Below are my best SEO and Google Adsense tips. If
you use these, you are almost guaranteed success. There are people
making over $20,000/month with Adsense by using these very same
tips. Those people are me and my husband. ;)
Anchor Text
Anchor text is the hyperlinked words on a web page
– the words you click on when you click a link. Here's an example,
fast cars, in which
"fast cars" is the anchor text.
Anchor text usually gives your visitors useful
information about the content of the page you're linking to.
Here's why anchor text is so important...It tells search engines
what the page is about. Used wisely, it boosts your rankings in
search engines, especially in Google. If you use "click
here" as the words people are going to click on, you're
telling people the page is about the subject "click here". If you
use "Part 2" as the
anchor text, you're telling the search engines the page is
discussing "part 2". You wouldn't want to rank highly for "click
here" or "Part 2". Anchor text is so important that it's possible
for a page to appear in the top 10 in Google's search results for
a phrase which isn't mentioned anywhere on the page.
Some blog publishers have fun using "Google
bombing" to get pages ranked highly for humorous phrases. If the
phrase is obscure, only a handful of links will win the phrase a
No.1 ranking. If it's highly competitive, hundreds or thousands of
links might be needed. For a fun example of Google bombing, do a
Google search for "miserable
failure". You'll see that George W. Bush's biography website
comes up. That is because a lot of bloggers linked to his
biography site using the anchor text "miserable failure". It
caused his site to come up number one in Google for that keyword
phrase.
Using anchor text properly is one of the best ways
to get to the top of the search engines for your keyphrases.
However, if your site is all about purple widgets, you don't want
only "purple widgets" to be used as the phrase in every link to
your site. Over-optimizing like that would create an unnatural
pattern.
You can use anchor text in:
External links – links from other sites
Internal links – links on your pages
Navigation maps
Links on your main page. A very important spot.
Remember that real live humans will read your links as well as
search engines, so the words in your anchor text need to make
sense!
If you want to rank highly for a certain
keyphrase, have all your link partners link to you using that
phrase as your anchor text. Also create links within your site
that link to that page using those keywords. Never let a link
partner link to you using your URL, such as
www.mydomain.com, or using
your title if your title is not your keyword phrase as well.
Alt Tags
Add alt text to all the images, whether it be a
thumbnail or the enlarged size(s). Use alt text that describes the
image. Do not use alt text such as "Image" because that's
lame and doesn't help you at all. A better description might be, for example, "2006 Chevrolet
Corvette Z06, 500 horsepower, yellow." The main reason to use
alt tags is so that people who are visually impaired will know what
the picture is of, since their computer will read the alt text
aloud to them. Alt tags are also used by the search engines to
determine what an image is about, which can help you with your
search results and your Google Image search results.
Alt Tag tips:
Be sure to use the keyword phrases that you also
used in the copy of your page, title tag, meta description, and
other tags.
Do not try to cram a bunch of keywords into the
"alt" attribute.
Describe the image - do not just list keywords.
The "alt" attribute is also a good place for
misspellings and plural keyword phrases that you may not have used
elsewhere.
Title tags - Optimizing Your
Title Tags
Without question the title tag of your page is the
single most important factor to consider when optimizing your web
page for the search engines. This is because most engines &
directories place a high level of importance on keywords that are
found in your title tag. The title tag is also what the search
engines usually use for the title of your listing in the search
results. You want the title tag of each page to describe the page
well, including your main keywords for that page. We recommend
that your title tag be between 50-80 characters long - including
spaces. The length that the different search engines accept
varies, but as long as you keep within this limit you should be
ok.
Title Tag Tips
We recommend that you include 1-2 of your most
important keyword phrases in the title tag, BUT be careful not to
just list keywords. If you just list keywords you risk being
viewed as spamming the engines, which can ultimately lead to you
being blacklisted by the search engines. Your title tag should
include your keyword phrases while remaining as close to a
readable sentence as possible to avoid any problems.
Make your title enticing! Don't forget that even
if you get that #1 listing in the search engines, your listing
still needs to say something that makes the surfer want to click
through and visit your site.
Since the length of your title tag could be a
little long for some engines we suggest placing the keywords at
the beginning of the tag when possible so that you do not risk
having them cut off.
Each page of your site should have it's own title
tag with it's own keywords that related to the page that it
appears on.
Keep the title tag as short as possible while
still including your keywords. If there are a lot of words in the
title, less importance is given to each word. If there are less
words, each word is given more importance by Google.
Meta Tags
Meta tags were originally created to help search
engines find out important information about your page that they
might have had difficulty determining otherwise. For example,
related keywords or a description of the page itself.
