Google Search Results versus Yahoo Search Results

At first glance, there seems to be no difference. But look closely. While Yahoo gives you the most popular sites regarding the topic you're searching for, Google gives you MORE and BETTER search results. Just try to type Barack Obama, and you'll see that Google Search will show you an index of pages that are not present in Yahoo Search.

The result? Google wins by unanimous decision.

The Home Page: Who Gets The Vote?

The home page is very important because it gives readers an overview of what's happening in the world on a specific day. Google is known for its simple, "uncomplicated" page (is there such a word as 'uncomplicated?). All it has is a simple field where you can type your search keyword and some additional buttons.

Yahoo is different. The home page contains news, information, games, e-mail and many other features. You can even do your own online research survey by looking at the "Today's Top 10 Searches" section (this feature is vital for bloggers who need to choose popular topics to write about). Yahoo News gives you fresh updates every half hour or so. Being on Yahoo gives you a feeling that you're up to date with all the events of the world.

The outcome? Yahoo wins by KO.

Unique Search Engine Features

Both Yahoo and Google have unique search engine features that the other doesn't have. For example, Yahoo Search gives you the capability to have a 'video' search and a 'shopping' search. Google, meanwhile, offers you a chance to do a 'blog' search, where you can surf all kinds of blogs on a specific topic. Both of these unique features are highly useful, and I cannot live online without having one of them around!

Who wins? Well, it's clearly a draw!

The Email Service Is Where The Rubber Meets The Road

This is where the going gets tough. Both of these search engine networks offer outstanding email services. So the question is this: Is Yahoo Mail better than Gmail? Well, I don't know the stats and all those complicated stuff, but I agree that Yahoo is the "the best frequented web based email", as stated on the Yahoo Mail home page. However, Gmail seems to be catching along pretty quick.

This is an unofficial verdict, but I think Yahoo wins by a narrow margin -- a split decision.

Google Adwords/Adsense vs. Yahoo Search Advertising

The advertising and publishing service that Yahoo offers appeals to big website owners. When I say 'big', I meant websites that have huge amounts of commercial traffic, and this includes company home pages, professional business sites, and websites owned by companies which are popular in the world. However, Yahoo Search Advertising is a pay per click method that is yet to outperform the Google advertising system (am I biased? I don't think so). Here's why:

Google Adwords (advertising aspect), and Google Adsense (publishing aspect), appeals to the 'little guy' and individual blog/website owners. Virtually anyone who has a blog or website can advertise and publish with Google. And because Google owns Blogger.com (one of the largest free blog providers), anyone who has a Blogger account can register with Google Adsense, a pay per click publishing service that pays you for placing Google ads on your blog. This unique appeal to the masses places Google on top of all online advertising systems, and they might stay on top for a long time. So in terms of advertising, Google wins by KO!

But when it comes to indicating which is the best search engine on this planet, YOU will be the one to ultimately decide. So what's your pick?

In order to increase the success of your SEO campaign you must be able to increase your Google Page Rank. Your Google Page Rank tells you how important Google thinks your website is.

There are a number of factors that goes into calculating the Google Page Rank, all of which are highly top secret, or so we are told. It has been deducted by viewing previous versions of the Google Page Rank algorithm, the parts they let everyone see, that quality back links to your website is a strong indicator for increasing your site's Page Rank.

A great way to obtain quality back links to your website and at the same time help increase your Google Page Rank is to write articles that cover topics related to your website. At the bottom of your articles you will have what is called an article resource box. It will be in this resource box that you will post a small bio about yourself and post a link to your website.

Let's say for example you have a web site that sells digital cameras. I would suggest that you write articles on taking good photographs or how to use the zoom options and so on. Then in the resource box your bio would look like this, “John J. Doe is the owner of website name where they have over 500 different models of digital cameras for sale.”

Once you have written your article, including the resource box, you will then post this article to various article directories around the web such as Ezine or ArticleDashboard.

Websites such as Ezine or ArticleDashboard allow you to post your articles free of charge. More importantly visitors to those article directories are looking for content. If they like your article and it is what they are looking for they will then use your article, links and all, to post on their own websites and blogs.

