Table of Contents

About This Book

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organized

Part I: Search Engine Basics

Part II: Building Search Engine–Friendly Sites

Part III: Adding Your Site to the Indexes and Directories

Part IV: After You’ve Submitted Your Site

Part V: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Chapter 1: Surveying the Search Engine Landscape

Investigating Search Engines and Directories

Search indexes or search engines

Search directories

Nonspidered indexes

Pay-per-click systems

Keeping the terms straight

Why bother with search engines?

Where Do People Search?

Search Engine Magic

How do they do it?

Stepping into the programmers’ shoes

Gathering Your Tools

Chapter 2: Search Results, Deconstructed

The Big Two: Organic and PPC

Looking at Local Results

Checking Out Shopping Results

Staying Current with News Results

Viewing Video and Image Results

Getting Friendly with Social Results

Collecting Bits n’ Pieces

Chapter 3: Your One-Hour, Search Engine–Friendly Web Site Makeover

Is Your Site Indexed?

Google

Yahoo! and Bing

Yahoo! Directory

Open Directory Project

Taking Action If You’re Not Listed

Is your site invisible?

Unreadable navigation

Dealing with dynamic pages

Picking Good Keywords

Examining Your Pages

Using frames

Looking at the TITLE tags

Examining the DESCRIPTION tag

Giving search engines something to read

Getting Your Site Indexed

Chapter 4: Beating the Competition — Planning a Powerful Search Engine Strategy

Don’t Trust Your Web Designer

Understanding the Limitations

Eyeing the Competition

Getting a “gut feel” for the competition

Why is my competitor ranking so high?

Going Beyond Getting to #1

Highly targeted keyword phrases

Understanding the search tail

Controlling Search Engine Variables

Keywords

Content

Page optimization

Submissions

Links

Time and the Google sandbox

Determining Your Plan of Attack

Look Away a Few Minutes

Two Things to Remember

Chapter 5: Making Your Site Useful and Visible

Learning From Amazon

Revealing the Secret but Essential Rule of Web Success

The evolving, incorrect “secret”

Uncovering the real secret

Showing a bias for content

Making Your Site Work Well

Limiting multimedia

Using text, not graphics

Don’t be cute

Making it easy to move around

Providing different routes

Using long link text

Don’t keep restructuring

Editing and checking spelling

Ugly doesn’t sell

Panda — Google Endorses Good Design

Keep It Fresh (Perhaps)

Chapter 6: Picking Powerful Keywords

Understanding the Importance of Keywords

Thinking Like Your Prey

Starting Your Keyword Analysis

Identifying the obvious keywords

Looking at your Web site’s access logs

Examining competitors’ keyword tags

Brainstorming with colleagues

Looking closely at your list

Using a Keyword Tool

Using the free Google keyword tool

Using Wordtracker

Yet more keyword tools

Choosing Your Keywords

Cam again? You might be missing the target

Ambiguous terms

Very broad terms

Picking combinations

Chapter 7: Creating Pages That Search Engines Love

Preparing Your Site

Finding a hosting company

Picking a domain name

Seeing Through a Search Engine’s Eyes

Understanding Keyword Concepts

Picking one or two phrases per page

Checking prominence

Watching density

Placing keywords throughout your site

Creating Your Web Pages

Naming files

Creating directory structure

Viewing TITLE tags

Using the DESCRIPTION meta tag

Tapping into the KEYWORDS meta tag

Using other meta tags

Including image ALT text

Adding body text

Creating headers: CSS versus <H> tags

Formatting text

Creating links

Using other company and product names

Creating navigation structures that search engines can read

Using rich snippets and schemas

Blocking searchbots

Chapter 8: Avoiding Things That Search Engines Hate

Dealing with Frames

The HTML Nitty-Gritty of Frames

Providing search engines with the necessary information

Providing a navigation path

Opening pages in a frameset

Handling iframes

Fixing Invisible Navigation Systems

Looking at the source code

Turning off scripting and Java

Fixing the problem

Flush the Flash Animation

Avoiding Embedded Text in Images

Reducing the Clutter in Your Web Pages

Use external JavaScripts

Use external CSS files

Move image maps to the bottom of the page

Avoid the urge to copy and paste from MS Word

Managing Dynamic Web Pages

Determining whether your dynamic pages are scaring off search engines

Fixing your dynamic Web page problem

Using Session IDs in URLs

Examining Cookie-Based Navigation

Fixing Bits and Pieces

Forwarded pages

Image maps

Special characters

Chapter 9: Dirty Deeds, Done Dirt Cheap

Tricking Search Engines

Deciding whether to trick

Figuring out the tricks

Do these tricks work?

