Search Engine Friendly URLs for Joomla 1.5.0 RC3

Joomla content management system provides multiple opportunities for implementation of various search engines optimization techniques.

For example, in Joomla 1.5RC3 you have the possibility to activate Search Engine Friendly URLs that will remake the structure of URLs in order to gain more importance for search engines spiders.

There are also many modules and components available for download that will allow you to improve the structure of URLs and overall Joomla performance.

Read more at Search Engine Friendly URLs for Joomla 1.5.0 RC3

New Webmaster Tool : Live Search Webmaster Center

MSN Webmaster Tools are now Open for Business.
Live Search Webmaster Center are open for a public beta. And MSN also announced the creation of the Live Search Webmaster Center blog. According to Live Search - it is an effort to serve webmaster community better and sharing information on how to improve crawlablity and visibility.

Features of Webmaster Tools :

* Troubleshooting tools to ensure MSNBot is effectively crawling and indexing
your site
* Sitemap creation, submission and ping tools
* Statistics about your website
* Consolidation of content submission resources
* New content and community resources


Read both Webmaster Tools - Open for Business and old post Our New Webmaster Portal and an Invitation to the Private Beta to know More ...

Is any Site can Rank Well on all Four Major Engines ?

For any website to Rank well on all major Search Engine, you need to know their major factor and try to follow them. If your website is according to the Most Important factors of each Search Engine, then Your website can Rank well on all 4 Search Engine ---

Google: Incoming Links, On-page SEO, Site Design Spider ability, User analytics, Outgoing links, Inclusion in other Google indexes, Document Histories

Yahoo: On-page SEO, Links and Link Patterns, Site Design, User analytics, Inclusion in other Yahoo indexes, Document Footprints

MSN: On-page SEO, Site Design and Structure and Spider ability

ASK: On-page SEO, Site Design, Site Structure and Spider ability.

Advanced SEO Tactics

Advanced SEO tips that you won't find on every digital corner.

1. Syndicating Articles that Link to Your Sitemap

As you probably know, syndicating articles is one of the best methods for obtaining one-way backlinks.

They are also valuable pieces of search engine bait because search engine crawlers are frequent visitors to many high-profile article directories. If you want to get the spiders quickly crawling your site, simply submit an informative article to a site like EzineArticles, GoArticles, or ArticleCity.

However, there's another article marketing strategy that isn't mentioned much in marketing circles. This tactic can get the crawlers searching deeper into your site and indexing more of your pages. Simply link to your sitemap within the resource box. This will send the spiders straight to a content buffet where they can quickly slurp up all of your pages.

2. Translating Your Website Into Other Languages

Are you marketing in just one language? If so, you are missing out on 64.8% of your marketing potential. This is because 64.8% of the world is surfing the internet in a language other than English. By becoming a multilingual marketer, you immediately open up a stream of new markets. Google alone crawls web pages in 35 different languages.

One of the best ways to attract worldwide traffíc is to translate your site and register it with both English and foreign-language search engines and directories. If you are a seasoned SEO, you'll be happy to hear that the competition in foreign search engines is much less than in those of the United States.

In addition, online foreign language markets are currently growing at a much faster rate than English speaking markets.

You have the opportuníty to tap into this market while it's in an exponential growth phase.

3. ROR Sitemaps

As you probably know, sitemaps are important for making sure your site can be completely spidered and indexed by the search engines. Unfortunately, many of these sitemaps are specific to one search engine or another. For this reason, there have been a number of Google and Yahoo site map generators produced in recent years.

However, there is an alternative that is even more exciting. These are ROR sitemaps and they are readable by all search engines, not just by Google or Yahoo.

ROR is an exciting new sitemap tool that uses XML feeds to describe your website. These sitemaps are structured feeds that enable search engines to complement text search with structured information to better interpret the meaning of your site. With a ROR sitemap, search engines can better understand your products, services, images, newsletters, articles, podcasts, and anything else that you want to describe.

