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I’m a web editor and a member of the Web Editors Group. I co-administrate the Web Editors Blog and handle their Twitter account. I have been a web editor since 1995 and a privacy officer since 1998. Contact me if you need help with a Web project.

Alan Eggleston
E-Messenger Internet Consulting, Inc.

• Why SEO Matters
• SEO and Keywords
• SEO – Do It Inside or Outsource It
• SEO – “White Hat” or “Black Hat”?
  (list updated 4.12.12)

I try to write two articles a month for the Web Editors blog and they have been on search engine optimization, although they may not always be so.  Please join me there, too.

• “I have a personal Facebook page, should I have a Fan Page?”
• “Should I do Twitter?”
• “Should I do Pinterest?”
• “I have a Twitter page, what about Google+?”

My first question for them is, do you have time to do it? A social media page of whatever application that just sits there does you no good. You should plan regular postings and you should check your space or spaces regularly for comments. Regular postings can be as simple as a couple of times a week, but check back often in case someone responds.

My second question for them is, do you have something to say? Social media should be social, a two-way stream of communications that not only broadcasts marketing information (the limited view of some) but also interacts with customers and answers some often pointed and very good questions. The best social media practitioners are playful and honest and answer all questions, no matter the topic. If you aren’t ready to take all comers, you may not be ready for social media.

My final question is, how active can you afford to be? There are a lot of social media channels but you don’t have to be on all of them. Do you know where your customers congregate? Do you know where they would get the most benefit and what they would find useful? Focus on one or two channels at least initially and do them well, then if you can afford the time and effort, expand.

• A lot of businesses are finding success with a Facebook Fan Page. Many people are already on Facebook because that’s where their friends are and it’s natural to also find their favorite businesses there. It’s also easy to share information from businesses to their friends.

• Google+ is still relatively new but growing fast. It’s often an entirely new group of people, initially made up of technologists and journalists trying out the new service. Over time, more people have joined, but it hasn’t dented Facebook’s dominance over the friend and family connections. Their brand pages have seemed to settled on a format or a purpose yet, either. The big advantage with Google+ is that your page benefits from the Google search connection.

• Twitter to me is a less settled environment for business, although businesses have been there for some time. It is more a place to meet new people and address issues than to establish a relationship with a brand. Brands either do really well or really poorly, depending on how they respond to consumers.

• Pinterest is so new, businesses are just beginning to learn how to take advantage of its power of passing along ideas (pinning, repinning, and liking). I think there is huge potential here if you have photos to post and ideas to share that people can share with their friends.

Most of my clients so far have shied away from much social media participation. In some cases, I think it’s a mistake, in others, I think it’s the right decision. It just depends on the business and what they have to offer consumers.

See also my Web Editors blog articles…

Writing is not an exercise in rote. That’s why, try as they may, computers will never perfect the art of writing. And that’s why rules meant to be observed strictly should be broken regularly.

Much of writing skill is in the talent and artistry of the writer. So, when someone asks a question like, “Should you ever end a sentence with a preposition?” or “Should you ever begin a sentence with and, but, or so?” (a conjunction) I say, I know what the rules say but ease up on the rules and go with your intuition.

One of the first things they tell you when you learn to write is, “Write like you talk.” Way more people speak by beginning a sentence with and, but, and so than don’t. Way more people speak by ending a sentence with to or with or from than don’t. Now, I can see that there would be instances in which you wouldn’t begin a sentence with a conjunction or end a sentence with a preposition – formal writing, for instance. But in casual use, in informal writing as in personal correspondence, advertising, many books and opinion pieces there would be plenty of instances in which you would.

So, you have my permission, within tolerable reason, to break the rules and write with casual abandon. Be prepared for the hardnosed critic to chastise you over it, but send him or her my way (link them to this page, for instance). I’ll defend you.

Alan Eggleston is a freelance Web writer and Web editor for E-Messenger Internet Consulting Inc. Join him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

by Alan Eggleston

SEO (search engine optimization) should be a long-term commitment. It isn’t something you plan to do once and then forget about, any more than you would train once for a season of running marathons. However, to ease your mind, there are some things that take more labor than others.

