Finding the right domain name is often a difficult process that involves intense brainstorming, as well as the annoying procedure of trying to find a name that is available and suitable for your website. Once you have found a good domain, it is even harder to find another good one as the number of premium domains is quickly dwindling. In fact, there are barely any premium domain names available online today, as the market has become so saturated, and is expected to become even more saturated as we progress into the 21^st century.

Experts predict that all .com domains that are shorter than 7 letters and are relevant to a popular keyword will be gone by the half way mark of the 21^st century. This means that a good domain name is like prime real estate at the moment, and even though domains cost less than houses, their value is steadily rising despite the scare that the market experienced in the early 2000’s. If you are having trouble finding a good domain name for your other websites after being successful with one domain name, then you may want to consider using a subdomain. Subdomains are also excellent for search engine optimization.

Subdomains and Search Engine Optimization

The reason why subdomains are perfect for search engine optimization is because they are actually viewed as their won website by search engine crawlers. This means that each subdomain receives it’s own page ranking in the SERPs (Search Engine Result Pages). Another distinct advantage of subdomains, is that you do not have to pay for another domain name registry or an extra hosting account. Instead you can simply use your existing domain name and establish an entirely new web presence with your subdomain.

Subdomains and Sub Niches

A great way to use subdomains for search engine optimization is to create subdomains on your site that are relevant to a main keyword or industry. Within each sub domain  you could place content that focuses on that keyword. For example, you may have a primary domain name that is called “highqualitywritingtools.com.” To further capitalize on this niche, and to enhance your search engine presence through diversification, you could open up several sub domains for free that pertain to a variety of sub niches such as: “ballpens.highqualitywritingtools.com” or “compositionnotepads. highqualitywritingtools.com”. By creating subdomains on your main niche site that target long tail keywords, you;re generating extremely targeted automatic traffic for your site.

Subdomains and Backlinks

Another advantage to subdomains is that each subdomain is considered to be another site in the search engines, which means you can link your subdomains to each other, and then link them all to your main site to build a backlink farm. This kind of internal link building, if done correctly, is a great way to get your site(s) indexed in the search engines quickly, and to get a higher page ranking with little effort. Remember that the most important aspect of backlink building is quality. Simply setting up a bunch of subdomains for the sole purpose of setting up backlinks is not going to benefit you, in fact it would prove to be detrimental to your site’s page ranking. Instead, you should make sure each page is populated with relevant and high quality content. Then once the site is populated with content you can begin building a proper link structure that interlinks all of your sites into a traffic generating network.

It seems as if the entire world has shifted their focus towards Google and has forgotten about the once ever-so popular Yahoo. Although Google has taken over the search engine industry, there are still a huge group of internet users that use Yahoo loyally, and excluding them form your marketing campaign can be extremely negative towards the growth of your online business. Even if 90% of your traffic is coming from Google, are you willing to throw away the other ten percent due to an oversight in your marketing venue?

You may be under the impression that all search engines follow the same rules when ranking websites but this is simply not true. Yahoo’s search engine standards vary slightly from that of Google’s so it is important to consider the difference when designing your website. The best approach is to build a website that appeases all of the major search engines, including Yahoo. The following information will give you an idea of what Yahoo is looking for.

Link Organization

When it comes to indexing of your website, Yahoo’s crawlers pay extra attention toward the internal structure of the site. Google focuses more on external links such as backlinks, which also matter  for Yahoo optimization, but not as much. In fact, it is possible to have  high ranking site in yahoo with hardly any backlinks! However if your site has  a disorganized internal link structure, then you are going to have a very hard time making it to the top page of Yahoo’s search results. This means you’ll need to devise a site map and submit it to Yahoo for maximum success.

Anchor Text

Instead of simply posting URLs, it is best to use anchor text containing keywords. Anchor texts that contain keywords will enhance your Yahoo SEO efforts by double. Make sure the keyword used in the anchor text is relevant to the page you are linking to.

Keyword Optimization with Title Tags

Of course this trick works with all search engines, but it is extremely important in Yahoo. By putting primary keywords in the main title tags of your web pages, you’ll find that many of your pages gain a very high page rank quickly. Yahoo pays very close attention towards tags of all sorts including meta tags.

Search Engine Optimized URLs

Make sure all of your site’s URLs contain relevant keyword. If you are using a good content management system then this step will be done automatically. A good way to optimize URLs to be search engine friendly is to place dashes between words on key phrases. For example, instead of using the URL “ example.com/lookatthislink” you could use the URL “example.com/look-at-this-link.” Using this simple trick will boost your search engine ranking in Yahoo greatly.

Quality Content

Yahoo places a high priority on the quality of the content. This means that stuffing your content with keywords and writing about anything will not work, in fact it will be very detrimental towards the ranking of your web page. To be successful ion Yahoo you’ll need to use quality content with the correct keyword density and placement.

