webmaster-seo

by: Debra Hamer

Do you have a website or are you planning on creating a website in the near future? You owe it to yourself to at least learn some basic HTML (HyperText Mark-up Language). Even if someone else is creating and maintaining your website there are some basics you should know. What if that person is not available and you need to add or make changes to your website? I’ve always believed if you have a business, computer, website, or whatever, you need to know how it works. Don’t depend on someone else. Besides why pay someone else when you can do it yourself free of charge.

In this article I will explain some basic HTML formats for you. Believe me it will come in handy at one point or another. I, myself, have only learned some of the basics and I have been able to add, change, and make corrections on my own website by myself.

When you come across a website you like and would like to use a similar layout or text pattern, look at the page in HTML code. You can do this by clicking on “View” at the top of the screen, then choose “Document Source” or “Source” and you can see the page as a HTML document. If you are using AOL then right click on any area on the page without any text or images, then select “View Source”. At first it will look like Greek to you but after learning some basic HTML it will start to make sense.

First you will need a word processor program such as Windows “Notepad” or any other word processor you might have. You are working with simple text. You will need to save your document using the “save as” command and give it an html suffix, ex: Mynewdocument.html or Mynewdocument.htm (you can use either suffix html or htm).

HTML works in a simple, logical format. It reads top to bottom and left to right. What are used to set sections apart like bigger text, smaller text, bold text, underlined text are tags. Tags are commands. If you wanted a line of text to be bold you will place a tag at the point you want the bold text to start and a tag at the end of where you want the bold text to stop.

All tags start with the less-than sign , always. What is between these signs is the tag or command. You will need to learn what tag does what. Let’s first learn the bold command. The following is an example of making your text bold. The tag for bold is “B”. You can use uppercase or lowercase, it doesn’t matter. Here is an example:

Note: Due to the HTML codes in the article being formatted and possibly not showing up on the page in normal view I have replaced the signs with the bracket characters [ and ]. Just remember to use the signs and not the [ and ] signs in your document.

This is how it will look in HTML format - [B]This text needs to be bold[/B]

Here is how it will look when converted to normal view – This text needs to be bold

Did you notice the slight difference in the ending tag? There is a slash / before the B. That means it is the end tag. Only the text between the start and end tags will be in bold. Now let’s add a twist by putting one of the words in italics.

This is how it will look in HTML format - [B] This [I]text[/I] needs to be bold[/B]

Here is how it will look in normal view – This text needs to be bold

There are some tags that are an exception to the rule about having to have a start and end tag. You don’t have to have an end tag when using these tags. Here are some examples.

[HR] this command places a line across the page. HR stands for “horizontal reference”.

[BR] this command breaks the text and jumps to the next line, like the return key.

[P] this command stand for “paragraph”, it does the same thing as the [BR] command but skips a line.

Every page you create with HTML will need the HTML tag [HTML] which denotes it is an HTML document and the end HTML tag [/HTML] will be at the end of your document. The next tags will be your start Title tag [TITLE] and your end Title tag [/TITLE]. The title of your document will go in between these two tags. The title will show up in the title bar on your browser when you are looking at the page in normal view.

The following are some tags for Headings (there are 6 heading commands) and Font size (there are 12 font size commands):

[H1]This is Heading 1[/H1] – H1 is the largest heading

[H6]This is Heading 6[/H6] - H6 is the smallest heading

So, by using H1 through H6 you can change the size of your heading. Same applies to your font size. You will use [font size =”+1”] through [font size=”+12] and don’t forget your end tags!

You may notice that your text always starts at the left of the page. If you want your text to start in the center or to the right you will need to specify where you want your text to start. Here are some examples of aligning text:

[CENTER]Center this Text![/CENTER] - your text will be centered on the page.

Center this Text!

To align to the right you need to set the text as a paragraph unto itself by using the [P] tag and adding an attribute to it.

