On your site navigation, if you are using images along with some java script instead of text the search engine bots may not be able to follow your links to other pages. A way around this is to add a site navigation along the bottom of the page using text links and this will in turn Aide the search engines while indexing your pages and it will also increase your anchor text links. The site navigation at the bottom of the page also comes in handy while your scrolling and reading content and keeps you from having to scroll back to the top to use the navigation on the site.

Another important note while creating content is to use links, these links add value to your site, but make sure the links are related to your subject matter. Another SEO Tip, use keywords as your anchor text, for example if you were using a link “www.bestskateboardsonthenet.com” you would want to show it like this <a href=”Domain_goes_here”>Skateboard Wheels</a> so the end user would only see the text and not the link.

While we are discussing links, make sure to use text links vs. image links. The reason is your images usually don’t have relative names that would be useful to a search engine. So if you still have a need for an image link, make sure you use an alt tag and name your image using a keyword like “skatboardwheels.jpg” instead of “picture01.jpg”.

An excellent way to build content on your site is to use Articles. What makes Articles so appealing is the fact that you can link back to your site from the article and create a quality back link, which is what search engines love to see. You can also submit these articles to directories like www.ezinearticles.com or www.goarticles.com . These types of links will get you good quality scores and will last you for years if not for a lifetime.

Lastly on content, try to keep your content fresh and updated on a regular basis, the search engines like this as well as your users, it is always nice to come back to a page that has been updated.

Source : www.theseotips.com

One of the best signs of quality is whether a directory is found in search results. If it is, especially on Google, take it as a good sign. It’s usually worth the money to buy a link from that directory.

• Don’t submit to too many directories too fast. Space it out over several months.
• Avoid free directories.

Directory Description and Anchor Text

Search engines are well aware that SEOs use directories to promote websites, so they’ve developed technology to spot directory submissions designed to manipulate search results. One of the biggest clues is the use of similar anchor text and descriptions on many directory listings. Some SEOs simply copy and paste a paragraph from the website, which is never good. Try varying your anchors and descriptions.

Directories also watch for SEO submissions, so if your URL is whitehorse.com and your anchor is “real estate agent,” then there’s a problem. Try varying that anchor to something like “white horse real estate agent” or “white horse real estate,” something that still has targeted keywords but is not as obvious.

Watch competing websites in a directory and see what behavior is accepted. If competing sites are pretty aggressive, it’s a sign that you can be aggressive as well.

Number of Links in a Category

The more links are on a page, the less PR is passed, so look for the number of links in each category. If the ”real estate” section has 150 links and “real estate agents” has 25 links, then the second section can pass more page rank. Watch for the inbounds to each section to judge whether or not the link is valuable. If “real estate agents” has 25 outbounds and 5 internal links, but the “real estate” section has 150 outbounds, but 50 internal links and 20 inbounds, then the latter link is better.

Also watch to see if the site fits in a specific category topically.

Directories used to be an easy and fast way to get Google rankings, so Google had to diffuse this manipulation issue. The problem with generic directories is they might have a high page rank, but no content or real value from the user’s perspective. If all a directory does is sell page rank for the sole purpose of manipulating search results, then the search engines will want to discount it.

It the past, it was pretty simple. For example, Bob the SEO dude got into SEO, and then realized he could make money from directories by charging for submission. He got directory scripts, built a database and rolled out a new directory. Then Bob ran into a problem…no one submitted.

“What’s going on?” Bob thought. Then he realized that he needed page rank, so he reciprocated, did free-for-all links and bought listings. Bob got his directory’s PR to 6 and started selling links for $40 apiece.

The problem with Bob’s model is that his directory is built solely for PR manipulation, without any value to the end user. Obviously Google does not like those tricks; it wants to provide its searchers with real value. It’s only natural that search engines want to reduce low quality directory link effects.

Many directory owners build multiple directories for nothing but SEO, which reduce their value.

Determining Quality of a Directory

A good way to determine the quality of a directory is to look at whether there are any good sites in that directory. If its listings lead mostly to low PR, low quality sites, then it’s not worth bothering to submit your site to it.

