Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website

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Guest Contributors

Many talented writers and artists would love to have space on the

Internet to display their work. Your contributors don’t have to be professional writers.

Many websites are nicely filled out with the free expressions of regular folks, from

birth stories to bedtime stories.

quette to tax advice can be added onto your website, usually in exchange for a link or

a courtesy notice. However, since this content is not unique, it’s of little value for your

search engine presence (and may even annoy your site visitors because they may have

seen the same articles on other sites). So use it with caution, and only if you are certain

it improves your site offerings.

An alternative to copyright-free content is Creative Commons (CC) content. The Cre-

ative Commons, at

www.creativecommons.org

, is a new type of copyright—you might

call it a “some rights reserved” copyright. Explore CC content by searching for it using

Yahoo!’s or Google’s advanced search.

We’ve given you a pretty long list of possible ways to add content to your web-

site; not every one will suit your needs or abilities. Today, choose which technique

you’ll try first. Set a goal for yourself, perhaps adding one new page of unique content

each week, and get started today.

Wednesday: Optimize Non-HTML Documents

There’s no harm in posting documents on your website in non-HTML formats such as

Word, Excel, PDF, or PowerPoint. All of these formats are indexed by the major search

engines, and sometimes they rank well. However, good old HTML still has the upper

hand in search. Non-HTML content can be a turnoff to searchers, as we mentioned

earlier. Nevertheless, it can be optimized and serve you well, especially for the long tail

of search. For example, while your home page might rank well for “model cars;” your

product PDF could have a better chance of faring well for the term “die-cast model car

assembly instructions.”

Today, you’ll learn a little bit about what makes non-HTML content work on

search engines. Then you’ll make any needed changes to your own docs:

• Metadata for compelling titles

• Content optimization

• When to remove

Now:

Set a content-building goal and get started.

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