Google launches its own Sitemap Generator (Beta)!

Posted by admin | SEO Reseller | Tuesday 28 April 2009 10:56 pm
Open source XML sitemap generator tool announced by Google. Google had built its own sitemap generator with more controls and its search engine friendly. It performs the same thing as the some other software’s do that are available in the market, the only difference is that it’s free and Google has developed it.
 
Google described it as:
Google Sitemap Generator is a tool installed on your web server to generate the Sitemaps automatically. Unlike many other third party Sitemap generation tools, Google Sitemap Generator takes a different approach: it will monitor your web server traffic, and detect updates to your website automatically.
According to me everyone needs a sitemap generating tool, and since it is developed by Google I will definitely try it. I will try it and post my feedback later.
 
You can download its copy from here
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Ways To Improve Your Site with Google Analytics

Posted by admin | SEO Reseller | Tuesday 28 April 2009 2:40 am
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Among all the free web site stats analyzer, I think Google analytics is the best solution for your site because of its utility, richness and depth analysis. You are able to make informed editorial, navigational and page design decisions to boost your site’s traffic and effectiveness with the data that Google gives you.
 
Signup & installation
Google Analytics was launched in 2005; growth was initially slow due to the frustrating waiting list system initiated by Google to avoid over stretching their servers. Now the waiting list has been removed and anybody can sign up to use this great service.
You just need to visit Google analytics and signup for free Google analytics account.
Once your account is set up, to get Google Analytics tracking your site’s page views, drop a snippet of JavaScript onto your site’s pages (much like Sitemeter.) The guide should help you find your way around the new system. You just have to copy paste the JavaScript in the pages you want Google to track.
Example
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If you’re a blogger, just include the Google Analytics code into all your blogging software’s templates.
 
Powerful report generating tool
* If your site allows downloads you can keep record of your downloads by simply adding a script in your site.
 
Example
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* Tracking ecommerce site
Tracking where your visitor come from is the most important thing you should know. You come to know from which search engine visitors come searching for your site.
Sales reports by traffic sources can be found under the “Traffic Sources > All Traffic Sources” section of the menu.
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* Tracking your sales
To track your sales you will need to use server side script on your confirmation page (the page people see after they complete a transaction on your site) to populate a form in the following format:
 
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ExampleUTM:T|34535|Main Store|111108.06|8467.06|10.00|San Diego|CA|

USAUTM:I|34535|XF-1024|Urchin T-Shirt|Shirts|11399.00|9

UTM:I|34535|CU-3424|Urchin Drink Holder|Accessories|20.00|2
Once you have populated the form, GA will start tracking your sales right away.
 
Redesign of your site
If you are planning to redesign your site and want to keep your screen resolution according to the most commonly used resolution, according to different browsers or flash installed ask Google analytics for your queries. Just go to ‘web design parameters’ for all the valuable data you want!
 
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Above listed features is only the scratch of Google analytics. According to me Google analytics is one of the best web sites analyzing report generating tool build so far.
If you have not used Google analytics yet try it and I am sure you will love its rich features.
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How to create a Google Site Map

Posted by admin | White Label SEM | Thursday 23 April 2009 11:22 pm
Officially announced on June 6th, 2005 at Google’e Blog, Google Site Map allows you to submit a listing of all your urls for Google to crawl.
There have been many questions concerning the procedure of creating a Google Site Map. Below is the non-Python way of creating one. (Note: Google has further documentation at their site)
 
First, create a file named sitemap.xml
 
Use the following code in any HTML editor:
 
create-a-google-site-map
 
Here’s a breakdown of those properties:
lastmod -
This is the date the document was last modified and uses the following formats:

dd.mm.yyyy

dd.mm.yyyy hh:mm

dd/mm/yyyy

dd/mm/yyyy hh:mm
 
changefreq -
Tells Google Sitemaps the frequently that content of a particular URL will change.
Your options are “always”, “hourly”, “daily”, “weekly”, “monthly”, “yearly” or “never”.
The value “always” should be used to describe documents that change each time they are accessed. The value “never” should be used to describe archived URLs.
 
priority -
The priority of a particular URL relative to other pages on your site.
You may select between 0.0 and 1.0, where 0.0 identifies the lowest priority page(s) on your website and 1.0 identifies the highest priority page(s) on your website.
Add as many pages as there are in your website.
Google Sitemap supports up to 50,000 pages per XML file.
Once you’ve completed all of those steps, you’ll need to submit your site map page.
Submit to: (requires gmail account)
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login
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What is SEO

