NPSites.com » SEO & Advertising

Robots And Meta Tags – Website Optimization

admin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 02:38:06 +0000

Meta Tags have long been used by Search Engines to Index your Website into their Directories.

Although there have been abuses of Meta Data by SEO Firms which have changed how Robots use this information it is probably still a good idea to include it if it is not too much trouble.

tags are placed in the area in your webpages. They can contain commands and descriptions and sometimes your blog or website software can include these tags automatically. If not then you will have to find a way to add them to your header area in your website template or html files.

Lets look at some of the more popular tags.

Controlling Robots
There are 2 settings which can be turned on and off
Index this page INDEX, NOINDEX
Follow links on this page FOLLOW, NOFOLLOW

You can also mix and match the index and follow command for instance you could ask the robot not to index this page but follow links to other pages.

Or you could ask it to index this page but not follow links to other pages.

Content Type Descriptions

Now every page you make should have a doctype descriptor as the first line. This is pretty much a mandatory descriptor today because our browsers read in many different file and content types. Meta Descriptors are used for indexing your content and can also include content type and language type instructions.

Content Author Information

It is important to include a human readable copyright notice on your pages but you can also include this information in your meta tags. You can include the Author, Contact info or email and Copyright info.

Search Engine Keywords and Descriptions
Keywords and Descriptions in Meta Tags are not often used anymore because some SEO firms would get fake placement in search engines by manipulating this data. But it is probably not a bad idea to include it anyway until it has been officially deprecated.

Other Uses
Meta Data can be used for for any type of descriptive information and some companies such as child safe search engines and website blocking software read the meta tags to see the Rating of the website you are visiting. This information is voluntary by the website owner but if your visitor is using website blocking software and you do not include this tag they will not be able to load your webpages.

an example of such a tag would be:

Should I Buy Links To Improve My Search Engine Rank?

admin — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 03:48:00 +0000

Back links are probably one of the most important ways to get higher search engine placement but it is important to get the right links to push your placement.

For the most part that means you can’t buy links on the right sites and you can’t go out and generate a bunch of free websites to promote your links. This practice is called link farming and because Search Engines depend on advertising they are always hunting down link farms and excluding them from their databases.

Even so you will still see companies claiming they can place 10,000 good links to your site for $495.99….. Don’t fall for this. The best way is to have good content that visitors will back link or share with friends. Not to mention the fact that if your site is included in a weblink farm you may end up on a black list once the search engine company blocks the farm from their database.

Becoming popular is relatively slow at first unless you have a large advertising budget. Google recommends that a publisher write at least 500 unique pages before they begin to evaluate their websites placement.

For an average Blogger even a commercialized website with just one or a few writers this can mean weeks or months before enough good content is available for both your viewers and for webbots to evaluate.

In our other Guides we will go over methods that can improve not only your traffic but your retention of visitors. We will also cover how to implement an ad campaign and how to ad advertising to your site.

So, pretty much as you probably thought if something seems too good to be true then it probably is.

Value your visitors by making good content and they will return the favor by linking back to you.

HowTo – Controlling Adbrite Inline Ads

admin — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 13:44:20 +0000

Ok so you just got your new Adbrite account and you are ready to setup your first Ad Zone.

You go to a screen where it asks you what type of ads you want on your pages. Of course you select the banner ad because that is the best for placement but there are 2 other ad types (as of now) that you can select.

The first is a full page ad that is shown to the visitor after 3 to 5 page views, we will cover this ad type in a different HowTo

The second is their inline Link Ads that highlight words on your page automatically and then show the visitor a popup ad when they hover over the word.

The inline ad type is best used on pages with a lot of text 500 words or more is best.

You also may want to restrict their use from pages that are official information about your business like your About page or Contact form pages and also your Store Pages where a visitor may be navigated away froma purchase.

Other then that they can be placed on any page simply by adding a small javascript to the page and including the option in your Ad Zone.

Ok so lets step through the process and get control over these Inline Ads.

Create a New Ad Zone in your Ad Brite Account

For best control select inline ads only.

Fill in all of the information about your site or use the stored info.
Name of ad zone: yoursite.com InLine Ads

Set your keywords and other site information then click Get Ad Code

The ad code is a javascript that you can place anywhere on your page but it is probably best placed in your Header since it is not an ad banner.

