SEO in a Nutshell

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SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION STRATEGIES

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Table of Contents Introduction

3

The Facts About Search Engine Optimization

3

The Facts About All the Queen’s Men

3

2 Little Monkeys Case Study

4

Srategic Analysis, Edits & Recommendations

9

Standard Features

9

Site Maps & Robot Files

9

Semantic MarkUp

9

Page Titles

10

Meta Tags

10

Keywords Analysis

11

Navigation & Page Relation to Root

11

Internal Links

11

Outbound Links

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Inbound Links

11

Use of Alt Tags

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Text Analysis

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Heading, Bold, Italic & Underline Tags

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Non-standard Features

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Use of JavaScript

12

Use of Frames

13

Dynamically Generated Pages

13

Use of Flash & Splash Pages

13

Ethics, Methodology & Analytics

13

Ethics

13

Code Changes & Quality Control

14

Search Engine & Directory Submission

14

Web Analytics

14

Complementary Revenue Possibilities

16

Affiliate Programs

16

Search Engine Marketing aka Pay Per Click

16

Ad Hosting aka Google AdSense

16

Blog Marketing

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Content Generation

17

Email Marketing

17

Interactive Public Relations

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Glossary

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Introduction The Facts About Search Engine Optimization 90% of users discover new sites through search engines 85% to 90% of all web traffic moves through search engines and directories 80% of search engine users don't browse past the first page of results 80% of internet users utilize search engines every day 55% of online purchases and orders worldwide occur through search engine results You already realize it’s important, but you also know search engine optimization and positioning is challenging at best. It’s not a simple matter of adding a few tags that contain your important keywords. It is an art and a science – applying creative techniques to an indepth study of the search engines and directories.

Further, you recognize that driving traffic to your site is not enough. You’ve identified the objectives that need to be met through your site, and you’re prepared to do what it takes to reach them.

The Facts About All the Queen’s Men All the Queen’s Men is committed to meeting the search engine optimization needs of your web site thoroughly and professionally. This proposal will enlighten, entertain, and excite you about the potential of your business. We understand that SEO is a journey, not a destination. So we build our business around relationships, not sales pitches. We’re confident you’ll notice this in our behavior, and appreciate it.

Reading further, you’ll have an opportunity to examine what it is that we do. Due to the nature of SEO – with the work largely hidden and tangible results lagging several months behind the efforts – reasonable amounts of suspicion and uncertainty have crept into the industry. While we can’t promise you a #1 ranking for your favorite keyword, we can and do promise the following: Honesty in our assessments Transparency in our efforts Accountability through reporting *Please note that text in red is defined in the glossary. © 2 0 0 7 A l l t h e Q u e e n ’ s M e n

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2 Little Monkeys Case Study We began optimization of the 2 Little Monkeys site in August 2006, and ended our work in February 2007. At that time, the site received 100-125 unique visitors per day. As of April 2007, they enjoy over 300 unique visitors per day. That is an approximate 300% increase in unique site traffic in just 6 months’ time.

The following six report excerpts are indicative of what you will receive from us on a monthly basis. Your preferences are of course taken into consideration, and report delivery and interpretive training are customized according to your specifications.

As noted earlier in this introduction, it’s important to remember that SEO performance can only be measured against a point in time. If SEO efforts stop for any reason, traffic can be lost just as rapidly as it is gained. For SEO to be successful over the long term, it must be practiced with rigorous on-going discipline. There is no coasting in SEO. As such, there has already been an unfortunate decline in some of the work done with 2 Little Monkeys.

Advanced Web Ranking Report 2 Little Monkeys Apr 25, 2007

www.2littlemonkeys.com Google 2 little monkeys 1 baby bedding boutique 2 chic baby items 8 children's bedding designers 2 custom baby bedding 4 designer baby bedding 1 designer baby decor 6 hip diaper bags 7 little castle furniture little castle gliders 11 nursery furniture chic 1 serena and lily 5 Added Dropped Moved Up Moved Down 10 2 moved down 2 positions (from 8) toMonkeys position 10 2 Little Apr 25, 2007

