and possibly more important) way to boost your PageRank. Include your most important keywords in the anchor text of the back-link. The anchor text is the text which the visitor would click to follow the link... For example in this link: www.bbc.co.uk the anchor text is www.bbc.co.uk , but in this one: News and information the anchor text is news and information. Both links point to the same page, but the second example will boost the landing page’s relevance for the keywords news and information.
So utilise this knowledge about anchor text to boost to place well for your chosen keywords. The best way to take advantage of this is to request that your keywords are placed in your back-link anchor instead of your domain name.
Here’s the code you need, just fill in the relevant bits about your web page:
<a href="http://www.mydomain.com/" title="keyword">Keyword</a>
There’s a lot to take in, so if you need more help call the web consultancy
Labels: better search engine rankings
06 December 2007
For Web Traffic Statistics, Use Google Analytics
As the owner / director of a small business which has a website, you should be monitoring the visitor data to your site. Key Performance Indicators are:
Then your web hosting company is insulting you by even providing them. You need something more useable. You also need to ask what what the hell they do all day for the money you pay them... nothing but drink energy drinks, coke and coffee while they do unspeakable things to servers or build online games... is my guess. And, I know. I've been there. I've watched them do it and it sickens me.
If you don't have stats provided, your web design company or web host may have suggested you use one of these:
Which is so ugly and is so unfit for that purpose that I actually contemplated poking my own eyes out so I didn't have to gaze upon it any longer. Plus it's also an advert for someone who makes Flash Logos. But just to make crystal clear how poor this is as a way of measuring visitors, refresh this page and look at the counter again. It went up, right? Oh, how useful. If someone is browsing your site and you use one of these, it's like having a shop and having just one customer come in and go back out again, come in, go out, come in, go out, ad infinitum. And then you as the shopkeeper say at the end of the day "Well, I don't know why we didn't sell anything.... there were 100 people through the door today". !
Anyway, back to the task at hand and that's getting you some useable, business related stats.
All you need to do is sign up for a Google Analytics account and put a little bit of JavaScript (simply, a little bit of programming code that is invisible to most users) on every page you want to monitor. You may need your web designer to do this for you, but it is a very small job.
If you already have a Google AdWords account you should apply for Google Analytics by clicking the little green tab at the top of the page between 'Reports' and 'My Account'. If not, you don't need to be using AdWords to use the Analytics, and you can sign up here:
http://www.google.com/analytics/en-GB/
It's all pretty self explanatory, but if you get stuck and fancy a half day training on how to get the best out of it get in touch. I'll see if I can help.
Once you've got this all installed you can analyse which marketing works for your website and which doesn't. It will probably give you a better handle on your marketing ROI than any other tool you've used.
- Number of visitors
- Referring website (the site on which the visitor clicked a link to land on your page)
- Search term used to find you (if the referring website was a search engine)
- Entry Page
- Exit Page
Then your web hosting company is insulting you by even providing them. You need something more useable. You also need to ask what what the hell they do all day for the money you pay them... nothing but drink energy drinks, coke and coffee while they do unspeakable things to servers or build online games... is my guess. And, I know. I've been there. I've watched them do it and it sickens me.If you don't have stats provided, your web design company or web host may have suggested you use one of these:
Which is so ugly and is so unfit for that purpose that I actually contemplated poking my own eyes out so I didn't have to gaze upon it any longer. Plus it's also an advert for someone who makes Flash Logos. But just to make crystal clear how poor this is as a way of measuring visitors, refresh this page and look at the counter again. It went up, right? Oh, how useful. If someone is browsing your site and you use one of these, it's like having a shop and having just one customer come in and go back out again, come in, go out, come in, go out, ad infinitum. And then you as the shopkeeper say at the end of the day "Well, I don't know why we didn't sell anything.... there were 100 people through the door today". !
Anyway, back to the task at hand and that's getting you some useable, business related stats.
All you need to do is sign up for a Google Analytics account and put a little bit of JavaScript (simply, a little bit of programming code that is invisible to most users) on every page you want to monitor. You may need your web designer to do this for you, but it is a very small job.
If you already have a Google AdWords account you should apply for Google Analytics by clicking the little green tab at the top of the page between 'Reports' and 'My Account'. If not, you don't need to be using AdWords to use the Analytics, and you can sign up here:
http://www.google.com/analytics/en-GB/
It's all pretty self explanatory, but if you get stuck and fancy a half day training on how to get the best out of it get in touch. I'll see if I can help.
