SEO Troubleshooting Guide (Part 1 of 2)

You’ve gone by the book for your SEO efforts decided on and chose popular and relevant keywords. You’ve optimized all the parts of your site. You haven’t done anything that you know of that could cause you to be penalized by the search engines. Still your page visits and search rankings haven’t changed since you started. Or even worse, they’ve gone down.

There’s no need to panic – if you know where to look.

In this first part of the series, we’ll look at some of the most common SEO glitches, as well as what may be causing them.

Common SEO problems and solutions

Problem: Search engines have trouble seeing and reading your website.
Solutions: Make sure that you have implemented all SEO best practices.  Also, make sure that your images and any navigation that uses graphics, including video and Flash, have ALT tags. 

Problem: Duplicate content
Solution:  You may have used the same content from other sites. Or another website may have stolen your content. Add a robots.txt file to the meta tags of your pages for any content that you don’t want search engines to see.

Problem: Your site needs more links
Solution: Add internal and external links. Our Hot Rod Linking series (link to articles) shows you how to build links.

Problem: Stale site
Solution: Make sure that you maintain and update your site frequently. One way to keep your content fresh is to add a blog.

Problem: Unrealistic expectations
Solution: SEO is a marathon, not a 100-yard dash. It takes a while for the search engines to get around to your site, especially if your site is new. Typically, it takes 3-6 months for your site to be fully read and indexed by search engines. Also, sharp increases or decreases can occur from month to month – it’s the overall trend over time that’s important.

Problem: Increasing competition
Solution: While this problem is something that’s out of your control, there are ways to deal with it. One way is to make your content as fresh and relevant as it can be.

Problem: Changing search engine algorithms
Solution: This is another problem that’s out of your control, too. Don’t worry – the basics still apply when it comes to SEO. Furthermore, a change in a search engine’s algorithm may only mean a temporary rank decrease.

SEO Troubleshooting Resources

The Google Webmaster Guidelines and the Google Search Engine Optimization Guide are helpful to figure out SEO problems.

Don’t forget our SEO tutorials  if you need any additional help.

Is your SEO hot or not? Let’s see if your site measures up.

You’ve learned about Search Engine Optimization (SEO), followed the steps to optimize your site, but now, how do you know if it’s working? One of the main reasons why SEO is so powerful and popular is because these measurements, also known as analytics, tell you the performance of your site’s SEO.

Setting goals for your SEO

It’s been said many times before that success is only success if you can measure it. That’s especially true for SEO. The basic goals of any SEO effort are to:

• Increase the visibility of your website on search engines
• Increase the quantity and quality of traffic to your website
• Get your visitors to do things you want them to do when they visit your site

The measures of success

To determine whether you’ve achieved your goals, you need to analyze:

• Page Views: This is the most basic measurement in SEO. Page views are simply the number of times your pages are viewed by people who browse the Web. Page views count all views, including multiple views by the same person. Unique page views, or page views that are filtered to only first-time views, provide a more accurate picture.
• Visitors: This is the number of people who have visited your site in a given amount of time.
• Impressions: The number of times your site appeared in the first three pages of search results are the impressions for a given search engine.
• Conversions: A conversion occurs when anyone who visits your Web site engages in a desired behavior. That behavior typically means buying your product or service, but it can be any other behavior, such as filling out a contact form, subscribing, or downloading a file. Increasing those conversions is the ultimate goal of any SEO effort.

SEO analysis and measurement tools

Here are some free tools to measure your SEO efforts, along with resources for more information about SEO analytics:

• http://www.goingup.com/
• http://tools.seobook.com/firefox/rank-checker/

Learn more about analytics

Google Analytics also offers multiple ways to get data on your site. To add Google Analytics, read the tutorial to see how it’s done.

Find your site on Google

We want our users to get the most out of the sites they’ve built on Yola, and part of that is helping those sites get found by the search engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing.    In addition to articles and tutorials we’ve published about SEO (Search Engine Optimization), we’re bringing you a webinar on Yola.tv, which covers:

1. Keyword research
2. Writing search engine friendly website content
3. Incorporating SEO into your website’s pages

Hope to see you there for an introduction to website search engine optimization!

