Archive for the 'Software' Category

SEIntelligence : Website Content

Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Your website content is so important for making a well rounded search engine optimized website. Watch the tutorial below to learn how to use the ‘Content’ tab on SEIntellgience.

Video Transcript:

Website content is an extremely important aspect for making a well rounded search engine friendly website. Without content, a website stands little chance of ranking high in search results.

On the content tab, you’ll be able to see the code for your page. If you don’t like looking at code or don’t know how to read it, then don’t worry about it. Just look at the suggestions below.

Read the recommendations and make the applicable changes to your site. Please note that these changes are not made here in SEIntelligence, but rather in your website builder or HTML editor.

Just a quick note for users who are using drag and drop editors such as iWeb, or web based builders such as WordPress. Some of the recommendations you will not be doing. For example. this recommendation states to add an address tag to each page. You would not do this recommendation as your website builder does not allow for it.

SEIntelligence : Alt Text

Tuesday, November 15th, 2011

SEIntelligence also makes it incredibly easy to add alternative text, or alt text, to your website images. Watch the following video to learn more about alt text, and how you can easily implement it on your website through SEIntelligence.

Video Transcript:

A picture may say a thousand words, but to search engines it doesn’t say much. Because of this, and a few other reasons, the alt attribute exists. On the Images tab, you will see the Alt Text and Image columns. Under the image column, you will see the file name of your images. If you click on each of them, you should be able to see previews for your images.

So why do we create alt text. As stated earlier, search engines are not really able to see an image the same way a human is able to. For search engines, the alt text can be a helpful way to understand what an image is. The alt text is also helpful when an image does not show up in a browser. This might happen when the image doesn’t load properly, or the user is using a non-visual web browser. In it’s place, the alt text will typically appear.

To add, or change your alt text, click in the alt text area and type your alt text. Your alt text is almost like a brief sentence, or a few words describing your image. Avoid using one word descriptions, but also avoid writing excessively long sentences.

Be brief, and to the point, while trying to include high quality key-terms that users would actually search.

For example, this image shows a set of men’s left handed golf clubs. This is exactly what I will type in. It contains good keywords, and describes the image perfectly. It wouldn’t be enough if I typed in golf clubs as that doesn’t really describe the photo well. It would be too much if I typed in left handed golf clubs that are nice and shiny and super expensive to buy.

When you type your alt text, it can be exactly like you see here. Almost like you are writing a sentence. No hyphens or commas are needed to separate the words.

SEO For iWeb : Header Tags

Thursday, November 10th, 2011

Adding header tags to an iWeb site has never been easier. Follow the instructions carefully in this video tutorial to learn how you can properly add header tags to your iWeb website.

Video Transcript:

Being introduced for the first time ever, iWeb users will now be able to add header tags to their websites, without having to hand code it in the HTML. Header tags are another way for you to demonstrate to search engines which keywords are important on your page.

So what is a header tag, and how do we make one?

Basically, a header tag is a block of text that can be compared to a title, or a headline for a larger body of text. Think of a newspaper article. There is a headline which indicates what the entire article is about. Then there is a subheading which gives a bit more insight into the article.

Our websites are similar to the structure of a newspaper article. A headline can contain our primary key term for each page, and an optional subheading can contain our secondary key term for each page.

In HTML, there are six headers that you can use. Those headers are h1 through h6. I am only going to demonstrate adding an h1 header since that is what most of you will be doing. If you want to add an h2 as well, then feel free to do so. h1 and h2 are the most popular headers, so use those if you have room on your site. Trying to add all headers to your site is not generally a good idea, unless your site is structured in a way that makes sense to do so. Also, the rule of thumb is to only have one h1 per page.

So to do this in iWeb, simply click on the Text Box button, and type in this code you see here.

The area where I wrote ‘This is my header tag’ is where you should type in your header tag. The HTML here should look identical to mine. But the text part should contain your header tag which could be anything you want it to be. I recommend putting the main key-term you are targeting for this specific page.