WordPress Users
If you are using wordpress you can include this code in your specific theme templates to restrict the ads.

To view inline ads only in post and not on pages place the code in your single.php file.

Once the ad zone is activated in your account it will take some time for it to show up on your website. Expect at least 2 to 12 hours until your inline ads start showing up in the text of your site.

Getting Control over the Placement of the Ads

Once you see the ads have been activated you will notice that words outside of your main post content will be highlighted. You may even see parts of menus and headers and footers being highlighted.

This will make for a very ugly site.

To restrict the area that inline ads will be made in your text you can simply use the following:

your content here

for WordPress users open your single.php file and wrap the span around your content php

Now all of your highlighted inline adbrite ads will be restricted just to your main content area.

Final Note

Every website is different and using inline ads is something that may chase your visitors away but it will reduce ad blindness where visitors completely ignore ads.

You should treat this ad type as you would any other and if you do not see income you may want to restrict its use.

Yahoo Buzz Buttons User Announcements

admin — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:16:34 +0000

After you ask the major search engines to index your site how do you announce new content?

Well Yahoo Buzz is a Beta directory of recent posts to websites, blogs and other information on the web that viewers find interesting enough to give a bump.

To let your visitors submit your sites pages to Yahoo Buzz you can add a Button that will bring your visitors to the yahoo Buzz site.

You have a few options when you select your button including predefining the form fields for the submission.

To get started

Visit Yahoo’s website and choose a button you like

http://buzz.yahoo.com/buttons

You have the choice of a standard button or one that shows how many times your page has been submitted.

Once you have selected the button you want all you need to do is add the javascript to your site.

You also need to replace the ARTICLEURL in the code with the url to the page.

For WordPress users you can replace ARTICLEURL with a link to your Permalink code.

You can also fill in some of the other optional fields with WordPress code.

If you are not using WordPress but you are using PHP there are a number of ways to grab urls and place page titles into your Buzz Buttons. Your use will depend on your website.

You should check with Yahoo’s site for additional updates to their Buzz Buttons

Here are some other optional fields that you can put in your button code.
Optional Elements

To provide a story’s headline upon submission: yahooBuzzArticleHeadline = “Enter Story Headline Here”

To provide a story’s summary upon submission:
yahooBuzzArticleSummary = “Enter Story Summary Here”

To provide a story’s category upon submission:
yahooBuzzArticleCategory = “Enter Story Category Here”

where “Enter Story Category Here” must be one of the following: business, entertainment, health, images, lifestyle, politics, science, sports, travel, usnews, video, world-news

To provide a story’s media type upon submission:
yahooBuzzArticleType = “Enter Media Type Here”

where “Enter Media Type Here” must be one of the following: text, image, video

Finally, to automatically pull the URL associated with the page where the button lives upon submission: yahooBuzzArticleId = window.location.href

HowTo – Make Money With Google Adsense

admin — Fri, 30 Jan 2009 19:23:29 +0000

Making money online with your content is important if you are dedicated to the information that you talk about and want to take it to the next level.

As you might notice this site makes use of Google Ads but so do many other high volume professional websites.

So, what is it about Google’s offerings that sets them apart from other advertising networks?

For the most part it all comes down to the quality of the product and the integrity that stands behind it.

If you have been on the Internet for more then a few years developing content you probably came across some pretty big names that offered free signups, decent statistics but they never seemed to come through when it was time to pay for their ad placement.

Some of these companies offered pay per view while others offered pay per click or pay per action (purchase) but the fact is no matter what action the ad company said was needed you never got paid.

Whats even worse was the feeling that you were serving up tens or hundreds of thousands of ad views and click-throughs and there was nothing you could do.

Large companies that bought ads (especially pay per purchase) would endup with billions of views throughout the Internet and never have to pay a dime. Publishers were getting screwed.

I can personally remember logging into this one ad companies account and looking at my stats. I had something like 700k views 20k click-throughs and only earned about $1.20. IT WAS INSANE heh :o)

When Google came in and decided to offer their advertising services on top of their search engine I think most people thought they would be the same as any other Internet ad broker but the fact is they set the parameters of the product and then followed through on their side.

