Monday, August 24th, 2009
Now that your dating site content is optimized and ready to get indexed by search engines, it is time for a final stage – submitting your site to search databases.
Among the search engines Google certainly takes the leading position as the most ‘haunted’ one due to being relevant. This is why I will use it as an example while defining the steps you need to take to let search engines know about your site.
So, the initial step to ‘get friends’ with Google is to be the first to introduce yourself by submitting your site URL through this link http://www.google.com/addurl.html. If you don’t do this – the sky won’t fall over your head, and somehow or other Google spiders will find and index your website on their own… But time is precious in terms of promotion and advertising, and we all want your online dating /social community to reach the top as fast as possible. So why not take a few minutes to help the restless Google crawlers? Good news is that you won’t need to re-submit your site URL again even if you change it – once indexed, it will be tracked and updated automatically (provided you changed only the domain name and did not alter the site content).
Next move is submitting your sitemap to Google. Basically, sitemap is a list of all the website links accessible to users organized in a hierarchical (top-to-down) manner. It helps Google crawlers ‘understand’ the structure of your site and, thus, provide a significantly better indexation to its pages (essential for Flash or JavaScript menus not containing HTML links). SkaDate dating software team developed an integrated tool for automatic XML sitemap generation, which allows you to get a ready map of your site structure by a simple button click in the Admin Panel.
So, what happens next? I bet, most of you wonder how exactly Google (or any other search engine) ‘calculates’ the web site’s relevancy and importance for defining its position in search results, what factors it takes into account, and what is the priority of these factors for such evaluation. No one except for the Google staff members knows this mysterious algorithm. Even SEO sharks will hardly ever get close enough to understanding it, as it constantly gets updated. But still there is some useful information for all of us to learn.
Let’s take a look at Google PageRank, often referred to as ‘PR’ (not to confuse with Public Relations). This is how Google itself describes it: ”PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page’s value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves “important” weigh more heavily and help to make other pages “important”.” PageRank grades from 0 to 10. The higher your web page rank is – the better (www.yahoo.com and www.microsoft.com have PR9, www.google.com has PR10). Please, note that I mentioned a ‘web page’, not a ‘web site’. For a search engine all your site pages are ‘autonomous’ objects for indexation. So, each page will have its own PR. PageRank is invisible to Internet users in search results. But it can be seen by means of a special tool, such as Google Toolbar. It has both numerical and visual (scale bar) indicators.
As you might have understood from the PageRank description given above, it is based on the quantity and (most importantly) quality of the inbound links to your site pages. If a few web sites with good positions in search results (it is 
exactly high search ranks, not PR I am speaking about right now) link to your site, they give you a share of their popularity, thus, helping you to get a better PageRank too. So, you should be quite ‘picky’ while going for link exchange, since even multiple references from web sites with low Search Engine Results Placement (SERP) will not help you much in SEO.
And here comes the most important part. PageRank is just one of many components Google engine takes into consideration while ‘granting’ a search results position to your site. Which means that even if you get a PR which is 10 out of 10 – it does not guarantee you the top position in a search rank. This is proved by a number of examples when a web page with a lower PageRank got a higher SERP as compared to its competitors. Besides, PageRank is solely the Google invention, and does not affect search results positions in other search engines in any way. So, no need to focus only on this ‘magic PR’, but it’s essential to give enough attention to other important aspects, such as developing a carefully-optimized site content, choosing relevant keywords, and many more useful things mentioned in my previous articles devoted to SEO.
Search engine optimization is a science, whose motto is definitely ‘live and learn’. It’s constantly altered and updated. So take time to follow the newest SEO trends and strategies – and you will see how rewarding the results of your online business may be.
From my side, I will always be glad to answer your questions and assist in every way.
Feel free to leave your comments.