Concrete Shoes, Cyanide, TNT — An Arsenal for Dirty Deeds

Keyword stacking and stuffing

Hiding (and shrinking) keywords

Hiding links

Duplicating pages and sites

Page swapping and page jacking

Doorway and Information Pages

Using Redirects and Cloaking

Understanding redirects

Examining cloaking

Tricks versus Strategies

Link Tricks

Paying the Ultimate Penalty

Chapter 10: Bulking Up Your Site — Competing with Content

Creating Content Three Ways

Writing Your Own Stuff

Summarizing online articles

Reviewing Web sites and products

Convincing Someone Else to Write Content

Using OPC (Other People’s Content)

Understanding Copyright — It’s Not Yours!

Hunting for Other People’s Content

Keywords

Product information

Web sites and e-mail newsletters

Government sources

Content-syndication sites

Traditional syndication services

RSS syndication feeds

Open content and copyleft

Search results pages

Press releases

Q&A areas

Message boards

Blogs

A Word about Duplicated Content

Chapter 11: Finding Traffic Through Local-Search Marketing

Why You Shouldn’t Skip This Chapter

Understanding Local-Search Marketing’s Importance

Looking Through Local Search

How Does Local Search Work?

Search terms

Partner and localized sites

IP numbers

Two Ways to Reach People Locally

“Localizing” Your Web Pages

Use the Geo meta tags

Registering for Local Search

Grabbing control of (or adding) your business listing

Increasing the odds

Finding More Local Systems

Don’t Forget Local-Local Directories

The Other Side of Local: Review Sites

Removing bad reviews

Diluting bad reviews

Identifying important review sites

Working with the Yellow Pages

Chapter 12: Getting Your Pages into the Search Engines

Linking Your Site for Inclusion

Simple Link Submissions to the Major Systems

Submitting an XML Sitemap

Creating your sitemap

Submitting your sitemaps

Using Webmaster tools, too

Submitting to Secondary Systems

Using Registration Services and Software Programs

Chapter 13: Submitting to the Directories

Pitting Search Directories Against Search Engines

Why Are Directories So Significant?

Submitting to the Search Directories

Submitting to Yahoo! Directory

Submitting to the Open Directory Project

Finding Specialized Directories

Finding directories other ways

Getting the link

Using “Local” Directories

Submitting to Second-Tier Directories

Finding second-tier directories

Avoiding payment — most of the time

Chapter 14: Product Search: Remember the Shopping Directories and Retailers

Understanding Where People Search for Products

Working with the Product Indexes

Google Product Search

Yahoo! Shopping, PriceGrabber, and PrecioMania

Bing Shopping

Ask.com and Pronto

TheFind

Shopping.com

BizRate & Shopzilla

NexTag

Pricewatch

Exploring More Shopping Services

The Classified-Ad Sites

Working with E-Commerce or Merchant Sites

Working with eBay

Working with Amazon

Managing Your Data

The data you need

Formatting guidelines

Creating your spreadsheet

Getting those product URLs

Creating individual sheets

Creating and uploading your data files

Multichannel, automated data management

Chapter 15: Using Link Popularity to Boost Your Position

Why Search Engines Like Links

Google: All about links

Links: The gift that keeps on giving

Understanding Page Value and PageRank

PageRank — one part of the equation

The PageRank algorithm

Measuring PageRank

Leaking PageRank

Page Relevance

Hubs and Neighborhoods

Trust in TrustRank

Inserting Keywords into Links

The Googlebomb lives

PageRank versus Keywords

Good Links and Bad

Recognizing Links with No Value

Identifying links that aren’t links

Identifying nofollow links

Recalling a Few Basic Rules about Links

Chapter 16: Finding Sites to Link to Yours

Controlling Your Links

Converting good links to bad

The perfect link text

Doing a Link Analysis

Google

Link popularity software

Generating Links, Step by Step

Register with search directories

Ask friends and family

Ask employees

Contact association sites

Contact manufacturers’ Web sites

Contact companies you do business with

Ask to be a featured client

Submit to announcement sites and newsletters

Send press releases

Create a little linkbait

Find sites linking to your competition

Ask other sites for links

Make reciprocal link requests

Search for keyword “add url”

Mention your site in discussion groups

Working with blogs

Pursue offline PR

Give away content

Advertise

Use a service or buy links

Just wait

Fuggetaboutit

Be Careful Whom You Link To!

