Throughout this entire lesson I mentioned several times that there are methods that should be avoided. The entire industry calls these bad methods "Black Hat SEO."
Even though this is a long lesson on vocabulary, I gave examples of several good jewelry SEO ideas. All these good methods are referred to as "White Hat SEO."
As long as you stick to White Hat search engine optimization techniques you should be able to quickly elevate your website to higher and higher ranking.
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This is the term we use when talking about all the efforts involved with optimization, pay per click, writing good page titles, writing good meta descriptions.
SEM also includes the process of getting information about you and your jewelry store published on other websites. As you publish more information about your jewelry store it will also show up in the search engines when someone looks for your name or store name.
More visibility, even if it only publicizes your store name, will ad credibility. You are probably wondering how this additional visibility creates credibility, so let me explain.
Positioning and visibility is very important for successful advertising. Within search engines we refer to visibility as "ranking." The higher your website is positioned on a search engine results page, the higher the "rank" or "ranking."
Google and Yahoo have secret methods of determining the best ranking for your website. They keep their methods a secret so no one can abuse the system. Every search engine optimization professional and SEO service company, including ours, is making their best guesses for how to increase website ranking.
The search engine results pages show 10 web page results at a time. Terminology is a little flexible when referring to ranking results. For example, a web pag... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
This is by far the most important place on your web page for keyword phrases to affect your search engine visibility.
That was important so let me say it again: Page Title is the most important place on your website that affects your search engine visibility.
The page title is the first thing someone reads when looking through the search results pages; it should be clearly written to say exactly what the page is about.
The title of the page should match the Heading 1 of the page, and it should match the entire topic of the page.
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PageRank, abbreviated PR, is a trademark of Google's and is irrelevant to all other search engines. PageRank is one of Google's many methods of indicating the popularity of a website as a number ranging from 0 (least popular) to 10 (most popular).
Previously I explained that links from Authority websites are more valuable than links from small websites. PageRank is a numerical representation of how valuable all those other backlinks are to your site.
PageRank, Authority websites and Link Popularity are all related. The larger your website becomes the more of a chance it will become an Authority. As it gains Authority status more and more people will link to it, thus providing votes for your website.
Each link, or vote, will help to increase your PageRank.
Most of the things we teach you deal with the correct ways to design, program and write copy for your website. We want you to learn the correct way so your website will appear in search engines when someone searches for your product or service.
Even though your education is just beginning, you probably already know what an "organic listing" is. Except that no one pointed to it and told you the name.
Think of the layout Google and Yahoo! show when you search for something. Typically you see ads at the top, you see ads on the right side, and on the left is a list of web pages that match your requested search.
The "organic listings" are all the websites on the left side. These unpaid listings appear because the search engines have calculated them to be the best match for the keyword phrase that was searched.
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Remember what was said earlier, Content is King. The larger and more interesting your jewelry website is the better results you will have from search engines. But how exactly does that happen?
The natural method to develop better results over time is random unsolicited linking from other websites to yours. If that sounds confusing, just keep reading because I'm going to explain it right now.
Remember before when I mentioned Reciprocal Linking? You ask someone to put a link on their website in exchange for a link on yours. But an unsolicited link is much more valuable... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
If you're saying "oh great, he's starting with the technical stuff," you'd be correct. Remember that the internet is nothing more than a bunch of computers that talk to each other. They talk in 1's and 0's and other strings of numbers and strange characters. As the internet has evolved many of us tech-heads have realized that you guys, the non-techies need to be shielded from this stuff.
You don't need to know what those crazy numbers are all about, you just need to know how to use it, have fun and more importantly make money with the technology. There will always be a tech savvy person around to help you, if you just ask.
However, there are still technical terms that need to punch through that shielding because there's no other way to explain them. The entire family of website codes is part of that technical ... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
In order to show up in search engines correctly you need to make sure you follow all the current guidelines for how to properly create a website.
We have a list of guidelines we publish for jewelry businesses, but more important than our own, Google also publishes a list of guidelines for the correct ways to create a website.
When you follow these guidelines, it is said that you are Search Engine Optimizing your website.
Here's how you would use it in a sentence: "I need to search engine optimize my website." "I need some SEO work done on my website." "My website is not optimized at all." "I have to hire a Genius SEO to optimize my website."
As you can see, the Search Engine Optimization term can be used as a noun, verb or even to refer to the person you hire to do... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
In our first lesson we talked about the search engines, how to use them, how the search results were laid out and introduced some terminology. In this lesson we will introduce most of the vocabulary you will encounter while working on your website. In my own continual education I find that the biggest hurdle for me is to simply learn the new vocabulary terms involved. Indeed, once I fully understand those new words I am able to consume the educational material faster.
As always with the Jeweler Website Advisory Group, this lesson will be presented using examples that directly related to you, the jewelry business owner. The common lexicon within your industry is infused into this training for your ease of understanding.
I'll present the vocabulary in alphabetical order, but I'd like to recap the terms you have alr... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
The Learning the Basics course is a collection of written and recorded training intended for the absolute beginner. If you just put up a website and really need to figure out what to do, and what search engine optimization, and search engine marketing is all about, then this course is for you. A lot of topics will be covered and perhaps the information here will be beneficial for people who already have gotten started and just really need to fill in all the gaps between what they have learned.
Search engine optimization and search engine marketing is a very tedious task. It's not difficult, it just takes a while to learn all the steps and important procedures in what to do and what not to do.
Once you learn all the basics of search engine optimization it will be rather surprising how easy it is to elevate your web... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
You can spend an exorbitant amount of money designing the perfect brochure to give to a customer. IBM once upon a time spent millions of dollars to create paper literature to sell their mainframe servers. Millions of dollars for a brochure that they new was only being given to 10 potential customers.
Please don't take the same approach with writing copy for your website. Don't get me wrong, you do need a well written website, but it does not have to be perfect. Every page of your website should be limited to 500 words or less. Actually 250 to 350 is probably a good measure, and you should try to have some copy on every page or your site.
Compose your copy for a high school junior or senior level education, not because your customers are uneducated, but because that level of reading can be fast and easily unders... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
Sorry to say you will not have visitors beating down your door right away. If you just put up a brand new domain name it will take quite a while for the search engines to find you... Actually, have you ever wondered HOW the search engines will find you?
It's not magic. The search engines will find you when you either tell them that your site exists, or when some other website links to yours. It does not happen automatically.
You could set up a Google Local account or a Google Webmaster Tools account, but neither of those accounts will help you get placed in the search engines quickly.
The best way, and perhaps the only way to get yourself found by a search engine is to go out and ge... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
Building a website is only the beginning of what you need to do for success while using internet tools. If you truly want to achieve online success, you need to establish some type of marketing online which you can either manage yourself or hire professional service providers.
What exactly is SEO? Search Engine Optimization is the term used to describe the process of optimizing a website for better organic listings on the left hand side of the search engine results page (known as a SERP). The search engines read your website and use your naturally written website copy to determine how to rank your site.
The best ranking is achieved through a combination of several fine tuned factors such as keyword research, rewriting pages on your site to match the keywords, correct website layout and proper use of var... VIEW FULL ARTICLE
"...serious kudos to you. We love your straight talk, pertinent information and plain language. I don't know how many industries have something of jWAG's caliber available, but I learn from the emails every day. Really, really nice work, and very appreciated." -Cheryl Herrick, Global Pathways Jewelry
