1. Put your targeted keywords in the title of the page you are optimizing: Search engines expect the titles of the pages to be summaries for the content of those respective pages. While search engines show up your pages in Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs), they give the highest priority to your page titles. So craft your page titles to be near perfect overviews of the content on that page and put some relevant keywords in it as well.

2. Use your keywords towards the top of the page: While you are writing content for a page, make sure that the page has a proper heading. Include your keywords in that heading and place them within HTML heading tags like <h1> tags. This indicates to search engines that this is an overview of what is coming next. Make these titles keyword rich.

3. Repeat your keywords within the content of the page: Try to incorporate your targeted keywords within the main content of the page. Repeating the keywords about 5-6 times within the content is OK, but don’t overdo it or else you know what it’s called – Keyword Spamming.

4. Meta description tags: Meta descriptions should be provided in a “marketing style” which attracts visitors, with all your main keywords. Ideally, meta descriptions should be between 25 to 40 words. Try to include all your targeted keywords in the meta descriptions of every page, and they should be unique for each page.

5. Make your pages of at least 300 words of total text content: Your text content is everything which the search engines parse to get an idea of that page. So it is better to provide an adequate amount of text within your page so that search engines can understand what your page is all about.

6. Interlink your inner related pages: When you come across something which you have talked about in other pages of your site, link to that page. This is called interlinking or cross-linking which is important for search engine optimization. This also increases keyword relevance for your whole site and also helps with spider crawling, like spreading “Google Juice” for other pages of the site.

7. Always follow Google Webmaster guidelines: Please go through the Google Webmaster guidelines as they are generally good advice. Although they are only guidelines, not rules, it’s important not to leave any stone unturned by adhering to them.

8. Maintain proper standards of W3C: The World Wide Web Consortium has standards and guidelines for web designing and development which should be followed while designing a webpage. Maintain proper markup structure and heading tag sequence. These ensure that your pages are easily parseable and indexed by search engine robots.

9. File names or url structures: The search engines seem to parse hyphenated urls very well. So when you are making a page on dog training for example, make the file name or url as “dog-training.” Keep proper directory structure as they appear in your menu or sitemap. Avoid capital letters in urls.

10. Text equivalents for non-text elements: Search engines are not yet capable of understanding non-text elements like images, videos etc. Provide a text describing those images or videos in their alt or text attributes. Search Engines also have problems with dynamic content like Flash, JavaScript or pure database driven websites. So avoid these if you want the spiders to crawl.

These are all good on-site SEO practices which can be easily implemented on any website and also indicate good coding practices. While search engine technology is constantly evolving, on-site SEO is still very much a relevant factor in how they view any website. Now go get a boost on your search engine rankings with these guidelines.

Simply put, duplicate content is similar content, and syndicated content is similar content that has been permitted to be reproduced, most often, via an RSS feed, and may include certain rules to be followed. Make sure you know the difference. The originator of the content needs to give explicit permission to have his content reproduced. By default, you should regard everything as copyright. It is only permissible to reproduce them under a few circumstances, like if the material was:

• Public domain material
• Government material
• GNU licensed
• Creative Commons licensed (attribution to the original author required)
• Explicitly syndicated content (permission given by the originator)
• In a few cases, applicable under Fair Use

According to Google, duplicate content is both external and internal. Meaning, if Google detects the same content in other pages on your site, then that is also duplicate content. As is the same content found on other sites. Last month, Google tried to clear the air again about duplicate content with this post. But it still left many people still skeptical about whether Google is doing anything effective or not in battling copycats. Duplicate content only clogs up the Web with useless junk, and is regarded as spam. But, neither is it black and white. In the case of news reports and music lyrics, you can’t regard them as duplicate content, can you? It would be silly to apply the same rules on all kinds of content.

For WordPress blogs, duplicate content has always been an issue. That’s because, WordPress by default lists the same content in the archives and category pages. But the problem is easily fixed by telling the Google bot not to index those pages. If you haven’t got the plugin yet, go get the Duplicate Content Cure plugin, which should solve the problem (thanks to Badi Jones).

The biggest problem though, is the blatant copying of your pages by some parties to repost on their websites. They do this either manually, or by employing scraper bots. You can get a list of bots to exclude in your robots.txt file, but you can’t do much if the copy cat manually copies your content. This is an external problem with no prevention, with maybe only half baked cures. It is really up to the search engines to constantly improve themselves to battle duplicate content.

I’ve had my stuff copied by others, and it’s not flattering at all, especially when the copycats never leave any attribution behind, let alone ask you for permission. Illegal copying of content is very common, and constantly on the rise all over the Web. SEOmoz has an article on duplicate content, worth a read.