More to come on our new TV network

Tune in!

We’re very excited about the launch of Yola.tv, a new way to share information and ideas with our users - so keep an eye out for new programs on the network!

SEO Tool Belt: Top 20 Free Online SEO Tools

Professionals aren’t professionals without the right tools for the job. That goes for SEO, too.  Add these 20 free online SEO tools to your tool belt to help you at every step of your SEO effort.

Keyword Research Tools: For the hot keywords

1. Google AdWords
2. SEOBook Keyword Suggestion Tool
3. Wordtracker Keyword Suggestion Tool
4. Free Keyword Discovery Tool
5. KeywordSpy
6. Keywordtopia
7. Quintura

Site Analysis Tools: To see where your site is and where it needs to be

1. SEO Chat Meta Analyzer
2. LinkVendor Backlink Checker
3. SearchEngine-Analysis.com
4. Web Page Analyzer

SEO Analytics and Measurement Tools: For how your SEO efforts are working

1. Firefox SEO Book Rank Checker
2. Site Stats Tool
3. Check Rankings
4. SERP Checker

Competitive Research Tools: For how you measure up to others

1. Alexa
2. SpyFu

Other SEO Tools: You may also be interested in these, too

1. Wordle
2. Firefox SEO Toolbar

Yola’s SEO Resources

With Yola, it’s easy to make your website SEO friendly. Our SEO Tutorials page shows you how it’s done.

The Essential SEO Checklist

Whether you’re creating a new site or refreshing your existing website, print and save this handy checklist to guide you through the SEO process.

Before you start

1. Decide on your goals for your SEO effort
2. Brainstorm a list of potential keywords
3. Use keyword research tools (link to KW article) to narrow down the keyword list
4. Choose 1-5 keywords per page

Optimize tags and headings

1. Add/optimize title tags
2. Add/optimize headings (one H1 per page; no lower than <H3>)
3. Add/optimize keyword tag  (5-10 keywords)
4. Add/optimize description tag (40-140 characters long)
5. Add/Optimize Image ALT Tags

Edit content

1. Optimize current content  (1-5 relevant keywords per page)
2. Develop new content (300-500 words per page)

Optimize links

1. Add/optimize internal links
2. Make sure internal links work
3. Use linking strategies (link to articles on linking) to build links

Improve navigation

1. Use ALT tags for image-based navigation
2.  Add/optimize site map

Want to know more? Check out our SEO tutorials page.

Cracking the SEO Code: Four Key Places to Optimize on a Webpage

If you want to make the pages on your website more visible to search engines and increase your rankings in search results, you’ll need to get into the code of your webpage and make some changes. There are four places where you can optimize your pages’ code by adding keywords: Page Title, Heading, Meta Tag and Image ALT Tag.

The following will give you more information about these places and where you can find them in the HTML source code of your page.

1.   Page Titles

The Page Title is what you see in the top of a web browser’s window.

The Page Title also appears in the search results as a Link.

In the source code, the Page Title tag looks like this:

The Page Title is the first thing seen by search engine spiders (the software used by search engines to automatically index websites) when they read a web page. Search engines heavily weigh page titles when ranking sites. This is why it’s especially important to incorporate keywords here. Also, the right Page Title can help users decide to click on the link to a page in the search engine results page (SERP) because the title is relevant and catchy. 

2.   Headings

Headings are the headlines and sub-headlines on a webpage.  Headings organize content by outlining main points, as well as emphasizing certain keywords. Like page titles, headings are given more consideration by search engines.

Heading tags, or H tags, are where those headings live.

The <H1> tag is for a main page heading.  Headings from <H2> to <H6> are for subordinate headings within a page.  Generally speaking, the most common headings are <H1>, <H2>, and <H3>.