Many people incorrectly believe that good meta tags are all that
is needed to achieve good listings in the search engines, which is
entirely incorrect. While meta tags are usually always part of a
well optimized page, they are not the be-all and end-all of
optimizing your pages. In the early days of the web, people were
able to get great listings from optimizing just their meta tags,
but the increasing competition for good search engine listings
eventually led to many people spamming the search engines with
keyword stuffed meta tags. The result is that the engines have
changed what they look at when they rank a web page.
The search engines now usually look at a combination of all the
best search engine tips to determine your listings, not just your
metas - some don't even look at them at all! What this means is
that your page should have a combination of all these tips
implemented on your page - not just meta tags. That being said,
there are two meta tags that can help your search engine listings
- meta keywords & meta description. Many SEO experts are under
the impression that Google does not use the description tag for
anything, but that's not true. I have seen my meta tags show up as
the link description in Google results if the tag had the keyword
phrase that was being searched for. Google does use the
description tag, so be sure you include a good one in your site.
Tag limits:
We recommend that your Meta Keywords not exceed
1024 characters including spaces.
We recommend that your Meta Description tag not
exceed 250 characters including spaces.
Meta description tips:
Make sure you accurately describe the content of
your page while trying to entice visitors to click on your
listing.
Include 3-4 of your most important keyword
phrases. Especially those used in your title tag and page copy.
Try to have your most important keywords appear at
the beginning of your description. This often brings better
results, and will help avoid having any search engine cut off your
keywords if they limit the length of your description.
Meta keywords tips:
Aside from what we mention in the other tips below
you should only use those keyword phrases that you also used in
the copy of your page, title tag, meta description, and other
tags. Any keyword phrases that you use that do not appear in your
other tags or page copy are likely to not have enough prominence
to help your listings for that phrase.
Don't forget plurals. For example, a travel site
might have both "caribbean vacation" and "caribbean vacations" in
their keyword meta tag to make sure they show up in both searches.
If you know of a common misspelling of a popular
keyword that could be used to find your site you should enter it
in your keywords meta tag. For example, a travel site might use "caribean
" in their keyword meta since it is a common misspelling for "caribbean".
Watch out for repeats! You want to include your
most important phrases, but when doing so it can be difficult not
to repeat one word many times. For example, "caribbean vacation"
and "caribbean vacations" are two different phrases, but the word
"caribbean" appears twice. This is okay to do in order to make
sure you get the phrases you need in there, but be careful not to
repeat any one word excessively. There is no actual limit, but we
recommend that no one word be repeated in the keyword meta more
than 5 times.
Optimizing Heading Tags
Although they are not used very frequently any
longer, HTML heading tags can help improve your listings in the
search engines too. Since they are "headings," the search engines
figure that they are very closely related to the content of the
page that they appear on. So, just like with all of your other
optimization efforts you should include your most important
keyword phrases in heading tags on your page if you can. You use
header tags for the main title(s) on each page. You can use H1 - H6, with
H1 being Heading 1 - the most important heading or title. H2-H6
can be used for subtitles and less important headings further down
the page. On this page, "SEO and Adsense Tips", the main title at
the top, is using an H1 heading tag to show Google that it is the
main heading of this page. That will give that phrase more
importance than other words on this page. I have used the H2
heading for the subtitles and I used the H3 headings for the
sub-sub titles (is that a word?) such as "Tag Tips" below.
Tag Tips:
Try to include your most important keyword phrases
in heading tags on your page if you can.
Consider rethinking your page content. It is often
very easy to take an existing page full of copy and find ways to
break it up into separate sections with headings.
Google Adsense Tips
Place Google Adsense ads on every single page of
your site to make the most money possible. You are allowed to put
3 regular ads and 1 link unit ad and 1 search box on each page.
Put your ads in places that are easy for visitors to see. Do not
try to hide your ads. Use
Google's Heatmap to find the best places to put your ads. I
have found that putting a large or medium rectangle ad at the top
of the page (below your banner and navigation links) with images
or white space around it is the best way to get more clicks. You
may also want to place the ads so that people might accidentally
click on them. If you bombard them with ads, they are more likely
to accidentally click one while they are just clicking the screen
to get their mouse rolling. Don't be afraid for people to see your
ads. No one will click them if they don't see them.
Excerpted from Google's Adsense Tips page:
As a rule of thumb, wider ad formats tend to outperform their
taller counterparts, due to their reader-friendly format. Readers
absorb information in thought units (that is, several words at a
time). The wider format lets them comfortably read more text at a
glance without having to skip a line and return to the left margin
every few words as they would be forced to do with a narrower ad.
The wider ad format also lessens the likelihood of readers leaving
the ad unit altogether.