[P ALIGN=”right”]Text here will align on the right of the page[/P]

Text here will align on the right of the page

Why did I put an end tag [/p] since the paragraph command does not require an end tag (remember exceptions to the rule?) Anytime you use an attribute tag, as in the above example, you will need to have an end tag, whether you’re using the paragraph command [P] or the return command [BR]. Using the [P] or [BR] command by itself does not require an end tag, but if you are adding an attribute then an end tag must be used.

Adding an image to your page would require the following tag:

[IMG SRC=”image.jpg”] -you would replace “image.jpg” with your own image file. IMG stands for image and SRC stands for source. You’re telling your browser where to find your image file. Your image file could have a gif, jpg, or a bmp association.

Ok now let’s get a little more complicated and create a hyperlink on your document. This creates blue underlined words on the page that someone can click on and go to another location. An example is you’re creating a link to another website.

[A HREF=http://www.profitfromhomebiz.com"]Profit From Home Biz[/A] - this is what in looks like in HTML code. Note you are adding a description of the link that will be underlined, see the example below.

Profit From Home Biz – what it looks like in normal view. When someone clicks on this link they would be taken to my website.

This is a very important HTML format for when you need to add links onto your webpage. You may already know or will learn that reciprocal linking is very important in promoting your website and obtaining a higher page rank with the search engines. Sometimes the HTML code is provided for you and all you have to do is “copy and paste” the code into your webpage. Often it is not, so you have to figure out how to put the information into HTML code yourself. Just learning this HTML command has been a timesaver for me.

I hope this article has helped you learn some basic HTML and how it can benefit you. I know, I know there are HTML text editors out there you can use and they can do all of this for you. I have used a couple myself, but I still like to know how to do things on my own. I bet you do too! Sometimes it’s just faster and easier to do it yourself.

I’ve just given you some very basic formats in using HTML, but you can find a lot more resources and information about learning HTML on the internet. Just do a search and I’m sure you will be overwhelmed at what’s out there.

