SEO Optimization

Finding Your Niche Competitors and Authority Sites

Filed Under: Joomla Seo, Search Engine, SEO Optimization

Last time you could read about finding related keywords to incorporate in your website, know there is a nice tool to find the websites to link to…

Why Links out? Because it shows the search engines where to position your website in the large scheme of topics on the Internet.
As Matt Cutts stated several times, also on the paid-links discussions, Links should be as relevant as possible and should be off benefit to your visitors.

Learning from Problogger

Reading the post from Problogger about “Graphing your Blog Connections” is tried the Tool myself.
You have to read the Getting started on the website off http://www.touchgraph.com/TGGoogleBrowser.html to get it to work, but it was a pretty straight forward experience.. works great!

But as I tried some queries to see how is linking to my sites, it suddenly hit me…. this is great!
If you out in the keyword your are planning your niche in, you instantly get the mayor players in that field!

For instance I tried “Joomla SEO” (go figure..) and this is what came up.

Notice the Big Rounds, those are the Mayor players in this field!

Linking out to those site right in the middel of the biggest cirkels shows Google that your website is related to that topic.

On the site off TouchGraph your can read the following: “The TouchGraph Google Browser reveals the network of connectivity between websites, as reported by Google's database of related sites.”

And I guess this Blog is doing oke on the Topic its setup for..

Now go and try it yourself for your Keywords and find out who to link to !!
And look at there site to learn…

How Search Engines Help finding Keywords

Filed Under: Optimization, Search Engine, Search Engines, SEO, SEO Optimization

You now how to find keywords for your website, right? You know about Google external ad tool, WordTracker, trillian and seobook.

But there are more easily and very targeted keyword suggestions to be found.
The Search Engines themselves will show you what they think are the most relevant keywords…
It is like looking into their database and finding what they think is relevant for you visitors.

You just have to now how and where to look.
I did some research for a new page of a new site to check out the Singer Anastacia

Google Suggests

First Google, as this is one of the biggest engines, their you can use Google Suggests to find extra keywords.
You just type in you target keyword and you instantly get a drop-down box that shows you related search suggestions.

Yahoo homepage

You have to use the search box on the Homepage of Yahoo to get the next items to show.

here it works the same way as with Google Suggests, just type in you search word and you get a related items drop-down box.

Live.com Search

Microsoft's Search engine Live.com also has suggestions for your keywords, but the just show up after you did the search.

In the results page you will find a nice listing on the right hand sidebar.
And they throw in some songs suggestions to take into you list..

Ask.com Suggestions

Yes, you can find the best suggestions on Ask…
They give you a complete left sidebar with all kind off suggestions, even other related items…
You can find extra words to target in the “narrow your search” items.
Find other artists to include in extra pages to build somewhat of a themed site with “Related Names”
Find extra keywords in the “Expand your Search” items.

Af course you will have your own favorite, but for my the Ask results pages was on of the best to use…
You could try the more.. link as well….

Naturally you have to combine the results from all the resources you can get to come to what you think are the best keywords to target, but that's what makes it so nice to do Search Engine Optimization.. finding new ways to get relevant visitors to your websites!

How Joomla helps with LSI and SEO

Filed Under: Joomla, Joomla Seo, Optimization, Search Engine, SEO, SEO Articles, SEO Optimization

Oke, you know what SEO means, and what Joomla is.. but this LSI?

Well, if you really are into Search Engine Optimization, you have come across this term “Latent Semantic Indexing” or in short LSI.

So, is this going to be such a long an technical post about algorithms and how they are build… no, its not..

But what you should know about LSI is simpel, it is all about related keywords!
Yes the ones you are so desperately seeking to improve your visitors numbers, but it goes beyond what you normally do.

To explain the term in a more down to earth manner, you should know that you are using it the whole day through en you didn't even realize it.
Say for example you are thinking of Joomla, what comes to mind? Components, Templates, Modules, Plugins, Content etc, all of these terms are related to the Content Management System Joomla.

Another example, you walk into an unknown supermarkt and want to buy a bottle of Coca-Cola, what do you do?
You look for a sign in the hallways marked “Soft Drinks” because you know it is related to your search.
But you don't have to think about it, you just know.

