RSS and Search Engines. Search engines are always watchful for fresh content. Google, Yahoo and MSN will generally reward sites that provide new content on a regular basis. For example, if I write an article every week and place it on my web site. I then link to that article from my home page and from my news or articles page. That article is made available to others as an item in my RSS file. People who use RSS readers like My Yahoo! or other news aggregators can read, then link to the article from their website.

I have now syndicated my content for others to view. This is a great way to improve or maintain your search engine rankings by naturally getting incoming links. Every time you write a new article it will be instantly available to thousands of webmasters, with a link back to your website.

There could be several reasons a site is not ranking well in the search engines. Here are some possible reasons.

One is the navigation. Did your web designer include a java script or flash menu on the new site? Search engines do not like java script or flash menus. If the search engine “spider” or “bot” looking for new content discover a java script or flash menu, it will usually skip it and look for other content. When it skips the menu, it misses the rest of the website pages (unless a different navigation path is provided).

Another reason is a lack of content or content that is placed in images or Flash media. Some web designers love to do this. Google, Yahoo and MSN do not read the text imprinted on images or included in Flash movies. If a website has all of it’s text placed in images, it will be hard to find that content included in the search engine results. Make sure website content is in regular text.

Lack of incoming links. An incoming link is like a vote for a site. The more links, the more popular the site will appear to the search engines. It is incorrect to think that if I build a site, naturally it will be popular and rank on the first page of Google without any effort. Having other websites link to yours is a very crucial step to having the site rank well in the search engines.

This is a very simple overview. These search engine optimization issues are further discussed here.

RSS stands for “Really Simple Syndication”. RSS enables distributing and gathering content from sources and websites, including newspapers, magazines, and blogs. RSS is a popular format for this syndication. Another popular format is Atom.

Business websites can use RSS to easily create and distribute news feeds that include links, headlines, and summaries.

My Yahoo, MSN and AOL users can setup RSS feeds to gather headlines of interest automatically.

PEK Japan uses both RSS 2.0 and Atom feeds to distribute its news, SEO articles and usability discussions. RSS systems setup for PEK Japan clients have received positive reviews from customers and customer’s clients.

The Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO) is a Japanese government-related organization that promotes trade and investment. JETRO was helpful in the process of establishing PEK Japan in Otaru, Hokkaido in the fall of 2005. JETRO’s Bill Nakamura who was based out of Santa Ana, California made the drive down to San Diego to visit PEK Interactive’s head office.

In the photo, PEK Interactive Co-Founder Sergio Kajirian is shown presenting Mr. Nakamura a copy of PEK Interactive’s Toolstorm program. Mr. Nakamura returned to Japan in Febraury 2006. Here is part of the letter we received from him as he was leaving:

After three years living and working here in California, I will be departing LAX airport on February 6th bound for Tokyo, Japan.

I wish to extend my deepest appreciation to the State of California, the City of Santa Ana and JETRO for providing me an opportunity to work in this great country and with such nice people.

I hope my work has contributed in a positive manner in promoting better business relationships between U.S. and Japanese companies.

We want to thank Bill Nakamura for the visit to the PEK Interactive office and wish him the best as he returns to the Sumitomo Corportation in Tokyo.

PEK Interactive is proud to announce the formation of PEK Interactive Japan. PEK Japan was granted recognition by the Japanese Legal Affairs Bureau on September 22, 2005. This will allow PEK to operate as a Japanese company when interacting with its Japanese clients.

“Japan is one of the high-tech centers of the world. We are excited to be on the ground as a local company,” commented Jeffrey Preston, Director of Asian Pacific Sales.