Now that we’ve covered how you can optimize images in your website, let’s move on to understanding Sitemaps and its effects to your on site SEO structure.
What is a Sitemap?
In simple terms, a Sitemap is an XML file that is full of your individual webpage’s URLs. It’s like an archive of every webpage in your website. This file should be easily discoverable in your site in order for search engine crawlers to stumble upon it.
What is a Sitemap for?
A Sitemap is usually used for the purpose of letting the search engine crawlers follow the links to all your individual webpages so that it won’t miss out on anything.
Sometimes we leave out URLs or hide them from all visible pages because we don’t exactly want some of the users to go there. As a result, some of these URLs are uncrawlable to search engine spiders.
We can still leave those URLs hidden from some users without having to lose out on those pages not being crawled by search engine spiders through including them in an XML Sitemap.
Thursday, May 26, 2011
Sitemap Effect on SEO | SEO in Simple Terms
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Know God's Word by heart | God and you
His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” – John 2:17
Remember when you were in your grade school years being taught the fundamental mathematical operations? If you’re the studious type, you actually found it fun being taught the basics of Mathematics. If I ask you right now what 1 + 1 is, you’d be able to answer in a heartbeat. When you ask for the bill and check if it’s correct, you’d be able to spot an error in the computation.
Author’s Note: This is part of the “back to basics” reflection I’ve been doing in the book of John.
There are times that my siblings and I would have geek talks at home. Two of my siblings are engineers; one metallurgical and the other chemical. I remember my younger brother once telling us, “Show me a rock and I will tell you its copper content.” On a separate occasion my sister told me while doing the grocery, “This brand of soy sauce is expensive because its fermentation process is more natural than the others.” (Yes, we have conversations like that at home. Geeky, I know.)
I found the same behavior in Jesus’ disciples when they saw Him clear the temple – overturning tables, filled with zeal to restore respect for His Father’s place. They remembered what was written in the scripture. In this case, they remembered Psalm 69:9. They were able to see the Word. They were able to see it because they were at the very least acquainted with the scripture. I’d like to believe that they didn’t only study the scripture, they meditated on it. Probably, unlike the Pharisees, Jesus’ disciples must’ve taken to heart Psalm 1:2:
But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and on his law he meditates day and night.
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Image SEO | SEO in Simple Terms
Now that we have established outbound links, here’s one more that could help you with your on site optimization – image SEO. How do you do optimization for images? How do you use image alt text? How do you use image title? Does changing an image filename help?
A Good Alternative
Example of an Image Alt Text showing up due to image absence/ fail to load
Image alt text stands for ‘image alternate text’ – why is it called alternate text? Because when you load a webpage without display turned on, it’s the alternate text that will display instead of the image.
Image alt text can also be considered the keywords behind the image. But it is well nigh misunderstood and misused. People and ‘SEO specialists’ (or so they claim) alike, use image alt text to stuff and spam keywords inside their images – thinking that these invisible keywords will improve their relevance ranking.
This practice is clearly wrong. It may work, yes, but it is not the original design and purpose of the image ‘alt text’ attribute.
Wednesday, May 18, 2011
You are Worth $4.50 - Knowing your Value | God and you
It is interesting that if you break down an average human body, the chemical composition has a worth of about four dollars and fifty cents in our world today. That includes everything – even your skin and bones.
This is what your body is when you break it down:
65% Oxygen 18% Carbon 10% Hydrogen 3% Nitrogen 1.5% Calcium 1% Phosphorous 0.35% Potassium 0.25% Sulfur 0.15% Sodium 0.15% Chlorine 0.05% Magnesium 0.0004% Iron 0.00004% Iodine A dinner in your nearest hotel costs more than you – chemically speaking.
What makes us so valuable then?
Why do we invest so much for our lives?
Why is it that we think we are the most important thing in the existence of this world?
Why is it that we live like we’re worth more than just $4.50?
What value are we striving for if the world prices us as such?
Is there any reason else for us to believe we are more than four dollars and fifty cents?
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Word to the Christian Slacker | God and you
“I know your deeds, that you are neither cold nor hot. I wish you were one or the other! So, because you are lukewarm – neither hot nor cold – I am about to spit you out of my mouth.” – Revelation 3:15-16
I can’t picture God throwing up because of a person’s lack of passion. I can’t picture God throwing up, period.
Author’s note: I did say I was going to write about the opposite extreme of the obedience spectrum. I finally found the time to do so.
This is not to question the salvation of some Christians. This is more of a reminder of what the Bible tells us; that we are saved for a reason. Yes, God loves us so much that He gave His Son to die on the cross. By accepting the gift of eternal life through Jesus Christ, we died to our old selves and let Christ live in and through us. Yes, He not only lives IN us, but THROUGH us as well.
“For we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared for us in advance” – Ephesians 2:10
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Understanding Outbound Links | SEO in Simple Terms
You’ve got a link here and a link there. The internet is full of links. Each time you click a link, chances are, it means you’re traveling from a certain webpage to another. In SEO, understanding the outbound link is one step forward for your on-site optimization. I’ll also be talking about hidden keywords in your links below.
