SEO Advice - From MrLeN

[MrLeN]

I just feel like writing this, because I see so many people around - trying SO hard online, when they're just whistling in the wind.

Search Engine Optimization.

It's actually very easy, and so many people get caught up thinking that there's secrets or tricks, that it causes them more harm than good.

So, here's my advice - for what it's worth. Here are some simple guidelines. From me to you.

The GOLDEN Rule

Be Honest! There's no need to try and be tricky. When you're SEO'ing a page - all you have to do is use search phrases that you think people will use to find your site. That's all you have to do. You don't have to plaster them all over the place. Just add them where they fit, as much as possible - without going overboard.

Do's

- Use SPECIFIC search phrases as your page titles. If you think people might find the page you are working on by typing "Dog Food", the just title it "Dog Food"!

Why? But isn't that "TOOO Poopulaaaar"? Well, yeah - Probably, but if you have other words like "healthy dog food" on your actual content, you'll most likely get some visitors from people searching for "healthy dog food" rather than if you had've titled the page "We Sell healthy dog food online - www.yoursite.com".

Why not title it "healthy dog food" then? ..because then you've got less chance of people finding your site for other phrases that have the words "dog food" in them, such as "meaty dog food", "cheap dog food" or "Order dog food online".

..my point is that you should try to make titles that are specific, but not too specific. You need to make sure that you have that keyword in the page many times, in many variations, and even in different orders, like:

If you are looking for healthy food for your dog

..but don't spend too much time on that. Just type naturally, and remember that you need to include the words "food" and "dog" many times.

- Use PHP to build your website. It's the best way to build a website!

- Use ALT tags and link titles in EVERY link. This will tell search engines that your site has a THEME.

- Have a link us page, but make sure the links to YOUR site include keywords that you want your site to be found for. If you have the words "dog food" in links on 73 other sites - you're right on your way to attracting #1 rankings.

- Make a sitemap, and put link titles and ALT tags in "every" link!

- Try to break your content up into may parts, so that you can make many pages with many page titles. No one likes reading long pages anyway!

Dont's

- Don't use big heavy flash headers that take forever to load.

- Don't put strings of keywords in your ALT tags or link titles. Just use specific phrases that you think people will use to search for your site.

- Don't use lots of big heavy images.

- Don't put 15,000 banners, ads or affiliate links all over your website. It just slows everything down and it looks terrible. Even if a visitor DOES wait around for everything to load, they'll be unimpressed with what they find.

- Don't use popups. They totally suck. Don't use them for any reason.

Template

You need a DECENT template. One that will load some time this week. It needs to be well written to work in all browsers and it must use stylesheets and javascript files. It should be written preferably (mostly) in CSS. A table or two wont hurt.

There should never be any such code "in" a page source. Do not use font tags (if possible) in HTML. You need to try and keep the ratio of "TEXT" as high as possible - as opposed to having a high ratio of code.

Many people's sites fail, because their template is pathetic and they don't even know it. So my advice is - do some research on your templates, before you spend a year of your life trying to build a site with it!

Your template should work in all the latest browsers!

Search engine submissions

You don't have to pay people to submit your website. Your site will eventually be found by search engines anyway. What you SHOULD be doing is getting links to your site on OTHER peoples sites. You need to get your link on as many sites as possible. High ranking ones are best. Join 20 forums! ..make a post on each one - and make sure you have email notification turned on. When you get notified of a reply and have to go back to the forum, make another post - or reply to someone elses.

If you want to pay, the best thing you can do is submit your site to Inktomi. Your site will be listed within 48 hours on all Inktomi powered websites. However, only your index page will be listed (in the 48 hour period). This is good though, because sooner or later search engines will find these links and find the rest of your site.

Submit manually to the Open Directory, and other directories. Join some topsites, or start one of your own. The best form of search engine submission is to get YOUR links on other peoples sites. That's all there is to it.

..and last but not least:

Content

You need HEAPS of it, and you need to make sure you can edit things real fast. That's why you should use PHP and not plain HTML.

SSI is old news.

If you follow the advice above, you'll do well :)

MrLeN

[fstfrd64]

I like your article. I've learned several of the rules you stated via trial and error. Do you have any PHP reference resources to recommend?

[JayDrake]

Content

You need HEAPS of it, and you need to make sure you can edit things real fast. That's why you should use PHP and not plain HTML.

SSI is old news.