Copycats only devalue the Web by their actions, because the originators of the content may not be so inclined anymore, to put up their hard work only to have them copied. And the problem is worsened by the fact that many copycats employ the latest SEO techniques to try to get their content ranked well in the search engines, often to the detriment of the original sites (which are often small or medium sites with good content, but poor SEO).

When quality content disappears and the Web becomes one giant mass of low quality content, with identical twins floating around …..let’s hope it doesn’t end up that way. This is still one of the major challenges of the Web. The statement from Google that it is “quite good at identifying the originators of content” is far from reassuring, as there are indeed many honest webmasters who can attest to the constant problems they face from slick copycats – right up to this moment.

Finally, if all else fails – change your content.

One of the situations when indexing fails to occur is when the domain has been blacklisted by Google. This may be due to the current or previous owner, failing to adhere to Google’s webmaster guidelines.

The symptoms: No matter how much and how long you promote your site, and build links to it, and work on the site, the domain never gets indexed by Google.

You can check Archive.org to determine the previous history, although this is far from accurate, because many domains do not have their past history archived on record.

The solution: Open a Google Webmaster Tools account, and submit a Reconsideration Request through a link there. This is the only way to get back into Google’s good books. There is no guarantee of success though. Be prepared for a long wait of weeks or even months. It helps if you are not the one responsible for the domain being banned.

Why do I say indexing is so fast these days? Check out Matt Cutts’ post on Minty Fresh Indexing. Google is able to literally index a page or domain in minutes, thanks to its cutting edge technology.

So in short order, here are a number of ways to get indexed quickly by Google:

• Post in any popular, open registration forum with the page or URL in there. Since the Google bot is always crawling the forum, the chances are good it will find your link through your post.
• Submit your sitemap in Google Webmaster Tools. Submitting a sitemap is telling Google that your site is “crawler friendly,” and mapped out.
• Submit your site or page to Digg and social bookmark sites like Del.icio.us, or Furl.net. These social networks have large influence with Google.
• Set up a blog on your domain, even if you don’t like blogging. Blogs allow convenient pinging of the search engines. By posting a few posts and pinging Google, you invite the Google bot to check out your site, which will hasten indexing, often within a few days or less. The blog can be removed later, once your site or page has been indexed.

The bottom line is, indexing is a no brainer if you get an authority site or page to link to you – as in a site that Google respects. But, make sure your domain is not blacklisted or considered shady by Google in the first place. Based on my observations, there are certain types of domains (usually in certain “dubious” niches), that have a tougher time getting indexed, even though they may not be blacklisted at all.

Everyday, the Web is being added manifold by hundreds of thousands of new pages, or websites. How does a search engine keep up with the huge increases everyday? One of the most important things they look at, with regards to a website, is age.

If you look up on many search terms in Google, one of the things you notice is the age of the top listed sites. There may be hundreds or thousands of new sites vying for attention these days, but according to many SEO experts, age is one of those things that cannot be faked, and Google especially, has factored this into their algorithm.

Would you be willing to trust an old site more than a new site? If you know the answer, than you would know why Google likes old sites more than new sites. Old sites, especially those that are often updated, are perceived with greater respect then new sites.

According to SEOer Aaron Wall, 5 reasons why old is gold in Google’s eyes is due to:

1. Domain age
2. Link quality
3. Link age
4. Usage data
5. Delayed monetization

Now, my understanding of domain history is almost similar. But,I think Google takes into account the previous usage data as well, on the particular domain. I don’t think domains without valid sites all this while, would be as valued by Google as domains that had fully working websites on them dating back many years.

Google actually became a domain registrar two years ago, with the main purpose of gaining access to a lot of domain data. So they do know when a domain was registered, when did it change ownership, how long was it being used as a website…and so forth.

Usage data would be the demographics of a site, how visitors behaved on a site, how many visits in a given time, and so forth. These are the metrics that I believe influence the reason why Google is often wary of old domains redeveloped as new sites on new content.

Likewise, link quality and age would be directly linked to any relevant links from relevant, quality sites over the years. For example, a link from Dmoz is still very valuable because of this. But, Dmoz does not simply take in new sites; your site needs to be old, to stand a chance of being listed! That age factor again.

Delaying monetization basically means running your site on a non profit basis, until the right time comes This is perhaps the hard part for many webmasters; indeed there are hosting bills to pay, scripts to purchase, directory submissions to pay, advertising costs, and basically the biggest cost of all – time.

At the end of the day, it is no wonder that the age of a site has become such an important factor in “trust rank.” Trust rank is a term I suspect we’ll be seeing a whole lot more in future.

I’ve heard that posting an ad on Craigslist helpes get your site out of the supplemental index, but I wasn’t very sure if this would work at first.
Looks like it does.

Recently, I had a new site go into Google’s supplemental index even before it was one week old. Something like this happening can be a real damper.