I always advise my clients to put their highest priority on their highest level pages. You should still do meta tags (or meta data) on the deeper pages, but when you are competing with other sites you should vary your data based on your positioning and your page content to maximize search engine indexing. That takes constant vigilance and a watchful eye on how your competition is ranking. In addition, search engines don’t like to give all the top rankings to the same sites, so put your effort into the pages that will feed readers to the other content anyway and that carry the most links and probably the most keyword power – the higher level pages.

As in other aspects of life, don’t fret over the things you can’t control and put your energy into the things you can control. Here are lists of some of each in the world of search.

Again, think of SEO as a series of marathons in which the conditions on the course change, the weather varies, and the runners aren’t consistent. The only control you have as a competitor is how you run and, ultimately, how you prepare yourself. Maximize yourself and you maximize your opportunity to win (or at least make it through the race).

Topics I have recently discussed on SEO include:

• Introduction
• Meta Data Makes the Difference
• Content and the Role of Relevancy
• Links add Value and Authority
• Keywords for Planning and Clarity
• Promotion Implies Relationships
• Site Prep Paves the Way
• Resources for Staying “Clued Up”
• Maximizing Your Opportunity to Win

Alan Eggleston is a freelance Web writer and Web editor for E-Messenger Internet Consulting Inc. Join him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

by Alan Eggleston

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a dynamic subject. There are always a lot of articles about it in blogs, chat rooms, and social media. However, “the basics,” which I maintain are the real key to successfully setting up your website for effective search rankings, remain stable. So, if you find a few standard information sources to tap, you can avoid the fear headlines and keep your cool.

Here are my reading recommendations to staying on top of SEO as a Web Editor.

My Reading Recommendations

Books

• Search Engine Visibility by Shari Thurow

Websites

• Search Engine Land including their Facebook page
• Search Engine Watch

(I would avoid the forums and question areas in these sites until you become familiar with SEO and can sort out the “black hat” techniques some readers will suggest.)

News

• Mashable including their Facebook page
• Tech Crunch including their Facebook page

Blogs

• Matt Cutts (Google Search Engineering)
• Google’s Inside Search

Feel free to disagree with this list and suggest different sources. However, my criteria for choosing these are that they are professionals who write about the subject objectively and don’t try to sell you anything. These are very trustworthy sources, including Matt Cutt’s blog, which seeks to answer your questions about Google objectives and criteria. Avoid suggesting sources that are high on hyperbole and offer quick fixes and miracle cures.

Topics I have discussed in this series in days past include:

• Introduction
• Meta Data Makes the Difference
• Content and the Role of Relevancy
• Links add Value and Authority
• Keywords for Planning and Clarity
• Promotion Implies Relationships
• Site Prep Paves the Way
• Resources for Staying “Clued Up”

Alan Eggleston is a freelance Web writer and Web editor for E-Messenger Internet Consulting Inc. Join him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

by Alan Eggleston

Site Prep for SEO isn’t necessarily something that the Web Editor has a lot of influence over or that the Web Editor necessarily is aware of without some effort. However, the condition of the site “under the hood” can have a huge influence over site indexing and the resulting ranking of pages. Thus, as Web Editor, you should take interest in it and try to influence it.

Prepping the Source Coding

Go to any html, asp, or php Web page and with your mouse right-click on an empty space on the page. Scroll down to “view source” or “view page source” and click on it. You should see a page full of programming (source code) for your Web page.

It is very likely that if your website is written in JavaScript or CSS coding, there will be a lot of programming at the top of the page before you run into what you will recognize as your body text. Even if your page is heavy with videos or images or graphics or other material at the top of the page, you will have a lot of coding at the top of the source coding. Web designers and developers often aren’t aware that this is detrimental to indexing and may well result in a low ranking for the page. They may not even care – their job is to program the page, not market it.

To prep the page for SEO, make sure there is as little separation as possible between your meta data and the content: headlines, subheads, body text. If there is JavaScript or CSS coding, which is usually a lot of code, a search engine spider may decide the whole page is coding and not index your page. You will lose any relevancy you created by writing good content!

