Get Your Website Fully Indexed by Google & Yahoo

Do the major search engines know your website even exists? In order for search engines to know about your website, you must first ensure that it is fully indexed by Google and Yahoo. Your website will only show up in search engine results pages when it has already been fully indexed by the search engines.

Once this happens, you can begin applying SEO strategies and working your way to the top of the search engine results page. Google, Yahoo and MSN will see the pages you have optimized or the changes you’ve made only after it has been fully indexed. The major search engines have provided users with how-tos on creating a sitemap that tells them which files are on your website. Google also has tools that can help you obtain the page count that the search engines have indexed.

Some tips to get your website indexed faster.

• Be sure your website content is unique, relevant and valuable.
• Create inbound links to your website.
• Create a blog that can provide additional web presences for your website.
• Create an HTML sitemap or an XML sitemap.
• Remove “NOINDEX” tags from the page source of your web pages.
• Make sure there are no broken links in your website.
• Make sure that you have a sitemap that is structured well so as to help the search engine crawlers to index all the pages in your website.

To find out if your website has been indexed, simply go to Google, Yahoo or MSN and type site:yourdomain.com in the search box. This search will show what webpages the search engine has already indexed.

Below are instructions on how you can create sitemap accounts, as well as how to make a good sitemap and how to upload it to the search engine concerned.

Create a Google Sitemap Account

1. Go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps.
2. Click on ‘Create a google account’ on the lower right hand side.
3. Follow the instructions and create an account.
4. Return to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps. Login with the username and password for the account you created
5. Enter ‘http://www.WebsiteName.com/’ in the top left box that reads ‘Add Site:’, click ‘ok’.
6. Click on ‘verify your site’ in the yellow box.
7. Select ‘Add a META tag’ from the drop down box.
8. Copy the meta tag and paste it under the meta keyword tag on the homepage of lifebalm.com.
9. Go back to the Google screen and click on ‘Verify’.
10. Once it is completed and verified click on ‘Sitemaps’ on the top bar.
11. Click on ‘Add a Sitemap’ in the blue underlined text near the top of the screen.
12. Select ‘add general web sitemap’ from the drop down.
13. In the ‘My Sitemap URL is:’ box put ‘http://www.WebsiteName.com/sitemap.xml
14. Click “Add web sitemap”. If it completes, you are finished.

Create a Yahoo Sitemap Account

1. Go to https://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/mysites.
2. If you do not have a Yahoo email address, click on ‘sign up’ on the lower right side of the screen and create one.  If you do have one, login with your Yahoo id and password.
3. In the top box type ‘http://www.WebsiteName.com’ and click the ‘add my site’ button.
4. On the following screen click on the green ‘Authenticate’ button.
5. Click ‘Ready to Authenticate’.
6. Click the ‘download’ button, upload the file to your website server via ftp.  You may need help from your web hosting provider to do this.
7. You will have to wait 1-3 days before it authenticates, keep logging in and checking back.  Once it is authenticated, continue to step 8.
8. When you login click on the ‘manage’ button next to ‘http://www.WebsiteName.com’.
9. At the top will be ‘http://www.WebsiteName.com/[box]’. In the [box] type in urllist.txt.gz and click ‘add feed’.
10. If there are no errors you are finished.

Make a Sitemap and Upload it

1. First download Gsite Crawler here:  http://gsitecrawler.com/en/download/
2. Install the program.
3. Make a profile for your website, www.websitename.com, include the ftp information from your web host provider.
4. After you have answered all the questions, close the program and open it again.  You should do this about once a month (steps 5+)
5. Select your website name from the list of ‘available projects’ on the left.
6. Click on the ‘recrawl’ button on the top with the green arrow and gear.
7. Wait until it is finished, (it will pop-up a box telling you it is done)
8. Click on the ‘Generate Report’ button on the top, select ‘Google Sitemap’.
9. Click ‘Save’, ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Yes’, ‘Yes’, then ‘ok’.
10. Click on the ‘Generate Report’ button on the top again and select ‘Yahoo’.
11. Click ‘Save’, ‘Yes’, ‘No’, ‘Yes’, ‘Yes’, then ‘ok’.