Here’s an example of what good heading use looks like:

1.   Meta Tags

Although Meta Tags are not as important for SEO as they used to, they’re still a significant place to add keywords. The two types of Meta Tags to focus on:

• Keyword Tag: Your keyword tag should have 5-10 keywords per page.
• Description Tag: Your description tag should be between 40-140 characters long.

Your meta tags should be unique to each page and relevant to each page’s content.

Here’s what the meta tags look like:

3.   Image ALT Tags

Search engines can’t decipher what is in a picture without the Image ALT Tags. By adding these Tags, search engines can index the images on your site. ALT tags are another good place to add keywords, as long as they accurately describe the image.

In Internet Explorer, the ALT will appear when you bring your cursor over an image

The ALT tag lives in the image tag in HTML code. Here’s what the image ALT tag looks like:

How to Check Your Code

Firefox has X-Ray, a tool to help you see your page’s code:  https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/180

Yola makes it easy to make your code SEO friendly in the Yola Sitebuilder.  Check out Adding Title, Description, and Keyword Tags.

Soup up your SEO with Hot Rod Linking (Part 2 of 2)

In the first part of “Hot Rod Linking,” we talked about why linking is vital to SEO efforts along with some basic introductory linking strategies. In this part, we’ll look at some advanced linking strategies.

More ways to soup up your linking

Here are some advanced link building strategies:

Internal Linking: By linking between pages within your website, it not only helps search engine spiders see your entire website; it also helps your site build relevance in the eyes of both human readers and search engines. When you add internal links, here are some things to keep in mind:

• Links should incorporate the keywords/phrases you’re optimizing for.
• Placing links inline with your content helps increase relevancy.
• Your site should include a site map, and each page should link to your site map.
• For graphical navigation, such as buttons, ALT tags help search engines see them.

Interaction:  One reason why the Internet is so powerful is because it lets people interact in a virtual space. Interacting with fellow Web users means that you can meet them in the online communities where they spend time. Adding a blog to your site, adding links to blogs or other sites related to your site is a way to interact with like-minded individuals and potential customers. For example, if you’re selling antique car parts, linking to car clubs’ sites or adding a blog that features a restoration project can get users to interact with other hobbyists who are interested in buying your parts.

Image Links: If your site has images to partners, vendors, or clients, making the images link to their sites is a way to get links, as well as to establish credibility, particularly if these are well-known names.

Hot rod your efforts with online linking tools

Keep in mind that these tools are best used as guidelines, not absolutes, to help you come up with ideas or get a rough idea of how your linking efforts are going.

• SEO Book offers a set of linking tools at http://tools.seobook.com/link-tools/.
• The SEO Company also offers 136 linking tools at http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/seo-tools.html.

Top online resources about linking, part 2:

Here are more tried and true linking resources out there to help you get started on linking:

• http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/articles/seo/internal-linking.htm
• http://www.seochat.com/c/a/Search-Engine-Optimization-Help/Internal-Linking-Thinking-Inside-The-Box/
• http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml
• http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2005/nov/7.html
• http://www.smallbusinesssem.com/small-business-reputation-management/1230/
• http://www.searchenginejournal.com/natural-seo-faq-linking-in-and-out/6508/

Yola makes it easy for you to drive more traffic to your site and promote your site. Learn how with Yola’s SEO tutorials.

Soup up your SEO with Hot Rod Linking (Part 1 of 2)

Looking to soup up your site?  What you need is Hot Rod Linking.

Linking is becoming more and more vital for making a website visible and credible to both search engines and human readers. In fact, if you could only do one thing to optimize your website for search, it should be souping up your links.

In this first part of “Hot Rod Linking,” we’ll talk about why linking is a critical part of your SEO efforts, and we’ll also give you some basic linking strategies to start with. And in the spirit of linking, we’ll give you some links to some of the most popular linking resources on the Web.

Why is linking so important in SEO?

Linking has become more significant for search engines because website design and SEO were being designed to “trick” search engines, even at the expense of usability. In addition, linking is a time-intensive and labor-intensive exercise for both quantity and quality linking.

