SEO Warrior

496 Pages·2009·6.83 MB·English

by  John I. Jerkovic

SEO Warrior

SEO Warrior
John I. Jerkovic
Beijing • Cambridge • Farnham • Köln • Sebastopol • Taipei • Tokyo
SEO Warrior
by John I. Jerkovic
Copyright © 2010 John I. Jerkovic. All rights reserved.
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Printing History:
November 2009: First Edition.
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This book uses RepKover, a durable and flexible lay-flat binding.
ISBN: 978-0-596-15707-4
[M]
1257537191
Table of Contents
Preface ..................................................................... xv
1. The Big Picture ......................................................... 1
SEO Benefits 2
SERP Real Estate 2
The Trust Factor 3
Lower Cost of Ownership 5
SEO Challenges 6
Competition 6
No Guarantees 6
Ranking Fluctuations 7
Time Factors 8
Organizational Structure 8
The SEO Process 9
The Research Phase 10
The Planning and Strategy Phase 12
The Implementation Phase 14
The Monitoring Phase 15
The Assessment Phase 16
The Maintenance Phase 17
SEO Alternatives 17
Paid Ads (or Links) 17
Traditional Marketing 18
Summary 18
2. Search Engine Primer ................................................... 19
Search Engines That Matter Today: Google 20
Yahoo! 21
Bing 22
Types of Search Engines and Web Directories 23
First-Tier Search Engines 23
v
Second-Tier Search Engines 23
Regional Search Engines 24
Topical (Vertical) Search Engines 24
Web Spider–Based Search Engines 24
Hybrid Search Engines 25
Meta Search Engines 25
Web Directories 26
Search Engine Anatomy 27
Spiders, Robots, Bots, and Crawlers 27
The Search (or Query) Interface 30
Search Engine Indexing 31
Search Engine Rankings 32
Summary 33
3. Website Essentials ..................................................... 35
Domain Name Options 36
Domain Name Namespaces 36
Buying Domain Names 39
Hosting Options 44
Choosing Platforms 45
Hosting Types 46
Custom Site Design or Third-Party Software 49
Employing Custom Development 49
Utilizing Free or Paid Software 54
Website Usability 56
General Considerations 57
Linking Considerations 57
Know Your Demographics 57
Ensure Web Browser Compatibility 58
Create Simple Page Layouts 58
Use Intelligent Page Formatting 59
Create Smart HTML Forms 59
Optimize Your Site for Speed 59
Test Your Interface Design for Usability 60
Website Accessibility 60
Summary 60
4. Internal Ranking Factors ................................................ 63
Analyzing SERPs 63
On-Page Ranking Factors 64
Keywords in the <title> Tag 64
Keywords in the Page URL 66
Keywords in the Page Copy 67
vi | Table of Contents
Keywords in the <meta> Description Tag 67
Keywords in the Heading Tags 69
Keyword Proximity 70
Keyword Prominence 70
Keywords in the Link Anchor Text 71
Quality Outbound Links 72
Web Page Age 73
Web Page Size 73
On-Site Ranking Factors 74
Domain Name Keywords 75
Size or Quantity of Content 76
Linking Considerations 77
Freshness of Pages 80
Putting It All Together 80
Running the Script 80
Final HTML Report 81
Summary 83
5. External Ranking Factors ................................................ 85
External Links 85
Know Your Referrers 86
Quantity and Quality of External Links 88
Broken Outbound Links 92
Handling Broken Links 92
User Behavior Patterns 93
Analyzing the Search Engine Query Interface 94
Google Analytics 95
Google Toolbar 95
User Behavior Lessons 97
Website Performance and Website Age 97
Website Performance 97
Website Age 99
Summary 100
6. Web Stats Monitoring ................................................. 101
Web Server Logs and Formats 101
NCSA Common Format 102
NCSA Combined Format 103
NCSA Combined Format in Apache 104
Converting IIS W3C to NCSA Combined 104
Spotting a Web Spider in Web Logs 104
Popular Web Stats Tools 105
Using WebLog Expert 106
Table of Contents | vii
Number of Visitors 106
Unique Versus Total Visitors 106
Number of Hits 107
Number of Page Views 107
Referrers 108
Search Engine (Referral) Hits 109
Searches/Keywords 110
Web Spider Hits 110
Using AWStats 110
Using Webalizer 112
Tying Searches to Individual Web Pages 116
Web Spider Patterns 117
User Patterns 118
Filtering Specific Data 120
Types of Web Page Elements 120
Summary 121
7. Google Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics ............................ 123
Google Webmaster Tools 123
Webmaster Tools Setup 123
Dashboard 124
The “Site configuration” Section 124
The “Your site on the web” Section 129
The Diagnostics Section 131
Google Analytics 133
Installation and Setup 134
Navigating Google Analytics 135
Dashboard 135
Traffic Sources 140
Content 140
Goals 141
Google Analytics Shortcomings 144
Summary 145
8. Search Engine Traps ................................................... 147
JavaScript Traps 147
JavaScript-Generated Content 147
JavaScript Dynamic Links and Menus 150
Ajax 152
Dynamic Widget Traps 154
Using Flash 154
Using Java Applets 155
Using ActiveX Controls 156
viii | Table of Contents