Going out of your way
Outbound links are links that are meant to take you elsewhere. These are links that are going to direct you to another specific webpage or website altogether. Most, if not all, websites have outbound links.
Two sides of a coin
There are two (2) kinds of outbound links. There is the nofollow link and the dofollow link.
The dofollow link is the normal link. It is the default link. The common link. The normal link. You don’t have to add to the code, you don’t have to change anything. Just make a link and it’s automatically a dofollow link. A dofollow link is what every link should be like. It passes on Google PageRank juice from your webpage to the targeted webpage.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Local Movie Reviews | God and you
Just want to give you a heads-up. All my movie reviews will now be held on Local Movie Reviews. This is because the website is specifically focused on reviewing all movies – past, current and advanced screenings. The blogger behind Local Movie Review is my good friend and brother in Christ, Austin Takahashi. He’s a superb author. I’m sure you’ll enjoy his reviews like no other.
To give you a little insight about Local Movie Review:
Local Movie Review started on May of 2010 when Austin was writing movie reviews for another company. He let me read some of his works and I was very impressed with his work. He writes really well – I love potential. I offered him a blogsite for free just to help him up. I was so excited for Austin to be known as an authority in critiquing movies in the web. And perhaps someday soon he will be a patron of the local movie industry.
The reason we chose the name ‘Local Movie Review’ is because it has a good search volume in the search engines and he is a local guy who loves to review movies. Happy isn’t it?
Writing Style
Austin writes his reviews on a different background – a personal background. He says what he likes with a no-holds-barred attitude. There have even been times where people were offended by what he has to say. But that’s what he is – a movie critic. I personally like it.
Austin writes his movie reviews with spunk and honesty. Movie reviews have never been written the same way as he writes it. It is entertaining, engaging, rich and honest. I wouldn’t say that all his reviews would reflect on the exact way of how you liked/disliked the movie. All I’m saying is that his perspective of the movie is something you might find value in. But even if it isn’t, just reading his reviews could already hook you into watching.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Thor Movie Review | God and you
Got the chance to watch Thor tonight with the whole family. It’s been a while since we were all together watching a movie due to my brother’s busy school workload. DLSU CSB should re-think of how much load they’re giving to MMA students. It’s a killer. Literally. Just my two cents.
I wasn’t expecting much from the movie due to hearsays so I did not bring any high hopes into the movie house as I sat down with a royal milk tea flavored Serenitea beside me.
I have been a fan of Thor since I stumbled upon its comic series way back during my childhood years. I didn’t get to buy much of Thor comics but my dad bought me just one – and I read it over and over again. I have forgotten the title because I’ve read it way back.
The movie started slow and then suddenly transitioned into the realm of Asgard. I love the flow of the story as well as the plot and its intended twists as well as how the movie ‘tried’ to stick to the story based on the comics – wherein Thor started as an arrogant young man and his ‘banishment’ to Earth was the one that changed and humbled him to wisdom (Naks! May Christian values)
I wouldn’t say that the movie is all talk as it has a good amount of action tucked inside the plot. In fact I really enjoyed the fight scene between ‘Thor and friends’ against the Frost Giants a few minutes into the movie. I think that’s the best fight scene in the movie. But even without it, the plot is very rich and you would enjoy how the story goes. I wouldn’t want to spoil anything here so I’ll try my best to tiptoe around this movie review.
Understanding Keyword Prominence, Frequence, Proximity | SEO in Simple Terms
Now that we’ve discussed keyword density, it’s time you know the other factors when it comes to keywords in your on-site optimization. Understanding keyword prominence, frequency and proximity can help you leverage the power and placing of your keywords in your website.
Keywords are what makes your site tick. It is the bread and butter that your readers are going to bite and chew. Knowing where to place them, how to use them and how often to insert them in a sentence is important.
Attention please
Keyword Prominence deals with how eye-catching your keywords are within a web page. The important keywords should be the most prominent in your webpage. For example, you can see that the title of this article is Understanding Keyword Prominence, Frequency and Proximity – that’s because those are my desired keywords for this article.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Laying down your cross | God and you
You and I have our own antagonistic viewpoint towards law and order – especially if we want to break a certain, specific rule. People who has lived ‘freely’ or ‘liberally’ have emotional and intellectual walls set-up against religion and the Bible – yes, even Christians. We feel like the burden of Christianity and God’s Word is too heavy to bear.
Every Christian has one
We all have crosses to carry – to each his own. There are heavier crosses and lighter ones – it depends on your relationship with God. But everyone feels the burden of carrying his/her own cross in living out the Christian life. The cross that Christ carried, they say, weighs about 75 kg. Sometimes we feel like our cross is too heavy to bear so we lay it down and leave it behind for a while. We wander about and get some quick fixes here and there to make us happy.We feel like we deserve a break.