MSN 1 3 7 10 13 5 8 41 3 1 29 43 Not Changed

Advanced Web Ranking Report

Website Pages Rank www.2littlemonkeys.com 3

Alexa Rank -

First In Top Place In Top 5 10 6 13 21

In Top 20 26

In Top 30 28

Yahoo 1 9 13

24

16 8 20 Not Available

Moved Up

Moved Down Gain/Loss

Net Not Not Visibility Visibility Site Website Pages Gain/LossChanged Added Dropped Ranked Ranked Score Percent Rank www.2littlemonkeys.com 30 6 649 60 Added Dropped Moved Up Moved Down Not Changed 10

Average Site Rank

2 moved down 2 positions (from 8) to position 10

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Advanced Web Ranking Report 2 Little Monkeys Apr 25, 2007 2 little monkeys(35,500,000) Position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Google

Website Rank Alexa Rank http://www.2littlemonkeys.com 3 http://www.2littlemonkeys.com/contact.cfm 3 http://www.epinions.com/content_182032764548 http://www.enchantedlearning.com/rhymes/Monkeys.shtml http://www.niehs.nih.gov/kids/lyrics/tenmonk.htm http://www.amazon.com/Five-Little-Monkeys-Jumping-Board/dp/0395900239 http://www.amazon.com/Five-Little-Monkeys/dp/B00004SVH2 http://www.eduref.org/cgi-bin/printlessons.cgi/Virtual/Lessons/Arts/Music/MUS000 9.html http://www.internetdj.com/article.php?storyid=883 http://www.littlemonkeymurals.com/Monkey Facts-2.htm -

baby bedding boutique(721,000) Position 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Google

Website http://www.baby-bedding-boutique.com http://www.2littlemonkeys.com http://www.2littlemonkeys.com/childrens-bedding_23_d.htm http://www.thestorkdelivers.com/bedbout.html http://www.goodnightsleeptight.com http://huckleberrymoon.com http://www.oneofakindkid.com http://www.lullaby-creations.com http://www.baby-place.com/bedding.php http://www.taketwomaternity.com

Rank Alexa Rank 3 3 -

chic baby items(1,450,000)

Change

Google

Position Website 1 http://www.laniepaige.com/store/WsAncillary.asp?ID=5 http://www.distinctivenurseries.com/index.asp?

2 PageAction=VIEWCATS&Category=303 3 http://www.babyoliverboutique.com/shabby-chic-bib.html 4 http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=38121 5 http://www.amazon.com/Chic-Moms-Best-Finds/lm/R2ADCAKQ7PA2BI 6 http://www.amazon.com/Hotslings-Shabby-Chic-Baby-Carrier/dp/B000NL0UJW http://baby.listings.ebay.com/Nursery7 Bedding_Bumpers_W0QQfclZ3QQfcoZ1QQsacatZ20 417QQsocmdZListingItemList 8 http://www.2littlemonkeys.com 9 http://search.ebay.com/_W0QQsassZbabyQ2echic http://cgi.ebay.com/RACHEL-ASHWELL-SHABBY-CHIC-Baby-Crib-Bumper10 Lavender_W0QQite mZ120111882124QQihZ002QQcategoryZ20417QQcmdZViewItem

Rank Alexa Rank -

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children's bedding designers(1,210,000) Position 1 2 3 4

Change

Change

Google

Website http://www.javisdavis.com http://www.2littlemonkeys.com http://www.2littlemonkeys.com/childrens-bedding_23_d.htm http://www.homeexpo.com/HE/d5014.htm

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Rank Alexa Rank 3 3 -

Change

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Advanced Web Ranking Report 2 Little Monkeys Apr 25, 2007 2 little monkeys(35,500,000)

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com http://www.2littlemonkeys.com/contact.cfm

Position 1 2

Previous Change -

baby bedding boutique(721,000)

Page 1 1

Best 1 2

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com http://www.2littlemonkeys.com/childrens-bedding_23_d.htm

Position 2 3

Previous Change -

chic baby items(1,450,000)

Page 1 1

Best 2 3

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com

Position 8

Previous Change -

children's bedding designers(1,210,000)

Page 1

Best 8

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com http://www.2littlemonkeys.com/childrens-bedding_23_d.htm

