Search Engine Marketing

High Search Engine Positioning - Popular Sites Want You

2010-05-17T17:24:00.000-07:00

Empower yourself with the knowledge and understanding of how search engine optimization can benefit you and your online business. Most of the visitors on the Internet use one or many search engines to find products or services listed online. If you are serious in taking your website to a higher rank, SEO techniques application are guaranteed to position your site to the top. Companies get higher ranking, increased website visibility, higher sales, credibility and referrals.

To achieve higher ranking on major search engines such as MSN.com, Google.com and Yahoo.com SEO techniques also optimize your website content and design via proper coding and indexing of HTML texts and the use of relevant keywords. These effective methods can make your site among top search engines. Optimizers also check and change your site code making it more searchable. Wondering if your site was optimized for the engines when it was built? Depending on who developed your site, some web developers think it is the site marketer's job to make sure the site is found in SERPs and vice versa. Submitting your site to the popular search engines may also need an additional budget as it requires more work to optimize a website.

Most engines can't read graphics? In website ranking tags and titles as well as your content are very important. The use of proper keywords and phrases is relevant for search engines to analyze and find your site and add them to their index. SEO consulting also provides a flexible and dynamic solution designed to your overall business strategy and goals.

Some benefits of SEO techniques and high search engine positioning are:

o Customized and tailored services
o Creative hosting and marketing
o Highly effective team of optimizers
o Well designed elements of SEO services throughout the process
o Quick response and timely executions of programs

Tips for high positioning

* Chose your Keywords Carefully. Should be relevant and specific or purchase a software that offers information about keywords
* Look for a Niche Market. Position your site with a niche market and use keywords tools that enables you to compete
* View Competitors Source Code. Check competitors activities and how their page is optimized so you can do improvements on your site.
* Keyword Placement. Do not over or under use your keywords. Image tags and content must be keyword rich
* Homepage Organization. Start and end your body tags with your keywords.
* Article Marketing. Submit articles to popular article directories so your URL will be indexed by the SERPs.
* Off -page Optimization. Link build for page popularity.
* Get the services of a Professional SEO

Consistently rank as one of the top websites and attract highly qualified customers and generate sales by knowing high search engine positioning and the numerous benefits your site can get from being ranked on the first page of all the popular search engines. Don't discount the value of ranking for multiple keywords, cast a bigger net and reap the rewards.

Some More Tips With Search Engine Marketing and SEO

2010-05-17T17:12:00.000-07:00

To be successful in online business it's not enough to have a website because there are many other websites which sell the same products or services which you are providing. There is a tough competition in the market. So you have to work really hard to compete with your competitors. Advertising is really big step as it is important in offline business. It is not important that you produce the product which is better than the products being produced by your competitors. The better thing to do is to build a reputation for yourself and for your brand. This will help you with the things. You will be able to make better sales by doing this.

There are many ways and different strategies through which you can advertise your website. Among all the techniques Search Engine Marketing is a major and very important technique to market your website. In this technique you market your website through different Search Engines. When people need any information, they usually go to search engines like Google, Yahoo, etc. Therefore your website should be present in the list of highest ranked websites. Now when people will enter any Keyword or Key phrase in the search box, your website should be present on top of the other websites. For this, first and the most important step is Search Engine Marketing which is also called Search Engine Optimization.

In internet marketing there is a common goal that you should have highest page ranking. You should know when search engine is used to search, websites appears on the search result list according to their relevance to the search terms that were used. If your website is more relevant then it will be ranked higher. And if it is ranked higher it will appear higher in the search results list. A question comes to mind, How to do that? Let's take the example of Google. Google gives the ranking to websites according to the importance of that website for the users. Value of website for the users is the most important point which is focused by the Google ''Importance'' of any website is measured by the amount of ''votes'' or the back links received the website. In short if you have more people visiting your website directly or through the links present n the other websites then your website will be considered as important by Google. If link of your website is present in the website which itself has high Page Rank, you will get the benefit of Page Rank. To receive high page rank with Google, the most important thing is the content. The content of your website must contain three things.

1. Information that your website contains should be clear, precise, helpful and relevant to the search terms.

2. Keywords should be in the heading.

3. Your website should not be saturated by the keywords.

Google - Is it Still the Best Search Engine?

2010-05-10T04:17:00.004-07:00

A web search engine exists to do one main function: to assist users of the World Wide Web (internet) search for the information they need. We have become so used to search engines that we now rarely think about them as applications. Instead they are now seen as an integral part of the web. Please pause for a moment and imagine what the online world would be without search engines. Do you see my point? The internet is now unthinkable without the search engines!

Launched in the mid-seventies, the history of web search engines has Google as the eighteenth entrant in its application genre. Familiar names such as Dogpile, Magellan, Lycos, and AltaVista as its brother-applications predate it. Interestingly, all of the foregoing now hardly make a dent on the leadership which Google now enjoys. Magellan and many others have even been obliterated from the net and are now just part of online history.

A simple Alexa.Com check as I write this article has Google at the number one position-- in terms of traffic rank in both worldwide and the US. Yahoo! is currently in number 4-worldwide, number 3-in the US, while MSN (Microsoft Network) is in number 9-worldwide, number 13-in the US.

About the Top Three Search Engines

MSN search has actually been recently renamed as Bing and re-launched by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer on 28 May 2009. It has also been previously known by at least two other names: Live Search and Windows Live Search. Recent changes to its interface have been the inclusion of an "Explorer pane" which deploys a semantic algorithm technology that Microsoft bought from a little-known company called Powerset.

Yahoo! search was originally a web directory of online websites, presented in a hierarchical structure. Later in the later 1990s, it evolved to have a search interface. In 2001 its search-algorithm was one that came from a company called Inktomi; then later it even used the Google search-algorithm until 2004, when it began to use its own search "machine." In 29 July 2009, Microsoft and Yahoo! joined forces, that they now have the Bing algorithm in common.

Google was created by partners Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who launched it on 15 September 1997. From a two-man operation, Google has grown to become the multi-billion company that it is today. The Google Search facility currently provides 22 special features which are beyond the original word-search capability. It integrates inclusions such as weather, stock quotes, time zones, sport scores, unit conversion, currency conversion, calculator, numeric ranges, dictionary lookup, maps, and many others. Basic options on its search facility such as Search Syntax, Query Expansion have made it the most used search engine worldwide. Its "I'm Feeling Lucky" option (according to estimates costs Google $110 million a year)-- bypasses all advertising. Maybe Google considers the amount as a nice annual gift to the online community for making it number one.

Is It Still the Best Search Engine?

In terms of query volume, Google enjoys a whooping 85.35% share. Yahoo! garners a token 6.15% while Bing/MSN has an even lower 3.16%. Clearly Google remains the market leader; which is why online searches have become synonymous with a Google search. People now even say "Google it"-- to mean conduct a web search for something. With its overwhelming popularity and irrefutable market leadership, effectiveness and ease of use, the Google Search engine is the clear choice of the majority of web users worldwide. The question, "Is Google Still the Best Search Engine?" therefore has an easy answer. Yes-- it still (undeniably) is.

About the Author:

Raffy Chan is an architect, consultant, entrepreneur, writer and internet marketing enthusiast; based in California. Get assistance with your Keyword Research to know your "golden nugget" keywords... Download his free ten-page PDF eTutorial on Market Samurai in Twenty Minutes: A Beginner's Guide to Keyword Research in Four Easy Steps from-- http://www.marketsamuraiforfree.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Raffy_Chan

5 Tips to Increase Google Page Rank Rapidly

2010-05-10T04:17:00.003-07:00

For the webmasters and bloggers, Google page rank is important to attract more visitors and get more profit for their websites. But now all of them know the proper tricks to boost the Google page rank of their sites.

Originally the Google Page rank is based on back links. If you have much back links for your site, you can increase your page rank easily. Back links are links which pointing to your websites from other websites.

Here are 5 ways to boost up your Google page rank.

1. Join Forums.
By joining forums you can get many links for your websites. Many forums allow you to have mark and you can put a link into your websites easily. In joining forums, you have to know that the forum you sign up is related to your websites content.

The forums will let you to advertise your websites, so you can get huge traffic to earn much income. It is important to attract people to see that your website is so reliable and you'll get more chances to have visitor come back to your websites.

2. Submit Your Websites to Search Engine Directories.
Use search engine directories to get free link for your website. Search engine will ease you to get more chances at the higher rank on the popular search engine such as Google, Yahoo. And you can submit your websites for free.

3. Links from related websites.
It is easy to find the related websites, but unfortunately, it's little bit difficult to get the links. Just discover the associated sites by searching in search engine and type your subject. Then, you'll get some related websites that you can choose to obtain back links.

4. Create and Publish Articles.
You can use an article to promote your websites in order to attract visitor and increase your page rank. It's easy to do, you only have to give mark on your article and give link on that signature.

5. Ezine ads or Newsletters.
Get more traffic with adding ezine to your websites. Once you put ezine on your websites, you'll make your visitor coming back to your websites. You are allowed to enhance back links. You can submit more information of your ezine to an ezine directory. Then, directory will give link to your websites.

To increase your Google Page rank, you have to obtain more traffic to your websites. In order to get more traffic, you must have back links and it can be obtained by using those tricks above.

Know more tips to increase Google page rank rapidly in SEO Elite, or you can visit our website http://www.db-dp.com/seo-elite.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Lenny_Parker

5 Tips to Get to Page One on the Search Engines

2010-05-10T04:17:00.001-07:00

Perhaps you have paid someone to build you a beautiful business website and now what? Getting visitors to your site will be the difference between success and failure. Ranking higher on the page in a Search Engine becomes a position to strive for if you want your business to succeed. Research now shows that 80% of people today use a search engine on line to find solutions to their problems. That means they are less likely to go to the Yellow Pages of a phone book.

Search Engines - "Google It" is a verb

The Internet Search engines are quick and easy and get fast results. When a potential client enters the search words in "the box" on the search page of Google.com or Yahoo.com or Bing.com and clicks that web search button to await the results, they are searching for specific information. When you type in specific words you hope the search engine will bring up links to sites that provide the information you need.

The words typed into the "search box" are called "Key Words" by web developers and advertisers - people enter the "key words" into the "search boxes" when searching for answers to problems.

Do you know what key words people are using to find an answer to their problem in your local niche market?

As a business owner with a website, you need to know what people are searching for so your website can provide that specific solution and be found when they search.

There are methods to learn the most frequently used key words being typed into the search box when customers are looking for the solutions your business offers. By completing the research, you or your web person will uncover the key words to use for your website. For this article I am making the assumption you have already completed the research and know the Key Words for your business

Key Words are placed in specific locations within your web site with the hope that the search engines find them, using them in the algorithms that would place you at the "top" of the search results. Key Words used correctly are a significant factor in Search Engine Optimization - SEO.

A warning: As much as you may hear differently - SEO is not an exact science - it is more of an art - and a thorough plan on your part will increase successful results. Google and the other search engines make changes periodically that affect how your website will rank on their pages. Web solution providers and experts understand a lot about SEO and what a website needs to include for SEO to work in a web site's favor for visibility and a higher page ranking. There are also many SEO factors website owners have little or no control over - for example - your competitor's web site and how they have integrated the key words etc into their web site.

The whole process of search engine ranking can take time (1 - 3 or more weeks) and is affected by more factors than just those listed in the tips below. In some situations, you will see very quick results and to get those results you need to be following a strategic plan.

Implementing the following 5 tips will give you a great advantage over the majority of the sites considered as your competition!

5 things you can do right now to ensure search engines locate your site and are ranking it where it will be found by searching customers.

TIP 1 Make sure the "Title" on each page uses your exact Key Words for the topic of that page.

This is a task you may want to delegate to your web person. When you open a website on your browser, you will see the TITLE the web designer has assigned to the page in the tab at the top of the page. Having your specific Key Words in your TITLE enriches the SEO much more than having "Welcome" (or a generic term such as "Home") as the title of your page.

Tip 2 List the specific Key Words in the html for each individual page.

Again this may be something you wish your website manager to complete for you. Within the "Meta" Tags for each individual page with a new topic, include your keywords for the content on that page. Experts say not all the Meta Tags are important for the search engine ranking, however - I always make sure the keywords are in place for each page and a keyword rich description is there as well. It validates the content on the page.

Tip 3 Use the Key Words in the written copy on your page exactly as you have them listed in your Meta Tag

This tip is very important and could be a little tricky so proceed with care. Google and the other search engines can choose to disregard your page if the written copy "abuses" the use of your keywords. To avoid having this happen to you, make sure your copy written includes the Key Words in the best possible "accepted practices" and do not be tempted to over use them.

Tip 4 Provide all the important details for your Local Business on Google (and Yahoo) Local Business maps

This is free and available to every business location. Claim your business and carefully input your description using you local information and your keywords in your description. Link back to your website. Solicit referrals and references from clients. Use the coupon section to add fresh information periodically to keep your site in the front of the crowd of local business competitors.

Tip 5 Provide "link backs" to your site with your signature, articles, blogs and PR

Link-backs - Your website URL link is posted and included in other resources to direct a person back to your site. By using link-backs you can be your best referrer - If people are to find your website it is necessary to tell them what the address is - especially if your website domain name and address is not easy to remember.

• Always include your site address in your email signature.

• Submit articles to article sites

• Submit PR information to the web PR sites

• Exchange links with partner businesses

• Use a blog to post interesting pieces about your business

Getting visitors to our site is a job that is never ending. These 5 tips give you a good jump start and know there is a lot more to do. Update your information frequently - a static website will quickly fall in the page rankings. The internet provides a great opportunity for a Local Small Business to expand their horizons and bring in potential long term clients from outside your immediate neighborhood.

Terry Loving, owner of http://www.Lovingvisions.com provides Internet Marketing and Social Media solutions to Local Small Businesses - taking the "Local" out of Small Business. This information can be found as a downloadable ebook on her site. In today's fast paced world marketing online has become critical for the success of your business. Find solutions to your marketing questions when you visit http://terryloving.com (FaceBook). Invite Terry to talk in your business community and provide Social Marketing Solutions that can be implemented immediately. Let her help you succeed on line today.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Terry_Loving

Directory Submission - Building Name For Your Website

2008-09-23T22:41:00.000-07:00

You have developed a new website and are happy the way it has finally shaped up. Now, the next big challenge is to build up a standard reputation for the website, so that it is loved by the search engine spiders. And, it is definitely not an easy task due to following reasons:

* Constantly changing search algorithms of popular search engines.
* Intensified competition existing between various websites.

In order to tackle these two hassles on the road of website popularity, Webmasters across the globe have always trusted few strategies and directory submission tops the charts to bring deserving ranking for your website.

What Is Directory Submission

The online directories are places, where website links are accumulated in different categories and subcategories, so that these are easily recognized by spies employed by different search engines. Needless to say, these directories are most visited destinations of search engines in search of quality website links.

How To Choose Directories

You may come across plenty of online directories by searching on a search engine. But, how to select the most appropriate directories! Here are some tips:

* Free or Paid: If you want to ensure long existence of your website link on a directory, make sure it is a paid directory. However, you may also consider few free directories, but make sure these directories are immensely popular.
* Page rank: The good old page rank enhances the value of an online directory, convincing the search engine optimizers to trust these directories. But, make sure you cross-check the highly ranked websites using other tools and search engines.
* General or Specific: Both! It is a good idea to choose both types of directories. It will stretch the diameter of your website links residing at various established places.

Different Approaches For Directory Submission

The practice of directory submission is employed using different ways, as described her:

1. Manual submission: By following this approach, a team of search engine optimizers submit the website links by personally visiting different online directories.
2. Submission software: In order to increase the pace of directory submission, a number of directory submission software and tools have been launched.
3. Directory submission services: There are many professional companies, which offer directory submission services to make your task easy.

You may choose any of these three approaches, as each one has its own set of advantages for directory submission.

Few Tips To Extract Maximum Benefits It is worthwhile to follow tried and tested tips to extract maximum benefits out of directory submission:

* Take care of anchor text used to accompany your website link.
* Don't forget to vary the website description, while submitting to more than few directories.
* Make submissions to as many directories, as are easy to handle and track back.
* Choose directories allowing you to submit the links of your website's inner pages.

The conclusion is that directory submission endows your website with running legs to win the race of website popularity and you may see yourself fast approaching towards number one position of various search engines.

There are various aspects leading to a sucessful website out of which Choosing Right SEO Firm is a very important factor while you looking for marketing for your website. Submit Elite offers directories submission service at affordable prices which are really worth checking out.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Steve_Mathew

Submitting to Web Link Directories For Links - PR and SEO - Good?

2008-09-23T22:40:00.000-07:00

In reality, the answer to the Web directory submission question isn't as easy as a yes or no. We have definitely seen improvements in rankings that can be directly attributed to directory submissions. But, we always adhere to SEO and search engine marketing best-practices. It is certainly within the realm of possibility that a poorly conducted directory submission campaign could be considered spam by search engines, but we've never had that happen at Darrin Ward.

Also, there are different types of directories, from free to paid, and from broad in nature to the niche topic directories. They don't all fall into the same bucket of good and bad directories. Instead, you need to do some due diligence to determine which are the good and which are the bad.

I personally maintain that submitting to Web directories can be useful, and that they should be done. However, I don't recommend that you rely on them as an SEO strategy (not even a little bit). In reality, you may receive a few targeted visits from directory listings, but you won't notice big jumps in search rankings or in PageRank.

One way or another, I always make directory submission conditional on a few things:

* Best Directories Only: You need to submit to the highest quality Web directories only! Your directory list should be no more than about 10-15, and it should include the major well-respected directories (DMOZ, Yahoo Directory, etc.) and also some niche directories that specialize in your industry. Perform due diligence on each of the directories to make sure that they don't have spam on their pages, that they have a good reputation, and that they have never been banned from search engines.
* Appropriate Section Only: Do NOT submit to directory sections based on the PageRank of the section pages. Find the section that is most appropriate for your Website, and submit there. You'll know when you've hit the right section, because some of your competitors will probably be listed there also. (We're aiming for thematic linking here, rather than PageRank!)
* Use Unique Titles and Descriptions: Write a unique title and description for each directory. Submitting the same title and description to all of the directories is not what you want to be doing. You should spend the time to create new ones each time you submit, and of course, they should contain your main target keywords in a natural language manner (no spamming!)
* Deep-Linking is OK: Deep linking is when you submit the URL of pages other than your homepage. If the directories you're submitting to allow deep-linking, then it may be appropriate to submit sub-pages on your site, depending on the category matches. You definitely don't want to do this for every directory though. Remember however: one link per directory is enough.

As for using paid-submission services... I've done it in the past when I needed to save some time (and energy). If you carefully dictate how and where they submit to, they can be worth it. Never let them run rampant however, because they'll end up spam-submitting your site to 40 million irrelevant directory and you probably won't like the outcome.

Darrin J. Ward
CEO, DarrinWard
http://www.darrinward.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Darrin_Ward

Keyword Research Basics

2008-08-20T08:35:00.002-07:00

Generating keywords, whether for advertising or for website content production, is not a hard thing to do. Recently, I've written about the dreaded "keyword paralysis" effect that plagues many online entrepreneurs. You can do too much research and not enough production, thus stymieing your efforts online to make money or generate traffic. For a new site or article, this is how I start things off:

What's my niche? Is it Hamsters? If it's hamsters, is my site targeting hamster owners? Ok, let's go with that. I first open up my trusty dusty keyword search tool, and I have a couple, but for this exercise I'll use keyword research pro. There's a bunch of reasons why I'm using this keyword analysis tool, but let's just roll with it. Once it's fired up, I'll punch in my seed word. What's a seed word? It's the top level word from which the program will generate all the other keywords that people are using to search within the niche. Once my program returns the top 100 keywords from my root seed keyword, I now have a bunch of information I can play with.

And play I will! First I analyze how many searches per month in Google that particular keyword phrase is getting. Next, I'll analyze the number of competitors that are using that keyword as well. I try to focus on keywords that have less than 10k competitors using that keyword phrase and at LEAST 5,000 searches a month. Why 5,000? It shows that there's some activity worth investigating within a 30 day period.

Why just Google, you may ask? Because it's the king of the search engines, pure and simple. And if I can't rank well in Google for a certain keyword, I may have a chance to rank well in MSN or Yahoo. I generally do a lot of on page SEO with content and utilize keyword rich domain names to help facilitate good rankings on the other engines (and not just Google).

So there you have it: start with a seed word for your niche, develop a series of long tail keywords, and then analyze those keyword phrases for traffic and competitors. After all that- DO something with that info and don't succumb to keyword paralysis. This is the same strategy I use every day. Most of this article was developed focusing on a certain keyword and then populating the text with various long tail keywords. Who knows, maybe some of you reading this article found it by typing in "pure and simple". Good luck in your keyword searches!

David is the creator of this keyword tools research website which reviews the most up to date keyword tools online. Don't overpay for your keyword tools, but don't just go with the free ones either. Avoid keyword paralysis today!

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=David_S

On Page and Off Page SEO

2008-08-20T08:35:00.001-07:00

I have been asked many times by students "What does it take for me to get my product listed on the first page of the search engines?" This is a typical question most people that already have a product (or service) ask. The answer to this question is twofold; SEO and Social Bookmarking. This article will address the SEO portion and I will write another article that will address the Social Bookmarking aspect.

Let's take a look at SEO or Search Engine Optimization. How does Google, for example, decide how to rank sites that are very similar and sometimes even offering the same thing? The key is to create demand for your site and make it an authority site so others will want to be a part of it.

There are basically two SEO areas we need to define; Off-page and On-page.

Off-page SEO is defined as those things that are not actually a part of the website but are more a part of and/or result of activities outside of the actual website.

Here are the top six off-page criteria used by Google.

1. Domain age - The older the domain the more emphasis it is given by Google. They assume that if it's been around awhile it must be more relevant.
2. Page rank - A page ranking of 5 or above creates the appearance of authority in Google's estimation and could be difficult to out rank.
3. Page back links - Links from other sites to a specific page on your site are considered to be very important because if others feel your site is worth linking to then it must be an authority site. The actual page rank of the back linked pages does have some impact on the effectiveness of the back link.
4. Domain back links - Although many older sites may have a large number of back links, this may be the only reason it is ranked high. Page back links are much more important.
5. Page .edu and .gov back links - Having back links from .edu (Education) and .gov (Government) sites tells Google that your site is important enough that educational and government sites point to it.
6. DMOZ Directory - Having your site listed in the DMOZ Open Directory Project adds off page credibility to your site. The Open Directory Project is the largest, most comprehensive human-edited directory of the Web. It is constructed and maintained by a vast global community of volunteer editors.
7. Yahoo Directory - The Yahoo Directory is the first large scale directory of the internet and lists sites categorized by topic and location. Google feels that if you are willing to pay the $300 annual fee to get listed here then you are most likely putting in the effort to make your site relevant.

So the off-page SEO factors are things that can happen independent of your website, such as page ranking, back linking and whether the site is listed in certain directories.

On-page SEO is defined as those things that are indeed a part of the website and whether they are favorable to search engine algorithms.

Here are the top five on-page criteria used by Google.

1. Keyword in title - Is your keyword or phrase actually in the title of your website?
2. Keyword in URL - Is your keyword or phrase actually in the website URL?
3. Keyword in Description - Is your keyword or phrase actually in the web page description?
4. Keyword in Header Tag - Is your keyword or phrase actually in the website header tag?
5. Google cache age - This is the last date that Google visited the web page and entered it into their database.

As you can see, you are in complete control of four out of five on-page SEO criteria. I would strongly advise you to review these items on your site and optimize them as needed.

If you develop a website with content focused on your specific keywords and it has some off-page authority (via back links) you will improve your search engine ranking.

Joe Cavell has been a marketer and business development coach for 30 years. He is the owner of Marketing Innovations LLC, a consulting firm in New Jersey and has taught marketing seminars at Kean University and various business events.
Marketing tips can be found at http://www.successtips4u.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Joe_Cavell

The Dos and Don'ts As a Potential Search Engine Marketing Client

2008-08-20T08:35:00.000-07:00

As a potential client of a search engine marketing (SEM) company, it is important to have a clear idea of what should happen and what you should expect from the company before you make the decision to employ their services. Some factors to consider when searching for an SEM company are:

- DO shop around and research search engine marketing companies before deciding on one. Make sure you ring each company up and speak to them in person. Just because a website says a company is based in the UK doesn't mean you won't be handled from an Indian call centre. Also, make sure you look around for reviews on the company or companies you are considering; people may have had experience with them that they have published on the Internet.

- DO get quotes if possible from a large range of companies before deciding on one. Some companies offer smaller packages to new or small businesses that would be better for you than taking on a larger package that you may struggle to pay for. If the campaign goes well and increases traffic and sales to the website, you can then decide to upgrade your SEM package with the company.

- DO research search engine marketing yourself. Whilst it's not advisable doing the work without experience and training, it is worth researching the work a company is offering to do for you. That way, you can listen with some knowledge when speaking to their sales department. There's a lot of wrong information available, however, so exercise caution and common sense when reading up on the topic.

- DO inform your web developer (if you have an external one) that you are going to employ a search engine marketing company. Your web developers may need to work closely with them depending on how much work is needed on the website.

In addition to the list of Dos when investigating the possibility of employing a SEM company, it is also important to consider a list of Don'ts:

- DON'T attempt to undertake search engine marketing yourself. It is best done by a professional company whose expertise is in this area. If you do feel you want to try it, inform the SEM company you are working with first, as you may inadvertently employ techniques that will harm your site's ranking and performance.

- DON'T agree to spend more money than you are comfortable with. If a company is willing to write off your business because you won't spend above your reasonable budget, then forget that company and look for another. Whilst search engine marketing is a good method of advertising, it's not worth going bankrupt for!

- DON'T feel that just because you have spoken to a company and got a quote from them, you then have to employ their services. Remember, they have sales personnel trained to do just that, sell their services to you; with this in mind, don't feel pressured to take out a contract with them.

- DON'T sign any contracts before you have read through them thoroughly, including the small print and the billing information. You need to ensure you have a clear picture of what the company will be doing for you before you give them the go ahead to do it.

Always remember that, at any time should you be unhappy or confused about the work a SEM company is doing for you, you should feel able to ring them or contact them at any point to discuss your concerns. If they refuse to do this, or ignore your attempts to contact, it may be worth moving companies.

To explore our range of Search Engine Marketing services, please visit our website at http://www.netcallidus.com/

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Internet_Marketing

Search Engine Marketing - An Effective Way of Realising More Sales

2008-08-13T02:08:00.005-07:00

Search Engine Marketing, or SEM, is a type of Internet marketing that helps in the promotion of web sites by making them more visible in search engine result pages (SERPs). In these competitive times, companies want to attract more clients and buyers through effective means, for which they design websites to draw a large number of genuine customers to their sites to increase their product sales. This is where SEM comes into picture.

SEM process involves different technical and logical skills to make a website popular and easy to use. In the U.S. around 80% Internet users follow the search engine. In these modern times, SEM is proving to be a very useful and effective method of advertising and promoting one's products. For this, web owners have to take help from various SEM services like email marketing article submission, website interaction and many more services that together play a vital role in the Internet marketing process. Other SEM services may include blog postings, forum submissions, website contests, games, text messaging etc. Search Engine Marketing services providers are in huge demand with the emergence of new Internet businesses and continuous growth of e-business at a rapid pace. Search Engine Marketing comprises search engine Optimization (SEO) and management of pay-per-click campaigns.