Also, if most listings are empty, this means that the directory is either new or abandoned. A new directory may become good later on, so submitting to it may be worth the effort. Save the link somewhere and come back a few months later.

Check the crawl date of the index page and of a specific page in a directory. If it’s over a month old, chances are the search engines don’t trust it. Google also makes a lot of manual adjustments, which can hit spammy directories.

General high quality directories like DMOZ and Yahoo Directory still pass value to websites. Yahoo costs $299, but it’s still a good buy.

• DMOZ
• Yahoo Directory
• Librarians Internet Index
• Business.com
• GoGuides
• JoeAnt
• Skaffe

DMOZ Directory

The Open Directory project is a free directory run by volunteers and enthusiasts. No editor is obliged to submit or review your website. DMOZ is one of the highest quality directories on the web, so make sure you build up your site a little before submitting, because it will go easier for you if you do.

Though DMOZ is free, there are some editors who accept “bribes” and may list a site for a fee. The danger is that the site may be removed by other, more authoritative members, so several hundred bucks can go to waste. If you intend to do this, watch out for quality flags.

Become an editor

You can also become a DMOZ editor. Make sure to state that you’re interested in helping and have no commercial relations in the industry, nor SEO (this last point is very important).

DMOZ is valued by all search engines.

Trust Rank and DMOZ

Google’s Trust Rank is an algorithm that helps Google fix some PR holes. Seed pages are high quality pages with links to other websites. A link from a seed page passes a trust score to the linked page, and then that trust score follows a pattern similar pattern to page rank. DMOZ is considered to be one of the seed pages (or more precisely a seed site), hence their link is valuable. Do not get upset, though, if you cannot get a link from there. There are many sites that rank high without DMOZ.

Yahoo Directory

The Yahoo Directory costs $299 per year. You don’t need to submit to it to show up in Yahoo search results, but your ranking will go up on Yahoo if you do. Google also trusts the Yahoo Directory.

Some websites may get accepted for free, but those have to be non-commercial.

Yahoo sorts its listings by link popularity instead of alphabetically. If a category has 200 sites, then the ones with the most links will show up at the top. If you have few links, it will take some time before your site shows up at the top.

Yahoo Directory editors have a reputation for being picky as to whom they submit, but with recent Yahoo financial troubles they may loosen up and accept anyone who pays. Also keep in mind that Yahoo may still end up being purchased by Microsoft, despite all the drama over the past year and more, so a link from the Yahoo Directory is worth the price.

You can search for a niche directory by using the format “keywords + directory” or “keywords + add URL.” Please note that some directories prevent the “add URL” part from being crawled.

• Also check out business partners, distributors and affiliates. Sometimes they have directories or a partners page.
• The Chamber of Commerce is a directory from which it is worth your while to get a link.

Auto Forms and Submission Software

At all costs, stay away from submission software. It has no value and you will end up penalized by the search engines. Also stay away from submission schemes priced at $1 per listing (or similar). Those hurt instead of helping.

If you do use an auto form filler, make sure to vary your information slightly and remove any trails that may indicate software was used. It’s generally a good idea to create different descriptions, but if you’re extra lazy at least vary them a bit.

On the topic of software, stay away from applications that claim they can help you gain top rankings on search engines. Those go for few hundred bucks, but never get you promised results. Search is a billion-dollar game. A $300 program from Joe the garage guru will not beat it.

On the other hand, there are plenty of useful apps that help with overall SEO tasks. Many can be found for free or at moderate prices.

Quality Game

If you have a quality site, with high PR, but few editorial links, the site may be lacking in trust and get flagged for review. Internally leaked Quality Rater guidelines showed that despite Google’s war on spam, it may tolerate some degree of spam as long as there’s quality content, aka the formula “quality site + PR only links (non-editorial) = Google tolerance.” I won’t suggest you follow this formula, since going for PR links can get a site penalized by algorithms first, before human raters, but it’s good to know.