Continue this process daily writing one to two articles each day, and in 30 to 60 days you will notice a huge increase in the number of visitors to your website, but more importantly with each Google indexing, the process by which Google determines your page rank, you will see your page rank increase. It won't go from 0 to 10 overnight but it will increase over time.

Now wash, rinse and repeat this cycle and you will continue to add links pointing back to your site, content to the web and of course your expertise which will go a long way in attracting visitors.

Although no one knows the Google Page Rank algorithm except its inventors, one thing is for sure you need to get quality back links, and a lot of them in order to increase your Google Page Rank which brings your website to the top of search results.

There are few set methods that have been develop which if followed properly could yield the maximum benefit to the client and would list the site on a good search engine rank. The basic theory is to rank your site at a good position on the Google, Yahoo and other major search engines; here I am mentioning some must follow techniques to achieve success in Search Engine Optimization campaign:

1. Appropriate and suitable use of the keywords is important to get the maximum out of the search engine traffic, thumb rule to consider is that people search various stuff on the net through a different keywords and in different quantities, what you have to do is decide over any one of those key words and target them in your SEO Campaign. Not sure how to find an appropriate keyword? Simply visit Wordtracker, this site provides free research to find the perfect keyword for you.
2. The second most important thing that should always be kept in mind is the Meta tags; a Meta tag provides Meta information about the webpage like, description, title and keyword for the search engines. Its backbone for every SEO campaign so make sure you are using right Meta tags in your pages.
3. Image Alt Text make sure all of major images on your website have a Alt text defined for them as Search engine bots can't "see" images they can only look for the Alt text.
   *Here is a little tip for you, make sure you have you Primary keyword as Alt text on your Company's logo on your website as it will be first thing seen by Search engine.
4. Work on backlinks! Many SEO experts and webmasters know that good position can be achieved in search engine for tough competitive keyword can be achieved if you have highest number of backlinks linking to your webpage with that keyword as anchor text yeah that's true this has been found as secret of many successful websites. If you are struck with how to get these “lots of links” consider trying DigitalPoint Coop Ad network it's a free tool to get enormous backlinks, and there are other services coming up for the purpose like Sponsoredreview.com which allows you to buy backlinks from blogs in form of Sponsored Reviews.
   
5. Consistency is the need of the hour when it comes to search engine optimization; you have to be consistent in maintaining freshness in your website, constantly update the webpage so that it does not become outdated junk of text and the visitors start losing interest in your website. Make sure it's updated with regular changes and keywords are updated to latest trends.
6. In any business dedication and creativity is the most important tool, be it marketing or any other service that you provide creativity should be there to get the best from your work. Remember SEO is not only about using these keywords but it also about how to use them perfectly and how to make the best use of the resources available and that can be done using creativity only.

 

Buying Websites for SEO - does that imply that you go out and pick a website that looks like a surefire website to quickly top the rankings? Or that you can link your current websites to it for more "authority" clout? I don't personally see the need to buy a website: I believe ANY website can be improved and tweaked for maximum search engine optimization, and that it is really high quality relevant content that gets your website to climb the rankings.

I think it is vital to first be totally focused on exactly what you want to achieve: what exactly are you promoting? What keywords or phrases do you want SEO in? Are these relevant mainly to your website or one particular product/service you offer? What do you want from your website visitors? Their repeat visits? Their email address? And what exactly can or should you be offering them? Who are they? What age? What interests? What income range?

The more you can target just who your website visitors are, and what they want, what they seek, the better you can tailor your offer to them. SEO can provide high rankings for competitive keywords: this brings high visitor volumes to your website. What will they find when they arrive? What do you give them?

If you attract 10,000 visitors daily only for them to click away without reading your content or acting on your command (such as opting in to your email offer) then you may as well go for a walk in the park. Give your visitors a reason to return, a reason to recommend, a reason to opt in, a reason to purchase.

SEO is only one link in the chain which is building your online business successfully. Your marketing may shine, but if your offer bombs, what good the SEO? Only YOU can create a truly unique website geared up to SEO and high sales so start today, from scratch! No need to pay inflated prices for someone else's innovations. Be original, be daring, be observant, be inspirational!