Remembering that posting on Craigslist might help, I posted an ad about my site. Nothing spammy, just a small ad outlining my website theme and concept. I also carried on adding to the site.

Within 3 or 4 days, my site was out of the supplemental index! Now that was a relief. Was it because of Craigslist? I think so.

However, it also has to do with the fact that having a relevant backlink helps resurrect pages from the supplemental index. It doesn’t only apply for Craigslist links, but any other high ranking backlinks as well. Craigslist just works faster, because of the high Page Rank it has.

Craigslist is such a high traffic place because there are tens of thousands of people posting or browsing ads every single day. The site sits atop a Page Rank 8 ranking, Alexa rank of 47 and literally millions of backlinks in both Google and Yahoo. Tremendous credentials indeed.

So how do you leverage Craigslist’s power for your own websites? Remember that Craigslist is an huge classified advertisement site that is broken down into regions and categories. If in doubt, just look up your country or region located in the drop down menu on your right hand side.

Here is a quick start guide.

1. Create your Craigslist account. It’s fast and easy (needs only an email); just remember it’s also equally easy to get banned from Craigslist for spamming.
2. Look for the location/region that best describes your location (located in the menu on the right hand site)
3. After that, select a suitable category from the list shown.
4. Click on “post” in the top right hand corner and follow accordingly. Your ad will go live in about 15 minutes from creation, and stay published for 7-45 days.

For better ads:

• Choose the most relevant category only.
• Use ads in moderation. Don’t abuse your privileges.
• Don’t forget to place a backlink to your own sites. You might want to check the existing topics and sites already created to be sure if your ad fits in that particular category.
• Allow some time between each posting of ads; you don’t want to be a spammer do you? Excessive posting of ads in a relatively short space of time, can lead to banning from the Craigslist site.
• Don’t post the same ad into a different location. If found out, all your ads will be removed. Craigslist has a system that enlists users’ help in flagging spammy ads, so it’s best not to attempt anything stupid. There are many spies in Craigslist, so beware! These guys have a job of keeping Craigslist as clean as possible from spam.

Right now, Google is still very much in love with Craigslist. But the search engine giant is likely to be currently devaluing links from Craigslist. As to how long the privelage of posting an ad for free remains – this is still an uncertainty.

For sure, many unscrupulous webmasters have long abused Craigslist to create backlinks to their sites. As noted, Craigslist is great for some backlinks and traffic but especially useful to sites that sell actual physical products or services.

No kidding.

It takes lots of experience and SEO knowledge to constantly keep your site at the top of the SERPs, or to get them there. And it takes constant work.

The craze for links and more links would not have been so important today, had it not been for something called PageRank, upon which Google’s proprietory algorithm is built upon. The theory goes that the more “votes” you get from other sites, that means the more “popular” your site is. So Google is obligated to place your site higher up the search results to comply with the election votes. It is then believed that PageRank will influence a sites traffic based on its higher listing in the SERPs.

That above was the theory in brief….

Then why did a page from my little hobby website that was hosted for free, stay on the front page for a particular keyword, for a very long time? I believe it was between 1-2 years at the tops. Everytime I checked, it would be sitting there at number 3-8 out of over 3,000,000 results for a particular keyword. Month after month.

I have no idea why, when it :

• has only a PageRank 2
• has no backlinks. I never built any and I never saw any, with any SEO tools.

I created the website for fun back when I was studying and after the website was done, I never bothered with it again. This was no website earning revenue; there was no advertising, and no marketing of any kind. Could that have played a part? It was a thrill to see my simple hobby site listed in Google, when I searched for it. I didn’t even know the significance of being on the front page of the search results, just glad I “was listed”. Only when I learnt about PageRank and SERPs last year, did I realize the significance.

It’s not every day you get to beat out 3 million plus pages with a certain keyword, especially since many of these were high PageRank sites. Many were .gov and .edu sites (typically with PageRanks of 6-8). Neither did I know anything about SEO, keywords, LSI, links, PageRank, etc, back then. Right through so many Google updates. The funny thing was, even Yahoo gave me a brief moment of fame at the top of the pile when I last checked 6 months ago (it’s no longer there).

Till today, it’s an utter mystery for me. The most recent Google update has blanked out my little website out of the top. It’s not even in the top ten pages anymore. *Sigh*

Did Google finally decide that my little website with zero backlinks and PageRank 2 shouldn’t deserve to be there any more? I wonder.

If previously my site was tops without any effort, no updating, no backlinks; it proves that Google does give respect to original, honest, and enthusiastically done “mom and pop” websites. That Google can be fair to the little guy with his little website.

But maybe that is just what we all would like to think. Nobody knows Google except the top few people that run/own Google. Anyway, after being at the top for so many months, I think Google has decided to give the other high PageRanked/deep pocketed corporations/organizations a chance to shine?

So, does PageRank really matter? That’s the question in flux.