WebMastersLoom

Hi, I am contacting you because I have created a website, WebMaster Reporter, that you may be interested in reviewing. I originally created a similar site for my own research purposes, but then I decided that other people might like to use the technology for WebMastering research as well.

(more…)

How you write and design your links is crucial to your visitors clicking them or not. Write them badly and they leave, write them well and they stay. Who knows, they might even do exactly that what you created your site for. Following are 7 guidelines how links should be written to improve the usability of your site.

Do it consistently

Visitors learn for example how a website marks the links or where the “related-content box” can be found. Consistently adhering to these established “codes” will make it easy to navigate and read the site.

(more…)

This hands on PHP Programming article provides the knowledge necessary to design and develop a search engine for your website using PHP version 4.0 and above. Making a search engine for your website with PHP is really easy and provides substantial functionality required by most of the small to medium websites. This article introduces every steps of the development, including both design and PHP programming. Basic computer skills and knowledge of HTML fundamentals are required. Ok, let’s begin now.

(more…)

Are you going to design or redesign new website or thinking for it, then first read below given points, which google likes in a website, Google Information for Webmasters. There are more than 80 factors of your website that are taken into consideration when determining the ranking of your website, Following these guidelines will help Google find, index, and rank your site. Basic principles:

1) Make pages for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”

2) Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?” 3) Don’t participate in link schemes designed to increase your site’s ranking or PageRank. In particular, avoid links to web spammers or “bad neighborhoods” on the web, as your own ranking may be affected adversely by those links.

(more…)

For new internet marketers, your immediate goal is to get your website into as many search engines as possible. These services can charge a tremendous amount of money and require recurring monthly service fees. Very tempting to new internet marketers with all the hype “Instantly submit your websites to 1000’s of websites” and “Get Your Website Listed in 24 hours.” Stop! Let me show you a few ideas, so you can achieve the same success and save yourself some money better spent on pay per click campaigns.

Its true many services can submit your website to over 1000’s of websites. According to various online statistics: Google, MSN, and Yahoo provide nearly 90% of all Search Engine Traffic. First and foremost, if 90% of the Search Engine Traffic comes from only these major search engines, I want to focus on these just these three. But if you are so determined to submit to as many websites as you, these same services are available free online, a simple search for Free Website Submission will provide you with many opportunities to submit your website for free and the major search engines all offer free website submissions.

Wait! Any Search Engine Optimization Expert will tell you, NEVER submit your website to the Search Engines!? So, how do I get my website listed?

Accordingly to recent online information any website that has a Google Page Rank 7 or above will get your website listed in 24 hours, or Page Rank 5 or 6 in 48 hours. Most of these services that offer a 24 hours Listing already have websites that have PR5 or above and simply temporarily add your link so that your website can be quickly crawled by the search engines for a nice fee.

So, how can I get my website listed in the major search engines in 24 hours?

First start submitting your website to several SEO Friendly Directories:

a. http://directory.ezweb-tools.com at EZWeb-Tools, SEO Friendly Directory

b. http://info.vilesilencer.com/main.php?rock=seo-friendly-list.php - Offers over 150 Free SEO Friendly directories in a list to submit your websites to of various Page Ranks.

After submitting to all the above directory listings your website will begin to appear in the next 24 ? 48 hours. Search Engines will be crawling these websites daily, and once your website link is posted it will soon crawl your website and be included in their index.

Why are there so many Web Design and Search Engine Optimisation myths on the internet? The following article exposes some of the most common SEO myths effecting web design and looks at the reasons why they have become widely accepted as the truth by many web designers and Webmasters.

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is a complex and diverse topic that?s both never constant and constantly changing. There are hundreds of myths about SEO, some were once true but no longer apply (outdated information), while others were simply never true to begin with (disinformation).

The large amount of different opinions and tactics used by both Web Designers and SEO Consultants (which can be completely contrasting) has also helped to create myths. Combine this with the large number of web forums and blogs that allow people to share their views, and you have the perfect environment for not only creating myths but for them to spread like a viral epidemic. Here are some of the most common myths explained.

Myth Name: Build it and they will come

Myth Description: The belief that a website will receive large quantities of targeted traffic as soon as it goes online.

Truth: The biggest myth I still come across most days is the aptly named ?build it and they will come myth?. The cause of the myth is a combination of outdated information, a non realistic, over optimistic site owner or a lack of understanding of the web. Back in the old days of the internet you could ?build a site and they would come?, just by submitting to the main search engines of the day (to a degree). This was largely due to the lack of web sites around at the time, meaning top positions were that much easier to secure.

Nowadays a site must be advertised just like any business. A good analogy is your site is shop and a search engine is a high-street. The only problem is your shop is not on the high-street, so some kind of sign is required to inform passers by where you are and what you do.

