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Outsource SEO vs In-house SEO

Aug
16
2006

SEO is becoming increasingly important to all who look to do business and use the Internet as a marketing tool. It is the path in which your market finds your offering. It has become almost a necessity for businesses to incorporate SEO in to their marketing plan. Many companies struggle with the decision on whether to hire a firm or conduct their SEO in-house. Unfortunately many companies lack the knowledge about SEO and assume it will be cheaper for them in the long run to hire someone “in-house”.

For some companies this may be efficient while others the overlooking the hiring of a professional firm to SEO can be costly. It is as critical to your business’ health as if you were to feel that you could heal a fatal disease yourself because you have access to the Internet and books instead of going to a highly trained physician. Now you laugh and say that would be absurd, but is the growth of your company worth the risk.

Knowledge Versus Cost Versus Time = Your Success

SEO is an ever changing business. Search engines change their algorithm frequently and new rules are put into place. One has to have the resources to find this information and understand how to implement the changes. An SEO firm is more likely to be aware of changes to search engine optimization protocols than an in-house individual. Many in-house individuals will focus on developing and implementing your SEO strategies but typically remain in the dark about what goes on outside your organization.

Outsourced SEO professionals must perform these same functions while constantly studying the industry, staying current with changing trends and familiarizing themselves with the latest SEO techniques. It is a part of their day to day business and necessary if they intend to compete in the marketplace and wish to survive.

What about cost? Surely the cost of hiring an individual is substantially less than the cost of hiring a company, right? This is a common misconception. Let’s look at it this way. You hire an E-Commerce Marketing Manager whose job is to develop and implements the strategic online marketing plan for an organization. Staying abreast of changes in the online marketing environment to best serve the objectives of the organization and adjusts plans accordingly. They may even be responsible for overseeing other aspects of the website such as the advertising and content components.

In most cases the individual will be wearing many hats spreading them thin. His or her base salary according to Salary.com on average would be $85,703. That is $7141.92 a month and roughly $42 an hour. This is for one individual with hopes that they bear positive results. Let’s say they do not. It will take 3 to 6 months to start to truly see if the individual is an asset or not. That is $21,425.76 if you decide to let the individual go in just the third month. Not to include cost of taxes and benefits. And if successful, your company just paid $85,703 per year for SEO.

The average SEO firm charges anywhere from $5500 to $35000 to perform the same task with a staff of highly trained professionals in the area of link building, writing, optimizing, web development etc. Even on the high end you are getting a staff for the entire year for around what it cost you to hire an individual in-house for a quarter. And if it does not bear positive results and you decide to terminate the relationship you will only have lost less than $10,000 if prorated based on the $35000. in most cases you can even get some of that back. This logistically saves you time and money.

Would you agree that having one individual do the job of five is rarely a good idea? Would you feel it cost effective?

Time is another concern with in-house SEO. Will one individual be able to optimize multiple pages, write content, tags, build links, run reports and perform other SEO tasks in a timely fashion? One person can only do so much. Would you agree that time is money? Most SEO firms can do in a matter of days what might take an individual weeks to do. Many companies who use in-house SEO personnel spend more than necessary to get the same amount of work done in a longer amount of time. Once again you have one individual doing many task versus many individuals doing one task effectively.

In any case, is outsourcing the right move for you or your company? Whether you choose to outsource or not, here are a few things to keep in mind:

Do your research by performing a simple cost/benefit analysis on what outsourcing versus in-house SEO will cost. It cost twice as much when you do it wrong the first time.

Results are all that matters. Top rankings for phrases no one is searching for means little, and shouldn’t be used as a guage of someone’s abilities. Ensure they can provide you with keywords that work for your business as well as a diverse plan of action. What do others say about the company or individual? Ask for references and check them. But even if they have limited or no reference don’t panic. They still may know what they are doing. Just test them on a small project and see if they bear results for you. This is a true way to measure if they work for you. There are many variables you may not have privilege to in a reference such as their personal relationship or if they were a part of a team that was successful but they contributed little.

Remember, SEO is important to your business growth and time is money one way or another. Do the math and ask yourself what makes sense for you.

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About the Author: Jeff Beale is a marketing specialist that has worked with planning and implementing marketing strategies for several businesses ranging from independently owner organizations to government and corporate entities. He is known for saving thousands in marketing budgets and increasing growth with the utilization of a diverse online marketing strategy. Jazar Dezign jefferybeale@jazardezign.com http://www.jazardezign.com

Posted in Internet Marketing, SEO | Comments Off

Google Says Googling Is Inapproriate

Aug
15
2006

Recently, the Washington Post received a letter, on paper, hand-addressed, and in the mail, from Google attorneys asking the newspaper to avoid using Google as a verb. Perhaps paper makes a demand seem more serious than email. The Post responded, only slightly mocking in tone, snickering at the legal use of the word “hottie.”