Maybe they were immature and didn’t know that you could cheat because they didn’t grow up in the advertising world… they were programmers.

Anyway, quite a few of those companies ended up going out of business.

It doesn’t matter if you have a small site about cats or if your company runs 10 of the top 100 Internet websites. You signup for an account… place the ads on your site and get paid based on the product terms.

Make no mistake about it Google is getting rich off of content that they don’t have to create and remember at the bottom of every ad is their own logo so they are getting lots of promotion for their own products.

Today they are the favorite and probably the largest ad network out there and its all because they decided to share their revenues with publishers.

This is what really changed Internet advertising and why so many sites small and large use Google.

So…

How do you make money with Google Adsense?

Simple just signup for their service and place ads on your site.

And you are asking… that’s all there is to it?

Pretty much…

Placing the ads on your site is the beginning but making the most out of the ad program is a totally different thing.

If you already have a popular site then that’s the hard part. If you are just starting your site then there are many steps between where you are and where you need to be to make some real money from Internet advertising no matter what company you sign up with.

For the most part just to get started earning you need a site with over 1,000 pages of information.
It is at or about this level that you will see actual returns from your work.

The content also has to be interesting so your visitors will return and tell their friends.

The type of content doesn’t really matter… you can talk about any topic.

In other HowTos we will cover the details of different parts of the Google Adsence program : How to setup ads, where they are best placed on your pages and we will talk about general ways to improve your websites placement in directories and how to retain visitors.

All of these things will add up to you making money but in the end advertising revenues are about giving you the opportunity to continue work you love and expanding into other areas that interest you.

HowTo – Understanding Ad Banner Placement For Best Profit

admin — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 12:06:10 +0000

Ad companies provide a variety of different sizes and formats to allow webdesiners freedom while laying out pages but what are the best placement strategies for gaining the most profit from your ads.

First we should look at the basic layout of 90% of websites.

For the most part every website will have

Header / Masthead
Sidebar – left, right or both
Content Area (instory ads)
Footer

Each of these locations are good for locating your advertising assets but there are some basic principles that will get you better returns.

Ad Blindness – this is a term associated with visitors gaining the ability to totally ignore advertisements on websites.

Studies have been made where people can totally or almost totally block out advertising content while viewing pages so it is important to combat this the best you can.

This is similar to what you might have learned in Science Class where an Amoeba is hit with a bright light then shocked with an electric probe. The amoeba then divides in two but retains the ability to predict a shock when the light is turned on.

This is what happens when people see too many ads … not just on your site but after months and years of internet use. They ignore them and don’t click and what is more interesting is that flashing jumpy animated ads might actually perform worse then a basic text ad due to ad blindness.

Above the Fold
Most ads that get viewed are above the fold or placed in the viewable area of the browsers first load. This term came from newspaper advertising where advertisers would pay more to be on the top half a newspaper that was folded in half and placed in news boxes along street locations for sale.

This is because people would stop to read the headlines of the paper and not purchase one and also because people on trains, buses or in the bathroom library would often fold the paper and not read the bottom half of the page.

Banner Location and Formats
When you are designing your site you should take into account the size of available advertising banners and adjust your site to meet those dimensions. After all you are building content to turn a profit so taking the dimensions of your ads into account in the design stage will save you headaches later.

Banners come in industry standard sizes

468×60 Standard Banner
160×600 Skyscraper
300×250 Square
After this first group there are a variety of other shapes that may be offered by those ad networks that want to give you more options.

Banners Text vs Image
The content of the ad can also make a difference on where it is best placed.
Text only ads make sense when positioned next to menus or within text based content.

Image only banners are best placed next to or within other media content.

Testing For Results
Most ad networks will allow you to setup a number of different banners and allow you to track each one by name and domain.

When you make new ads you should label them not only based on site and type but location on the page

IE : MySite-300×250-RightSidebarAd

Then when you enter your account you can see right away which ad is performing best.

Final Note

Don’t be afraid to change your ad placement strategy if you find your performance is not what you want.

Inline or in story ads often work best if they are text ads because the reader is less likely to jump over the ad due to ad blindness.

