You now have regular search engine bot visits and your blog is on the search engine map, what next ?

You now need to direct the bot to the pages in your main web site with your best keyword rich content to ensure that they are indexed. Make sure that the code is clean and your pages are ready for indexing.

If you are in that position create a within page link from your blog article to the page you want indexed. An example is below, note that the link is not just a url but has Read the rest of this entry »

XHTML compliant code. Ok you have read about that and agree that your code should at least be syntax correct to stand a chance of a high search engine ranking.

So how do you go about validating your site html code?

Well fortunately there are several web sites which will do this for you.

Check out http://validator.w3.org/ and be prepared for some surprises.

Is your code correct or does your developer need to do some rework?

There is a balance to be achieved in the actions you take to optimise your site for the mighty search engines and for your viewing customers.

Search engines feed on keywords and clean html code. They dislike flash graphics and broken links.

Customers will create value for you with clear calls to action, crisp marketing messages and a compelling proposition which they can access.

So how do we achieve the balance …. or do we need to. Read the rest of this entry »

Link Building is a very important part of developing a good ranking position in search engines. It is also an area that many website owners are not aware of or do not fully understand how it works.

In addition to developing links it is important to demonstrate a gradual increase in links over time. Launching a site with hundreds of links or suddenly increasing the link volume can Read the rest of this entry »

I wrote recently on how to develop your own blog to use for the benefit of your core website. The blog can assist in early Google indexing and link through to your web pages.

I was careful to mention that you should create informative articles on your blog, not merely generate worthless pages. This practice is a form of spam and over time will devalue blogs as a source of informative content, possibly leading to their exclusion from certain search engines or search results.

Whilst there is a positive business use to a blog there are also Read the rest of this entry »

Blogs are growing a a phenominal rate and still evolving.

The nature of blogs is to encourage and develop a sense of community with cross linking encouraged. Comments help to enhance posts and develop the subjects under discussion.

In addition to this the interactive nature of blogs, through comments, offers attractions for corporates. Allowing key employees to develop blogs and present a more human persona rather than the more traditional image portrayed through a more formal web site.

Whilst there are attractions there are also barriers, Read the rest of this entry »

The title says it all Narrowband, RSS, Broadband, Podcasts, we are in a very fast moving online age.

So if we are why are many blue chip companies stuck in the past? Look at their corporate site, many are still trying to come to terms with the Internet as a channel and do not seem to recognise that the customer will choose which channel they use and when. That is to say the customer will move across channels and we need some semblance of channel integration.

Moving on from that as communication bandwidth increases Read the rest of this entry »

Pinging is a process whereby you alert the blog search engines that you have updated your blog. Most blog software has a configuration option to detail which blog sites you want to alert, they should also come preconfigured with the most popular ping services.

This is different from the process that you might follow in relation to your core website. Typically you ’submit’ your website to a search engine and it files your address (url), visiting at some point in the future. At this point the search engine spider will index as much of the site as it can navigate and you site will be included in its index a while after this.

What is the advantage of the pinging approach? Read the rest of this entry »

Your first activities should be to regularly update your new blog - creating content. By content I mean real content which adds to the web collection and will interest visitors and readers. Please don’t write rubbish, if we do that we will ultimately devalue the value of the Internet.

After each article you need to ping the blog submission services. This is like an advert notifying them that you have created something new.

Do this regularly for a few days and the bots will come to check out the action.

What is a ping? How do I do it? ……. answers soon.

This is one of a series of four articles:

Fishing for Google part 1

Fishing for Google part 2

Fishing for Google part 3

Fishing for Google part 4

Using a search engine is now only second to email as the most popular online activity.

American research by The Pew Internet & American Life Project and comScore Media Metrix established that in during a typical September day approximately 59 million people (41% of internet users) used a search engine.

I have also heard that 75 percent of online journeys start with a search engine.

If you have a teenager it seems to me that there is a fruitful career looming in search engine optimisation. Forget sending him or her to the city, the new fronteer is opening and experts in search engine marketing will be in short supply.