We regularly receive emails from SEO MixTour readers and Web CEO users asking for advice on various SEO and SEM issues ranging from minor tips and tricks to some major issues such as the reasons for a search penalty. These are mainly backbone SEO questions which we call Vital Basics of SEO. If you are a novice search engine optimizer, please first read the previous issues entitled Search Engines' Index Questions and Keyword Optimization Questions, and go on reading today's issue.
Should I have my main keyword in the URL?
Yes. The best thing is a domain name that includes your main keyword. However, even subdomains, directory and page file names matter. It is always better to have your main keyword in the URL, unless you have a long-keyword-phrase-that-will-
Are Meta tags still important?
Not that important. Last September Google announced that they do not use the Meta Keywords tag in web ranking. But the Meta Description tag is often used as the text for Google search results snippets, so why not making it descriptive and attractive? One more Meta tag that is used by search engines is a Robots Meta tag; you may read more about it in the SEO MixTour issue devoted to search engines' crawlers.
Is it OK to use both image alt text and image title?
Yes, especially if you are using them to help your visitors and not to stuff keywords. Image Alt text is used to provide explicit information on an image for those who are unable to see it; the Image Alt text should describe what the image is about. Image titles provide additional information; it is a title, so it should be short and catchy. Of course, you would like to use your keywords in both of them.
Are automatic site submissions to search engines harmful?
Rather 'No' than 'Yes'. The major search engines won't ban your site because of them, but do not expect automatic submissions to improve your search engine rankings. It is much better to submit your website's Sitemap to the major search engines.
How soon will my rankings improve after I submit to search engines?
There is no direct dependence between your site's submission to search engines and good rankings. Getting your site indexed just means that search engines know about your site and will return next time to crawl it and update their listing of your site. To rank well, you should optimize your pages. This involves content optimization for the targeted keywords, improvement of a site's link popularity (getting inbound links to your site), ensuring site quality (absence of broken links and other serious HTML errors preventing SE robots from crawling and indexing, search engine- and visitor-friendly design), promotion in social media, and advertising.
How do search engines know that you are the author of the unique content?
This question is usually asked when you think about a duplicate content filter that the major search engines apply. Let's see what happens when a search engine finds several pages with identical content. Its algorithms must select the page that offers the best information required and offer it to a searcher. How does it decide which page is better? Here the authority of the site and the number of backlinks pointing to the page come into play. So your task is not to just insist that you are the first to publish an article, but to prove to search engines that your page is relevant and authoritative enough to be listed in SERPs higher than others who only copied it.
You may read more about the country-specific sites and duplicate content filters and about the usage of borrowed content in the previous SEO MixTour issues.
| Web CEO Metrics |
| Here we are sharing the generalized numbers from our HitLens Web Analytics service. It covers 300,000+ websites from all over the world. In April 2010 Google referred 82 % of all visitors compared to the year 2009 when this number was 79%. Yahoo's numbers constantly decrease, and Bing's audience has slightly diminished.
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You can see how visitors are being referred to websites.
While search engines are still the main visitor referrer, the share of linking sites increased from 19% to 20%. The bookmarking level dropped down, and the number of search marketers who use paid advertising increases step by step.