Position 2 3

Previous Change -

custom baby bedding(1,540,000)

Page 1 1

Best 2 3

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com

Position 4

Previous Change -

designer baby bedding(1,400,000)

Page 1

Best 4

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com

Position 1

Previous Change -

designer baby decor(1,350,000)

Page 1

Best 1

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com

Position 6

Previous Change -

hip diaper bags(887,000)

Page 1

Best 6

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com

Position 7

Previous Change -

little castle furniture(1,260,000)

Page 1

Best 7

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com

Position -

Previous Change -

little castle gliders(536,000)

Page -

Best -

Google

Website http://www.2littlemonkeys.com

Position 11

nursery furniture chic(288,000)

Previous Change -

Page 2

Best 11

Google

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Advanced Web Ranking Report 2 Little Monkeys Apr 25, 2007 Google Keywords 2 little monkeys (35,500,000) 2 little monkeys (35,500,000) baby bedding boutique (721,000) baby bedding boutique (721,000) chic baby items (1,450,000) children's bedding designers (1,210,000) children's bedding designers (1,210,000) custom baby bedding (1,540,000) designer baby bedding (1,400,000) designer baby decor (1,350,000) hip diaper bags (887,000) little castle furniture (1,260,000) little castle gliders (536,000) nursery furniture chic (288,000) serena and lily (1,010,000)

www.2littlemonkeys.com Position

Previous

Page

Best

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Change

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MSN Keywords 2 little monkeys (1,284,445) 2 little monkeys (1,284,445) baby bedding boutique (262,230) chic baby items (562,227) children's bedding designers (74,314) custom baby bedding (361,773) designer baby bedding (400,954) designer baby bedding (400,954) designer baby decor

www.2littlemonkeys.com Position

Previous

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Best

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Advanced Web Ranking Report 2 Little Monkeys Apr 25, 2007 2 little monkeys Search Engine Google (35,500,000) Google (35,500,000) MSN (1,284,445) MSN (1,284,445) Yahoo (10,300,000) Yahoo (10,300,000)

www.2littlemonkeys.com Position 1 2 1 2 1 2

Previous -

Change

baby bedding boutique Search Engine Google (721,000) Google (721,000) MSN (262,230) Yahoo (865,000)

Position 2 3 3 9

Previous -

Change

Position 8 7 13

Previous -

Change

Position 2 3 10 -

Previous -

Change

Position 4 13 -

Previous -

Change

Best 8 7 13

Page 1 1 1 -

Best 2 3 10 -

Page 1 2 -

Best 4 13 -

www.2littlemonkeys.com Position 1 5 6 24

Previous -

Change

designer baby decor Search Engine Google (1,350,000) MSN (651,240)

Page 1 1 2

www.2littlemonkeys.com

designer baby bedding Search Engine Google (1,400,000) MSN (400,954) MSN (400,954) Yahoo (2,310,000)

Best 2 3 3 9

www.2littlemonkeys.com

custom baby bedding Search Engine Google (1,540,000) MSN (361,773) Yahoo (2,840,000)

Page 1 1 1 1

www.2littlemonkeys.com

children's bedding designers Search Engine Google (1,210,000) Google (1,210,000) MSN (74,314) Yahoo (478,000)

Best 1 2 1 2 1 2

www.2littlemonkeys.com

chic baby items Search Engine Google (1,450,000) MSN (562,227) Yahoo (2,170,000)

Page 1 1 1 1 1 1

Page 1 1 1 3

Best 1 5 6 24

www.2littlemonkeys.com Position 6 8

Previous -

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Page 1 1

Best 6 8

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Srategic Analysis, Edits & Recommendations Standard Features The following are standard features of web sites that we look for, modify and create individually for each page as necessary. The recurring theme throughout is that by and large, what’s good for search engines is good for usability and accessibility. This inherently harmonious aspect of optimization makes us smile!

Site Maps & Robot Files These important but often overlooked files play a strong role in proper site submission and optimization.

Site maps grab search engine spiders by the hand - or, leg - and lead them through your site.

They help ensure that the maximum number of pages within your site gets indexed. Further, site maps help visitors to quickly scan your whole site for relevant information. A link and a short description of that link is created for each page of your site. The site map page is then added to your main navigation menu.