Chapter 17: Even More Great Places to Get Links

Got Content? Syndicate It!

Four syndication technologies

Getting the most out of syndication

Article libraries: Getting the word out

Syndication services

Who will write your articles?

High-value article sites

Syndicating utilities

And More Link-Building Ideas . . .

The nofollow Curse

Who’s Going to Do All This Work?!

Chapter 18: Social Networking — Driven by Drivel

Just What Is Social Networking?

Beware the Social-Networking Hype

The Drivel Factor

The SEO Benefits of Social Networking

Getting links through social- networking sites

Grabbing search engine real estate

The social-networking sites are search engines

The Google+ Factor

Search Plus Your World

Google +1

Social Networking — a Book in Itself

Chapter 19: Video: Putting Your Best Face Forward

The SEO Benefits of Video

Videos on your site

Playing the video search engine game

Grabbing search engine real estate

Chapter 20: When Google Bites Back: A Guide to Catastrophe

How, and How Much?

Imposing a penalty

The Google spam team

Is It Really a Penalty? A Little Analysis

Is the site still indexed?

Has Google flagged your site as “suspicious”?

Has the number of pages in the index significantly changed?

What happens when you search for your domain name?

What happens when you search for the domain name minus the TLD?

What happens when you search for a text string in your <TITLE> tag?

What happens when you search for a text string in your home page?

Does your Google Webmaster console contain a message?

Is Google still crawling your Web site?

Try a penalty checker

Pulling It All Together: Have You Been Penalized?

Why Aren’t You Indexed?

Digging Your Way Out of the Hole

Finding on-page problems

Finding link problems

Finding domain name problems

Submitting a request for reconsideration

Chapter 21: Ten Things to Know and Do When Picking an SEO Firm

Read This Book

Why You Don’t Need an SEO Firm to Optimize Your Site

Find Firms Through Referrals

Look for Niche Services

Understand What the Firm Is Providing — Specifically

Understand What the Firm Expects of You

Look at Samples

Ask for References

Compare Dollar for Dollar

Will the Firm Provide Reports?

Chapter 22: Ten-Plus Myths and Mistakes

Myth: It’s All about Meta Tags and Submissions

Myth: Web Designers and Developers Understand Search Engines

Myth: Multiple Submissions Improve Your Search Position

Mistake: You Don’t Know Your Keywords

Mistake: Too Many Pages with Database Parameters and Session IDs

Mistake: Building the Site and Then Bringing in the SEO Expert

Myth: $25 Can Get Your Site a #1 Position

Myth: Google Partners Get You #1 Positions

Mistake: You Don’t Have Pages Optimized for Specific Keywords

Mistake: Your Pages Are Empty

Myth: Pay Per Click Is Where It’s At

Mistake: Ignoring Site Usability and Aesthetics

Mistake: Believing Everything You Read

Chapter 23: Ten-Plus Ways to Stay Updated

Let Me Help Some More

The Search Engines Themselves

Google’s Webmaster Pages

Google’s Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide

Bing SEO Tips

Search Engine Watch

The Official Google Webmaster Help Group

WebMaster World

HighRankings.com

Get the Search Engine Buzz

Chapter 24: Ten-Plus Useful Things to Know

Managing Sitelinks (Multiline Search Results)

Checking Your Site Rank

Checking for Broken Links

Assessing Traffic with the Alexa Toolbar

Installing Firebug

Finding Your Keyword Density

Analyzing Your Site’s Traffic

Tracking Phone Calls

Checking for Duplication and Theft

Using 301 Redirects

Getting Multiple Results on the Search Results Page

Identifying Fake PageRank

You Need an Attractive Site

Finding More SEO Tools

Fixing Your Reputation