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Rancho Cucamonga, CA
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Little Rock, AR
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 SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#2] Posted: Sep 17 2009 - 05:41:28 AM |  |  |
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Thanks for the info. I appreciate the tips you post.
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Kevin
"Problems cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them." Albert Einstein
http://www.InspectingArkansas.com/ |
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Rancho Cucamonga, CA
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Manvel, Texas
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#4] Posted: Sep 17 2009 - 6:54:37 PM | | |
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thanks for the info since i am basically seo illiterate
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lou
http://www.allcoastinspect.com
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Rancho Cucamonga, CA
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Severna Park, Maryland
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Rancho Cucamonga, CA
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Victoria, BC
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#8] Posted: Oct 01 2009 - 08:20:46 AM | | |
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Keep in mind that most search engines like Google completely ignore most meta tags (except robots.txt) and have for many years. The Title tag is not really a meta tag at all but is still used and very important. The Description meta tag is still used by most search engines in some minor way and is displayed by some search engines as a description in the search results but most of the time they display content from the actual page. Google doesn't use this tag much at all except to display your sites results. Keyword meta tags are almost a complete waste of time these days... make sure your keywords are in the pages content. The only search engines using the keyword tags now are Inktomi and Teoma. The ALT text on the images is used by AltaVista, Google and Teoma but not by AllTheWeb or Inktomi. I don't know much about Bing yet.
Meta tags will not help your ranking on Google at all and the best way to get a good ranking on Google is to make sure your keywords are on the actual pages content. Make sure you have unique content and don't do anything to try and trick them as you are more likely to just get a penalty. You have to wait with Google and it is not often that a newer site will just popup to the top of the listings.
The number one thing that I have found through my testing is links pointing to your website with the keywords in the link. Yes something not even on your own site probably has more influence than your own site!
For example:
1. New York Home Inspection
2. StructureSmart Home Inspection
If you used link (1.) the search engine would see a link pointing to your site that reads "New York Home Inspection" and rank your site high for that search term, while if you used link (2.) the search engine would see a link "StructureSmart Home Inspection" and you would get almost NO benefit at all from this link. There is a little more to this as a link from a high ranking site is better than a link from another inspectors link page that isn't even indexed...
If you have a past client search for your name they will most likely find you anyway... the new client is going to search for: "New York Home Inspection".
More info can be found at: http://www.searchenginewatch.com/
Michael Brown
DevWave Software Inc.
Home Inspection Software
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Succasunna, NJ
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#9] Posted: Oct 01 2009 - 12:42:31 PM | | |
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What's the best tool to check my back links?
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Darren
Succasunna NJ
New Jersey Home Inspections
"The worlds most plentiful ingredient is Stupidity" (F. Zappa) |
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Victoria, BC
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Succasunna, NJ
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#11] Posted: Oct 01 2009 - 4:07:56 PM | | |
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Thanks Mike!
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Darren
Succasunna NJ
New Jersey Home Inspections
"The worlds most plentiful ingredient is Stupidity" (F. Zappa) |
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Rancho Cucamonga, CA
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#12] Posted: Oct 02 2009 - 01:36:47 AM | | |
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Darren, go to yahoo and type in link:www.yourdomain.com for a good list.
Google definitely still using the description tag. It's what they show on their listings unless there's a more exact phrase on the page itself or no description tag used on the page. The title tag is important as well and is used as your website title on the search engine listing. You are correct that it's technically not a meta tag, it's actually more important!
While the keywords meta tag is not as influential as it used to be, it's still believe that it IS looked at. Google and the other search engines just verify now that the text in your keywords tag actually shows up on the page itself. If it doesn't, it's tossed out.
Your core page content is obviously extremely important. Don't copy content from other sites unless you're rewriting it in your own words. Google doesn't want plagiarism.
Alt Tags are used by Google, Yahoo & MSN which covers around 95%+ of the market so I'd say they're important.
Anchor text as you pointed out is extremely important. I wrote an article on here a few months ago about it. All your forum posts should have links to your site using your main search phrase you expect clients to use (city home inspector). Don't just link your domain name directly.
I gave an 8 hour SEO talk last week in Vegas and am trying to set another one up at the upcoming ASHI conference. If I can get the room for free or inexpensive like I'll give the talk for free like I did at the COA conference.
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Dominic Maricic
Lead Programmer for Home Inspector Pro Inspection Software and Home Inspector Website Hosting |
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Victoria, BC
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#13] Posted: Oct 02 2009 - 07:53:23 AM | | |
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| Quote: Originally posted by dcmeagle
While the keywords meta tag is not as influential as it used to be, it's still believe that it IS looked at. Google and the other search engines just verify now that the text in your keywords tag actually shows up on the page itself. If it doesn't, it's tossed out.
