Search Engine Optimization basics
Domain Name Renewal Increases SEO
Google has changed the algorithm used to rank web pages over 470 times in the last year! Surely you are not still trying to keep up with Google SEO, are you?
I've mentioned it before and until someone proves me wrong, I am going to stick with the adage that website optimization is key to your site being relevant, which in turn will get you good ranking in all the search engines. Relevance to search engines comes in many forms, and age is one of them. What exactly does this mean? Take the city of San Francisco for instance: they have the highest percentage of restaurants per capita in the country. In other words, if your restaurant stinks, it is not going to stay in business very long. Vis-a-vis, a long-standing restaurant in the Bay area likely has pretty good food. In the same respect, if your domain has been under your control and publishing content on the internet for a long time, it is probably going to rank rather well just based on that.
Of course, if you are new to the internet, this little perk is something you are just going to have to be patient for. But there is also the optimistic issue, wherein you register your domain for multiple years which sends the signal that your domain plans on sticking around for awhile. Here is a quote from Googles Historical and Age Data Patent:
Valuable (legitimate) domains are often paid for several years in advance, while doorway (illegitimate) domains rarely are used for more than a year. Therefore, the date when a domain expires in the future can be used as a factor in predicting the legitimacy of a domain and, thus, the documents associated therewith.
When you consider the cost of domain registration, this is probably the best value in Search Engine Optimization you are likely to come across.
Image Optimization for Search Engines
Written by Jeff Gatesman
Accessibility is simply good practice in web development, but it also helps with site optimizing for search engine ranking. Adding an alt tag to your images can have a larger impact than simply having a text representation of the image for users who are not seeing your images--it can help to drive traffic to your site.
If you have ever used Google Image Search you know that when you find the image you are looking for and click on it, you are directed to the site that is hosting that image. Chances are good that if your site is about cooking and you have a well-optimized image of an apple pie in your article about apple pies, that user who just arrived at your site from her google image search, may have found a new source for recipes on the web in your site.
Some may argue that the conversion rate on image search (converting browsers to loyal readers) is pretty low, but the reality is that images are becoming increasingly more important in Site Optimizing. Unless you haven't used Google in a couple of years, you will notice that search results now typically include images and other rich media.
