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Search Engine Optimization or SEO

works a bit differently for those of us using WordPress blogging software. In this article I will show you a few tips on how to optimize your personal WordPress blog to obtain a higher Pagerank. Pagerank is what the Google Search Engine uses to rate your site compared to other sites based on the same content. A higher Pagerank can set your Web page ahead of others in the search results.

Quality External and internal Links

Among many contributing factors, one key element used by search engines to determine how your blog will rank is the presence of quality external links. External links are often referred to as “Backlinks” – or a link that points back to your site. The more quality Backlinks you have, generally the higher your search engine page ranking.

You can also use internal links to increase the ranking of a page and help search engines find and index (spider) pages quicker. The pages are found and indexed quicker if the link is coming from a page that has already been indexed.

Title Tags

The title tag is the most important html tag in terms of SEO. To make the WordPress title tag work to our advantage we need to use the SEO Title Tag plugin
This plugin allows the user to create custom unique titles for each page and post on their blog.

Use Permalinks

One of the best features of WordPress is the ability to use a Permalink structure as opposed to page id. This allows the blogger to create a Post Slug (post name) that is related to the keywords or key phrase that the blogger is trying to target. Permalinks are not enabled by default. To enable them, log into WordPress, then select Options -> Permalinks from the admin menu. I use the date and named based format /%year%/%monthnum%/%day%/%postname%/structure. However, I have seen better results from those using /%postname%/ and nothing else.

Home Page Navigation

A majority of the SEO “internal link power” will stem from the homepage of your blog. This is mainly due to the fact that the homepage is usually the first page that gets indexed by the search engines. Be sure to list your categories and most important article links on the home page.

Site Design

The first few seconds of a visitors experience on your site are the most crucial. If your blog is poorly laid out, lacks quality design and is hard to navigate, visitors might quickly leave disappointed and never return. Try to keep your design and layout simple and easy to navigate. Place your article content toward the top of the page (above the fold). Visitors should not have to scroll to get to the article.

Article Content

Write original content that is in your own words. If you simply copy articles or your blog contains content that isn’t in your own words, your site will actually get de-ranked. Originality is just as important on the internet as it is socially in life.

One can either blend in or stand out amongst the rest!

… and with over 60 million blogs available on the internet, I would hope we want to be one that stands out.

Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so search engine can more intellegently crawl the site. Sitemaps helps speed up the discovery of your pages.

Google, Microsoft and Yahoo agreed to support the same sitemap protocol. Anyone using Google Sitemap do not need to make any changes, Yahoo and Microsoft will index those sitemaps.

If you maintain a small site with static content, you can easily hand code the Sitemap by following the protocol.

Bloggers who are using WordPress can use the XML Sitemap generator plugin for Wordpress, which will automatically generate a sitemap for homepage, posts, static pages, categories and archive pages.

Movable Type users can create a Index Template and copy the following code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<urlset xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<url>
<loc><$MTBlogURL encode_xml="1"

gt;</loc>
<priority>1.0</priority>
</url>
<MTEntries lastn="9999">
<url>
<loc><$MTEntryPermalink encode_xml="1" gt;</loc>
<lastmod><$MTEntryModifiedDate utc="1" format="%Y-%m-%dT%H:%M:%SZ" gt;</lastmod>
</url>
</MTEntries>
</urlset>

Save the file to something easy to rememember, save and rebuild it.

You can now submit your Sitemap XML file to Google Webmasters, MSN LiveSearch, and Yahoo Site Explorer.

Source: http://wpram.com/log/2006/11/17/sitemaps/

Search engine optimization is truly big business.   The process of making websites search engine friendly, has undergone several changes over the years, and so it is important that if you are planning to optimize yours or a client’s website, that you are abreast of the changes.

In 2006, Google, stopped using keyword density as the main component when assessing relevance to a website following a  related search engine search.  This may seem odd at the outset, as surely the content of the site dictates how closely related the search engine search term, and the search engine result are related?

Problems arose when programs were developed that could write high density keyword articles with a few clicks of the mouse.  Though the articles were laughable to human beings in terms of how they were written, and their relevance, search engine robots however, loved them.  So more and more computer generated articles began to pull through on searches, as articles could easily be added that bore no relevance to the website or what it was about very easily.

In response to this problem, Google changed how it ranked websites, by determining how well linked they were from other websites.  The more relevant, and the better quality websites that had a link to your website, the higher up the page rank your site travelled.

So linking now determines page rank.  The thing to bear in mind about linking is this:

-Free company directories from a website are not rated as highly as some other links.  Though some directory links are rated more highly than others.

-National and local press are considered good quality links

-Links from the same kind of company or organization are considered good quality links

How to build good link campaigns for search engine optimization is a trick in itself.  Many SEO companies will feature this prominently when search engine optimizing your website.

There are certain companies that specialise in the area of link campaigning, and if you are unsure about how to go about utilizing campaigns, this could be a good area to explore.  Companies of this nature will have advanced knowledge of the better sites to place links, and have the connections to do so.

So what of title tags, meta data, and optimized web copy?

Well in essence these are very important components to search engine optimize a website.  They provide Google and other search engines information on what your website is about, and what its relevance is to the search engine query.  In effect, it allows you to hone in on your chosen markets, and point your website in the right direction.  Without paying attention to these elements of search engine optimization, you will not find yourself very high on the page rank, if at all.

A note about meta data

Many search engine optimization articles, do not attach much value to meta tags, and though search engines do not use them to determine page rank, good meta data can make your website stand out from the crowd.  A good description can make all the difference to whether you get a click in your direction.  So when considering what to write for a meta tag, try and make it stand out in your chosen industry.  If you feature something that your competitors do not have, state it.  You’ll get more hits this way.

Therefore, search engine optimization needs a holistic approach.  Everything has to be in place for it to work, and without one of the elements the whole search engine optimization effort is for nothing.

If you think of search engine optimization as a car, with the link campaign as the engine, and the title tag, meta data and optimised copy as its navigation, then you are on the right lines.

Source: http://www.dreamtemplate.com/blog/web-design-tips/the-wonderful-world-of-seo/