Steps you can take to improve your website

Google states clearly how to create a good website.

Create a useful, information-rich site.....Another useful test is
to ask (about strategy for your site), "Does this help my users?

Writing
The content should be unique, not articles taken from sites that
offer free content...to everyone else. Also, it should be written
with the user in mind, as if search engines did not exist.

Links
The site must be popular, in other words more important websites
must link to it than to other sites. Each link is seen as a
vote for that sites value.

Creative
The creative part is more implied, but is useful to attain those two
goals. There are many tools available that add value to your site.
This post will mention a few cool tools that even a non-programmer
can use to improve his site.

Embedded Google Maps
With Embedded Maps you can add Google maps to your blog or
website by cut and paste. This can be used to show your location.
Driving directions or create markers related to the content of
your site.

Yahoo Pipes ( I love Yahoo Pipes)
Yahoo Pipes is much more complicated but it creates such a
powerful result. You can custom roll your own RSS feeds for
your website. This is a terrific tool for anyone that wants to
create highly targeted feeds, which can then be displayed on
your blog/ website.

Youtube
In case you didn't know, any Youtube video can be displayed
on your site. Find the video you want and look for the
EMBEDDED code on the right of the video, copy that code
and paste it on your blog.

RSS Feed Reader
This tool allows you to take your Yahoo Pipes RSS feed
(or any other feed) and have it on your site. Again this
involves no programming and takes only a couple of
minutes.




Google LatLong: YouTube-style Embeddable Maps

How to start blogging

Bob

Is there a simple tutorial or method you could point me at that would allow me to learn the process and get one up for Natural Scratch rather quickly? I could begin working on it later today.

Certainly I have plenty to write about so that's not a problem.

Thanks,
Ted
---------
Blogging : The Tutorial! Seven steps....

1) Go to:

http://www.naturalscratch.com/blog.html

2) Click on Sign In ...in upper right hand corner
with your user password

3) Click on NEW POST (middle left in blue)
Type in title to post....in TITLE

4) Type your blog in the big box.

5) Type in a tag (basically most relevant keyword that
describes content of blog) could be several phases separated
by commas:

Cat Scratching Post, whatever....

6) Click on PUBLISH POST.....

Wait a few seconds...it should say SUCCESSFULLY POSTED ...
or something like that.

7) View Post!...May have to refresh your browser to
see new post...(clear you cache).

This will get you started. Then we market your blog
to appropriate blog directories and some RSS Directories.

Youtube

Bob,

Next week my neighbor is going to be filming a
little video on ThePetCheckup
for YouTube (and also my website and anyone else who
wants to have it on their site). It will be me and
Dr. Wiegert at the vet clinic....I have someone who
can edit it and put it in the sites and am writing a
little script this weekend. I think it will end up
being 3 minutes total.

Since I have never done this before, I am open to
any suggestions that anyone might have to make it be
as effective as possible.

Any thoughts or suggestions in any capacity are
welcome. I want it to be very clear and effective
and welcome your input.

Thank you for your help!
Bev

Bev,

It's good to keep the videos short for youtube and
your site. In fact, on our site you should mention
in small text the length of the video, that way
people know they will learn something quickly. The
2-3 minutes length is fine.

Make each video on one topic. Write a description of
the video, who is in it to be included when you upload
the video. Also, mention your url in the text
description. You could also start and end video with
screen shot of your web address, so people know where
to go for more.

The final issue is to add tags when you upload your
video. Tags are used in blogs and videos to help define
the content. Since youtube does not yet search the
video, you must use these words for searchers to find
your video. They are the equivalent of keywords. If you
are not sure beyond ...pet and pet health, then see if
there are already some similar products on youtube and
look at their tags. The Tags are listed on the right,
below the description of every video.

Bob

Why is my site ranked lower on Yahoo than Google?

Jaison wrote:
I see this morning it has risen to #4. In Yahoo it is #7. What is
the reason for the difference?

Jaison,
They each have their own way of evaluating links and content...
sites seem to rise fastest on MSN and then Google then Yahoo.
Except if you get a lot of links for a keyword phrase...yahoo
might move faster and higher than on Google.

Google tends to do a better job of rewarding sites with good
content and links from other relevant sites...Yahoo/MSN just
like links from anybody.

Also, with Google they actually have hundreds of data centers
around the country and as they update data constantly...
sometimes you will be 4...then the next minute 7 and
so on. In reality nothing is changing, your query is just
being sent to different data centers...

If you want to get obsessive about it you can go to
Google Datacenter Watch Tool and see how you rank across many (not all ) Google Datacenters.

Bob

MedBanner.com: Search Engine Marketing: Strategy

I have been to your site. Most of the on site optimization is
already done. The titles to each page and the html page names
repeat the keyword are fine. Although there are not any meta
descriptions, Google has already indexed the content of each page
correctly ( query Google site:www.yoururl.com). You could add
some alt tags to the graphics, but this tweaking would not have
a big impact.

The real issue for this site is more content and strategies to
make the site more important. Google once again has raised the
bar. They have always stated that for a site to be important
(and get traffic from Google) it must have good unique content
and have other important sites refer to it (link). Googles' most
recent change seems to do this by minimizing the importance of
exchanging links. These you scratch my back, I scratch yours
are not as important as they used to be. Now you must be
more creative than your competiting sites and develop a strategy
to encourage people to refer to your site (link).

