Though Yahoo! trails Google in terms of its market share of search queries, a solid percentage of users (17%) still utilize this search engine to retrieve and find websites. Yahoo! is headquartered in Sunnyvale, CA in the Silicon Valley. Combined, its network of sites garners an average of 3.4 billion page views on any given day.
SEO for Yahoo! is slightly different than for Google, as Yahoo!’s algorithm differs from Google’s. Yahoo! weighs factors such as the age of a site, keyword density and number of quality backlinks differently, for example. Yahoo! also places a lot of importance on site structure, so a quality SEO firm knows to present the best content to the search engines first, even if the information might be presented to the user in a different fashion.

Site architecture refers to the diagram or schematic of a website, i.e. its internal linking structure, informational flow, navigation, how it’s organized, etc. Just as an architect would map out the logistics of a building prior to gathering the necessary materials, a quality site requires the same type of forethought. Building an SEO-friendly site requires an understanding and appreciation of the qualities that the search engines require in order to properly index a website. Essentially, every site out there should present its information to the users in the best possible way. Effective site architecture allows for that process.

Search engine optimization (SEO) has been around almost as long as the search engines themselves. SEO refers to the process of trying to make a site rank well for particular keywords in the search engines. There are quite a few factors involved in making a site SEO-friendly. Some are on-site factors such as using the right keywords and having an internal linking structure, site map, meta data and alt tags, and optimal URL structure. Other factors are off-site, such as trying to encourage other sites to link back to a site and increase its inbound links.
While some SEO tactics are longstanding in the SEO community, such as creating high-quality engaging content so users link to a site naturally, the SEO field by its very nature is constantly changing. A top SEO expert thus has to constantly remain abreast of the latest nuances and often learns by trial-and-error and conducting tests.

Building backlinks to a website is a critical part of SEO. Virtually all the search engines place weight on how many other sites link to a particular site and factor that into their ranking algorithm. The search engines think that if a site has a lot of links pointing at it, it must be considered valuable in some way by a lot of people.
All links are not created equal, however. A link from a site that receives an extreme amount of traffic would be weighed much more heavily than one with a hundred visitors a month. A link from an educational institution or non-profit organization also enjoys more weight as the search engines consider them less likely to be paid for.
Anchor text, or the words in the link itself, affects how important a link is considered as well. Another factor is whether the site with the link is related to the site it links to. For example, a link from a dog walking service to a dog trainer would be given more weight than a link from a local bar to that same dog trainer.

Keyword research is the fundamental building block on which any successful SEO campaign is based. You will want to know which words people are using to search for your product or service and the search volume of those terms in order to determine your SEO strategy. For example, you might be able to rank quite easily for ‘website rankings’, but if zero searches are conducted for that term, why waste your time?
You can do keyword research in a variety of ways, give us a call and we can help you out! We will look at your competitors’ keywords or by analyzing your internal search queries to see what information people seek. We can also advise you on whether to try and achieve rankings for highly-competitive terms, or whether your business would be better served with going after long-tail keywords. The most effective keyword research is done by using a combination of ways.
Your SEO success depends on this crucial first step, as you’ll want to base your copy, meta data, articles, site map, URL structure, virtually every piece of copy on your site around this information.

As the top search engine on the Web, Google commands the vast majority of all conducted searches. Therefore, a successful SEO strategy should focus on trying to rank well in Google first and foremost.
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Content is key. But what is expert SEO content anyway? Content is defined by the think inside the box crowd as text. But real content is the entire experience. The visual, the text and the objects of engagement such [...] Continue Reading…