Once you've got this all installed you can analyse which marketing works for your website and which doesn't. It will probably give you a better handle on your marketing ROI than any other tool you've used.
Labels: better search engine rankings
05 December 2007
What is cross browser compatibility?
Just this morning, I was asked "My site looks fine to me.... doesn't everyone use Internet Explorer?"
Um, no. They don't. Lots of people have Macs and they will probably use a browser called Safari, which is also available for the PC now. Other people (like me) use a browser called Firefox, because it has lots of add ons and is a bit more flexible.
It's true to say that the majority of people use Internet Explorer (IE) but, recent figures have the market share for IE at somewhere between 57% [W3Schools] and 77% [Net Applications]. That means that in any given thousand visits to your site, between 330 and 430 people may not see your site at it's best. Eeek!
To check out how your site looks to people who aren't using IE, download the browsers below:
Firefox
Safari
Opera
And if you haven't already upgraded to Internet Explorer 7, you probably should....
Internet Explorer
So, make sure your website works across these browsers. If it does, it will have the pleasing side effect of being more accessible to the two million people in the UK who have a sight problem [RNIB] and the one in twelve people (or 9% of the UK population) who have some form of colour blindness [IEE].
If you're concerned about your site, and don't have the time to chase your web designers to fix it, my website accessibility review will give you an analysis of how your site performs against industry best practice. I'll provide you with a written report of where improvements need to be made, with the technical documentation to give to your web designers so they can make it happen.
Um, no. They don't. Lots of people have Macs and they will probably use a browser called Safari, which is also available for the PC now. Other people (like me) use a browser called Firefox, because it has lots of add ons and is a bit more flexible.
It's true to say that the majority of people use Internet Explorer (IE) but, recent figures have the market share for IE at somewhere between 57% [W3Schools] and 77% [Net Applications]. That means that in any given thousand visits to your site, between 330 and 430 people may not see your site at it's best. Eeek!
To check out how your site looks to people who aren't using IE, download the browsers below:
Firefox
Safari
Opera
And if you haven't already upgraded to Internet Explorer 7, you probably should....
Internet Explorer
So, make sure your website works across these browsers. If it does, it will have the pleasing side effect of being more accessible to the two million people in the UK who have a sight problem [RNIB] and the one in twelve people (or 9% of the UK population) who have some form of colour blindness [IEE].
If you're concerned about your site, and don't have the time to chase your web designers to fix it, my website accessibility review will give you an analysis of how your site performs against industry best practice. I'll provide you with a written report of where improvements need to be made, with the technical documentation to give to your web designers so they can make it happen.
Labels: better website accessibility
Which video format is best for your website?
This question came in via email from one of the delegates at my 'How To Market Your Website' course...
Question
"I have to get a video clip from one of my DVDs made up to go on a website for a publisher that I am writing an article for.
The second best is QuickTime (.mov, .movie, .qt), but that has drawbacks in that seemingly less people have it correctly installed on their browsers than those who have Flash, so it will reach less of your market. This is strange I think, because QuickTime is a very mature and trusted bit of kit and many people install it as a matter of course when they install itunes... however the anecdotal evidence I've seen would make me put it as second to Flash for this purpose. If you were showing animation created by CAD software or some sort of virtual reality sofrtware, then it would be a different story.
If you are planning to add streaming video to your site and want to know how to go about it, get in touch.
Question
"I have to get a video clip from one of my DVDs made up to go on a website for a publisher that I am writing an article for.
Could be good free publicity and I have realised that I should post it on to my new website.
My DVD editor tells me that he could either provide it as a Windows Media file or as a Quicktime file.
Bear in mind that this is an opinion based on 10 years in web development and emarketing, but that it is just my opinion, here's what I'd generally say to a UK based small to medium sized business;
The best format would be a Windows Media (.wma, .wmv) file as this can most easily be converted into a ‘Flash’ movie which can then be embedded in your website. This method has the most ‘cross-platform’ (multiple browsers, operating systems, etc) compatibility and is what I’d recommend. The drawback is that you need to find someone who’ll convert the file into a Flash movie for you. I can do it, and it’s only an hour or so’s work, if you get stuck.