Now, the important thing is to ensure that an appropriate SEM plan is in place to have a successful and profitable business. For this, firms need to understand the basics of search engine optimization (SEO), failing which the firms will be groping helplessly in the dark when it comes to developing a target-oriented search engine marketing campaign. Secondly, after understanding SEO basics, firms need to apply those concepts to their own internet site. Thirdly, ever increasing fluctuations in the market warrant that firms need to constantly keep their site upgraded and updated to be in competition always.

Apart from this, firms should should not shirk away from hiring SEO professionals even if it means shelling out some money. It will prove to be a profitable investment in the long term. Lastly, firms should understand that a targeted search engine marketing plan has to be a part of a comprehensive marketing strategy if they want to have long term success in business.

About the Author- Naman Jain is an online marketing professional, Presently working with Rupiz Media, one of the leading online marketing company offering expert SEO services, affiliate marketing services, UK web development services and website designing solutions over the globe.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Naman_Jain

Yahoo Search Marketing and Forecasting Your Marketing Costs

2008-08-13T02:08:00.004-07:00

One of the most frustrating problems many small business owners face is forecasting marketing costs. With traditional advertising, it is easy to see how much a particular ad will cost to reach a certain amount of people. But it's impossible to know how many of those people will visit your store, or predict how many will buy. Yahoo Search Marketing changes all that.

You need to know how many visitors your web site will receive from your advertising, and how much each visitor will cost. Over time, you can accurately predict how many of those visitors will become buyers, so you can determine your exact marketing costs. With Yahoo Search Marketing, you pay only for actual visitors to your site, and you decide how much you will pay. You're in total control of your marketing, and you always know what your costs will be.

It's really impossible to run a business without knowing your costs. Because Yahoo Search Marketing works on the pay-per-click model, you pay only for visitors, not for people who see your ad but don't visit your site.

When you set up a campaign with Yahoo Search Marketing, you determine what keywords you want to advertise on, and set a maximum bid for each keyword. You pay only when someone clicks on your ad and visits your site, and you pay only as much as you've agreed to pay. You set a Yahoo Search Marketing budget for the month, and you'll never pay more than your self-determined budget.

With Yahoo Search Marketing, you not only determine which keywords to target, but which ads show for each set of keywords. Rather than running one static ad to everyone, you can create multiple ads targeted to various segments of your market, and present them with exactly the right ad to bring them to your site.

Testing is an important factor in effective advertising, and Yahoo Search Marketing allows you to test ads against each other and run the most effective ad, which of course you then test against another ad, and so on. With Yahoo Search Marketing, you can be always testing an ad and improving your marketing results.

Advertising used to be a risky proposition for marketers, because you could spend huge amounts of money and have nothing to show for it. With Yahoo Search Marketing, you control the costs, know the costs in advance, and pay only for results. This allows you to spend your resources fine-tuning your products, your web site, and the ads that work. You can then bring in more qualified visitors and convert more visitors into customers, quickly and easily.

Russell Blanc is an expert in the web hosting industry and Yahoo Small Business and manages an information-rich web site at about Yahoo Search Marketing and Yahoo Web Hosting exposing the features and benefits of Yahoo products.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Russell_Blanc

Search Engine Marketing Expert Consultant

2008-08-13T02:08:00.003-07:00

A search engine marketing consultant has an expertise in the area of Search Engine Marketing (SEM), Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and the Search Engine Positioning and Strategy (SEP.SES). A consultant can increase the sales of the client and build new customer relationship by using the latest and most beneficial Search Engine Marketing and Optimization techniques. An expert consultant is the one who is far sighted and plans his work strategically and innovatively thus improving the ranking of the client's website.

An expert provides guidance on effective search Indian marketing services like pay per click management and search engine optimization to its clients. An efficient consultant uses his resources to develop suitable keywords required for promotion and test them against other variations available. The overall report is prepared by the consultant about the performance of the company on time basis. The consultant ensures the submission of the website to all the major search engines and available directories. The websites coding, meta tags and layout can be changed or modified by an expert to make it more effective and for better results.

If there is difficulty in the working of the website and its ranking a consultation from a professional expert can be taken for improvement. The consultants help in developing an internet marketing strategy to relocate the website to a higher and better position by leading to increased sales of the products and services. The consultants present the information in an easy to understand language to the clients. There are various packages available for the consultation services which can be availed by the clients for expert consultation. The consultants can be of great help to the new business men who do not know how to start the process of optimization.

kapil, is a SEO executive at a seo company India, Icreon Communications, software outsourcing India offers - seo services india, SEO Consultants, seo copywriting solutions, Online Internet Marketing Services india, website optimization services, Pay per click Advertising, online marketing india, email marketing services india.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Negi_Kapil

How to Obtain a Higher Search Engine Ranking

2008-08-13T02:08:00.002-07:00

There are many steps you can take to improve the search engine ranking of your website. However, you need to be aware that certain techniques are considered ethical or honest and are referred to as "white hat", whereas others are considered unethical and are called "black hat." Still other effective tools and techniques may fall somewhere in the middle.

You should incorporate static improvements to your website such as organizing keywords density and title tags and including proper meta tags. However, providing fresh content is even more important to ensure spiders continuously find your site. Each time new content is added, the spiders will discover that your site has changed. The data centers will then update the information concerning your site. Search engines such as Yahoo! or Google consider sites that frequently add new content to be active and thus more relevant to online visitors. Search engines apply the very same principle if pages of your website that have been indexed continue to be modified or updated on a frequent basis.

Each time a search engine visits your website and discovers new content, it will recrawl your entire site. Search engines also consider how often your website content is updated and maintained when they assign a particular ranking. You may be wondering if there is a difference between adding new content to your website or merely altering existing content. One simple solution is to ensure the existing content of your web pages are automatically modified.

You can include a minor change to the code on your web pages to that the content will change with every page refresh. Crawling spiders will detect new online content, and they will return periodically to ensure their index is current. As soon as they discover that a web page has changed, the spiders will establish a new date to recrawl your site. The advantage is that the new date will be even sooner than the last one. When they revisit your site, they will discover once again that your site has changed. This will cause them to recrawl your site even sooner, at which point they will see even more new changes. Although some spiders have an hourly or daily crawl limit, this loop will continue indefinitely. This can help you to greatly increase your search engine rankings in a very short period of time.

Be Business Smart has been created to assist anyone who is setting up a new company and to offer valuable support and advice to individuals who wish to expand their current business.

Did you realise that approximately 80% of new businesses fail each year? You certainly don't want to become one of those statistics. Fortunately, Be Business Smart can provide you with the help and support you need to ensure your business becomes a success!

Be Business Smart offers two levels of membership to suit your business budget. Here at Be Business Smart, we have a lot to offer any new business, but please don't take our word for it. We encourage you to browse our website and see for yourself. http://www.bebusinesssmart.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle_L_Kirkbride

How to Get Listed on Google in Two Days

2008-08-13T02:08:00.001-07:00

You can get listed on Google in two days, if you know how and luck is riding with you. In spite of what many might try to tell you, Google included, it is not difficult to get a quick listing of a new website within a couple of days. I recently got a nasty email from somebody who read one of my articles, and claimed it was impossible to get listed in less than 2 - 4 weeks. You know his reason? Google told him!

It's guys like that who will never get anywhere online because they are unwilling to try stuff for themselves. They believe what they are told, and that is it. Nothing else can be possible, other than what they are told by others. I didn't believe what I was told, which is how I found out how to get listed in less than 2 days. I now know of others that get listed in less than a day.

There are several ways to achieve that, and here are one or two that I have personally used:

1. Writing articles.

Write an article about your niche, and then include a link to a page on your website that you want listed. Google lists pages, and not whole domains, so you can write one article about every page on your site if you want them all listed! Now submit your article to a popular directory such as Buzzle, EzineArticles or Article Dashboard. Once Google spiders one of these directories, your link will be picked up, and if your content is not duplicate you will be listed.

Google might claim you cannot appear on their SERPs in less than two weeks, but that is not so. I have been listed in under two days, and others I know have picked up their pages on Google in less than a day after submitting their articles. A lot is luck: if your article is published just as the directory is being spidered, then your URL will be picked up.

2. Blog Postings

If you have a blog that is listed on Google, then all you need do is to post the URL of your new site on your blog. Next time your blog is crawled the spider will follow your link and if your site is good enough then it will be listed. If you catch it at the right time, you could be listed same day as you made your blog post. If you don't have a blog, ask a friend to allow you to put your website URL on their blog until you are listed. Then you can remove it.

3. Blog Comments

Make a comment to a popular blog, and include your URL. That might just stay live long enough for you to get noticed by a spider. If the blog does not allow links with their comments yours might just stay there long enough.

4. Ezine Submission

This might take a little longer due to the approval procedure, but you can submit an advert or even an article to an ezine pertaining to your niche. Ezines are spidered by search engines, and when they are your URL will be followed, leading to a potential listing on Google.

These are just four ways in which you can listed on Google in a lot less time than most people believe is possible. So if you are having problems getting listed, try one of these techniques, and you should be pleasantly surprised.

Peter normally has his new websites listed on Google, Yahoo and MSN within two days, and consistently gets high search engine listings. His website Improved Search Engine Rank offers to show you how exactly how he does it, including how Page Rank and SEO can be used together to achieve the highest listings for your keyword. Get his free 7 part SEO course.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Peter_Nisbet

The Flaw of Meta Keywords

2008-08-05T21:32:00.004-07:00

The Internet has had unpredictable and far-reaching consequences. There are in fact thousands of possibilities that may happen in the huge world of the World Wide Web making it very difficult to predict what is going to happen next. In a dynamic marketplace such as the Internet, some ideas prove to work and some do not. There are certain ideas that prove to last long whereas the others enjoy just a fleeting moment of usefulness end effectiveness. One of these is the use of Meta tags and Meta keywords.

What's wrong with Meta Keywords?

In general, metadata schemata make an enormous sense. With the use of Meta keywords, information becomes more particularly usable. However for now, most website owners still do not know what to do with Meta keywords and Meta tags. What we all know is that Meta tags are bits of information that are inserted by page authors and webmasters to tell us about what a certain page is about. These keywords appear at the HTML document heading. Meta tags have two key types. The first type is the keywords and the second is the description. Although these facts are common, up to now, search engine consultants and their webmasters still have agony over the use of these tags. Their usability and efficacy don't prove to be as easy and as simple as learning keyword search and popular keywords.

Most industries are aware that Meta tags were victimized succumbed to the website owners opportunism. Most marketers and advertisers especially porn sites operators that made much money from the e-commerce in the mid part of the 90s made silly looking search engines. Search engines that concentrated on the use of Meta tags were riddled with insincere pages which used their Meta tags to get higher ranking from different searches until the filtering of spam began with the use of ranking filters and methods.

The Flaws of Meta Keywords

Nowadays, there are some engines that look at the usability of Meta tags and Meta keywords however, most of them increasingly focus on the visible text on pages and the off-page factors. These are the use of keywords search, popular keywords, and the link structure of the net and others for the purpose of measuring the page relevance. Some major search engines like Google do not really bother about these keywords because search engines do not incorporate these tags in the summary of page contents. Because of this, many site owners are placed in awkward position as to whether or not they should use Meta keywords. Aside from that, there are many other factors why Meta Keywords are not really in demand and some of them are found below:

• There are very few Meta Keywords that will get you on the top ranking.
• Only very few crawler-based search engines use it at the moment. Most of them ignore it.
• Because only few crawlers support Meta keywords, they are not worth your time to implement them.
• Compared to the popular search engine techniques and methods, the use of Meta tags and Meta keywords require more skill and knowledge.

The above were just some of the few flaws of Meta Keywords that give reasons to marketers and advertisers to stop using them or not to use them. We are now at the crossroads of Internet searches and retrieval. As many have learned, Internet is a far different world than the closed and narrow world of librarians, newspaper, academics and other periodical archives. Partly because of the need for continuity and partly because of some entrenched vested interests, there are certain ideas in this world that continue to live and stay on historical point of usefulness. In a world where relevance is dominant, certain ideas have become so irrelevant.

Venturing into any business online is such an overwhelming idea especially when all you can hear about is how profitable and effective it is to do business here. While this is true, the biggest part still falls on you. Included in this 'big' part are advertisement, promotion and of course, SEO. Let "Words in Action" takes its share from that part. "Words in Action" is a team of writers trained to write high quality and original articles only. We value timeliness, confidentiality and most of all quality. Deliver your message to your potential customers through words in action delivered to you by "Words in Action". For more information, email us at mahal_00803@yahoo.com You may also check out wordsinaction.wordpress.com.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle_Grace_Tapire

What Are "Profitable Keywords" and How to Find Them?

2008-08-05T21:32:00.003-07:00

AdWord campaign is a common strategy that website owners use in the popularity link development of their website. In the process, the most critical part is the keywords that are used in the contents of the website. These keywords are used in the informative contents in text placed in the website. Highest paying keywords are those that give a high rate in payout for the website owner, others use them in their ads by creating adgroups with the keywords they decided to use for their link development.

Keywords that Make Your Website Make Money for You!

An ability of a website to have the good keywords chosen for its contents can avail the owner to cash through ads. Whenever search engines are used for the keyword and the link for the website is visible for it, popularity ranking highly follows.

Problems on getting profitable and highest paying keywords sometimes may cost a lot of cash investments for owners. This is a main concern for some website owners for not enabling their site to get the proper development of their websites. However, there can be other ways to gain such advances in link popularity ratings.

Getting Good Keywords without the High Costs

* Thesaurus

There are online thesaurus and the hard copy of the thesaurus that can give owners of websites a lot of ideas on the keywords that may be good and applicable for your website contents.

* Paid Software

AdWord Analyzer tools can be a dynamic help for saving some hard-earned cash in choosing the good keywords you may need for your website. It may not have all the features you need for the purpose. However, in some ways a little knowledge on the effective capability of the keywords for the website may be provided.

* Online Encyclopedias

Searching for your niche from online encyclopedias like Britannica and Wikipedia, with the huge available articles these sites have to offer will aide readers to find keywords that may be possibly incorporated to the identity of your website which you did not think of before.

Finding unique ways to search for link popularity enhancing words for your website may be a good way to zero in on your competition. Since your ways and means are not as common as the normal ways the keywords are discovered by others, chances are that the words you may find are not used by your competitor. If that will be the case, fewer competitions will assure better chance of populating your clicks.

Venturing into any business online is such an overwhelming idea especially when all you can hear about is how profitable and effective it is to do business here. While this is true, the biggest part still falls on you. Included in this 'big' part are advertisement, promotion and of course, SEO. Let "Words in Action" takes its share from that part. "Words in Action" is a team of writers trained to write high quality and original articles only. We value timeliness, confidentiality and most of all quality. Deliver your message to your potential customers through words in action delivered to you by "Words in Action". For more information, email us at mahal_00803@yahoo.com - You may also check out http://wordsinaction.wordpress.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Michelle_Grace_Tapire

Understanding Search Engines and Search Engine Spiders

2008-08-05T21:32:00.002-07:00

What is the best way to get your site into the search engines? Search engines obtain your URL either by you manually submitting your web pages directly to search engines or by other websites having a link to your website. Once it is recognized, then search engines send out their spider or (bot) to review your website. After landing on your site, the spider begins to read all the content in the body of your web pages, including markup elements, all the links to other web pages and outbound links to other websites, plus elements from the page head including some meta tags depending on the search engine and the title tag.

Once finished browsing and gathering the information in your content then it goes back to it is central database for indexing which can be several months 2 to 3.

Spiders follow links on pages, repeating same procedures over and over again. Spiders are not always to bright, for lack of a better term, dumb. They usually follow basic HTML coding. Encasing a link in a JavaScript that spiders will not comprehend is usually not the best way to go about it, spiders basically will ignore both the JavaScript and the link. Same thing goes for forms, spiders are not able fill forms out and click the submit button.

Understanding what spiders see, try accessing your web pages with a Lynx browser from a Unix server. Lynx is a no graphic website, it does not support JavaScripts, this site displays only text and regular a href tags. This is what the spider can see and indexes. Does your web pages work without graphics or JavaScript? If not, the spidering will not work either, and that calls for an immediate back track to redo your site.

Once the Search Engine has all your content in its database, it runs an algorithm (a mathematical formula) compared with your content. Algorithms are unique to each Search Engines and are constantly reformatted, but, in essence, all search engine look for the important words on your web pages based on word density how often your keywords or phrases are used in respect to the total amount of content and they assign a value to these words based on the code surrounding the words.

They also go back to the links on your web pages, searches and looks for what other websites, or pages on the same site, are linking to that page. More links on a page equals more importance to that website by search engines. Having one way links from other sites linking to your website is VERY IMPORTANT, It has nothing to do with optimizing your website and I will be covering that in a future article. Optimization wise it is recommended, to assure you link to your important web pages from more than just the index page, e.g., create a primary navigation that appears on all pages.

(SEO) Tip 1 Rule #1 of search engine optimization SEO. Prevent your website design to interfere in such a way that the code hinders the spider bot from being able to index it. Which means avoiding pages with graphics and no text pages that contain all images, or flash only. I must say that web design and SEO should go hand in hand. When someone lands on a website and encounters is a log-in page, before being able to see the site information text or content, then that is what spiders will see and it will pause right their, so think a little further and let experts in the field show you step by step what you should do.

Have you thought of building Web Pages entirely in Flash, DO NOT. If you have no choice, then read my previous column, Search Engine Optimization and No HTML Sites.

(SEO) Tip 2 Finding out what spiders see on your web pages is important, run a spider simulator on all of your pages. The simulator exposes what is visible to the spiders in text and in links. There are plenty on the market at various different prices, but if your looking for a free one you can see Search Engine Spider Simulator.

(SEO) Tip 3 Every website should have a file named robots.txt. In this file there are instructions the spiders will follow as to what directories they should not spider READ. Assure to have this file present so it may permit the permission for spiders to view the content on your site. This includes access to content and to CSS. You can also detain it from reading certain pages on your site.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Carlos_Cintron

Carlos Cintron - EzineArticles Expert Author

Silly SEO, Guarantee Your Work

2008-08-05T21:32:00.001-07:00

Recently I read an article that yet again says there is no such thing as guaranteed search engine optimization. I feel this is an SEO argument that will last as long as the "content is king" and "links are where it's at" war.

The truth is, there are two types of guaranteed search engine optimization companies, liars and experts that take calculated risks. So its true, nobody can say with absolute certainty that you will be on the first page. But they can certainly put their money where their proposal is. Thank about it, somebody is coming up to you saying "I know how to get your web site ranked on the first page of Google. Hire me and maybe you'll get there, maybe you won't."

A White Hat SEO (a search engine optimization company that uses ethical practices) that guarantees their clients first page placement with a money back promise is simply taking a risk. They are looking at their history to see how long it takes to get a client on the first page using ethical SEO methods. Then, they are basically saying "based on our past performance we are confident that we can get your site on the first page within our twelve month term."

What happens if they fail? If you're working with a good company, you should get a peace of your investment back. Maybe the non guaranteeing SEO doesn't want to let go of your hard earned money after he proved himself to not be the expert he originally claimed.

As with anything, you have to know what to avoid. First, take a trip down to Google's guidelines for SEO's. This is a page that most SEO companies (both White Hat and Black Hat) don't want you to see. The easiest way to find it is by Googleing "Search engine optimization" its usually ranked number one or two.

If you've done that, you will see a bulletpoint that says "No one can guarantee a #1 ranking". This is true. Nobody can say with absolute certainty that your web site will be the first entry on the first page on the Google search results page. But certainly, one can guarantee you will get on the first page. Here is how the paragraph appears in their guidelines.

"No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google.

Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google. There is no priority submit for Google. In fact, the only way to submit a site to Google directly is through our Add URL page or by submitting a Sitemap and you can do this yourself at no cost whatsoever."

So as you see, Google is talking against the Black Hat SEO's that lie about special relationships, secret knowledge, and powers from the underworld. Guaranteeing a first page placement and guaranteeing a ranking are two different things.

First page means anywhere from number one to ten on the first page results for a search term. New web sites are being added to Google every day and things are always changing so rankings go up and down in a waving motion. A stable ranking is one that keeps their position by three ranks.

Read your SEO contracts carefully and make sure your proposal and contract says the same thing. And when an SEO says "We can't guarantee anything", maybe you should move on to one that has more experience and can.

Jason Bland is with guaranteed search engine optimization company, Adviatech Corp. Adviatech is one of the leading SEO firms offering results based online marketing solutions. To learn more about guaranteed SEO services, visit Adviatech.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jason_Bland

Expert Content Writers and SEO Consultants Are Keys to Internet Visibility

2008-08-05T21:32:00.000-07:00

Many highly specialized content writers and SEO consultants exist and provide advanced SEO and online marketing strategies for today's growing businesses. However, at the same time, many other content writers and SEO consultants fail largely due in part because of not understanding today's complex SEO dynamics. Today's businesses are looking for scalable, flexible solutions for creating online promotional campaigns and strategic search engine optimization techniques that truly work, are long-lasting, and considered ethical by all the major search engines.

Additionally, content writers and SEO consultants that are successful use a wide variety of techniques and tools for helping client's get to the top of the major search engines along with creating a high degree of visibility in various other web forums and channels. It's not just about researching and finding valuable keywords, it's about implementing next generation SEO strategies that work, and work well.

Take social media marketing (SMM) as a prime example, most content writers and SEO consultants are only using SMM in a marginal way, ignoring many of the true benefits that can be realized. SMM takes time, dedication, and a true ability to find the right channels for client promotion. It also requires an enormous amount of interaction with these highly selected channels, such as blogging, being involved in web casts, along with building a true following for whatever endeavors you are pursuing.

How about blogging? Again, most content writers and SEO consultants have largely ignored the value derived from effective blogging techniques. It's much more than just putting together a few paragraphs with outbound links. Rather, the blog information must be timely, informative, and compelling enough for people to want to visit and read a particular blog.

If you are currently seeking out content writers and SEO consultants to help with your organization's growing needs, ask them specifically what tools and techniques they use and how they use them. You may be surprised with the vague and generalized answers you receive. A firm that can enunciate their vision, products and services clearly is one you definitely want to highly consider. The more they truly now how to effectively use all the SEO tools available, the more successful your online endeavors will be. Use this helpful SEO bullet point checklist below when speaking with content writers and SEO consultants you may be considering for your company.

Q: Do you provide the following SEO and online marketing services? If so, please explain in detail how you use these products and services in building an SEO campaign for my company.

* Web Copy & Keyword Research
* Link Building Campaigns
* Article Marketing
* Social Media Marketing (SMM)
* Directory Submissions
* Press Releases
* Blogging
* Audio and Video
* Print Advertising
* Logo Design

Megan Wright is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and online marketing expert. She is also a web designer and web developer with years of experience in SEO.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Megan_Wright

Search Engine Marketing Facts With a Free EBook to Learn More

2008-07-15T09:27:00.004-07:00

With millions of websites available on the Internet and more being added almost daily, the only way for people to find what they need online is through the use of search engines. People rely on search engines the way early sailors relied on the stars - they'd literally be lost without them. The good news about this fact is that people's reliance on these tools has made search engine marketing a popular and affordable way to boost traffic to your site and to increase your revenue.

A Couple of Facts

Before you start search engine marketing, you should realize why it works. First, research studies and reports form webmasters have shown that between 80 to 95% of their site's visitors come from search engines. What usually makes the difference is whether or not the owner of the site does any additional marketing, such as direct mail, that might also attract visitors. That says even if you are doing other marketing methods you could be getting a lot more traffic if you concentrated on search engine marketing.

Second, people typically use the same main search engines for all of their efforts. The largest is Google. Nearly one-third of every single person on the Internet uses Google for their searches. That's a lot of people. Yahoo and MSN are, of course, in second and third places with respectable percentages of their own: 29% and 27%, respectively. This information tells you that you absolutely should be doing some type of search engine marketing for your site and that you need to focus your efforts on Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

What is Search Engine Marketing?

If you're not familiar with search engine marketing, let's start at the beginning. Basically, you're using search engines for the purpose of driving traffic to your site which is the main idea of the engines. However, you are taking extra steps to ensure that you gain access to the largest audience of potential customers possible. For example, SEO is a huge part of search engine marketing. SEO means developing content around particular keywords which are chosen because they are likely to be ones searched for by possible leads.

Search engine marketing also sometimes involves pay per click marketing. For example, you choose a keyword and agree to pay a set price each time someone clicks on your link when they find your site after searching for that keyword. The more you pay, the higher your site ranks in the results. Because you are paying, you get placed in a more prominent position in the results which gives you an advantage. Plus, you only pay for results which is definitely a good way of doing marketing.

If you're starting off as an Internet marketer or an online business owner, then using search engine marketing is a good choice. It's one of the most affordable types of marketing you can do and it can generate significant increases to your revenue. Plus you don't have to be a search engine marketing expert to get the results you want.

Get a Good Search Engine Ranking

2008-07-15T09:27:00.003-07:00

Nowadays, if you want your business to get off the ground, you should consider putting yourself online and increasing your business' visibility. The different networking websites alone can already help you in promoting your online business such as community sites and the like.

However, to get the kind of exposure that can really boost your online business, you need to know how to optimize the World Wide Web and take advantage of every available tool you can find online. These tools will not simply help you get noticed but will eventually help you increase hits to your site which naturally means more business for your company.

Search Engine Optimization
Perhaps the best tool you can find online is the search engine. The success of one search engine has compelled other players to provide more search engines to surfers which is beneficial to someone like you who has a business on the internet.

However, you have to know that simply being listed in the various search engines you can find online is not enough. Search engines can yield results by the thousands and you don't want to be in the last page because surfers only look at the first two pages of search engines - three at most.
Optimizing search engines means that you have to know how to use it in such a way that you will be on top of the list all the time; or at least in the first two pages.

Web Optimizers
Web optimization companies can help you get a good search engine ranking. They can put you on top of the list and direct surfers to your website. For a minimum fee, your online business can instantly get off the ground and become an instant sensation online.

Bear in mind however, that a high search engine ranking can go to waste if your website is not as user-friendly and as informative as surfers hoped it would be so your web content should also be something worth checking out.

On the other hand, your good content and friendly interface can all go to waste, too, if you don't have a strong presence in the major search engines found on the internet.
Your best option of course is to optimize search engines and at the same time provide something that surfers will have a hard time not buying or availing. Give your market something that they can't live without.

8 Tips to Maintain Rankings After Website Redesign

2008-07-15T09:27:00.001-07:00

Although the answer to the million dollar question "How to maintain rankings after website redesign" is relatively straight forward, but the fact is, depending on the intensity of the redesign, it can become very complex. In most of the cases there will be specifics for each site to prepare the final plan and it is nearly impossible to cover all scenarios in a single article. So in this article I am describing the process that would apply in most cases.

1. File Names

Do not ever change your filenames unless it is absolutely essential to restructure the file hierarchy since you risk losing valuable rankings with page renaming. Not only that, but you also lose existing customers / visitors who might have bookmarked the now-moved page. In cases where you do not have a choice but to rename the page filenames, use of a 301 redirection is best solution. The 301 redirection will automatically direct your existing customers /visitors to the new location of the now-moved pages. Permanent 301 redirects also help to retain the Page Rank of your pages and sometimes your rankings also.

When you move a page with the 301 redirects, credits are re-assigned by the Search Engines. Existing rankings will eventually be transferred over to the new location along with any credit from inbound links.