Myth Name: Search Engine Submission Myths

Myth Description: The belief that a website needs to submit every page to the search engines. The belief that regular or monthly submissions will result in better search engine rankings. The belief that a website needs to keep on submitting to search engines or they will forget about the site. The belief that if a website submits to thousands of search engines its traffic levels will go through the roof.

Truth: While some of these myths used to have a bit of truth to them, nowadays search engine submission is not required at all. The myths have been caused mainly by companies who provide submission services. This is because it?s financially in their interest for people to believe the myths are true.

It doesn?t hurt to submit to the major search engines but indexing can be achieved simply by getting links to a site (as long as the page where the link is on is known to the search engines).

There is also no point at all submitting to thousands of search engines. There are only a handful of search engines that people actually use. Many of the other search engines have been created to obtain the submitters email address which is then added to email lists (which spammers will pay money for).

Myth Name: Meta Tag Optimisation

Myth Description: The belief that search engine optimisation is just about Meta tags.

Truth: Meta tags used to be very important to rankings until search engines became more complex. While some Meta tags are still important like the description and title tags which most search engines will display on their results (so they can influence click through rates drastically). Most tags like the keyword tag are obsolete.

I believe the cause of this myth is twofold. One, because it?s outdated information (to a degree) and two, because people want to believe there?s a secret magic formula that only SEO?s know about. That way a lack of rankings is not their fault, plus it keeps the conspiracy theorists happy.

Myth Name: Ethical Search Engine Optimisation

Myth Description: The belief that there are two types of SEO, black hat and white hat (the old good verses evil).

Truth: Quite simple this one but nearly always over looked. Any attempt to alter the search engines results and obtain more traffic is against most search engines guidelines. While there are tactics that may get you banned and others that may not or are not widely known about (yet), all of them are trying to influence the results and therefore are against the guidelines. SEO is neither black nor white, but many shades of grey. Just try to know what you?re doing and more importantly the associated risks.

Myth Name: Google’s PageRank (PR) is the most important aspect of a sites ability to rank

Myth Description: Self explanatory this one, the belief that PR is a god like entity we must all worship in order to obtain rankings.

Truth: It is widely believed by expert SEO?s and even been stated by Google Guy (a Google employee) that the PR we see on the toolbar is out of date as soon as we get to see it. Google update PR constantly but only update the toolbar PR now and then. PR is also only one part of a complex ranking system. How big a percentage it plays in rankings, only Google knows.

One thing for sure, it doesn’t matter how good your PR is on the toolbar, it’s not going to get you anymore traffic from Yahoo or MSN (you heard it here first).

There are many more web design myths about SEO, most of which can be spotted if you read between the lines and think about whether it would make sense for a search engine. One of the most important parts of SEO is finding a reliable source of information. If you want to learn more, a good place to start is one of the numerous SEO Forums on the web.

SWAP

In last week’s article: “The Secret Behind the Internet” (http://www.msomedia.com/results/gr00006.htm) I discussed the vital role that linking has to play in your Internet marketing campaign. This week I’m continuing the linkage theme, concentrating on outbound links and reciprocation.

THE STORY SO FAR

We already know that the text that people click on to get to a site (the “anchor text”) has a vast impact on the way Google ranks sites. We also know that more links equals a better PageRank, but there’s more to it than that.

NO FREE LUNCHES HERE

I’m sure you know that you can’t get anything for free these days, without someone wanting to sell you something or get something in return. This mindset forms the ethos behind reciprocal linking. Very simply, I link to your site, you link to mine.

Unfortunately however, it’s no longer that simple. As we discussed last week, Google’s getting cleverer. It used to be the case that any old bunch of inbound links would improve a site’s ranking. This is no longer the case. Now, links have to be relevant. This is the watchword for search engine optimisation when it comes to Google.

If you have a bunch of random sites linking to yours, Google won’t be impressed, because the target has nothing to do with the source. One of the oldest examples is the American casino link: a site - owned by, let’s say a management consultant working in Scotland - places a link on his site that goes off to this American casino site. The casino site has a generic “links” page - known as a “link farm” - which has hundreds of links with no order or categorisation, and somewhere in the midst of all this rubbish is the management consultant’s link. Viz:

“These pages with countless links to other websites were created during the fervor of link popularity when it was thought that the more links that linked to your website, the higher your website ranked in search engines such as Google. It was also thought that a reciprocal link between sites, any site, counted in your favor”

Kimberly Krause Berg, Search Engine Guide (http://www.searchengineguide.com/krause/2002/1219_kk1.html)

Kimberly’s nailed it there. Link farms have existed for a good while, and are starting to die down now because people know better.