Okay, I've got to sneak in on this bit... PHP is well and good. I use it myself, but your choices aren't just PHP or SSI. Use PHP or some equivalent would be a better thing to say. ASP (.NET) or Java are also rather popular and comparable choices. This I say with a tear in my eye as I make my goal to learn to utilize both this year to better my chances of changing jobs as very few people hire PHP developers while Java and .NET developers are needed across the country and are paid well.

[RISTMO]

This I say with a tear in my eye as I make my goal to learn to utilize both this year to better my chances of changing jobs as very few people hire PHP developers while Java and .NET developers are needed across the country and are paid well.

Well, it's true that there's a lot of demand for Java and .NET, but that there aren't many people looking for PHP developers isn't quite true. It just depends where you look. If you're freelancing, especially for small - medium size companies, they usually don't seem to care much, lots even prefer it.

Rick

[JayDrake]

Well, it's true that there's a lot of demand for Java and .NET, but that there aren't many people looking for PHP developers isn't quite true. It just depends where you look. If you're freelancing, especially for small - medium size companies, they usually don't seem to care much, lots even prefer it.

Specifically, there are more published full-time permanent positions available for Java and .NET. As I mentioned, I use PHP presently and love it. The reasons I love it are the same reasons that I can sell it to small and medium businesses in contract work. I've become accustomed to my full-time job, however, and only do a small amount of after hours contracting. Unfortunately, it seems that either Java or .NET is my only way to progress without going back to full-time freelancing.

[MrLeN]

Content

You need HEAPS of it, and you need to make sure you can edit things real fast. That's why you should use PHP and not plain HTML.

SSI is old news.


Okay, I've got to sneak in on this bit... PHP is well and good. I use it myself, but your choices aren't just PHP or SSI. Use PHP or some equivalent would be a better thing to say. ASP (.NET) or Java are also rather popular and comparable choices. This I say with a tear in my eye as I make my goal to learn to utilize both this year to better my chances of changing jobs as very few people hire PHP developers while Java and .NET developers are needed across the country and are paid well.

OK then. I just use PHP that's all. I don't know anything about ASP, because I don't use windows servers.

MrLeN

[LauraB]

MrLeN,

Great post! There will always be people who pay other people to do SEO work for them. The store owner probably does not scrub his own floors. We have many clients that are nore than capable of doing their own SEO work BUT they choose us to do it for them just like they hire help to scub floors.

Business owners who choose to outsource their website developement whether it be SEO work, design work or floor scubbing are making the choice to do what they do best - run their business.

Well, sorry I got off on a tangent. Anyway MrLeN, great advice!

[aaronmp2003]

Wow - yes, great article MrLen! Everytime I think I've got SEO down, I read about something else that I could do to make my site better, and as we all know, staying up on the latest advances is a great way to compete!

As to PHP, I'm going to show my ignorance here, and repeat the earlier request for PHP references. I'd love to find out what that's all about.

Thanks!

-- Aaron

[steviesullivan]

I recently re-organised one of my my sites (uygurWORLD) and broke it down to more and smaller pages. I also brought a lot of my sub menus to the main nav bar menu. As well I placed my Site Map nav link in the first position on the Nav Bar. Result? Google loved it and all my rankings improved and more pages were indexed.

[JayDrake]

I recommend starting to look for PHP resources at php.net and zend.com. The manual at php.net has everything you can possibly need, though you have to know what you need to find it, and sometimes you just know what you want to do, not the function that allows you to do it. I recommend finding someone who uses PHP to help you out in those respects. Most any good 'code repository' or web development forum type site will have plenty of articles and free code to toy with.

Aside from that, you can do web searches and quickly find some easy php tutorials to get you started out.

[felicity1127]

Wow. Great article. Thank you I learned a lot from it. Patti

[deltatrend]

Three cheers! This is about the most helpful posting about SEO I've read in a long time.

I don't agree with everything that is said (I don't use PHP), but overall it falls in line with the results I have had.

I especially agree with the comment about breaking up pages. If your site is about dog food, then use the Overture to identify the top search phrases that use these two words. Next, break your content up into smaller pages, each of which targets one of these phrases from <title> to </body>.

That is half the job done well!

[somethingelse]

I'm very interested to know more about this recommendation, cuz i use various php-based CMS packages for my clients, and i understand that they are all SE friendly (postnuke, phpnuke, etc)...

but for the static pages i build for them, i have made fairly extensive use of ssi for items that change regularly on numerous pages.

is it a simple matter of learning a few basic calls or whatever to replace ssi with php?
more direction on this would be very appreciated - i want to learn the best way, but finding the time to go hunt it down is difficult, particularly when one doesn't really know what one is looking fSite0D

thanks!

