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The SEO Guru Killer

October 28th, 2008 by admin

OK, so, you have seen all the gurus advertise their learning packages for $2,000 to learn the secrets of Getting Top Google placement, or PPC Conversions.  It’s great information, but who wants to spend $2K on information, especially when your not 100% sure it is accurate.  SEO Game Plan would like to share with you 2 SEO Guru KILLERS!  This information comes direct from the 800lb Gorilla – GOOGLE!

Check out these video goldmines from 2 parts of Google you should be involved in.  Webmaster Tools, and Google analytics. 

For Webmasters
Here are 14 powerful, accurate and informative videos from Google Webmaster Tools.
Google guru Matt Cutts discusses how best to optimize your site for Google.
Here is a sample; Matt Cutts Discusses Webmaster Tools

You can find more about these webmaster resources here at http://www.google.com/webmasters/

Conversion Questions:
Here are 21 crucial videos from Google Conversion University
Learn more about Google Anaytics at the Official Google Analytics Blog.

Google Analytics Videos On YouTube

These videos will take you further than almost any of these so called GURU sales packages out there. 

Also, in case you’ve been under a rock, don’t forget to check out the Google Keyword Tool.  It’s got 2 amazing parts to it. 

1) Descriptive words or phrases – find & generate keyword suggestions
2) Website content – find out what google thinks your site is about!  (or your competitors sites)

 Good Luck and Enjoy the Videos,
SEO Game Plan Team :)

Category: Optimization, Strategy | 100 Comments »

SEO Hosting

April 18th, 2008 by Craig

Choose a C-Class Host

Choosing a proper host should be the first step in your SEO GAME PLAN. Website owners are becoming more SEO savvy and more and more website owners are seeking SEO-friendly hosting. As a result, many providers sell hosting plans with multiple Class Cs, but they share IPs with multiple customers. Website owners need to watch out for this it can be dangerous for a website owner.  If a hosting fee for a Class C IP address seems too good to be true you may be getting what you pay for. For instances, if you get an IP from a Bulk hosting provider you maybe on an IP with 1,000’s of other website owners some could be “shady” and you run the risk of having the entire IP banned, instantly losing your search credibility.

It is best to go with a web hosting provider like SEO GAME PLAN which assigns each website account holder its own different Class C IP Address. Website owners who have multiple websites will benefit from SEO GAME PLAN Hosting because they can link each site to each other and receive credit from interlinking between the sites because they are on different Class C addresses.

SEO GAME PLAN observed that although only small percent of websites are on dedicated IPs, well over 80 (+) percent of the top-10 results in the search engines are sites having dedicated IP numbers. SEO GAME PLAN confirmed this by running a test that included moving a site from a shared IP to a dedicated IP and noticed “measurable ranking increases.”

About SEO GAME PLAN: SEO GAME PLAN is a Search Engine Optimization, Search Engine Marketing and SEO Hosting Company— We are premier provider of Class C hosting and leader in SEO, SEM and hosting services. SEO GAME PLAN’s portfolio includes nearly 12 years of Internet development and marketing experience.

Category: Optimization, SEO Services, SEO Tips, SEO Web Hosting | No Comments »

SEO benefit of XML sitemaps

March 27th, 2008 by Craig

Today we are exploring the SEO benefits of XML sitemaps.  We already know Google, MSN, Yahoo and Ask.com jointly support the Sitemaps protocol.  But does having a XML sitemap on your website affect your ranking in the search engines?   Let’s take a look…

What is a XML Sitemap?
Unlike traditional SiteMaps which act more as a human friendly contents page, an XML SiteMap uses an XML schema to provide a Sitemap protocol as defined by SiteMaps.Org.  In short a  XML Sitemap allows webmasters to submit a master list of all their site’s pages to Google, Yahoo, MSN and Ask.com for indexing. Information about the website is stored in an XML file along with other relevant information as specified by the webmaster. It is best practice to have your XML sitemap include, last modified date, update frequency, and priority. The purpose of this Sitemap is to have the most recent version of your URL’s indexed in Google and others and at all times.

Do you need to have a XML Sitemap?
XML sitemaps can generally help any site needing to be indexed; however, small static sites may not see the need for this. For example, if you have a small 5 to 10 page website that seldom sees any of its pages updated and your entire site is already in Google’s index, the XML Sitemap is not necessarily going to help much. It is best used when trying to keep the latest versions of your pages current in Google and the major search engines. Large sites with 1,000’s of URL’s will also benefit, especially if all of their pages are not appearing in the index. Google XML Sitemaps will benefit you if you have either a dynamic or large site.

Will using XML Sitemaps improve my Search Ranking?
In most cases this can improve your rankings especially if you have a new website. By having the most current version of your site in Google’s index, this can speed up your ranking in the results pages. This is because if you make an update to a page for optimization purposes, Google’s index will have this page updated more quickly than without a XML sitemap. What this essentially means is that with more frequent spidering you can help influence what version of your site is in the index, and ultimately, increase your ranking.

How do you create the XML Sitemap?
You can create your XML sitemap manually or use widely avaialble automated tools. There are a number of available solutions for this. One of the simplest methods of creating XML sitemaps is through the use of Blackwoodproductions Dynamic XML Sitemap Creator (Spydermap). This is a free, easy to use tool that will help you create your XML sitemaps with ease. The Spydermap then re-updates your sitemap page for you automatically. The XML based Spydermap is a hands-freeservice for any serious webmaster.  There are also number of downloadable and online tools listed on Google’s site which cater to both beginners and seasoned professionals alike.