Latent Semantic Indexing

Google and other search engines use an algorithm that does something similar, it looks at the structure and words used on a website to determine the basic topic, on main subject of a website.

But is uses this related terms also in their personalized search results!
Lets look at the results a musician will get, someone who searches for Music, MP3, Records and sheet music and song lyrics in Google.
If he/she would now uses the search term “mambo”, the results will point him to websites about the Dance “Mambo”.

If I would use the same term “mambo” the results are highly focused on the Content Management System “Mambo” and there will be results about Joomla sites as well..
But that is because the main part of my searches are all about Internet and Content Management Systems.
You see these are all highly related results for both persons.

How does Joomla Help with LSI

One thing that the search engines look for to identify the subject and relevance of your website for your Keywords is the way your website is build , or structured around the topic.

Now this is where Joomla has its strength, although some may hate it, and that is its structure for content.
You can have one, or more sections, but each section is build with categories that holds the content pages.

And to name and sort these categories, you look for, and use the structure that you see fit for your topic!
So for a Joomla Information website, you have categories about Components, Templates, Modules, Plugins and sometimes extend into Joomla SEO :-)
You see that the categorie structure forces you to think about your subject and use the most related and relevant words?

So in this case the so called weakness of Joomla becomes one of its strengths.
And yes I know, WordPress is great for Search Engine Optimization, but the use of Categories only becomes useful if your tightly restrict the use to just some categories.

Drupal is also great for Websites and Blogs, but you still have to come to grips with this Taxonomy thing..
And If you don't get it, how are you going to explain it to your customers?

Joomla is a great Content Management System, that has its pros and cons, but I really think it is one of the best for a Small or Medium Business website to start out with and has te potential to grow with the Company.
And because of the rigid structure it will help you to keep your content and structure in focus, and thus relevant for Search Engines as well as your websites visitors!

If you liked the content of this article, please subscribe to the feed to keep up-to-date.
One word of warning though… I am off to a two weeks vacation, so you won't see any update for that time.

But after that, I hope you will read some nice Search Optimization things I have thought up during that time, happy holidays!

P.s. One way to find these words, is to go to the Google Keyword Tool and use the Site-Related keywords tab and fill in the nr One website in your Niche.. you will find some great related terms you did not think off before.

What Title to Use in Joomla or WordPress

Filed Under: Blogging, Joomla, Joomla Seo, Optimization, Search Engine, SEF, SEO, SEO Optimization, WordPress

If you run a Joomla or WordPress Based website, you are of course constantly creating quality content for your users.
Writing the best Titles like www.copyblogger.com told you how to do.

But there are several options in Joomla, and with the right Plugin you get something similar in WordPress.

If you create new content in Joomla, you find yourself with two Title options:

The Title and the Title Alias.

The first option is what is going to be the title of you page and is show as a content header.
The second option is not shown anywhere on the page.. so what's the use of this option?

Most SEF Components have the possibility to use this alias as the base for there URL rewrite.
So you can have an Title that says:
“The best Content Management System, Joomla or WordPress”
but the alias is written “Joomla or WordPress CMS”
With the use of the alias, you URL is going to be http://www.example.com/joomla-or-wordpress-cms.html
instead of the longer title based version
http://www.example.com/The-best-Content-Management-System-Joomla-or-WordPress

But with the paid version of Joomla SEF Patch by www.joomlatwork.com you get a second title option:

The HTML Title

Now this title is the one that gets indexed by Google and other Search Engines… this is (after good content) the number one Search Engine Optimization tool.

With a standard Joomla installation, you content title is also the HTML title.
But you might want to keep the content titles short, and the HTML titles extended with some extra keywords…!!

This functionality is also integrated in the latest version of JoomSEF, in the edit URL section.

The Title Options in WordPress

You may not be aware of it yet, but there are similar functions in WordPress.
Just start writing you post, and you are editing your Post Title, which (if you have permalinks enabled) becomes the content of your URL as well.