2. Site Structure

This is the extension of above mentioned point. Along with filenames, change in site structure can also include your domain name. The above rule still holds true if your domain name is the only change you make to your site. Even with proper 301 redirects, your rankings may drop significantly. Changing your domain name can be a complete rankings killer.

It is also very important to ensure that you have 404 redirects in place. Either direct "page not found" traffic to a custom 404 error page, or to your site's home page.

3. Image Links

If your current website utilizes text links to link to the home page, ensure that they are carried over to the new design without losing the relevancy.

4. Content Management Systems

Today many new sites use CMS for content management which can sometimes destroy your rankings. Before switching to a CMS ensure that changed URL's are properly covered with 301 redirects and try to find a system that offers clean simple URL strings with minimal extra characters. Also ensure that your system allows you to edit all aspects of a given page like addition of unique title and meta tags and adjustment of alt tags.

5. Content

If your new site contains entirely fresh textual content, ensure that the keyword densities remain as close as possible to the old copy. Be sure to keep inline text links, heading tags, and keyword placement within the top portions of the new site.

6. Title and Meta Tags
Make sure to copy the title and meta tag of your old page to the new version.

7. Alt tags

Make sure to keep the optimized alt tags in place for the images remaining on the site. In cases where header images and image based navigation is being completely updated be sure to follow the same guidelines with the alt tags in the original design.

8. XML Sitemap

XML sitemaps help Google index the new location of your site pages to ensure an easy and faster recovery from the change.

Different Ways to Get Better Use Out of Google Alerts

2008-07-15T09:26:00.003-07:00

Whether you like Google or hate them you have to admit they really do offer alot for us as Internet marketers. For example, are you aware of the Google Alerts service that is offered for free?

Google Alerts is a service offered by Google which notifies you by email about the latest web and news pages of your choice. I get updates whenever something is published with the words make money online in them.

You can choose whether you want to receive news alerts, web alerts, news and web alerts, or group alerts. Depending on which you choose you get notified when a new posting makes it in the top 10 results for a news alert to the top 50 results on a group alert.

So why should you care?

One thing you can do is quickly post comments on blog posts as you are notified for them. This can give you traffic as well as search engine bait and backlinks. I like to post my name as my keyword phrase and type my actual name in the comment itself.

These alerts are also a great way to be kept up to date on what is going on within your specific niche. You can quickly scan them to determine if there is something that you would like to read more in depth.

If your are really busy you can just delete the Google alerts altogether without paying any attention to them. The choice is totally up to you.

There are many other uses outside of using these alerts for business. If you want to keep track of a sports team or a favorite celebrity this is one way to do it.

If you want to keep track of what current events such as politics for any hurricane for example this would work too.

It is free and easy to sign up for and you can Google search the words Google Alerts to get the sign up page.

How to Get Listed on Google

2008-07-15T09:26:00.001-07:00

Following is a question frequently asked by many of my subscribers and the general Internet Marketing crowd. How did you get your website listed at the top of Google for your chosen keywords.

There are several ways of doing this and I will give you the best tips on how to do this. Before continuing I've got to take something off my chest.

Do NOT pay any submission service to get your website or blog listed. Unless you have deep pockets and a bank account with thousands of dollars to do as you wish it still will NOT work. I guarantee that paying any submission service to get your website listed on Google is a complete waste of time and money!

Free submission services are also a waste of time...don't do it. These submission services make their money from unsuspecting new Internet marketing folks who have no idea what they are doing.

Ok...here is how you get your website listed without all the hassles.

1. Write an article about whatever your website or blog is about. Then submit it to the article directories. Just make sure that you insert your website URL or Blog URL in the bio page of each directory. Be sure to add some of the same keywords that you use on your website.

2. The absolute best article directory is EzineArticles and if you are reading this article then you should already have an idea on how it is done.

Ok...now if you don't believe me here is proof on how this works. Google "Southwestern trees" you will see my gardening website listed on the first page and top billing. I actually have hundreds of webpages that are listed at the top of Google SERP's. I did this by writing articles about southwestern trees and submitting them to the articles directories.

I know you are still wondering about a new website? Try Googling "How to start a website". You will see my EzineArticle listed on the first page and 5th maybe 7th position. But this time my article about starting a website is an EzineArticle link. And if you click on the link it will take you to my article and my bio page with contains my website URL.

What is Search Marketing?

2008-07-15T09:25:00.000-07:00

Search engine marketing is a form of internet marketing that promotes websites by increasing their visibility in search engine result pages (SERPS). There are different types of methods used in search engine marketing and some are explained below:

SEO or Search Engine Optimisation is the process of improving the volume and quality of traffic to a website via a search engine via “natural” or “organic” search results for targeted keywords. When successful SEO provides a much higher return on investment than any other Internet Marketing campaign. SEO involves designing or adjusting parts of a website to rank highly. This could include changes to the HTML code, changes to the Meta tags, changes to the text to include keywords and link building. The only trouble with Search Engine Optimisation is that there are only 10 positions on the front page of the search engine results and competition can be strong with no guarantees of a high placement.

PPC or Pay Per Click Advertising is where you pay to have your website link in the "Sponsored link" or "sponsored ads" which appear above “natural” or “organic” results on the engine results pages, or anywhere a webmaster/blogger chooses on a content page. The text link can say whatever you wish to entice searchers to click on your advert. Like the name suggests you pay per click on your advert. You bid on keywords that you think your target market will use when looking for your product or service. Minimum prices per click, which are often referred to as Costs Per Click (CPC), vary depending on the search engine, with some as low as $0.01. However very popular search terms will cost a lot more.

Affiliate Marketing is a web-based marking practice where one business rewards one or more affiliates’ for each visitor or customer brought about the affiliates marketing efforts. In simple terms this means one site driving traffic to another.

Paid Inclusion is where a search engine company charges a fee to have your website including in their search index. Most search engine companies’ offer except for Google. Generally the fee covers an annual subscription for one webpage, which will automatically get catalogued on a regular basis. Some times a per click fee may apply similar to PPC (see above). Paid inclusion proves to be particularly useful for cases where pages are dynamically generated and frequently modified.

Cost Per Impression or CMP advertising is where the advertiser pays for their advert to be shown a fixed number of times over a range of web pages. Generally the advertiser will deal with an agency which will in turn deal with a number of websites. The ad agency will take a commission which could vary from between 30 to 70% of the advertisers’ payment. Pay per impression is cheaper for the advertiser but are also less reliable

The above are just a few I chose to write about but there are many more. Out of the types above SEO gives the biggest return on investment but can also cost the most. Most people using search engines click on the “natural” results rather than the sponsored ads. Even if you chose to use other forms you should ensure your site is search engine friendly which would mean enlisting the help of an SEO professional. Most SEO companies offer site optimisation as well as monthly campaigns. Monthly campaigns are desirable because to get on the front page of the search engine results you site needs to be as good and optimised as the ones already there. If these sites are paying for monthly SEO campaigns the only way to join them is to find an SEO company yourself. However if your target keywords are not too competitive you might be able to get away with having the site optimised only with no actual monthly campaigns.

Submit Your Site - Fact or Myth?

2007-07-10T02:26:00.001-07:00

You have probably seen the adverting e-mails that promise to "Submit Your Site to 1000 Search Engines" for a one time fee of $69.95. Statistics* show that 43.7% of searchers use Google, 28.8% use Yahoo!, 12.8% use MSN/Live and the remaining 14.7% use other search engines and directories. So shouldn't we wonder what the reasoning behind the ad Submit your site to 1000 Search Engines is?

Around 1995 the Internet started to really take off. In 1995 according to Internet World Stats there where 16 million Internet users. In 2007 they state that there are over 1,129 million users. So in all reality it may have been important in the early days to submit your site to 1000 search engines, but in today's world if the majority of Internet users are only using the 3 top search engines doesn't it make more sense to concentrate on the search engines people are using.

Here is something very interesting that you may not know. Leading Search Engine Optimizers (SEO) Professionals never submit a Web site to a search engine. That's right they let the search engines find their site through other methods.

Professional SEO's concentrate on:

* Submitting to the most influential directories on the Internet. Google has even gone as far as to put a list together of the directories they find the most important. (You can find that list on The Workshop Resource Center.
* Feeding the search engines a good quality site map that the engines can use to index all pages of a Web site.
* Submitting to a search engine through a Paid Inclusion Program.
* Link reputation and work on building quality in-bound links.
* Never using submission software.

Part of the job of a Professional SEO is to spend time keeping up to date with any changes on the leading search engines and directories. SEO's watch closely what Google, Yahoo! and MSN/Live have to say and if they find through their research that indexing happens quicker by not submitting a site then wouldn't we want to follow their lead.

Time and research shows us that the days of submitting our sites to over 1000 search engines is long gone. SEO Professionals advise us that if we want to spend $69.95 then spend that money on submitting your site to one of the leading directories.

Web Advertising That Works Hard On Your Behalf Forever

2007-07-10T02:25:00.002-07:00

The other day I received a new client from an article that I wrote almost two years ago. Naturally I was delighted, as once again my articles came through for me. In fact this happens all the time and is one of the huge advantages of using promotional articles as your only web advertising tool—like I do. It is in fact one of the reasons why I can never dream of using any other method of web advertising.

Think for a moment of any other effective method of advertising online. The moment the ad runs its' course and is pulled out, you will stop receiving a response. Contrast that to promotional articles that once posted will not only remain online virtually forever, but will also continue to virally spread all over the World Wide Web.

Then there is the fact that one can target different segments of the market easily and effectively using articles. Picture a retail shop that a client walks into. Let's say they ask for a pair of yellow socks. If that shop has every color on earth except yellow it is unlikely that they will make the sale. With articles you become the site that has everything and with just a little effort you can target clients for every imaginable sock color on the face of the earth. That is the awesome power and capability of the web-advertising tool called promotional articles.

The truth is that a promotional article, once written will continue to work hard for you day and night 24/7, in making people aware of who you are, what you do and what products you have for them.

Web Advertising That Works Hard On Your Behalf Forever

2007-07-10T02:25:00.001-07:00

How To Get Indexed On Google Faster And Get More Backlinks!

2007-07-07T02:55:00.002-07:00

How to get indexed on google within days, by submiting your site to social bookmark sites. Read more to discover how to get lots of backlinks, more traffic and generate revenue with your sites..

Social Bookmarking: Submit your new website URL to the top social bookmarking sites first, before submitting to Search Engines, your pages will be indexed within days not months! Add 'tags' to your bookmarks so surfers can find your link when they search. Submit pages on a regular basis to stay at the top of site lists, creating more traffic.

Top Social Bookmarking Sites:

* StumbleUpon

* de.licio.us

* Furl

* Technorati

* soc.ialize.us

Search Engines: Optimise keywords in your meta titles, discriptions, keywords, anchor text, header tags, image alt text. Use keyword generators to create the best keywords possible. Like Good Keywords v.2, Google Sandbox Keyword Tool. Write articles with keywords throughout your content. Make the articles informative and interesting. Submit your URL to link directories, article sites, social bookmarking sites, and other links back to your site, to increase your page rank.

Top Search Engines:

* google.com

* yahoo.com

* msn.com

* search.com

* altavista.com

Link Directories: Link Directories are an important part of gaining quality links back to your site. A directory is organised into categories and subcategories. Human editors review each directory submission and evaluate the site's quality and relevance. Success only comes when you submit a high quality site to the proper category. Because the directory submission process is so specific to each particular directory, your website must be submitted manually.

Top Link Directories:

* Yahoo

* DMOZ

* SoMuch

* AbiLogic

* Pegasus

Productive Search Engine Marketing: How Can Search Engine Marketing Impact Your Business

2007-07-07T02:55:00.001-07:00

Since most Internet addicts make use of the search engine to find the Web site that they want to access, marketing gurus has discovered ways to take advantage of the situation. Thus, productive search engine marketing was introduced. It has become increasingly popular as more and more people consider it as an alternative for online business marketing.

Search engine marketing usually refers to the Paid Listings seen on the results page returned by the search engine. Productive search engine marketing strategists make use of related search terms to advertise on, also known as Keywords. The more keywords used means the more chances of gaining visitors on the Web site.

It is also a must to develop a comprehensive SEO program. SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, a technique used to make the Web site more viewable, placing it on the high rank of all major search engines. Once the related keywords were typed on the SEARCH field of a search engine, the SEO program will most likely make it possible for the Web site link to appear on top of the results page.

Aside from these approaches, it would also help to be creative and flexible at the same time. Productive search engine marketing also relies on an artistic and innovative mind to visualize new concepts and methods to remain up-to-date and forward-looking with the growing needs of the business. In addition, having an open mind to try new things will ensure the business its on-going success. Everything will turn out great if productive search engine marketing is utilized to the fullest.

Importance of Keywords

2007-07-03T03:12:00.003-07:00

The most important component of a web page, if it concerns to come high in the search engines, are the so-called keywords. A keyword is a word or range of words where people are looking for in the search engines. If people want to learn more about horses then they type in the search engine e.g. "horses". If someone wants to learn more concerning web hosting they type "web hosting". Therefore both horses, and web hosting, are keywords.

It is very important that you know which keywords are important for your Internet site. Thereby it is not important which keywords you yourself find important, but which keywords potential visitors will type into the search box when they are in search for information which is on your site to find.

Even afterwards take the time to think about concerning the keywords: "what would an average person type into the search engines box?". Make a list of all these keywords.

For example:

- concours
- feeding
- hippiqué
- horse
- horses
- horse-riding
- horse-training
- jump
- rider
- riding school

After you have considered as many relevant terms as possible it is also important effectively to know how many people search on your keywords. Usually the search engines do not give you this information for free. There is however a good Internet site which is specialised in this matter: Wordtracker.com.

At this Internet site can look up you for free how frequently there is searched on certain keywords in Altavista. That gives of course no complete picture but it gives an useful impression. It is, however, just a bit an experiment before you get results, but that is worth it! That is however not yet everything: Wordtracker.com give you also information about how many competitive Internet sites there are with your keywords, and therefore how much chance you make and how high you can come in the search engines. This is extremely valuable information! If you want to know what your keywords are doing in the other search engines you can conclude a subscription at Wordtracker.com, then you have enormously much extra information on your keywords which is in the free version not available. After your visit to Wordtracker.com. you know exactly which keywords are most important.Place these keywords on your list.

All rights reserved. Article may be reprinted as long as the content remains intact and unchanged and links remain active.

Local Search Service Makes Life Easy

2007-07-03T03:12:00.001-07:00

Revolution in the world of IT has shrunk the world and today the whole world has become a small global village. Now we have all entered that age where by hitting just a few buttons we can come across any information that we wish to know. The one thing which is lacking today is time and due to this we have not been able to enjoy many things in life. So if you think that you have been neglecting your family of late, you need to take care of thing before things go out of hand. Now local search service has come as a bon to all those who have been seeking for information, but were not able to get that. Your family is the most important part of your life, no matter how well you are doing in other aspects of your life.

Of late I realized that I was not paying enough attention to my immediate family and my extended family as well. My wife’s birthday was coming up so I decided to do something special. After putting much thought and having long discussions with friends I decided to throw her a surprise party. Now this is one hell of task, throwing a surprise party for a woman. I have to figure out first how I m going to keep this whole thing a surprise and prevent her from finding out about this. The first hurdle that I face is I do not know of any place in my area that I can book for the party. Then I realize that I have virtually no information about anything which I want to be done for the party. They say that internet is man’s best friend these days, so I try that.

Local search service that is offered by some companies is the thing which comes in handy for me. First I send them a text message to a short code asking them about information about the places that I can book for the party. Trust me the response is instant, I just go and check out some of them and find the one that is just perfect for hosting the kind of party I want. Next I want to know about the decorators who can transform the place for me and make the occasion all the memorable for my wife and extended family. The decorators that I came to know through the locals search service are efficient and meticulous in their work.

Next I book the service of catering company for the food in the party and again it was the local search service that came to my rescue. One her birthday I just took my wife to the venue telling her that I had to attend a very important dinner meeting there. She was really angry that I forgot her birthday, but did not say anything and thankfully agreed to accompany me to the party. Once we reached there, the surprise she got was very special to her, I could see that. Our entire family was there and so were her friends and our extended family. Local search service can really make a big difference in your life. Just go ahead and try this and most importantly get innovative about how you would like to express your feeling to your family and friends.

Google Says See-Ya to College Term Paper Writing Companies

2007-06-29T03:00:00.002-07:00

You know those term papers you can buy online to turn in for your school work? Well it seems that Google is now banning them from advertising on their website. Colleges, Universities and Educators have been completely upset with these firms and now Google is coming clean.

Google is not alone in turning off the purveyors of cheating, it appears that one of the top online article submission sites was able to see this coming and was once again on the leading edge of Internet Industry banning the same earlier in the year. In retrospect, I see the conflict this causes for some online companies, yet, I also see the tremendous problems our society.

The whole world faces challenges with cheaters, posers, fakers and really it is a little appalling. Whereas these maybe legitimate businesses selling research papers, it seems to me that they know the end use is someone will use them to cheat. These types of companies would be far better off to use their skills to help companies write PR level "white papers" as everyone knows when they read them what they are for and that they are more of a glorified brochure set of case studies in most cases.

These companies can still exist; they just should not be allowed to use the Internet to help people cheat. I think this is a good policy, I understand why you did this and why Google is and why the Educational System is fed up with these things. Is Google using censorship? No, they will still be listed in the search engines, but they will not be allowed to advertise there. It is a business move, pure and simple.

6 Steps to Search Engine Marketing

2007-06-29T03:00:00.001-07:00

Search engine marketing can be very profitable for you and your business. Productive search engine marketing will create more customers and more business for you. You should follow 6 steps provided below for productive search engine marketing.

1. Keyword – Keyword use is the most important for search engine marketing. The more keywords you use, the more is the chance of getting more visitors. Keyword research is necessary for getting the most effective and relevant keywords. You should only use the relevant keywords not only any keyword.

2. Submission – Submit your website to different search engines for getting visitors to your website. Submission may be done in different ways. It may be done manually and it can also be done automatically.

3. Link popularity – Make your website link popular among different people. The more popular your link the more successful search engines marketing is. For link popularity you can opt for different techniques like optimization of your pages, quality content writing etc. Popular links will get you more business.

4. Paid inclusion – You can get included in some search engines by paying a fee. Search for such search engines and include your link. Use only search engines that are related to your website and content category.

5. Log file and traffic analysis – Analysis the log file and the traffic to find out what to do to increase the traffic.

6. Develop website – Develop your website well for productive search engine marketing. Correct all the problems and the broken links. Crawlers of the search engines will crawl pages. If there is any problem in a web page or there are broken links, then it will not include such pages or if it includes then also your rank will be low.

How to Get Listed on Search Engines Part I

2007-06-22T02:59:00.003-07:00

If you want to be successful in internet marketing, you have to know how to get listed on search engines. There are certain steps you can take to facilitate this, and also certain things you must not do, or you will fail.

The secret to success is to make your website as relevant to the keyword it is targeting as possible, and to make the site easy for the search engine spiders to follow. It does not matter how many pages your website has: each page that is important must be able to be easily crawled by the search engines, and each page that has less relevance, or is less important, should be hidden. You should have a good long look at every page in your site and decide whether or not it is providing good information on the topic to a visitor.

If you decide that it is not, you should then decide whether or not the page is necessary, and whether it should stay on the site. If not, then remove it. If so then keep it on, but hide it from the spiders using ‘rel=nofollow’ in your html. You must not overuse this but neither should you expose pages to the search engines that do not offer good and relevant content to visitors as spiders perceive it. Examples of pages that might not do so, but that are necessary on your website, are affiliate sales pages that you want visitors to look at, but will not add to the perceived value of your site in the eyes of search engine spiders, or squeeze pages designed to collect email addresses, but that do not provide good content related to the subject of your website as a whole.

Once you are sure that every page on your site that the spiders are allowed to crawl provides good content, then you can work to improve that content. Do not use too many keywords. If you site has been built around the subject of American Literature, the use the words American Literature no more than three times every 500 words. Forget the old advice of 1% – 3% keyword density. If you used your keyword 15 times in a 500 word page or article, you would have very little chance of Google listing you.

Linkbait 2.0: The Soul of Linkbait (Part 2)

2007-06-22T02:59:00.001-07:00

“Heard it from a friend who…heard it from a friend who…heard it from another…” REO Speedwagon

Part 1 Can Be Found Here (and Part 2 won´t make much sense if you haven´t read Part 1).

Part 1 chronicled my “failed” attempt to linkbait my personal reminiscence of Marvin Gaye´s 1983 NBA All-Star Game National Anthem . At the end of that story, I wrote that I vowed to start the linkbaiting process anew…to use different forms of social media to gain attention for what I´ve written. I´d like to report on the progress that I´ve made:

First, I Wrote a Story About Writing a Story: Publishing my original linkbaiting article at Search Engine Guide launched my current linkbaiting campaign. Search Engine Guide is one of the most prominent SEM websites in existence and I knew that any story published there would be very visible not only in our industry but on the web as a whole. However, there was another powerful reason why I shared my experiences at Search Engine Guide…

I Needed To Appear Credible With People That Could Further My Goals: In my linkbait strategizing, I identified one particular blogger that clearly had to be the top target of my efforts. I was sure that he got lots of requests of links from people he didn´t know, so I knew that in order to be successful, I had to be:

• Extremely nice and polite

• Knowledgeable about him and his blog

• Authoritative

Linking to my original Search Engine Guide story (along with my namedropping of the folks at ESPN.com and The Sporting News that I had been in contact with) made it much more likely that he would consider my request. To a potential link partner, the fact that Search Engine Guide, a well-respected industry website, would publish a story about my experiences gave me a tremendous amount of credibility.

Thank you Henry Abbott…ESPN´s NBA Blogger: Henry´s freelance TrueHoop blog was of such high quality that ESPN hired him to continue blogging the NBA under the ESPN banner. My email to Henry successfully got me the following TrueHoop mention (though better link text would have been nice). In my email, I made sure to mention prominently that we were both huge Portland Trailblazer fans…I wonder if that helped? I had awesome traffic the day Henry´s column ran.

Others followed Henry´s Lead : Soon after Henry linked to me, others (Bumpshack.com , Cantstopthebleeding.com) did as well…folks that clearly found me through the Truehoop link. Both of these sites continue to generate traffic for my story.

Other Techniques I´ve Been Using :

PPC: Minimum bids for the relevant long-tail keywords keep me on the first page of Google / Yahoo / MSN SERPS and generate several visitors each day.

Wikipedia: Even though no link-juice is being passed to my site, I´m still getting 5-10 visitors a day from Wikipedia.

Reciprocal Linking / Leaving Relevant Blog Comments: I´ve done a little bit of both and continue to look for more applicable opportunities in these areas. I use Google News Alerts to find new link opportunities.

Mybloglog: I created the following MBL Profile just for marketing my story. All I´ve done is slap the code on the page and forget about it…however, I know that MBL could help me build links if I take the time to work with it.

Answering Email: Several people have emailed me asking about the event and I´ve answered their questions to the best of my ability.

Results so far :

Currently, I´m on Page 2 of Google and Page 1 of MSN for the search “Marvin Gaye National Anthem” (no quotes). I´m getting steady if unspectacular traffic for the story and am slowly but surely generating links from relevant people.

I´ve decided that the “End Game” for my story will be to attempt an exercise in predictive search engine optimization. February 2008 will mark the 25th anniversary of Marvin´s Anthem and at some point prior to that date, the number of people searching for information about the event will spike greatly. If I can position my story on Page1 of the SERPS (Natural & Paid) + get the relevant “linkerati” to acknowledge what I wrote, perhaps my reminiscence can become part of the collective societal reevaluation of that special moment. If I fail in my goal, at least I can take solace that I enjoyed my experience and made friends with like-minded people on the trip.

How to Use Social Media to your Advantage

2007-06-18T23:07:00.001-07:00

You’ve written an article on a really great topic, it’s optimized and published to your website. The next question is how will people find it?

The biggest thing in news right now is user-generated content, citizen journalism or citizen media. These labels are relatively intertwined, but all mean basically the same thing: news written by the people for the people; the most important word in that phrase being “people.”

Sites like Digg, Newsvine and Reddit are just a few of the emerging social news sites. These sites allow registered members to delve into millions of pages of content on the web, grab the web address and post it with a captivating headline and brief summary. Users can then decipher whether it’s worthy of a visit or not. The process behind getting an article published on these sites is not difficult. What is difficult is enticing digs, votes and readers. It’s all about being popular again.

With that said, let’s get back to your fantastic article.

First, you must register yourself on the social news sites. You can join one or all of them if you like; the great thing registration is free. Once you’ve done that, submitting your article is easy.

Next is where “for the people” comes into play.

Once the article is submitted, other members of said social news site may stumble upon it. Users are then faced with a couple decisions, to either vote for or ban against it. Depending on what site you’re using, a vote against an article may not be allowed (Newsvine only allows positive votes). The interest, sensationalism or timeliness of the piece may also determine the amount of mercy voters are likely to have.

Interest typically peaks in a news piece when visual and auditory stimuli, such as video clips or sound bytes, are presented. A proactive tip to getting increased visilibity in social news sites is to email friends and family asking them to vote for or digg the article to increase its ratings.

However, if an article submitted by you is not backed by the “people,” it may never get the attention you want and need it to. This is definitely an unfortunate occurrence for some articles on Digg because it allows users to “bury” articles they don’t like, view as spam or are untimely.

If your article still seems to be at the bottom of the heap, the social news sites offer some tips on how to gain popularity; unfortunately when it’s up to users to determine what’s hot and what’s not, these tips will only get you so far. Sometimes, the Sanjaya-type voting makes number one stories out of things that seem far less newsworthy than more prominent issues facing today’s world, so it’s up to your discretion.

Here’s a suggestion on gaining popularity from Digg.com:

“After you submit content, other people read your submission and Digg what they like best. If your story rocks and receives enough Diggs, it is promoted to the front page for the millions of visitors to see. What can you do as a Digg user? Lots. Every person can digg (help promote), bury (help remove spam), and comment on stories... you can even Digg and bury comments you like or dislike. Digg also allows you to track your friends' activity throughout the site — want to share a video or news story with a friend? Digg it!”

Digg and Reddit are social news sites that really seem to attract the MySpace and blogging crowds. They are simple and cleanly laid out, but they have a certain feel to them appealing to a younger generation of internet users.

Newsvine is an emerging, still relatively small social news site. It is laid out more like an online newspaper with article briefs and pictures to accompany headlines. The topics covered within Newsvine are the latest news updates from all over the world. The news is not necessarily better, but caters to a different crowd, one seemingly more involved with political and international current events.

Newsvine was created by former employees of large media, such as Disney and ESPN, the ultimate goal being “to bring together big and little media in a way which respects established journalism and empowers the individual at the same time (Newsvine.com).”

The triggers behind story popularity are similar to Digg, where users within the community can vote on a story if they really like it, but they can only vote positively.

The real power behind social news comes from the people, the users. It’s hard to judge what the public is really looking for in a good news story, but depending on the sites you use, some stories will catch on faster than others. Be persistent and keep track of all the news you submit. Once your article is published tell your friends and family. The users will take over from there.

How To Structure Your Website For The Search Engine Ranking

2007-06-18T23:06:00.000-07:00

A good search engine ranking result may be the most sought after goal of any website owner. Just building a website doesn't automatically result in visitors. Getting a better search engine ranking may very well be the most important factor in getting your website in front of your potential customers. Plus, achieving a good search engine ranking result is much more cost-effective than advertising.