Linking is what gives a website credibility in the eyes of not only users, but also the search engines for the same reason that citations and references are in term papers. More and better links mean that your site is more relevant and popular to searchers. For ranking, linking is as important as, if not more important than, the actual content of a site.

For example, if you search Google for the keyword phrase “children’s books”, you’ll get Random House ranked on page 1 position 3. The keyword “children’s books” isn’t even in the content and the landing page doesn’t have that keyword in important places such as the page title, description meta tag or keyword meta tag. What the Random House website does have is 1,130 inbound links from quality sources such as public libraries, literacy foundations, and special interest groups such as the Association of Booksellers for Children.

Basic linking strategies to hook users

To “hook” users and linking partners, here are some basic linking strategies:

• Content Development: As we mentioned elsewhere, users search to find answers to questions and solutions to problems. Some of the most popular web content includes “Top 10’s,” “Do’s and Don’ts” lists, “How Tos,” tests/quizzes, and FAQs. These items are popular because they offer answers and solutions.
• Link Bait: Humor, debate, news, incentives, ego, and contrarian positions “hook” users. When it comes to this strategy, a catchy headline, like “The Secret of…” or “What They Don’t Want You to Know About…” can be a big draw.
• Widgets and Tools: Specific widgets and tools that are relevant to your site, such as mortgage calculators for banks or body mass index calculators for weight loss sites are often used to attract users. 
• Social Media: Social media sites, such as Facebook, Twitter, and Digg, are becoming more popular by the minute. Adding applications for these social media sites gives you access to the power of this emerging online space. 

More things to consider

1.  Search engines want to see consistent growth in links over time as opposed to “one hit wonder” links.
2. Link to authoritative sources, such as leading professional organizations, government agencies, colleges and universities, and major media. Linking to anything and everything just to have a lot of links, not only won’t help, it may even hurt your rankings.

Top online resources about linking:

Here are some tried and true linking resources out there to help you get started on linking:

• http://www.seobook.com/archives/001792.shtml
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/5-reasons-you-should-link-out-to-others-from-your-website
• http://www.seobook.com/archives/000183.shtml
• http://www.highrankings.com/linkpopularity
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HTn91hKJ5xI
• http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/seo-advice-getting-links/
• http://www.seomoz.org/qa/view/9749/internal-linking-strategy
• http://www.seobook.com/future-link-building-relationships

Stay tuned for Part 2, when we share some advanced linking strategies.

Yola makes it easy for you to drive more traffic to your site and promote your site. Learn how with Yola’s SEO tutorials.

Oh Say Can You Be Seen: Get your site noticed (Part 3 of 3)

In the first two parts of the series, we talked about the basics of search engine optimization, how search engines work and how they rank the results.

In this third and final part, we’ll look at some things to think about before embarking on the SEO process.

Humans or Spiders?

Developing a new site or optimizing an existing site for SEO means thinking about the needs of two audiences: the search engines’ spiders and your human readers. 

Both audiences are equally important, but if you had to pick one, your first priority should be your human readers. Your site may employ all the best practices for SEO and may rank highly for a well-chosen keyword set, but if your website is poorly laid out, has factually or grammatically incorrect content, or is just plain boring, irrelevant and hard to use, your readers will be turned off.

Many SEO best practices also make a website more accessible to users with disabilities and easier to use for all visitors. For example, using ALT tags to describe images not only provides keyword-rich content for search engines spiders, but also helps users with visual impairments know what images are on your site.

SEO Goals: Quantity and Quality Traffic

While a big goal of SEO is to increase your website’s rankings with search engines, another important SEO goal is to drive the quantity and quality of traffic to your website. 

At its most basic, search is about questions and answers, and problems and solutions. When people search, they’re ultimately looking for answers to questions or solutions to problems. They’re looking for a way to compare cars, computers, or credit cards and pick the best option, for example, or find out how to lose weight, quit smoking, or save money.

You not only need to get more people to visit your site, but more people who are most likely to buy your product or service, subscribe to your newsletter/blog, or link to your website.