From the article:

Appropriate: He ego-surfs on the Google search engine to see if he’s listed in the results.

Inappropriate: He googles himself.

But this one’s our favorite:

Appropriate: I ran a Google search to check out that guy from the party.

Inappropriate: I googled that hottie.

Not only is “googled” inappropriate, but apparenly the word “hottie” is frowed upon as well.

Google was sensitive about the use of its trademark before Merriam-Webster officially added “to google” to the English language. Last October, I received a particularly snippy email (which means it wasn’t nearly as serious as WaPo’s paper letter) asking that I make it clear that a person could not google something on Yahoo! (I’m paraphrasing).

Funny, the company didn’t seem to mind when Pontiac made use of the phrase, instructing consumers to google Pontiac on national television. In fact, the company consented ahead of time.

And, as The Independent points out, the company takes a much different stance on intellectual property when it comes to Google News and Google Print. Well, that’s convenient.

It’s understandable Google’s trademark managers don’t want to risk the Xerox and Kleenex branding death march, even if its unclear that genericide will apply to an Internet company in the same way it does to consumer tangibles. In the dotcom world, it seems very clear to everyone what is meant by “googling” something.

But then again, it took “escalator” 50 years to become generic. Too bad for Otis Elevator, who trademarked the phrase. The genericization of the word crippled the company, right?

Oh. Guess not.

Google needs to realize the meme that is Google.com has juggernauted far beyond the point of no return. It’s too late, without taking down your site altogether, to perform a lexicographical Googlectomy. It’s part of the language. Good luck in changing it back.

About the Author:
Jason is a staff writer for WebProNews covering technology and business.

Posted in Google, Law! | 1 Comment »

How To Make Sure That Your Websites Are Fully Crawlable By The Search Engines

Aug
11
2006

Making sure that your websites are fully crawlable is a key component for any search strategy, especially if you want your sites to rank well for multiple related keyword phrases or different products.

One of the ways that you can insure that a search engine spider crawls your site deeply is to provide it a road map of your site. This road map, called a “site map” is a very simple page (from a design standpoint) that only serves one purpose from a search engine optimizers point of view, to get those interior pages into a search engine’s index.

A brief history of site maps . . .

Before site maps were recognized by the search engine optimization community as a tool for good search results, it was used by fortune 1000 companies to help visitors to their site find out where a particular service or product was located.

For example: If you want to do some sort of business with your bank online, you might find that their home page doesn’t quite get you to the exact location on their site that you want.

After all, a typical bank might offer car loans, student loans, home loans, credit cards, investment accounts, mutual funds, etc.

If per chance you arrived at this banking site on a page other than the home page, you might get a little turned around from a site navigation standpoint.

So, site maps were created.

What is a site map?

A site map is a page that contains a basic HTML link to every page on that web site. Every page, not just your main topics but every page.

Site maps do not need to be fancy (in fact, it’s better if they are not), they just need to contain a logical order and links to all of your pages.

How does this benefit us? Three ways . . .

First, a site map gives your customers an easy navigation system to every page in your web site. Now, don’t confuse the use of a site map as a replacement for logical navigation on your regular pages. You want to make sure that your site can be navigated simply and easily from any page on your site.

However, some folks (a very small percentage) prefer to see the entire site’s structure on one page and choose their destination from it.

Second, a site map is a fantastic way to get a search engine spider to see and crawl every single page in your site. When optimizing different pages in your web site for different keywords, a Site map is a perfect solution for ensuring that a spider can get to every one of those optimized pages.

Third, and this is big: A Site Map provides an opportunity to send link reputation to a particular page. Now, link reputation is a discussion that’s beyond the scope of this aricle, but it is perhaps one of the most important factors in off Page search engine optimization.

You want the links on your Site Map Page to Say the right thing about the pages that they are linking to. It’s like a vote. So, make sure that your site map is voting correctly for all of your interior pages.

Fourth, site maps are also an additional way to distribute Google page rank. If your site map is just one link off of the first page, it can pass a significant amount of Google page rank deep into your web site. This helps create a site structure where just about every internal page has the same chance of ranking as well as your home page.

Finally, site maps allow you to use dynamic linking strategies to control where page rank does and does not go throughout your site.

For example, a common mistake is to have a normal link to your privacy policy on every page of your site. In actuality, giving your privacy policy page the same page rank as every other page of the site is a big waste of whatever page rank you have available.

So use a good site map and you will reap the rewards.

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About the Author: Pat Johnson – is a successful Internet Marketer and the owner of www.RichJerkReviews.com – Check out his website to read what others are saying about The Rich Jerk e-Book., and about the Rich Jerk himself.

Posted in General SEO, Organic Optimisation, SEO | Comments Off

Top Ranked Websites Are Using A Linking Strategy

Aug
10
2006

Many SEOs quickly learn why they need a linking strategy. They know now that links from other web sites pointing at theirs are improving their page ranking. Let’s see how links generate traffic.