My current feeling about search is that you need RSS or blogs
to do well. We can get you listed with all the RSS directories
(80) and many Blog directories we have ( 200+). These directories
and aggregators will generate some traffic and many one way
links.

Your current content of 80 different fruits and vegetables
are targeting single keywords with very high traffic. The
competition for those top 10 spots is already filled by
Wikipedia and other highly ranked sites. Wiki already
has much more information and PageRank. So either you must
develop content for Apple Recipes, Apple Growing...etc
or come up with new strategies to attrack links, like
RSS or Blogs that are of value to users.

Search Engine Marketing : MedBanner.com: Search Engine Marketing: Strategy

Search Engine Marketing: Strategy

I have been to your site. Most of the on site optimization is
already done. The titles to each page and the html page names
repeat the keyword are fine. Although there are not any meta
descriptions, Google has already indexed the content of each page
correctly ( query Google site:www.yoururl.com). You could add
some alt tags to the graphics, but this tweaking would not have
a big impact.

The real issue for this site is more content and strategies to
make the site more important. Google once again has raised the
bar. They have always stated that for a site to be important
(and get traffic from Google) it must have good unique content
and have other important sites refer to it (link). Googles' most
recent change seems to do this by minimizing the importance of
exchanging links. These you scratch my back, I scratch yours
are not as important as they used to be. Now you must be
more creative than your competiting sites and develop a strategy
to encourage people to refer to your site (link).

My current feeling about search is that you need RSS or blogs
to do well. We can get you listed with all the RSS directories
(80) and many Blog directories we have ( 200+). These directories
and aggregators will generate some traffic and many one way
links.

Your current content of 80 different fruits and vegetables
are targeting single keywords with very high traffic. The
competition for those top 10 spots is already filled by
Wikipedia and other highly ranked sites. Wiki already
has much more information and PageRank. So either you must
develop content for Apple Recipes, Apple Growing...etc
or come up with new strategies to attrack links, like
RSS or Blogs that are of value to users.

Click Fraud

Most people think of click fraud as an internet crime in
pay per click advertising caused buy a person, automated
script, or computer program imitates a legitimate user
by clicking on an ad, for the purpose of generating an
expense to the advertiser without having actual interest
in the target of the ad's link. However, there are several
different types of pay per click fraud:

• competitors clicking on your search ads
  
• site owners clicking on ads on their site (content click fraud)
• your content ads being shown to irrelevant traffic
  

Competitors Search Click.

Search ads are those ads that are on the search engine
results of Google (or Yahoo) and their respective
search partners (AOL and so on). If there is click
fraud here, you either must accuse Google of the fraud
or your competitors. These are the only ones with motivation.
Even though I don't buy the don't be evil slogan, Google
is making way to much money to risk their entire business on
an incremental dollar. This leaves your competitors...who
may not have either the profitability or slogan of Google.

Competitors have often been accused of clicking on each
others ads to burn through their budgets. If you can force
your competitor to spend his advertising budget on false
traffic (you!) then you spend less getting the
real traffic (clients).

There are several reasons why this is not as prevalent as
you might think. One is , Google will catch the most obvious
click fraud, of one person on one computer (IP address) clicking
the same text adv over and over again. This approach doesn't
work, as it is too easy to recognize multiple clicks from one IP
as being highly unusual and fraudulent.

There are more sophisticated approaches , but they involve
more people...programmers and the more people involved
the more likely to get caught (in spite of conspiracy theorists
need to believe secrets are easy to keep). There is also
a cost of time and effort of programming to make programs
sophisticated enough (to show clicks coming from many different
IPs) to avoid detection that makes the projects less likely.
When you increase the click through rate through fraud you
are by definition creating a higher click through rate for those
ads and that site. This is why they can be caught.

Content click fraud

The more common is the use of programs designed to click
on ads and appear to be from multiple IPs and at natural
times of the day. These programs are used when the
perpetrator owns the sites and earns the revenue directly
from the ads clicked. So if I were to employ such a program
it would click on the ads on this page more than normal
and I would get the check.

In my experience both Google and Yahoo catch many
obvious click frauds and credited our clients accounts quickly.
We monitor our clients ads and traffic to catch the most
blatant abuses of this by noticing unusually high click-thru
rates.

To catch unusual activity for some keywords, the best
defense is an accurate record and knowledge of your
cost per conversion (sale) should be. When you see a large
increase in the number of clicks and no increase in
conversions you know you have a problem. Armed with
this information both search engines are prepared to
analyze and refund your advertising dollars. This is too
important an issue to be ignored and to their credit
they don't.

Irrelevant Content Fraud

The final type of click fraud I am calling fraud, but that may be too
strong, is really irrelevant adv placement. With Google supplying
ads for MySpace you must confirm your product is relevant
to that traffic. Their traffic is so massive that when a Medbanner
clients adv appeared there, the traffic and the adv cost for
that keyword went through the roof.

The service advertised was for a charity that receives car donations
and gives to those in need, this is not relevant for the young crowd
of MySpace.

The problem here is that neither Google nor Yahoo have allowed
the normal connection between the advertiser and the publisher.
The advertiser has only the smallest amount of control over where
his ads show. This is not the norm of the advertising world. This is
starting to change now, but you must make the effort and in some
cases your only choice is to advertise or not advertise.

Click fraud is real and there are a number of companies that have
software and services created to track and monitor this. Finally,
the companies with the most to risk and the greatest amount of
assets to throw at this problem are Google and Yahoo. Although
hackers will continue to think of new ways to game the system,
there is too much at risk for Google to be complacent.