But there is this nice option in WordPress that is called “Post Slug”

Here is where you can change the URL that is used for you Post, especially useful if you have a long post title..
Just shorten you Post slug and the URL will be much shorter and easier to pickup.

And with the right Plugin you also have the possibility to change your HTML Title, or as some call it, you SEO Title.
There are two Plugins that can do that for you:
The SEO Title Tag Plugin which is great for rewriting titles in bulk, and for page titles rewrites, and the best part is, you can use it in combination with the next Plugin.

This Plugin not only gives you the HTML title rewrite option, but also the best way to insert Metatags like keywords, and with the use of the “Optional Excerpt” to fill the MetaTag description.
This Plugin is really the All in One SEO Pack for WordPress and this one is a must have for Search Engine Optimization.

It does even more than just the Title rewrite as you can see.
It can even fill your Metatag Description automatically with the first words from your post…

If you want to use it with the SEO Title Tag Plugin, just untick the Rewrite Titles and the Titles from your other Plugin are used.
So if you are starting a WordPress Blog, go for this Plugin form the start and you will do allright.

Title use Conclusion

The HTML Title tag is very important for your Search Engine Optimization.
Not only should it be written to draw people to your website, it also should contain your targeted keywords.

With the options I mentioned above, you have now the possibilities to extend the power of the HTML Title tag beyond your post title and keeping your URL short as well.

Make good use of it, and don't forget to write some keywords, but even more important, write very good excerpts of you post and content in you description tags.
Because in essence they are small adverts for you page that show up in the SERP Pages of the mayor Search Engines.
So work extra hard to create those descriptions.

Google goes Global with Pay-Per-Action in AdWords

Filed Under: Joomla Seo, Optimization, Search Engine, SEO, SEO Optimization

Just a few day's ago you could have read about Google and Placement Performance..

Now is time to expand the Google network with the Pay-Per-Action on a Global scale.

So I just wanted to show you some of the links to the Information Google is giving out on this “new” advertising model.

Here is the basic most important line from the Pay-Per-Action FAQ:

How much does pay-per-action advertising cost?
“Only you can decide how much you want to pay for your pay-per-action advertising. You determine how much you're willing to offer for each specific action to be completed on your site, whether it's $5 for a purchase or $1 for a newsletter sign-up. You can also control your spending by setting a daily budget.”

For mor Information on the subject you can check out:

Google AdWords Pay-Per-Actions ads
Pay-Per-Action FAQs
Google Announced Beta Test
Google Going Global with PPA

The advertisers that might be part of the Beta will receive an Alert in the AdWords account.

Adsense Publishers and SEO

But how about the Publishers I wonder? has anyone seen something of the Publishers site of this action?
I guess this will be by invitation only..

Looking at the factors that are off importance for the AdWords Advertisers:
“Starting today, advertisers who use AdWords conversion tracking and receive more than 500 conversions from their cost-per-click (CPC) or cost-per-thousand impressions (CPM) campaigns in the most recent 30-day period will be invited to join this beta test, on a rolling basis.”

You can imagine that there will be only Adsense Publishers invited to check out the PPA programs offers that give good quality content on their website that makes it possible to get those high performance conversions..

So if you want to get into this game and earn some more money with Adsense and PPA, you have to make sure your website is in Tip-Top shape with high quality content and of course you need to work on your Search Engine Optimization, otherwise you lose…
So does Google indeed want you to be part of this? I guess So with their recent Policy Update

Is your website Search Engine Friendly or already Search Engine Optimized?

Filed Under: Joomla, Joomla Seo, Optimization, Search Engine, SEF, SEO, SEO Optimization, Webdesign, WordPress

I like Joomla, Drupal, WordPress and Typo3, all Open Source Content Management Systems.
But which ones are Search Engine Friendly? Or are they Search Engine Optimized?

To be honest, Joomla in the latest version 1.0.12 is not Search Engine Friendly, the new Beta 1.5 version is much more Friendly from a Search Engine Point of view.
For the current version you have a lot of work to do before its Friendly enough.
Drupal and Typo3 are already more SEF, and WordPress is the easiest to work with if it comes to creating and using a Search Engine Friendly system.