Best wishes,
Irene
Image sources: http://www.crsolutionsgroup.com , http://www.tasticproductions.com , http://icp.ge.ch
Posted in Marketing, Products, SkaDate | Tags: dating software · online dating · PageRank · search engine optimization · SEO · SkaDate · social community · XML sitemap
Wednesday, August 12th, 2009
You already know what the magic ‘SEO’ abbreviation stands for. It’s for Search Engine Optimization unifying tools and methods intended to help your site get top positions in search results by means of optimizing its content strategically placing keywords and removing barriers for efficient indexation. Such methods, techniques, and traffic they generate are called ‘organic’ or ‘natural’.
Now here’s a brief explanation of what ‘PPC ads’ is. ‘Pay Per Click’ is an advertising model used on the Internet, and based on one condition: advertisers pay the hosts for showing their ads only as they get clicked. The Cost Per Click 
(CPC) is usually set through a bidding system – advertisers offer the maximum price they are ready to pay per each click bringing one visitor to their site. Sometimes a flat-rate model for defining a CPC is used. It is based on rate cards – lists of pre-set CPCs for different areas of the website that hosts ads.
The most popular and efficient PPC providers are: Google AdWords, Yahoo! Search Marketing, and Microsoft adCenter.
Here is how the PPC model works… Basically, when it comes to search engines, the PPC strategy technically gets your site placed to the first page of search results almost instantly. I am talking about those few links displayed at the very top or on the right of search results also known as ’sponsored links’ or ’sponsored ads’. Benefits for advertisers are obvious – you get immediate results in the form of traffic directed to your site. Bad news is that the traffic flow comes to halt as soon as you stop paying, which brings you back to where you started.
It is not so easy to decide which way to go – whether to put maximum effort in SEO strategy, which will require time and diligence, or to just go for a paid ad campaign, which will require considerable financial investments in return to fast results. Each method has pros and cons you have to study before making a decision.
1. SEO takes time and effort. You will have to think about the website textual content very carefully, find relevant keywords and place them on your site strategically. You will need to make sure that the site content provides no barriers for search engines indexation, and that it’s really interesting and useful for your visitors. Even if all these requirements are fulfilled, it may take many months before your site gets desirable ranking in search results.
PPC ads are as effective as they can be. They guarantee quick and noticeable results. Even if your site is a newbie in the world of search engines – you have all chances to attract visitors belonging to your target audience, and thus, start building a database of members.
2. SEO strategy is a cost-saving solution as compared to a PPC model. Optimizing the site content for search engines will take some expenses from your part, no doubt. But these will be mostly one-time fee costs diminishing as the time goes, since you will need to just maintain the content you built at the start. 
When it comes to PPC, you will face some totally different figures. Don’t forget that with PPC each member click will cost you money, which is fine unless you start getting hundreds to thousands visitors daily. This is why a PPC strategy requires careful estimation of a cost-revenue rate.
3. Since SEO success requires your website content to be relevant and informative, it will inspire you to work hard on it, and build something really worthy. This content optimization will help enrich your site, make it interesting and attractive. Besides, you will get a considerable experience in website promotion, and probably get closer to understanding the principles of search engines operation.
PPC will not take this much of your time and effort. But for most of us this will be an advantage rather than a drawback.
4. PPC model allows you to have full control on your advertisement content. For instance, you can change keywords any time, which will not affect your website position.
As to Search Engine Optimization, such changes may lead to your site ad content being compromised.
So, if you are planning a website with dynamic content that needs to be updated on a regular basis – SEO might not work for you.
5. Statistics shows that users tend to show more trust for natural search results rather than for sponsored links. Serious businesses also give more value to obtaining high search ranks by ‘organic’ means.
It is difficult to decide in favor of one of these promotion methods. Actually, I would recommend to go for both at a time, as this combination will surely be the most effective, and might bring you up to 3 times increase in clicks through rates.
I am sure though that each of you will make a choice based on his own vision of the site promotion strategy, and of course, on his own opportunities.
However, your opinion is very important. So, I will be grateful if you take some time and leave a comment sharing your opinion and probably experience on how to get closer to the goal – top rankings in search engines.