Adaptivity Pro for your SEO needs

To help you create a good sitemap and ensure that your website is completely indexed, you can go to Adaptivity Pro. Adaptivity Pro specializes in Utah SEO, Utah web design and development, as well as Pay-Per-Click Management, Social Media Marketing and E-Commerce Marketing. Adaptivity Pro has worked with numerous establishments in Salt Lake City and the rest of the Utah area to create great value services for your business.

Posted in Link Building Strategies | 1 Comment »

Improve Your Rankings with Inter-Linking

It’s all about links. Having links, both internally and externally, will help raise your search engine results ranking as search engines “see” how important a particular webpage is. With external links, you need to have effective link building strategies so that other website owners will want to link to your site.

However, you have control over your internal links, and thus, inter-linking is an opportunity you shouldn’t miss out on. Not only is inter-linking (or linking one page to different pages within your website) a very effective SEO strategy, it also proves helpful in giving users more ease in navigating your website as well as in giving them an idea of how your website is set up.

In addition, as you provide descriptive in-content links, you help the search engines index your webpages faster as they know each webpage’s contents and how important one particular page is vis a vis the others within your website.

When inter-linking, be sure to take note of the following.

Don’t:

• Use “click here” to point them to the link.
• Pepper your text with so many links that it becomes hard and confusing to read.
• Link only to your Home Page. Although the Home Page is an important page, you should work to have the other pages also be considered “valuable”.
• Link unrelated content.
• Place links on areas where they can be confused for advertisements (i.e. images that look similar to banners or the column to the right).

Do:

• Use descriptive text as the link.
• Use 1-5 words in the text of the link.
• Link only where it is natural and useful to do so.
• Keep links limited to one or two per paragraph at the most.
• If the link is an internal link keep it in the same browser.
• If the link is an external link open it in a new window.
• Keep the link relevant to the page.
• Add links on the text of the page rather than on link groups that frame your text.
• Use larger font size, different-colored text or images to present your links.
• Use different keywords for different links.

Adaptivity Pro for your SEO needs

Adaptivity Pro specializes in Utah SEO, Utah Web design and other web services such as Social Media Marketing, E-Mail marketing, Pay-Per-Click Management and so on. For professional SEO services that produce results, Adaptivity Pro is the premier source, not just for Salt Lake City, Utah-based businesses but for businesses across the country.

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The Three Main Components of SEO

There are really three main core components to SEO that are easily categorized and have their own unique difficulties, challenges, and strategies.  Those who understand these three core components well can begin on basic seo projects inching their way up to advanced seo strategies.

1.  SEO Friendly HTML

The html of your website is very important for search engines.  Editing HTML is the most ‘easy’ of the three components in my opinion, takes  the least amount of time, and is the only seo component that actually has some closure at some point in time.  The key focus on the HTML is to make sure it is SEO-friendly; but what does that mean?  More often than not it means fixing HTML items that are actually hurting your SEO strategy rather than helping.  The most common issues I see are too much javascript, a flash-only site, weak title tags and meta descriptions, use of graphical text in headers rather than HTML text, poor setup of navigation elements, empty alt-tags, spamming or trying to trick the search engines, very slow load time (large graphics are usually the culprit), and more.  The good thing with ‘fixing’ your HTML for SEO purposes is that once its done you don’t have to worry about it too much except for a few extra minutes when you add new pages to your website.  This step usually requires an SEO expert who has HTML knowledge and maybe a specified HTML programmer or web developer if necessary.