[jackson992]

The problem with php pages is it takes a lot longer for the search engines to index them

[xerostar]

MrLeN wrote:
Content - Try to break your content up into may parts, so that you can make many pages with many page titles. No one likes reading long pages anyway!

Comment:
Marketing gurus say that one long sales page will outsell a series of short pages any day.

The US readers seem to prefer them - there are so many of them ..

Can you comment?
Thanks
John

[Deep13]

The problem with php pages is it takes a lot longer for the search engines to index them

yup i too have noticed it...
i saw very few .php pages in the top list..
but lot of html pages..

i think editing apache config file and allowing php files to use html extension should solve the problem...

Deep

[findaresume]

Deep -
I have had some luck with this (ie editing apache config). Good advice.

And kudos doc, on the article. Only a year ago I was paying people to do SEO work, and continued to do so because whatever they did helped. But I just launched two sites (as a hobby) and have realized that the SEO work is completely self-doable.




The problem with php pages is it takes a lot longer for the search engines to index them

yup i too have noticed it...
i saw very few .php pages in the top list..
but lot of html pages..

i think editing apache config file and allowing php files to use html extension should solve the problem...

Deep

[MrLeN]

MrLeN wrote:
Content - Try to break your content up into may parts, so that you can make many pages with many page titles. No one likes reading long pages anyway!

Comment:
Marketing gurus say that one long sales page will outsell a series of short pages any day.

The US readers seem to prefer them - there are so many of them ..

Can you comment?
Thanks
John

SEO [as you know] means - Search Engine Optimization. Therefore, my post discusses the best way to get search engine traffic - not the best way to sell a product once you have the customer.

It will be very hardto get a #1 ranking with one of those long pages, in my opinion - but feel free to prove me wrong. So, the next best thing to do (if you want to make long pages) is to attract traffic with smaller pages and send them to the long one. Marketing techniques are another issue all together.

I already have another article to make, on: How to utilize PHP to make your SEO efforts more productive and less time consuming :)

I am going to write that next and post a link to it here, considering that some of the replies have askedfor more information on that.

Re: Marketing - Well. I am not too bad it it IMHO, but I wouldn't go around proclaiming that I am a marketing "Guru" ..so, I'll pass on adding my comments about it here.

MrLeN

[jackson992]

I wish I knew a way to get my php pages indexed faster with limited access. I don't have server access but I have heard there's a way to change the php url into into html oe shtml

[MrLeN]

I used to use shtml before I used php - and to be quite honest, I haven't noticed a difference in how long it takes to get listed.

I have some brand new sites running and Googe has already found them all - because I am linking to them from all my other sites.

You just have to get links from other sites - to your site, and Bob's your uncle.

MrLeN

[ronniethedodger]

The problem with php pages is it takes a lot longer for the search engines to index them

yup i too have noticed it...
i saw very few .php pages in the top list..
but lot of html pages..

i think editing apache config file and allowing php files to use html extension should solve the problem...

This is absolutely not true and bad advice. File extensions have no bearing on the indexability factor of the page.

As long as the page is spider-friendly and crawlable, you will have no problems in having it indexed quickly.

To determine your spider-friendliness, I suggest you use a Text Only Browser such as Lynx to navigate your site with. If this browser has no problems with navigating your site, then the spiders will have no problems either. This goes for .asp pages and links that use .cgi scripts too.

Another reason you may not being seeing .php in the results could be the fact that a lot of people are under the same impression that you are mistakenly under, so they configure the Apache Server to process .html pages as .php. This is a bad thing to do and puts more load on the Server if you have pure .html only pages that are being run thru the .php backend when they do no need to be.

Also another reason that you may not be seeing .php pages in the results is that did you ever stop to figure that there are just a ton more .html pages out there than .php pages. It would also stand to reason that if there are more .html pages, then there would also be more .html pages showing in the results.

[jackson992]

I'm basing this on the fact that my shtml pages are getting indexed faster than my pages whcih have php? in them

[ronniethedodger]

I'm basing this on the fact that my shtml pages are getting indexed faster than my pages whcih have php? in them

Well I do not know what to tell you on that. I have no idea in what context these pages are set.

Are they from different sites, or the same site?
If they are different, how many inbound links do you have pointed at each type?
How long have each of them been active on the Internet?
Do you have DMOZ listings for one and not the other?
Have you done paid submissions, if so did you do them for both?