Inbound links are an important way to increase the page rank, to be known in your field, to generate traffic to the website. This is the most important method to generate traffic, to have more visitors, potential clients or website services’ users.

Without traffic, a website is almost useless. Its role can be only a name on a business card or a place to find a products or services list or email addresses.

To bring clients from the Internet, to be alive, to fulfill its main purpose, a web site must have huge traffic. What can a search engine optimizer do to get this important traffic? The web content including the appropriate keywords, the ease navigation, the most appropriate images, the inspired headlines are improving the traffic.

Do not forget the site’s style, sophisticated and simple at the same time, professional and efficient. But the work isn’t over yet. The inbound links strategy must be used too. It brings spectacular results and realizes the traffic that will attire the clients’ attention. The search engines will note the web site.

Some will think that without traffic, a web site is useless as a marketing and selling tool. The web site will not sell products or services, nor communicate ideas or events, and won’t publish articles about any imaginable subject.

As we have already established, the traffic will be increased in the most spectacular way by getting links from other important websites, and having related topics. You will receive direct traffic from links, but mainly from links that have similar audiences to the main website.

A client visiting a web site similar to the main one, seeing the link to the main one, will visit it immediately. He becomes a potential client, increases the traffic, and improve, finally, the main site’s rank. 21% of the entire traffic is the result of inbound links. This is not a secret, top ranked web sites are using this successful strategy and everyone can see the results.

What is the reason why people are clicking the new links? First of all, this is the human curiosity in action. Maybe the next site can have more products, best prices, most appropriate services.

Maybe the next site is looking better and it is giving to its visitors the look and feel they are waiting for, maybe the next site is more useful, interesting and helpful. The visitors, potential clients at the same time, are hoping to find something to amaze them, to make them purchase without regrets and doubts.

Part of your linking strategy is joining a linking directory. You will need to do a search for these websites with a high PR. In these directories, you will have great success because they are where the strong, relevant websites are. To start linking your websites to higher ranked sites, go to: http://www.MyLinkMachine.com.

Another part of your linking strategy should be to include your link in articles that you submit to article directories. This will help you out a lot because if a reader is interested in your article, chances are that they will click on your link to learn more. A great site to submit your articles is: http://www.MyContentBuilder.com.

If you are submitting articles and are looking for a faster and easier way to do this, you might want to consider an automatic article submitter. To watch a video on how to accomplish this, go to: http://1trac.com/dt/t/Article_Submitter_Video.php.

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About the Author: Karianne Kline is a Graphic Design student currently attaining her Associate’s Degree. She is also learning the other end of the spectrum in Marketing and SEO. You can learn more about what she does by visiting http://www.LazyLinking.com.

Posted in SEO | Comments Off

How to Get the Highest Search Engine Rankings

Aug
09
2006

Search Engine Rankings. Everyone wants to be number one, and there are millions of web sites out there. So how do you become number one and stay there consistently? Consistently is the key word here. Sure, you may apply the newest, best trick in the book today, but when someone else comes out with a better one tomorrow, you will be scrambling to get to the top again.

I think one of the keys is to be well-rounded. There are many books and philosophies about web rankings that are floating around. Some people say article marketing is the way to go, others link building, others say you have to maximize your web pages for the search engines. You have to get all your keywords right and your titles and description. But what happens when another web site does you one better in that area? Now you drop in rank. Therefore, I think it is more important that you do a good job in all the areas than to be the very best in one area. And I think it is OK to be number 8 or number 3 in rank, also. If you are in the very top spot and you are clicked simply because the top spot gets more clicks, are you really going to get more sales just because you are number one? Your product and site have to be relevant to the consumer, not just the search engine.

Another key is to focus on very specific keywords. You can do an awesome job in every area of search engine optimization, but if you go too thin here, you will not make it to number one in any of your keywords. Focus on one, or at the most, two keywords. Build your site around those keywords. Be everything you can be to someone who keys in those keywords. Or better yet, one keyword. Would you rather have one keyword that has a number one placement, or 8 keywords with a number 40 placement each? To me, number 40 is like number 1 million-you don’t get enough clicks to pay the bills. I would far rather have one keyword for which my site is on the first page of results than twenty that are all over the place. Build yourself a web site that has a strong keyword density-for one or two keywords. Put those keywords in your title and description and keyword lists.

You must have incoming links.
You must have quality incoming links.
You must build incoming links one link at a time.

Links are very important, but you cannot cheat in this area. You must build them one by one. My two favorite methods of link building is to write articles, like this one, and submit them to article directories, and to be included in link directories. Stay away from link farms, large link exchanges, or anything of the sort. The major search engines want to see you build a steady supply of links over time. What do you think a search engine will do for you when you go from 0 links to 3000 in one day? That won’t get you to number one, and certainly won’t keep you there, when you are put in the sandbox for six months.