Social bookmarking has become one of the best ways for website owners to draw attention to their site exponentially. If you are unfamiliar with the concept of social bookmarking; think Digg or Twitter. Any social site that users can place a link to a certain page on is considered a social bookmarking site. People use these sites to share information or media that they find to be useful or entertaining with their friends and family. These sites make browsing the web a fun and exciting experience because people can find out what is new and interesting without trying to find it themselves. By placing your site on a social bookmarking site, you’ll not only receive direct attention to your site immediately, but you’ll also receive search engine optimization benefits as well.

The Connection Between SEO and Social Bookmarking

Proper search engine optimization requires the use of many methods combined in a collective effort to bring as much traffic to the site as possible. The more traffic your site gets, the more popular it appears to be form the perspective of a search engine. Therefore website popularity is almost like a snowball effect, as the popularity builds the page rank rises and it becomes a progressive traffic generating cycle. Social bookmarking lets you expose your site to a wide group of people, many of which run their own blogs, which are indexed in the search engines just as regular websites are. If someone links to your site on their blog, they are creating what is called a backlink for your site. The more live backlinks your site has on the internet, the more popular it appears to be, and the more favoritism it will receive from the search engines. Perhaps the most important connection between search engine optimization and social bookmarking is that your site can receive popularity before it is ever indexed in the search engines, which ironically is an excellent way to get your site indexed!

Utilizing the Full Power of Social Bookmarking

Since there are so many social bookmarking sites online, it would be foolish to target only one of them. However submitting your link to each one manually can be a time intensive process. Fortunately there are ways to accomplish this without wasting time completing repetitive menial tasks. You have two options; you can outsource the work to another person, or you can use an application that will complete the task for you with very minimal input. The first option is almost self-explanatory – simply hire a freelancer, tell him to sign up to as many social bookmarking sites as you’d like, and then tell them to make a post about your site. You can also pay many freelancers a few pennies each to visit your site and vote it up using the social bookmarking buttons on your site. The second option is a bit more tricky but costs less and is equally effective if done correctly. Simply find an application, or have one made that will complete the aforementioned task automatically. You can find out about applications like these at online forums or by doing a simple web search.

Final Thoughts

While social bookmarking sites are a great way to market your site, they are also inundated with other marketers and spammers, so it is important to remember that this is a numbers game. The more amount of work you put int, the more results you’ll see. The key to improving search engine optimization with social bookmarking is consistency.

Yahoo Search is great and Bing is quickly gaining ground as a worthy search engine.  When Yahoo and Microsoft combine their specialties, they could become the collective kings of the search world.  This partnership could bring forth great things for both companies but as it stands now, Google is dominant and its search engine is the one all webmasters optimize for.  While Google can definitely help deliver the traffic you desire, you need to make it a priority to ensure your site doesn’t end up in its dreaded supplemental index.

What is the Supplemental Index?

Writer Andy Greenberg’s 2007 Forbes article entitled “Condemned To Google Hell,” best describes the supplemental index.  The article explains how two online businesses lost traffic and eventually sales because their pages fell into the deep, dark abyss where URLs are buried.   A major focal point of the story was to determine what could cause something like this to happen, speculating that purchasing links and duplicate content were among the culprits.  This was clarified by Matt Cutts, Google spokesperson, who let it be known that the supplemental index does not mean a particular website has been penalized.  According to Cutts, the determining factor to whether a web page makes it in the main or supplemental index is its page rank.  Despite this clarification, the supplemental index is the not place where you want your web pages to end up, especially if your trying to promote your business through SEO.

Keeping Your Site Above Ground

To keep your web pages from falling into the depths of the Google supplemental index, we recommend following these four tips:

1.) Unique Page Titles – This is a basic step that often gets overlooked.  Put a little extra effort into your page titles as it helps in terms optimization, usability and more clickthroughs in the search results.

2.) Unique Content – There are many reasons why your pages may not be as unique as you think.  This could be due to a shopping cart or CMS flaw, but the more identical content you have at multiple URLs, the better chances you have of being tucked away in the Google supplemental index.  Go through your pages and make sure you have at least 100 words of unique content.

3.) More Quality Links – Trust has become a key aspect of quality link building.  By gathering links from a few trusted sites that are already ranked, you will show Google that your site can be trusted and is worthy of the main index.  If at all possible, try to get some links from high ranking sites.  Though some argue that this won’t do much in terms of ranking, it could be a winning factor in the way of indexing.

4.) Internal Page Links - Many sites have dozens of inbound links, but all of them are pointing back to their homepage.  In several cases, the homepage of the site makes it into the main index while all the internal pages are abandoned and swept into the supplemental file cabinet.  To avoid this issue, you may want to pick out your most relevant internal pages and get about four to five links coming back to them.  Even if you have previously left them unattended, don’t worry because the Google bot will typically revisit your site and crawl those internal pages again.  This time, they will make their way into the main index instead of being left behind in Google hell.