Since these formats allow users to read more text without having
to skip a line every few words, users' eyes have less chance to
leave the ad unit altogether. If positioned well, these ad formats
can increase your earnings. The formats Google has found to be the
most effective are the 336x280 large rectangle, the 300x250 inline
rectangle, and the 160x600 wide skyscraper. Keep in mind that
while these ad formats typically perform well, you should use the
format that best complements your pages. Google encourages you to
enable image ads, which we do on our sites, but the large
rectangle does not support image ads, and they say that the large
rectangle performs the best, so you have to decide if you want the
large rectangle or the image ads. You can use the medium rectangle
if you prefer to use image ads. There is not much of a difference
in size between the two and it performs well for us.
Which colors to use for your
ads
Use colors that blend in exactly with your site.
Never use the pre-made color palettes that Google offers. Taking
the time to make custom ad colors will be worth your time. If your background is black and you have blue links and white
text, that would mean using ads with a black background, blue
title (that matches the blue of the hyperlinks on your site),
white text, and the URL at the bottom should be either white or
light grey. I have heard that for the URL it's best to use a color
that is a bit lighter (less noticeable) than the color you use for
the description. Do not use any borders on your ads. Make the
border color the same color as the background. You want people to
think that the ads are actual links on your site. If they are a
completely different color than your page, then they will stand
out as advertisements and people will ignore them.
Search Boxes
Use Google's Site Search boxes on your website.
Some sites do very well with the search box. Others don't. You'll
have to try and see. Make sure that the search defaults to search
YOUR site, not the web, or you will lose visitors.
Font Size
If you can make
the font color, type, and size on your site look as close to the
Google ad fonts as possible, that will help a lot in getting
click-throughs. Google uses the size font that they do because
that is the standard size that is the easiest for people to read.
Good fonts to use on your site are Arial 10 pt, Verdana 10 pt, and
Times New Roman 12 pt. (Those are all about the same size.) When
you specify a font size in points, people cannot change the font
with their browser to make it larger if they are having trouble
reading it. If you use font "sizes" instead of "points" then
people can change the font size if they need to. Never use fancy,
custom fonts that you downloaded from the web. You must use
standard fonts on your web sites if you want to be sure that
visitors are seeing your page the way you designed it. If you use
custom fonts, your visitors will not have those same fonts
installed on their computer, so their computer will choose what it
thinks is the next best thing, which could be very different from
what you intended. Use standard fonts only. The only way you can
use a fancy font is if you put it in an image, such as your
banner. Images show up the same for everyone since they are in
pixels.
Thumbnail borders
Put a blue hyperlink border around your thumbnail
images so that people will instantly recognize them as being
thumbnails. If done properly, the border should change to purple
after that thumbnail has been clicked. This way people know which
pictures they have already viewed.
Outgoing Links
Only link to other sites when absolutely
necessary, such as when you have done a link exchange with a site.
In cases like that, you will want to place that link on a "Links"
or "Resources" page so that people don't click it too much and leave
your site. You want to have incoming links, not outgoing links.
Just remember that you are losing traffic (and not making money)
each time someone clicks an outgoing link on your site. You want
them to stay there until they click a Google ad link so you will
make money when they leave.
Web site text/copy
One of the main things you want to do to make your
site perform well in the search engines, especially Google, is to
have a good amount of text on each page whenever possible. That is
the main way Google knows what your pages are about, so you need
relevant text. Here are some tips I found that will be helpful in
writing copy for your pages:
For best results we recommend that each page you
submit has at least 200 words of copy on it. There are some cases
where this much text can be difficult to put on a page, but the
search engines really like it so you should do your best to
increase the amount of copy where you can.
This text should include your most important keyword phrases, but
should remain logical & readable.
Be sure to use those phrases that you have used in your other tags
(i.e. metas, alt, headings, title, etc.) during the optimization
process.
Add additional copy filled pages to your site. For
example: how-to articles, tips or tutorials. These types of
content pages not only help you in the search engines, but many
other sites will link to them too.
Don't ignore this tip! Seriously, optimizing your page copy is one
of the most important things you could possibly do to improve your
listings in the search engines. So, make sure you have plenty of
it even if you need to redesign your site to work it in!
Optimizing for Correct Keywords
- Choosing Your Keywords
To get listed correctly in the search engines, each
page of your site that you want listed needs to be optimized to
the best of your ability. Since the keywords that you decide to
target will be used throughout the optimization process, choosing
the right keywords is essential. If you choose the wrong keywords
you will not be found in the search engines. If you are not found
in the search engines, how will anyone find your site?
Since the keywords you choose to optimize your pages with are so
important we have put together some tips to help you make sure
that you make the right choices. You should utilize these tips
when selecting keywords for each page that you plan to submit to
the search engines.