The robots.txt file is another landmark for – you guessed it – search engine robots. It provides explicit instructions regarding which links to follow and index – and equally important for security – which ones not to.

Semantic MarkUp Clean HTML creates the best experience for users as well as search engines. It helps pages load quickly, and assists the search engine spiders in navigating your site.

All the Queen’s Men takes the time to thoroughly analyze your site from top to bottom. We scrutinize all the details, and point out unsuspecting issues. As a best practice rule of thumb, developers will place notes in html files – so that the HTML still makes sense to them six months after they first wrote it. However, if these notes are left in the live files being hosted on your site’s server, they simply slow down performance. We help you create clarity between file archives and live files, so you retain the highest quality in standards-based development as well as in performance.

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We further determine the text ratio of your site, and offer advice for adding content accordingly. Quite simply, the higher the ratio of content to code, the better. It’s just good value. Really, would you want all cone and no ice cream? Neither do the search engines.

Finally, with all of the above in mind, it stands to reason that we at All the Queen’s Men recommend against table-based layout. It’s inefficient, outdated, and just plain gets in the way of everything. So, if you need to make the transition, we’ll take you from tables to CSS.

URL Analysis Your “home” page should be at www.domainname.com and not redirected to a different directory. If it must redirect, it should be at the server level. Generally, it's safer to avoid refreshes and redirects all together.

Further, clean URL’s are preferred to URL’s containing strings of code. The URL itself is prime territory for keywords, and should be explored to the fullest. Let’s say I have a blog about shoes. Left unattended, the blog may generate a URL like this: http://www.desiquintans.com/index.php?page=articles-349 With clean URL’s, it might look like this: http://www.desiquintans.com/best-hiking-shoes You can see that this is a much more inviting and descriptive URL for search engine spiders and humans. We use it to calculate a modified KEI, based on an article by Patrick Dent1 .

Page Titles Title tags should also be chosen carefully, incorporating unique keywords for each page.

Again, what’s good for the spider is good for humans. Particularly with the advent of page tabs, viewers require easily identifiable titles to jump back and forth between separate pages.

Meta Tags Meta tags come in a variety of forms and are used for different purposes. Each type of tag is considered differently by the various search engines, so what is advantageous in one may have no effect whatsoever in another. Here are some of the most widely used: Description tag: 12-24 words with a maximum of 156 characters that best describe the page. It should incorporate the most important keywords, and should leave out stop words.

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Search Engine Optimization - Building a New Online Bookstore

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Keywords tag: This is what everybody talks about. It’s worth noting that the “keyword meta tag” means a very specific component of the <head> section of a website, while the more casual use of “keyword” means words which are strategically chosen for use throughout a site – not only in the meta tags, but also in the body text, image alt tags, etc. As a meta tag, it is useful to place the most important words first, and a good idea to use no more than 48 words or 1000 characters.

Robots tag: Provides instructions for search engine spiders index or not index, and crawl or not crawl the page.

Keywords Analysis On many levels, this is what it’s all about. We analyze keywords based on popularity and competition. Then, we use them appropriately throughout every landing page of your site.

Navigation & Page Relation to Root We recommend shallow navigation whenever possible as it creates the most convenient viewing experience. Furthermore there is a strong possibility that some search engines extend preferential treatment to web pages closest in navigational structure to the home page. As this approach also helps create a tight-knit site with a greater density of internal links, we feel it does play a small part in SEO. Every little bit helps.

Internal Links Internal links should open in the same window as the originally viewed page. Additionally, they provide tremendous opportunity to use keywords. Many, many sites are built with generic Home, Contact and About Us links that completely miss out on harnessing the power of keywords. It’s a crying shame.

Inbound Links Inbound links refers to the number of links pointing to your site, from other sites on the web.