Always place your best paying ads on the top 40% of the page. Visitors may not even read the whole page if they have gathered enough information from the first few paragraphs so put your ads where the visitor is reading.

Make use of any bare space on your footers or sidebars. Never leave a spot open if you can stick another ad in and still keep your site looking good.

BlueLituium Advertising Network

admin — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 13:16:14 +0000

BlueLituium is a topsites ad network that is now owned by Yahoo.

They serve websites that have the highest visitor rates mostly sites like Ebay BestBuy but if you think your site can serve up enough unique visitors then you can probably cut a pretty decent deal on your ad space.

They work with all media types in all formats and shapes.

Basically you are talking about a top dollar hold your hand type of deal and more then likely if your site is one that will be accepted into their program they already know who you are and how to get hold of you.

The main benefit of this network is that they closely match ads to viewers. More then likely publishers can ask per view payment instead of click through due to the fact the space itself is a tangible asset similar to print media.

You got to love it. Its nice that there are services like this but doesn’t it feel a little exclusionary?

For more information visit www.bluelitium.com

or just wait for their call heh.

HowTo – Make Money With Google Checkout Merchant Referral Program

admin — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 19:46:43 +0000

As a web designer or hosting company it is great to offer professional services to your clients but referral programs are also a good way to make money and provide a better solution.

Most shopping carts will require some type of simple payment solution and there are a variety of merchants out there that can process your payments.

Google is a premier product provider and their merchant services are found on many major commerce websites.

When a customer comes to your site or if it is a site that you designed for someone else even if you use a very popular payment method you may exclude some transactions if the visitor does not have that type of payment account.

With Google Checkout Merchant Referral Incentive Program

If you’re a developer, e-commerce provider, web designer, or any other business that maintains relationships with online merchants, you can earn cash for helping your merchants get up and running with Google Checkout.

Get paid for every merchant you sign up.

In their first year, earn 0.5% of all Checkout sales your merchants process and $25 for each merchant you refer who processes at least $500 in sales and 3 transactions with Checkout.

Earn when you integrate your platform with Checkout.

Earn $1000 for integrating with the Checkout API and an additional $2500 for integrating with the Order Processing APIs.

For More information visit

https://services.google.com/inquiry/checkout_merchant_referrals

HowTo – Google KeyWord Tools To Get More Traffic

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 15:09:47 +0000

When you are setting up your meta tags keywords and descriptions shouldn’t be left out. Yes maybe they are deprecated by search engines but then again adding them isn’t all that much effort so why take a chance.

Google has provided a keyword helper tool for people like us that often have a hard time thinking of words ….

You can enter some keywords and it will return some synonyms to help you or even more interesting you can enter a URL and it will generate a live list.

The Keyword Tool can be found at
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

There is also a search based tool that is based on actual google search queries.

Find that tool here

http://www.google.com/sktool/#

It is also important when entering your keywords to find a way to generate them for each specific page.

If you are using wordpress or another cms solution try adding a Custom Field in your meta tag header that you can enter in each post that you make.

HowTo – Improving Your Web Rank With Sociable WordPress Plugin

admin — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 17:21:48 +0000

As content developers we are always trying to find ways to attract visitors to our pages.

One of the nice ways we can do this is by giving our visitors the ability to quickly post backlinks and announcements on social and directory networks when they like what they have read. This is where the Sociable Plugin for WordPress really shines.

With about 100 optional sites you can insert links to all of the popular social networks. When a visitor who belongs to one of these sites wants to give your post a bump they click on the icon and are taken to the social network with predefined fields and urls all ready to be submitted.

If you know of a site that isn’t on the list its not that hard to add them. Just find an appropriate ico file for the site and enter all the appropriate information in the plugin code.

The plugin will automatically insert the list you select on the bottom of your posts but you can use php within your post loop to place the button bar where you like it.

Sociable is free to use but considering all of the hours that went into finding and setting up the code (try to add a couple buttons manually and you will see) its cool if you send the author a donation so they can keep updating the code.

In wordpress 2.7 or higher you can install from your plugin settings page or you can visit

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/

Author: Joost de Valk

http://yoast.com/