Before we move on to the next step, I want to point out that you can also change the font of this text like you normally would with any text, by highlighting the text and clicking on the Fonts button.

Now when you publish your site to a local folder, and load the site in iWeb SEO Tool, you must check the box to Convert header tags in text boxes to HTML code, and then press the Apply To Entire Site button. What this will do is strip the HTML code from the site, so that only the actual text is being shown. Remember, your header tag should be visible on your site. If you can’t see it, or if you still see the HTML code, it means you did not do this process correctly, and you will need to try again.

Some of you can expect to run into some issues when adding header tags. For example, you will notice that the header tag does not always end up in the same place online as it did in iWeb. This is normal. You may need to play around with it a bit until you find the right spot. To make things easier on yourself, try not to place the header too close other items on your page. This will leave you with a bit of a buffer for when the header ends up in a slightly different location.

Also, if your site has a black background, you most likely won’t be able to see your header. If that is the case, just send us an e-mail read this knowledgebase article on how to alter the font color.

Sitemap Automator 2.5.1 Released

Tuesday, November 8th, 2011

Sitemap Automator 2.5.1 is now available. This free update adds improvements to web page scanning. If you have had any issues creating your XML sitemap file, this update will have probably fixed them.

Sitemap Automator creates speciality formatted XML sitemap files that list all of your web page files. You can then submit these files to all major search engines including Google, Bing, Yahoo and Ask.com to quickly and easily get your website fully listed.

SEIntelligence 2.2 Released; Lots of Fixes, Favicon Support

Friday, November 4th, 2011

We have just released a large update to SEIntelligence, our most powerful SEO Software.

SEIntelligence, released just 1 week ago, was our largest software release to date, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. The beauty of SEIntelligence is that it works with all the popular web building software and provides step-by-step recommendations on how to improve your website for the best search engine rankings.

This update of SEIntelligence includes a large number of improvements and fixes. It adds support for favicons. Now you can select any image and use that as your favicon for your website. It automatically converts header tags from iWeb sites just like iWeb SEO Tool did. You no longer need to use iWeb SEO Tool to optimize your iWeb sites as SEIntelligence will do it all for you (note: this is all done automatically in the background for you).

It also includes some important fixes for collecting back links for your competitors and fixes a crash when pressing the Apply All button to apply your optimizations to your website.

This version also includes a number of interface improvements and other bugs fixes.

Download the free demo

All New Professional SEO Software for Mac OS X Released

Thursday, October 27th, 2011

We are very pleased to announce the official release of SEIntelligence, our most powerful search engine optimization software for Mac OS X.

SEIntelligence uses statistical analysis to compare your website to the top ranking websites in Google, Yahoo, Bing and other major search engines. It then tells you exactly what you need to change on your website in order to beat your competition.

SEIntelligence can also track back links to your website and to your competitor’s websites. Providing reports and key SEO metrics, including social media marketing strategies.

Download the free trial version of SEIntelligence today.

SEIntelligence is by far our most robust and feature rich SEO software for Mac OS X. It works great with any website no matter what web building software was used including iWeb, RapidWeaver, Sandvox, DreamWeaver, WebDesign, WordPress, SquareSpace and more.

SEIntelligence builds on, and replaces our free iWeb SEO Tool. It works in conjunction with our other SEO products including Sitemap Automator, SERank, and WebCrusher.

SEIntelligence : Video Instructions

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

Listed below are step-by-step instructions for using SEIntelligence. It is highly recommended that you watch each video and follow the recommendations. The videos are fairly short in length, but watching them and following along will make your optimizations go a lot smoother.