Getting a desirable search engine ranking result is very unlikely without doing some search engine optimization (SEO). Structuring your website to achieve a better search engine ranking is a major part of SEO. Successful promotion of your website leads to a better search engine ranking; that is, it will be ranked as highly as possible in search results.

The main reason for pursuing a better search engine ranking is to attract more targeted visitors to your site. If most of your website traffic comes from search engines, then a better search engine ranking is your key to success.

Some believe that obtaining a better search engine ranking is a secret, mystical art, while others see it as an exact science. The reality is that getting the search engine ranking result you want is a balancing act between the two. Learning how to structure your website for a better search engine ranking is not difficult, but it will take time. Having a positive impact on your search engine ranking result won't happen overnight, so be patient. Developing a plan of action is the best thing you can do to ensure that you achieve a better search engine ranking.

Maintaining your search engine ranking result requires continuous monitoring and modification. Your search engine ranking result tends to fluctuate as you modify your site and your competitors modify theirs.

Optimizing your website for a better search engine ranking includes using properly written "tags," formatting your content to highlight important keywords, being recognized by others as a source of relevant information (they link to you), having relevant content, and maintaining error-free html code.

Tags

The HTML code for your website includes several "tags" that have your site's title, keywords and description. By including your most important keywords in the tags, you can help yourself get a better search engine ranking. But don't just stuff a lot of keywords into these tags, that could actually lower your search engine ranking result

Formatting your content

Another way to get a better search engine ranking is to use formatting to highlight important keywords. Putting keywords inside headline tags (< h1 >, < h2 >, etc.) or marking them as italics (< i >) or bold (< b >) could raise your search engine ranking result for those keywords. Such as (<b> Search Engine Marketing</b>)

Linking

Several search engines, especially Google, place a high value on high-quality incoming links. If other well-regarded sites think that your site is good enough for them to link to, then Google will tend to reward you with a better search engine ranking. You can also improve your search engine ranking result by adding your site to directories and by writing articles for article directories. Relevant content

The best long-term foundation to a better search engine ranking is to develop original, relevant content on your own site about your products or services. The more relevant your on-site content is to the visitor's search query, the higher your search engine ranking result will be.

Error-free HTML

Simple, error-free HTML will make it easier for search engine robots to negotiate your site. In time, this may help you get a better search engine ranking.

A better search engine ranking is not impossible, but there's no simple way to get there quickly. If you have a commitment to a high-quality site with good content, and lots of patience, then you can count on someday having the search engine ranking result you desire.

Search Engine Optimization and Meta Tags - Getting Started

2007-06-12T04:44:00.001-07:00

With the billions of webpages that have been created, it becomes clear why search engines were created. Internet users need a navigation system to help them find what they need when surfing the web. This navigation system has been provided by internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, and a plethora of smaller search engines that are being added every month. With so many keyword-driven avenues through which people travel to find what they want, web developers realize that they're an absolute necessity for success.

In order to achieve a relevant online presence for your site, search engine users must be able to find the site. Thus, you have to make sure that your page receives a listing and high ranking within the search engine. There are various elements to consider when experimenting with search engine optimization (SEO), such as page content, headers, keywords, title tags and meta tags.

First and foremost, you want to make sure that the content of each page in your website is centered on a certain subject or theme. You'll want to include a frequency of keywords that you'd like to be picked up by the search engines' spiders. Usually, about 2-8% of the article should be composed of your keywords. Be specific; generic keywords such as "cars" result in millions of search results, instead of something more targeted like "classic Italian coupes". Using a free keyword selector tool, such as Overture's, can be very helpful when researching a keyword's popularity.

You may also consider adding title and meta tags to the html code. The title tag defines the name of the web page, and is displayed in the bar at the top of a web browser. This area remains a sweet-spot for keywords to be picked up in a search engine, and should be concise while reflecting keywords found in the page content. This is likely to be the first impression that users receive from your site.

The description meta tag defines the site info that is listed on search results pages. It should be short and enticing, as it's basically a short ad for your site; however, you'll still want to focus more on actual page content, as description tags have lost a lot of their glory. Many search engines now list snippets of body text containing keywords as a description instead.

Heading tags are useful for emphasizing headlines, subheadings and other large print on web pages. Because bold-faced text grabs the attention of many search engines, well-placed heading tags (H1, H2... H5, H6) can help with the search engine optimization process. Smaller heading numbers means larger font size, and likewise. Ideally, the most important keywords are included in the headers.

The keywords meta tag enables you to compile a list of keywords within the html of your body text. It should include standalone words, compound words and phrases. One could also use this meta tag to include common misspellings. While the keywords meta tag used to be the main focus of search engines' algorithms, it has lost much of its prominence, and is probably ignored altogether by Google.

Achieving a high-ranking website is not something that is usually achieved overnight, but with enough patience and research, one could attain a constant stream of web traffic by emphasizing pertinent keywords and inserting meta tags. Your extra effort will make your hit counter (or your bank account) smile.

Tracking the Success of Your Website - Google Analytics

2007-06-12T04:43:00.000-07:00

How successful is your website? Do you really know how well it is performing for your business?

Many website owners make the mistake of thinking that the more traffic they get to their website the better, and they work towards this end. It is better to focus efforts on bringing in targeted traffic that will convert to sales or enquiries. To understand more correctly how well a website is performing, and who is visiting the website, a good website statistics package is required, as well as an understanding of the data these website reports produce.

With many website hosting packages free website statistics are available. However, the information is not always easy to understand or doesn't always give you the information in a way that is easy to understand.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a great application that Google provides absolutely free. It tracks all activity on your website, not just visits through Google. All you need is a Google Account, and FTP access to your website to insert a small amount of code in your website, and away you go. If you don't already have a Google account, I encourage you to set one up as soon as possible! You can do so at: https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount Not only will you have access to Google Analytics, but having a Google account gives you a whole host of other tools.

Visitors

As a start, it is a good idea to find out how many visitors are coming to your website. Visitors are broken down into new and returning visitors. While it is great to attract new visitors to your site, you should aim to see a decent percentage of returning visitors as well, as this gives a good indication that people find your site interesting enough to come back to.

Depth of Visit

How many pages are viewed during a visit to your website?

Length of Visit

How much time do visitors spend on your website? If they are spending very little time on your site when you have an information-rich site, then you need to start looking at the navigational report to find out where you are losing them.

Keywords

The Keywords that people are finding your website through, are a good indication of what keywords are performing well for you in the search engines. Are the keywords that are displaying for you truly reflective of what you offer? If not, then it is time to revamp the content on your website.

Referrals

Which referrals drive the highest quality traffic? This report lists activity coming via referrals from other websites. This is useful for tracking links that you cannot control. You can gauge the overall effectiveness and importance of PR activities, partnerships, etc. The referrals are compared to the number of visits, page views per visit, conversion rates and average value per visit.

Navigation

Which navigation paths resulted in conversions during the visit? For each navigation path, this report shows conversion rates and the value per visit.

Exit Pages

From which pages do visitors commonly exit your site? This report shows the number of exits from pages on your site. If you notice a high number of exits for specific pages, it is time to seriously analyze these pages and try to improve them, because it is very likely that people are not getting the information they expect or want.

Conversion data

Arguably this is one of the most important pieces of information. Conversion data gives you a true understanding of how successful your site really is.

Conversional goals can be set up through your Analytics settings. Take time to think about what goals you want to track. These may be sales or web enquiries you are receiving, or specific pages in your website that you want to focus on. Keep in mind that if your visitor contacts you by phone or fax, this will not be reflected in the goal conversions. However, you can set your contact page as being a goal to get a feel for how many people are looking for your contact details.

By monitoring the changes in conversion rates for your primary goals, you can monitor the overall effectiveness of website changes, marketing roll-outs and other events.

Organic vs Pay-Per-Click comparison

How does paid search compare with organic search in driving high quality traffic to my site? This report compares paid and organic referrals with respect to number of visits, page views per visit, conversion rates and average visit value.

Date Range

Throughout the report it gives you the ability to track your website statistics between various date ranges. The reports also allows you to compare data, so you can find out how your site is tracking against a previous date period.

Beta Version

The current Beta which is just in the process of being released, provides a lot more flexibility, and one of the most exciting things about the new version is that it allows you to schedule reports, daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly. This is great news as it makes the process of accessing your website reports even easier.

Google Analytics Features

There are many other features that Google Analytics offers, and it is worth spending the time having a good look at them and trying to understand what they have to offer you. Alternatively, speak to your webmaster or SEO specialist and get them to help you understand how Google Analytics can help improve your website performance. By having a better understanding of it, you can potentially increase your profits significantly.

Final Note

When you analyze the data from your website statistics with the intention of improving your site, or getting a good indication of how your site is performing, it is important that you have a decent snapshot of the data to work from, i.e. make sure that you are not making assumptions based on the data of a single day, as trends vary over time, and even from day-to-day.

Free Search Engine Submission - The Scam Lurking Behind Free Search Engine Submission Services

2007-06-07T05:12:00.001-07:00

''Submit your web site to 100,000 search engines! Catapult Your Website traffic! Fast and Easy! - just $39.95 a month! Get thousands of visitors a day!''

That remember you something? I have been there to...

You should exercise great care and beware when looking at free search engine submission services, which are mainly worthless and most of all, simple scams. It is important that you do not fall in their teeth even though they are being promoted by domain registrars, web designers and hosts as well as other professionals and also Spammers.

To start, there are hundreds of search engines with seven of them being major players of which just three are actually searched in any significant way. Only Google, Yahoo and MSN will find your site through the process of crawling links from other sites. What’s more, by simply submitting your site it will not mean that it enters the index or is updated quicker.

If you think the contrary , then think again because you will suddenly find that your Spam mails will multiply by ten. And, those thousands of search engines that you thought you were getting access to are nothing more than FFA pages existing on Spam web sites. In other words, you will find yourself in free-for-all pages, where you really do not want to be.

Another reason why you should not consider this option is that once you have your site listed in the main indexes, re-submitting them will not help in any way.

You should understand that the free submission services thrive and replicate them while leaving you in the lurch. So, get it in your head that it will not help you and there should be nothing stopping you from turning off the free submitting service. It is much better to manually submit to a directory instead.

So stop waisting your hard earned money on free search engine submission scams that can get your website investment penalized or even banned by the major search engine!

Quick Search Engine Marketing - Best Ways to Earn with SEM

2007-06-07T05:11:00.000-07:00

Marketing your website through search engines can potentially provide you a lot of profit. Most people market their businesses in the Internet so more people can reach them. But since a lot of people use these techniques, you should always think about what you can do to have an edge over other competitors out there. So here are some advanced ways to search engine marketing.

To get more attention your site has to be included in the top 10 search engine results. To do this you can so the SEO or Search Engine Optimization strategy. With SEO, the ranking of your website can be improved through the use of keyword in the content of the site. With SEO, you would be able to get a higher ranking in search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN.

You can also include pay-per-click advertisements to attract more traffic into your website. With this method, search engine sponsored listings are added to the website which allows visitors to earn some cents by clicking them. On the other hand, you would get more people to visit your site.

You can also invest in paid inclusions. This is a method where you pay search engines to include your site in their search index. This might need you to shell out a little money but the revenue you can get from it will be worth it.

So now that you know some keys to advance search engine marketing, be searchable. You’ll surely earn a lot of money following these few simple steps.

Website Redesign - A Perilous Road

2007-05-25T04:15:00.001-07:00

About a year and a half ago I started a new business and launched a new website. Since that time my site has gained a reasonable page rank on Google. A search for several of my keywords will produce my site in the listings on pages two, three and four of Google.

Page Rank and organic listings are important only if enough people are contacting you for your product or service. This is your “ROI”. This is your rate of return on your investment of time, energy and money. Most businesses have a “big room for improvement”. Like most other businesses, I am very interested in achieving higher page rank and ROI. According to Google.com:

“PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important." Important, high-quality sites receive a higher PageRank, which Google remembers each time it conducts a search. Of course, important pages mean nothing to you if they don't match your query. So, Google combines PageRank with sophisticated text-matching techniques to find pages that are both important and relevant to your search. Google goes far beyond the number of times a term appears on a page and examines all aspects of the page's content (and the content of the pages linking to it) to determine if it's a good match for your query.”

It is logical that if you redesign your site in such a way as it appears to be a brand new site to the Google search engines, you start de novo with no page rank and no other pages “voting” for you. No matter how much you have achieved in terms of Page Rank, or if you have achieved number one, page one status for a keyword in terms of being found on a search of the web, you may have created a “don’t get out of jail, don’t collect $200, don’t pass go” type of situation for yourself, at least in the internet short run.

These points were brought home to me loud and clear by a member of an internet affinity group who recently wrote:

“Hello,

I had my site remodeled last year by a pro. I paid top dollars for SEO. Once my site was published, my ranking and clicks took a nose dive. I have done every thing to get the ranking up but have had no luck. Can someone please tell me what went wrong?”

Imagine a mirror that is really one way glass. In the movies, there is a common scene where the criminal suspect is being interviewed by the police in a room with a mirror that reflects his image. On the other side of the mirror, invisible to the suspect may be the victim or other policemen looking in at the proceedings. A website is like a one way glass mirror.

When you click on a website, you see what the designers want you to see. The public’s mirror: Images, text, marketing, things that move or flash, contact information, site maps, search for content engines, links to other sites, examples of products or services. What you cannot see are many if not most of the things the search engines see. Many of these things are technical and well beyond the scope of this article, and this author’s expertise. But a little knowledge is dangerous. What went wrong?

It appears that the search engines, when looking at the “other side of the one way mirror” may have concluded that this was a brand new site. Perhaps the files that were a part of the web site were renamed. Perhaps the domain name of the site was changed. Perhaps animation, called flash, or pull down menus prevented the search engines from “seeing” the website because of their design. Perhaps in the design of the new site, the former inbound links no longer are counted by the search engines. Perhaps the designer did not use any metatags. According to Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch, “Metatags are not a magic solution.”

“What are meta tags? They are information inserted into the "head" area of your web pages. Other than the title tag, information in the head area of your web pages is not seen by those viewing your pages in browsers. Instead, meta information in this area is used to communicate information that a human visitor may not be concerned with. Meta tags, for example, can tell a browser what "character set" to use or whether a web page has self-rated itself in terms of adult content”. There is controversy regarding the importance of metatags. One way to decide for yourself is to go to the sites of your top competitors; open their site, and click view at the top of your browser, scroll down to page source and click on it. See what your competitors are doing and decide for yourself.

The bottom line: Website redesign is a very difficult and technical area, subject to controversy and honest differences of opinion. You clearly want a website that attracts the public to your product or services, and attracts the search engines to find you. Google has a new program in beta where you can test several versions of a site to determine what the public likes best. What the search engines value is quite another matter. Choosing the best expert for this project is essential. I recommend that you look for experienced professionals with proven results with a business that is reliable and stable. Give a lot of thought to your content and to your call to action. And give a lot of attention to the requirement that your expert designer redesign your site technically as a reflection of your previous site unless you want to start de novo as if your website is brand new to the World Wide Web.

Search Engine Marketing - 'Pay per Click' or 'Organic'?

2007-05-25T04:14:00.001-07:00

There can be no doubt that search engines are the most cost-effective way of driving traffic to your web site. Literally millions of searches are made by people seeking information or goods or even services every day. However, competition is fierce as there are over 100 million websites in existence. And you can be assured that many of these will compete directly with you in the search engines.

This article will discuss two approaches to search engine marketing: 'Pay per Click' or (PPC) and 'Organic' and list some benefits and tips for each approach.

PAY-PER-CLICK SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC

Pay-per-Click, or sponsored advertising, was pioneered by Google in the early 90s through their Google Adwords service. All other major search engines such as Yahoo! and Microsoft MSN now have similar products. To get a listing on these services, you bid an amount you are prepared to pay if someone clicks on that keyword. For example, you might be prepared to pay one dollar every time someone clicks on your advertisement which is displayed when someone does a search on, say, 'dog training'. Typically, your advertisement will appear on the right-hand side of the search engine listings.

PPC is a great way to get targeted traffic quickly and easily to your web site. However, you are competing against many advertisers - some with very large budgets - so you might end up in a bidding war, and to get to the point where it is simply too expensive for you to bid on you all required keywords.

If you are serious about PPC, it's worthwhile getting the insights from an expert. Perry Marshall is considered to be the expert in Google Adwords. Simply Google his name and you will get all the information about his programs which you will require.

ORGANIC SEARCH ENGINE TRAFFIC

This process relies on your websites having high rankings in the search engines. For example, if Google thinks that your site about, say, the dog training is important, informative, and original; it will return your site when a user does is search on their keyword 'dog training'. In general, organic search engine traffic receives 9 times as much traffic as compared to PPC campaigns. It's also worth noting that search engine traffic is of a higher quality than PPC traffic.

The key to getting good search engine ranking is to ensure that your web site is optimised for a particular keyword. This introduces a new discipline: 'Search Engine Optimization' or SEO. Search Engine Optimisation is a complex and specialised area. If you are serious about improving the ranking of your site is worth while getting the advice of experts. Google the term 'SEO' for a comprehensive list of SEO experts in your area.

Using Keyword Targeting Effectively

2007-05-25T04:13:00.001-07:00

The keywords you choose to target play a large role in determining who will visit your website. So choose wisely! Using keyword targeting effectively can immediately increase your traffic, which has a direct impact on your website's bottom line.

If you do not have a domain yet, then you should take keywords into consideration when you choose one.
If your main keyword phrase is in the domain name, it will have two main advantages. First, it will gain a slight boost in the search engine rankings for the term. Second, whenever another site links to your site with the URL as the anchor text, you will get a highly valuable inbound link with your main keyword phrase.

At the same time, it can be advantageous to pick a domain name that serves a branding purpose. If you choose to take that route, you can still use subdomains and other on page and off page factors to make up for it.

Even if your site is targeted towards one specific keyword phrase, you should seek to optimize it for several related phrases as well. This is referred to as theme-based targeting, and can quickly turn your site into an authority on your chosen topic or niche. It also greatly expands the possibilities for generating revenue from your site, because it increases the number of pages, gets more terms ranked in the search engines, and can lengthen the average stay of visitors who look at the related material you have made available.

As a general strategy for optimizing your web pages for specific keywords, you can use the keyword in the page's title tag, header tag, meta tag, body tag, alt tag, anchor tag, and comment tag. For on-page optimization, try to have a high keyword density (the proportion of the keyword phrase in comparison to all content on a given page), somewhere along the lines of 6-8%. At the same time, make sure the content is still readable for your human audience! It has to be effective both for the search engine bots and your loyal visitors.

Once your web page is optimized in this manner, you can increase your keyword targeting effectiveness with a linking strategy. You will get better rankings in the search engines for your chosen keywords if other websites give you inbound links using the keywords as the anchor text.
The same can be said of submitting your website to directories.

Put these tips for using keyword targeting effectively into practice and watch the visitors roll in!

Keyword Analysis From A SEO Perspective

2007-05-25T04:11:00.001-07:00

Keywords make the search engine world go 'round. If you get most of your traffic from search engines, then targeting the right keywords should be central to your promotion strategy. To get the right keywords, you have to look at them from a search engine perspective.

The first step in the process is to build up a large list of keywords related to your site. You can start out by simply thinking like your potential visitors and listing what they would type into a search engine, but that will only get you so far.
There are many free tools you can use to build a bigger list (like Wordtracker's freekeywords tool or Google Adwords' External Keyword Tool), or you can purchase something more powerful (like a Wordtracker subscription or Keyword Elite).

Now, not all keywords are created equal! You have to analyze these keywords from a SEO perspective. Obviously search terms with higher search volume are more desirable, but they are usually more difficult to rank highly for as well. For that reason, it is advisable to start out with "low-hanging fruit," the terms that get fewer searches but are also less competitive.

To give an example, if you have a site about electronics, try targeting "high-tech car electronics" rather than a more general term. A side benefit is that highly targeted search terms yield highly targeted visitors, which can increase your conversions.

Another side benefit is that while you build up your search rankings for a highly specific term, you are also improving your rankings for the more general term, since it is included in the term you are optimizing for.

Before you run off and begin optimizing your website and articles for specific keywords, wouldn't you like to know if the effort is going to be worth it? For some terms, it may not be possible to get a high search engine ranking for weeks, months, or even years! To do a relatively quick test of your keywords, you can run a PPC campaign and use a tracking program like Google Analytics to see which keywords will actually convert to sales for you. When the results are in, you will be able to put in the work to rank highly for them with complete confidence that the work will pay off.

Another element to consider when looking at keyword analysis from a SEO perspective is your competition. You can easily see how many websites are competing for a term by search for it in Google wrapped in double quotes, like "high-tech car electronics." The higher the number of websites listed, the greater your competition. But that's not all! You should also check to see what kind of websites you're competing with.
If the first page of Google is full of websites with very high Page Rank (5, 6, 7 or higher), then you know it will be difficult to bump them off.

When you start with a large keyword list and have the right tools and knowledge, keyword analysis from a SEO perspective can yield enormous long-term results.

Affiliate Internet Marketing Tip - How To Cash In With Bum Marketing?

2007-05-25T04:07:00.000-07:00

I see dozens of questions asked everyday on how to get affiliate internet marketing tips, how to improve article writing, USFreeads, how to create effective Bios and how to make more money with affiliate marketing from using the bum marketing method.

Did you know that one of the most remarkable aspects about Bum Marketing is to realize the entire method revolves around writing compelling articles and USFreeads?

Your articles and USFreeads are "at the heart" of how the method generates cash whether from affiliate sales, your own products and or AdSense income.

A single article I wrote has now made over $1200 straight into my PayPal account.

To this day this compelling article brings in residual cash every single month.

Two outstanding Bum Marketing articles I just wrote are #7 & #8 for Google Search results out of 63,200,000 competitors!

These two compelling articles drive an average of 100+ unique visitors per day to one of my profitable AdSense niche sites!

Many internet marketing have now discovered a breakthrough formula from testing and comparing results of these cash generating Bum Marketing articles.

Most marketers don't know the shocking truth of why their articles and USFreeads are not producing instant results.

I've been wondering why some internet marketers are not getting remarkable results from this surprisingly simple method called Bum Marketing.

I'm revealing to you powerful closely-guarded secrets I've discovered writing Bum Marketing articles and USFreeads!

The Bum Marketing method is the affiliate internet marketing tip of the year.

Most Internet marketers kept very quite about this method because it can be so profitable when you have the top search results with the search engines driving targeted traffic to your own sites and affiliate products.

I'm constantly looking for dynamic ways to improve and expound upon this proven method by developing techniques to increase productivity and to make the Bum Marketing Method as efficient as possible to drive targeted traffic and to boost affiliate sales.

This is a very valuable internet marketing resource tip to a formula for you to quickly increase your affiliate profits with these secret tips, tricks, tools and resources for generating explosive traffic from writing and submitting articles with "long tail keywords".

If you do not know what Bum Marketing is all about you should take some time and start to research this method for driving targeted traffic by writing articles and to make money with affiliate products and services.

Article marketing is a simple step-by-step system that anyone can benefit from by using this affiliate internet marketing tip and breakthrough formula to build your own affiliate marketing empire.

Bum Marketing is NOT a fly by night fad. This method will be here for as long as the written word. What are you waiting for?

This is one of the most profitable affiliate internet markeing tips I've ever learned and you are actually seeing this exciting method right here put into action.

Search Engine Marketing-How To Beat Out Multi-Million Dollar Corporations In The Search Engine Wars!

2007-05-17T05:07:00.001-07:00

Internet marketing is a very interesting business simply because it is not very similar to any other type of business out there. People that are in control of millions of dollars and multi-national corporation don’t really have the ability to be totally dominant across the internet.

Many have tried and have failed to people with very little money and very few resources. This is because the technology needed to be successful with search engine marketing is not a technology that costs a lot of money.

It is a collection of a few simple concepts that are put together in order to optimize your website for the search engines.

Search engine optimization can actually be done for free if you have the intelligence and the skills to do so. Because search engine optimization has an optimal value, it is very easy to see how more money and more resources are not going to be that useful past a certain point.

In many ways, search engine optimization is a playing field and if you know how to properly use off page and on page search engine optimization methods you can do a lot to turn that playing field in your favor.

The most important part of search engine optimization is link building. If you can master the art of link building then you will definitely be able to beat out multi-million dollar corporations in the search engine wars!

Every link that you get pointing to your website is another vote of confidence for your website. Every vote of confidence you get in your website, the more likely it is to be featured highly in the search engines.

This is, and always will be, the basic of search engine optimization and for that reason it is very easy to see just how competitive you can be with some smarts and little bit of hard work.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to Search Engine Marketing Success. Discover The *Secret Formula* We've Used To Stay In Google's Top 3 Rankings For Over 3 Years For Some Of The Toughest Keywords Around (18 MILLION Competitors!)

Search Engine Marketing- Are Longer Keyphrases Better for Achieving a Higher Search Engine Ranking?

2007-05-17T05:06:00.001-07:00

Back when the internet was just starting most people that used search engines searched for one or two word phrases like ‘marketing’ or ‘hockey'. Because of that, writing SEO copy that was both rich in terms of content but also relevant to the site was reasonably easy.

Nowadays though there is so much information available on the internet. For that reason people are using longer keyphrases (on average around three or four words in the developed nations) in order to facilitate finding some more relevant information.

This means that if you are targeting the keyword '' hockey marketing'' it will become even more targeted because naturally there will be less people searching for something that specific.

The copywriting industry has not been as fast to recognize and adapt to this and because of that it is definitely possible to achieve a higher search engine ranking for some of these longer, more targeted phrases. However, while it is possible and in many ways easier there are things you still need to be aware of in order to make your efforts successful.

For starters, longer keyphrases are harder to write into copy. This is because of the more rigid structure that one must apply to these keyphrases and because of this it can sometimes make the copy seem jerky and unprofessional in nature. This can serve to not only repulse people from your website but also cause it to suffer in the grand scheme of appropriate search engine results.

So while it is definitely possible to achieve that higher search engine ranking with longer keyphrases at the same time it is something that you need to do very carefully indeed.

Search Engine Marketing - How To Avoid Your Website Being Canned In The Google Supplemental Results

2007-05-17T05:04:00.002-07:00

Search engine optimization is all about getting your web page ranked high on the search engines and supplemental results are about the absolute worst thing that could happen to your website listing. Google has two indices that they use to index web pages - the Main Index and the Supplemental Index.

The difference between the two is that when someone searches for something on Google, the main index web pages will all get listed before the supplemental web pages. This means that even if you have pulled off perfect optimization on a web page appearing in Google supplemental results there is no way you will be able to get it anywhere close to the top of the search engine results.

There are three main reasons why a page is placed into the Google supplemental results and all three of these mistakes are made by search engine optimizers. Firstly, if your site has a lot of duplicate content on it then it will be a potential candidate for getting sent into the supplemental results index.

Secondly, if your site contains unethical on-page SEO code it will also get sent to the supplemental index. This is done in order to combat the unethical black hat SEO agents that to a large extent, are responsible for making things worse for everyone trying to do search engine optimization.

Lastly, if your site is linked to a lot of link farms, it also might end up in the Google supplemental results.

There isn’t much you can do once the website has been placed into the supplemental results simply because Google takes such a long time to do anything nowadays. All you can do is correct all the problems mentioned above, submit a site map to Google and hope that the situation gets resolved.

