Internet Marketing Explained...

Roger Gregory offers website design
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Optimising your website for Google AND Yahoo!

Following basic principles and working hard to develop incoming links can help you reach the top of the largest search engines.

Optimising your website for both Google and Yahoo requires quite different techniques. Many websites that rank well in one of the two
search engine giants can perform quite badly in the other. This is the direct result of each search engine having its own unique ranking algorithm. For example, Google's algorithm, for the most part, places great value on the anchor text of in-bound links whereas Yahoo places more emphasis on keyword density and meta tags.
The primary reason for the difference in algorithms is that Google owns the patent on a thing called Page Rank (PR). As a result of owning this patent, other search engines need to place more emphasis on different optimisation factors including the website URL, keyword density and so on.
What are the greatest differences in search engine algorithms?
Google places a lot of emphasis on the inbound links to your website - other sites that link to yours. How valuable Google considers these links to be is based on their Google PR. The more links you receive from high Google PR web pages, the better placed your website will be for a given keyword or search term.
Yahoo, on the other hand, places emphasis on website URLs, meta tags, and keyword density. These factors can be analysed on any website with a limited amount of effort, allowing Yahoo to quickly and easily rank websites properly.
How you can optimise your website for both Google and Yahoo!
The challenge all website owners face is making the most of their optimisation efforts. When thinking about search engine optimisation, you need to cover all the bases, paying particular attention to the following guidelines:
• Keyword Targeted URL: If your website URL (in other words, it's name, e.g., www.MYDOMAIN.com) doesn't contain your keywords, consider purchasing a new one or creating a new page off of your root directory . Having your keywords in the URL helps improve both your Yahoo and Google search results. Yahoo weighs the website address as an important ranking factor. Google values a keyword rich URL when third party websites place a link to your site using nothing but a web address.
• Meta Tags: Although not as important as they once were, Yahoo still uses meta tags to help align search engine rankings and appropriate website pages. Make sure that your meta tags are complete and include your keyword phrases in the title, the description and the keyword tags.
• Keyword Density Between 6 - 8%: Although much has been written about the importance of keyword density remaining between 2 - 3%, Yahoo looks for sites with keyword densities as high as 8%. Don't be afraid to include your keywords throughout your webpage content. Make sure however, that your keyword density is not more than 8% and also be sure that your text still makes sense. Remember your human visitors too!
• Link Building: This is the most important factor for improving your rankings in Google's search results. Develop a link building campaign and give other websites a reason to link to yours. This may include free downloads, tools, or other valuable resources.
• Site Map: Publish a sitemap. If you don't know how to, consider contacting a marketing agency (like us!) as having a sitemap makes it easy for search engines to spider your website and access all of your most important pages. Site maps should be accessible from your home page and should be kept up-to-date.

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