SEO UPDATES

For over a week I have been reading articles and blogs that have been wondering about the slowness of Yahoo!’s email. I personally don’t see any slowness but then again I use that email only a few times a year. At this point it has over 600 emails in it, all junk of course.

I started paying closer attention and have noticed that Yahoo! itself is slow. Doing a search took me two minutes and clicking news links took a minute or more for the page to open. Sometimes five minutes passed and I am seething in rage as the site refuses to go through.

I made sure to check that it wasn’t my pc or cable modem, and checked a multitude of websites that popped open in seconds and went back to Yahoo! only to sit there as it slugged through, trying to decide if it would let me through or just come up blank for the third and fourth time in a row.

While a lot of people use Google’s search. I myself use Yahoo! everytime and even has it as my homepage in IE. It has been this way with me for years and at this point I am thinking it’s more out of habit than preference because I’m no longer finding it very useful at times.

Millions of us use a search engine to find something daily, weekly or monthly. However a website called Blingo has made using search engines a little more fun. It uses Google’s search engine so you still get great results but everytime you do a search, up to ten times a day. You have the potential to win a prize.

You go on to find a recipe and next thing you know, you have just won an iPod. You can refer other’s and if they win something, then you automatically win it as well. They also have certain preset times that are called frenzies. In which someone wins a prize approximately every 30 seconds.

The prizes change montly but for the month of April you have the chance to win a movie ticket, iPod, PSP, and other items.

If you have a website, should you be obsessed with search engine optimization (seo)? Well, it depends. I do feel that all websites should be as optimized as you can get them but their is no reason to have a meltdown over it.

Google changes how it ranks every few months and many hold their breath wondering what will happen to how they rank in the search engines depending on the phrase they use. Some can see their business and amount of visitors daily lower significantly after such an update to Google’s system.

The thing about that is, if your only way of getting customer’s or just visitors to your website is through search engines, then depending on what your site or blog is about, your going to lose in the long run. Things change, you can’t expect to put all your eggs in one basket. If you are not a business and only make money on the side of your site then considering doing link trades.

Trading links helps you with your ranking plus gets you knew visitors who wouldn’t have been searching for your site. Also there are lots of places online in which you can get advertising on individual websites at no great cost.

Your site might rank high on search engines, but it could probably go higher — there’s always room for improvement.

How can you achieve this? Try these tips:

Change the focus of your copy
Make the content as visitor-focused as possible. Visitors don’t want to know about you and your business as much as they want to know how your product or service will make their lives easier.

Change the structure of your copy
Put the most important and impressive things first. Don’t ‘lead up’ to the best details, because your readers might not stick around long enough for the climax.

Don’t simply pack in keywords and keyphrases
It’s not a numbers game. “Basing your copywriting strategy simply on the sheer volume of times you can include keyphrases makes the copy sound forced and ridiculous.”

And some final words of advice…

Take the time to explore, experiment and test. Replace a headline. Rephrase a paragraph. Subtle changes can often make noticeable improvements in conversions and other areas of business.

Source: ISEdb)

Your domain name is one of the most important aspects — if not the most important aspect — of your web site and your branding efforts.

“Your domain name goes on your letterhead, business card, printed materials; it must be spoken verbally over the phone, presented in email communications, and appears in the search results when your site ranks well on important keyword searches.”

It sums up your entire on-line presence, and it needs to be great. Don’t just buy the first thing that comes to mind — give your name a lot of thought. Here are some tips:

1. Get a business name domain
…if your business name is not already taken by another business or a squatter.

2. Get a Keyword domain
…this will bring in more traffic.

3. Make the name short and memorable, and avoid hyphens
“Long domain names or domains with hyphens are often just too cumbersome for someone to remember or even pass along to others.”

4. Make sure the name is spelled correctly
“The exception to this rule is if you have secured both the correctly spelled and incorrectly spelled URLs” and you then use “redirects to send visitors from the correctly spelled URL to your main (misspelled) address.”

5. Secure a ‘.com’ domain
These “domain names are by far the most common and most remembered.”

(See isedb for more)

Search Engine War has reported that Yahoo, Msn and Ebay are all in the market for Seo experts.

Martin Dinham:

“You know something has changed in the perception enterprise search engine optimisation (SEO) when you see three of the very biggest names MSN, Ebay and Yahoo! taking it seriously enough to independently recruit SEO Managers.”

Openings:

• Msn
• Ebay
• Yahoo

You do have to wonder what this means for SEO if the pros are looking for even bigger guns for their respective sites. Should the little guys be worried that something is coming around the bend?