If it doesn’t, you might need to start fresh with a new URL and transfer your new and improved website to that URL.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to Search Engine Marketing Success. Discover The *Secret Formula* We've Used To Stay In Google's Top 3 Rankings For Over 3 Years For Some Of The Toughest Keywords Around (18 MILLION Competitors!)

Search Engine Marketing - An Effective Tool for Marketing

2007-05-17T05:04:00.001-07:00

Marketing and advertisement is of foremost importance for any business / company. There are different reasons why companies pursue it. The popular ones include: getting more sales; branding, increase in visibility, and/or market share; or to introduce a new product line or services. According to recent trend branding and positioning is not only limited to offline world, Internet and Search Engines such as Google, Lycos, Yahoo, MSN, AOL etc., also play an important role in achieving this objective.

How does it relate to Internet and Search Engines?
If your product is not right in front of your customer at the respective stores where these products are typically purchased, you can certainly say that you are missing out on sales, market share, and branding. The same concept applies to the Internet and search engines. If your web site doesn't shows up in the top rankings for your offered services and products in major search engines you can calculate how much business and branding you are missing out on?

SEM is a Combination Art & Science.
According to SEM Experts, Search Engine Marketing is both an art and science. Its goal is to optimize a site's ability to be found on Internet search engines and directories for the most targeted keywords / phrase by employing various Search Engine Optimization strategies and drive qualified traffic to the web site. This leads to more quality referrals & hence increase in sales.

Search Engines provide Target Traffic.
Search engines are the most widely used means of finding information on the Internet. It provides an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to your web site. A new study shows that the Web has grown to more than 2.1 billion documents and is growing at the rate of 7 million pages per day. Another study indicates that people who spend five or more hours a week online, spend about 71 percent of their time searching for information. That goes to show that how important are search engines in branding and marketing of products and services through your web site. It is the No.1 way people find your web site.

Positioning your right web site at right place.
If your business's main product is "fashion garments", you have undoubtedly positioned your product at most of the department and fashion stores. Following the same suit, SEM Experts position your product/website at the top of the search engine results so when users search for " fashion garments" roughly 1,500 times daily on the major search engines, your website shows up in the top rankings. Now suppose this campaign is conducted for 8 months (including the maintenance) and there are 1,500 searches a day and your website is seen as #1 daily, the users will begin familiarizing your company / brand name, thus helping in better brand recall and easy sales.

How does it differ from Offline Marketing approach?
With a successful search engine marketing campaign you can accomplish every goal and objective that is sought after with offline marketing and advertising. There are two major differences between offline and online marketing: 1) Marketing your website via search engine marketing, email marketing, banner adv. have proven to be drastically less expensive than their offline equivalents, and 2) Search engine marketing facilitates you to demonstrate your product throughout the world or whichever geographical area you chose but with offline marketing, your marketing and selling efforts are restricted to a particular area in a city or town as the case may be.

Why is Search Engine Marketing more effective?
The ROI for SEM is excellent compared to any other online marketing means, especially when compared to online banner adv., direct mail campaign etc. With SEM, you get better conversion rates, lower cost-per-click, and lower acquisition costs. A study by market intelligence firm NPD Group, say "consumers are five times more likely to purchase products after seeing search listings versus online banner advertisement". In the same market research report it was found that high search engine listings drive the highest awareness or branding for a website, with consumers recalling websites 60% of the time from search engine listings #1-5, and roughly 20% for online banner adv.

Among the Top search engines, Google is considered to be the major source of referrals for all web sites and the main target of every SEM campaign. It is followed by others major engines and directories such as Lycos, MSN, Yahoo, AOL, AltaVista.

Search Engine Marketing is no trifle task. It is an art and science of applying the knowledge and experience gained over the years researching the search engine's distinct criteria, unique indexing parameters or algorithm. It requires a calculated approach guided by proven and ethical methodologies to deliver the results.

With usage of Internet increasing in multiple folds in India and abroad, search engine marketing is an effective and appealing means of marketing and advertising to reach your target audience and cannot be ignored. For more Search Engine Marketing

Get The E In Business Success Using Free Search Engine Optimization And Explode Your Web Site Traffi

2007-05-17T05:03:00.000-07:00

As you will agree, running a home based business takes some degree of dedication and commitment. There are some very critical "know-hows" that you must get the hang of as soon as your e in business online. Anything from as simple as running an email campaign to as complex as getting the top ten ranking on Google search engine takes into focus some vital insight to avoid becoming the next internet marketing casualty. If you can as much as turn on your computer and check your email, then you're in business.

But did you know that using organic and paid search engine e in business marketing can explode your web site traffic overnight!Literally!

First, let's familiarize ourselves with a few frequently used terms used by webmasters. The two often repeated terms around the SEO circles are "first-time visitors and "repeat visitors". Fairly self-explanatory, right?

Ok, now, believe it or not, according to Search Engine Journal (a web site that focuses on Search Engine News on SEO & Search Marketing) after checking our email, searching the World Wide Web is the next reason we come online! Mmmm, interesting fact.

People come online for all sorts of reasons. For example, according to Pew Internet & American Life Project, "60 million Americans say that the internet helped them make big decisions or negotiate their way through major episodes in their lives." They also say that 73% of adult Americans are either shopping, pursuing hobbies or engaging in personal interest online.

According to Internet World Stats, the worldwide internet community has reached a staggering 1 billion users! Whew! that looks like the whole Indian population.

Here's a breakout:

* Asia 400 Million (36%)
* Europe 300 Million (28%)
* North America 200 Million (21%)
* Latin America/Caribbean 100 Million (9%)
* Africa accounts for 30 Million (3%)
* Middle East 20 Million (2%)
* Oceania/Australia 18 Million (1.8%)

With that kind of statistics above, are you now seeing what your bank account would look like if your were sitting right at the top 10 search results to meet these internet users with some solution to their problem? I think you got the picture now.

Ok, let us now see which major search engines are commonly used by our 1 billion users. Google is by far the search authority. In fact, these days Google has become the search mecca on the internet as everybody likes to 'google' their way to finding answers on the online. Yahoo! boasts second place followed of course by MSN with its new search page. The long and short is that Google out-class both competitors by leaps and bounds.

So how do I go about getting a traffic jam at my web site?

Well, this is where you have to prepare for some dedication and commitment I mentioned earlier in my preamble. Don't panic here; if you can follow simple instructions and carry them out well, you are on track.

A great place to begin this exciting adventure is by using Wordtracker to do great keyword research. Keywords are basically the words you would type into the Google search engine to find for instance, "great Caribbean packages" where that exact phrase is your keyword to find just that, "great vacation packages". Pretty simple, right?

BUT, bear in mind that millions of websites are online fiercely competing for top spots using, as mentioned earlier, organic and paid search engine in business marketing optimization, which means that you would have to find the most competitive keyword/s in your niche area to launch an all out attack and land your web site among the top 10 rankings.

There are three main strategies for competing consistently at the top 10 position.

They include:

* Placing your best keywords at strategic positions on your web page. Hint: your web site address is a great place to start

* Giving the search engine 'crawlers' or 'spiders' one of their favourite meals to come hunt you down. By this I am referring to something as simple and yet effective as adding your web site to relevant directories such as dmoz.org for example.

* Building an empire of relevant inbound links (links pointing from other sites back to your site) is a smart way to go. Think about writing content rich articles for your audience as one great way to do this. Articlemarketer.com, ideamarketers.com are greet places to publish articles, among many others of course.

Pay-per-click or Sponsored search engine optimization can significantly enhance your internet success, but, if used foolishly, they can dry up your bank account! No kidding, pay-per-click campaigns can either leave you whistling all the way to the bank or making an appointment with your mortgagor to consider refinancing your loan! Ok, that's taking it a bit too far but there are dos and don'ts critical to your success.

Like anything else, you have to first determine a budget. Would you jump in your car/truck, drive to the supermarket, grab the biggest trolley, pack it navel high without first ensuring that you have enough funds to pay for the goods. So, how do you determine your pay-per-click budget? Not that difficult at all.

I won't bother to burden you with that 'next big thing' here and now. Instead, I will give you some time to digest the foregoing and continue from here another time. In the meantime, take it from the expert, your can survive in business if you make up your mind to hang in there and copy the exact strategies the online gurus have used to capitalize on the E in business. (By E I mean extras of course!)

Search Engine Optimization

2007-05-09T04:06:00.001-07:00

Search engines can deliver the most ammount of traffic to your website, because of that it is very important to take your time to analyse and optimise your websites ranking in search engines, but there are other ways to get more traffic to your website (internet marketing) which I will discuss in later articles. Meta Tags

Meta tags are very important in search engine optimisation, without important meta tags like keywords and description, there is a big chance you won even be listed on the first two pages.

Meta tags should be within the head tags of your document and have the following syntax (without the first space):

< name="name" content="value">

Keywords

Keywords are the most important in whole seo-world, without them, say goodbye to a successfull ranking in search engines. Choosing and optimisating keywords is not easy as most people think. You have to now your target audience and what keywords will be searched for, it is very important that your content contains your main keywords atleast five to even ten times. Try asking serveral visitors if they found your site via a search engine, if so, ask them what keyword they searched for. They keyword that is the most popular for your website should get the most optimisation.

When your done choosing your keywords and when you know wich of them are the most important, we can move on the more a little bit more technical work. The most important keywords (and the one that are the most in your content) should be placed in the beginning of your keyword-list. Then the less important keywords follow (all seperated by commas). Also remember, also include other spellings, synonyms and keywords with and without spaces between words than can be written like both. You should atleast have about 15-20 unique keywords.

Description

The description of your website is also very important but I%u2019m not going to cover it in depth. A good description should contain a minimum of 30-35 words, about 5 of them (minimum) should be keywords. Also make sure your description reflects your content and tells exactly what your website is about. The same tips as for keywords, try using alot of synonyms and lists of keywords.

Subject

The subject is usually one sentence wich represents your sites whole content. Again, try using keywords in it. This isnt used very much be can make improvement for your ranking.

Copyright

States your company name and year(s) of foundation. Not very important for search engine optisation.

Author

The page creator. Not very important for search engine optimisation.

Dos And Don'ts Of Website Optimisation To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

2007-05-09T04:05:00.004-07:00

In order for your Internet business to succeed these days, it is a good idea for you to keep optimizing the pages of your website on a daily basis for proper ranking and good position on the top search engines on the web. However, in order to maintain your ranking or position in the search engines, you have to be conversant with the trends and the daily happenings on the Internet and the ever-changing world of the search engines.

I have only listed and highlighted very few of the most important rules governing the search engine world and the ranking of your pages on the various search engines below.

From the logical view point, you will agree with me that the various search engines do not want to be manipulated by the ever increasing number of website owners and marketers as well.

They are out to provide unbiased and well-refined result for every search carried out by search engine users in order to remain in the market. This accounts for the reason why the algorithms and other search engine techniques are ever changing in order to stay ahead of the various tricks people use to get top ranking.

There are various tricks still available for marketers to enable them increase their ranking on the search engines.

THE “DOS” 1. Build content rich “information pages” in your website to direct traffic to your site.

In the world of affiliate marketing, it is usually said that content is king. In order to get a very number of pages that links to your site, it is important that you create quality pages with good content. How ever you have to make sure these pages contain valuable information that are relevant to the information that you are providing in the pages of your website and that it provides people with relevant result. Search engine do not like multiple pages that points to your website but without relevant information which only exist just for the purpose of increasing the number of pages that points to your site.

It is important you ensure that the information in those pages relates to the content of your website and that it also has relevant keyword that related to it as well.

This will increase the ranking of your WebPages with the various search engines and they will in turn redirect the visitors or traffic back to your website.

2. Be careful in keyword inclusion and placement

Keywords are no longer the only factor to determine the ranking of your WebPages in the various search engines but they are very important when it comes to your ranking.

Places to include keywords:

-Your domain name- you must make sure you use keywords at the root part of your URL (beginning) and not at the stem (middle), as some search engines penalize people for putting keywords at the stem (middle) or the URL, for example, if your main keyword phrase is computer peripherals, try to register a domain name such as “www.computer-peripherals.com” and not www.some company.com/computerparts.

-In the Meta keyword tags of your website Beware of placing irrelevant keywords at the Meta tags of your website, as this trend is always penalized by search engines. That means only keywords that are relevant to the content of your website should be included.

-In the Meta description tags of your website

-In the title tags of your website If you use keywords that are relevant to the content of your WebPages in the title tag, you stand at an advantageous position.

3. Ask for link exchange with relevant sites to yours

Gone are the days when only keywords determine the position of your web page in the search engines. Gone are the days also when high ranking is all dependent in you positioning your keyword in prime locations in the source code of your WebPages, the trends have completely changed these days and if you are still working with that mindset, you rather change and brace up immediately.

These days link popularity is king. Search engines place a very high importance on the number of pages that link to your site and it is not only about the number but also about the relevance of those links to the content of your site. It is important that you exchange links with only sites whose content are relevant to yours.

4. Multiply your online presence with multiple sites

If you can have as many sites as possible, then why stop at just one site? It is important you create a network of related sites linking to each other in order to have good ranking with search engines but the relevance of the links cannot be over emphasized.

If you run a website where you sell different but related products or services, you can boost your website ranking by creating different sites for each of this products or services and link them to each other, provided you can manage them. If you have different sites for each of the product or service you offer, you will not have the problem of clustering one single site with irrelevant keywords, as each of the sites will have a highly concentrated keyword.

5. Submit your website to online directories

Make sure you submit your website to most of the important web directories such as yahoo and other smaller ones because your listing with these directories will help your web page ranking in the search engines.

THE “DONTS”

1. Don’t stuff your Meta tag with keywords

Marketers generally in the past are used to stuffing their Meta tag with key words by repeating most of the keywords about two or three places. This used to work those days by improving their ranking on the search engines, but that no longer works these days as search engines has gotten the tricks that most of them used and they will quickly drop any website found committing this offence.

2. Beware of irrelevant keywords

Most search engines hates finding irrelevant keywords in the source codes of your website most especially the Meta tag section of it. Once any website is found containing in the Meta tag keywords that are irrelevant to the content of the website, they get easily penalized by the search engines. Why loose your hot cash over irrelevant keywords?

3. Avoid creating link farms

People in the past used to create multiple doorway pages, which only existed for the purpose of increasing the number of links pointing to their site. These doorway pages unlike content rich pages only include keyword phrases and terms that will increase their search engine ranking.

4. Beware of irrelevant links to your site

Even with the emphasis on getting links pointing to your site, it is also strongly advised you avoid exchanging links with websites whose content are not relevant to yours. Search engines only love to see links that are relevant to the content of your website. If they find irrelevant links pointing to your website, they will surely penalize you for that.

5. Avoid using free for all link pages

I do not recommend placing links on websites where every Tom, Dick and Harry is invited to place a link. These websites are very low in relevancy rating and are bound to reduce your ranking with the search engines.

Traffic Creation - Traffic Creation Using Search Engines

2007-05-09T04:05:00.003-07:00

Promotion and advertising surely costs a lot of money but there is one way in which the same could be achieved without spending money. Yes, we are talking about search engines which are completely free. Getting constant traffic from search engines is dream come true for most of the home business owners but it surely not that easy to achieve.

The problem is that the level of competition is so much that getting listing on any search engine is almost impossible. So, getting traffic from Google or MSN or Yahoo is very difficult. This situation could be remedied by the help of content. You should have a site that contains loads of quality content on your chosen subject. And you would have to keep in mind search engine optimization to attract constant targeted traffic to your site.

If you are willing to pay money, this situation could be remedied. You can make use of pay per click search engines. You would have to buy targeted ad space related to a specified keyword phrase that should correspond to your product or service. When a user searches fro that keyword, your ad would be displayed on the search engine. If the user clicks through to your site, you would have to pay money to the search engine to the tune of 1 cent to $10 or even more. This means that you would get traffic that is actually interested in your niche and that the leads could be turned into sales more easily.

Where Would We Be Without the Search Engines?

2007-05-09T04:05:00.001-07:00

Internet has given us the ultimate opportunity of reaching out to places we would never imagine to even know earlier. Internet has become the most powerful tool to communicate trade, carry out business, enjoy and almost have a virtual life parallel to our normal life.

Everything that we are allowed to experience in our real world is available in the virtual world. Enterprising people have enabled the use of internet for several things at the same time. In the race to be known to more and more people around the world, we are using different methods. But all these methods would not be of any use without the search engines.

The quality of the search engines to literally consume information about billions of sites over the world into one space has made them most indispensable for us. It has become every web master’s dream to reach into the top five positions on all the search engines. The reason is not new to any of us, it is only those who are the top will get better business.

To be noticeable to search engines we are using different methods. Some of us are more direct; we pay these search engines so that they include our sites in their databases, the better the deal the more are the chances your rankings will improve. But you cannot give an empty site to a search engine and tell it to place in the top five or for that matter ten. You need to have sufficient matter to support the search carried out by the search engine. Your site would not be detectable to the search engine if it does not have the required keyword percentage.

Therefore, people are noticing the importance of putting quality content on their website, something informative as well as interesting for people to come and read and understand and in some places share. This race has benefited us immensely. The search engine need for quality therefore makes people find more information and place it on their sites to keep them new and interesting.

There is another type of search engine marketing for all those who believe in doing direct marketing by becoming affiliates and selling one product or the other. Introduction of pay per click has been like a boon to such people. Pay per click provided the users with immense profitability mixed with practicality. You pay for each click above your limit your ads don’t show, the best way to circulate ads so that each person among us gets to earn.

Some of us do the marketing indirectly. We are like at Ezine, writing articles and selling or sharing information we have. This is innovative and extremely challenging. This has also enabled us to depend on ourselves better than search engines. If your content is good be sure the search engine spider with notice and your article will show. There is nothing more complimenting that to know people are reading the content, some might find it useful and interesting others might not. But to know the number of people reading articles is good enough.

There Is Power In Good Search Engine Optimization Using Easy Search Engine Marketing Strategies

2007-05-09T04:04:00.001-07:00

Search engine optimization can make or break your website and therefore your online business will do little to nothing in the earning money aspect of internet marketing. Time spent learning proper seo strategies will be time well spent and your time is valuable so don't waste it.

What does an internet marketing need to know for proper search engine optimization? Well to me you need to know more or at least apply more seo knowledge than those site owners you want to pass in the search engines. It's that straight forward.

You can pay me or others to have your web pages optimized to give you the best bang for your buck in the search engines and that will get you listed higher which gives you a better chance at making a sale. Of course even if you get visitors it doesn't mean you sales copy will sell them, but that's for another day and another article, isn't it.

I always enjoy being paid but at the same time the teacher in me wants you to learn to do this for yourself so keep your money and read on...

Search Engine Optimization Strategy One:

Learn what others are doing to make their web page land on the first search engine results page. Discover all you can about each site that gets listing on the first two pages of results. At least the first two pages so you get an understanding and you will also find more than one strategy being used, so pay close attention.

How do you find those sites, well you have to use the keywords that represent your product to your target group. You will even learn of new keywords and phrases as you start to dissect your competitors web pages.

Example: If you are promoting 'car care products' then you go to Google and do a search for this term. Do two searches on this phrase and any other phrases you are using. One without quotes and one with quotes.

Doing two searches this way will let you know how many sites are out there promoting based on the exact same keyword phrase your are using.

Google: "car care products" = 606,000
Google: car care products = 38,200,000

From this you can see that there are 600 thousand pages out there about car care products and that means you would have a lot of competition.

Once you have your search engine results page for your search term in quotes start looking through the results and take notes.

What are you looking for?

1. You want to learn how they use the search term or keyword phrase on their page.

This means that you need to look at the headings and paragraphs to see how many times that phrase was used and the exact location it was used.

Was the phrase bolded or italized, is it in a header one, is the phrase a hyper link anywhere on the page?

Learn all you can from the browser page.

2. Open the source code for the web page you are researching and see what other keywords and phrases they use.

What are the other keywords? You will later do the same research on the new keywords you find.

If you do this and use the same strategies for keywords and phrase placement you will increase your own page ranking. Do this consistently and you will be able to pass those that are ranked ahead of you.

Look for other strategies from us on search engine optimization strategies that work.

Important SEO Aspects in Web Designing

2007-05-04T03:49:00.001-07:00

Visual Designing or Graphic Designing is the methodology employed to communicate information using text or images. By using image development, typography and page layout Visual designing is performed and it is applied for magazines, websites, books and electronic media etc.

But when it comes to websites, search engine visibility should also be taken into consideration.

What is SEO and why it is important?

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is a technique for increasing visitors on website. SEO is a set of techniques employed to ensure that a website ranks well on specific keywords or phrases. The direct advantage of SEO is that it leads to an increase in website traffic.

That’s why web designer should also incorporate SEO elements into the design blue print to ensure maximum effectiveness as a business model.

* Headlines are important part of any website so make sure that headline contain keywords.
* Only images are not important so use text link so that important content of the website can be linked out.
* Always try not to create menu on the left hand side of the website but if not possible then put some text with rich keywords on the top or the on the left hand of the menu because this will make the text as a first thing to read.
* Cascading Style Sheet and Java Script are used to reduce page size and make the download time quicker so always use it.
* Number of words for the title should be approx 9 and for description it should be up to 20 and remember every page must contain the title and description with good keywords.
* Many search engines cannot spider web pages with frames so avoid using frames.
* Flash makes the downloading process a slow one so if possible then avoid flash but if it is necessary then try to use it in minimal way.
* Use HTML and web page creator software in such a way that unnecessary scripting codes can be deleted manually or be avoided completely.

These are some tips which should be kept in mind while designing websites. After all without understanding SEO principles, the whole endeavor won’t deliver results on expected lines.

Vital Tips For Successful Search Engine Optimization

2007-05-04T03:48:00.004-07:00

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages appear attractive to the search engines. The better optimized a website is, the higher the ranking it will receive from a search engines web crawlers, the higher its ranking the more traffic your website will have, the more traffic your website has the more profit your website will generate. The key is good internet search engine optimization.

Why is having a receiving a high ranking so important to the future success of your online business? Studies have shown that consumers seldom look at websites that do not rank a spot on of the first two pages the search engines displays. Websites that receive a ranking that places them on the third page (or any other pages after that) see a significantly lower amount of traffic at their websites then one that is ranked on the second page. There is even a staggering difference between the first and second page. In the world of e-commerce ranking and strong search engine optimization is everything.

At first search engine optimization may feel like trying to rappel down the Grand Canyon, a huge scary world full of big words like web crawlers, PageRank, Meta tags, and algorithms. You have never heard of any of these things. A quick internet search of the world algorithm does not help; all you got was a printout of strange symbols and numbers arranged in complex algebraic equations.

Sit back, take a deep breath, and try to relax. Search engine optimization is a lot simpler then you might think. First things first.

Algorithms really are every bit as complex as they look. Simply defined they are a finite set of carefully defined instructions. Most, if not all, computer programs are designed with strict algorithms.

PageRank is simply the program Google designed to search, index, and rank it registered webpage's. PageRank operates on a link analysis algorithm. PageRank is credited for Google incredible success.

Web crawlers are tools search engines use to browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. When web crawlers are browsing websites they are looking for algorithms.

Meta tags are special HTML tags that provide information to about a web page. Meta tags are written directly into the title tag and are only visible to the search engine.

The reality of search engine optimization is that you can start to optimize your website without any knowledge at all of the technical stuff involved in search engine optimization. Simply stated the very first step in designing a website that is going to be well ranked by the search engines is to create a content rich site. What this means is that you must cram as much information about your product into your website as you possibly can.

The third step to search engine optimization is to fill your site with keywords that will attract the web crawler's attention. The final step in a wonderfully optimized website is to submit it to the search engine that will compliment it.

DIY Web Site Optimization And Promotion

2007-05-04T03:48:00.003-07:00

It seems like only yesterday when a couple of 'on site' tweaks could get you top search engine rankings with virtually any of your web pages. With the internet reaching a milestone of more than 29 billion websites, this most certainly is a thing of the past. Web site optimization and promotion today is a completely different ballgame altogether. Gone are the days of guaranteed search engine placements.

Before you get desponded, there is some light at the end of the tunnel. Although web site optimization and promotion became a much more complicated task, it is still well within any website owner's reach to achieve top search engine rankings. It all depends on how much time and money you are willing to spend. Regardless of your business, product or niche, there is always room for something that has real value.

I am constantly amazed by how many companies out there still provide so-called SEO services to 'desperate' website owners. It is important to distinguish between on-site optimization and off-site optimization. On-site optimization is very basic and includes all the things you can do to your actual webpage. These are things like your title tags, descriptions, image tags ec. In the end, on-site optimization counts for very little these days. It all boils down to off-site optimization. Not only is this the hard part, but it also represents there very crux of whether you get a page 1 or a page 100 listing with a search engine.

Off-site optimization is hard work, but the rewards are immense. Search engine traffic is still the best form of traffic for any website. Someone once told me that no one else will take care of my money like I would. This is very true and when it comes to your website this is even more so. Web site optimization and search engine promotion is best done by YOU. There are very few shortcuts and the majority of 'black hat' shortcuts will end up getting you banned by search engines. Once your site it banned it pretty much spells the end of your business.

Off-site optimization can be a daunting task without the help of the correct software. The thinking behind off-site optimization is that if the majority of websites in my niche like me then Google (or Yahoo or MSN) will also like me. There is absolutely no substitute for unique, quality content websites. If it's good, then eventually someone will catch unto it and there is simply no better marketing strategy than word of mouth. There are however some very good strategies for speeding up the rate at which the search engines find your site. With software like SEO Elite, virtually anyone can take their site to the top of the search engines – without all the usual hassles and guesswork.

With the help of software like SEO Elite, you can employ many different strategies for getting high search engine rankings. One of the most powerful features (that no other software package has) is to find out exactly why a website gets a top ranking with any of the major search engines. SEO Elite helps you to get underneath the workings of a specific site and by going 'back stage' you can learn exactly why a site has its ranking. All you have to do then is to copy and improve upon their strategy.

Although this sounds pretty simple, it still requires dedication and a fair amount of work. Ideally you would want to use this kind of software before you start building a website. This would allow you to get things right from the start and it really streamlines the process quite nicely. Getting high quality search engine traffic while you are still building your site is priceless. But whether you are reverse engineering a site or whether you are starting from scratch – know that web site optimization and promotion is not what it used to be. For the most part it is something that you have to do consistently and not some one-off task that someone else can do and 'voala' all your pages have #1 rankings. This just isn’t going to happen.

Not only CAN you do it yourself, but I believe that you should do it yourself. Whether you want to go it alone or whether you want to employ software, no one will care about your ranking the way you do. Even if the learning curve is a bit steep it is well worth it. In many ways the very crux of making money online lies in web site optimization and promotion.

Search Engine Rankings - Choosing a Plan That Suits You Best

2007-05-04T03:48:00.001-07:00

There are different ways to build search engine rankings. You may be wondering which is best for your purposes. Some believe writing lots of good quality keyword researched web pages is the way to go. Others like to use article marketing for this purpose. And stll others believe in pay per click advertising.

Lets examine these three methods to see what might best suit you:

* Building WebPages: Some internet marketers feel if you build lots of quality web pages and research your keywords carefully, the search engines will reward you for both quality and quantity. The idea is, if your pages are superior to others you have a decent chance of making the top ten of the search engines first page. One of the problems with this method is it can take months for you to get spidered and indexed.