Submitting your XML Sitemap to Google is relatively straightforward. After the file has been created the first thing you want to do is upload the file to your server, we recommend at the root level. Log into the Sitemap console using your Google account. From here you can add a site to your account. Simply enter your top level domain where it says “Add Site”. This will add the domain to your account and allow you to then submit the XML sitemap.

So… the answer to today’s question: Does having a XML sitemap on your website affect your ranking? I say YES!  They can help you to achieve up to date indexing in Google, and can be of significant use in the ranking of many websites.

Category: Optimization, SEO Tips, Strategy | 113 Comments »

Keywords in URL

December 20th, 2007 by admin

We have added another “SEO Tip” to our list of simple on page SEO methods.  Tip #2 deals with the use of your Keyword in the URL.  As webmasters work to optimize key terms and pages of their sites, having clear, easy-to -read URL’s is key.  Have a look at SEO Tip #2.

Category: Keywords, Optimization, SEO Tips, Strategy | 79 Comments »

Major Crawler Add URL Pages

June 5th, 2007 by admin

Here are the URL’s you need to add your site to the major Search Engines.

Google
http://www.google.com/addurl.html

Yahoo
http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request

Windows Live Search
http://search.live.com/docs/submit.aspx


Yahoo Site Explorer
Site Explorer allows you to explore all the web pages indexed by Yahoo! Search. View the most popular pages from any site, dive into a comprehensive site map, and find pages that link to that site or any page.
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/

Google Sitemaps
http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/

Category: Optimization | 105 Comments »

301 Redirect – How to create redirects

May 23rd, 2007 by admin

301 redirect is the most efficient and Search Engine Friendly method for webpage redirection. It’s not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you have to change file names or move pages around, it’s the safest option. The code “301” is interpreted as “moved permanently”.

Below are a Couple of methods to implement URL Redirection

IIS Redirect

  • In internet services manager, right click on the file or folder you wish to redirect
  • Select the radio titled “a redirection to a URL”.
  • Enter the redirection page
  • Check “The exact url entered above” and the “A permanent redirection for this resource”
  • Click on ‘Apply’

ColdFusion Redirect

<.cfheader statuscode=”301″ statustext=”Moved permanently”>
<.cfheader name=”Location” value=”http://www.new-url.com”>

PHP Redirect

<?
Header( “HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently” );
Header( “Location: http://www.new-url.com” );
?>

ASP Redirect

<%@ Language=VBScript %>
<%
Response.Status=”301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”,”http://www.new-url.com/”);
%>

ASP .NET Redirect

<script runat=”server”>
private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
{
Response.Status = “301 Moved Permanently”;
Response.AddHeader(“Location”,”http://www.new-url.com”);
}
</script>

JSP (Java) Redirect

<%
response.setStatus(301);
response.setHeader( “Location”, “http://www.new-url.com/” );
response.setHeader( “Connection”, “close” );
%>

CGI PERL Redirect

$q = new CGI;
print $q->redirect(“http://www.new-url.com/”);

Ruby on Rails Redirect

def old_action
headers[“Status”] = “301 Moved Permanently”
redirect_to “http://www.new-url.com/”
end

Redirect Old domain to New domain (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all your directories and pages of your old domain will get correctly redirected to your new domain.
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymLinks
RewriteEngine on
RewriteRule (.*) http://www.newdomain.com/$1 [R=301,L]

Please REPLACE www.newdomain.com in the above code with your actual domain name.

In addition to the redirect I would suggest that you contact every backlinking site to modify their backlink to point to your new website.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

Redirect to www (htaccess redirect)

Create a .htaccess file with the below code, it will ensure that all requests coming in to domain.com will get redirected to www.domain.com
The .htaccess file needs to be placed in the root directory of your old website (i.e the same directory where your index file is placed)

Options +FollowSymlinks
RewriteEngine on
rewritecond %{http_host} ^domain.com [nc]
rewriterule ^(.*)$ http://www.domain.com/$1 [r=301,nc]

Please REPLACE domain.com and www.newdomain.com with your actual domain name.

Note* This .htaccess method of redirection works ONLY on Linux servers having the Apache Mod-Rewrite moduled enabled.

How to Redirect HTML

Please refer to section titled ‘How to Redirect with htaccess’, if your site is hosted on a Linux Server and ‘IIS Redirect’, if your site is hosted on a Windows Server.

Category: Definition, Optimization | 82 Comments »

7 Great SEO Tools

May 17th, 2007 by admin

Here is a collection of some of our favorite SEO tools. Read the rest of this entry »

Category: Optimization | 136 Comments »

Search Engine Optimization Firm

May 14th, 2007 by admin

Isn’t Google smart enough to find my site? 

Why do you need a Search Engine Optimization Firm
The answer is simple.  You need an SEO Game Plan.  Search engines have complex sets of rules and algorithms that help determine which sites are shown at the top of search results.  While Yahoo! , Google and MSN keep their formulas for determining search results a secret, how they crawl the web and choose what to display is  NOT a complete mystery.  

Read the rest of this entry »

Category: Optimization, SEO | 108 Comments »