Completed So Far:

Basically, there are three main ‘pillars’ of search engine optimization:

1. search engine friendly design,
2. search engine friendly content, and
3. hypertext links

So far we have looked at developing and implementing the design and content pillars, now it’s time to add some hypertext links to our website/blog content.

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New Developments:

Internal links (links that point to locations within your website/blog) and outgoing links (links that you make to someone else’s website/blog), are not as valuable to search engines as incoming links are (links that someone else makes to your website/blog) but they are still well worth the effort to create. We will look at incoming links in Friday’s post. Today I wanted to highlight a few important points and guidelines about internal and outgoing links.

Internal and outgoing links are the two types of links that you, as a blog/website author, have control over, which makes them easier to add to your website/blog than incoming links are.

Internal Links

Internal links are the hypertext links that you make from content you have included on a post to content you have included on a page, or on another post, or further down on the same post, or some variation on those themes.

The basic premise is that you have used hypertext links to connect one part of you blog/website to another part of your blog/website. An example is this series on Search Engine Optimizing Your Blog. There is an Introduction post that has a list of all of the posts that are in this series. I have used this list to link the Introduction post to the individual posts, and have linked the individual posts back to the Introduction post.

Search engine bots and spiders use these internal links as pathways to wander around your website/blog. In this way, you increase the likelihood that the bots and spiders have identified all of your pages and posts and this could help improve your search engine ranking.

One way to check and see which of your website/blog’s posts and pages Google has identified and ranked is to type: site:your website/blog’s URL. So, for example, to see what Google’s bots have identified on this site, type site:www.agelessnomads.com into Google’s search and you should end up with a long list of pages that Google’s bots have found. This tells me that Google’s bots have found my website/blog and scanned all of the pages and posts. Searchers can now find this website – it’s up to me now to do what I can to increase the page ranking so that when someone does a search this website will show up on the first or second search engine results page.

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Tip: Always use relevant keywords in and around hypertext links. In fact, if you can use keywords to click on, instead of using ‘Click Here’, that’s even better. Search engine bots and spiders are already looking for keywords and they are also already looking for hypertext links. Using the two together is a very powerful combination.

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Next Step:

Internal links are only one type of linking strategy that you can use on your website/blog. Linking your website/blog to someone else’s website or blog also attracts search engine bots and spiders, and can help improve your blog/website’s overall search engine optimization. Friday’s post will look at how you can use outgoing links to your best advantage.

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If you liked this post, you can read this series on Search Engine Optimizing Your Blog from the beginning by going to the Introduction post.

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Completed So Far:

Keywords have been chosen and analyzed so that I now have a list of powerful keywords. I am using these keywords to create useful and unique content that will draw visitors to my site, and, hopefully, keep them coming back.
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New Developments:

Reading materials that has been posted on the Internet is very different from the way we read material that has been published in other media.

Jakob Neilson's "F-Pattern" for scanning websites*

When we read a novel, for example, we generally start at the beginning of the novel and then read word for word until we reach the end. We don’t want to miss a nuisance or a description, or a twist in the plot, or any of the action. But most people don’t read a lot of novels, choosing instead to read magazines, Internet websites and blogs. When we read these media, particularly when we read anything on the internet, we tend to scan the material rather than actually read it.

Guidelines for Scannable Web Content

The following guidelines will help you create easily scannable materials for your website or blog:

1. use lots of headings and subheadings – use headings and subheadings to present an idea of the content that follows. Use keywords in headings and subheadings, draw attention to headings and subheadings by using bold, italics, underlines, CAPITAL LETTERS, or a different color.
2. use lots of white space – readers often feel overwhelmed when confronted with solid block of text. White space makes even long articles easier to read.
   
3. use graphics, pictures and videos – use the media capabilities of the Internet to make you web pages attractive and entertaining
   
4. people scan in an ‘F’ shape – important information should be placed down the left side, across the top, and in the middle (provide extra highlighting by leaving extra white space around this information, or framing the material)
5. use short sentences and short paragraphs – these are easier to read and scan through
6. break long articles or posts into chunks – small chunks are easier to read and focus on.
   
7. use links – use hyperlinks to connect sections of longer articles, to connect articles or posts to other material on your site, to connects your articles or posts to materials on other sites.
8. create lists – lists are easy to read and pack a lot of information into a small space.
   
9. don’t bury your points - the lead sentence of your paragraphs should be the most important point you are making in your paragraph. The remaining sentences of the paragraph generally support or explain this first sentence. You might even try using the journalist’s ‘inverted pyramid’ format – place the most important information at the beginning of your post, with progressively less important information making up the remainder of the post or article.
10. highlight important words and phrases throughout your post – using bold, italics, underlines, CAPITAL LETTERS, or a different color draws the reader’s attention to the important information. Try not to have too much information highlighted through your content as that only confuses readers and makes the content hard to scan.

Incorporating some, or all, of these guidelines into your content helps create an attractive, easy to read website that not only attracts readers, but helps keep them coming back to read more.

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Next Step:

One of the most important search engine optimization techniques is the use of links. Wednesday’s post will look at internal links – connecting posts to pages, pages to posts and posts to posts in your website/blog.

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If you liked this post, you can read this series on Search Engine Optimizing Your Blog from the beginning by going to the Introduction post.

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* Jakob Neilsen’s article F-Shaped Pattern for Reading Web Content can be found at: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

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If you enjoyed reading this post, maybe you’d like to subscribe to our RSS feed, or subscribe via email (enter your email address in the box at the top of the page, on the right) so you don’t miss any future posts. Thank you for visiting!