Configuring Google Sitemaps And Your SEO Strategy

Like many of you, I am always trying to find as much information as I can on Search Engine Optimization. And also like many of you, I am doing it myself. I read online and buy books on search engine optimization and many of them all say the same things, just in a different way.

Sadly with most search engines the solution is simply the number of links pointing back to your site. The search engines feel that they can control the quality of their search results by focusing on the websites that have a large number of links pointing to them.
Simply put, it’s a popularity vote. Their reasoning is that if nobody else thinks your site is important, why should they index it.

That doesn’t mean you can’t get your site indexed though. In 2005 Google created a submission system called Google sitemaps. Yahoo soon followed with one of their own as well.

Aside from taking advantage of this tool to insure your site indexing, Google sitemaps also provide a variety of statistics related to your site. You can see what the search engines see in regards to pages that they can’t find, your page rank and even search statistics.

“That’s really great Ben, but my site is HUGE and I don’t know anything about xml and how to format these things”. Well I had the same problem, I have sitemaps with over 6000 links in them, and frankly I was not about to try and manually create a sitemap with all of those links, I just don’t have the time. So I went ahead and created a smaller sitemap of all of my sites with a dozen or less elements included so that I would at least get something indexed.

That was until I stumbled over a sitemap generator that did all of the work for me. There are others out there but this one has a web page that you can go to and have them generate your sitemap, as well as a desktop version. It’s called the ROR sitemap Generator. And all you have to do is key in your domain name and let it do the rest.

Save the sitemap to your directory, and viola! I used the desktop version personally because I’ve found that it performs quicker and doesn’t hang up on sites with thousands of links. They also have the “ROR Feed Generator” which I’ve used with equal success.

Another tool is GSiteCrawler You can use it for Yahoo sitemaps which are in text format compared to xml format.

Oh Yeah, and the best part, these tools are free. You can find them at http://www.rorweb.com/ and http://www.gsitecrawler.com. You will be able to let this tool create your sitemap, save the generated map as sitemap.xml, upload it to your website root directory, then log into your Google sitemap account and enter the path to your sitemap and let google do the rest.

I recently did this for a friend and his site was indexed in 3 days. That’s uncommon, it might take up to 30 days, but you’ll get your pages indexed on google, and many of the other search engines will be able to index your site now too. Is it guaranteed? No, but I personally have had 100% success getting my pages and sites indexed.

Just in case you need help with Google sitemaps, here’s how you want to do the complete process.

1. Set up your account with Google sitemaps at www.google.com/webmaster/sitemaps

2. Generate your sitemap.

3. Place your sitemap in your root directory of your website.

4. Log into your Google account.

5. Click the “Add” tab to add a new sitemap with your account.

6. Select the “General Website sitemap” option.

7. Click Next.

8. Put in your domain name and path to your sitemap.xml file.

9. Click “Add Web sitemap“

10. Take a deep breath, let out a big sigh, let the dog out or take him for a walk and wait.

Now you’ve taken a major step in the right direction with search engines and utilizing Google sitemaps with your SEO strategy. I hope this helps anyone trying to increase their site visibility using the D.I.Y. method, which is all many of us can afford.

Keeping Your Web Pages Out of Google’s Omitted Results

When you have identified why your web pages were moved to Google’s omitted results and how to correct the problem; it’s time to ensure that you keep them out.  Below are a few good pointers for moving forward and keeping your web pages out of Google’s Omitted Results.

1. If you use a Dynamic Web Template (DWT) either from Microsoft FrontPage or Macromedia Dreamweaver, it is imperative that you set an editable region within the <head></head> section. Once this is done, insure that you have your title, meta description and meta keyword tags within that editable region. This will ensure that you have the ability to provide unique titles, meta descriptions and meta keywords to each web page.
2. Always use your domain name when linking to your home page.  Often times websites use index.htm, ./, #, www.mydomain.com or some variation of this to link to their home page.  Keep your home page linking unified.  This will ensure that you do not end up with a couple of home pages listed in Google and what may look like duplicate content.
3. If you have a content management system that automatically creates titles or meta descriptions for you, chances are it may replicate the same title tag or description across various pages within your site. Ask your web designer to ensure that you can have unique titles and meta descriptions for each page. This may require a few extra database fields to be created, but it is well worth it.
4. Utilize your robots.txt file to purposely remove content that you feel is low quality, duplicated or was created for visitors (such as log in pages, checkout pages, privacy statements etc.).

Remember, if your goal is to gain the most of your search engine exposure, your pages have to show up in the results.  Ensuring your pages are truly search engine friendly will provide you with one of the highest return on investments possible.  Continually watch over your site and check Google’s omitted results to ensure you are helping to provide a high quality visitor experience for all users.

Finally, be sure to sign up for a Google Webmaster Console account, it is fast and simple and can provide you with a wealth of information pertaining to problematic areas within your website; and help keep you out of Google’s omitted results!

Few Networking Strategies to build Traffic to Your Site

One essential aspect of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is social marketing. In simple terms, social marketing is an approach that makes use of ‘philosophy’ to pay attention to the specific needs of the target. This is done by gathering people with common interests, making it possible to create an interactive community. Through website technology including forums, blogs, outbound and inbound links, and social networking sites (Myspace, Facebook, Digg, etc.), social marketing becomes a convenient way to increase company gains.

In order to start right out in integrating social marketing strategies with SEO, a plan must be developed first. Moreover, there should be detailed research regarding the target’s needs, most especially since the approach is customer-oriented. It may also be helpful to consult with firms specializing in Internet Marketing. These firms will provide invaluable information and insights on how different approaches work together in maximizing company results. Once you have a better understanding of the various strategies, you can now employ the ones suitable for your needs.

Social marketing involves creating a community where people with shared interests come together to state opinions and ask questions. This can be done by setting up forums or discussion boards on your website. The key here is to generate interaction among the members of your target audience. A vast majority of consumers do online research before making any purchases; forums are helpful in providing information regarding customer inquiries.

Also consider setting up a blog that contains relevant posts that discuss the services and products that your company offers. The information that you will provide may be very well appreciated by your readers. Place links to other websites and blogs that relate to your blog content. Social networking sites including Facebook, Myspace, Digg, and many others might also have useful and interesting content that you can link to. Feature and subscribe to appropriate RSS feeds, so that your readers have a reason to frequently visit your site.

Moreover, it is necessary to keep the forum and blog posts updated and fascinating for people to read. Also remember to use optimized keywords or phrases naturally in your content and titles. Do not let your online community become sedentary; encourage readers to engage in discussions and exchange of fresh ideas and opinions. This way, search engines are more likely to index your site’s content, thus, increasing traffic.
With an effective plan and strategies in place, integrating SEO and social marketing is not a difficult task.