To eliminate this problem, all the designer/programmer/developer has to do is write the JavaScript or CSS code as a separate file and then place a simple instruction on the page telling the browser the name of the file and where to retrieve it. The file should be on the website server with the rest of the content files, but the coding doesn’t have to be on your page. If the programmer tells you that will lead to a time delay retrieving the instruction, tell them it’s insignificant – especially compared to people not being able to find the site at all.

I recognize that you may be reading this with a website already in progress or launched some time ago. You may have to keep these in mind for a redesign or relaunch some time in the future.

More Site Prep Hints

Try to make the first thing the search engine spider reads (after the </head> tag) is your main headline, which contains your keywords. (Sometimes things up in the header, left-hand column, navigation, and other spots will precede it in the programming, which means your keywords will be buried.) Work with your designer and programmer to achieve maximum possible placement. Follow that with body text and subheads as closely as possible.

Make sure your designer knows to use H tags (H1, H2, H3…) for headlines, subheads, and so on to maximize indexing. Also ensure that every headline is text – not a graphic or image. Designers will want to use a graphic for special fonts, but you will lose a lot of SEO value without those text headlines. Designers also tend to use a graphic for the site name in the header, but again, you lose SEO value that way. These all add up. If decisions are made above your pay grade to retain the graphic, make sure you give it an alt tag with the same text that’s on the graphic.

Ensure that every page has a page title and description and that they are all unique. Don’t let anyone tell you that it doesn’t matter.

No page should be without some kind of content. Even a page with images/videos or a form should have some kind of introduction that allows you to use keywords. Although the ideal length for indexing quality is 250-500 words, a few words is better than none at all. I’ve seen dropdown navigation that leads to a blank page simply because no one thought a reader might land there – wasted SEO!

Repeat your top navigation at the bottom of each page as hypertext links. This is also a good place to add hypertext links for additional lower-level pages like terms of use, privacy, resources, site map, and so on. Search engines read a page from the bottom up as well as from the top down and this gives the spider a second look at your navigation.

A big enemy to ranking is duplicate text. Sometimes cheaters will simply rip off your content and it may get indexed as the original text. One safeguard is adding canonical tags in the URLs noting that your page is the original text, which should protect you.

Rather than going through the hassle of uploading videos onto your own page and eating up valuable storage space on your server, embedding YouTube videos can actually boost your rankings. Simply create your own YouTube Channel, upload your videos to your channel, and then link to those videos from your website.

If you revise or revamp your website, try not to change the navigation and file names and types. If you have a services.html page on your original site, try to have another services.html page on your new one. This preserves the rank value you built from the original site onto the new site instead of having to start from scratch again.

When you name graphics and image files, and other files, try to name them with keywords – avoid number and random key configurations like you’ll find in automated naming systems, which won’t benefit you for search engine ranking.

Create the convention among your staff – writers, editors, designers, programmers, proofreaders – not to use outdated conventions like “click here” for links. Instead use keyword phrases as anchor text that will benefit you during indexing.

Topics I will introduce you to in the days ahead include:

• Introduction
• Meta Data Makes the Difference
• Content and the Role of Relevancy
• Links add Value and Authority
• Keywords for Planning and Clarity
• Promotion Implies Relationships
• Site Prep Paves the Way
• Resources for Staying “Clued Up”

Alan Eggleston is a freelance Web writer and Web editor for E-Messenger Internet Consulting Inc. Join him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

by Alan Eggleston

Promotions breed familiarity, of course, but they also breed popularity. That’s a good thing in the world of search engines and SEO (search engine optimization).

“Promotions” are the way you spread the word about your website. So, that may include blogs, social networking, media, professional directories, Yellow Pages ads, PPC (pay per click) ads, search ads, and so on. Search engines give less credence to paid connections, but they love connections to your site by other sources. Thus, one way to increase your link authority and your ranking is by building on relationships.

The more organic the relationships, the better, and the more authority you gain. One way to build organic relationships is through social media. Establishing an active presence on Twitter, Google+, and Facebook, for instance, with links to your website pages and lots of other-user interaction is good. Another way to build strong relationships is through activity on blogs and forums, again interacting with users and citing your Web pages. Best of all is when your readers cite your pages in all these and other places.