So Joomla is the worst at the moment, but I love it because its so easy to work with from a content creation point of view.
Besides that, there are a lot of free components, modules and Plugins that can help you in making it SEF.

Search Engine Friendly and Search Engine Optimized

Did you notice, I never said any of them being Search Engine Optimized…
That is because I totally agree with Joost van der Valk in his post on Search Engine Friendly vs Search Engine Optimized

Also the post that inspired him by Joe Dolson is a great read on the topic of SEO versus SEF, which in turn was written as a reply to a post by Stony de Gruyter.

Then Gary of Phoenixrealm wrote a Post on Content Management Systems and SEF and SEO to point to the make sure that your CMS of choice should be Search Engine Friendly.

But just a Search Engine Friendly Content Management System doesn´t mean its Optimized!
Some Buro´s think just making your site SEF is enough to make it Optimized… no way..
As Joost pointed out, Optimization takes a lot more effort then just making a website completely search engine friendly.
Optimization is in the details, in the little things and learning from tracking and evaluating your changes and there effects.

Search Engine Optimization is delicate work and you need a lot of knowledge to get the job done.
Its also not a static one-time effort, it takes a lot more than just that to get good ranking and stay on top with your results.
So why waste the SEO´s time to make a site Friendly?

Educate the designers and Site builders

Just make sure that your site builders and designers have a basic knowledge about Search Engine Optimization to get the best results if your have to hire an Professional Search Engine Optimizer!

The basics are not that difficult to learn, like the comment op the post of Joost by Ruben Timmerman mentioning that a web developer should know that the title tag of each page should be into the H1 tag.
It should be basic knownledge of your designer on how to work these things into there designs.

There are companies out on the web promoting there SEO Services who don't have a clue what SEO really is.
I have seen some websites from “Search Engine Optimization” firms that are so NOT optimized that I would never give them that part of business..

But the main thing is, looking at those content management systems that they all use templates.
Templates designed by Professional designers, who have no clue about Search Engine Optimization.

So its not just the developer that needs to be educated, please focus on the designers as well!
They are the ones that can make the efforts of your Optimizer much easier, by already creating Templates that need little to no work the make the site Search Engine Friendly.

Not only for Joomla, Drupal and Typo3 websites, but also for WordPress, as there are some Themes that need to be worked at to make them Search Engine Optimized…
And as Joost pointed out, those are just the simple mistakes that need to be corrected to make you website Optimized for Search Engines.

Early Adopters use Gmail and RSS feeds, are You an Early Adopter?

Filed Under: Blogging, Optimization, Search Engine, SEO, SEO BLogs, SEO Optimization

I was reading an article by Wil Reynolds on The Thinkseer Blog about the Question Do you attract early adopters

According to the recent research of Hitwise Wil Reynolds mentioned Gmail traffic has increased by 17 % since its no longer an “By Invitation only” service, but free for all.
Initial thoughts occur from this research, stating that in the US Gmail is used by Early Adopters that this is a new way to focus on those Early Adopters.

In his post Mr Reynolds makes a good point on stating that people who use RSS Feeds to keep up-to-date also are in the Early Adopter section and that RSS feeds could be a good way to target them in you marketing strategie.

Gmail and Feedburner

How nice to see…. Google and Feedburner..
If you use Feedburner you of course have set the Smartfeed Option to make sure you users can subscribe to your feed more easily than using an xml file..
(Feedburner – Feed – Optimize – Smartfeed)

But one thing most Feed publishers don't use (yet) is the ability to have Feedburner bring your Feed updates to email users.
(Feedburner – Feed – Publicize – Email Subscriptions) (Tip !!)
At the moment you as a publisher can choose between Feedburner, Feedblitz or R-Mail to handle those mail subscriptions for you.

I guess its just a matter of time before Google is going to integrate its Gmail service with a One-Click-Button to provide the updates via Gmail.
Why? Because there is just much more space for advertisements in Gmail then in a Post Feed…
Was this the real reason to buy Feedburner?

Now I love Netvibes to get my RSS feeds brought to me, does that make me an Early Adopter or just a Follower..