* Article Writing: The search engines rank link building highly and article writing is a good way to achieve this. You must have quality incoming links and you must build them one at a time. You cannot rush this process. By writing many articles and submitting to the various directories you will be able acquire lots of incoming links. Doing this correctly can result in positive search engine rankings.

* Pay Per Click Advertising: Pay per click advertising has much to do with picking just the right keywords. This method can be very effective for getting high rankings in the search engines. Make sure you study this method carefully as it is easy to lose money if you don’t know what you’re doing. In writing your ads concentrate on one very targeted keyword and some other sub keywords.

I would not recommend one method over the other. It may be a good idea to use all three or at least experiment with all of them. If you find one appeals to you more then the others and you’re getting results then cultivate that method and stick with it.

The Importance of Search Engine Optimization

2007-05-04T03:46:00.000-07:00

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to internet search engines. Some interne t businesses consider search engine optimization to be the subset of search engine marketing.

In the middle of the 1990s webmasters and search engine content providers started optimizing websites. At the time all the webmasters had to do was provide a URL to a search engine and a web crawler would be sent from the search engine. The web crawler would extract link from the webpage and use the information to index the page by down loading the page and then storing it on the search engines server. Once the page was stored on the search engines server a second program, called an indexer, extracted additional information from the webpage, and determines the weight of specific words. When this was complete the page was ranked. It did not take very long for people to understand the importance of being highly ranked.

In the beginning search engines used search algorithms that webmasters provided about the web pages. It did not take webmasters very long to start abusing the system requiring search engines to develop a more sophisticated form of search engine optimization. The search engines developed a system that considered several factors; domain name, text within the title, URL directories, term frequency, HTML tags, on page key word proximity, Alt attributes for images, on page keyword adjacency, text within NOFRAMES tags, web content development, sitemaps, and on page keyword sequence.

Google developed a new concept of evaluating internet web pages called PageRank. PageRank weighs a web page's quantity and quality based on the pages incoming links. This method of search engine optimization was so successful that Google quickly began to enjoy successful word of mouth and consistent praise.

To help discourage abuse by webmasters, several internet search engines, such as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and Ask.com, will not disclose the algorithms they use when ranking web pages.The signals used today in search engine optimization typically are; keywords in the title, link popularity, keywords in links pointing to the page, PageRank (Google), Keywords that appear in the visible text, links from on page to the inner pages, and placing punch line at the top of the page.

For the most part registering a webpage/website on a search engine is a simple task. All Google requires is a link from a site already indexed and the web crawlers will visit the site and begin to spider its contents. Normally a few days after registering on the search engine the main search engine spiders will begin to index the website.

Some search engines will guarantee spidering and indexing for a small fee. These search engines do not guarantee specific ranking. Webmaster's who do not want web crawlers to index certain files and directories use a standard robots.txt file. This file is located in the root directory. Occasionally a web crawler will still crawl a page even if the webmaster has indicated he does not wish the page indexed.

Automatic Search Engine Submission Services

2007-04-30T03:35:00.004-07:00

Once you finished developing your site it is imperative that you submit it into the portals of search engines in order to get listed and obtain the traffic that is the common goal of every web master. You can either submit your website manually or make use of automatic search engine submission services. Some web owners ought to employ automatic search engine submission services because they said that it can save more of their time. However, submitting a website through the application of automatic search engine submission services has its perils and we will take a look on this and conclude what would be the best approach in website submission.

Automatic search engine submission services are programmed programs. This means that if ever a web site directory or search engine changes a certain point in the individual algorithms, automatic search engine submission services cannot detect it. The aim of this program is just to submit your URL to as many search engines possible and not to examine the current rules set by the search engines. Unlike submitting manually, automatic search engine submission services are prone to this mistake.

Some search engines and web directories require manual submission. If you make use of automatic search engine submission services in submitting on this particular search engine or directory your website will be considered as spam.

Each search engine and web directory is distinctive to one another. You cannot be assured on what unique requirement is needed to be reach in a certain search engine if you just utilize automatic search engine submission services because this program is a robot. Manual submission can examine these changes and you can make the corresponding changes to suit these requirements.

Keep in mind that human intelligence is far from robotic intelligence. Sometimes you need to have a human touch to achieve your purpose in website submission. And automatic search engine submission services cannot do that. It is alright to make use of automatic search engine submission services as long as you don,t utilize it that much. You also have to consider the search engine algorithms or rules whenever submitting on a certain search engine or directory. You can only examine the changes made when you manually submit your site,s address.

My vote is with the manual website submission. If ever you don,t have enough time to put into this task you can always employ a manual website submission firm to do the job for you. Do not rely on these automatic search engine submission services because they are not really that credible.

Writing for the Web

2007-04-30T03:35:00.003-07:00

Many of our clients want to write their own copy which is fine if they know that writing for the web is much different from writing a brochure, sales letter, or print ad. If you are hiring a writer, make sure you hire a writer well-versed in writing for search engine ranking, and for how users read on the web.

Here are the basics to look for when writing for the web:

Rule #1 - Users don't read, they scan.

Use:
Bolded Items
Short Sentences
Bulleted Lists
Short Paragraphs
Use Headings and Subheadings

Rule #2 - The longer the line of text is horizontally on the page, the harder it is to read and comprehend.

Use: Narrow column widths (there is a reason newspapers are they way they are Left aligned text (never right or center align it)

Rule #3 - The good stuff should be above the fold.

Use:
Calls-to-action and offers above the fold
Linked keywords above the fold

Rule #4 - Your content makes or breaks your search engine ranking.

Use:
Keywords and phrases in title, tags, headers
Keywords as far up the page as possible
Often, but not too often
As internal links

Rule #5 - Less is more except when it comes to search engines

Use:
Less than 100 words per page, if possible
Case Studies, Articles, Blogs to add content that everyone may not read but that is important for search engines

If you put these best practices into work on your site, you'll have happy users and high search engine ranking. That means more leads, more sales and more traffic to your site, and who doesn't want that?

Search Engine Marketing - Search Engine Optimization Tips For Small Budgets Websites

2007-04-30T03:35:00.001-07:00

Do you have a small budget and need search engine optimization? Of course, it is possible. Haven’t you heard of, ‘Where there is a will, there is a way!’? Well, this shows that if you care for anything deeply enough, you would definitely manage to get through with it.

When it comes to search engine optimization, things are a little tricky because, SEO or rather good SEO company comes with a very high price tag and high expertise levels. However, the good news is that there is sufficient free seo information around for anyone to become educated with SEO. So next time you want to performs a SEO job, check out the following tips:

1.Keywords used in the website – use only unique and highly relevant keywords. These need not be the expensive ones; use sub-topics of the most expensive keywords, thus creating your unique keywords, while still banking on and using the main keyword’s popularity.

2.Spread it all over – though many SEO experts advice to concentrate the keywords in the first and the last paragraphs, it has often been found that spreading these important keywords evenly through the text have much better impact than otherwise.

3.Keyword-rich content – add regularly keywords rich articles which have a good peppering of your main keywords that you have chosen for your website. This works great. However, always come up with original and unique content to reap the best effects. Never duplicate content, as this would be caught by the search engines, which would promptly penalize your website.

4.Images and frames – use only as much as it is necessary. In case you have to use images, use the ones which need the least space and download fast. If your webpage takes forever to load, you be sure your customer will take his/her business elsewhere.

5.Catch the spider – the search engines use spiders to analyze your website. Ensure that you give the spiders what pleases them. Use Meta tags that have been optimized with the key phrases in the page as well as the title.

Try out these simple SEO methods – and you will see what a great difference such tiny tweaking can bring to the popularity of your website!

Top Search Engine Placement – Marketing The F.A.T Way

2007-04-30T03:34:00.003-07:00

The major search engines, especially Google and Yahoo, in many ways control a vast amount of the internet. Search engines have become gig business and at first glance it might not seem so, but when you consider the sheer amounts of traffic search engines get, then Google's share price starts to make more sense. Search engine placement for marketing purposes is indeed a very smart way to market online.

In many ways the search engines controls and directs which websites will get the most traffic. Each search engine has their own 'secret weapon' which is their 'robot' – the algorithm that determines which sites will get high search engine placements. Although many people speculate as to what these robots are looking for, very few people actually know how these complicated algorithms determine which sites will get the best placements. When it comes to search engine placement marketing, the worse thing you can do is not to get sucked into 'the latest' tactic for getting high search engine placements.

Search engine placement marketing taps into a strategy that I call F.A.T which is an acronym that sums up why search engine placements are so effective as a marketing strategy. Here's what F.A.T stands for:

F = Free.
Search engine traffic is free.

A = Autopilot.
Once you are listed you will continue to get traffic without any more work or maintenance.

T = Targeted.
Traffic you get from search engines are highly targeted and this translates directly to higher sales and conversions on your website.

There simply isn't any better or more effective and efficient form of traffic than the search engines. The real challenge however with search engine placement marketing is in getting a top placement. Being stuck on page ten of Google's search results will bring you very little traffic. Most people give up after the second page of search results. You got to get yourself on at least page one or two of the search results to really tap into the power of F.A.T marketing.

So, how do you get yourself to the first two pages of Google’s search results? Well, several books have been written on the subject, but there are no hard and fast rules. The search engines are continuously engineering their algorithms to be more effective. Remember that the search engines provide a service and the better and more relevant their search results, the better their service. The better their service the more popular they are and the more money they make with advertising. When you do search engine placement marketing you got to keep one primary idea in the forefront: RELEVANCE.

If you want to rank well with the search engines you got to think like they do and that is to provide valuable and relevant information that real people (not just robots) are searching for. As a general rule, if people like it, Google will catch on and also like it. Although there are many strategies for getting top search engine rankings, not all of them are a good idea. Many 'black hat tricks' only lasts for a short while and often you will get your site banned when found out. To be highly effective at search engine placement marketing in the long term, you got to focus on highly relevant content that real people are actually looking and searching for.

If you look at the internet on a global scale then it really is still in it's infancy. Most of the third world are still deprived of this privilege. In the coming years the internet will only keep expanding and so will the search engines and their control over traffic on the internet. All your efforts on getting high search engine placement, marketing with the search engines and developing quality content will ensure your long term success.

When you market online, think F.A.T. Not only will this boost your current results, but it will ensure sustainability for your online business. Getting top search engines placements are tough, but well worth it and more often than not, your results will exceed your expectations. Search engine placement marketing is still the most effective way to consistently drive high volumes of targeted traffic to your website.

Various Steps For The Website Optimization

2007-04-30T03:34:00.001-07:00

1:-Keywords analysis:
There is a very first step in the website optimization is to collect the relevant keywords for your website that can define the services of your website, because the customer is just type some keywords that can full fill his requirements so that keywords must be in your meta tags and constants also so my means regarding keywords analysis is that the important keywords must be in your site and its pages. And one more thing is that you select less competitive keywords for your website in the first stage then you go some more competitive keywords because its an ongoing process you we needs to research everyday for the keywords and constants of our website.

2:- Deep Analysis of competition.
Regarding the competition analysis you need to search your targeted keywords in the search engine and see how many site come on the top ten and then try to understand their optimization strategy that how they set the meta tags, how easy to read or complex to understand constants they put in their website pages. You see every thing in their website and then make a plan of your site optimization, is they done interlinking of the pages, site map, XML site map, ROR file, Robots.txt file etc do a very deep analysis of your competitor's website and then you will get a very nice results.

3:- Search engine optimization Vs website promotion.
At this stage of complex web promotion the content of separate pages is optimized (quality page titles, meta description, keywords and other representative tags are created). The main page and other inner pages text is optimized taking into account the semantic kernel of the website in order to achieve the best quality of internal search engine ranking factors for entire web promotion succeed. At the same time works on the improvement of internal link structure and usability of the website structure just as the construction of your website link popularity for complex website promotion are kept.

If it's necessary we create new content for your website taking into consideration your personal wishes. Such content will be web promotion and search engines "friendly" - it will be adapted to the search algorithms which will result in your web site's high search engine placement on your target keywords.

4:- Work for some external factors.
At this stage of website promotion campaign works on non reciprocal and reciprocal link exchange with resources of close subject, submit your site in the directory, make some blogs, discuss in the forums, submit your site, site map, xml site map in the search engine. And if your site is very new and not indexing by the google, yahoo and other big search engine then you needs to take some paid services of the search engine.

5. Analysis of your all the previous work.
See your all the previous works on web promotion and seo stages (points 1-4), complex analysis of the websites, competitors both are very nice thing in this field. At this stage you needs to again review all the actions that you have done: and start again changes in the website.

6:- Cached and Index status of your website: After that you needs to check the indexing and cached status of your website, the most important things in the SEO is that your website should be index or chach every day means the search engine must be come on your site every day this is the most important thing in the search engine optimization because if your website has the good quality the the visitor and search engine will come on your site every day.

The Essential 2007 Code Optimization Tutorial For SEO

2007-04-25T04:58:00.002-07:00

Do you want to get the traffic you deserve flooding into your website? Code optimization is an essential component of the search engine optimization process and if you aren’t technically minded then it can be difficult to get your head round. This guide is meant for beginners and more advanced webmasters alike.

A shallow knowledge of HTML coding is useful however it is not necessary.

Optimizing your code can be done by simply opening your html document in a text editor and changing different parts as shown below. Follow these steps carefully and your code will become 100% search engine optimized are ready for promotion and link-building campaigns. The steps below assume you have chosen the keywords which you want to optimize the page code for. If you have not done that, go and do that now and return to this guide later.

HTML Code Optimization The optimization of your HTML code for search engines is vital. It is the base of your SEO campaign. It must be optimized in a number of ways in order to improve the relevance of a chosen keyword. Follow the advice below as closely as possible. The closer the better and the higher your rank will be. Remember: Keywords are the words people will use in search engines. Including a keyword in your site content (and optimizing your site) will cause your site to be returned as a search result. You can choose to optimise your page for a keyword or a keyphrase (a number of related words, eg: ‘free red hats'). Using a keyphrase is more advantageous (as discussed later) but for simplicity, I will refer to keywords AND keyphrases as just keywords. TIP: Try to optimize each page for just one keyword. This will stop each keyword competing against each other for weightings and you will rank higher for the chosen keyword. The TITLE Tag Location: just below the [head] tag ‘[title]Web Promotion, Affiliate Marketing, SEO[/title]' for example ([ and ] = <> as HTML disallowed in this article)

1. The title tag should not contain any of the words Google disregards. These are words like ‘and', ‘not', ‘a', ‘the', ‘about' etc which are too common for Google to take any notice of. Using these words will dilute the importance that your keyword is given in your title (if you put it in your title). These words are known as ‘stop' words. 2. Include your keyword in the title of your page. Including other words in your title that are not your chosen keyword/s will be detrimental to your ranking. This is because it makes your keyword seem less relevant to the title of the page. This relevance is known as ‘weight'. The more weight your keyword has in a certain criteria the better. 3. Don't include the name of your website in the title of your page: for example ‘Share The Wealth –affiliate marketing'. This is because it will dilute the prominence of your keyword (in this example ‘affiliate marketing'). It is tempting to include your site's name as it may look better, however it is not that important as people don't pay much attention to the title. The Meta tags Location: just below the title tag. Meta data appears as follows: [meta name="Description" content="Free articles and guides on affiliate marketing and SEO] [meta name="Keywords" content="Affiliate Marketing,SEO"]

1. This is where you specify your keywords: [meta name="Keywords" content="keyword1, keyword2, keyword3”]. Keep following the rule of having as few words as possible to increase the weight of your keyword.

2. Also, weight is given to how near your keyword is to the beginning of your keywords list. So you should try to have your most important keyword in the place of ‘keyword1' in the above example.

[meta name="Description" content="Free articles and guides on affiliate marketing and SEO"] 1. The above line is where the description, shown in google results, in written. It goes after content=”. Do not worry about keyword weighting in here as search engines do not take this into consideration anymore.

The BODY of your HTML

Once you have written the content of your page, you can begin SEO on it. Complete the page ready for publishing and then apply the following rules to it to ensure its optimized 100% for the top search engines.

1. Your keyword should appear in bold at least once on your page. This will show the search engines that the word, your keyword, is important to the subject of your page and so must be relevant to the keyword search performed by the search engine user.

2. Your keyword should have a weight of 2% on your page. This is the ideal percentage as if it is too high a search engine may penalize your page for spamming. Spamming is a term used to describe the action of webmasters that trick search engine page ranking systems (SEPRS) into thinking they are relevant in order to get a high ranking. These pages will not usually be relevant at all and simply ‘‘cash In'' selling advertising space with the high traffic they receive. Spamming is increasingly becoming a thing of the past as the search engine page ranking algorithms become more sophisticated. To work out the percentage weight your keyword has, visit www.live-keyword-analysis.com

3. Use heading tags ( [h1]heading[/h1] etc) and put your keyword into the heading. Again the usual weighting rules exist. Have your keyword as close to the beginning of the heading and have as few other words in the heading. Position this heading as close to the top of your page as you can for increased relevance.

4. Put your keyword in up to three of the alt attributes for images and include it in one of the first three alt image attributes in your code. Alt image attributes are the alt tags given to images in your code which can be seen if the image fails to load. These are great for hosting your keyword as the users cannot usually see them. Don't spam though, stick to three alt tags. Alt tags are used as follows: [img src="imagename.gif" alt="alt-text-here" width="image-width" height="image-height"]

5. Keep your page content between 100 and 1400 words. This is for a number of reasons, including the size of Google's page cache (amount of data from a page Google stores). If you have too much content, you could try splitting the page into two separate pages and perhaps having a ‘page 2' link at the bottom of the content.

6. Your keyword should appear at the beginning of your content and at the end (The first and last 50 words)

Code Optimization Checklist
• No stop words in your title tag
• Keyword included in title
• Website name not included in title
• Keyword in meta keywords list
• Keyword placed as close to the beginning of the meta keywords list as possible
• Keyword appears in bold at least once in the content
• Keyword has a 2% weight
• Keyword is in the first heading tag and is at the top of the page content
• Keyword is in the first 50 words and last 50 words of the page
• Page content is between 100 and 1400 words
• Keyword is in one of the first three alt image attributes and is in three of them in total Tips and Advice
• Try to optimize each page for just one keyword. This will stop each keyword competing against each other for weightings and prominence and you will rank higher for the chosen keyword.
• Not every page of your site will be able to be optimized for every criterion. Don't worry; just try to hit each criteria as best you can. Sometimes you won't be able to achieve a content size of above 100 words: on a contacts page for example. Issues like this are of little importance as not every page will have a particular need for perfect optimization, because surfers will find contact information from a link shown on the home page.
• Constantly check your competition. You may not feel it is possible to get onto the first page on Google for a certain keyword/phrase. Choose a less contested keyword: visit one of the two websites described below.

Duplicate Content – Explaining Google's Rules

2007-04-25T04:58:00.001-07:00

Google's duplicate content penalties can feel like strict punishment for web-sites that get attacked. Most marketers are aware of these actions and run their sites accordingly. However, what is not well-known among SEO circles is what actually constitutes “duplicate content” and how domain owners can be certain that their web sites are in compliance. A web site owners worst nightmare is finding out the hard way that their search ranking has been lowered and that they’ve been removed from Google’s index altogether.

You can make sure you're on the right side of Google's rules by understanding the idea of “duplicate content” and make sure that you’re not in violation of Google’s policies.

First, you should know that Google’s grounds for punishing those with duplicate content are actually quite reasonable. The fact is, Google wants to avoid search results pages overwhelmed by websites with the same or similar content, and with good reason; duplicate information makes it difficult for searches to find what they’re looking for.

Google created a new patented “fingerprinting” technology to prevent the appearance of duplicate content on different websites. By recording an initial “fingerprint” of a site, Google can periodically compare the “fingerprints” of various sites in a database and lower the value of sites with content copies.

There are several examples of web sites and web site content that can be considered duplicate and, surprisingly, you’ll find that most are unrelated to spam. Here are just a few:

PLR Content: The most common case penalized by Google’s duplicate content policy is using PLR articles or other free articles in exchange for a link.

Mirrored Sites: It’s quite common to “mirror” a site in order to balance the amount traffic on the server and enable sites to divide hits received between two identical sites. This practice is effective in balancing server load and eliminating downtime in loading, but the site copies are considered duplicate content.

Let’s say you own the .com, .net, and .org versions of your URL or versions with common misspellings of your URL. Rather than only redirecting traffic to a single URL, it may be wise to include some of your content, a newsletter, or free downloads on these pages.

Domain Sub-Niches: If you have a sub-niched site, you should use subsets of keyworded content. For example, if you write articles on personal finance for single moms, you may want to leverage your articles by creating sites targeted to special topics, such as “single-moms-savings-tips.com” and “single-moms-debt-help-tips.com.”

Dynamically Generated Content and/or Templates: The use of RSS feeds from blogs and news/article syndicates amount to a greater amount of duplicate content on web sites. Dynamically generated templates in Content Management Systems (CMS) or shopping carts may also register as duplicate content. NOTE: This example applies only to feeds that display as static HTML. If you’re using a javascript feed to attract visitors, it can’t help your SEO, but it also can’t trigger a duplicate content flag, since Google’s bots can’t read it anyway.

Doorway Pages, Cloaked Pages, “Bombs,” and Automated Directory Pages: Regardless of how promising this new technology may sound, Google is quickly catching up and examining every new script and tool. Thus, these pages should not be used for any reason other than market testing, seeking out quick-leads, or as means of driving temporary traffic through “throw-away URLS.” It’s critical that value-added content and customization be incorporated on web sites with such tools.

Site Navigation Elements and Other “Content”: It’s important to understand the broad definition of content by which Google evaluates web sites. The arrangement of items on your page, your internal link wording and structure, outgoing links and anchor text, lead capture forms, graphics, product descriptions, prices, merchant-provided sales copy and articles, and other on-page variables all fall under the category of “content.” Each element can be singled out for violation of duplicate content rules.

Theft: Theft also applies to more than simply written material on your site. If your page designs, links, or even entire website show up elsewhere, Google may lower you in the rankings or remove you from its index totally.

Now that you have a good grasp on the idea of what consists of duplicate content it's time to make sure you are not in violation of Google’s policies. The Google administration always seems to catch on to things that are being done to try to “fool” them. It's always a better idea to stay with white-hat procedures when you're working with something as important as your reputation.

Increase Your Traffic with a Redesign

2007-04-25T04:57:00.002-07:00

We recently were contacted by Exito Travel, a company based in Ft. Collins, Colorado that provides travel deals for passengers going to South and Central America. They needed our expertise in design, usability and search engine optimization. Their current site needed some help in these three areas. The goals for the project were to:

• Redesign with a cleaner, more modern look and feel that appeals to their target audience. Use design to drive user actions like performing a flight search, or calling Exito.
• Increase leads by improving the lead generating forms.
• Create a central navigational system that considers key user paths.
• Rewrite the code in order to increase organic search engine ranking.

All of these goals supported increasing site traffic, page views, time spent on the site, and of course leads and bookings.

Here's what we did:

Design
When redesigning a site, Fusionbox always considers the following rules:

• What is the first thing you want a user to do when on your site? How will the design support this critical user action?
• What is the second thing you want a user to do on your site? What are the key user paths and how are we going to make them as efficient and readily available as possible?
• How will we tackle the 30 Second Rule? (Showing users who you are, what you do, and what the user should do next within 30 seconds.)
• How are we going to most effectively use prime real estate - the area of the site above the fold in a user's browser?
• What design look and feel supports the brand and appeals to the target audience?

For Exito Travel, the first thing they wanted users to do was pick up the phone and call them. The second action was to do a flight search. With these key actions in mind, we made the phone number much more visible and placed the flight search tool at the top right of the page where users expect to perform an action (this is according to eyetracking studies).

We tackled the 30 second rule simply by keeping the logo at the top left of the page where the eye goes first, and creating calls-to-action that underscore what Exito does and what the user should do. For example: Book a Flight, Search Group Flights, and Search Flights to Mexico. This way users knew exactly who Exito was, and what option they should use that fit their needs.

In the previous design, important calls-to-action were placed below the fold in 1024x768 meaning most users would completely miss them. This most certainly meant lost leads. We made the most of the real estate above the fold by moving up these important calls-to-action that support key user paths.

The current design had some great elements, and then some that weren't necessarily working toward an end goal. We redesigned to appeal to a young target audience (20-40) by using modern colors, rounded, contemporary, 2.0 looking shapes, and removing stock illustrations

Usability
Users complained of "getting lost" and not knowing how to get back. To improve usability, we created a central top navigational system that was missing from the previous site so users could navigate around to different sections without getting lost. We also added a breadcrumb trail to help users orient themselves on the site. We developed a left nav that was very clear and also managed to use keywords, i.e., Flights to Mexico, Belize Tours, etc.

We put the all important Booking Tool on every page in the same place so users could take advantage of booking from anywhere on the site. This way, users could be reading about a Tour in Guatemala, and then book that tour immediately on the same page. This increased bookings dramatically.

Before the redesign, the lead generation forms were lengthy and bulking. We recreated the forms and eliminated unnecessary information from the tools. Fields like Mr./Ms./Mrs, Fax Number and auto filling information whenever possible. We also presented the information in the form in steps rather than one long form that is intimidating to users.

To Whom I Give My Website Optimization Projects

2007-04-25T04:57:00.001-07:00

In the today's scenario search engine optimization is the basic business of every IT Company in the world. A person who is thinking to start an IT business get some SEO projects very easily because in the globalization era every product selling and service provider company needs to capture a part of the global market. For this he is agree to spend money and efforts and get its result with in few days. Because website optimization is a little bit technical process and anyone can do it very well if he has some idea about the search engine and html but how to maintain your site on the top position its very tedious task for this you needs the services from a professional seo company because they can maintain your site on the top till they will work because this is an ongoing process if you break once then next time you will start from the begging.

I want to explain some basic points from this article that there are lot of companies who offers there services like guaranteed search engine optimization, search engine marketing, top ten ranking in the yahoo MSN and google, affordable PPC advertisements etc etc so needs to make you aware about these type of the site and company.

For this there is very simple technique you can use to judge the value of this type of company, first of all you see that is this service providing company has good placement on the big search engine or not, my indication regarding the big search engine is google, yahoo and MSN, because if they can maintain their ranking good in the search engines then they can do the same for you. Because according to my experience no one can give you guarantee that he put your site on the top position all the time, may be they can place your site in the top ten its an another task so you need to check the ethical value of the service provider company.

Once i was searching on the net from the keyword “Offshore SEO Company” and find lots of site those are offering the SEO services and every one is better then other then how can i judge that this one company is better and full fill my requirement can you tell me which one? No one can do this tedious job because every one is performing good but which one? is providing good services, you can know this by the portfolio of that company and make a contact with the company and ask for your requirement, after this they will give you more clear approach about their work and vision and also provide you list of some companies for which they have done the SEO services.

There are several way to judge the work quality of a company and if you satisfies by there conversation then you give him a small project if they complete it with accuracy then give him a big task. If their work is result oriented then there is no need to go away from this company because one company can full fill your all the requirement and if once you become a permanent costumer of any company then they will help you due to their brand name and market reputation. And always keep in mind some good business trick that is if a company offering flexible business term, easy communication with their clients, send you quick quote, and have multiple payments modes then you needs to check it once. there are some quality so they are so much confident about all.

Search Engine Ranking - Does A Google SiteMap May Increase Your Search Engine Ranking?