I believe ultimately the only way to top the rankings for keyword after keyword is to be yourself! Offer your own unique brand of opinions and expertise: recommend only the products and services you use on a daily basis. And if you don't like something, say so, and say why!

The world wide web rewards those who seek to supply, not those who push to sell. What should you supply? Your unique brand of marketing inbuilt to products and services that solve problems for your website visitors. That is all you need focus on. Get traffic. Get visitors. Find out what they want. Discover what problems they have. Supply the best answer to solve those problems. They will not only be back for more, but always recommend you. That's the best marketing there is in the world: recommendation!

Have something to say, have something to offer, have something else to offer, and impart your own brand of personality! That is how I sum up marketing online for success. Innovate for yourself and reap the rewards long-term. To summarise: when building your website, when planning your online marketing strategy -

• Have something to say
• Have something to offer
• Have something else to offer
• Impart your own brand of personality

Brand yourself to gain credibility, confidence, and repeat recommendation.

Search Engine Marketing are terms used to describe the way in which a site is built, from myriad angles, and how the way a site is put together dramatically affects were it lands in a search engine's results pages. Search engine results pages are the pages that come up when you type in a keyword, or set of keywords, in any search engine and click the "search" button. Oh yeah, I almost forgot to define this as well...Search Engines are programs that quickly search and index all the sites networked through the internet. Examples of the biggest search engines would be Google, Yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista.

You may be thinking thus far, "well, this is all fabulous, but why is it important." It's very simple, really. Everyone who has a website wants it to be seen, whether it's because you're an organization trying to build the public's awareness of what you do, or you're a site that sell products and services. Without people seeing your site, your site does you very little good. So, we're going to talk about how to get your site seen by as many people as possible! Sound good?

Alright, well the first place to start is to discuss a little bit about how search engines index pages. You've probably noticed while performing searches on Google or Yahoo that when you type in a particular keyword (or set of keywords) the same sites tend to appear, over and over, on the search results pages. Being on the first page of search results has very plain significance. It basically means that the search engine likes those sites, a lot. You definitely want search engines to like you, because it's a pretty simple equation: higher page rank=more traffic=great returns for you! Unless you're in business to lose money or turn people off, you fall into those who benefit greatly from that equation (you also probably aren't actually a business, just an FYI ;-)). But, there are some very specific things that every site must master to have search engines like them. Though, there is no perfect formula for search engine success, I can run through some basic things that will definitely help you get more traffic. So, here we go...

Let's start on the foundation. The foundation of any and every site is the HTML, or Hyper Text Markup Language. HTML is the standard language that's read by search engines and allows you to link any text or media, whatsoever, to any other text or media content, anywhere on the web. So, it's vitally important to have your HTML soundly written. Some of the basics of good HTML are: good keyword meta-tags, appealing, user and eye-friendly page layout and excellent copy (site text), with a proper keyword density, which is usually approximately 3-5%. HTML is vital, but it's not the whole story. Not nearly.

Secondly, your site must have attractive graphics, natural eye movement conducive flow, and text, A LOT of text. Search engines happen to love sites that are loaded with information. But, it's important for you to organize that information well, because you can just put 50,000 words of text on your website's homepage and expect a search engine to be kind to you. No, you must have good text content throughout all of the site, and (which is the third necessity) it must be very easy to navigate from the homepage to any other content within the site quickly and easily. Search engines love article postings, blogs and link outs to other, good and relevant content. A good site map, in this case is vital. It should be logical, intuitive and put the user at ease, at all times. You never want a user (or search engine) to be somewhere on your site and not know how to get back to the homepage or head somewhere else they want go within the site.

...Side note. As you may be beginning to see, each of the elements that go into a good SEO strategy are HUGE subjects unto themselves. But, we're just giving a survey here...

Anyway, let's get back to it. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you need a good linking strategy. I'm going to give you some basics here as to what that means, and how you can achieve it. Cool? Alright, here it goes. Allow me to share what I've learned in 3 categories.

First of all, post as much as you can and often as you can to blogs, forums, etc. These blogs and forums will let you include your URL, which means every one you finish gains you an incoming link. This is somewhat time consuming, but very effective.

