Professional SEO

Domain Names and SEO

December 5th, 2007 at 11:15am Under SEO

Today we start our series of SEO articles and what better place to open than the beginning? Professional SEO strives to be informative and I get so many SEO questions that seem basic to me that I forget sometimes that not everyone has been involved in search engine optimization for nearly a decade so I am going to start my SEO tutorial series with basic SEO principles and work my way up to advanced SEO.

The SEO starting point for any webmaster interested in search engine optimization is of course which domain name to choose as this choice will either ensure you face an uphill battle, or make things a lot easier for yourself. The reason is that all the search engines give some weight in thier algorithm to what your actual domain name is in terms of your ranking within thier index. For example, the domain of this website is professionalseo.com - this makes it infinitely easier for me to rank high for the search term “Professional SEO” as opposed to other sought after “SEO” keyword phrases like “SEO Services” or “SEO Company” etc.

Another equally, if not even more important reason that many people overlook in the importance of choosing a keyword rich domain is the simple fact that the anchor text that other websites and general web directories will link to me as, is of course- “Professional SEO” .

Since the anchor text (the visible text people see in an outbound link) is another datapoint in Google’s ranking algorithm, this is also clearly a big advantage SEO wise. While obviously I could encourage other websites and directories to list me as: “SEO Company”, the fact is that many do not allow this and require that you list yourself as your actual domain URL for your title. While this all may seem common sense, you would be suprised at how many people overlook this basic starting point.

One last note about keyword rich domains as it relates to search engine optimization is; make sure you choose a TLD (Top Level Domain) name like .com, .net, or .org - many people do not realize that most newer domain extensions are actually ccTLD’s (Country Code Top Level Domains) like .tv which is the country code domain for Tuvalu. The reason this distinction is significant in terms of Search Engine Optimization is that Google and the other search engines will most times only rank a TLD highly worldwide in Google.com while a ccTLD’s ranking will only be good within thier respective country. What this means is that SEOcompany.de will rank very well for the search term “SEO Company” in Germany and Google.de, but will most likely be nowhere to be seen in Google.com so unless you want to be the #1 SEO Company in the small island nation of Tuvalu, .tv might not be for you.

SEO Dictionary

October 3rd, 2007 at 04:31am Under SEO

Anchor Text
Anchor text is the visible text used for a hyperlink.

Backlink/Reciprocal Link
A link to your website from another website. Also called inbound links or IBL’s.

Bot
Abbreviation for a search engine robot (sometimes called a spider). Bot refers to a software program that scans the web to index webpages for the search engine.

Keywords
Keywords are words which are used by surfers in search engine queries. Keyphrases are the same but instead of single words they are multi word phrases used in these search engine queries. Search Engine Optimization is the art of optimizing a sites webpages in order to rank highly in the results returned for these keyword search queries.

SEM
Abbreviation for “Search Engine Marketing”. SEM includes both organic SEO and paid advertising in the search engines including Pay Per Click (PPC).

SERP’s
Abbreviation for “Search Engine Results Pages”. SERP’s refer to the organic search results for a given search engine query.

More will be added to this page soon.

SEO Defined

October 3rd, 2007 at 04:30am Under SEO

What is SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization”

Simply put, SEO, or “Search Engine Optimization” is the art of optimizing a website so that it caters to the desires of the search engines and fine tunes it so that your website ranks highly in the search engine results. Many misconceptions about SEO have arisen since search engines like Google have demonstrated the ability to make or break a site and few other professions are as misunderstood as the professional SEO industry.

Firstly and most important, a SEO company, at least a reputable one does not fool the search engines into ranking your site highly in the results. This is a very dangerous proposition and can get your site deleted or even banned permanently from Google. For a reputable SEO company like “Professional SEO”, search engine optimization simply means that we optimize and tailor your site to conform to the desires of an optimal site from the perspective of the search engines. “Professional SEO” simply optimizes your site to be attractive to what the search engines seek when ranking a site and makes sure that the coding meets the specifications of the search engines for placing a site very highly in the results.