Directories are good sources of links, but they are not the core of SEO rankings. You can still make a site rank on directories alone for relatively competitive terms, but it’s better to mix these with more editorial links.

Don’t make directory buys your primary link building strategy; it’s a risky game that can backfire. Focus more on editorial links through content development, and then submit to directories.

That is why it is always best to also learn many other traffic generation methods like viral marketing for example.

Not only is there out of date or invalid SEO advice getting around, there is also information which if acted upon, can result in your pages being banned.

The SEO tips below should assist the reader in forming a basic understanding of how to create human friendly web pages which are easily understood by the most popular search engines.

Know this. There are thousands of search engines but only two of them will bring you most of the traffic. They are google and yahoo. Another search engine that brings me a little traffic is msn but I do not focus too much on tactics for that engine.

Focus your attention on the engines that will bring you the most visitors first and work your way down.

Basic SEO

1. Insert keywords within the title tag so that search engine robots will know what your page is about. The title tag is located right at the top of your document within the head tags. Inserting a keyword or key phrase will greatly improve your chances of bringing targeted traffic to your site.

Make sure that the title tag contains text which a human can relate to. The text within the title tag is what shows up in a search result. Treat it like a headline.

2. Use the same keywords as anchor text to link to the page from different pages on your site. This is especially useful if your site contains many pages. The more keywords that link to a specific page the better.

3. Make sure that the text within the title tag is also within the body of the page. It is unwise to have keywords in the title tag which are not contained within the body of the page.

Adding the exact same text for your h1 tag will tell the reader who clicks on your page from a search engine result that they have clicked on the correct link and have arrived at the page where they intended to visit. Robots like this too because now there is a relation between the title of your page and the headline.

Also, sprinkle your keywords throughout your article. The most important keywords can be bolded or colored in red. A good place to do this is once or twice in the body at the top of your article and in the sub-headings.

4. Do not use the exact same title tag on every page on your website. Search engine robots might determine that all your pages are the same if all your title tags are the same. If this happens, your pages might not get indexed.

I always use the headline of my pages as the title tag to help the robots know exactly what my page is about. A good place to insert the headline is within the h1 tag. So the headline is the same as the title tag text.

5. Do not spam the description or keyword meta tag by stuffing meaningless keywords or even spend too much time on this tag. SEO pros all agree that these tags are not as important today as they once were. I just place my headline once within the keywords and description tags.

6. Do not link to link-farms or other search engine unfriendly neighborhoods.

7. Do not use doorway pages. Doorway pages are designed for robots only, not humans. Search engines like to index human friendly pages which contain content which is relevant to the search.

8. Title tags for text links. Insert the title tag within the HTML of your text link to add weight to the link and the page where the link resides. This is like the alt tag for images.

My site contains navigation menus on the left and right of the page. The menu consists of links not images. When you hover over the link with your mouse, the title of the link appears. View the source of this page to see how to add this tag to your links.

9. Describe your images with the use of the alt tag. This will help search engines that index images to find your pages and will also help readers who use text only web browsers.

10. Submit to the search engines yourself. Do not use a submission service or submission software. Doing so could get your site penalized or even banned.

Here is the submission page for google: http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Submit only once. There is no need to submit every two weeks. There is no need to submit more than one page. Robots follow links. If your site has a nice link trail, your entire site will get indexed.

My site has a nice human friendly link trail which robots follow easily. All my pages get indexed without ever submitting more than the main index page once.

More SEO Tips

Get the facts here: http://www.google.com/webmasters/. This page will explain most of what you should focus on along with what you should forget about.

If you have been thinking about handing over the task of SEO to someone outside of yourself, you should read some warnings before you part with any money. http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

SEO Discussion

Most SEO Professionals will not tell you about the goose that laid the golden egg. The following link will take you to a jealously guarded FREE SEO discussion.

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=google.public.support.general

You can search the forum for specific questions you may have. I like to just lurk around and read the messages.

The author, Ed Zivkovic owns his own website which contains articles with all sorts of tips for work at home webmasters. Here is the site: http://www.ezau.com