Article - How Do Search Engines Work

A new article on the Austin SEO Guy website answers the question, how do search engines work?

To create a website that ranks well in the search engines and attracts qualified visitors, you first need to understand how search engines work. All too often, I see people rush into an SEO program without a solid understanding of the basics covered in this article.

Article excerpt:
When search engine crawlers find a particular website, they then crawl through the various pages of that site to determine what it's about. If the site has a good navigation system in place, crawlers can follow the hyperlinks from page to page, much the same way as a person would.
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Corporate Blogs: All the Smart Kids Are Doing It

Web savvy CEOs and other corporate leaders are turning to blogs in surprising numbers.

Is it that these individuals realize the viral marketing power of blogs? The positioning and branding potential of a well-written blog? The search engine visibility of a regularly updated blog? The improved dialog with customers a blog can deliver?

In a word, yes. They realize all these things. That's why so many CEO are blogging these days.

Related article (onsite):
How Does a Blog Help With SEO?

Until next time...

-ASG

Update on Sitemaps for Google, MSN, Yahoo

About ten days ago, I posted about an agreement between Google, Yahoo and Live Search (MSN) to support a common format of XML sitemap. This is a common protocol sitemap that you can submit to all three search engines to help ensure your pages get crawled and indexed.

But it seems there's some confusion over where you go to submit your new sitemap to MSN. To submit a sitemap to Google, you use Google Sitemaps (same place as always). To submit to Yahoo, you go to Yahoo Site Explorer. But the current question is, how do you submit your sitemap to MSN?

Ironically, I stumbled across this forum post on the subject while trying to find out for myself. I submitted my sitemap to Google, no problem. Then I figured out how to submit to Yahoo Site Explorer. But for MSN, I've come up empty so far.

My guess is that, for the time being, you just have to bank on the MSN Bot finding the sitemap on its own by crawling your site.

Bottom line ... I wouldn't worry too much about it. But I'll keep you posted all the same.

Until next time...

-Austin SEO Guy

Austin SEO Learning Center - It's Alive

What is search engine optimization? How do search engines rank websites? Why does that website outrank mine? How can I improve my search engine visibility? Do I need to hire an Austin SEO consultant?

These are just some of the questions answered in the brand-spankin'-new Austin SEO Learning Center.

I plan to add a lot more information in the coming weeks, including plenty of links to related resources. But even in it's infantile state, the learning center will help you better understand the process of SEO. If there's something I haven't covered that you'd like to added to the Learning Center, just post a comment below!

Until next time...

-ASG

Does Your Website Make People Guess?

I hate websites that make me guess.

I stumbled my way onto some kind of marketing website recently (at least I think it was a marketing website), and this is what the home page said:

On time solutions, right on the market. When only the best will suffice, we deliver. Our tailored solutions will help you bring out the best in your company...

I kid you not, this went on for several paragraphs. Not once did it mention any kind of product or service that I could decipher.

So I looked at the web address, logo and tag line, thinking those would give me some insight. Nothing. Just more vagaries.

Now let me ask you this:

What if this company offered exactly what I was looking for? What if they were the perfect fit for a particular business need I had? That's right, nothing would've happened.

Don't overestimate your prospects' knowledge of what you do. Don't think "they'll get it eventually" when they travel around the site. If you don't tell people what you do on the home page, in plain English ... there won't be an eventually.

Until next time,

-Austin SEO Guy

Austin SEO Learning Center - Coming Soon

Just wanted to pop in and let you know what I'm working on currently.

I'm building what I call the "Austin SEO Learning Center." It's based on frequently asked questions on the topic, the kind of stuff that most Austin SEO companies keep under wraps as "intellectual property" or "proprietary knowledge."

Hey, it's almost Christmas. I'm in a sharing mood, you know? I'll post here and on my Statesman blog when the learning center is ready for human consumption.

Until then...

-Austin SEO Guy

3-Part Harmony: Google, Yahoo and Microsoft

On Wednesday, I received three blog posts from the "big three" search engine companies ... and all with a similar message. One from the Google blog, one from the Yahoo blog, and one from Live Search.

Web developers have long agreed that standards are both necessary and beneficial, and it seems the big three search engines agree with this notion. They have agreed upon a standard protocol for sitemaps.

Now, I'm talking about the sitemap you create for your visitors to help them find their way. I'm talking about the XML file you create to help search engines find all your pages.

This is from Yahoo:

Together we're announcing www.sitemaps.org, which provides details of the current release of the Sitemaps protocol and will include future updates as we continue to collaborate on this common protocol. By offering an open standard for web sites, webmasters can use a single format to create a catalog of their site URLs and to notify changes to the major search engines.

