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TG feels overdosed myself with SEO pills over the last couple of days.. will take a break and write something else. Writing a blog is something TG like as long as its does not pose any pressure to keep up with the deadline or meet a target with dollar sign on it!! Anyway, the last part we will discuss is “Texts used in META description”

Texts used in META description

• Considered less important in the ranking as it was abused
• The META description should be a sentence to a paragraph describing the content of the site or page
• The maximum display of meta characters is 156.
• It will be displayed on SERP so we should apply the best practice in copywriting to attract target users
• The META description is recommended to include primary keyword, singular or plural, misspellings and synonyms, separated by commas each 

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written by TG \\ tags: Google, Keywords, Search, SEO, User Experience Design

Many friends told TG the first part is very easy to follow with the exception of finding the right keywords. That’s true, it’s a trial and error process, take a while to find what you are looking for. Working along with Google Insights tool, TG would also suggest using Google Adwords keyword tool, a great tool to be helpful in three situations, according to Google 

• When you first create a new ad group
• When your current keywords are performing poorly and you need to find better options
• When you have one keyword that really works well and want to find more like it

After discussing the first part -  Texts used on inbound link,  TG will continue to compose some points relating to  ‘Texts used in title tag of browser’

Texts used in title tag of browser

• Title tag is like a book title, it tells Google what’s our site or page all about. Google would match the titles with related categories and index them
• Relevancy is the key. The more likely the title tag ties to its content, the more times Google will search for its content and the more often users will come back for the right content  
• Short site titles are usually better than long one
• The following screenshot tells us and the search robots what products Yahoo! Shopping is selling in different sections of her site: The top one sells Sports and Outdoors, the second one sells Electronic and the one at the bottom sells Laptop Computers

• Less important than inbound links  

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written by TG \\ tags: Google, Keywords, Search, SEO, User Experience Design

Search marketing is a fast-changing business, search engines will change their algorithm from time to time. TG was lucky enough to find a couple of mentors who show the ropes and pointed the way to do search engine optimization (SEO). Through sharing, they tell TG a few tips that still always prevail and be effective in raising our site ranking. The first part we will discuss is ‘Texts used on inbound link’

Texts used on inbound link

• These texts are of the most peculiar and paramount to determine where to rank a website in Google. It’s highly recommended to be keyword specific, always use the most targeted keyword phrase 
• The rule of thumb is to ”use what people search for”.
• Said easier than Done! TG reckons that Google Insights is a great tool for search keywords, which can compare search volume patterns across specific regions, categories, and time frames. In this example, TG searches for Nike Shoes, Nike basket ball shoes and Nike sports shoes. The outcome is “Nike Shoes” takes the first lead, most users use it for keyword search in China dated back from 2004.

• Google recommends 100 links per page max – ”There should be a reason for link to be on a page”
• It’s also recommended that our inbound link should be consistent with the page title it directs to so that Google would not get confused by the naming convention. The following screenshot acquired from Yahoo! Shopping shows the links and its referring page is consistent

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written by TG \\ tags: emarketing, Google, Keywords, Search, SEO, User Experience Design

User interface design (UI) and Search engine optimization (SEO) should intertwine even though they are target for different users: human vs search engine robots.

The more TG works on UI design, the more TG feels that we should factor in SEO in creating a user-friendly site. SEO should be considered part of the site-building puzzle. There’s no one glove fits all though. One of TG’s friends working in a large bank in Hong Kong revealed that their team paid less attention to SEO techniques since they were so established that their customers were perfectly loyal to the bank…

TG is speechless and amazed if it does happen!

There are many common areas in usability and site optimization world. If you take a brief look, you will be amazed how closely they are :

• Text-based navigation is recommended to cater for the need of the majority users. Should graphic navigation be deployed, use descriptive alt text on the imges. One of the best ways to present an “Alt” text is Name/Country such as, Craft candle (China)
• Make use of descriptive keyword breadcrumb navigation to enable users know ”They are here”
• Give a page name on each page and highlight it with <H1>. tag. Both human and spider consume <H1> header, bold text <b> and body text <p> in the same order

“Just as every corner should have a street sign, every page should have a name.” Steven Krug

• Recommend to use external CSS files to keep the page light and structurally organized. Good for scanning and indexing 
• Use bulleted lists and bolding when appropriate
• Create content in context, build linkages to related articles and content in the second or third levels
• Create a sitemap for easy access and quick reference
• Copy should be concise, clean and keyword-specific. Most importantly, use layman term not bots
• Good layout means usable to human and spider
• Avoid duplicate content, not to confuse users and robots

 Now would you see them as a pair of high-heels walking on the street? Haha!

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written by TG \\ tags: Keywords, Search, search marketing, SEO, Steve Krug, Usability

Is it an act of committing suicide?!

Taobao.com officially blocks Baidu indexing her pages. The embargo news came yesterday took TG a surprise.  Given that Baidu (百度) is China number one search engine, it has a big pool of internet users in China and covers most of the web presence, blocking its service is like cutting off blood vessels supplying nutrition and oxygen to your body. Will Taobao be survived without blood flowing through her liver, heart and the other part of her body?

What happen after the news came out in Baidu (百度) search engine? TG input keyword “Taobao” and checked the result from  Baidu (百度) SERP, it still displays 11,100,000 pages, keyword “Taobao.com” only display one result.

There’s no doubt that a business decision has been made since  Baidu (百度) directs her challenge to Taobao’s core business line: Consumer to Consumer eCommerce model by launching her own C2C platform lately. Taobao did a merger with Alimama as part of her strategy to fend off potential competitors. 

Living in Hong Kong, shop owners always look for shops close to Mass Transit Railway (MTR) for convenience, for high traffic and turnover. If the store is not selling rare, unique items or providing outstanding services, shop owners will not take risk of moving too remote from high traffic area.

Will the forbidden city “Taobao.com” be able to draw traffic from somewhere else? TG is very interested in seeing it.

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written by TG \\ tags: Baidu, C2C, Search, Taobao.com, Taoboa, 百度

Why using Nofollow tag?

The tip was given by TG’s friend who’s a SEO specialist. I think it would be nice to share with others who are designing user interface. In such an event that you don’t want Google to follow a specific link, crawling the link that you don’t think it’s appropriate, you can use the tag.

For example: <a href=”back to top.php” rel=”nofollow”>back to top</a>  Having this Nofollow tag in place, the back to top link does not get ranked in Google image and search result page.

First and foremost, you don’t want your site, which has a couple of back to top links, ranks high under “back to top” in search result pages or image search pages. Your users will not search through “Back to top” anyway. The keyword ranking should be more specific and meaningful to users such as, electronic cars, green industry etc. They can be of more representative of your business.

TG did a keyword search “Back to top“,  in Google image. It showed the following, TG is not sure how useful it would be

As a web site administrator, you should let Google index the content that are useful to your users so as to increase your site’s page view. According to Google webmaster tool,

Using nofollow on these links enables Googlebot to crawl other pages you’d prefer to see in Google’s index. However, a solid information architecture — intuitive navigation, user- and search-engine-friendly URLs, and so on — is likely to be a far more productive use of resources than focusing on crawl prioritization via nofollowed links.

written by TG \\ tags: emarketing, Keywords, Search, SEO, Usability, User Experience Desgin