About the Author: Sean Mize is the author of the ebook “15 Steps to Internet Success”. To receive his free ecourse “Secrets to Internet Success” and a free copy of “15 Steps to Internet Success” follow this link: Secrets of Internet Success.

Posted in Google, Keywords, Linking, Organic Optimisation, SEO | Comments Off

Getting Into Google and Yahoo News

Aug
08
2006

By Kim Roach (c) 2006

According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, 50 million Americans get news online on any given day. In comparison, only 27 million Americans watch network TV news on a typical evening. The Internet is quickly becoming the preferred news source over television, magazines, and trade publications.
News web sites like Yahoo News, Google News and MSNBC Searchbot receive millíons of visitors every day. If fact, Yahoo News ranks ahead of MSNBC.com and even CNN.com, while Google News ranks ahead of USAToday.com and the NYTimes.com.

You can tap into these massive traffíc sources through the use of press releases. Additional benefits of distributing your press release include possible media exposure, pickup of your release in online publications, increased link popularity to your web site, additional search engine rankings on your target keywords, and increased traffíc to your web site.

However, there’s much more to press release marketing than simply whipping up an article and sending it out to the world. You must take time to optimize your press release properly.

Press releases should be optimized in much the same way that search engine optimization specialists optimize ordinary web pages to achieve higher rankings. In doing so, you will receive much higher visibility.

For example, one press release from MarketingExperiments.com resulted in 2,200 visitors and 5 interview requests by journalists. This is the power of a highly optimized press release.

Listed below is an outline of how to create an optimized press release for your own website and how to distribute it for maximum exposure.

The first and most important element is to search for keywords and phrases that are likely to deliver qualified leads to your website. A good press release combines targeted keywords with creative writing that makes for a compelling read.

To find these lucrative keyword phrases, begin brainstorming what people would search for when looking for your products. If your products or services are targeted to a particular geographic area, you might want to include these locations in your keyword phrases as well. It is best to target up to 3 keyword phrases.

Once you have done this, you can head on over to DigitalPoint.com to do some additional keyword research. Simply type in your list of potential keyword phrases and this tool will give you a list of related keywords and how many times they are searched for per day. This information can aid you in choosing which keyword phrases will bring your press release the highest amount of exposure.

Nöw that you have chosen the best possible keywords, it’s time to integrate these targeted keyword phrases into your press release. You should include your keywords in the headline, the title, sub-headings and the first two paragraphs. Search engines place much of their emphasis on the title and the beginning paragraphs.

Your title should reflect your strongest keywords, not the name of the company. Include local modifiers if possible. Although it’s often nice to see your company’s name in print, it’s unlikely to bring you the exposure you deserve. Instead, use targeted search phrases that are likely to be used by your potential customers.

You should also optimize your press release by integrating targeted links within the content. Many press release distribution services and news wires currently offer the option of purchasing a hyperlink. You simply convert a keyword phrase within the release into an active hyperlink. This will increase search engine visibility for that keyword phrase and also drive additional traffíc back to your website.

Where to Send Your Press Release

There are a wide variety of places that will allow you to syndicate your press release. However, there are only a select few that you really need to focus on. Here are some distributors that will help you get the exposure you deserve.

PRWeb.com
Internet.com
BusinessWire.com
PRNewsWire.com

In addition to press releases, you can also get your content into Google and Yahoo news directly. If you publish frequent news and articles, your site may very well qualify as a news source.

You can submit your site for inclusion to Google News. However, keep in mind that Google is looking for sites with an editorial review process and multiple contributors. If you are accepted, Google Newsbot will hit your site very frequently and you will receive an extra stream of quality traffíc to your web site.

You can also suggest your news site be added to the Yahoo News index. Simply go to Yahoo! News and fill out the form.

Besides syndicating your press releases online, you should also seek exposure offline. You do this by building a media list of local newspapers, trade journals, magazines, web sites, radio and television shows.

If you want media coverage, you must identify target publications and their editorial calendars. Send journalists and editors personal emails with pitches on your story.

You can begin building your own media list at MediaPost.com, AFR.com, and ABYZNewslinks.com.

I have one last tip on getting into Google News. To quickly get your articles into the Google News search engine simply perform a search on Google News for relevant keywords, take note of the sites that are getting picked up and find out if any of them allow you to submit articles or press releases. If so, you have found a direct pathway to getting your content into Google News.

One of these places can be found at AmericanChronicle.com. Simply visit the site and scroll down to the very bottom of the page and clíck on the link that says “submit work”. From there you can sign up to be a contributor.

If accepted as a contributor, you will then be able to submit articles along with your picture. Many of their articles are syndicated on Google News and are available to the millíons of searchers who go to Google News each and every day.