2007-04-25T04:56:00.000-07:00

Search engine ranking is perhaps the most vital element that determines the success of a website. Some of the key ingredients essential for top search engine ranking are search engine optimization, content-rich articles, and high quality back links.

You can find a lot of search engines, among which the most preferred one is Google, as it gets the maximum number of search engine visitors. For this reason, majority of the website owners would like to rank their site at the top in Google. Google provides numerous free tools to assist you with your search engine optimization works.

All you have to do in order to make use of this facility is to set up an account with Google by login into the web page www.google.com/webmasters, through which you will get necessary guidelines on design, content, and other prominent mechanics of the website. When your website is ready, submit its URL at http://www.google.com/addurl.html.

Prominent among the Google tools or programs for search engine optimization is Google sitemap. Rather than Google finally coming to the page, this program allows website owners to push their websites or web pages to get crawled by Google. Google sitemap mostly employs XML (Extensible Markup Language) technology to crawl.

It can be easily created with the help of Google sitemap generators. It is recommended to update your sitemap each and every time you make changes to your website.

Among the prime benefits derived from Google sitemap are:

·It enables websites to get listed as well as updated.

·It allows websites to get easily noticed by online surfers.

·Any change made to the website coupled with Google sitemap is instantly picked up by Google.

·It allows keep online information up to date for surfers.

Although a Google sitemap is not a guaranteed technique to increase search engine ranking, it is considered a positive move in acquiring high ranking among the internet’s top search engine results, apart from gaining high visibility among surfers. Above all, this program does not require any expensive SEO tools to enhance search engine rankings.

Search Engine Marketing (SEM) - Authority Websites

2007-04-23T04:30:00.001-07:00

Search engines have become wiser and have put more scrutiny upon deciding page ranking and which websites are really important. Spending time on traditional on-page optimization and link building strategies will not get you that top ranking in Google. Don't get me wrong, you cannot stop doing these tasks, however, the marketing of your website will need to include a variety of other methods if you want to get top rankings. Search engines are looking for clean quality content to provide to their users and we will see the search engine market become more competitive.

Traditional search engine optimization will continue to be part of your efforts excepting for our methodology will change. You will continue to work on link exchanges, keywords, descriptions, titles, headlines, image alt descriptions, comments, and content. Now you will focus your keywords to be very specific and watch you density. Your descriptions will not be as long, but concentrate on more concise descriptions. You will want to watch your HTML coding to make the process easier for the search engine spiders. Try using fewer tables and consider Cascading Style Sheets. The link exchanges will have to be more specific to your industry and with websites that are authoritative in nature.

Authoritative websites is the direction to consider for 2006. Not only making your website an authority for your target market, but to exchange links with other websites that are authoritative for that same target market. What are authoritative websites to link with? Basically there are is a relatively small set of websites that can be trusted as authority, or expert websites. Government sites, university websites, well-recognized news sources, and recognized industry news sources are all examples of sites that can be considered as "expert" websites. These sites, unlike the average website on the Internet, can be trusted to "link honestly".

Take the following example. I recently went to Google, MSN and Yahoo and searched on the term "internet marketing consultants" and the result on the first page for all three search engines were somewhat surprising. Instead of finding a page full of businesses that provide internet marketing services over 75% of the results were websites that were resources for internet marketing. A careful review of each of these websites revealed all of them to be content rich in their field of internet marketing. They did not provide any services other than information for others to use about internet marketing. For the purpose of this writing these results indicate (1) that making your site an authority for your field and industry is very important to achieve top ranking, and (2) you want to seek out these types of websites to create inbound links if possible and feasible. Otherwise engage a reciprocal link exchange.

Getting noticed by authority websites can be difficult, but with some creativity it can be done. If you make your business newsworthy, news outlets within your industry and without will pickup your news story and hopefully link over to your website. Traditional marketing and public relations requires you to make your company known as an authority within your industry. You should want your clients to know that you are the best source for whatever it is you sell, and that they should trust you. You gain this trust by being visible, not just through your website, but through the websites of other trusted sources such as news outlets. These types of marketing methods would include engaging in public relations, networking, attending trade shows, and talking to news sources both within your industry and outside of your industry.

Your website is a business. No different than a retail brick-and-mortar store you will spend as much time working your website as a regular any regular business. Do not believe that the comfort of your home or that you are working with computers and technology you are able to run your business any easier. The only thing that has changed is the venue, everything else is the same. You have to provide quality content, engage in activities that make your website known, and make your website the absolute best in your target market.

Realtors, Get Your Next Listing Using a Geo Targeted Google Ad campaign.

2007-04-23T04:29:00.004-07:00

Local buyers and sellers are actively searching for Realtors on the Internet. Studies show that these potential customers are serious when searching on the internet for real estate services. The problem is as a local Realtor you have to figure out how to get these customers to your real estate website, and you have to do it without breaking the bank.

Did you know that 74% of U.S. households use the Internet as an information source when shopping locally. 45% of local searchers have the intent of doing business locally. The percentage of people who use yellow page advertising decreased from 75% to 62% last year. If you're one of the many Realtors who have a yellow page ad, it's time to consider buying a smaller ad and shifting your marketing dollars to the Internet.

As a local Realtor, it's hard to ignore these facts. If you want to compete in your local real estate market you must have an internet presence where your customers are searching. Google's local, or "geo targeted' pay per click marketing can put your real estate website on the first page of Google where your future customers are searching.

In a professionally created Google pay per click advertising campaign keyword phrases are used to trigger your ads when someone searches using that phrase. An example of a keyword phrase that might be used would be "real estate in Glens Falls". When someone types in this keyword phrase your ad, pointing to your real estate website, would be displayed. Chances are you will also see ads for your competitors on the same page. The cost per click for ad positioning on this page may be somewhat competitive.

Now, this is where "geo targeting" comes in to play. A professional pay per click marketer would never use the phrase "real estate" for your pay per click campaign. Imagine all the people on the internet that type in "real estate" everyday. Your ad would show thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of times per day to people who are not searching for real estate in your area. Some of them will click on your ad costing you money.

However, when implementing a "geo targeted" pay per click advertising campaign, you can use a general keyword like "real estate". It has also been my experience that the cost for that same click is much lower in a "geo targeted' campaign.

Here's why. When setting up your "geo targeted" campaign I use your physical address. Then I tell Google what the 'search radius" for this campaign will be. You can go out 5 miles, ten miles, or 100 miles. You decide how far you would travel from your location to do business. It's entirely up to you. Google will then serve your ad only to searchers within that "search radius". Now for the best part, your competition did not bid on the keywords "real estate", he is bidding on "real estate in Glens Falls". He does not have a separate "geo targeted' campaign set up. So, there is a lot less competition in your "geo targeted" advertising campaign, hence, you pay less per click. In fact you pay a lot less. My Realtor customers save about 50% per click as opposed to all the other pay per click campaigns out there.

They also gobble up lots of local business right in their back yard. So, how do you promote your real estate website? Remember, real estate agents will not be replaced by technology, they will be replaced by the agents who use technology to their advantage.

How To REALLY Use Google Part One

2007-04-23T04:29:00.003-07:00

In a matter of a couple of short years, the Google.com search engine has become the world's favorite way to find what they're looking for online.
Now, most of you who are reading this are saying "Duh", but let me ask you this: Do you REALLY know how to use Google and get the most out of this incredible search technology?

Hopefully, these tips will help you find EXACTLY what you want the next time you head on over to "Google Land" and start searching.

To start, unlike most search engines, Google does not care if your search term is in UPPER or lower case. In fact, it can even be MiXeD case and the search results will be identical no matter how you type in your term.

The Google GOLDEN Rule: BE SPECIFIC!

When using the Google search engine, you must be specific in what you ask and HOW you ask it to get the results you desire.

How do you be specific?

Let's say you are interested in finding out more about the field of Spyware Removal. To search for that exact phrase you put "quotes" around the phrase like this: "spyware removal". This forces Google to cough up search results with those exact words in that specific order, only.

If you didn't use quotes and just typed in spyware removal, you would get results that included the words: spyware and removal mixed in with the MORE SPECIFIC results of the precise phrase "spyware removal".

(BTW.......for those of you who are used to searching by putting the word "and" between all your search words, with Google, it's not necessary. Google automatically "thinks" like that by default.)

You can use the "or" feature on Google. For example: "spyware removal program" or "spyware removal software" and you will get combined results for both exact phrases. The word "or" can be replaced with the "pipe" ( | ) symbol (the symbol above the "\" forward slash on your keyboard) to achieve the same results.

Now, let's say you want to search for articles written about the subject of Spyware Removal. You can use the Google "require" feature and have a specific word included in the search just by adding a "+" sign in front of the keyword you want included.. For example you would type: "spyware removal" +articles and the results would give you articles about Spyware Removal.

You can also "exclude" a certain word from your searches by using the "-" (minus sign) like: "spyware removal" -commercial which would give results about Spyware Removal excluding "commercial".

Whenever you can, try to combine these three symbols (quotes, plus and minus signs) into a single search to give you even more targeted results.

Now, go practice on Google using these simple tips and meet us back here next time for Part Two when we offer tips about some of the more "advanced" and "juicy" features you can implement to get the most out of your searches On the world's most frequently used search engine: Google.com

Cost Effective Marketing With Articles

2007-04-23T04:29:00.001-07:00

There are many ways to market your website, some free some very expensive. The use of articles to promote your website is one of the best long term strategies to build highly targeted traffic. As in all marketing you have to consider its cost, return on investment, and effect on traffic and impact on your business. This report will look at where marketing with article falls in these areas.

If you have done any research on the internet as part of a website promotion project you will have looked at the key word searches done through Overture and other search engines. From this research you will have come across a number of websites with high quality key word rich content. This will be in the form of syndicated articles.

The major search engines rate quality content highly when accessing a website in respect of page rank. Because of this webmasters all over the internet are after fresh unique content for their websites. This content is syndicated, distributed, by sites such as Article Maker . The demand for fresh content is massive.

Article marketing is a highly cost effective method of marketing. There are many article directories that will allow you to post a limited number of articles for free; by subscribing to a directory you can post an unlimited number. If submit articles every day the costs of this method of marketing almost zero.

Content is King, how often have I heard that? Well its true and with the high level of demand from website owners of new relevant content a well written articles can make its way on to thousands of websites. With the use of a well written resource box your website start receiving a high volume of targeted traffic.

There is another benefit to using articles as a method of marketing. With your website URL in the resource box it will not be long before the major search engine spiders are crawling your site; very quickly your site is indexed and shown by Yahoo, Google MSN etc. In addition to this if your article is shown on thousands of websites these backlinks go along way to improving your page rank.

As Internet marketers we all are looking to increase the conversion rate, visitors in to customers, a number of well-written articles can do this. If your name is associated with good well written content then your reputation as a person who knows what they are talking about is greatly improved. This reputation alone can greatly increase your conversion rates.

Using well-written unique content articles is a highly effective and cost effective method of marketing. Its power to promote a website is such that it has become a major weapon in an Internet marketers arsenal. This report has looked at the benefits of using articles to market your websites. What is clear this is a marketing tool you should employ what ever products or business you are promoting.

Website Traffic Tricks To Avoid

2007-04-23T04:28:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for quality website traffic for your site, there are a lot of techniques you can think of to make that happen.

However, you have to be aware that there are also website traffic experts out there that are just waiting to pounce on you, and will hinder you from achieving success out of something you have worked so hard for.

Things to know and avoid so your time, effort and money will not be sucked down the drain.

1. Check out sites that are offering free software or free submissions before you start setting up a budget for advertising. Not all paid sites are better than free ones. Take note that there are other sites that are offering reliable and useful free services.

If you choose free sites, you will have an advantage on what your business will result to without having to pay anything for it. Try to incorporate into your site what you have gotten and monitor if they will be effective to your website traffic or not. This will serve as your future reference.

2. Do not shed out some cash on information that you could have gotten for free. There are many websites you can check out that gives all the information with no charge. These websites are posting valuable things like techniques and tips that will prove helpful in increasing your website traffic.

3. Never believe in promises that seem to good to be true. It might turn out to be just that. For sure, you will encounter persons that tell you that they are the best and that they can bring a bunch of website traffic to your site.

It would be best to check out their credentials first before going on ahead. Do some research about these people and their site. Remember that promises are not often made into reality. See beyond the words.

4. Stop what works poorly and do more of what works well. If you have done something that somehow increased your website traffic, hold on to that and expound. But if you notice that it is not doing what it is supposed to do, dispose of it immediately.

There are a lot of software and technique that you can use that will prove far more effective. Do not try to hold on to something that does not give any good results to your site. They are just a waste of your time.

5. Learn to do everything yourself, and fast. When you have learned and understood the intricacies of website traffic, you will not need other peoples expertise anymore.

Having a knowledge of how things work will make it difficult for others to make the most of you. You will not be easily talked into something you might regret later on. Research over the Internet about the tools and strategies you can use to increase your website traffic. In addition, try to research about things that are unimportant and you do not need necessary need. These things can save you a lot of money too.

6. Make the most out of the money you are spending. When you are into the success of your website, you would not think twice about spending every money you have just to make everything work.

But then, you have to be aware that there are a lot of schemers out there wanting to get hold of you hard-earned money. Be wary of who you are giving it out to.

7. Your website. The look and feel of your site is one determining factor on the number of website traffic you will be getting. A professional looking site with easy access to everything will attract more traffic than a site that people cannot find easily or is too cluttered.

8. Have someone review your website. Ask them to give you an honest assessment about how your site appears to them. Negative comments are more helpful than positive ones because these will help you change what should be changed.

9. Check out the people offering you their services. Do not fall prey to some pretentious individuals that do not really care about you and your website traffic. They are unto something that will benefit them more than you.

Be on the lookout for this kind of person.

Search Engine Optimisation UK Or USA - How Do Your Choose Your SEO Company?

2007-04-20T02:55:00.001-07:00

A top website is of no benefit if it cannot be found. So how do you choose a great search optimisation company that isn't going to rob you blind? How are you to know if they're doing a good job?

When searching for search engine optimisation services, consider…UK or USA company?....new company or established?....DIY or professional? There are many choices to consider when outsourcing the SEO for your site.

Although many optimizers have stretched the limits of the term "professional operation", SEO is a legitimate business practice. Deciphering the ever changing Google algorithms can be overwhelming, so it makes sense to employ the services of a search engine optimization company.

White Hat And Black Hat - What's The Big Deal?

White hat SEO conforms to accepted search engine guidelines and does not use deception to get higher rankings. Content is king for the whites who will concentrate on making your content easily accessible rather than trying to pull one over on the system.

This has long term stickiness because it always references good content. After all it doesn't matter if you jump from 2 hits to 3429 hits a day when your site has useless content as no one will come back.

It's a fact that return visitors are more likely to make a purchase than first timers so make sure you're providing quality information.

While not illegal, black hat SEO is sneaky and deceptive and break the search engine's Terms Of Service (TOS). No matter what you read, you will be caught eventually and your site will be removed from the search engine results pages (SERPS) and quickly ruin all your hard work. It does not make for a long term business strategy.

Black hat techniques include having keywords that are hidden, or written with the same colour as the background, cloaking links, redirecting from a search engine friendly page to a different one for the reader, and much worse.

These practices are not just the preserve of the one-man-band operating SEO out of the basement. In February 2006, Ricoh Germany and BMW Germany were removed from Google for using deceptive practices.

Does Search Engine Optimisation Really Work?

There is no doubt, SEO works wonders when done properly. It's important, when you're looking for your search company, to apply common sense, just as you would with other decisions you make.

Here are a few tips to get you on your way.

1. Hire a company before you start creating your web site. They can optimise your menu titles and site map before you even get any content posted. It is easier to tweak SEO rather than changing everything continually

2. Check their references. Ask the company to provide before and after evidence, including screenshots, for the work they've done. Then you will see if they really know the subject

3. Try to choose someone in your own country. Search engines react positively to local spelling and links. UK links to your site will hold more weight than US or European links. A local business will have better knowledge of local markets anyway

4. When interviewing an optimiser, suggest a black hat technique to them and see what they say. If you're told its one of the things they do, end the interview. If they explain why that method is a bit dodgy, that's perfect

5. Be prepared to pay for good service. A good rule of thumb for all web work is that you get what you pay for. If you want it cheap, chances are, you'll get cheap, shoddy work

Search Engines Like the High Street

2007-04-20T02:54:00.001-07:00

Search engine optimization is confusing to many business owners. In many ways, the importance of high ranking web pages in search engines is similar to the importance of a premium position in the high street for a retail shop. Retailers well understand the benefits of paying some premium to be well placed in the street but do they have a similar understanding of the value of premium search engine rankings? It is unlikely. How can SEO practitioners help to build this understanding?

In the bricks and mortar world, it is well understood that a premium location in the high street benefits from 'passing trade'. People passing by a shop will gaze through the window and, depending upon the effectiveness of the window dressing, might be enticed to visit even though they had not originally intended to do so. Most of these people are on their way somewhere planned or are just 'browsing' for a little recreational activity. Either way, they can be enticed to enter the shop and when they do, there is always the prospect of a sale.

Similarly on the internet, a search for something specific might result in a list of 'most relevant' content being presented. All of the top positions in the resulting list have been paid for to some extent. Listings in the pay per click advertising are competing through a bidding system for premium locations on the page and those websites prominent in organic search results have typically spent some time, effort and money to be there. Like the bricks and mortar world, these listings present opportunities to entice the visitor to click through to the website; and once there have the potential to spend.

My research in recent years shows two important trends in online behavior; as people become more familiar with the internet, so they are more likely to buy online and secondly, perhaps as a consequence, the proportion of sales is shifting from traditional channels to the internet. In some industries, there is more business conducted online than in other channels. Some businesses have been quick to recognize this and have responded rapidly by establishing a strong presence in search engines. Others though are slower to react and are losing business.

The high street analogy with search engine optimization is useful because it helps to explain the online phenomenon. Search engine optimization is money well spent (assuming that the money is directed to effective SEO activity) and unlike premium retail positions, is not yet affordable only for large companies. Smaller companies have every opportunity to position well in the search engines and reap significant rewards.

Business does not yet understand the online world and the science of search engine optimization or search engine advertising. By using analogies that relate to the offline world, we as SEO practitioners can help to grow that understanding.

Tips On Achieving A High Search Engine Ranking On The Google Search Engine

2007-04-20T02:53:00.002-07:00

Google optimisation is essential to help gain valuable traffic from the web as Google holds the largest share of the search market in many countries, either through its own site or through partners that use its search results. Getting a high ranking on this tool can therefore be worth more traffic than all the other search tools put together.

Not surprisingly, Google optimisation is becoming increasingly competitive as more and more companies realise the importance of getting a high ranking here, but it is also one of the most 'user-friendly' search engines to work with! Google updates frequently, deep indexes many pages from a website, and is also good at ignoring sites that try to 'spam' the listings through the use of unscrupulous techniques.

Submitting a site to Google.
It is free to get your site listed on Google and, as it conducts regular updates, it can take anything from several days to several months for a new site to appear, depending on the links to a site and the structure in place.

Google provides an online submission form where the URL of a site can be submitted, but it can often be better to get a site linked from an existing domain on Google, so that the Googlebot spider will find the site through its travels around the web.

Google will deep index a website, either on the first visit or after several updates, including pages within a frame. It will also index PDF documents hosted on a site.

Factors to consider for a high search engine ranking on Google.

Like most search engines, Google will use the content on a website to determine the relevant search term relevance, but it was also the first search tool to use external factors as a key element, thus adding an element that would be harder for spammers to manipulate. This can make it hard for new websites to establish high ranking positions immediately, but it can also create very reliable and relevant results.

Factors to consider to achieve a high ranking include:

* Keywords used within the Title tag
* Page content, position and emphasis of keywords
* The 'theme' of the site, including the number of pages indexed and the use of keywords throughout
* Having a site listed on the Open Directory with a keyword relevant description
* The number of inbound hyperlinks from other relevant and quality websites

Search Engine Ranking - Learn 7 Powerful Secrets To Boost Your Search Engine Ranking

2007-04-20T02:53:00.001-07:00

Search engine rankings depend upon a variety of factors, even though the search and ranking algorithms of popular search engines change frequently. In this article, we will see 7 powerful secrets to boost your search engine ranking, which when taken together amounts to what is called SEO or search engine optimization.

To begin with, the most important aspect that eventually decides search engine rankings is the content of the webpage. Search engines always prefer simple, well organized, and relevant web pages. So, if your website is to the point and is easily navigable, think you have cleared the first hurdle successfully.

Secondly, choose the keywords judiciously. For best search engine results, the keyword density in a webpage must be in the range 5-7%. However, it must also be kept in mind that it will be counterproductive if to use too many keywords in a webpage. In general, keyword densities above 8% are a negative. Keywords in title tag, links, and text formatting are also crucial for effective SEO.

Populating the Meta tags efficiently is another way to improve a website’s search engine ranking. The keyword Meta tag must contain relevant keywords, separated by comas, while the description Meta tag should be populated with a short and apt description about the website. Here also, the optimal usage of text is very important, and overdoing with it could actually invite more harm than any good.

This is something not many people pay attention to – the number of pages in a website. More the number of pages, the better will be its search engine ranking. Also, keywords in the page name and navigation menus boost the page rankings. Finally, if there are more than 24 pages in a website, try putting all the pages in the root directory itself. Search engines virtually avoid subdirectories while indexing.

Make it a point to add your websites to popular web directories. You could get high quality inbound links in this process. Remember, search engines view inbound links from directories as votes of confidence to your website.

Search engine ranking also hinges a lot on avoiding certain SEO flaws. One such common mistake is the use of graphic headers. Not only that search engines can’t read it, but it also occupies the crucial top portion of a website, where actually most of the keywords must ideally come. Graphic navigation menus also fall in the same category, and hence must be preferably avoided in web designing.

Finally, avoid all sorts of site navigation scripts. Search engines cannot execute scripts. Also, never ever try to use hidden texts in images, nor do use redirects.

To Your Success!

Do You Need SEO or SEM?

2007-04-20T02:52:00.000-07:00

A lot of people offer what they call SEO or Search Engine Optimization. The definition of what SEO entails varies from company to company. Some offer submission to directories or search engines as SEO. Some offer website content updates and meta tag updates. I think we should use a term that addresses the real goals of what most people think SEO addresses; SEM or Search Engine Marketing.

Search Engine Marketing is really what most people want when they ask for SEO. SEO is just one of the methods that makes up SEM. SEM is a combination of marketing methods that are designed to make a website more visible to search engines.

Several of the methods used in SEM are as follows: Search Engine Optimization, Link Building, Directory Submission, Article Creation, Press Releases and Blogs.

Search Engine Optimization is creating a website or website page that is easy for the search engines to navigate and has content that will rank well for a particular term. This includes updating title tags, description tags, keyword tags and page content. It also means making sure that the search engines can navigate your site using the links in the page. Search engine robots don't activate JavaScript; therefore, if your links are being inserted using JavaScript the robots will not see them.

Link Building is generating links from other websites to the website in question. But, the goal should be getting quality links not just a high number of links. The search engines will give more weight to links from sites in the same industry as the site being linked to. The bottom line is that if you would not use a site then you shouldn't link to it or request links from it.

Directory Submission is filling out the information needed to be included in a particular directory. Like links, not are directories are created equally. Do a little research and find the most respected directories and go after them.

Article Creation is the art of creating articles that pertain to the industry of the website that is being optimized and getting those articles posted in article sites or on other websites.

Press Releases are created to publish information about a company to the public. It might be a new product or new service. The goal is to get the information in the hands of the public and on Press Release website that are frequented by search engines.

Blogs provide content to websites without needing to be as formal as the main website. Content is still king with the search engines. The more quality, pertinent content a site has the better. Also most blog software is setup to provide RSS feeds which is additional exposure.

It takes a combination of all of the above to properly market a website to the search engines. So, don’t ask if someone can provide you SEO, ask them if they can provide SEM.

Learn About Search Engine Marketing

2007-04-18T06:07:00.001-07:00

Which Search Engine Marketing Tool Is The Best For You?

You created a website for your business and filled it with a lot of useful information. Great! Now you must get your website recognized and popularized on the World Wide Web index. In doing so you have three major options, they are: Organic search optimization, Paid Inclusions and Pay-Per-Click. These three web-marketing tools are a great way to get started and get identified. So you may ask, what exactly are these three Search Engine Marketing tools?

Organic Search Engine

If you like free, then Organic Search Engine Marketing is for you. Organics are found on the left side of the page and are ranked by keyword results. For example, if you search Google for ice cream the links that appear on the page are those with the keyword “ice cream” on the page a high number of times. Also, if a page has internal links with the keyword those will be included in the ranking.

Search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Dogpile are constantly changing their algorithms. These are specialized computing data structures or recipes that find the best websites that represent the keywords a user searches for. Other common names for algorithms are crawler or spider.

Organic Search Engines are the most trusted marketing search engine tool. This is because they are free and businesses are not influencing the search results by buying a spot. Organic results also portray a level of importance when the top 10 results appear.

Paid Inclusion

If you are willing to pay for a spot then paid inclusions are for you. These work as such: you pay money for a site indexed in the search engine, which is organized in a priority queue or organized sequence. Your link stays indexed as long as your pay for the subscription. This does not promise a particular ranking.

As stated above these are not as credible as the organic search results, but they do get your page, name, and material out on the results pages.

How To Suck At SEO

2007-04-18T06:06:00.002-07:00

Here are a few tips to help a truly great site become even better.

1. The Latest Grey-hat Wheeze.

Link farms, scraping, fake directories; whatever it is, get in there! If a newbie webmaster forum is buzzing about it, that's the time to take it up. Put it on your main breadwinner, and wait for the hits to come in.

2. Over-optimisation.

Give the search engines what they want. Make damn sure they know what the page is about. Seven word image names, ten word ALT tags, hidden text, three H1 tags, that'll tell the b**tards. Top of Google's first page for you. Your clients swoon at your mAd skILLz. Respec'!

3. No Optimisation.

Google is run by Gods with brains the size of watermelons. Their algorithm is sentient. Whatever tricks you try won't work. So don't try any. And when your site gets booted in the next update anyway, defend their right to do so, piously.

4. Content Generators.

Life's short. So much work, so many Stargate downloads to watch. Automate your content generation. Software is there to make life easier. Slap together RSS feeds, auto-generated text, free articles and Wikipedia pulls. Monetise with Adsense. Repeat for 300,000 pages. Is it time for that Pot Noodle? It's _always_ time!

5. Reciprocal links.

Google loves links, and it's too hard to get them unasked for. So ask! Send out 5000 emails cadging links to your .info domain. Don't bother proof-reading it, they'll only skim it. When they agree to a swop, you'll be too busy to reciprocate. That'll be a one-way link, then, ha ha!

Those sweeties at Google don't mind reciprocal links. Lots of famous sites interlink, so yours should be OK too. WebDevDood on LeetWebForum said so.

6. Low original-to-duplicate content ratio.

People don't read. Original content is too expensive to make. The Google algorithm ain't all that. 200 words surrounded by the same header, footer and sidebars in a 20,000 page site will keep them coming back again and again. Have a pop tart.

7. CMS with same TITLE and no META description on each page.

There are so few pages on the internet these days that you can use any open-source CMS as-is. Just set up your forum, slap on the Adsense, let your visitors witter away, sit back and wait for the search engine lurrrve! You bad boy, have another Red Bull, you deserve it!