There are other terms used for inbound links, such as Link building, Link Popularity, Back Links, etc. The search engines consider your site important and rank it higher if other high quality sites link to your site. There are two types of links you can establish on the web. One type is to trade links (Link Exchange), where you give a link from the links Page on your site to the partner sites. The second method is to establish only "incoming links" also called ‘one-way links' or ‘non-reciprocal links”. With non-reciprocal links, you do not need to link © 2 0 0 7 A l l t h e Q u e e n ’ s M e n

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back to them. There are several ways of developing Inbound links. Some of the techniques we follow in link building are: Submitting to Free Directories Article submission Press releases Direct requests Affiliate programs RSS & Atom feed support for blogs However, it is not a simple case of the more, the better. Inbound links should be from mature, high quality sites, with good page ranking, and a successful history on the web.

Think of it like your father ushering you into the Masonic Lodge – older, wiser, their recommendation counts.

Use of Alt Tags For standards-based markup, the use of an image alt tag is mandatory. This is the text that describes an image for a viewer who for whatever reason cannot see or process images. It has a small bearing in SEO as another home for keywords.

Text Analysis Extensive keyword-rich content will need to be added to individual static pages to improve rankings. Search engines respond well to a layering effect – where the same keywords are used in URLs, page titles, meta tags, alt tags, links, headings and throughout the body text.

We optimize to 6% keyword saturation in body text, as higher percentages may be penalized for keyword spamming.

Heading, Bold, Italic & Underline Tags Heading tags – <h1> through <h6> – are perfect places for keyword repetition. They are weighted in order h1 down to h6. Bold <strong>, italic <em> and underline <u> are further happy homes for keywords. Other options, while outdated as far as web standards go, still seem to have an effect. These include <big>, <b> and <i>.

Non-standard Features Use of JavaScript JavaScript should be limited to non-intrusive use, and placed in external files. A good rule of thumb is to use the progressive enhancement rather than the graceful degradation approach. © 2 0 0 7 A l l t h e Q u e e n ’ s M e n

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Use of Frames Frames are roadblocks for search engines. Frames increase the file size and the total number of words that make up a web site. Therefore, they also decrease the overall keyword weight, which can put you at a disadvantage to your competition. We strongly recommend against use of frames.

Dynamically Generated Pages Ideally, dynamic pages should not have equal signs or question marks and other query strings in them. Query string pages are starting to get indexed by most of the search engines, however we still recommend against their usage. See URL Analysis above, and Modified KEI in the glossary for more information.

Use of Flash & Splash Pages We recommend against the use of splash pages - A site needs to be content rich with carefully placed keyword phrases, especially the main page.

Since splash pages and Flash intros may have very little (or no) HTML text, they are not helpful for search engines and could potentially inhibit indexing. If your main page has little or no text, there's very little content that the crawler will index... which means your site won't rank high when people do searches.

There are also search engines that only index your main page, so if it happens to be a splash page with very little text, your site has little-to-no chance of popping up in any search results. Meta tags can help for search engines that recognize them, but without rich content, your odds of getting listed at all, much less achieving top rankings, are tremendously reduced.

Ethics, Methodology & Analytics Ethics We agree with the SEO Code of Ethics as published by Bruce Clay on www.bruceclay.com.

For your convenience, we have paraphrased it below.

To the best of our ability, All the Queen’ Men practices exclusively white hat SEO techniques. No employee, partner or representative of All the Queen’s Men will knowingly do harm to a client, nor violate any specifically published and enforced rules of search © 2 0 0 7 A l l t h e Q u e e n ’ s M e n

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engines or directories. We will not intentionally mislead, harm, or offend searchers/ consumers. We will not knowingly violate any laws or falsely represent the content of clients’ sites. We will not engage in any conflict of interest without full disclosure. We will not set unreasonable client expectations, misrepresent ourselves or falsely represent our work. We will honor the confidentiality of our clients with regards to sensitive information.

Code Changes & Quality Control Unless otherwise requested by the client, All the Queen’s Men is happy to make the necessary changes in the site’s code. For this, we will require either FTP access to the site, or copies of files that we can freely edit. With either option, initial modifications will be made on a testing server separate from the previously existing live site. Once modifications meet with the client’s approval, the newly edited files will be placed on the live server.

All HTML, XHTML and CSS will be validated. Further testing will ensure your site can be viewed in all the major browsers and in the most common resolutions. Adjustments will be made to the site's code where necessary.

