It’s more a less a starter guide for Search Engine Optimization, and covers these topics:

• Good practices for page title tags
• the “description” meta tag
• URL Structure
• Site Navigation
• Good practices for content
• Anchor text
• Heading tags
• Image Optimization
• Make effective use of robots.txt

Here is what Google had to say about their SEO Guide:

Our Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide covers around a dozen common areas that webmasters might consider optimizing. We felt that these areas (like improving title and description meta tags, URL structure, site navigation, content creation, anchor text, and more) would apply to webmasters of all experience levels and sites of all sizes and types. Throughout the guide, we also worked in many illustrations, pitfalls to avoid, and links to other resources that help expand our explanation of the topics. We plan on updating the guide at regular intervals with new optimization suggestions and to keep the technical advice current.

Good show Google.  We love when we get to hear from the horse’s mouth what’s really going on.

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

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.

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.

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/

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.

Strongest Link Directory
http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php

Google score of page’s link popularity
http://toolbar.google.com easy way to see Google score of page’s link popularity

Compare Google and Yahoo Search Results
http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html

Back Link Analysis Tool
http://www.linkhounds.com/link-harvester/backlinks.php

Site Index Checker tool:
http://2005.netconcepts.com/urlcheck/

PageRank Lookup Tool:
http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-lookup/

Alexa
http://www.alexa.com/

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.  

The core elements of determining search results are easily identified.  Understanding these elements, and properly implementing best practices of Search Engine Optimization will help you increase your site rankings.  Good SEO helps create a better user experience, putting the right content in front of the right audience.  Those that perform SEO have a competitive advantage over those that don’t.

Here is a quick look at just a few SEO Best practices.

1. Keyword Research. Are the Keywords you are targeting for (optimizing for) on each page of your site both popular and relevant to searchers?
2. Page Titles. Perhaps the single most important element of on-page SEO, Title tags should be unique on every page and begin with your targeted keywords.
3. Identifying Keywords in your Headlines. The content areas of each page in your site should use H1 Heading tags
4. Content. Assure your content area is keyword rich and of adequate length – 250 words more or less.
5. Text Links within your site. All hyperlink text that point to other internal pages throughout your site should include our optimized keywords
6. 6. Internal Links. Links from your home page should link to your most important secondary pages. Use keyword rich hypertext.
7. Good Housekeeping. Your site should include a privacy policy, as well as a site map with text links. Do you use Yahoo! and Google verified sitemaps? You Should.
8. File Names and Directories Each page of your site should utilize file and directory names that include the targeted keywords you are optimizing for.
9. Linking, Directories and Authority Sites. Is your site Listed in the DMOZ and other useful, relevant authority sites?
10. Content is King. Is your content well written and relevant to the title of your page. The search engines, and more importantly, your audience loves good content. Having great content is the KILLER SEO tactic!