Secondly, and perhaps the most obvious, is to ask the top sites in your niche if they'd be willing to exchange links with you...which you can usually do via their "Contact Us" page. This benefits you in two distinct ways: first, you're again gaining the incoming links, but secondly...those top sites are sites liked by Search Engines, meaning they've done a lot of things right, and having a link from them looks very good to a SE.

Third and Finally, Post articles on any topic about which you have knowledge. The best place to do this are ezine directories. These directories will generally accept a decent article, and there are some huge benefits here. First, you can post MULTIPLE articles to the same ezine. Secondly, each time you post an article, you get a chance to include your URL (that's right...another incoming link). And thirdly, other ezine readers can take your article, if the like it and put it on their site...and...you guessed, your link goes with them as well. And, that about does it.

So, I very much hope you've found this helpful and informative and that as you learn more about each of these ingredients for good SEO you'll find great success!

Oddly enough, it is not just smaller companies that are confused by the entire SEO issue, but larger firms suffer from SEO confusion. Also, higher priced doesn't always mean better service. Shop around and ask the hard questions before hiring an SEO firm.

The thing to remember is that SEO has changed since the beginning. Search engine algorithms have evolved and are far more sophisticated. This evolution means that the guidelines are continually changing.

A New Idea

SEO is a little more than ten years old. In the beginning, webmasters began optimizing sites by submitting a page or two to search engines that would then send out a searchbot or spider to crawl that page, extract links to the other pages in the site and gather the information found on the pages it finds.

The process involved a search engine spider downloading a page and storing it on the search engine's own server when a second application, known as an indexer, extracts the information found on the pages. The information about the pages, such as the words found on the pages, links, where everything is located on the page, is then placed into a scheduler to be crawled again at a later date.

Early versions of search engine algorithms relied solely on the webmaster providing information through the metatags, or index files. Metatags provided a kind of road map to the page's content. As soon as webmasters realized this was the procedure, it became an unreliable system because webmasters could manipulate keywords and descriptions so that they had nothing at all to do with the actual page content.

Google is Born in 1998

All of this changed when Google arrived on the scene in 1998. Not only was Google's simple page design appealing to Internet users, users liked the off-page factors such as page ranking and the on-page analysis of a website. This eliminated the keyword manipulation that plagued other search engines.

SEO Today

SEO today is improving the volume of website traffic and the quality of visitors to the site via the use of targeted keywords. An SEO expert has to think like their consumer, and they also have to understand how the algorithms work. SEO should involve the site's code, overall design, text-rich content, accurate navigation and eliminate anything that would prevent a spider from crawling the entire site.

In addition to organic searches to the site, a good SEO firm will establish a pay-per-click advertising campaign to boost site visibility. Google considers popularity a major factor when ranking a page.

A well-conceived plan will attack the web from several different angles at the same time. Social networking is an important factor as well as inbound links. The inbound links have to be chosen carefully and have a relationship to the website in some way. Otherwise, Google may consider the site simply a link farm.

• Optimize your site with the keywords that are used more frequently than those which are not looked for. One can use an SEO tool to get an idea of the best possible keywords to suit his/her site.
• The title of your site must have the keyword. Along with the title, the Meta tag descriptions must have it in them and these Meta tags should not be the same on each page of your site. Make them different by having a new keyword, so that they are listed on more search engines at a higher ranking.
• Collect a thorough information of your competitors, regarding their keywords and most importantly their interlinks. This survey will give you an insight of their status and how to compete with them. You can use link exchange to get you site viewed more at the search engine optimization. But, be careful, not to link with the sites that are linking out, but link with the ones that are linking in.
• Robots, Content type, Description, and Keywords are the meta tags that you should consider upon. Robot Meta tags would help you know the different search engine spiders and it is up to you to decide whether you want or don't want them to come through your site. Content type Meta tag explains the type of your page and helps the search engine optimization to list it accordingly. Description Meta tag displays information under the title. The key to make it more useful is that you should keep the description within 150 characters and the keyword should not repeat more than thrice. The keywords used here should be present in the main body of the text too.
• Use your keywords in the web address too. This makes it more specific and points out the type of your site to attract more traffic.
• The file name for your webpage should have the keyword in it
• Now comes the most important part, the site map of your website. This is the place where all the other pages of your website are connected. This sitemap should be clear to understand, so that the user can find the page he is looking for, easily. A nicely done up sitemap helps in high ranking your website.
• Search engine optimization is done based on the type or contents of your website, so it would be better if you do not allow or block the pages that are not relevant and you don't want these to be considered for search engine optimization. You can do this by simply saying “Disallow…. folder name”.
• For google search engine optimization, it has a tool called “Google Sitemaps” where you can find suitable links to your websites and other tips as well.
• The final tip for search engine optimization is to validate it. You need not buy a software for the purpose, it can be done by using various tools available online.