Sitemaps are especially important if you have a large site, a site with lots of directories / sub-directories, or a combination of the two.

-Austin SEO Guy

Beta Version of Blogger - Now With Categories!

I'm so excited. The one thing I didn't like about Blogger has been remedied (thanks to the technical horsepower at Google, the owner of Blogger).

Blogger now has category capability!

For a long time (in Internet years), this was a big advantage WordPress had over Blogger. WordPress allowed you to categorize your blog posts, which made it easy for reader to find the information they wanted. But for the longest time, Blogger lacked this capability.

Not anymore.

This is my first blog post using the new beta version of Blogger ... with "label" power.

Learn more about the upgrades.

Until next time...

-Austin SEO Guy

Concluding the Article Marketing Lesson

So, we've talked about a lot in the last few posts. We talked about the SEO benefits of article marketing. We talked about choosing a topic. And we looked at the mechanics of writing the article and creating the all-important resource box.

There's only one thing left to talk about. Where to publish your articles. And for that, I leave you with some of my favorite articles about articles ... including one or two of my own:

• Building Link Popularity with Topical Articles
• Articles for SEO: The Lesson of 93,000 Page Views
• Increasing Link Popularity with Articles

There you go. You're armed and dangerous, and ready to being your very own article marketing campaign to increase your website traffic. Good luck!

Until next time...

-Austin SEO Guy


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Tags: article marketing SEO
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Using Articles for SEO - The Resource Box

Continuing our lesson about article marketing for SEO, let's talk about how to create your resource box.

In article marketing terminology, the resource box is a brief paragraph at the end of the article that provides an author's note and (ideally) a link to the author's website. From an SEO standpoint, the hyperlink(s) within the resource box are critical.

If you write an interesting article and submit it to an article directory, it could be published many times over on websites and blogs. If you have a link to your website in the resource box of every article you write, those websites and blogs who run your article will be linking back to your site. This is the link-building power of article marketing.

It's important to have a link in your resource box, but it's equally important how you include those links. First, read the guidelines of whatever article directory you're using, because most have requirements about the number of links you can include.

Next, write your resource box in a way that lets you include one or two key phrases, plus a direct URL hyperlink. Here's an excerpt from a resource box I used recently:

The Austin SEO Guy educates Austin, Texas companies on all aspects of SEO. He is a trusted source for Austin SEO services and advice. Learn more by visiting http://www.austinseoguy.com/

All the important elements are there -- the key phrase hyperlink, the URL, etc. It's important to use the URL hyperlink in addition to the key phrase in case the hyperlinks get de-activated. People can still find you that way.

This wraps up our lesson on article marketing for SEO, and I hope you found it helpful.

-Austin SEO Guy

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Tags: article marketing SEO
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Using Articles for SEO - Creating Your Title

Continuing our lesson about article marketing for SEO, let's talk about how to create your article's title.

Titles for People ... and Search Engines
The title you create for your article is important for two reasons. First, the title plays a big role with search engines. And secondly, the title determines how much your article gets read and published.

Here's the secret: Be sure to include your key search phrases at the beginning of your title. If you put them at the end of the title, it will greatly reduce your search engine visibility. Here's why:

When you publish your article through an article distribution site, the title of your article will become the title of the actual web page. In other words, your article will become an individual web page within the article directory's website. And from a web coding standpoint, your article title is also the page's title.

How to Write an Enticing Title
I'm going to share an article writing secret with you. If you want to learn how to create titles that draw people into the article, pick up a copy of Reader's Digest. I don't subscribe to Reader's Digest, but I read the cover every time I'm in line at the grocery store.

Why? Because the Digest knows a thing or two about irresistible titles. In fact, the cover of each issue is nothing more than a list of article titles. And it's worth mentioning at this point that Reader's Digest is one of the best-selling publications on the planet! Pay particular attention to their "how to" titles and articles.

Tying it All Together
Combining all these factors is not as difficult as you might think. For example, let's say you want to focus on the phrase "business blogging" and your target audience is the corporate executive type. You could incorporate that key phrase into an enticing title in any number of ways:

• The Basics of Business Blogging for Busy Executives
• How to Get Started with Business Blogging
• A Business Blogging Guide for the Computer Illiterate
• Business Blogging 101 - Tips for First-Time Bloggers

Next lesson: The all-important resource box.

Until then...

-Austin SEO Guy

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Tags: article marketing SEO
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