Search Engines love content, actually they crave fresh content, after-all thats their raison d’etre (theire reason for existing) to spider and index fresh original content.
If your site’s homepage is updated on a daily basis with fresh unique content, this will ensure that Google et al will visit (with time) on a daily basis to spider the new content you have to offer.
If you don’t have the time or the budget to add fresh new content on a daily basis, then here’s a little tip…
Add a few RSS feeds on your site’s home page but make sure they’re related to your industry. Also make sure that these feeds are search engine friendly, some are not. The feeds that are not search friendly use javascript to output the feed. Javascript cannot be read by search engines. Make sure to output you feed with languages such as php or asp.
RSS Content Builder is a good tool that I’ve used to output rss feeds on one of my sites, its really easy to use and gives you the option to output your feed using Javascript or PHP, guess which one I use ;-)
Here are a few tip to get your site spidered more quickly by Google and Yahoo!.
Getting your Site Spidered More Quickly with Google
In the past it was said that placing Adsense Ads on your website was a catalyst for a quicker indexation of your site however this is no longet the case.
The way to get your site spidered more quickly by Google is to install the Google custom search engine on your site. This will get the Google search bot to come and visit in order to index your site for the custom search widget.
Getting your Site Spidered More Quickly with Yahoo!
The case is similar for Yahoo!. By placing the Yahoo! site search functionality on your site, you will get your site indexed much quicker in Yahoo! This has actually been confirmed by a Yahoo rep at a search confirence not too long ago.
Did you know that Google, Yahoo and MSN now all offer a free source of information for your keyword research efforts?
The new versions of MSN Live and Yahoo! both offer opportunities to supplement your keyword research efforts.
In Yahoo! for instance, use the drop-down menu bar to display related terms for your search.
MSN Live, on the other-hand, displays “related searches” on the top, right-hand corner of the search results page.
Finally, Google serves suggested searched when certain searches are conducted. For instanc, if you search for “cheap laptops”, Google suggests other searches such as:
It is absolutely crucial to get your keyword research right otherwise you will fail in SEO, therefore, any source of fresh keyword research is always appreciated.
Thank you Yahoo! and MSN for your new keyword research resources!
Have you heard of the Way Back Machine by Alexa? In a nutshell, it’s an archive of the internet and you can use it to view how websites looked over time.
If you have some time to spare, try it out on some of your favourite websites to see how thy looked “way back” when.
Once you’re done, come back here and read about how you can use the way back machine to research what your competition are doing in terms of SEO and site design.
Back already? Excellent, now lets begin.
As I said above, you can use the way back machine to spy on your competitors seo and site design activity.
Using the way back machine has to be done in conjunction with your serps monitoring. When you notice that a new site has achieved the number one psition, you can use the way back machine to view the source code of the site before it achieved the number on position and compare it with the source code of the site after it has achieved the number one position.
By doing so, you’ll be able to see what your competition has done (onpage factors) to improve their position. Note how I specified on page, that is because there are also offpage factors (link popularity) that influence where your site ranks.
I hope this tip was helpful, if you have any q’s, fire away…
A video about optimising a wordpress blog including tips on how to avoid duplicate content and setting up theming or siloing on a wordpress blog installation.