TIDY UP

No-one’s saying that having a good number of links is a bad thing. It simply boils down to two important questions:

1. Are they meaningful?
2. Are they relevant?

The first question can be addressed by categorising your links. If you run your own website (ie: have access to the HTML code) you can do this by splitting up your links into different categories, effectively making a directory. For one thing, this reduces the number of links that are displayed on each single page, making Google happier because it looks more like a list of useful resources rather than a link farm. For another it means that human beings, ie: the people you want to actually view your site and therefore more important than search engine robots, can really make use of your directory. Another good point is it means more people will be inclined to request link exchanges if they see that their link is placed within a meaningful list.

But that’s not it. The second point is equally, if not more important. Google is built on relevance. And when I say Google by the way, I don’t just mean the site, I mean the many other sites that use the Google database (AOL Search for one). If someone is looking at the “Links” page of a management consultants firm in Scotland, why would they be interested in an American casino? Listing relevant resources for your visitors to look through is not only logical and good web practise, it’s also how Google thinks. Search engines aren’t made for webmasters, they’re made for web users, so the guys who write their software try to make them think like web users. Therefore, if your links aren’t relevant, Google will not be likely to rank you highly. Also, if you link to disreputable sites, your PageRank will be adversely affected.

FINDING A PARTNER

If you’ve got in mind the two questions from the previous section, you’re probably going to have to throw out a tonne of links. I can wholeheartedly sympathise. After gaining “The Knowledge” not long ago, I decided it was time to reorder my links. That meant getting rid of the irrelevant and the disreputable, the link swap sites and the free-for-all directories, and effectively starting from scratch. I needed to find people to link with, and they needed to be relevant.

So, how do you find good link partners? Simple: just remember the word “relevance”,. and try and ask yourself: “what other companies are relevant to mine?” Don’t think about the competition, think about the buying cycle. For instance, someone looking for management advice might want team building exercises, IT training, accountants, discussion forums and possibly office space. None of these are competing with you, but they’re part of the cycle.

HERE ENDETH THE LESSON

So just remember: are your links meaningful and are they relevant? If so, you’re sorted. If not, and you need some more advice on how to spruce up your links page(s), or even if you think you’re part of the multimedia design buying cycle and would like to swap links, e-mail me via mark@msomedia.com and we’ll chat.

Mark Steadman 26/10/05

Once upon a time, in a small home office, a busy entrepreneur wondered why he wasn’t quite as busy as he would like to be. ?I market my business as much as possible?, said the entrepreneur, who has implemented many marketing procedures while running his business.

Our entrepreneur, we’ll call him Bob, runs a computer repair business. His services allow him to provide his clients with his expert advise, either in their offices, by email, or on the phone. Because of this, Bob has a large potential market, both locally and internationally.

Bob has a great brochure, filled with all his features and benefits; he attends as many networking events as he can; he advertises in the local newspapers; and he has a huge ad in the yellow pages. But, Bob doesn?t have a website. Why?

I don’t need a website, do I, asks Bob. I do everything else possible to market my business and I also get many customers by referrals. Why would I need a website?

Glad you asked Bob! Let’s see if we can?t outline some of the benefits of having a website? both locally and internationally?

Your website is a live brochure that is available for anyone to see from anywhere, no matter if they are 5 miles away or 5000 miles away.

For potential local clients, they may first find your company in the yellow pages but, if they are looking for more information about you and the services you offer, the Internet is one of the first places they will look to do their research.

Many potential long distance clients may be in different time zones or would rather not make a long distance call. Because of these factors, the Internet is where they would go for more information. Having a website enables your information to be available anytime and, by including your email address on your site, they have a cheaper and more convenient of contacting you.

Your website allows you to create and show much more of your information than a print ad or brochure. The more information you provide, the more likely a potential client will be to buy from you as they can see everything they need to know. You can even include a little something extra, such as tips and resources, to help your clients see your dedication to providing topnotch customer service.

Your website also allows you to be more creative in how your present your information than with something that is in print. You can add bells and whistles (but not too many) that show that can be creative in your efforts.

Many people use the Internet to find out more information about products or services that they are in need of. Your website is a means of offering information to those who may be researching online before buying. If you don?t have a website, how are they going to even get a chance to see what you have to offer?

In the same respect, if a potential client has heard about you but can?t find your business card, they may turn to the Internet to try and locate your contact information or to learn more about you.

Your website opens the door to a larger market of prospective clients. Even if your service is normally only preformed locally, there is always the potential to expand. And, you are more likely to increase your local client base if your website is available for them to research your service.

Even if you cater to only a specific clientele, your website can be a place for them to visit or where they can point others to who they are referring to you.