A common question about SEO is this: “Are hyphens useful in your URL?” There are a few different views on this, but there is generally a consensus that hyphens are a good choice if you want high page rankings. Hyphens are used to separate keywords so that search engines can detect them. If you have a good, keyword rich URL and you want no confusion from search engines, then hyphens are good.

Example: business-exchange.com is more readable by webcrawlers than businessexchange.com. There could be some confusion with the latter domain name, but the former is very clear.

Hyphens are also good in subdomains. For example, a test conducted by webrankinfo.com showed this:

The following URL: wagatukepo-sitynozfau-mazidipole_vukertalet.php contains 4 keywords separated by hyphens or underscores. Before we started our test we did search Google for each of these keywords: wagatukepo, sitynozfau, mazidipole and vukertalet and there were no Google results. Few days later once Google indexed our new URL we did the same search for each of these keywords.

Results:

• wagatukepo: 1 Google result
• sitynozfau: 1 Google result
• mazidipole: No Google result
• vukertalet: No Google result
• mazidipole_vukertalet: 1 Google result

Conclusion: Google sees hyphens as dividers in URLs and ignores underscores

Web Design is the process of designing a web site. Development aids are services, tools, templates, and applications, which are in all actuality anything useful in creating websites. But, what happens when you do not develop a winning site on first try? There is something called optimization which is a process you can use to improve your current site rankings and condition.

Optimization is a process whereby a marketing agent corrects and fine tunes your web pages, Meta data, tags, anchor text, and link strategies. The process is entirely relative to the production of traffic and the amount of traffic a search engine delivers when queried for matching keywords and phrases. Your own site must remain in line with not only other competitors, but also consumers, and current market terminology. To fall out of sync is to lose the opportunity to grab a share of the current consumer market. To rise up the rung of the major search engines is to almost guarantee success at your website based on the volume of visitors arriving alone.

Many debate whether conversion is part of the optimization process and I suggest it is not. Conversion is when a hit, click, or visit translates into a sales transaction and thereby generates revenue.

Must a web site be optimized if it is built correctly in the first place? Well, the answer varies enormously with each individual website and it is suggested that the answer may be yes. As more and more humans query the web for search terms and phrases, it tends to take on a life of its own in reality. This is where trends and patterns play a significant role. Search engine results will evolve into what is known as the semantic web over time due to the returning of results if for no other reason. In addition, algorithms change and slowly will shape the index slightly. How much or how little is difficult to estimate.

Tracking - A software is designed to record who has visited your website and usually includes a variety of information about them.

Analytics - Are usually nothing more than tools to decipher the log files of tracking software. Analytics do not really do much more than categorize for patterns and similarities.

Trending - A trend is usually discovered by way of a reporting tool and identifies prominent and noticeable patterning of visitors to your pages or web site.

Optimization - A process or system of improving on a current web site. It involves a number of processes. Various types of competitive analysis are part of the process to correcting a web site in an effort to gain additional traffic from search engines such as Google. Search Engine Optimization - or SEO - Includes the following aspects and considerations…in no particular order.

• Data mining
• Indexing
• Meta information
• Keywords
• Key phrases
• Anchor Text
• Link Strategies
• Tracking
• Analytics
• Reporting
• Trends
• Discovery
• Navigation
• And most importantly CONTENT

If you are a newbie, you soon get the feeling that it is all a bit overwhelming but keep reading this blog and bookmark us so you can return again and again for further insight.

A new member to this list of considerations and discovery points is called Latent Semantic Indexing or LSI. Read about it here.