Flash embedded movies are what YouTube use and they look like this:The second best is QuickTime (.mov, .movie, .qt), but that has drawbacks in that seemingly less people have it correctly installed on their browsers than those who have Flash, so it will reach less of your market. This is strange I think, because QuickTime is a very mature and trusted bit of kit and many people install it as a matter of course when they install itunes... however the anecdotal evidence I've seen would make me put it as second to Flash for this purpose. If you were showing animation created by CAD software or some sort of virtual reality sofrtware, then it would be a different story.
If you are planning to add streaming video to your site and want to know how to go about it, get in touch.
Labels: better website usability
04 December 2007
What's my site's Google PageRank?
Your website's visibility is heavily influenced by it's link popularity and a good judge of this is Google's PageRank. It's easy to find out your site's PageRank, you just need Google Toolbar.
Get it here: http://toolbar.google.com
Once you've agreed all the terms and conditions and downloaded the software, it should appear in the menu bar of your browser.
At the extreme right hand side of the bar click 'settings' then select 'Options' from the drop down menu. In the dialogue box select the tab 'more' and tick the box 'PageRank'. Click 'OK' to accept and then 'OK' to close the dialogue box.
Now browse to your website and check out it's PageRank.
Don't worry if it's only 2/10 or 3/10, that's not the end of the world you can make some improvements, but bear in mind that the BBC is only a 9/10.
If your site's PageRank is less than 2/10 then you should probably do something about it to improve your website's visibility. If you don't know what to do, check out my article on Link Popularity, to see what you can do yourself or talk to me about my search marketing services for your business.
Get it here: http://toolbar.google.com
Once you've agreed all the terms and conditions and downloaded the software, it should appear in the menu bar of your browser.
At the extreme right hand side of the bar click 'settings' then select 'Options' from the drop down menu. In the dialogue box select the tab 'more' and tick the box 'PageRank'. Click 'OK' to accept and then 'OK' to close the dialogue box.
Now browse to your website and check out it's PageRank.
Don't worry if it's only 2/10 or 3/10, that's not the end of the world you can make some improvements, but bear in mind that the BBC is only a 9/10.
If your site's PageRank is less than 2/10 then you should probably do something about it to improve your website's visibility. If you don't know what to do, check out my article on Link Popularity, to see what you can do yourself or talk to me about my search marketing services for your business.
Labels: better search engine rankings
Find out who links to your site
When I'm talking to people about search marketing and improving a website's rankings on Google, I often cover the importance of link popularity. As you can imagine, in my working life my words are often met with blank looks. Sometimes the looks stay just that, blank. Occasionally, when I'm doing my job properly the looks turn to ones of understanding, and often I'll elicit looks of pity. I sense right now that you have a blank look. Let's see if I can fix that. Link Popularity is quite a simple concept to grasp. Think about your website. You want people to visit it and a good way for people who've never heard of you to find it is using links from other sites, such as trade associations, local news sites, The Yellow Pages, etc.
This is also how search engine spiders find your site. It's reasonable to assume that the more popular your site is link-wise, the more times a search engine spider will arrive at it from a unique source. The more times a search engine spider finds your site via a unique source, the more useful a search engine perceives your website to be for it's users and therefore it gives your site a higher ranking in it's search results.
To see how many sites in the Google index link your type this in Google's search box:
link:www.yourdomain.com
For example to see how many pages that link to my site you would type this into Google's search box:
link:www.thewebconsultancy.org
Link popularity is only a part of your overall search marketing mix, but it is vital. It's also important to get links from useful sites, not just your web design company! See this article for more details on Google's PageRank system: http://www.google.com/technology/index.html
And if you want some help with your site, get in touch
This is also how search engine spiders find your site. It's reasonable to assume that the more popular your site is link-wise, the more times a search engine spider will arrive at it from a unique source. The more times a search engine spider finds your site via a unique source, the more useful a search engine perceives your website to be for it's users and therefore it gives your site a higher ranking in it's search results.
To see how many sites in the Google index link your type this in Google's search box:
link:www.yourdomain.com
For example to see how many pages that link to my site you would type this into Google's search box:
link:www.thewebconsultancy.org
Link popularity is only a part of your overall search marketing mix, but it is vital. It's also important to get links from useful sites, not just your web design company! See this article for more details on Google's PageRank system: http://www.google.com/technology/index.html
And if you want some help with your site, get in touch
Labels: better search engine rankings
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