Nöw that you know how to optimize your press releases and articles for maximum exposure, I urge you to begin an aggressive press campaign to increase exposure to your brand, gain quality inbound links, and increase your website traffíc.

About The Author
Kim Roach is a staff writer and editor for the SiteProNews and SEO-News newsletters. You can contact Kim at: kim @ seo-news.com

This article may be freely distributed without modification and provided that the copyright notice and author information remain intact.

Posted in SEO | Comments Off

SEO Strategy For Struggling Site On Limited Budget

Aug
01
2006

By Ross Dunn

Over the years we have answered many a phone call where a prospective client is frustrated with the poor performance of their website(s).

Obviously the business profile for each website is unique, but common to many of conversations is the following scenario that we would like to share with you. For the purpose of this example we will use a site owner by the name of Sam.

The question from Sam (the caller):

“My site is 2 years old and well established online; it is well indexed on the major search engines and has a couple rankings here and there. Unfortunately after so many years of work on the site the rankings and traffic for the website are still not where I need them. I am just not sure if I should commit my limited budget to reworking a website that has been so difficult to promote; it is becoming a bigger money hole than my boat. Should I continue to invest in my current website or try launching another site with slightly different content and a new domain?”

Just to be sure I understand, I state a summarized version of what I heard back to Sam:

So the site isn’t performing after years of work and you have become disillusioned enough that you don’t want to drop more money into it. As a result, you are close to launching an entirely new one while leaving the other, older site as a backup.

Now that Sam has confirmed that I understand his predicament I weave my answer in the direction of a recommended course of action – but I want to be sure he understands my reasons for the path I recommend:

First of all it is vital to remember that having multiple sites promoting the same service and content can get you in hot water with the major players such as Google, Yahoo and MSN; it is spam, through and through. So, if you are going to go the route of creating a new website you will have to be “all-in” and 301 (permanently redirect) all traffic from your old site’s domain to your new one. Yes, that does mean you will have to pull down the old site. This will also mean that, unless you are very careful you will find that many of your old pages indexed by the search engines will be broken links.

The fact is that there are always reasons that a site is not performing well and, in general, dividing your attentions to another site is simply asking for another headache. After all, who says you won’t make the same mistakes when designing and promoting the new site if you don’t know what was wrong with the older one?

Now I am going to provide you with a proven SEO strategy that costs as little as a $1000

Fix your main website! There is no reason why your main site cannot recover from the issues it is facing. These are the steps I recommend you take to ensure that you invest your budget for the best results. For all steps I have provided a minimum budget to provide you with an idea where the budget is divided.

Discover the Problem. Cost $600 to $1200

We will try to unearth the problem by reviewing your site for the most common offenders:

a) Spam: does your site currently utilize tactics that may be causing ranking penalties?

b) Optimization: is your site properly optimized for your target phrase(s)?

c) Design: is your site using design techniques that may be limiting your ranking potential?

d) Content: does the site need more textual content or does it need to be stated better?

e) Structure: could your site be structured in a more effective manner?

f) Popularity: does Yahoo or Google see a healthy number of relevant backlinks to your site?

Over 90% of the time we find fundamental issues that when corrected will make all the difference in the world for your website. This service would usually cost no more than $600 to $800 in consulting time.

There are, however, occasions where we may have found some concerns but nothing that seems to indicate the type of poor results you are experiencing. In this situation we will need a few more hours to conduct the following research which could raise the cost to $1200:

g) Competition: how are your competitors attaining rankings? (Save money, do this yourself)

h) Compile a Plan: recommendations will be made based on the competitor analysis.

The recommendations we provide you will be summarized at the end of the document in three levels. The first will be a list of the most important fixes to apply to your website for the best effect; these will be noted no matter how intense or potentially pricey they are. The second will be a list of the simplest fixes that you can apply immediately, in order of importance. We will also state the likely affect those changes will have in the scheme of things. The third level will be the list of the more technical and possibly costly fixes that you may need to prioritize when money becomes available.

Implement Recommended Changes: Cost $390+

Now that you have a list of our recommendations it is up to your skills and connections whether you can handle the implementation on your own or you would like a designer/consultant to apply them. If you decide only to apply the simplest fixes yourself you may just get the advantage you need to increase your rankings and turn your site around. Then the more advanced changes, if there are any, can be accounted for when the funds become available.

Note that for as little as $65 per hour you can usually hire a web design business to apply the changes. In my estimate the majority of changes I have encountered would only take 6 hours of work ($390) for a competent designer. Of course, that depends entirely on the flexibility and technology of your website.

The Waiting Game
Now that your site has been updated you have to take a deep breath and sit back while the search engines reindex your site and process the updates. This is not necessarily a slow process since monsters like Google have a voracious indexing schedule but it can be. In any event, you will have to wait as long as 6 weeks to see a measurable difference in rankings.