Search Engine & Directory Submission Once the initial SEO process is complete and live testing of the site has taken place, your site is submitted by hand to all the major search engines, directories and some specialized or industry-specific directories. Not all search engines and directories have the same rules for submission, therefore care will be taken during submission to carefully comply with explicit guidelines.

Once submission has been performed, we advise against making changes to the SEO of the site for three months. Indexing simply takes time. After three months, we collect data, reassess, and launch the second wave of our army. Typically, the first three months mainly involves following up on the submissions, ensuring that a sufficient number of the site’s pages have been appropriately indexed. Months 4-6 are the perfect time to adjust and focus on additional keywords. It is also an appropriate time to consider scheduling around any holidays or other seasonal opportunities that exist in your industry.

Web Analytics Borrowing a definition from Wikipedia: Web analytics is the measurement of the behavior of visitors to a website or web application. In a commercial context, it especially refers to the measurement of © 2 0 0 7 A l l t h e Q u e e n ’ s M e n

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which aspects of the website work towards the business objectives; for example, which landing pages encourage people to make a purchase.

We process the following information: unique or returning visitor IP address and geographical location entry & exit pages referring pages page visit length browser used whether JavaScript is enabled or not screen resolution In short, this data helps us determine what’s working and what’s not for the site as a whole.

It helps us assess any discrepancies between traffic and actual sales, and can identify any hindrances in the site’s overall success. A sample report is below:

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Complementary Revenue Possibilities Affiliate Programs Affiliate programs such as those offered by Amazon and other booksellers, Rich Dad and various other companies can generate a largely passive secondary income stream on your website. Additional benefits include link exchange and simply providing more value to your viewers.

All the Queen’s Men has experience with a variety of affiliate programs. We are happy to help you choose and maintain the appropriate program, or programs, for your industry. Ask us for details.

Search Engine Marketing aka Pay Per Click SEM or PPC programs are an excellent way to boost traffic, particularly in the early stage of SEO before naturally optimized traffic has started pouring in. It is also an ideal solution for any keyword that is vital to the success of your business, but for which there is existing fierce competition.

All the Queen’s Men has experience with Google AdWords and Yahoo Search Marketing. Ask us for details.

Ad Hosting aka Google AdSense Ad hosting is more or less renting space on your site for others’ ads to be placed in. Google does most of the work – matching ads which are complementary to your site’s content. You can even screen out competitors whose ads you wouldn’t want to support. Like affiliate programs, you earn a largely passive secondary income.

All the Queen’s Men has experience with Google AdSense. Ask us for details.

Blog Marketing Blogs are an inexpensive way to potentially reach a large audience who have clearly expressed an interest in your message.

All the Queen’s Men has experience with blogs. Ask us for details.

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Content Generation Many clients do not have the time to invest in writing copious amounts of keyword-rich, unique and relevant content. As a full-service firm, All the Queen’s Men can lend a hand. Ask us for details.

Email Marketing Email marketing is an inexpensive form of direct marketing that offers an opportunity to target customers with greater accuracy than any other method. Detailed information about the successful receipt of the campaign, as well as recipient behavior can be tracked. You will know who opened the email, who clicked through to your website, which pages they viewed, if they forwarded the email to new potential subscribers, etc.

Direct marketing campaigns are capable of: Increases sales to existing customers Builds customer loyalty Re-establishes lapsed customer relationships Generates new business All the Queen’s Men is experienced in email marketing. Ask us for details.

Interactive Public Relations Through strategic partner relationships, All the Queen’s Men has access to PR experts, creative pitch strategists, and media-savvy professionals who can deliver the positive exposure your business needs. Together, our clientele includes various firms in the fields of finance, technology, retail, education, and professional services. We specialize in: Creation of Interactive Press Material Optimization of Press Release for Search Engines Online Media Relations Ask us for details.

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Glossary Accessibility From Wikipedia: Web accessibility refers to the practice of making Web pages accessible to people using a wide range of user agent software and devices, not just standard Web browsers. This is especially important for people with disabilities such as visual impairment. In order to access the Web, some users require special software or devices in addition to a standard web browser, or specially designed web browsers. Design for accessibility is a subcategory of good design for usability. Designing websites with accessibility in mind can often enhance usability for all users. Good design can also deliver easier access for automated software programs that read website content, such as search engines.

