Webpage names and SEO

Do Webpage names make a difference for SEO Rankings?
The answer is a resounding "yes".
Webpage names are the "Destination" text for the Website Menu items and as such the navigation link begins with the Menu text and terminates in the Website File name.

The most common Menu Tags that are used on the large majority of Websites and their respective Web page file names are:

"About Us" --> AboutUs.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.) 
"Contact Us" --> ContactUs.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.) 
"Privacy Policy" --> PrivacyPolicy.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.) 
"Terms & Conditions" --> TermsConditions.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.)

none of which have any SEO Rankings value related to the nature of the business and the desired Search Phrases for SEO Rankings.

I have been recommending Website File names like these (the example is for a business selling Private Jets):

"About Us" --> About-Private-Jet-Sales.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.) 
"Contact Us" --> Contact-Private-Jet-Sales.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.) 
"Privacy Policy" --> Privacy-Policy-Private-Jet-Sales.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.) 
"Terms & Conditions" --> Terms-Conditions-Private-Jet-Sales.HTML (or ASP, PHP, etc.) 

and the SEO Rankings results are outstanding.
Of course its impossible to measure the actual improvement of any single element in an overall SEO project, but the overall results clearly speak for themselves.

 

Anchor Tags and SEO

Anchor Tags, the text that is linked to other web pages or websites is a crucially important element for SEO. The Search Engine Spiders note the Anchor Text as the basis for the link going to other Web content and as such they form the basic "Index" entry for the content to follow. Anchor Text in fact becomes the phrase that is the used for ranking the content at the destination of the link.

In the early 2000s (2004 or 2005) I had a discussion with a client in the Landscaping business about his website that contained many links to other web pages looking like these phrases:

"Click Here"
"Read More"
"See Details"
etc.

As I was suggesting to the client to use relevant search phrases in the Anchor Text like the following for improved rankings:
"Click for Landscaping Details"
"Read about Landscaping"
"See Landscape Design Tips"

The Website owner wondered if these changes could actually make any difference and I wanted to make sure I got him the full details.
During the early 2000s Google's Indexing algorithms were not nearly as sophisticated as they have become over time. When I researched his SEO Rankings for his original phrases, I was actually able to show him that his website Ranked for those phrases on the search results pages somewhere in the high teens (Pages in the 60s and 70s).

That was enough to convince him of the SEO value of the Anchor Texts and we optimized his Website to achieve the SEO Rankings he wanted.

How to get an image into Google's Image Library?

One of the ways to get an image into Google's Image Library is by embedding Meta Tags into the images prior to inserting them on a webpage.

So why is it beneficial for SEO Rankings to have website images included in the Google Image Library? The answer is that since images in the Google Image Library are linked to the website they reside-in, these links can actually help the Rankings.

If images are Meta-Tagged, they will be indexed and shown for searches in the Image Library, which can boost visits to the website, ergo - more traffic and a potential resulting boost in SEO Rankings.

So what are the various parameters associated with website images that are considered by the Google algorithms?

The following image parameters are used by Google to determine what search phrases are relevant for Indexing purposes, namely:

1. Image name
2. Text surrounding the image
3. The "Alt-Tag" of the image
4. The "Meta-Tags" embedded into an image within the "XMP" file, such as:
   1. Image Title
   2. Image Description
   3. Multiple Search Phrases

Does Usability effect SEO?

How does Usability effect SEO has been a question debated for a while.

The short answer is that since Google monitors website visitor behavior and adjusts SE Rankings based on what it observes, Usability does effect SE Rankings significantly for the following reasons:

1. Bounce Rates
   A high bounce rate indicates that a visitor coming to the site following an Anchor Text-based link, has not found the kind of content they were looking for and therefore left the site quickly. Since Google is focused on presenting relevant, current and quality content in its search results for specific search phrases, if a website is not offering such content for a given phrase, Google will remove the website from its Index for that given search phrase, ergo - no SE Rankings for that phrase.
2. Short visit duration
   A short visit duration indicates that a visitor coming to the site following an Anchor Text-based link, has not found the kind of content they were looking for and therefore left the site quickly. Since Google is focused on presenting relevant, current and quality content in its search results for specific search phrases, if a website is not offering such content for a given phrase, Google will remove the website from its Index for that given search phrase, ergo - no SE Rankings for that phrase.
3. Few pages visited
   A visit of only a very few pages on a website with many more pages once again indicates that a visitor coming to the site following an Anchor Text-based link, has not found the kind of content they were looking for and therefore left the site quickly. Since Google is focused on presenting relevant, current and quality content in its search results for specific search phrases, if a website is not offering such content for a given phrase, Google will remove the website from its Index for that given search phrase, ergo - no SE Rankings for that phrase.
4. Broken Links
   Broken links on a website indicate potentially serious problems uncovered on the website's Sitemap. Since Google is focused on presenting quality content in its search results, if a website has errors, Google will likely diminish the website's position in its Index for given search phrases, ergo - no SE Rankings for that phrase.