My call to action

It seems to some people that a Blog post must have some kind of “Call to Action”.
I normally just like to inform people about how I look at some things an write about that perspective.

Reading the post of Wil Reynolds, I do want to take a special approach to this one.
You see, I like Wil.. I did a post on a SEO video of him at the Affiliates Summit on my other Joomla SEO Blog on which he left a nice comment.
The content of the video is even better….be sure to check it..

So I thought it would be nice to return a favor…
Besides pointing Wil to The Real secret of getting Feed Subscribers
I hope you check out the Thinkseer Blog , read the informative posts and bring them up to the 100 Subscribers sooner than the end of this year :-)

For Wil a have a call to action to… Wil, this is your Feedburner subscription panel now:

Please activate the email subscription possibility from Feedburner and get into the Gmail user's Early Adopters crowd with your blog… :-)

For you and everybody else, if you happened to like this Blog post, here are the Feedburner options to subscribe to this Blog with your favorite RSS reader… or receive them by email..

Google Analytics versus Statcounter

Filed Under: Joomla Seo, Search Engine, SEO, SEO Optimization

Just last Monday Statcounter announced that the 100 page view limit for the Free accounts is raised to 500 for Free

Now for some of you, that will be off no intrest, but for the Small and Medium sized Business that run their own websites this is really great news.

Hold it, but Google Analytics does a lot more and is also free…

True, but just place yourself in the the mind of a small business entrepreneur that wants to see how he is doing with his website.. which screen showing you the results would you prefer?

The Statcounter overview

Or the Google Analytics overview?

Or even the old Graphics?

Now you must admit that Google has now a better interface then before, but for me…
I like the Statcounter view better because it gives me a lot of information right there in that one screen.

But I also have to admit that I use both an every site I build for myself, but just the Statcounter for my customers.

Why the Statcounter for Customers?

If your work with in the SMB sector like I do, you cannot expect from your customers to learn how Google Analytics works.
They just want to see how they are doing, visitor wise…and how people get to their website and as cheap as possible.

But you, you want more out off you statistics, you need to get more data to be able to optimize the site for you clients.
Well in that case you combine the two.

Here is another fun part of Statcounter for you as a developer / optimizer.. you can have all your customer statistics on your own login and give your customers their own login name and password, and limit them to their own domain!

Just giving them a free service from your part.. and freeing up your time to do more productive work than writing the reports for your customers.

I think its a smart move from Statcounter to upgrade the free accounts.
The create a Buzz in the Internet about it, and are (hopefully) able to hold their customers that would otherwise run for the Google Analytics Hills..

Of course the Google Analytics tool is more focused on Conversions and Data for the AdWords user, that is why there are so many conversion statistics incorporated into the overviews.
But it makes it hard to work with for the average Jane and Joe of a Small Business.

So, which Statistic counter would you present to your SMB Clients?

Is Google Ready to Become the Ultimate Super Affiliate?

Filed Under: Affiliates, Optimization, Search Engine, SEO, SEO Optimization

Google required Feedburner recently, was this acquisition just another company on their way to becoming the Ultimate Super Affiliate?
You already now that RSS Feeds are the Future instead of eMails…

Everybody who works with Adsense knows that Google already promotes their own products via a CPA model, for every Picassa or Google Pack installation and activation you get payed, not for the Clicks.

They already Bought Doubleclick and probably paid to much for the company to get the Information of Performics and its Data.

But where does this interest in those Companies come from?

In August of last year there was this report called “The Death of Adsense” and of course the Top people at Google must have read it, since they have to protect there product..

In that report one of the items is the fact that Adsense advertising revenues for publishers have dropped due to the introduction of “Smart pricing”. Which gives the AdWords user the possibility to get more Bang for their Bugs.
http://www.jensense.com/archives/2005/10/one_poorly_conv.html

But a more important phenomenon was introduced “Click Flipping” in which you, as an Affiliate would buy adverts on Google, targeting the keywords for the products your marketing and sending people the buy through your affiliate link, sometimes passing them through your websites, or directly tho the sales page of the product manufacturer.
Well, you get the principal idea behind it.