Posted by admin | SEO Reseller | Wednesday 22 April 2009 11:55 pm
SEO- Search Engine Optimisation. Over the last ten years SE’s (Search Engines) have become an ever increasing important factor in business promotion. The four major SE’s generate in excess of 700 million search queries a day, an outstanding fact that really emphasises the importance of utilising the potential reach of the Search Engine.
Over 75% of people now use the internet when looking to buy a product or service. Websites in the top 3 pages of the major search engines gain 90% of search engine traffic. Basically, if you have a website you need to be on the first few pages of the SERP’s (Search Engine Results Pages) to get the traffic.so how do you do this?………. Its not quite as simple as many people believe. I am constantly being asked ” I have just had a website built but do not appear on Google.” Well firstly type in the URL (web address) of your website, if you still do not come up then your site has not been indexed. If your website does appear then previously when you said “I do not appear in Google” what you meant is- you typed in a keyword (a word related to your product/service) and your website did not appear in the top few pages. To be honest, this is very unlikely to happen. Unless you are selling a very unique product with very little competition then your website is likely to be on page 23 or worse!
Everybody with a website would love to be #1 on google for their main keyword, but it takes time and effort. You need to optimise your website for the best chances of achieving this.
After crawling the internet using robots called “spiders”, the SE’s use a complex mathematical formula to “rank” websites on importance and relevance to certain keywords. These formulas are known as “algorithms”. SEO describes the techniques that use a knowledge of how SE’s rank websites, to make alterations to a site so that it better “adheres” to the “algorithms”.
There are to main phases to the optimisation process- “on page” and “off page”. On page is the alterations that are made to the physical content of a website and the code that makes up each webpage. This includes intergrating keywords into areas of the site that the SE’s deem important. Off page optimisation is the process of building links to a website…… what this means is getting as many websites to have a link somewhere on their site to the site you are optimising. This is very important because a major part of SE’s “algorithms” is link popularity- the more websites that link to another, the more important it is considered by the SE’s and the higher up it appears in the SERP’s.
Of course there are many more technical issues involved with Search Engine Optimisation but i wont discuss these in this article.. One thing that you should remeber though when thinking about SEO is that it certainly is not instant. Due to the way search engines work it may be several months before the friuts of your labour are seen, in the form of higher rankings.Google currently indexes over 8 billion web pages and the ever increasing size of the internet means that the SE’s certainly have their work cut out.
Many companies manage their own SEO in house, this can work fine but be willing to put in the time to learn the technicalities. The “nity gritty” of it can be slighly overwhelming as it is quite a specialist, technical field.
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Beginners Guide

Posted by admin | SEO Reseller | Wednesday 22 April 2009 3:58 am
Search Engine Optimisation is the buzzword around at the moment. It is the art of getting a website to appear higher up in the “natural” results pages of Search engines like “Google”. Although I highly recommended SEO for any business wanting to push online sales or increase website visibility it does have a few limitations:
Time frame:
Due to the nature of how search engines operate and the vast size of the Internet it may take several months before you “see the fruits of your labour” with SEO.
 
Cost:
SEO is a very specialised field and this is reflected in the cost of hiring a professional seo company.
 
Black Hat techniques:
There are still many people selling SEO services that use “black hat” techniques in order to gain high rankings in the search engines. By “black hat” techniques I mean unethical techniques that cheat the search engines, for example “cloaking” or “doorway” pages. These techniques may cause a temporary rise in rankings for a website but you run the risk of being banned by the search engines.
 
Keywords:
It is very difficult to optimise a website for many keywords. You may be able to rank top for some of your keywords but if you sell thousands of individual products then that is only a small fraction of your market.
Another option available to businesses wishing to promote their website on Google is to use their Pay Per Click Advertising programme- Google Ad words.Google Ad Words allows a website to instantly appear on the first pages of Google for any keywords related to your product or service.
Your listing appears on the right hand side of the “natural” results as a “sponsored link”. The beauty of this advertising method is that it is highly targeted. What I mean by this is that your website is put in front of people who are as far into the buying cycle as possible, they are searching to buy a particular product or service. Compare this to more traditional advertising like listings in the press. Lets say you place an advert in a local newspaper on page Twelve. The newspaper has 100 000 readers weekly. So 90 000 read page twelve. 20 000 readers noticed your ad and of those readers 500 chose to remember your company name for future reference. Of these 500 readers 50 actually think of you next time they require your product or service. So from 100 000 readers you have gained 50 new customers. Now with Google Ad Words your advert only appears when someone types in a keyword related to your product or service. Its like everybody reading the newspaper seeing your advert plus you only pay when they visit your website.
There is no minimum budget for Google Ad Words. If you wanted to spend one pound a day then that’s fine. You bid on your keywords and set the price you are willing to pay for each visitor to your website. Average price per click is approximately £0.05 to £1.00 but it completely depends on the competitiveness of the market.
Where you are positioned in the “sponsored links” depends on two things- your bid price for your keywords and your click through rate (the number of times your listing has been shown divided by the number of times your advert is clicked.) The higher the click through rate the more “relevant” Google deems your advert and you are rewarded with being higher up in the listings.
Google Ad Words is used by millions of people every day promoting their websites and increasing traffic and sales. It is relatively straightforward to set up and operate so what are you waiting for……
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