All in all, since Google monitors visitor behavior based on Anchor-Text based visits especially, low bounce rates, multi-page and long-duration visits indicate that visitors like the content presented on the website and therefore make Google give the site more reasons to give it a high Indexing position = high SEO Rankings.

Are keyword Meta-Tags still relevant?

The answer is "yes" & "no".

Google has discontinued including the keyword Meta-Tags contents in its SEO Rankings algorithms.

The other primary Search Engines, Yahoo and Bing still appear to include them in their Indexing and Rankings algorithms, as long as they are supported by wording content on the respective pages.

So while keyword Meta-Tags do not make a significant difference for Rankings, they do not cause any harm, as long as they are supported by relevant wording contents.

Just a word to the wise...

Website Image names do make a difference

Are website image names important for SEO Rankings?

The answer is a resounding yes.
Image names that use relevant search phrases are important for Indexing by Google and improving SE Rankings for a website, as one of the ways of boosting Rankings.

Image names that use the typical names coming in from the camera (like: IMG123456.jpg) are one of the frequently ignored and lost opportunities for SEO Rankings.

As an example, a better name for a website looking to rank for Athletic Socks would be something like:

• athletic-socks-mens-white.jpg
• athleticsocksmenswhite.jpg

with the former being simply more readable than the latter.

Make sure the image name is relevant to the search phrase being used and enhance it by adding further details to the right of the name, while using the search phrase as far left as reasonable, since the Google Spider considers words on the left more significant than further right.

SEO Rankings are based on content, which is primarily the text on the webpages

What looks like text - may not be readable by the Google Spider.
Since content determines SEO Rankings for a website, unreadable content will kill any chance for rankings.

There is text and then there is picture of text - do you know the difference?

Text readable to humans and to the Google Spider is the kind of content that is the most desirable for communicating to your visitors, as well as enabling the Spider process the website contents and determine how to Index and Rank the website.

A picture of text visible in a PDF document, may well be readable to humans, yet sometimes not be "readable" by the Spider.

So whats the difference?

That depends on how the PDF was created.

If the PDF document was created directly from a Text or Word document, the text is actually included within the PDF itself, which you can see if you "Export" the PDF to text.

However if the PDF was created from a "Screen-Capture" of text or created from a Photoshop image, the text itself is not included within the PDF and therefore the Spider may not be able to "read" and index it for the content.

Google has noted that it is working on Optical Character Recognition (OCR) of PDF documents, but that is not a certainty and OCR has never proven to be anywhere near 100% accurate.

In addition if the page content is purely text derived from within a PDF, it will not have any of the HTML characteristics that can be assigned and are used by the Spider to determine significance and importance, like header H-Tags, Paragraph headings, etc.

So beware, its far better to have fully HTML formatted text for your webpages, rather that a PDF image of the page text in order to make sure your website content is fully indexed in order to get it ranked.

"just saying..."

Identifying the Search Phrases your prospects use

The criteria for locating a Brick-&-Mortar business is knowing where your prospects are or where they congregate.

The same principle holds true for a Web-based business, except for the fact that it's actually far easier to find where your prospects congregate, as it doesn't matter where they are, just knowing what they search for, is telling you precisely where they "congregate".

And if you know what search phrases they use and then SE Optimize your website for those search phrases, once your website is well Indexed and Ranked by Google for those search phrases, you are now in front of your prospects exactly where they "congregate".

And Google is very helpful in that regard being willing to let you know the average monthly search frequencies over the last 12 months for any number of (up to 1,000 at one time?!) search phrases in any Geographic area.

So there is no more uncertainty or having to guess where your prospects are - just use your Google Adwords account (Free till you actually run some PPC Ads) to find out the monthly averages of the actual search frequency for the phrases you can think-of followed by Optimization of your website for those - and VOILA - you have a very good chance to find your prospects quickly becoming customers.