Your website is the one piece of marketing material that is easy to change without a huge cost. So, if you have a special event coming up or you want to include more information on a certain service, you simply have your web designer make the change. And, almost instantly, your information is fresh and visible, without the costs of re-printing new marketing material.

We could go on and on about the benefits of having a website. In short, having a website is the ?way to go? these days and, if your company does not have a website, are you losing customers? Are they finding your competition when using the Internet but not you? Are they wondering why you do not have a website when all of your competition does?

Your website is your company’s 24 hour advertising medium. Why wouldn’t you consider having one? 

Link Building Services

If you are a Webmaster, you must know various aspects and strategies of effective link building by heart. And once you know them, you can avail link building services by various webmasters to promote your website.

Link building is certainly one of the most important aspects of Search Engine Optimization. For success on the Internet, building links is, in fact, a must for you. After all, the search engines give you a page rank on the basis of your link popularity. And the page rank determines a number of visitors on your site. Thus the incessant need of link popularity cannot be neglected in this competitive cyber world. Read on further to know more about link building.

First things first, the basics of Internet business says, you have to step ahead your competitors by building high page rank for your site(s). In fact, each website on the net is struggling hard to make a niche place among the top ten ranks of major search engines. So, availing link building services would definitely prove a wise decision from you. For, it will effectively help you gain great links for your website.

But before beginning your link building campaign, you must understand that you need to build good links capable of surging your page rank only. Now an obvious question pops up here— what are the good links? The answer is too simple. The links that are capable of providing you the targeted traffic on your website are good links for you. Linking with all kinds of websites is not going to benefit you at all. In fact, the junk links can deteriorate your link page rank further.

Link building is a time consuming process. Yes, to build links, you have to spend a lot of your precious time in the search of the right links and then sending link requests to the websites. Many a times the replies take more than expected time as well. So, you have to keep patience till you make some really good links for your website. To lighten your burden, you can go for online link building services as well.

These services can readily help you find the right kind of links for you. Finding the right links may be a daunting task for you. But the experts providing link popularity services are well adept to locate the targeted links for your website. These services are provided by website promotion companies. They take the full charge of promoting your website, once you hire their services. The affair can get a bit costlier at times. Though, the results justify the hefty expenditure.

The link building services provide you all the types of links whether internal, out going or reciprocal. The service providers first analyze your website and then develop a plan to build links for the site. The website is studied thoroughly in terms of its content and the existing links. The useless links are removed from your website. For, the service is aimed to provide you the highest number of links with great quality.

You can purchase a package of links for a month as well. You can buy a package of 25 inbound links, 100 inbound links or even 250 inbound links, as per your requirement.

The package of inbound links is much more expensive than the package of out going links. Reciprocal linking service is also a good one as it lifts up your search engine ranking instantly.

Apart from providing quality links, the link building services can also provide you the reports and updates of your websites. No link is added to your website without reporting prior information to you. Thus, it is absolutely safe for you to avail the link building services to top the search engine rankings.

As a result of search engine changes, linking with other sites is becoming an increasingly iportant way to generate traffic to your website. Links done properly will repay the effort and not be subject to the whims of the search engines. No more need to be concerned unduly about algorithmn changes and the “Google dance”.

Why have a Links Page ?

A links page should give your visitors a choice of quality information and resources, not just a web page to improve your search engine rankings. Quality information on a links page is the best long-term strategy to improve search engine ranking.

Search engines are becoming very sophisticated and realise that many sites are putting up links merely to improve their rankings. Always exchange links with web sites that are connected with your site’s theme.

How Do you Find Link Exchange Partners?

One way is to go to the search engines and look for sites that are compatible with your own. Send the webmaster an email requesting requesting a link or phone him or her personally.

An easier way is to register with the SiteSell free link exchange program which will give you quality links and save you a lot of time. To register free for the SiteSell link exchange program go to : http://www.merchant-account-service.com/link_exchange.html

How can I tell the web site I want to exchange with has any traffic?

Check the traffic ranking with Alexa (www.alexa.com). This will give you a good idea of its popularity. Another way is to check its page rank with Google. If a web site has a page rank of 4, it is more popular than one with a page rank of 20. Try to exchange links with sites that have more traffic but you must be realistic also.

How do I show my links on my web Site?

You can put your links anywhere on your web site, provided you do not have a large page with links to all kinds of sites. Remember, keep your links relevant to the content of your site.

If you have only a few links, the best way is to have a list with the title of the web site and a short description of its content. Large numbers of links are not recommended as it looks a bit tacky.

Exchange links can be worth the time and effort if done properly. The golden rule is only exchange links with other web sites that have content related to yours.

(c) John Lynch