For example, if you are selling products, a ROR file enables you to document your product names, descriptions, prices, images, availability, affilíate programs, and any other

relevant information. Search engine crawlers like the Googlebot have an enormous job to do. It's time we start helping them to better understand our content.

4. Keyword Phrases that Convert

Selecting the right keyword phrases is the single most important aspect of any SEO campaign. Unfortunately, many webmasters target the wrong keywords. Too many of us target very general keywords like "real estate" or "internet marketing". Although these terms get lots of visitors, it is unlikely that you will be able to rank highly for them. Then, even if you do, this type of traffíc produces very low conversion rates because it does not target prospects.

You will be much more successful, if you target keyword phrases that are 3-4 words long. These terms are much less competitive and have been proven to convert much better than keywords that are 1 to 2 words long.

Who do you think is more likely to buy; someone who goes to Google and searches for "ipod" or someone who searches for "4gb black ipod nano"? Obviously, the person who searches for a more specific phrase is much closer to making a buying decision.


5. GoogSpy

Would you like to get an in-depth view of how your competitors run their business? Well, you can do exactly that with an online service known as GoogSpy. GoogSpy is a free research tool that will tell you what keywords your competitors are bidding on.

This tool tracks over 500,000 keywords every day from Google and then loads this goldmine of information into the GoogSpy.com database. Using this tool, you can browse by company or by search term.

This tool is extremely powerful. Unfortunately, many people take it for granted. This service basically hands you a business strategy on a silver platter. Maybe we should just keep this one to ourselves and enjoy the benefits of being one step ahead of our competition.

For example, let's say you wanted to do some in-depth research on Overstock.com, one of the largest companies online. You would simply go to googspy.com and type in overstock.com. You will then be shown thousands of words that this company bids on. These keywords are proven profít generators. Research like this would normally cost thousands of dollars, but they are providing it free of charge.

If you want to find keywords with high conversion rates, simply type in words such as buy and purchase. You will be shown keyword phrases that are bid on that include the words buy or purchase. These are very lucrative keyword phrases because the person who types in "buy sony playstation 2" knows exactly what they want. They're not just looking around, they are in buying mode. These are the type of keywords you want to bid on. Using GoogSpy, you can uncover these hidden gems in seconds.

Other high-converting keyword phrases include brand names and product names. Type in the keyword "camera" and you will find thousands of different brands and product names for cameras. These keywords are some of the best keywords because of their high conversion rate.


6. Internal Links Within Content

The navigation of your site is a crucial element of your search engine optimization campaign. Each link within your navigational structure should correlate with a keyphrase that you are trying to rank for.

However, you can also include internal links within your content. For example, let's say you have written an article about online marketing. Within the article are a number of keyword phrases. Some of these phrases include "link popularity" and "web site traffíc". If you have other articles within your site that pertain to these topics, then you should definitely link those keyword phrases to those articles. By doing this, you can increase the link popularity of other pages within the same site.

There are very few sites that take advantage of this optimization technique. By doing this, you enable the search engines to find and index much more of your site. These internal links also contribute to a higher ranking because of the anchor text that is used.

Many people only think of inbound links from outside websites when trying to raise their link popularity. However, the internal link structure is also a major ranking factor.


7. Using Your Log Files for SEO

Your server logs reveal very important information about your site. If you learn to use them properly, they can quickly help to maximize your site's traffíc and conversion rates.

One of the most valuable pieces of information found in your log files are search phrases. The log files will tell you exactly which keywords people are using to find your website.

Once you have optimized a page, the log files will tell you how people are finding that page and what keywords they are searching for to get there. If you find that people are using keywords that you hadn't thought of to get to a certain page, it would probably be in your best interest to further optimize that page for those keywords.

You might also want to create a new page optimized for that particular term. This is especially true if a new page would enable you to serve better information on the phrase being searched for.

In addition, by looking at how your site is found organically, you can determine whether the same keyword phrases belong in your paid search campaigns. Only choose the ones that are highly relevant. You will find that these keyword phrases have the best conversion rate.

