Vandana SEO

My name is Vandana, and I am a Search Engine Optimization. I am a good Employer. Firstly, I am a hard working and dedicated student. Secondly, I am a friendly, sociable person. Finally, I have condemned myself to be a success.

1. SEO Definition
   Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of improving the volume and quality
   of traffic to a web site from search engines via "natural" ("organic" or "algorithmic")
   search results. Usually, the earlier a site is presented in the search results, or the higher it
   "ranks", the more searchers will visit that site. SEO can also target different kinds of
   search, including image search, local search, and industry-specific vertical search
   engines.
   SEO is not necessarily an appropriate strategy for every website, and other Internet
   marketing strategies can be much more effective, depending on the site operator's
   goals.[36]A successful Internet marketing campaign may drive organic search results to
   pages, but it also may involve the use of paid advertising on search engines and other
   pages, building high quality web pages to engage and persuade, addressing technical
   issues that may keep search engines from crawling and indexing those sites, setting up
   analytics programs to enable site owners to measure their successes, and improving a
   site's conversion rate.
   SEM Definition
   Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is a form of Internet Marketing that seeks to
   promote websites by increasing their visibility in the Search Engine results pages
   (SERPs) and has a proven ROI (Return on Investment). According to the Search Engine
   Marketing Professionals Organization, SEM methods include: Search Engine
   Optimization (or SEO), paid placement, and paid inclusion. Other sources, including the
   New York Times define SEM as the practice of buying paid search listings, different
   from SEO which seeks to obtain better free search listings.
   Industry Standards and Our Application
   The search industry is always changing, updating and re-inventing itself, and as industry
   standards and trends change, we will update our evaluation criteria to give you the best
   overall information possible. Our goal is to provide reports that will allow you to see your
   Meta and keyword data, so that you have the information about your Website to begin
   evaluating your SEO needs. We urge you to learn as much about SEO as possible and
   apply it, therefore, we are providing basic information to act as a launch point for those
   who want to pursue it further.
   Much SEO data is open to debate and opinion, even among respected experts in the field,
   therefore, we will take a safe, moderate and general approach to give our users the best
   possible overview for use over the greatest number of applications.
   
   SEO vs SEM
   Search engine marketing involves click costs. Search engine optimization works through
   free traffic. Those two facts are the basis of a popular myth: that it’s easier to get good
   ROI through SEO than it is to get the same ROI through SEM.
   In SEM, you decide the landing page your visitors see. In SEO, a search engine spider
   decides on the landing page visitors see. That’s a difference in control, and that difference
   makes all the difference.
   3 Tags
   Next we talk about 3 different tags. The Title tag, the Description tag and the Keyword
   tag. These ‘tags’ are housed in the source code and if you right click on any website and
   ‘view source’ you will see these tags towards the top of the document.
   Title Tags
   Title tags are what the user will see at the top of the browser window above the (File Edit
   View, etc). For example, go to www.rimrockauto.com and you will see Rimrock Auto
   Group | New and Used Cars in Billings Montana. Search engines will grab any or all of
   those words and index them. When a person types in ‘New Cars Billings’ a search
   engine will know that rimrockauto.com has those words indexed and it will catapult your
   search engine rankings towards the top based on relevance. Relevance meaning: all of
   those words were in the title tag. This is overly generalized, but a nice illustration.
   Title tags are currently considered the most important Meta tag from a search engine
   perspective, the Title tag is a MUST. Getting it right can take a little time and research,
   but it is worth the effort. And, as with all Meta tags, place the most important keywords
   at the start and the lesser ones at the end of the tag.
   Recommended length varies by search engine and directory. The average accepted length
   is about 70 characters (this includes letters and spaces). One major engine considers 60
   the right length, where several of the other major players prefer 70 characters. Some
   larger and more moderate size engines and directories allow up to 130 characters.
   What if your tag is too long? Most engines will simply truncate (or chop off) whatever
   characters go over their limits, which is why it is very important to place the best
   keywords at the front of the tag. If you submit your site to a large variety of search
   indexes and engines, remember that anything over 60-70 characters could be removed,
   and plan accordingly.
   
   Best way to start? Figure out the best keywords for your Web page. Go through and list
   search terms you would like new visitors to use to find your page, check the search
   popularity of the words/terms, and look at your competitor's sites and see what their tags
   say, and how they rank in the search engines. This will all help you build a short list of
   highly relevant keywords and search phrases. Once you have the list, prioritize them by
   importance, whether it is your importance or by search popularity is up to you. Use the
   very best ones in your title tag. You no longer need to include your Website name or
   domain in a title tag, unless you have a highly recognizable name or domain. You want to
   focus on describing the page and its products in your Title tag. Write it like a title, with
   each word capitalized, but do not write the title in all caps. It is also not recommended to
   use punctuation in the Title tag.
   Description Tags
   Not considered as important as it used to be, the description tag still has a valid purpose.
   Even though it has less value to a spider or "bot" driven search engine these days, it is
   still highly useful for search directories and various online listings. Think of it as a short,
   keyword-rich "classified ad." In just a few words you want to convey your Web page's
   message and do it with as many rich keywords as possible. Write it in a basic sentence
   structure, beginning with a capital letter and ending with a period. (A couple short
   sentences are fine, too, as long as the character count stays good.)
   Recommended length varies by search engine and directory. The average accepted length
   is about 200 characters (this includes letters and spaces). One major engine considers 170
   the right length, where several of the other major players prefer 200 characters. Some
   larger and more moderate size engines and directories allow up to 250 characters, with
   one having no limits. Keep in mind that there are a growing number of search engines
   that do not use Description tags, and it is mostly valued by search indexes and directories.
   Keyword Tags
   Currently considered less important than the Title and Description Meta tags, it is debated
   whether Keyword tags are of much use at all anymore. However, right now it does not
   hurt to have them, and there are still some engines and directories that do take them into
   account to some degree.
   Recommended length varies by search engine and directory. The average accepted length
   is approximately 800 - 900 characters (this includes letters and spaces). Some allow 1000
   characters, where others prefer under 800.
   It is best to use the right keywords, not over use them, and stay relevant for the page. If
   only two or three words fit that guideline, then use them. Do not worry about trying to fill
   
