SEO is as much about observing what others are doing as it is doing yourself so Google's latest offering, Trends for Websites, will be a big hit with SEO proponents. By entering a domain name into Google Trends, it will return traffic, search and geographic data for that site. Trends for Web Sites will show sites related to the domain; it will also show searches that are correlated to the domain name and if you are logged into Google,

People often confuse search engine optimization and search engine marketing. The two are very similar and there is a real blurring at the edges, however, in a nutshell SEO and SEM can be explained as follows: Search Engine Optimization: SEO is all about making your 'blog or website more appealing to the search engines than your competition. SEO includes not only changes to the structure and code of your 'blog or website, but also to the words on all your web pages.

Firefox, the search engine optimization expert's best friend has finally released version 3.0 of their browser software with has been reported as a world record number of downloads in one day. This browser is search engine optimization friendly due in no part to the number of tools and add ons that make our day that little bit easier. There are certainly more tools and functions than IE. I am normally loathe to install a 3.

Search engine optimization is a process of ensuring each web page has been optimized to gain highest position possible in the search results pages. A web page is often only one of many that makes up a complete site. A sitemap is created to tell the search engines exactly which pages make up your site and how often they should be revisited due to updates. The sitemap is written using the 'XML' markup language as it provides a structured,

Here is a quick question. Should all the images used on your site receive the same treatment when it comes to search engine optimization? By all images I mean everything. Little gifs like arrows or bullets along with larger photos and graphics all fall into the image category and could all receive the same search engine optimization strategies. The answer is fairly straightforward.

The object of a search engine optimization campaign is to get to the top of the search results pages for chosen keywords. To get to the top infers there is a list and that list is made up of all the sites on the web that are using those keywords. To get to the top of that list, you need to know who you are competing against and how well their search engine optimization program is. The search engines themselves make this task fairly easy to undertake.

Web traffic is provided by search engines like Yahoo!, MSN and Google - the top three. If your website cannot be found by the search engines then your content cannot be indexed into their databases so losing any potential search traffic. Most webmasters agree the life blood of most websites is the free traffic provided these search engines following search queries from users. Investing in a little search engine optimization can deliver a huge increase in traffic over time.

For all of you out there launching a business whether it is e-commerce or brick and mortar need to think twice before you try to pull a fast one on your customer. If you have never heard of a website called Rip Off Report than you should take the time to read this because your business could crumble overnight with one negative post on this site.

In recent posts I have looked at search engine optimization and link building and the effect it has on search results. With these posts in mind it was interesting to read a post on SEOmoz reporting on an interview with Matt Cutts . I wont rehash the interview itself, however there were a number points that I thought were interesting when it comes to search engine optimization and link building. The first point that I found interesting related to Digg,

Acquiring inbound links is one of the primary priorities in search engine optimization strategies. Whilst of secondary benefit, being able to funnel the link juice from inbound links to other pages on your site is also a role of search engine optimization. We have written several posts related to internal linking and anchor text ) Anchor Text For Search Engine Optimization ( and using the correct URL's ) URL's And Search Engine Optimization ( amongst other topics.

Any great e-commerce site these days absolutely needs search engine optimization strategies implemented otherwise it will get lost in the crowd of competitors. But before that happens lets take a step back and make sure your website is sitting on solid ground. How much do you trust your hosting company? What happens if your site goes down and you can't get in contact with anyone? Visitors don't like coming to a website and see your website down.

Search engine optimization is an inexact science and can be time consuming and frustrating. The last last thing you need to be doing is wasting your time and resources in areas that don't need optimizing. Gaining backlinks can be hard enough so when you do you need to be sure that those links boost the rankings of pages that need it. The following pages do not need any search engine optimization strategies,

A well thought out search engine optimization plan is important to the survival of a website but let's take a step back for a moment. Does your website look good? If you landed on your site would you submit your information or buy anything? Many business owners try to save money by building a website themselves. If you are not a designer leave it up to the professionals. A professionally designed website is just as important as your online marketing efforts.

If you undertake a search engine optimization program yourself - and do it properly - one of the lessons you will take away from it is discipline. Effective search engine optimization means you are in complete control with how your website looks to both visitors and search engines. Navigation will be ordered and structured with everything filed within those structures. For blogs this is easy as you simply use the categories and tags. If you use a menu system,

Most search engine optimization experts will tell you that CSS or style sheets are more important that for your web page design than any other coding issue. Apart from the use of flash, I agree totally. Flash should be avoided whenever possible. CSS helps to separate the content of the website from the design. The use of tables tends to combine the two and can be quiet inflexible. Flash combines everything and is search engine optimization unfriendly.

No one knows more about your product or service than you do so use it to advantage in your search engine optimization programs. That knowledge can be pure gold for content creation. Creditability is an important issue for your readers so good quality informative content is a must. Just as import though is your ability to inject keywords into that content as part of your search engine optimization strategy.

If your new to the internet and website building then you are probably wondering what all the fuss is about search engine optimization and what it does. I have one tip for new website owners - visit Google's Webmaster Help Center and read the Creating A Google-friendly site page. I suggest you pay particular attention to: Webmaster Guidelines How can I create a Google-friendly site?

Search engine optimization is an ever evolving experience. Yesterday's post is a case in point. You come across a possible problem in your strategies and someone goes and changes the rules. In this case it was Google and the dot zero situation. You do at least have to applaud Google for re-assessing the situation and modifying their algorithms to take into account the problem.

It seems that one man's spam becomes everyone's spam. This search engine optimization tip comes courtesy of Seomoz and their post on the Web 2.0 Awards . Their page had the 2.0 at the end of the title and copped a Google sin bin for it's trouble going from a PR of 7 to zilch - greyed out no ranking penalty. They are not the only ones to cop this Google penalty. Other URL's,

One of the most valuable resources for a search engine optimization campaign are the statistics available via website tracking and measuring programs. A good analytics program will provide data that can be used to track your visitors and help you to make decisions about who to target in the future.