Source :
7 Advanced SEO Tactics

Search Illustrated: Podcast Optimization

Optimizing your audio files takes more than just recording your message. Today's infographic details the steps needed to ensure your podcasts have the best potential of being found by the listeners and search engines alike :Podcast Optimization

SEO Design and Development Best Practices

When developing a Web site from scratch, you can apply multiple SEO best practices related to design and development. You don't necessarily have to follow every measure to a T to obtain a search-engine-friendly Web site. Plus, you'll inevitably be forced to compromise on some factors. Integrating as many best practices as possible will serve you well in future SEO endeavors.

There are some important SEO factors that are influenced by the way a site is built, such as information architecture (IA), wireframes, design, and development practices. This isn't an exhaustive list; rather, it focuses some key tried-and-true practices. Consider the following:

Use keywords in the URL. This can be accomplished by ensuring your file-naming conventions make good use of your keywords.

Include targeted content on a page. Ideally, each page should contain two to three paragraphs of descriptive, keyword-rich body text.

Place keywords closer to the beginning of the file code. CSS (define) can be used to visually position the text wherever you want it, while making it appear higher up in the code for search engines.

Use header tags instead of < div > tags or images. If a page heading or title contains a keyword, it should ideally be text. If possible, use the important keyword in an < h1 > tag, a secondary keyword in the < h2 > tag, and so on.

Limit HTML file size. Keep a lid on the number and size of images and unnecessary code.

Add alt text for images. Be descriptive. This is another opportunity to tell search engines what the page is all about. All images should have alt tags, including logos, headings, and so on.

Use internal text links instead of image links. Search engines use the content contained within a link to determine what that page being linked to is all about. It needs to be text so they can read it.

Deploy search-friendly DHTML. Avoid JavaScript DHTML (define), if possible. Use CSS for cover effects. However, if your site has a menu built this way, be sure to include a secondary text-based navigation.

Avoid frames-based Web design. Frames and inline frames (iframes) generally make it difficult for search engines to crawl Web sites.

Ensure correct application of the robots.txt file. This enables you to restrict or allow access to your site by search engines. Employ it carefully and properly.

Follow proper site redirect architecture. Avoid 302 (temporary) redirects and employ 301(permanent) redirects to ensure the search engines index your content appropriately.

Avoid hidden text and other potentially deceptive practices. Any tactics that are considered black hat SEO will probably get you penalized. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but someday.

Steer clear of splash pages. Most splash pages are very graphic-heavy and text-light. They offer little value to users or search engines.

Avoid query strings in URLs where possible. I strongly recommend keywords be placed in the URL instead of query strings. URL aliasing can be used for ugly URLs.

Create clean, valid code. Search engines appear to prefer code that is lighter, cleaner, simpler, more semantically defined, and in line with W3C standards. CSS can help you achieve this.

Use tables appropriately. Tables distort the flow of the HTML code and may push more important elements like the body copy further down in the code than is desirable. A CSS layout enables you to influence where in the code elements appear.

Avoid duplicate content. You should never have the same content on multiple domains or within the same site. If you have various versions of your URL, choose one main one and redirect all the others to that.

By Julie Batten
Source : http://www.clickz.com/3627559

SEO for Brand Reputation Management

Do a Google search for "walmart" and you'll notice the top results include a few sites that aren't exactly favorable to the Wal-Mart brand. In today's au Natural column, SEO for Brand Reputation Management," Mark Jackson discusses some things that Wal-Mart is doing right and some things that they may want to do better to fix their online reputation.

Source : SEW Experts: SEO for Brand Reputation Management

Mercado Announces New Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Features

Mercado Software, the leading provider of eCommerce search and merchandising solutions, today announced that online retailers can now take advantage of Mercado’s new Search Engine Optimization (SEO) module and service offering, greatly increasing the accuracy of product searches conducted by Web shoppers, and improving overall search rankings for online retailers.

By using the Mercado SEO module, online retailers of all sizes can now expose the hidden jewels of their product catalog to major search engines while decreasing dependency on costly SEM programs to drive valuable buyer traffic.

New Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Features for Online Product Catalogs

Video SEO Search Engine Optimization Tips and Techniques

How to optimize video hosted on your website

• HTML surrounding video.
  When you publish a video on a website, you will want to make certain that it is surrounded with HTML content. This way the search engines can get additional information from the surrounding page as the information contained within a video file can be limited.
• Filename, title, description.
  These elements are not be enough to allow your video to rank well on its own but it is a necessary step and without this information, your video will definitively NOT rank well.
• Video Files Metadata Optimization
  Make sure to encode the keywords into your video’s meta data. Tag videos with specific keywords, even if it means tagging each scene.
• Keyword “video”.
  Eric Papczun pointed out at the Search Engine Strategies conference in NY this past April, that a lot of people add the word “video” to their search query keyword phrase. As a result, make sure that you add the word “video” to your title, description, meta data, etc.
• Links and Backlinks.
  Just as with SEO for regular webpages, you will want to get as many backlins as possible with the relevant keywords and phrases as the anchor text for these links. Whether this is your own page, or merely a page on a video sharing site that you want to have rank, you will need backlinks. In addition, it is a good idea to crosslink to videos using keywords in anchor text.
• Video sitemaps / MRSS / RSS.
  In order for crawlers to easily find all of your online video content, you will want to create a sitemap, RSS, or media RSS (MRSS) file to help engines identify where to locate and index your videos.
• One Video Directory.
  Keeping your video content at one place off the root directory helps in providing easy access to search engine crawlers. Move all of your videos into one folder and make sure to upload all your future videos to this same folder
• No to Flash Video Players.
  Search engines have a hard time crawling video content inside flash players so stay away from them if you are hosting videos on your own site.
• Optimize your URLs.
  In the same way that you do this for other web pages, you will want to optimize your URLs so that they to contain information about the video. Also, make sure you only have one video per URL.
• Submissions
  • Upload Optimization - These type of video search engines required that your upload your video search files.
  • RSS Optimization - Submit your video to search engines that accept either RSS and/or MRSS.
  • Social Media Optimization - Add a social flair by getting your “friends” to submit or vote for you on the social media sites

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How to optimize video hosted on video search engines and video sharing sites:

• Filename, title, description.
  Same as above
• Video Files Metadata
  Same as above
• Keyword “video”
  Same as above
• Links and Backlinks
  Same as above
• Make good thumbnails, first and the last frames.
  A video thumbnail is what users view when they are deciding between which videos to watch. Different video search engines will grab thumbnails differently. Some will use the first frame while others will take a frame from somewhere in the middle. You will need to experiment with each site to make sure they are displaying the right thumbnail for your video. Take a look at the following examples and consider, which one would you rather click on?
• Branding
  The first and the last frames are perfect for branding. Place your logo there, as well as your URL and any other information you think is applicable.
• Uniqueness
  More than anything, make sure as well that your video is creative and unique. This is the best way to attract backlinks from people who want to share your video.

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Additional Optimization Techniques:

• Use social bookmarking sites and tools to assist in the visibility of your videos, add backlinks to your videos, and create traffic.
• Train editors to think like video searchers

Optimization in the Future:
As search engines are working to better determine the content and relevance of multimedia content, the methods that we use to optimize websites and in particular, videos, images, and audio in the future may be quite different. Currently optimization still relies upon including Meta data and keyword information in or surrounding the current content.

With search engines like Blinkx.com, who claim to rely more and more so on OCR (optical character recognition), voice/speech recognition, and image recognition, optimization of video content will likely be much more so about the quality of the video itself. For example, if Blinkx.com relies upon voice recognition as an example, it would be important to make certain that you are speaking clearly in the video so as to make the job of voice recognition easier for the search engines.

However, take a look at this interesting post from Danny S. on Search Engine Land. Danny explains that Blinkx and other still rely heavily on meta data for searching. Danny also reviews some tests that he conducted with video searches.

Source : http://reelseo.com/video-seo-optimization-techniques