This all gets down to the concept of popularity, which weighs heavily in your favor with search engines. This is especially important in link strategy, where having a lot of people link to your pages or use links to your pages weighs heavily in your ranking favor. And high page-view counts also indicate popularity. If your pages are popular, they must be important and read-worthy, therefore they should be ranked higher in search than pages that get less traffic.

Whether you as a Web Editor are active in promoting your pages among your audience, or your staff or writers do it, is less important than that someone engage readers in promoting your site. As this illustrates, it doesn’t have to be in advertising. It can be as powerful as word-of-mouth marketing if it’s done well.

Topics I will introduce you to in the days ahead include:

• Introduction
• Meta Data Makes the Difference
• Content and the Role of Relevancy
• Links add Value and Authority
• Keywords for Planning and Clarity
• Promotion Implies Relationships
• Site Prep Paves the Way
• Resources for Staying “Clued Up”

Alan Eggleston is a freelance Web writer and Web editor for E-Messenger Internet Consulting Inc. Join him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.

by Alan Eggleston

Keywords are the essence of SEO (search engine optimization). That’s because everything you do to optimize a Web page should be based on a set of keywords that define that page.  No two pages should involve the same set.

Most Web pages – most websites – should begin by defining what keywords you need to work with and then writing content around them. Sometimes, Web pages are written and the keywords are gathered later. The latter can work (especially when it’s for a news oriented or subject related page in which the object of publication is to get the news or information out and SEO is a secondary goal), but the former is better.

Use Keywords Your Audience Will Use to Find You

Keywords aren’t just the main subject words for the page. The keywords are the words someone will most likely use to search for information that will result in finding your page. Therefore, you need to know your audience and your topic pretty well before you choose your keywords. If your subject is “hats,” you shouldn’t choose “chapeau,” unless your audience is chiefly French or French Canadian. You shouldn’t choose “caps” unless your audience is chiefly baseball fans, nor helmets unless your audience is into cycling or football, or perhaps spelunking. If it makes sense to use “hats” it may make sense to make it more meaningful with “blue hats” or “casual hats” or “dress hats.”

Keep your list of keywords down to four or five. Define them well for your audience and use them early in your content. Although Google doesn’t index a keyword list (meta data), other search engines do – in particular, I have found Yahoo valuable for keywords lists. Therefore, I suggest that you include a keyword list, even if you focus mainly on Google for your search strategy. (Some in your audience may like Bing or Yahoo as a search engine and you will miss out their finding you, if you don’t.)

If you do a keyword list in your meta data, some people will advise you to separate them with commas. I have found through experience that it doesn’t matter. I don’t use the commas and my sites place well. However, when I don’t use commas I make sure I list them in order that they appear in the copy, and I place keywords together that are associated (appropriate for keywords with multiple associations) in order of association. Don’t repeat words – use each word only once.

Keywords Shouldn’t Be Strangers

The keywords that you arrive at in your list should be reflected throughout your page: In your content, anchor text (links), alt tags, file names, domain paths, image names, navigation names, and most important, in your meta data – page title and description. All these together create relevancy that the search engines want to find during indexing.

Do not use keywords in your list that do not appear in your content. That’s keyword stuffing. If you have keywords in your page title and description that don’t appear in your content, there won’t be relevancy and you won’t be ranked for them. If there are keywords in your content that aren’t in your page title and description, you won’t be ranked for them. Thus, if someone searches for “blue formal hats,” they may find lots of sites listed well ahead of yours and perhaps not yours at all if “blue formal hats” isn’t coordinated in your meta data.

Be Local to Be Competitive in a Tight Field

Local search is very important for competitive businesses. Make sure you incorporate locale into your meta data and content if that will be key for setting you off from your competition. City or regional information is especially helpful.

Keywords can be a huge tool for making sure your audiences can find you in a search. All it takes is knowing what you’re doing and where to use them.

Topics I will introduce you to in the days ahead include:

• Introduction
• Meta Data Makes the Difference
• Content and the Role of Relevancy
• Links add Value and Authority
• Keywords for Planning and Clarity
• Promotion Implies Relationships
• Site Prep Paves the Way
• Resources for Staying “Clued Up”

Alan Eggleston is a freelance Web writer and Web editor for E-Messenger Internet Consulting Inc. Join him on Twitter, Facebook, and Google+.