CSS Cascading Style Sheets. Of the 3 major components of web design – content, appearance & behavior – CSS governs the appearance.

Dynamic page A web page with content that changes in response to different contexts or conditions, such as when a product is retrieved from a shopping cart database and displayed in the page.

browser software, as well as the widespread belief that "browsers are free". Unfortunately, upgrading is often not possible due to IT department policies, older hardware, and other reasons. The "just upgrade" attitude also ignores deliberate end user choices and the existence of a variety of browser platforms; many of which run on handhelds or in other contexts where available bandwidth is paltry, or where support for sound or color, limited screen size, and so forth are far different from the typical graphical desktop browser.

See also: Progressive Enhancement

HTML, XHTML Of the 3 major components of web design – content, appearance & behavior – HTML & XHTML govern the content.

Indexed Existence in a search engine’s index. Does not indicate a high ranking for any search terms, simply that a search engine is aware of a page’s existence.

Landing page The desired point of entry for a searcher finding a site with a given keyword. The pages where a viewer can take desired actions.

FTP access

Modified KEI

User and password-protected access to the files of a web site.

Modified Keyword Efficiency Index. A variation of the standard KEI, which divides the popularity of a keyword by the amount of competition for it. The resulting number indicates whether a keyword has a good chance of being profitably used.

Graceful degradation From Wikipedia: Graceful degradation was supposed to allow the page to "degrade", or remain presentable even if certain technologies assumed by the design were not present, without being jarring to the user of such older software (hence "gracefully"). In practice, graceful degradation has been supplanted by an attitude that the end user should "just upgrade". This attitude is due to time and budget constraints, limited access to testing alternate

Progressive Enhancement From Wikipedia: In Progressive Enhancement (PE) the strategy [of graceful degradation] is deliberately reversed: a basic markup document is created, geared towards the lowest common denominator of browser software functionality, and then the designer adds in functionality or enhancements to the presentation and behavior of the page,

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using modern technologies such as Cascading Style Sheets or JavaScript (or other advanced technologies, such as Flash or Java applets or SVG, etc.) All such enhancements are to be externally linked, in order to avoid forcing browsers of lesser capability to "eat" data they do not understand and cannot handle, or which would swamp their Internet connection.

This causes a number of problems. Many Web pages have been designed with tables nested within tables, resulting in large HTML documents which use more bandwidth than documents with simpler formatting. Furthermore, when a table based layout is linearized, for example when being parsed by a screen reader or a search engine, the resulting order of the content can be somewhat jumbled and confusing.

Core Principles: • basic content should be accessible to all browsers • basic functionality should be accessible to all browsers • sparse, semantic markup contains all content • enhanced layout is provided by externally linked CSS • enhanced behavior is provided by unobtrusive, externally linked JavaScript • end user browser preferences are respected See also: Graceful Degradation

Text ratio Meaning code to text ratio. The less HTML and the more text on a page, the more relevant and filled with useful content a page seems to be to a search engine.

Unobtrusive JavaScript Separation of JavaScript functionality (the "behavior layer") from a web page's content and presentation

Standards-based markup

URL

HTML markup that follows the recommendations published by the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)

Uniform Resource Locater aka URI, Uniform Resource Identifier. The address of a web page.

Static page

A static web page is one that always comprises the same Validate information in response to all download requests from The syntactical correctness of a fragment of code or all users. document. Applies to HTML, CSS and XML documents or RSS feeds.

Stop words

White hat

These are words too common to have relevance in searches, and are therefore filtered out by search engines. It is wasteful to use a stop word in a limited-size field, such as a meta tag or page title.

Applies widely accepted ethical standards to SEO or hacking activity. Contrasts with black hat, and leaves grey hat somewhere in between.

SERP Search engine results page.

Table-based layout From Wikipedia: As the Internet expanded in the mid 1990s, and became more media oriented, graphic designers sought for ways to control the visual appearance of the Web pages presented to end users. To this end, tables and spacers (usually transparent single pixel GIF images with explicitly specified width and height) have been used to create and maintain page layout. © 2 0 0 7 A l l t h e Q u e e n ’ s M e n

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