Launched in March, 2009, Wolfram Alpha is a new answer engine designed to provide results on factual queries.  While this is certainly a unique and innovative concept, many are unsure of whether to call it a search engine or if it serves as worthy competition to the big three.  More importantly, businesses are wondering if they need to restructure their optimization efforts around Wolfram Alpha or continue to focus on the major search engines.

What Exactly is Wolfram Alpha?

Wolfram Alpha is described as a computational knowledge engine, one that aims to deliver expert knowledge and capabilities to the greatest range of internet users.  It is said to benefit all professions and education levels, generating powerful results and presenting them with the utmost clarity.  Because the results are not necessarily based on web pages and encyclopedic information like other search engines, it is widely assumed that Wolfram utilizes a combination of both to compute answers.

Wolfram Alpha is certainly advanced and could prove to be a vital internet tool in the future.  The big question is: what affect will it have on e-commerce?  We believe the current answer is a resounding NONE for the following three reasons:

1.) Doesn’t Appeal to Shoppers – One disadvantage of Wolfram Alpha is that it doesn’t offer results commonly sought after by online shoppers.  Although this isn’t the primary goal of the engine, it fails to deliver results on even the simplest terms.  This alone makes it a big turn off to consumers looking to buy items or average users simply looking for basic information.

2.) Insufficient Results - Wolfram Alpha is supposedly a data-driven answer engine that gives detailed, scientific answers to technical questions.  However, if you enter certain terms, Wolfram is likely to get many of them wrong and return results for entirely different words.  From an efficiency aspect, it is clear to see that Wolfram Alpha still has a long way to go in being a specialist at servicing technical queries.

3.) Can’t Comprehend E-commerce – Perhaps the biggest reason Wolfram Alpha isn’t suited for the online business world is that even after a few months, the engine still has no idea what the term “e-commerce” means.  In fact, when typing the term into the search box, the results come back as “Wolfram Alpha isn’t sure what to do with your input”.  You can try to get cute with the other common term “ecommerce”, but the finished product doesn’t get any better.  The engine assumes that the term relates to the financial industry and provides results on a company by the name of Commerce Bancshares.  Whether Wolfram Alpha was designed with online shop owners in mind or not, tendencies such as this leads you to wonder if anyone can get much use out of this tool.

Conclusion

It is pretty easy to poke fun at Wolfram Alpha engine and its deficiencies.  However, you should keep in mind that the engine is in its beginning stages and like most web-based platforms, improvements are sure to come.  One day, Wolfram could be a powerful tool but as of now, it is simply irrelevant for most users.  You probably want all the visibility possible but optimizing your site for this engine would be a total waste at this time.

Search engine optimization has proven to be one of the most effective methods used to generate traffic to a website.  If you are just starting with your first site, you may feel as if Google and other prevalent search engines are playing favoritism and giving rankings to more popular sites.  Although popularity does have something to do with the results, there are a number of factors that go into the equation.  This article will help you understand where to focus your efforts when trying to attract the search engine spiders.

Keyword Implementation

You probably know that most internet users rely on search engines to find what they need whether its information, entertainment or products.  The role of search engine spiders is to crawl the web, find information relevant to a certain topic and index it for listing.  For example, if a web surfer enters keywords such as “IT consulting” into a search engine, the results will consist of web pages that have content most relevant to that field.  Keywords are a very important aspect of SEO and must be properly fused into your web pages in order to entice the spiders and boost rankings.

Keyword Position

The actual positioning of your keywords also plays a critical role in the search engine algorithm.  The idea is to present your information to the visitor almost immediately.  This basically means that you need to insert your keywords as soon possible – in the page, article header and preferably the first paragraph.  Experts will tell you that sites with keywords at the top of the page generally rank higher than those that don’t.  Without taking keyword positioning into account, you stand the risk of ranking incredibly low or not at all.

Keyword Spamming

As we mentioned, keywords are a highly effective weapon in the race for rankings.  However, they can also lead to your downfall.  There is such a thing as overusing keywords, something the search engines refer to as spamming.  This practice all started with overzealous webmasters who stuff as many keywords and phrases into their web pages as possible, trying to force their way into the search engine rankings.  To prevent this, search engines are designed to automatically disqualify web pages deemed as having too many keywords.  Whether it is you or designer putting the site together, keyword spamming is something you certainly want to be cautious of.

Popularity

When it comes to search engine results, popularity is taken into account but it isn’t the type you may think.  Popularity is determined by the demand for particular keyword and backlinks.  Often referred to as inbound links, backlinks are formed when you have your URL posted on other sites.  The key is to get your link listed on other sites in your niche.  The more it is posted on the web, the more popular it becomes.

Conclusion

Trying to understand search engine results and how they are calculated can be a complex undertaking.  During your SEO campaign, keep in mind that nothing is guaranteed as some keywords are tied to very competitive markets.  For this reason, you should never waste all of your time on optimization to the point where other vital aspects are neglected.