by: Darryl Antonio
And more importantly why do you need it?
I've taken the liberty to break down this white paper into a few digestible sections. Please feel free to scamper across to the most relevant section that interests you
Table of contents:
1. So, what is SEO?
2. Why is it so important?
3. The 3 things you must do?
4. Who can you trust?
5. What can you expect to achieve?
SO, WHAT IS SEO?
SEO or to use its' full acronym is Search Engine Optimisation. Lots has been said and written all over the net on this extremely demanding topic by every self-effacing Marketing expert today
Indeed, I'm sure if you trawl through a search on Google for the term SEO you will probably find countless entries on the subject and herein lies both the explanation and the ensuing problem
Confronted by a vast number of websites to pursue one's search further, an average searcher will click on perhaps 20 websites to find what he/she is looking for at best
So what happens if your website is ranked from say 30 or 40 or a 100 upwards? The chances are you will be one of the very lucky ones if your website receives any traffic worth mentioning at all
SEO at it's very core if applied correctly is designed to rank a website/webpage, for a pre-defined set of keywords, at the very top of the search engine thereby ensuring that a particular website has more chance of being clicked on than that of its' competitor's ranked below it
This then should mean that a website having been thus optimised naturally rises to the top of the search rankings for those specific keywords. Alas if only life was so simple!
Notice, I did say if correctly applied but how do you know what to optimise and how much to do?
Badly cobbled together webpages with too much optimisation or indeed too little unfortunately end up being either buried in the deep recesses of the results or get shelved by the search engines altogether
WHY IS IT SO IMPROTANT?
Imagine that you have a shop selling ice-cream on a very busy high street full of other ice-cream sellers, each one offering pretty much the same thing that you are
How do you go about attracting customers over your competitors. The answer is that in the real world it is much harder to jostle for the number 1 spot without spending a fortune on advertising, marketing and company branding
Fortunately, in cyberspace given the same scenario the playing field is somewhat easier and a whole lot cheaper too
The secret is getting your webpages right the first time around so that you can take full advantage of table topping rankings and great traffic as a result
But don't worry if you haven't enjoyed much success with your website to date, existing webpages can be tweaked and manipulated to become more search engine and visitor friendly
On page and off page SEO techniques can be applied to catapult your rankings to the very top of the free search engines bringing much needed traffic and more importantly an increase in revenue
Finally, there is also another knock on effect to better rankings but more on that at a later date...
THE 3 THINGS THAT YOU MUST DO?
This section applies to every website owner be it well-established or a fledgling start up
1. Evaluate - Always put yourself in the shoes of your potential site visitor. Looking at it from their perspective ask yourself these questions: Does your website/webpage have the necessary content to attract and keep their attention? Is your message clear, well thought-out? Do you have a strong call to action?
At first this may seem a rather difficult or tedious process, but I always advise my clients to spend some time on it simply because even if you do enjoy top rankings it doesn't always necessarily follow that your sales will also increase as a result
In time however, this will become a part of your thinking process naturally and will stand you in good stead when you decide to launch a new product online or a new website etc;
The key here is to provide the client with what they came to your website for in the first place and in so doing stimulate their buying interest at the same time
2. Monitor - In cyberspace a lot can happen very quickly. I'm sure that almost everyone must be aware of utter havoc created by the Google Florida updates in November of last year
Just to quickly recap, Google started enforcing their guidelines and had grown tired of those website owners using "spammy optimization" techniques and having little or no real content
Google claimed that the change was all part of their continued efforts to improve their search engine results
Some people thought however that it was an over optimization penalty, others a bug perhaps. Whatever it was, Google had upset a lot of people in the process
Apparently, Google understands the fact that people's businesses rely on Google results. Craig Nevill-Manning, Google's Senior Research Scientist, said, for what it's worth, "I apologize for the roller coaster. We're aware that changes in the algorithm affect people's livelihoods. We don't make changes lightly."
Needless to say that the Florida update caught a good many search engine professionals and online business owners off guard demoting previously high-ranking sites and relegating them to the netherworld of Google's search results
The moral of this is to monitor your rankings constantly, do not attempt half-baked spammy optimisation techniques - instead fill your pages with real content and every so often go check out Google's ranking criteria
3. Adapt - The internet marketplace is great place to tap into an ever hungry world wide audience. However, what happens when things go wrong and sadly they sometimes do?
Remember SARS or 9/11 and the ensuing fear of terrorism! It decimated the already sluggish travel industry at the time and while no can predict these events or for that matter what lies ahead with any deal of accuracy it might help to have some contingency plans in mind
For instance, when the fear of international travel was at its' height some companies better prepared than others turned their marketing and their websites to promoting internal travel
Suddenly these companies had access to an hitherto untapped audience interest and as a result grew their customer database and better still increased brand loyalty
WHO CAN YOU TRUST?
So, you've been spammed by innumerable so-say SEO "EXPERTS", all promising the holy grail in online marketing results for your website rankings
So, who do you trust?
As a rule of thumb it's always good to have a few key questions in mind before evaluating whether a company deserves your business or not such as:
a. how long has the company been around for?
b. who are their customers?
c. are they happy for you to talk directly to their customers? (this will usually sort the wheat from the chaff!)
d. the all important results - Can they supply proof of their claims?
And finally the clincher - ALWAYS FOLLOW YOUR GUT INSTINCT!
WHAT CAN YOU REALISTICALLY EXPECT TO ACHIEVE?
With the right SEO techniques applied for both on page and off page factors, key selling pages can be turned around to rank highly in the search engines
More highly ranking pages will in turn bring in more unique visitors i.e. potential new customers and if nurtured correctly these new visitors/customers will go on to become loyal customers in the years ahead
Once these key pages begin to feature well, similar optimisation work can be done to subsidiary pages
The idea is to get as many of your webpages to rank as highly as possible thereby spreadbetting your supply options, generating the all important increase in traffic and also acting as a counter against any unforseen problems with search engine algorithm changes etc;
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell therefore, your key pages must have valid content presented in a way that both engages and motivates your target market audience and backed-up by a strong call to action
Get this basic principle of SEO right and your search engine rankings will almost take care of themselves
The bottom line is: Content is what it is really all about from both your target market and a search engine perspective