Let say you buy ads with you keywords at 0.05 dollar, 1 in 1000 (ads costs 50.00 Dollar) will buy the product that sells for 250.00 Dollar.
The affiliate pays you 125,00 dollar, profit will be 75.00 Dollars…
(All numbers are fictitious of course).

Google and Affiliates

The Top Guys at Google now understand all of a sudden that they are leaving money on the table!
They get 50.00 Dollars where they could have gotten 125.00 Dollars..hmmm..

So the Thoughts comes to mind…
What do we need to get into this Affiliate Business?

First we need to have products to promote, so should we buy Clickbank?
No, that would be to obvious, lets buy DoubleClick! Then we get the advantage of the knowledge to handle all the aspects of Affiliates.

And the Payments for these products? We don't want that done by a separate company like paypal… no, we can use Google Checkout for that. The Product is there already.

So, we got the products site covered, and the payments handled, what's next..ah, the promoters of your products, a key part in the process…

Adsense Publishers

Wait, we already have a large base of people selling for us.. the Adsense Publishers!!
Yes, but they are only used to get there ads delivered to them, not actively promote them.
So..? We need to educate them and convince them of the benefits of promoting these products!

We could use that to introduce them to CPA by giving them small products to promote, like say Picassa or Google Pack.
Lets call it “Referrals” and we encourage them to Promote these products.

Now we have to optimize the Process to get the most out of it for the best results and the highest return.

First thing to do is to make sure the Landing pages of the Products are as good as they might get, so lets start this initiative by working on the AdWords landing pages, should be a nice testing ground.
And in the process the products suppliers learn how to make the best conversions pages as well

After that, we will give the publishers some nice incentives to get working on this Referral thing some more to make sure they are well conditioned if we go live..

Can we do some things to be able to target the prospects group even better?
Yes, we can manipulate… ehh, sorry, Personify the search results to fit the users profile even better and then bring better targeted offers! (Ps. a good explanation of these Personalized Search effects can be read at Thinkseer )

So, we are ready to send out some personal invitations to the CPA program.
Of course we first send out invitations to the “Google Adsense CPA Beta” to high profile entrepreneurs to see what is possible.

So, I thinks we are ready to get going with this CPA stuff…

And people are just thinking the Google is just the Term for referring to Googol as the amount of data we want to index :-)
But its actually the kind of money we want to make….

Ahh, Just as long as we don't do Evil..

Well, just a little bit then, lets take out some of the competition first by cleaning out the Arbitrage Publishers from our Adsense accounts…

And then Promote using Adsense for Affliates…

But what does this mean for the current affiliate products suppliers like Clickbank?
They will certainly get a big competitor to tackle with!

Is this a Good Development?

I don't know, for the product suppliers, probably yes, for the middleman like Clickbank, definitely NO.

For the Adsense Publishing Webmaster it will mean a new way of earning money on their site, if they are willing to go that extra mile of referrals.

The biggest advantage lies with the AdWords Publishers, they get an extra opportunity to promote their products through a large base of publishers.
Based on a the possibility just o pay Google for the action, not the Clicks.
Which in return gives Google the opportunity to diversify and giving an alternatief for Adword users that are afraid of Click Fraud.

Getting into Speed with your Website

Filed Under: Joomla, Joomla Seo, Optimization, SEO Optimization

I wrote some articles lately on using a Cache Component for your Joomla based website.

Now why do you want to use caching if you are Optimizing your website for Search Engines?

The thing is that most Content Management Systems are using a database, mostly MySql, to hold their content.
To display this content there is a “simple” process that creates the page in you web browser that takes you Template file, selects the content that is requested by the browser from the Database and gives it altogether to browser to display it to you visitor.

This process is called “parsing” that is done by your web server of choice, for the most hosting providers this will be Apache, some will use IIS from Microsoft.
Content Management System will be based on PHP, ASP or other more proprietary systems.

But what all of these systems have in common is it that your web-page is generated “On the Fly”, that is when it is requested…

A Search Engine Robots view
[Read more…] about Getting into Speed with your Website