Introduction

1. Opening Your Website in SEIntelligence
2. Keyword Research – Learning how to find high quality keywords

On-Page Optimizations
2. Getting Familiar With On-Page Optimizations
3. Adding Meta Keywords & Getting Ready To Do On-Page Optimizations
4. Adding Great Title Tags To Enhance Search Engine Visibility
5. Writing A High Quality Meta Description
6. Editing Other Meta Tags
7. All About Header Tags
8. The Importance Of Internal Links
9.Putting Words To An Image with Alt Text
10.High Quality Page Content
11. Using the Site Settings Tab
12. Applying Changes & Publishing Your Site
13. Re-Opening Your Site In SEIntelligence
Site Settings

1. Site Settings
2. Header & Footer Code Tab

Other SEIntelligence Videos

1. SEIntelligence for RapidWeaver – Part 1

MailShoot : Embedding A Signup Form In RapidWeaver

Wednesday, October 26th, 2011

In the tutorial below, we will show RapidWeaver users how you can easily embed a mailing list sign up form on your website, using MailShoot. The process is fairly simple and will only take a few minutes minutes.


Video Transcript:

Keeping a mailing list is a great way to for you to keep in touch with your website visitors. It can also be a really good avenue for you to promote your product or services to people who might be genuinely interested in what you have to offer.

This tutorial is going to show you how to embed a mailing list signup form on your website. In case you are not familiar, the application I am showing you is called MailShoot. MailShoot is a mailing list manager that will allow you to easily embed your signup form on your website. You can then manage all of the e-mail addresses on the list and send them e-mails whenever you desire.

For this demonstration, we’re going to stick with the golf theme and assume I am running a golf website. The first thing I am going to do is save my document. I do this by clicking File, and going to Save As. I will them name my project and save it.

The next thing I will do is click on the Mailing List button. Currently, I have no lists because this is a brand new document. I will click on the Plus sign to add a new list.

If I double click on my list, the list editor window will appear. This is where all members of my mailing list will appear after they have been added.

So now we’re going to begin making our mailing list signup form. The first thing we are going to do is change some of the field names. These are going to be the fields for the information that we want to get from people who are signing up to our mailing list.

So here I will input just a few examples of the information I might want to collect from potential customers. (favoirte golfer, handicap, name of country club, left handed)

When I’m finished inputting the fields, I will press Done, and my next step will be to setup the Subscribe Page.

In this first step, I’ll need to give my list a name. I am going to call it Jeremy’s Golf Shop.

The List Short Name will be what is used in your signup form’s URL. This name must be unique across all MailShoot users so I’ll just add some random digits to the end of it to ensure it is unique. You can do the same if you’d like, or you can click on this Check button to see if what you have entered is unique or not.

Next I’ll enter a password for my list, followed by a list description.

In the Owner’s Details section, I will need to fill out all of these fields. The owner e-mail is especially important as this is the email address that users will see when the signup to the mailing list, as well as the email address where you will be notified of a signup.

The welcome message can be customized to your liking, or you can leave it as is.

In the custom fields section, you will need to tick off whatever custom fields you want included on your signup form. I will tick off the ones I customized earlier in the tutorial.

You can choose from four different type’s of fields you want to use. You can also input a default value for each field, as well as indicate if you want to the field to be a Required field or not.

In the links section, here is where we will get our code for embedding the form on our iWeb website. I’ll simply press the publish button, and the embed code will appear. You will also notice that two links appear. The first link will take us to the Subscribe page. The second link will take us to the unsubscribe page. When you create your form, click on these links so you can see first hand what your subscribe and unsubscribe pages look like.

Now, I’m going to highlight the embed code, and copy it.

In RapidWeaver, I am going to add a new page. I am going to choose the HTML Code page option. I will simply paste the embed code, and as soon as I click on the preview button, I will be able to see my sign up form. Now you might notice here that some of my signup form is cut off. All I have to do is go back to the embed code, and change the value in the Height field, and check to see if I can now see my entire form.