2.  Content for Search Engines AND Visitors

After you have patched up your HTML the next step is to ensure you have enough useful information/content/copy on your website.  You should note the emphasis on ‘enough’ and ‘useful’.  If you only have a three page website with a few paragraphs yet you offer hundreds of different products or services how would you expect the search engines to really understand what your website is about?  Once you have identified the core content your targe audience is seeking make sure it is put up on your website.  After that stage the door opens up uto endless possibilities of methods you can produce relevant and useful information for your current and future clients.  Some simple ideas are adding a blog to your website, adding a press release or news section, setting up a FAQ, having a client testimonials page, have a photo gallery with a description of each photo, post reviews of other products or services that are relevant to the industry you are in, setup a monthly industry newsletter, and more.  Content development should never really end unless you start to get thousands upon thousands of pages which most people do not achieve easily. This stage will involve an SEO expert and some good copywriters or strategists.

3.  Link Building

Link building is probably the most critical and overlooked strategy of SEO.  It is also the most difficult and avoided because of its difficulty to achieve.  You have total control over your HTML and copy on your website; you can update and add those to your hearts content.  However this is not the case with incoming links to your website.  You have no control over who links to you and how they link to you; unless you happen to own some other websites.  There are  many different strategies to gain links to your website and the most successful is link baiting; but also the most difficult to attain.  Link baiting is creating something so noteworthy, sought after, or impressive that other people link to it from their websites or blogs naturally – without you even knowing it.  Other methods of link building include directory submissions, viral  video distribution, commenting on blogs, buying links, link trading, social media bookmarking, etc.  This is the most difficult stage of SEO and  also never seems to end, I have not found a website yet that has ‘too’ many links (unless they are bad ones)~

SEO Components Summary

Remember to focus on HTML, Content, and Link Building and your SEO campaign should be successful.  Ignoring one of these three components can hold you back from your true potential to success.  I recommend tackling them in that order (easiest to hardest) and focusing on seo copywriting and link building on a regular basis after the HTML is squared away.

Posted in Link Building Strategies, Search Engine Optimization, SEO Copywriting | 2 Comments »

Permanent One Way Linking Service Review

Here is a review from a company I tried out to get some one way permanent links. Their website promised ‘high quality’ links and the results were almost negative, links from very spammy websites. I guess you get what you pay for, but at least I know now it is not a good option to use.

The website is http://www.linking-service.com/. I ordered just 20 links to test their service. The website I was getting links for was focused around web design services.

This service promises “…When you buy links from us, you are getting quality; this is more than most services can say. If your website is important to you, rely on the quality one way links and permanent links that we offer.” Well that is pretty much blashemy on their part. The link quality was absolutely horrible; most on pages that had not relation at all to web design.

Keep in mind the website I was getting links for was a ‘web design’ business. Some of the websites they obtained links on were related to oil careers, anti-aging products, printing, die casting, and more unspeakable unrelated industries. I could not find one website that was really relevant to our industry.

They also promise “All of our text links come from different website markets from relevant pages that have less than 50 outgoing links. While this may not sound important to you, when it comes to search engine results this is beneficial. It goes along with the high quality that we offer every customer.” Yet many of the pages where we had obtained links from had hundreds or more of outgoing links, not less than 50. They also were not ‘relevant’ websites in contradiction to their website text.

Bottom line, don’t try this service out, its a total waste of money. I didn’t expect much from them considering the cost, but it was worth a shot! Too bad it was ‘too good to be true’.

Here is a sample list of websites they obtained links on:

http://www.rss-to-javascript.com/p/Our-Partners___147,,,Categories-14.html

http://www.webmaster-link-exchange.com/sublistings-cat-7-page-1.html

http://home.nestor.minsk.by/build/links/interiordesign.html

http://www.printfellas.com/links/Graphic_Design.html

http://www.oilcareer.com/lma/directory.php/Other_Amazing_Sites/Other_Amazing_Sites.html

http://www.geld-links.de/sub_29_1

http://beyondthesidewalks.com/directory/books.html

http://www.kineticdiecasting.com/resources/browse.php?id=19

http://www.anti-aging-revolution.net/p/Resources___155,,,Categories-24.html

If there are any services out there you were thinking about trying let me know and I may try them out and post a public review on it.

Posted in Link Building Strategies | 1 Comment »