Does it matter if i change my host from a UK to a US host, but keep the domain address the same, like www.website.co.uk?

More web sites than you think change their IP addresses by moving to new servers each day. As long as your IP address doesnt change on a daily basis the web sites pagerank and rankings will not be affected dramatically.

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Vanessa Fox from Google and Danny Sullivan from Search Engine Watch (unfortunately, not for too long) talk about search engine optimization.

They share a lot of interesting tips for webmasters, by placing everyone in the story of Buffy, the vampire slayer.

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AOL researchers recently published the search logs of about 650,000 members – a total of 36,389,629 individual searches.

AOL’s search nerds intended the files to be an academic resource but didn’t consider that users might be peeved to see their private queries become a research tool. Last weekend, the Internet service provider tried to pull back the data, but by that point it had leaked all over the Web.

If you’ve ever wanted to see what other people type into search boxes, now’s your chance.

Which type of surfer are you?

• The Pornhound – Big surprise, there are millions of searches for mind-bendingly kinky stuff.
• The Shopper – AOL’s logs reveal that searches for “coupons” are a lot more common
• The Manhunter – The person who searches for other people.
• The Obsessive – The guy who searches for the same thing over and over and over.
• The Omnivore – Many users aren’t obsessive—they’re just online a lot. Their search terms, while frequent, show little repetition or regularity.
• The Newbie – They just figured out how to turn on the computer.
• The Basket Case – AOL being a pretend therapist who only responds to your problems (“I am sad”) with more questions (“Why do you say you are sad?”).

Matt Cutts answers Google questions: – Which is more important: search engine optimization (SEO) or end user optimization? – What spam detection tools would you recommend? – Does cleanliness of code (W3C) help at all?

Myths, Large Site Launches, and Google Images

Matt Cutts answers Google questions: – Myths: 1) sites on the same server, 2) IP, or 2) including off-domain JavaScript – Launching sites with millions of pages: how should I do it best? – Google images: updates on the horizon, and current Google Images technology

You want to make sure your site is indexed by the search engines. If your site has numerous inbound links from other sites, the Web spiders will find it automatically. Web spiders “crawl” the Internet monthly and update an engine’s database of sites.This is a quicker way of being found by the big three search engines. Rather than just building it and they will come, especially if you are an ecommerce store!
Be warned don’t submit more than once in 24 hours as it may be seen as spamming.

You can promote your web site this way by submitting your URL, homepage and/or content pages.

One way of analysing how many pages have been spidered in your web site is typing “site:www.yourwebsite.com” into Google.

The big three search sites have forms for submitting Web addresses:
Google: http://www.google.com/addurl/?continue=/addurl
Yahoo!: http://submit.search.yahoo.com/free/request
MSN: http://beta.search.msn.com/docs/submit.aspx

Search engine optimisation (SEO) is all about the technical enhancement of your web site code. Also link building – The process of creating inbound links to owns website. This can be done reciprocal links, being listed in e-zines, newsletters, directories, search engines, etc.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is pay per click (PPC) sponsored adverts on search engine results pages. In which payment is based on the number of times the website is selected (clicked) from the results list. Is used in paid placement advertising and paid inclusion. Also known as cost-per-click listings (CPC).

They are quite different types of marketing, ultimately both though draw users and prospective business to your web site.

To increase your organic search engines listings as well as getting users driven to your site:

Get links from press releases and focus on relevant business directories. For example, Google News and NewsNow

The Search engines are changing their alogorithms very often, which means the way they rank web sites can be different depending on varying factors, such as web content, backlinks, etc. This can very often be very complex to understand.

To deal with new alogorithm patterns, resubmission and reoptimisation is required of your web site. With a keyword review for example.

SEO: is an ongoing process, rather like the myth build a web site and they will come, you can’t just do a one off initial campaign and leave it. If you are selling a product online, it is in your interest to invest time in reporting to see whether you are listed higher than your competitors.

SEM: Up to 60% of users to a Google results page do not click on sponsored PPC links. They trust more in natural search results. Therefore, natural/organic SEO is more cost effective than PPC in the long term strategy.

If you have a strong brand it would be more cost effective to choose 3rd position in the sponsored ads as people tend to compare the top three.

To aid success in an SEM (PPC) campaign:

• Produce relevant web content.
• Understand conversion rates and margins
• Understand the search market place within your sector
• Take seasonality into account, eg: “loansâ€? best keyword after new year.
• Deep link advert to relevant page content, eg: item description
• Set clear objectives and keep testing them
• Analyse your results – then track, measure and optimise!
• From this adjust your PPC advert fees accordingly. If a keyword is working, increase the fee, if it is not lower the fee.
  

The key for both SEO and SEM is understanding the strengths and weaknesses in the keywords you have selected for web content and sponsored advert text.

Ask yourself every month “so what?”, and “what do these results mean?”.

Perhaps there are any keyword phrases that your competitors are not using that you can take advantage of.

In conclusion, if you have both good organic listings and good PPC position for keyword phrases it can be very effective and a good strategy to follow.

An SEO package from Callender Creates not only advises you of the best practices, we can also track and report on the position of your web sites. To make sure you stay on the first results page.