There are a number of variables that will get your pages indexed quicker and more often....but I can tell you that it is not the page extension. As long as you have links pointing at those pages, the spider will come. The more links you have pointed at the more often it will come. And it don't matter if you call your pages .pdf, .doc, .htm, .html, .asp, .cgi, .shtml, or .php. The spider will come.

You also mentioned .shtml pages. Back before the days of PHP...there was SSI. And the same argument was made for .shtml pages. Of course the reasoning was different. People thought (speculated) that SE's did not like them because they had the ability to serve up different content for a spider, and something else for a normal browser. The speculation was the SE's did not like .shtml pages because of this. They were wrong....just like the thinking that .php pages is wrong.

[Deep13]

i think editing apache config file and allowing php files to use html extension should solve the problem...

This is absolutely not true and bad advice. File extensions have no bearing on the indexability factor of the page.......


great...learning good things from here...clearing all my misunderstandings...

thanks...

btw what do u think about editing apache conf file or .htaccess to convert query string to SE friendly URL?

good or bad?

Deep

[JayDrake]

btw what do u think about editing apache conf file or .htaccess to convert query string to SE friendly URL?

good or bad?

Deep

Good. SE's have limited abilities to index blah.php?something&somethingelse&yetanother. (Though blah.php will be indexed just fine.) Adding some direct links to specific search results pages can help as it allows more of your site to be indexed. The bad part of this is that use of Rewrite Rules does cause greater strain on your server, so I don't recommend using this tact unless you feel you are gaining something from it.

[ronniethedodger]

I agree with Jay on that too. The more complicated and confusing the string is, the harder it is for the spider to follow.

One way to check it out is to use a browser such as the Lynx browser. This is the one that Google says to use when analyzing your pages to see if they are spiderable. If they can navigate thru the mess, then so should the spider.

If the pages are easy to navigate with the Lynx browser then you would not have a need to use any rewrite rules. But if it doesn't make it thru...then you have a good candidate to use the rule.

Make sure that you confifure your Lynx browser to disallow any cookies, all of them, even session ID cookies. This is the way the spiders come through, and so should you when you are checking them.

The Lynx browser is available for free download at http://lynx.isc.org/current/

[jackson992]

Basically I have two levels. The first is something like jacks.php which gets spidered fine. The trouble comes when it comes to jacks.php?ProductName.

My first section is a link for every product and the second page, the pages that take forever to get indexed is the product page in which the url comes from the name of the product

[ronniethedodger]

I went to a couple of your sites. There seems to be quite a few pages with nothing but links to affiliateships. I could not find any content to speak of.

Which site are you referring to with the jacks.php page? And give me an example of one of the products you are having problems with being indexed. I will take a look at it.

BTW, your auto-site has 4470 pages in it's index.
Jacks has 41,000 and Katt's has 198 in the Google index. I take it that you are having problems with Katt's? Because the other look like they are doing pretty darn good. ;0)

[JayDrake]

Basically I have two levels. The first is something like jacks.php which gets spidered fine. The trouble comes when it comes to jacks.php?ProductName.

My first section is a link for every product and the second page, the pages that take forever to get indexed is the product page in which the url comes from the name of the product

Yep. This is a classic issue that one could hope Google and the other SE's would fix. There is a tendancy to not include anything past the file extension when the SE's spider. Why? I don't know. What you can do about it is use Mod Rewrite in Apache, either in the conf file or with .htaccess to make the url's easier to understand. jacks.php?ProductName could be jacks-ProductName.php. In addition to indexability, this makes sense to your visitors as well.

[jackson992]

Hi guys thanks so much for taking a look. Yes mine is an affiliate site so you will see links to the merchant's website. My job is to get the visitor ready to buy from that site so I get a commission.

Here is a smple url from one of my sites as the principle is the same regardless which site it is lol

http://www.clothing-to-go.com/amazing-socks.php?interest=Hav-A-Hank+3+Pack+Permanent+Press+Handkerchiefs


yes the two older sites are doing ok. Sad thing is jack's retail was at over 50k pages indexed until earlier this week

[ronniethedodger]

Here is a smple url from one of my sites as the principle is the same regardless which site it is lol

http://www.clothing-to-go.com/amazing-socks.php?interest=Hav-A-Hank+3+Pack+Permanent+Press+Handkerchiefs


Is www.clothing-to-go.com your site? If it isn't, then why would you care about this type of link anyway? You should only be concerned with the pages on your site and getting traffic to visit it, so they can find the page with this link on it to click it.

[jackson992]

Yes Ronnie it is one of my sites which are all linked together:)