From my research Google has never used the keywords meta tag... by the time Google started they had already figured out that the tag was a complete waste of time (stuffed with misleading garbage).
There is a great article on the history of the keywords meta tag on the link below:
http://searchengineland.com/me...es-12099
Quote: Traffick.com’s Andrew Goodman wrote recently in an essay about meta tags: Quote: “If somebody would just declare the end of the metatag era, full stop, it would make it easier on everyone.”
I’m happy to oblige, at least in the case of the meta keywords tag. Now supported by only one major crawler-based search engine — Inktomi — the value of adding meta keywords tags to pages seems little worth the time. In my opinion, the meta keywords tag is dead, dead, dead."
Unfortunately website owners run these so called SEO optimization checkers (written back in 1996) on the pages and they still come back with you need these keyword meta tags and we have to explain how they do nothing again.
I think the description tag is important because if it is displayed in the results it can influence searchers to click on your result instead of another (it's for humans). My personal opinion is they have no influence in the rankings of the pages (Google especially). There are still a few people these days that think Google actually uses the description tag for ranking... I'm just not one of them.
The keywords tag has been DEAD for many years now!
Michael Brown
DevWave Software Inc.
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Rancho Cucamonga, CA
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#14] Posted: Oct 02 2009 - 2:09:46 PM | | |
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Well, we have tons of inspectors who are #1 on Google for their area, including our own site. The description tag without a doubt has an effect as for being shown on the search results (gets the client to click your site), but I agree it's probably not being used in their actual ranking algorithms. Same with keywords. But since the other search engines do still use some or both, it's still important to use them. Picking up one inspection a month from Yahoo still pays your hosting bill for the year!
Most important things to Google in my mind:
Domain Name has keyword phrase
Page content has keyword phrase
Inbound Links (especially from pages that have your phrase)
Live Content on your site (i.e. blogs, news feeds, etc)
A growing site
etc..
But all the little things add up too. Many of our inspectors are teetering on #1-3. Depending on what server Google queries they could end up in a different slot. This tells me there's little separating them and the more they can do, like using ALT tags which few people do, the better!
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Dominic Maricic
Lead Programmer for Home Inspector Pro Inspection Software and Home Inspector Website Hosting |
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Succasunna, NJ
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#15] Posted: Oct 03 2009 - 06:49:05 AM | | |
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Dominic & Mike;
When linking to another site, I know how to make my name appear as my website; how do I do that here?
How do I make my website show up as New Jersey Home Inspections?
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Darren
Succasunna NJ
New Jersey Home Inspections
"The worlds most plentiful ingredient is Stupidity" (F. Zappa) |
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Victoria, BC
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#16] Posted: Oct 03 2009 - 08:42:07 AM | | |
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There are a few of ways.
Here is your basic link:
<a href="http://www.aboutthehouseinspections.com/">New Jersey Home Inspections</a>
New Jersey Home Inspections
You can also do it like this using your description:
<a href="http://www.aboutthehouseinspections.com/"><b>About The House Inspections</b></a>
About the House is a <a href="http://www.aboutthehouseinspections.com/"> New Jersey home inspection</a> company, licensed and professional, serving the Morris County area. Darren Miller provides clients with a comprehensive, clear-cut and unbiased view of the home.
About The House Inspections
About the House is a New Jersey home inspection company, licensed and professional, serving the Morris County area. Darren Miller provides clients with a comprehensive, clear-cut and unbiased view of the home.
Michael Brown
DevWave Software Inc.
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#17] Posted: Oct 03 2009 - 11:22:01 AM | | |
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Mike;
I do the code thing right when I link my pages;
I'm trying to insert that below...
HERE
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Darren
Succasunna NJ
New Jersey Home Inspections
"The worlds most plentiful ingredient is Stupidity" (F. Zappa) |
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Victoria, BC
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Succasunna, NJ
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#19] Posted: Oct 03 2009 - 12:20:34 PM | | |
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Thank you Sir Mike;
One last question; how bad do dead links hurt you?
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Darren
Succasunna NJ
New Jersey Home Inspections
"The worlds most plentiful ingredient is Stupidity" (F. Zappa) |
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Rancho Cucamonga, CA
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Victoria, BC
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
[#21] Posted: Oct 05 2009 - 07:32:40 AM | | |
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I agree broken links do not help your ranking... I use a program that has been around for a while to check the links (Xenu's Link Sleuth). What I like about it is you can time out on some sites and check just those sites later from your list instead of restarting the whole search again. This might be better considering the amount of links on your pages.
http://home.snafu.de/tilman/xenulink.html
Michael Brown
DevWave Software Inc.
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SEO Tip: Photos & the Alt Tag