   the Keywords tag to make it longer. The key is relevance, not length. You do not want to
   waste any opportunity to use relevant keywords, but if you do not need the space, you
   will not be penalized for it.
   What is the best way to format this tag? There are two accepted ways to format the
   keywords. They both agree to separate each keyword and keyword phrase with a comma.
   Where they differ is, some advocate to use a comma and space (keyword, word, word2),
   and others prefer commas and no spaces (keyword,word,word2). Either format is
   accepted by the majority of search engines that use Keyword tags.
   Why are Keyword tags losing their value? Search engines are always adjusting and
   changing their algorithms, methodology and criteria, always seeking to improve search
   technology and eliminate unfair ranking and cheating. The current trend is leaning away
   from a Keywords Meta tag and putting higher value on keywords used in the copywriting
   of a Web page's textual content. The desire of the search industry is to bring a closer
   match to what the site visitor sees and what a search engine uses to rank a site, all in the
   goal of making the search experience more precise for the Internet user.
   
   White hat versus black hat
   SEO techniques are classified by some into two broad categories: techniques that search
   engines recommend as part of good design, and those techniques that search engines do
   not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing. Some
   industry commentators classify these methods, and the practitioners who employ them, as
   either white hat SEO, or black hat SEO. White hats tend to produce results that last a long
   time, whereas black hats anticipate that their sites will eventually be banned once the
   search engines discover what they are doing.
   A SEO tactic, technique or method is considered white hat if it conforms to the search
   engines' guidelines and involves no deception. As the search engine guidelines are not
   written as a series of rules or commandments, this is an important distinction to note.
   White hat SEO is not just about following guidelines, but is about ensuring that the
   content a search engine indexes and subsequently ranks is the same content a user will
   see.
   White hat advice is generally summed up as creating content for users, not for search
   engines, and then making that content easily accessible to the spiders, rather than
   attempting to game the algorithm. White hat SEO is in many ways similar to web
   development that promotes accessibility, although the two are not identical.
   Black hat SEO attempts to improve rankings in ways that are disapproved of by the
   search engines, or involve deception. One black hat technique uses text that is hidden,
   either as text colored similar to the background, in region invisible to the user like an
   invisible div or positioned off screen. Another method gives a different page depending
   on whether the page is being requested by a human visitor or a search engine, a technique
   known as cloaking.
   Search engines may penalize sites they discover using black hat methods, either by
   reducing their rankings or eliminating their listings from their databases altogether. Such
   penalties can be applied either automatically by the search engines' algorithms, or by a
   manual site review.
   One infamous example was the February 2006 Google removal of both BMW Germany
   and Ricoh Germany for use of deceptive practices. Both companies, however, quickly
   
   Dealerspan’s Strategies for SEM, SEO
   1. Build our websites to meet current SEO strategies.
   a. Strategically written Title tags on EVERY page
   b. Strategically written Keyword tags on every page
   c. Strategically written Descriptions on every page
   d. Alt tags on every image
   e. Text on every page that can be indexed. No image only pages
   f. Static URL as much as possible
   g. If dynamic URL’s are needed, make them as recognizable as possible
   never going past 2 levels of directories.
   h. Index-able inventory (non Ajax).
   i. Standards compliant markup
   j. Try to use links whenever possible (outbound and inbound)
   k. Site maps
   l. Submit site maps to search engines
   2. Stay in tune with latest SEO trends and become astute to what this means.
   3. Have someone monitor search engine paid placement. This is the core of SEM.
   This would be a full time position that simply makes sure dealerships have paid
   placement in major search engines. In essence we would be managing either
   hands on, or through tools provided to dealership their paid placements on search
   engine.
   4. In-house monitoring SEO standards on websites. This means we do not put out
   under par websites.
   
   Sources:
   http://www.seomoz.org/
   http://www.sempo.org/learning_center/
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_engine_optimization
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Search_Engine_Marketing
   http://www.dmnews.com/cms/dm-news/search-marketing/34955.html
   
   Definitions or Glossary of Terms:
   Paid placement:
   or Pay per click (PPC) is an advertising model used on search engines, advertising
   networks, and content websites, where advertisers only pay when a user actually clicks
   on an ad to visit the advertiser's website.
   Paid inclusion
   Paid inclusion is a search engine marketing product where the search engine company
   charges fees related to inclusion of websites in their search index. Paid inclusion products
   are provided by most search engine companies, the most notable exception being Google.
   Organic Search
   An organic search is a process by which World Wide Web users find web sites having
   unpaid search engine listings, as opposed to using the pay per click advertisement listings
   displayed among the search results
   .
   ROI
   Return on investment. This is often used to describe in SEM how many people have
   visited your site from the amount of time and money invested.
   SERP’s
   A search engine results page, or SERP, is the listing of web pages returned by a search
   engine in response to a keyword query. The results normally include a list of web pages
   with titles, a link to the page, and a short description showing where the keywords have
   matched content within the page. A SERP may refer to a single page of links returned, or
   to the set of all links returned for a search query.
   Spamdexing
   is any of various methods to manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources
   indexed by a search engine, usually in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the
   indexing system. Methods include link farms and keyword stuffing.
   Spidering
   A web crawler (also known as a Web spider or Web robot) is a program or automated
   script which browses the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner to provide
   up-to-date data.