Can You Guarantee #1 Rankings?

I can certainly guarantee the quality of the work provided but I am sorry Sam, since we do not control the search engines we cannot guarantee rankings. The fact is that anyone who guarantees ranking results is not only unethical but misrepresents their abilities and Google firmly agrees.

I can tell you, however, that it is very common for websites that have undergone this process to experience dramatic increases in rankings under targeted keywords as well as a wider array of secondary rankings because the site is so well optimized.

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About the Author:
Article by Ross Dunn, CEO of StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc.

Posted in SEO | Comments Off

Google Launches SourceForge Competitor

Jul
31
2006

David A. Utter | Staff Writer

Even though Google said it is not competing with the SourceForge
project hosting site, it’s difficult to view it otherwise considering
Google’s features and other services that can complement it.

The Project Hosting section of Google Code debuted yesterday during
Greg Stein’s talk at the O’Reilly Open Source Convention. Stein
works for Google as an open source engineer, and is known for his
role as chairman of the Apache Software Foundation.

Before the announcement, NewsForge’s Joe ‘Zonker’ Brockmeier and
Stein talked about Project Hosting. Stein said in the report that
Google just wanted to see what they can do with their infrastructure
to provide an alternative service for hosting open source projects.

Google is taking care not to overtly stomp on SourceForge with
Project Hosting, which will not have some features that are present
at SourceForge and similar sites.

That’s a careful statement, in that Google doesn’t say whether or
not it finds those particular features desirable. Stein goes on to
tell Brockmeier that Google was able to “cut out a lot of heavy
structure” in creating Project Hosting.

Google will disallow attempts to duplicate namespaces that already
exist on SourceForge. This will prevent someone from placing code
on Project Hosting and naming it after an established project on
SourceForge.

Project Hosting has a couple of main features. One is the full-text
search across projects using Google’s vaunted technology in that
area. The other is version control. Google rebuilt the open source
Subversion project to work with Google’s storage technology, called
BigTable.

Stein also said Project Hosting will not include website hosting for
projects, as SourceForge does. That doesn’t mean Google couldn’t
suggest its Base or Pages services as options for developers. Not
to mention Gmail and the newly updated Google Talk for communication,
or Google Groups for discussions about a project.

ZDNet’s Google blogger Garett Rogers had guessed Stein would announce
a SourceForge-like service with Subversion during his talk. He noted
that while code search, as opposed to project search, isn’t available
yet, it should be something Google unveils soon.

Posted in SEO | Comments Off

Machine Translation SEO for Foreign Language Search Engine Success

Jul
28
2006

By Mike Banks Valentine (c) July 12, 2006

Are English speaking websites based in the US simply insular and uncaring about foreign web traffíc or are we actually Xenophobic?
Xenophobia – a phobic attitude toward strangers – comes from the Greek words xenos, meaning “foreigner”, “stranger”.

Trolling through the “referrers” section in my web site traffíc logs routinely shows hundreds of Google foreign language searches. Those foreign language search referrals usually total just slightly more than the combined total of Yahoo and MSN English language search referrals. So doesn’t it make sense to pay more attention to foreign language search in SEO than to fiddle with Yahoo and MSN optimization? My traffíc logs routinely show hundreds of translation tool referrals.

Those referrals come from foreign language searchers that REALLY want to read the pages. Foreign language visitors who don’t know about online translation tools (like Google’s) will leave the search result pages without visiting your site. Why not provide your pages in the most common European and Asian languages with your text in their native language already? Look in your logs for the following referrer URL:

http://64.233.179.104/translate_c

with URL’s of your own site appended. This query at “Google English” is a request by a foreign language user for a translation of that page on your site. The most common of them are from Google.es (Spain) and Google.de (Germany) and Google.pt (Portugal). Last month there were nearly 1,000 of these queries from Google translation tools in my logs. Chëck that tool out here:

http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en

This translation – or “Language Tools” page at Google is helpful in escaping our insular attitudes about English language search by showing us that Google currently supports 34 languages and hosts servers in 141 countries – literally from A to Z. http://www.Google.ae (United Arab Emirates) to http://www.Google.co.zm (Zambia)

Google has 117 languages listed on that page, but they’ve buried a few ringers in there with “Elmer Fudd”, “Klingon”, and “Pig Latin” to throw linguists for a loop. While it’s interesting to use those funny options, clicking the “I’m Feewing Wucky” on the “Elmer Fudd” language produces the same results as does the English language search, it’s just cuter with the letters “L” and “R” replaced with “W’s” on the search page.

http://www.google.com/intl/xx-elmer/

But we need to look at the fundamental reason that Google offers this “Language Tools” page and the machine translation there. It is because web site owners in the U.S. don’t offer multiple languages on their own sites.

