A forum user at SEOChat gave us the idea to expand on some ideas I commented on there. What's the best way for you to organize your web site keeping SEO factors in mind? Is it sub-folders, sub-domains, or something in between to maintain clarity for your users?
The phrase The Long Tail was popularized by Chris Anderson in Wired magazine in 2004. The statistical model with the cool name is primarily used to describe marketing models seen primarily in large firms like Amazon.com, Ebay, or Netflix.
Rather than discussing the mathematical nuances of long-tail, this article aims at debunking some myths associated with search engine optimization and the supposed 'holy grail' status of long-tail. Many SEOs have praised the new information and tout its 'powers' as crucial to any web sites success. DistinctSEO will invite a special guest to talk about the 'pros' of long-tail, but in the meantime, let's look practical applications from an SEO standpoint.
This is an article originally posted in September of 2006. We've updated it some and posted it for your review.
What was once a useful component to help increase rank has been reduced to a blurb from the past. Some SEOs claimed to have excluded meta description tags since 2002 with no harmful results. From what I've seen, there was use for meta descriptions up until early 2004. The question many are asking now, and a valid question at that, is if exclude them will ranks be negatively affected?
It is now fact that Google Adwords will give your landing page a lower quality score if it takes forever to load. This was discussed at Webmaster World and Search Engine Watch. My question, when will Google search implement the same test on their trust/quality scores for web pages?
I'm always shocked to note how large web sites don't invest in basic SEO. Seriously, there's a massive market to be had if a slick and slimy SEO and convince big web sites they can capitalise on some very basic SEO tactics. Case in point? Canadian sports network Sportsnet. I was checking out the latest trade rumors (NHL trading deadline today) and typed in the web site 'http://sportsnet.ca'. Well would you know, error page. What? Sites down?! Too many trades going on. So I put the addy in Google and what do I get? The www version of Sportsnet.
Let me get this straight, Sportsnet, massive network, is so shortsided they can't implement a 301 redirect for their non-www version to the www? It won't even load folks! Errors galore! I also noticed they use IIS, big mistake there 
Imagine how much extra traffic they'd garner employing some simple SEO techniques--they'd trump TSN!
"Twelve Paid Directories"
"Eleven Bloggers Bloggin'"
"Ten Lord's a Link-Baiting"
"Nine Laides SEOing"
"Eight Web Stats You're Milking"
"Seven Steps to Great SEO"
"Six Blog Promotion Tactics"
"Five Golden Steps to Marketing Planning"
"Four Calling With Phones to Complement SEO"
"Three Search Engines"
"Two Something Somethings"
Today: And a number one Google placement!
Oh wow we wish it were true. To wake Christmas morn and realise Father Christmas, Baby Jesus, whoever, have finally pulled a string in your favor. Maybe, just maybe, Google wised up to your great web site and started ranking you. Albeit, number one rankings never happen overnight, when they do happen, it's a mini-miracle.
Have you heard this spiel? "There are only two ways to get quality web traffic to your web site. They involve tactics and strategies to improve organic traffic, and paid traffic." If so, whomever spouted it off is a doofus of google proportions. Albeit, there are two major methods of getting web traffic, there are a few more to consider when trying to reach your marketing goals. Here is a list of some:
"Twelve Paid Directories"
"Eleven Bloggers Bloggin'"
"Ten Lord's a Link-Baiting"
"Nine Laides SEOing"
"Eight Web Stats You're Milking"
"Seven Steps to Great SEO"
"Six Blog Promotion Tactics"
"Five Golden Steps to Marketing Planning"
"Four Calling With Phones to Complement SEO"
Today: Three Non-French Search Engines
I have no idea what the French have to do with SEO (I'm joking, I do,) but there was nothing appropriate for the song. Of course, finding a suitable analogy for the number three wasn't hard at all. Three is the number of major search engines you have to compete for.