And that is how you set up your mailing list sign up form. Remember to save your work as you go in MailShoot. For more MailShoot instructional videos, visit the MailShoot product page at ragesw.com/products/mailshoot.html

SEIntelligence : Internal Links (Anchor Text)

Tuesday, October 25th, 2011

The way you link internally on your site can be a very important way for you to tell search engines about the content on each of your pages. To learn more about internal links, watch the video below.

Video Transcript:

The links tab will show you how your linking structure is set up on your site. You will be able to see the outgoing and incoming links for each page on your site. Just so there is no confusion, the incoming links in this section of SEIntelligence are for internal incoming links.

In each links section, you will see three headings; Anchor Text, URL, and Title.

The one heading I want to focus on is Anchor Text. What is anchor text? Anchor text is the text used to link to a certain page. Typically, it is the text you see that is blue and underlined.

So why do we care about anchor text? To help me explain, let’s take a look at an example. If I perform a Google search for the term ‘click here’, you will notice that the first result is for Adobe Reader. Why would Adobe Reader appear number one for the search term ‘click here.’ It has nothing to do with that term. The reason for this is because so many sites on the web link to this exact URL, and the anchor text they use is ‘click here.’

Because all of these sites are linking to the Adobe Reader page using ‘click here’, search engine algorithms now classify that page with that key-term.

So what does this information mean to you? Well, take a look at the anchor text you use to link to other pages on your site. Read the recommendations in SEIntelligence and see what you can do to improve your anchor text. If page A on your site is targeting West Palm each real estate, then make sure that whenever you link to page A, you use West Palm Beach real estate as the anchor text.

You can change your anchor text right here in SEIntelligence. So as an example, this page that I’m on right now is targeting these two phrases. If I look in the incoming links section, I will see all of the pages that are linking to this page. If I click on each of these arrows, it will bring me to each of those pages. I will then find the link in the Outgoing links section, and change the anchor text. So I will change this anchor from Listings to West Palm Beach Real Estate, or West Palm Beach Real Estate Agent.

I’m also going to change the Title for this link. The title attribute is usually used to give a bit of extra information about an element. The title attribute is not really a place to repeat your anchor text. You’ll notice that when you hover your mouse over a link that has been given a title attribute, the text will appear.

So in this case, instead of writing west palm beach real estate, which is what I have as the anchor text, I might type something different, but along the same lines. As an example, I will write John Smith’s real estate listings in West Palm Beach, Florida. If you can’t really provide any more information beyond your anchor text, don’t worry about putting anything in the title attribute. Theres is still some debate about whether the title attribute has significant value in terms of SEO, so I encourage everyone to do further research on this topic.

SEIntelligence : Meta Tags

Sunday, October 23rd, 2011

SEIntelligence also allows you to easily modify other meta tags on your site, such as your webpage language. This quick tutorial will go over this section, and show you how to use it.

Video Transcript

On the Meta Tags tab in SEIntelligence, the first thing we will be told is the amount of unique keywords that we have added on our page. We will also be informed that we should only target about 2 to 4 keywords per page. This is a good recommendation that most of us can follow. If you are not able to target 2 to 4 keywords in your meta tags, don’t’ worry too much about it. Just make sure you don’t have too large a number of keywords as it might be seen as a form of SPAM. I like to target two keywords per page. One primary keyword, and one secondary keyword, as I have been referring to them in previous tutorials. Remember, you can add or delete your meta keywords by clicking the plus sign or minus sign at the bottom of the keywords section.

By default, the options for telling search engines to index this page and telling search engines to follow all links on the page will be checked. If you do not want these options, you may uncheck them. There is also an option to indicate to search engines how often to revisit. We left this unchecked by default as some search engines might follow it while others might not. It’s not all that important, but feel free to use it since it won’t cause any harm.

You can also select your webpage language if you want. This can be especially helpful if you have some pages on your site in English and some in Spanish, for example. You can now indicate to search engines what language each individual page is. If your entire site is in English, then you should set your webpage language to English on every page.