While it is not uncommon to see a row of four to six flags representing the top few languages on many European based sites (especially Italy, Spain and France based companies) – it is actually rare to see multiple language options on U.S. based business sites.

There are manifold reasons for this lack of communication by English speaking countries with the rest of the world. The top reason is that we simply don’t need to know other languages to live our daily lives in this country, so we rarely think of using other languages online. While English is a primary language spoken around the world, including Canada, Australia, India, Britain and is a second language spoken by millíons of primarily foreign language speakers.

While it is common to visit major cities in Japan, Italy, Mexico and dozens of metropolitan cities around the planet without fear that we’ll be unable to find English speaking hoteliers, restaurateurs, and even cabbies – it is an arrogant expectation. I’ve been to each of those countries and didn’t need any Japanese, Italian or Spanish languag skills while on either business or pleasure.

But we’ve got to be realistic if we are to take part in the global medium of the web. Those web pages are viewable by an estimated 700 million people around the world and millíons of those would happily visit and read your web site if it were available in the world’s top languages and indexed in foreign search engines. So why not provide that option?

But we need to look at the fundamental reason that Google offers this “Language Tools” page and the machine translation there. It is because web site owners in the U.S. don’t offer multiple languages on their own sites.

While it is not uncommon to see a row of four to six flags representing the top few languages on many European based sites (especially Italy, Spain and France based companies) – it is actually rare to see multiple language options on U.S. based business sites.

There are manifold reasons for this lack of communication by English speaking countries with the rest of the world. The top reason is that we simply don’t need to know other languages to live our daily lives in this country, so we rarely think of using other languages online. While English is a primary language spoken around the world, including Canada, Australia, India, Britain and is a second language spoken by millíons of primarily foreign language speakers.

While it is common to visit major cities in Japan, Italy, Mexico and dozens of metropolitan cities around the planet without fear that we’ll be unable to find English speaking hoteliers, restaurateurs, and even cabbies – it is an arrogant expectation. I’ve been to each of those countries and didn’t need any Japanese, Italian or Spanish languag skills while on either business or pleasure.

But we’ve got to be realistic if we are to take part in the global medium of the web. Those web pages are viewable by an estimated 700 million people around the world and millíons of those would happily visit and read your web site if it were available in the world’s top languages and indexed in foreign search engines. So why not provide that option?

Major corporate web sites in the U.S. will inevitably require polished human translation of their major web pages, with variations for international tastes and preferences – most small and medium business sites cannot afford that option.

This leaves machine translation as the best remaining option. While it is possible for any site visitor to use translation tools online to convert your English language text into foreign tongues, it sends the visitor away from your site to the translation service. Not ideal.

The best option is to use translation software to put those foreign language variations on your own site and host them from your own server in the languages you offer. The reason to host them is, very simply, that if you provide machine translated foreign variants of all your pages, they will be crawled by foreign search engines and indexed and ranked on European and Asian search engines.

The web audience in China was roughly estimated at just over 100 million in 2005 and is expected to balloon in the near future. Simply being indexed for Chinese language searches and reasonably ranked could increase traffíc for U.S. sites dramatically. The European audience is fragmented with many more language options – the main representative languages on the web are Spanish, French, Portugese, German & Italian, while Chinese, Korean and Japanese make up the bülk of the remaining web audience. Those eight languages are offered in popular machine translation software packages.

If a site has already been optimized for English language search, the SEO will have included the most important keywords. While machine translation is not entirely reliable for proper sentence structure and grammar once translated, it at least gets most words and many word combinations correct. Content sites, who often rely on advertising for income, would love to see the extra pageviews and ad clicks coming from foreign visitors reading their pages in their native language.

Once a content site owner sees their largest foreign audience trends (through web traffíc analytics statistics), they can fine-tune their SEO for individual languages and actually pay for professional translation and foreign language SEO of the most profitable pages. But simply getting a content site indexed by search engines in more than eight new countries will bring waves of new visitors and increase advertising income substantially.

Did You Find This Article Useful? Then Digg It.

About The Author
Mike Banks Valentine is a Search Engine Optimization Specialist offering affordable Foreign SEO at SEOptimism.com.

For more about Foreign Search Engine Success, visit http://website101.com/arch/archive73.html.

This article is available online with working translation to eight languages, visit: WebSite101.

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Top 10 Things Every Site Should Include

Jul
27
2006

While almost anyone can have a web site these days it’s much harder to have a good website. From design aspects to readable content many sites fall flat. Below I’ve arranged a Top 10 list, because everyone loves a Top 10!

Include a detailed About Us page
The About Us page is a good place for new visitors and target traffic to find out who you are, why they should read your content or buy your products, how valuable your site can be, and also general information about your company, web site, or you.

It’s a good idea to include contact information or at least a clear link to your Contact Us page. Keep concise and accurate. People want to read about you but they don’t want a novel. Add important information on this page and point them to other pages for more in depth coverage.

