Google will show Maggie 534,000 resources on “bread baking”. Unless she fails to find what she wants on the first page, or top 10 results, she will never find your website listed 124th in the results. (Actually, if she does not find what she wants in the top twenty or thirty results, she is likely to refine her search to “easy bread baking” or “home bread baking”).

How do you get into the top 10 results so Maggie can find your website? You might have heard a lot about “search engine optimization” and “ranking analysis” and “algorithms”. It all sounds very complex, but it really works on a simple 1 – 2 – 3 principle.

1. A search engine will show Maggie only resources (websites) it has on record. So make sure to submit your site to the key search engines and directories. You do not need to hire somebody who will charge you big dollars to do this. Nor should you fall for any of the auto-submit software or services. This should be done by hand, and anybody can do it. You can do it yourself. 
2. The search engine will rank highest those websites it feels are most “important”. This means you have to show that your website is most important. There are a few simple things you can do. First, make sure you have content. Text content equals importance on the Internet. Links, both coming in and going out, are key. Connectivity equals importance on the Internet. Get listed in the major directories (DMOZ.com, Yahoo.com, Zeal.com, JoeAnt.com, etc.), as this also is a measure of importance. 
3. The search engine will show Maggie the most “relevant” high-ranking resources. Google might rank http://TheHappyGuy.com relatively very high, but it is totally irrelevant to a search for bread baking. How does a search engine know which websites are most relevant for Maggie’s search? By the number of times “bread baking” shows up in text on your web page. By the variety of ways it shows up on your page. By number web pages you link to and that link to you with the words “bread baking” included.

Are you ready to roll? Possibly. Some of this you can easily do yourself. But there are three places that are worth spending money to help all the Maggies out there find your website and your book.

The first is choosing the right keywords. It might look simple, but “bread baking” might not even be the best keyword phrase to focus on. It might be “easy bread baking” or “home bread baking”. The most searched terms might not be the best, nor the term with the least competition.

The second is to prepare a link strategy. The “link exchange” pages that are getting more popular each day are also becoming less effective each day. Here are just a few of the linking factors that will affect whether Maggie discovers your book:

• The total number of incoming and outgoing links
• The importance of the sites you link to and from
• The relevancy of the sites you link to and from
• Which pages on their sites and on yours are being linked
• What you include in the incoming and outgoing links
• Where on the page the links are placed
• How many links are on those pages
• How many pages are linked to or have outgoing links
• The ratio of links to content on the pages involved

You can implement the strategy yourself, but it is worth hiring somebody to put it together for you. Ask the person what factors she would consider when building a strategy for you. If she does not mention several of the above, your money is better spent elsewhere.

The third place to invest is to have somebody knowledgeable review your html code. Chances are that you have missed numerous opportunities to let the search engines know your website is relevant, and possibly some opportunities to show it is important.

source from: seo-writer

Planning for a Re-Design
I find that in our development and Information Architecture consulting, one of the largest hurdles that we encounter is dealing with the transition from the old website to a newer architecture. For larger sites, planning a transition to maintain the links and rankings held by thousands of pages that will no longer exist is quickly becoming one of the more time consuming tasks.

Surprisingly, the main obstacle to developing improved websites (both architecturally and usability) is the search engines themselves. The method of retrieving pages into a central index for an algorithm is outdated and antiquated, as it does not account for improvements and changes in a website. In short, companies are being penalized for not being aware of the limitations of search engines, Google in particular.

What goes wrong:
1. In a new website project, the architecture of the site typically changes. Companies are becoming more aware of search-friendly programming and implementing it into their development. However, when the new architecture goes live, the old architecture and old pages addresses (URL’s) held the rankings.
Results: Rankings are lost as old pages are no longer available.

2. Incoming links to the website and the deep pages within the website no longer have a destination (page names usually change with a new architecture). This reduces the “link juice” that is carried to that website, as the destination of the link no longer exists.
Results: Decreased rankings and value based on incomplete (broken) incoming links.

Redirects
To remedy these situations, the old formula of applying URL rewrites and 301 redirects is employed in order to match the old pages to their newer counterparts. However, this requires server power to accomplish. In a re-direct, the old page is requested, and the server scans through the instructions to see if there is a new page to deliver instead of the old page. In doing this, rankings can usually be maintained.

Redirected Links
Links are also maintained, but lose their value overtime. Redirected links not a direct link; the new page destination may not be the page intended as the original link destination, thereby losing value. It is always best to have a direct incoming link for best link value. However, for site owners with hundreds to thousands of links, they now have to go back and ask other webmasters, site owners and companies to edit the links on their sites to point to the new URL in order to receive the full value. Is that really necessary? Is search engine technology so lacking in foresight that this will be the bane of webmasters and marketers for the next decade?

The issue with redirects is that every redirect takes a fraction of server resources to accomplish. A few redirects are fine, however when working with sites that are taking 8-10 years of history and thousands of pages, the redirects become a significant drag on server resources.

Duplicate Content

This also takes into account that the redirects are written and applied properly. I am amazed at the canonicalization issues that still hinder websites and the amount of work that a webmaster is expected to perform in order to “help” the search engines.

I have worked with many programmers that do fantastic, innovative work and develop amazing applications within websites, only to have the issues of duplicate content hinder the website. What can be considered effective user-based programming has to be tossed out the development window in order to accommodate search engine crawlers. How many companies are even aware of duplicate content and how that can hinder their rankings in search engines? How many websites are being penalized unaware?

Google asks: “Would I do this if the Search Engines Didn’t Exist”?
Companies are developing websites smarter than ever, using search friendly architecture, AJAX, CSS and other technologies in an attempt to make the experience better for their users. However, because the information of information retrieval is so outdated, these same companies are penalized for changing a site that would have been better left alone.

Essentially, Google has written the rules of website development, re-development and innovation. If a company is not aware of those rules or does not invest the time and money to reverse engineer their new website to accommodate outdated technology, then they are effectively penalized.

In short, the rule of “Would I do this is Search Engines didn’t exist?” (Google Webmaster Guidelines: Quality Guidelines – basic principles) is nonsensical. Especially when paired with the latest news of Google’s attempt to solve the AJAX issue – developers are left to struggle with increasingly outdated search engine technology in an attempt to have a new website (that is hopefully better for their users) maintain rankings.

I enjoy a good challenge, but the challenge is starting to come at the expense of innovation for developers and the companies that desire to improve their online presence and user experience. Rather than innovate in tools and applications, it’s time for the search engines to step up and improve their methods in their core service – search.

Otherwise, true innovators are the ones who are penalized.

Source:seoarticles.com