Do Your Homework

Say a customer wants to buy an mp3 player online and searches for the keyword phrase “mp3 players.” The websites that appear on the first page of search results are not only websites where they can buy an mp3 player, but also websites that review mp3 players. 

Whether or not this search was helpful depends on where the customer is in the buying process. If they are at the point where they’re trying to get a feel for what’s out there, what they can afford, and what mp3 players are most popular, they’d most likely visit the “review” sites.  If they know what kind of mp3 player they want and are ready to buy, they’d probably go to the “sales” sites. 

If your website sells mp3 players, the keywords you should focus on should be around buying, such as “buy mp3 players,” “mp3 players on sale,” and the like. If your website has reviews for mp3 players, you should concentrate on keyword such as “compare mp3 players” and “mp3 player reviews.”

Here are some more resouces that will help you in your quest to understand SEO.

• http://training.seobook.com/website-credibility
• http://training.seobook.com/usability
• http://training.seobook.com/professional-website-design
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-dont-we-read-and-how-much-do-we-read-on-the-web
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/what-part-of-the-seo-process-is-hardest-for-you
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/why-does-your-search-traffic-suck-the-6-most-likely-reasons
• http://www.seomoz.org/blog/an-exhaustive-list-of-search-engine-based-keyword-research-data
• http://searchengineland.com/common-keyword-selection-mistakes-and-how-to-avoid-them-16845

Stay tuned for Part 2, when we will share some great linking tips.

Oh Say Can You Be Seen: Get your site noticed (Part 2 of 3)

In the first part, we introduced search engine optimization, and how it’s vital for getting your website noticed by people who are searching for sites like yours.

In this part, we’ll show you how search engines work and how they rank their results.

Take a spin with a search engine

You may wonder how search engines know what to display when you search for a given keyword or phrase, and how they know what order to present the results to the user. It all starts with a query, or keyword or phrase that users enter in search engine, like these:

Search Engine Queries

When you enter the keyword or phrase and start your search, the engine displays the results on a Search Engine Results Page (SERP). 

A SERP presents two kinds of search results: paid search results, and organic search results. SEO focuses on the organic search results.

The inner workings of a search engine

All of the major search engines have their own homegrown technology, or algorithm, for finding and ranking information, but they follow the same basic process:

How Search Engines Work

1. Search engines’ servers have programs on their Web servers called “spiders.”
2. These spiders crawl the Web to gather page content.
3. The spiders find pages on your website and collect information from the content and meta tags.
4. The search engines’ spiders follow the internal links on your site and index its content.
5. When searchers search on a given keyword or phrase, results from the index are displayed in order of rank on the SERP.

Tune up your site to increase your ranking

SEO means designing a new site or improving your existing site to improve your ranking, or position, in the organic search results. Making an SEO-friendly website involves these four parts:

• Site Architecture and Design: Your website as a whole and its individual web pages should be laid out to make it easy for spiders to read.
• Keyword Research:  Your website should use keywords that are not only popular, but also relevant.
• Content & Meta Development: Your website’s content should not only be keyword-rich, but also informative and easy to read. Also, your site’s title and meta tags should be relevant and keyword-rich.
• Linking: Your website gains credibility in the eyes of the search engines when other relevant sites link to yours.

More of the Hottest Online SEO Resources On the Web

Here are some more of the hottest online SEO resources out there:

• http://searchenginewatch.com/2168031
• http://2earn-online.com/How_to_bring_more_people_to_your_website
• http://2earn- online.com/How_to_make_my_website_come_up_first_in_Google
• http://2earn-online.com/How_important_is_Google_page_rank
• http://www.searchengineguide.com/mike-moran/how-do-you-get-a-specific-web-page-index.php
• http://www.searchengineguide.com/stoney-degeyter/your-site-is-keyword-optimized-but-is-it.php
• http://training.seobook.com/search-engines
• http://www.seobook.com/relevancy/

In Part 3 of our series, we’ll talk more about some considerations before you begin the SEO process. Also, stay tuned for more details about things you can do to make your site SEO friendly.