1. Think "specific keyword phrases" not
"keywords". Why? Due to the extreme amount of competition for
general terms in the search engines, if your keyword phrases are
too general it is very unlikely you will rank well in the search
engines. You stand a far better chance to rank well for specific
phrases where there is less competition. The resulting traffic,
since it is more highly targeted, should also be much higher
quality too! Here's an example for a site selling cars:
2. Try to think like your target audience.
What would they search for when looking for the page you are
optimizing? It is very easy to fall in the trap of coming up with
a short list of what YOU would search for, but what about everyone
else? They will not necessarily use the same keywords as you. You
should try to come up with as many keyword phrases as you can
think of that relate to the page you are optimizing. Try asking a
few friends and family what they would search for when searching
for a site like yours.
3. Check out your competition for ideas. Do
a search using keywords that you already know you want to target
and click through on the top sites that come up. Once on the site,
view the source HTML code and view the keywords they have in their
meta tags - this should give you many more ideas! Make sure to
only use keywords that relate to YOUR site or page. To view the
HTML code simply click the 'View' at the top of your web browser
then select 'Source', or 'Page Source'. Or right-click on the page
and click "View Source."
4. You should develop a list of keyword phrases,
following the tips on this page, for each page that you optimize
for the search engines.
Things to avoid:
Dynamic URLs
I have heard different things about dynamic URLs.
Although some people claim that search engines DO list them in
their search results, most experts say that search engines
will not list pages with dynamic URLs. Below is the explanation
for the common belief that says to avoid dynamic URLs if you want
to rank well in the search engines.
Most search engines cannot or will not list any
dynamic URLs. Dynamic URLs are most commonly used on database
driven sites, or sites that are running scripts. They commonly
look something like this one from MSN Search:
http://search.msn.com/results.asp?q=dynamic+url
If your URL contains any of the following elements
it is considered a Dynamic URL as far as the search engines are
concerned:
?, &, %, +, =, $, cgi-bin, .cgi (commas above are just used as a separator)
If your URL contains any of the above elements it
is very unlikely that it will get listed at any of the major
search engines. We recommend that you submit a different URL
that is not dynamic if possible. If all of your URLs are dynamic
you should probably consider making static pages (i.e. not
dynamic) with URLs that do not contain any of the elements noted
above so that you can get listed in the search engines.
Using Javascript for Navigation
Search engines can't follow links that are within
Javascript, so your site will not get spidered unless you also
have some form of standard HTML hyperlinks that they can follow. You
should add some form of standard HTML hyperlinks
on each of your pages so that your site will be spidered properly.
An easy way to do this is to create a site map page that uses
standard HTML links to link to every page on your site. Then add a
standard HTML link on each page of your site (or just your home
page) that links to the site map.
Site Map
A site map is useful for SEO to make it easier for
search engine spiders to find all content of a site. Search engine
spiders or bots have a hard time following links that use
JavaScript, like mouseovers, so a site map with a collection of
plain text links to all pages can make it easier for more pages of
a site to be indexed in a search engine.
The links on a site map page would ideally be plain text. The text
you use to link to a page should be keyword rich and meaningful to
the page you're linking to. This is true of any links on your
site. Example: A Site Map text link to "Page A" which is about red
widgets should use "Red Widgets" in the text that's being linked.
Be careful though, it's more important to be accurate than to
include keywords.
Since Google is the top search engine, we use their guidelines for
the recommended number of links on a page, which is 100 or less if
you expect any ranking for your site map page. If that is the case
and you have 1000 pages, it would be best to categorize your links
across 10 or more pages. However, the purpose of a site map is
typically not for a site map web page to rank highly, it's to make
it easy for search engine spiders to find and follow the links
contained within the site map page. Google mentions that a site
map with more than 100 links should be broken up, so that would be
the best method to follow. For an example of a good site map, view
Google's Site Map or
Apple.com's Site Map.
Banner Link
Your web site's banner at the top of all of
the pages should be hyperlinked to your homepage. That makes it very easy for the
visitors to get back to your home page. Plus the banner image is a
good place to have an alt tag with keywords that are
relevant to the site.
Thumbnail images open in new
page
Set your site up so that when a
thumbnail image is clicked, the visitor is taken to a whole new
page with the background, navigation, and Google Ads on it. You
can get a lot more mileage out of your ads this way.
More Adsense Tips
Below are some links to web pages that have Google
Adsense tips. We have discussed all the major ones here, but you
may find more ideas that will work for you, as there are many of
them. The main thing is to read as much as you can about Adsense
and learn all the tips available out there.
Read everything you can about Adsense tips. Here
is a good place to start when you get to this step:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum89/8033.htm (8 pages of
tips here, so check them all out.) It would benefit you to read
this forum and ask questions there. They know a lot about ALL of
this stuff that we are talking about.
Also, just search for "adsense tips" on Google to
find many more. That is where I found those. If you learn to use a
search engine well, you can find anything you could ever want and
you will never have to ask anyone else for anything again.