Best wishes,
Irene
Posted in Marketing | Tags: advertising · PPC · PPC ads · search engine · search engine optimization · SEO · traffic
Tuesday, July 28th, 2009
Now that you have done a great job on selecting the relevant keywords for your site, it’s time to talk about using them on your site efficiently. Well, the word ‘efficiency’ in the given context is something that cannot stand apart from using meta tags.
Basically, meta tags are HTML or XHTML elements used to help search engines list your site accurately in their indexes by providing structured data about your webpage content. Other than the Title tag, meta tags are not 
visible to the users and serve exclusively to allow search engines and browsers to ‘deal’ with your site more easily and effectively.
Below you fill find a few tips on how to use the meta tags efficiently to make search engines (and users!) like your site.
The title tag– should contain brief information about your site; the total summary of keywords for this tag should not exceed 60 characters, but still try to make it as descriptive as you can since search engines will use it as a title for your listing.
Example: <title> Free matchmaking, online dating service for pet lovers singles and their pets </title>
The meta tag – Keywords attribute – this is actually the place for ’storing’ all your keywords. You can add about 1000 characters into this section (commas and spaces count as characters too). Avoid repeating same keywords often (not more than 4-7 times).
Example: <META content=”online dating, dating, matchmaking, pet lovers, pets, cat owner dating, dog owner dating, singles, animal lovers, pet dating, pet health”>
The meta tag – Description attribute – allows you to write the description of what your site is about, which is going to be recognized by some search engines. About 150 characters should be enough for your description to express the site conception, but some search engines allow you for about 400.
Example: <META content=”A dating site for single pet lovers, looking for friendship and love with like-minded personals”>
It is advised that you use meta tags on each page of your site (they should be inserted inside the <HEAD> section of the page). This helps better indexation by search engines and thus, increases your chances for good ranking.
The good question is how to add meta tags to your site. Normally, this can be done through one of the HTML-editors, like Nvu or Dreamweaver. But SkaDate community software developers simplified the process of adding meta information to your dating or social networking site by bringing it to inserting codes to all the site pages right from the Admin Panel/SEO section. You can also add a unique meta title and description to each page via Admin Panel/Languages.
Now let me give you a few pieces of advice on how to get the most out of your relationship with a search engine.
- Make sure that your website textual content includes all the relevant keywords you selected for search engines. And remember that the keywords density should not exceed 5-10%.
- Check all the links on your site. There shouldn’t be any broken or irrelevant links.
- For some important site content (names, links, information) use text rather than images, since Google bots do not recognize text in images. Or at least always use alt=”keyword” tag for your images.
- Each page of your site has to be reachable from a at least one static text link.
- Make sure your site is displayed correctly in all browsers.
- Be attentive when it comes to affiliate programs – try to avoid using the textual content on your site identical to content on the other web sources. This may bring you to something opposite to success.
- Be careful using other business’ trademarks among your keywords as this may lead to legal issues in regards to possible misleading the potential users.
And here come a few ‘DON’Ts’ that may not only fail to help you in SEO, but at worst will lead to search engines terminating all kinds of interaction with your site by banning it out from the search results.
- Don’t go for Black Hat SEO (Spamdexing), which includes keyword stuffing (loading pages with keywords irrelevant to the site content) and link farms (a group of websites containing hyperlinks to each-other).
- Don’t use programs sending automated queries to Google, say, for checking the site rank status in search results for various queries.
- Don’t place hidden text or links on your site pages. Here I mean text invisible to site visitors, but available to Google crawlers.
- Don’t allow duplicate content.
- Don’t use cloaking (which is displaying different page content to users and to Google bots)
- Don’t create ‘doorway’ pages intended for crawlers rather than for site users.
These simple rules for managing your site content will help you avoid common mistakes causing unwanted consequences and establish friendly and long-term relationship with search engines.
If you have something to say on this subject – don’t hesitate to leave the article comments expressing your opinion!
Best wishes,
Irene
Posted in Marketing, Products, SkaDate | Tags: community software · keywords · search engine optimization · SEO · SkaDate · social networking