Include a Contact Us page
Visitors (shoppers, target traffic) need an easy way to get in touch. Have a clearly marked link for contact information and include every avenue you receive communication through. Telephone and fax numbers (both local and 800), e-mail addresses, physical addresses, etc. all should appear on this page.

To help navigate further, clearly indicate which contacts go where (i.e. Admin, Tech, Sales, etc.) This will decrease frustration on both ends and allow better communication to flow. You want to show your visitors that you are competent and friendly, being easy to contact is one of the best ways to accomplish this goal.

Add a News, Press Release, Blog, and/or Articles Page
These pages inform customers of current events, products, endorsements, and other company happenings all in one place. Make sure to maintain these pages with fresh content that is reader friendly so your target traffic is more likely to come back, bookmark your page, and they may even provide word-of-mouth advertising. Free advertising!

As a bonus, search engines love these types of pages. New, fresh, relevant content is the stuff of search engines (well, there’s obviously more to it than just content). Each time a search engine spider crawls your site and find new content it ups your chances of ranking higher in the organic search listings. More free advertising!

A Relevant Page Title
As uninteresting as this may sound your page title holds a lot of weight. If you’re unfamiliar with a page title it is the name appearing in the blue bar across the top of the page. If your says something like “Untitled Document” I’m talking to you.

Page titles should be different for every page in your site. They should clearly and accurately describe your page, and you should try to use keywords in the page title.

Search engines display the title of your page on SERPs. The catchier and more accurate your title the better the chance you’ll hit target traffic.

A Relevant Page Name
Again, not so interesting as flashy designs or up-to-the-minute content, but it’s a necessity to get your target traffic to your page to see or read the goods.

It’s better to have straightforward page name showing in the URL than names with ? or other symbols and numbers. For example, a search engine will go to www.yourdomain.com/about us.htm it will only go to the ? in www.yourdomain.com/aboutus?094837 . You want search engines to find your pages. You also want humans to be able to read your names. Keep it simple and clean.

Good Grammar, Correct Spelling, Complete Thoughts, Sentence Structure
Everything you were supposed to learn in grade school, use it now. Not only should your site have relevant content – the more the better – people should be able to read your content. Choppy or runon sentences that seem to go nowhere cannot provide the type of readership concise, correct sentences can.

Misspellings, wrong word usage, bad grammar are all distractions. You do not want to distract your readers, you want to captivate them. Slang and derogatory language also distracts. If your site is a business site avoid slang and offensive language all together – unless that’s your selling point. Jargon is different, just don’t confuse readers more than necessary.

If you aren’t in command of grammar, punctuation, sentence structure, etc. or if you’d rather focus your efforts elsewhere, that’s fine. It’s a good idea to beg, plead, hire, or force someone else to take care of this part then as ignoring the problem won’t make it go away though it may have that effect on site traffic.

Professional Design, Colors, and Images
Design should be implemented with usability in mind. Not all visitors will be as web savvy as you’d like, create easy navigation and links to all your pages. A search bar for your site is also a good idea.

Colors should be inviting, not blinding. Use colors to emphasize your brand, product or content. Don’t overpower the visitor with colors. Use colors to make text pop without being distracting or hard to read.

Images should be friendly and relevant to your site. Images of people work better than objects and clip art rarely has a positive effect. Make sure your images can load within a reasonable amount of time, you don’t want to lose visitors because a single image caused an incredible amount of load time, or worse froze the visitors browser.

Make Sure ALL Links Are Working Links
This should be a no-brainer, however it is always a good idea to check and double check your links. Fix any broken links A.S.A.P. Your reputation counts on it.

Think of any site you’ve been to with a broken link. Disappointing isn’t it? You probably left or at least had a negative image about the company. Avoid this mistake and check, recheck, and check your links again.

Use Your Log Files
Log files offer a plethora of information on your web site, your visitors, what works and what doesn’t. You can’t afford to miss out on this information – if you can afford it you shouldn’t anyway.

Best idea: Get a program that converts the lengthy text into readable documentation. It’ll save you time and energy while getting you the information you desire. Log files will describe customer behavior, they will show you broken links, and you’ll see where customers flow freely and where they abandon the site. The invaluable information is at your finger tips. Use it!

SSL (Secure Socket Layer) Certificates
These can be used on any site asking for sensitive information. Not every web site needs this, however if you plan to collect any visitor information it is a good idea to have some SSL pages. Though not every page need be SSL.

Pages requiring e-mail, names, telephone numbers, addresses, credit card information, social security information or any other information visitors may not readily be giving up online should be securely collected via SSL.

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About the Author: Kristen Owen, CEO of ContentWorth has written quality, unique articles for years. For information on articles and other services please email Kristen.

Posted in SEO, Web Design | Comments Off

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