8. Because _they_ weren't penalised, you won't be.

So many webmasters say their site has X or Y, and Google didn't mind, but funnily enough, _you_ got busted for it. Their content, backlinks, and site structure must be the same as yours, then, eh? Spooky!

9. Huge number of new links, in a short time, to a new domain.

DevWebDood says that if MySpace.com can get a million backlinks in a short space of time and not be penalised, then so can you. Just set up a travel or hotel site, join the Co-op and LinkVault, do a blog spam and watch your site race up the SERPs.

So what if it's nowhere to be found next month? Better the fleeting taste of victory, than never having tried at all!

10. Got banned? Give 'em Hell about it!

Write a long email to Google. State how great your site is, how they’re hurting your business, and how _you're_ doing _them_ a favour by letting them list it. Admit no fault, it shows weakness.

Then get on as many forums as you can complaining about how the SERPs suck, how - insert famous site here - is doing just what you did, and _they're_ still in.

Google will be so hurt and ashamed, they'll let you back in, and dial back that nasty update. You told _them_, all right!

I write these articles for fun. Pay no attention to my byline, and do not visit my site.

Linkbait 2.0 - The Soul of Linkbait

2007-04-18T06:06:00.001-07:00

“In the same way that you can't catch a giant tuna with a bag of doritos - you're not going to get the attention of important bloggers, journalists, or other folks with some garbage content or news.” Stuntdubl

“The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain. And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know .” Matthew Arnold, “The Buried Life”

This isn't a story about how to create good linkbait, but how I attempted to apply what I learned from linkbait masters like Todd Malicoat & Nick Wilson.

I find that many search engine marketing articles that I read are affirmations…they either affirm something I already know (but perhaps hadn´t thought about) or, if I don´t agree with the article, they affirm that I´m correct and the author isn´t. However, every so often, I read articles that cause me to reexamine how I practice SEM. Reading Todd & Nick caused me to think critically about how I had been creating content for the web.

Background

I've been writing search engine articles regularly for a couple years now and I´ve always been able to see the nexus between writing and inbound link generation. Until recently, I subconsciously had connected generating links with writing prolifically. I had thought that my best performing articles such as “How To Be A Blogging Idol Instead Of An Idle Blogger” likely did well because I hooked readers with a catchy title and was able to meld disparate elements of knowledge together in a way that readers liked and recommended to others.

So, in mid January, I consciously sat down and tried to write an article worthy of what I just learned. What I ended up writing had nothing to do with SEO…in fact; it was one of those “What Event Most Influenced the Course of Your Life” stories that tend to be extremely tiresome and self-indulgent. At first, I thought I had wasted my afternoon. Yet, I had a strong feeling that my article was not only by far the best thing I´d ever written but might have some level of universal appeal. Armed with the urgency of DIFY (not family safe) and quite a bit of WTF, I attempted to linkbait a very personal article.

There is a tradition of sharing personal stories in the SEM community. Michael Gray shared the story of the leopard-print bikini. Barry Schwartz proposed marriage via Ask.com and Rand Fishkin shared his Super Proposal (and Geraldine´s Response) with everyone. Like Rand, my personal story could reference a widely viewed internet video and I also had the advantage of being able to graft my story onto a piece of pop culture revered by many. You see, the story I wrote concerned my personal transcendence that occurred as I sat approximately 100 feet from Marvin Gaye while he sang the definitive version of the National Anthem at the 1983 NBA All-Star Game. With the 2007 NBA All-Star game scheduled for mid-February, I thought the timing of my story was pretty good for an All-Star linkbait.

What I Did

I first wrote a brief email arguing why my story was worthy of publication. Then, inspired by what Rand narrowly failed to do (get his commercial to run during the Super Bowl), I submitted my story to the biggest sports news outlets I could find: ESPN.com and TheSportingNews.com. Sportswriter email addresses are readily available, and I emailed my message & story to many folks that I read on a regular basis. At both websites, one of the basketball writers forwarded my story to the appropriate online editor…so I was able to successfully reach the decision-maker fairly quickly.

Both wrote me personal emails turning the story down. Both told me I had written the story one year too early (the Silver Anniversary of Marvin's Anthem is in 2008). The Sporting News editor liked the story but thought it a bit long for their format. The ESPN.com editor openly praised what I had written and we had a nice email exchange where he was quite helpful in giving me advice and suggestions on where else I could place the story.

I had also made contact with Duane Forrester aka Sportsguy who does SEM for a sports content provider in addition to being a SEMPO officer. He generously answered my unsolicited message and passed my story onto his editorial folks…unfortunately also without success. Similar attempts with other extremely large media companies also met the same fate and by then, the All-Star game had already occurred.

What I Learned

It would have been great if my story ran on ESPN.com. However, that was a totally unreasonable expectation. What I should have done and will do now is reach out to niche bloggers / content providers that are more accessible to me and are more likely to recognize my work. I will gradually build more links to the story over time, generating search engine strength and bringing the story more readers. I will also use my story as an opportunity to lose my social media virginity by exploring those currently unfamiliar channels and learn how they can compliment my other SEM efforts. Perhaps by the beginning of 2008, my story might have built a big enough mindshare that a major content provider like ESPN.com would be more likely to run it. Or, by then, it might not even matter to me.

Article Writing - How And Why

2007-04-18T06:05:00.002-07:00

I encourage all of my clients to write articles about their field. “Post them on your site and let people use them if they link back to you.” I often find myself getting either dead silence, or an instant argument.

“I’m not going to just GIVE away information! That’s what they need to PAY ME FOR!” is a typical response. Often followed by, “And you want me to let people USE this information on their OWN sites as well!? You’re CRAZY!”

Crazy? Maybe. Stupid? No way. Why you need to give away free information…

Think of it this way: Let’s say that you sell rubber bands of all shapes and sizes. Now, you happen to think that rubber bands are the coolest thing on the planet, and what they can do for people is just amazing. You’ve gone through the steps of getting a domain name, buying the hosting, having a site built and marketed for you, and you think to yourself, “Okay, now the money’s gonna roll right in here!” Right? Maybe.

But let’s say it does. And in your first 3 months of operating your site, you’ve sold a thousand orders for rubber bands. GREAT! Your profit’s hit an all time high, and you’re rolling in it. But you’ve also noticed something else, an increase in “support issue” phone calls and emails. You’re debating on hiring someone JUST to handle your buyers’ questions on why their technique isn’t working, or how to make it work better. Amidst these phone calls are questions like “Can it do _____?” and “How do I make it _____?”

So, you’ve written up a canned response email for questions like this, and you’re still flooded. You’ve got 3 people on a “creative team” developing new ways to use your rubber bands, and they’re furiously writing up MORE canned responses “just in case” the questions come up.

Sales are still skyrocketing, as are the questions. You never imagined the general public would try to use your rubber bands for so many purposes! They have the ideas, but they need your help in making them work.

So why not take their ideas and create a database in the form of articles to show everyone how to use rubber bands? You could write an article on using the really large bands for exercises. You could write another about how a rubber band ball is a great toy for kids, but also holds all your rubber bands in one place for easy retrieval when needed. How about an article on making a musical instrument for a child by using rubber bands of different lengths and thicknesses - like a guitar of sorts? See where I’m going with this? Articles can give your customers ideas…

What if someone buys a package of your rubber bands, with the sole intention of just using them to bundle things together? They discover they have far too many rubber bands, and want to know what else they could do with them, so they go to the web site of the supplier (that’s you) to scan for “other uses”. Without your articles, they’re left in the dark, and probably regretting that they spent so much money on something they can’t find another use for. They’ll never buy rubber bands again, especially not from you.

But if you show them what can be done with bands that are a different size than the ones they bought, and they think it’s a great idea, guess what!? They’ll probably buy THOSE from you too!

5 Reasons for giving it away…

1. You help your customers and website visitors to know more about your product or service without them having to call or email you.

2. Other web sites that find your information useful will post your articles (with credit to you). This will raise your credibility and get you more traffic.

3. More content to optimize for the search engines and your readers. Include links to other relevant parts of your site (do NOT go overboard here) and you’ve tipped off the search engine spiders to other info, as well as guided your site visitors to related information.

4. More content on your site = one more thing for the search engines to look at when ranking your site. Fresh, updated sites rank much better than stale and unchanging ones.

5. Increased link popularity, which is another thing the search engines like to see.

As you can see, if it’d be good for a rubberband selling company, it’d be good for you. Regardless of whether or not you’re selling a tangible product or a service, explaining that product or service in ways that can benefit the majority is bound to produce great results for you, in many ways.

Web Site Marketing 101 - Tips For Landing Your Web Site At The Top Of Search Engines

2007-04-18T06:05:00.001-07:00

Landing your web site at the top of search engines has become almost as important as the site design itself.

Just because you have a professional looking web site with a dot com address does not automatically put your web site at the top of search engines. You may not even end up on search engines at all which can render your site practically worthless if visitors can't even find it. Firsts things first, make a sitemap. This is how search engines will index your site. If you don't know how to make a sitemap there are many generators out there, just run a google search for "Sitemap Generator" and you will find many. Basically there are 2 types of sitemaps you will need to make.

One in .xml format which will be used by google and one in .html format that will be used by other search engines. The next step is to adhere to certain guidelines. Search engines look for web sites with good quality content that is keyword rich, meaning you include many keywords within your site that are searched for regularly. If you just set up an affiliate site with links to products and no quality information or content, chances are your site will not be indexed. If you create phishing sites or sites that mirror popular websites .com address with a slight difference in the spelling, chances are you will not be indexed either. Another key to indexing your site is having other sites that are already listed on search engines link to your own.

This is how web crawlers find your site and index it. This can be achieved by finding relevant web sites with a listed e-mail address. You can send the web site an e-mail offering to trade links which means they will place a link to your site if you place one to them on your site. Google offers a way to submit your site to them, however, if links are made to your site this is not necessary because web crawlers will find your site regardless. There are many pages on all respected search engines that will give you information regarding what they look for. High ranking web sites will attract alot of visitors and alot of potential revenue.

Battle the Competition- Search Engine Marketing

2007-04-16T03:13:00.001-07:00

The home Internet business has come a long way in 15 years. Thousands of new entrepreneur's every year seek out their destiny to battle the competition.

A home Internet business is easy to create, but could take a life-time to master.

Understanding search engine marketing should be on top of your list of things to master. To have a successful home Internet business you must first understand how the comprehensive search engines operate.

Everyone who own's a website would love to be on page one of every search engine results page (SERP's). Unfortunately not everyone will be able to see this dream come true.

The battle to improve your search engine ranking leads to only one major factor. Yes, that's right, one factor that will always place you on page one of any search engine! Can you guess what the answer is?

The million dollar answer is, Relevant keywords and phrases! Yep, that's it. There is nothing else in a search engine's operating format that trump's relevant keywords and phrases. Without them you go nowhere, period.

A webmaster can have a boatload of money, a college degree in business, be the most affluent person in the world, but if their website does not contain relevant keywords and phrases they'll be parked dead last on the SERP's.

The search engines have laid out all the rules, plain and simple. They operate their business with a purpose; who will be granted prime real estate on their first page, and who goes to the rear of the bus. You must deliver to sit in the front seat.

Search engines live or die by the particular relevance of information that they supply to all visitors. The Internet is a source of information to all, how you get there is primarily decided by the search engines, and they better be right to gain your respect.

When visitor's use a particular search engine, they are there for a reason. They are seeking pertinent information to their question. A frequent visitor will trust a particular search engine for providing them with the best relevant information possible. If the visitor is satisfied with the results, they will return.

Search engine's reward website's with high rankings if:

Relevance- Your site provides keywords, phrases, and content that is consistently relevant to the searchers demands.

Consistency- Your site constantly provides recent updated sources of pertinent information of value.

Quality- The quality of content that your site supplies plays a main role when competing for higher Serp's. Place considerable emphasis on generously providing informative articles making sure that they are most relevant to your subject or theme.

Longevity- Search engine's somewhat look at the age of a website as a maturity factor. The older the site, the worthwhile possibility of providing abundant sources of relevant information to the searcher.

When a start-up Internet business initially begins, it will have to make a long term commitment to be on a unequivocal successful path. What I mean here is that it takes time and patience on your part. Many of the search engine place new websites on an alleged probation period of about 6 months. This is intended to deter some flash in the pan sites from starting up quickly and spamming everyone they can. Unfortunately these types of business practices happen.

Knowing this upfront, during your probation provides an excellent opportunity for a new business website to use their time wisely. Research, read, and study all Internet home business articles that may pertain towards your site promotion. Search engine marketing, keywords, Internet marketing, advertising, pay per click programs, site promotion, and traffic building are all key area's where it will be pertinent for you to gain knowledge and understanding.

What I have personally learned from my experiences about Internet home business is that, knowledge is power, and power is knowledge. The more time you put into developing your Internet home business, the smarter and wiser you will become.

There are many author's, guru's, and advisor's who write about developing your home Internet business. Some of these sources generously provide good solid information, but, be cautious. Your business will usually not become successful overnight, no matter what anyone tells you or tries to sell you. Patience, research, and common sense will help guide you towards your ultimate goal.

Finally, in regards to battling the competition, look in the mirror. You are the competition! Taking the time and patience to become smarter and wiser will be your biggest challenge, no matter what anyone may say. Believe in yourself and your ultimate objectives, and your Internet home business will become successful. Battling the competition is all about words and phrases, just don't forget it. It's that simple!

Achieving Top Rankings Starts With A Strong Foundation

2007-04-16T03:12:00.002-07:00

Achieving a top ranking for your website with popular keywords is not easy, but it is simple. It will take 3 things:

1. Knowledge - Learning what the search engines look for in a quality site.
2. Effort – Consistently applying what is learned.
3. Time - Evaluating results and moving forward.

Investing your time and effort into optimizing your site will pay huge dividends if you achieve top rankings.

But achieving top rankings will not happen overnight. There are many more things you can do to improve your rankings but here's the foundation to get started with:

1. Search Engine Submission - Make sure your site is indexed with the search engines. If not, use an affordable professional submission service that does hand submissions or replicates hand submissions.

2. Optimization - Use SEO tools to evaluate your site....including keyword density. Your goal for each page of your site should be to satisfy the reader. If you can gives the reader what they want when they type in a keyword, the search engines will reward you with a better ranking. Think quality and quantity and you'll be on your way.

3. Content - More specifically....relevant content. Does your site provide detailed information your visitors are looking for? At a minimum you should be updating/adding content once or twice a month.

4. Links - A good link structure within your own site and incoming relevant links are a necessity. Incoming links from sites with similar content and a good pagerank will boost yours. Also, submit your site with keyword anchors to as many directories as you can.

The next step: plan the work and work the plan. There are no shortcuts, consistently updating and adding to your site will pay big dividends.

Investing In Pay Per Click Marketing Or Search Engine Optimization - A Company Decision

2007-04-16T03:12:00.001-07:00

As click costs rise, many companies who are already investing in active pay per click marketing campaigns are looking toward hiring a search engine optimization company to supplement their marketing portfolio in order to increase their exposure and reduce their advertising spend. In some cases, frustrated by click fraud and increasing click costs, marketers are using search engine optimization to completely replace pay per click marketing. However, these companies will often try to evaluate search engine optimization using the same methodology that they had used for pay per click - by figuring out the cost per click.

In almost every case, a campaign created by a reputable search engine optimization company will eventually garner lower per-click costs than pay per click marketing for any industry. Yet using cost per click to compare the effectiveness of these two separate disciplines is comparing apples to, well, anything other than apples. The crucial difference between these two approaches is that pay per click marketing is more of an advertising investment, while search engine optimization is more appropriately likened to an investment in infrastructure. While both have their merits in terms of increasing a company's online exposure, it is important to understand the differences in the respective investments and to determine why cost per click is not a fair indicator of the performance of a search engine optimization company.

Pay Per Click Marketing

Advertising investments of all kinds, from billboards to print ads to television spots to pay per click marketing, all share a common trait. They exist in the public eye for as long as a company is willing to pay for them. Stop paying, and they disappear. True, a print ad may continue to exist for a while after it runs (until the newspaper or magazine gets recycled, at least), and a television spot may get attention if it wins any awards (or winds up on YouTube). But a pay per click marketing campaign will simply vanish as soon as the budget is cut. This means that when a company reduces its advertising spend in this arena, it loses all of its exposure immediately.

What does this really mean? Well, for one, it means that figuring out the average per-click costs of a pay per click marketing campaign makes sense because everything happens in real time. A pay per click campaign will begin nearly instantly after a company signs up and pays, and it will vanish just as quickly when the company ceases payment. In other words, there is a clear delineation of when a campaign begins and when it ends.

This delineation is important, because it excludes many other potential factors that muddy the waters when you try to apply this same ROI analysis to a campaign created by a search engine optimization company.

Search Engine Optimization

As said previously, utilizing a search engine optimization company can be likened to making an investment in the infrastructure of a business rather than an investment in advertising. This is because with search engine optimization, there is no clear delineation of where the benefit from the campaign ends. If a business stops paying its search engine optimization company at any point after the campaign has been launched (presuming they have hired a decent search engine optimization company), there will continue to be results from that campaign for an extended period of time - usually many months or even years.

Of course, it is not recommended that any business actually quit an ongoing SEO campaign because a good search engine optimization company will always be expanding and honing that campaign over time to make it more successful over the long term. However, budgets get revisited and revised. Decision makers can change. And if the budget for SEO does get cut, a business will continue to see results for long after. How, then, can you determine value on a per-click basis? The simple answer is that you can't.

It should be noted that while maintaining ongoing results after payments have ceased is a big upside to search engine optimization, the inverse downside is that an effective campaign put in place by a search engine optimization company can take some time to implement, and the results may not appear for weeks or months. A search engine optimization campaign takes patience, effort, and, most of all, time. If a business needs its marketing campaign to be up and running immediately, pay per click marketing is going to be a better short-term choice.

The Power Of Online Video

2007-04-16T03:11:00.002-07:00

One of the biggest changes in the online space is the prevalence of online video.

It was only a few years ago that just the thought of streaming videos on the Internet seemed a distant reality.

Fast forward to December 2006 and online video is in full swing… Google bought YouTube for US$1.6 billion, and companies like Metacafe pay publishers based on the number of people who watch their video.

In fact the highest payout for a video publisher on Metacafe was US$25,000 for just one month!

Another very famous success story was that of the ‘Free Hugs’ campaign, launching with it the Sick Puppies. Here was a struggling artist looking for a break, and with a video camera, a computer and YouTube created one of the best forms of free advertising available on the planet today…

WORD OF MOUTH.

Because the Sick Puppies created a video that touched people’s hearts, everybody that watched the video wanted to share it with their friends, family and co-workers.

The result?

In just 2 months the video attracted more than 7,000,000 views and received coverage in media everywhere… in fact the guy offering the hugs in the video appeared on Oprah!

Sick Puppies has now broken through one of the most difficult barriers in business… the music industry. And they did it all through the use of free online video.

Using video as part of an online sales process will be the future of online marketing... all businesses should begin thinking of how they can use video on their websites.

Organic SEO or Organic Search Engine Optimization

2007-04-16T03:11:00.001-07:00

Organic SEO or Organic Search Engine Optimization is a effective way to have your website show up in the Search Engine Results. Organic or Natural SEO is to bring up a website without using any Pay per Click. As it says, the results should be organic/natural. When a person visits Google and types in a query or keyword to find information or to buy/sell a product or for entertainment or for any research. They use a query or otherwise known as keyword to search for that particular related article or information.

Let’s say for example, if a person wants to find information on Real Estate Market in Sarasota, Florida. I use this example since Sarasota is popular for Real Estate, houses and Florida style Homes. The visitor will go to any search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask and type in that query in the search box and then the Search Engines gives you results based on the relevancy of the query comparing it with the website that has been stored in the index database. The way the search engines rank a website is using their own formula.

So what is the formula?

Well different search engine have different formula but most importantly most of the search engines look for some basic information in order to know more about the website. So the first thing when you publish your website online is the Crawlers or spiders ( A program used to visit all website) comes and visit your site, looks for a Title, so that it knows that this site is about xyz and it understands that your site is related to whatever you have in the title, So it is important to have a good Keyword rich title for your home and also for all the pages.

Then it looks for Description, A description is to tell both the search engines and the visitors what your site is about, and then it looks for Meta tags or HTML codes, these are codes to tell the spiders the information you like the spiders to gather, for example you meta tags should allow the robots to crawl your site, so that it can read and understand your site. If you don’t want the crawler to crawl your site, you may do so as well. But most importantly it is crucial to inform the crawler to allow access to your site. Once the spiders sees the access, it crawls within your site and looks for tags like what language is your site, what geographic the site needs to be. What content and if there are any Rating in the site and the name of the organization etc

Page Index

Now after looking at all these things, the crawler takes a snapshot of your website or cached. So it will take a snapshot and stores in the database or index. Indexing is same like indexing a book or folder. Here is where all the websites are stored and when a visitor search for a query the crawlers goes to the index and finds the relevant site and gives the results, Now how the ranking method works?? Well as mentioned above, the search engine uses formula to rank a site, such as a good Title, good description, good content with keywords within the copy, a good structure of your website, good H1, H2 tags with keywords, so that not only the search engines understand but also the people who visit the site can understand easily what the site is about, A good navigation structure. Quality and trusted links to the other sites and also links pointing to your website from reputed sites, these are some of the formulas that search engines use to rank a site, this is not all of the formula just to mention a few of them.

Once you follow the guidelines of search engines and build a website, your site will be more likely be indexed and stored in the database. Organic Search Engine Optimization is an ongoing process. It cannot be achieved by doing it one time, since the formula changes every often, not the basic formula but that are other formulas. A few to mention:

• The age of your domain name
• The amount of content available to the search engines
• The amount of websites linking to your website and their popularity
• The information architecture of your website
• The quality of a page build
• The relevancy to the end user

How to Use Latent Semantic Indexing Technology Principles to Improve Search Engine Ranking: Part 2

2007-04-03T04:24:00.001-07:00

Google is continuously updating its algorithms to provide searchers with useful, relevant and fresh information. Every time it updates its algorithms, savvy internet marketers are always at the top of search engine, because these webmasters always follow Google quality guidelines. They work based on the core and fundamental principles of the search engine.

Unlike savvy webmasters, lazy webmasters are always chasing the holes of the search engine. They implement different techniques to cheat the search engine. But, as search engine, especially Google is becoming smarter and smarter from time to time, Google uses different techniques to identify cheaters.

Evidence suggest that, Google is using LSI in its algorithm to provide its searchers with relevant and useful information, identify poor content websites, identify duplicate content and examine link profile.

Let’s see how Google uses latent semantic indexing:

1. Provide searchers with relevant and useful information;

Latest semantic indexing allows a search engine to determine a relevancy of a page not only with its search query, but also with the context of the search query. In other words, LSI helps search engine to retrieve data based on the context of the search query. There fore, it is important to design your website with LSI in mind.

Several webmasters use automatic content generation software to create articles which are centered on specific keywords. These articles simply created to cheat search engine. Search engine line Google uses latent semantic indexing technology to identify articles created using automatic content generation tools. LSI uses the context of the content to examine its relevancy and usefulness.

3. Identify duplicate content

One of the quality guidelines of Google is to avoid similar pages created across different domains or sub domains. Search engine employ latent semantic indexing technology principles to filter out duplicate pages.

4. Examine link profile

Search engine use link popularity as a major factor to rank web pages. Several Webmasters has long been using different software tools to increase the popularity of their websites, consequently spamming the search engine to deliver irrelevant information. To fight link spamming, search engines use Latent semantic Indexing to identify link spamming by examining the link profile.

There fore, it is important to correctly build links to your website. That is, you have to vary the anchor text of your website. You should not only use the main keywords of your website, but mix with semantically identical words. You should build links to your website in a natural way. Building links semantic in mind will help you boost your ranking.

How to optimize Your Web Site with LSI in Mind

As Google is giving weight to Latent Semantic Indexing, it is important to optimize your website LSI technology in mind. Search engine understand the theme of a website through Latent semantic Indexing technology.

Here are some tips to use :

1.keyword research analysis should incorporate using latent semantic technology principles;

2.Boost Theme of your website by creating content around the main keyword and semantically related words;

3.Search engines use LSI technology to examine your link profile. There fore, you should build links in a natural way, Vary anchor text of your URL;

4.Exchange links only with industry related websites. At the same time you should not exchange links with bad neighborhood.

Summary

Undeniable sources prove that search engines like Google are using latent semantic indexing in their algorithm to provide searchers with useful, fresh and relevant information. Therefore, it is important to optimize your website with LSI in mind.

4 Simple Strategies To Ensure Your Search Engine Marketing Campaigns Succeed

2007-04-03T04:23:00.002-07:00

Search Engine Marketing is an integral part of marketing today. With over 80% percent of websites being found through search engines, your site must be optimized to appear in those search results. There are several ways to optimize your site to make sure search engines find and list your site within the first few results pages. Here is a list of a few of the more important ways to optimize your site.

Link Popularity

In the search engines opinion, if there are other websites linking to your site, then your site must be valuable. Obviously people will not want to link to a bad website. Links are a definite plus for your website’s search ranking; however, you have to be careful of what kind of links you place in your site. Make sure you are linking to websites that are relevant to what your site offers. Search engines will take note of this and give your site a better ranking.

Target Audience

Design your website for your target audience. Don’t only design your site specifically for the search engines. After all, the purpose of your website is to inform your target market, right? So give the people what they want and search engines will notice. Search engines look for pages relating to the keywords people search for; and if your site includes those keywords, you’ll get listed.

Research Keywords

Don’t assume what your target market is searching for. Do some keyword research. There are plenty of online tools to help you determine what your audience is looking for everyday on the web. Be sure to stay away from keywords that are too general. These words will more than likely point to way too many websites and yours will get lost in the mess of endless results. Choosing the irrelevant keywords can really hurt your websites potential.

What Search Engines See

Search engines can’t see all the fancy flash pages, drop down menus and graphics that we can enjoy. They rely on text based information. If you want to know exactly what they see, right click on the background of your website and hit view source. See? All text. But know that it is alright to have the features mentioned above, just be sure to have some form of HTML links on all pages. This code is how search engines determine what your website is all about and where to place it in their massive directory.

You’ll get great traffic and great results using search engine marketing correctly. Follow these tips carefully, do your research, apply the research to your website, and you’ll please your target market and the search engines.

Why Getting Relevant Inbound Links To Your Website Will Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

2007-04-03T04:23:00.001-07:00

You know that you’re business has to have a website to be competitive in today’s marketplace. But in order for your website to be successful, you need highly qualified traffic, and you need links to get it. Inbound links are of extreme importance for two main reasons. First of all, having a link to your website from another site that is related to your area of business will drive traffic to your website. Second, search engine’s love to see related links to your website, which will in turn improve your search engine rank and get your website more qualified traffic.

Quality Links, Not Quantity

How do you know what will be a good link to your website and what won’t be? Most importantly you want the links to relate to your area of business. Pure number of links alone will not do any good unless the links are related to your business. Also, be sure to include keywords and phrases within the links. Keywords are words related to your business that people might perform a search for in a search engine when looking for you. Just one or two links from an industry leader will improve your traffic much better than hundreds of links from unrelated websites. Not only do search engines appreciate this kind of linkage, but so do your visitors. After all, that is who this website is for anyway, right? So help them out and give them quality links to your website from other sites related to your business and topics.

Getting Links

Alright, so you know that you need quality links to drive qualified traffic to your website. But how do you go about getting these links to your website? It is possible for your website to be found and linked to just because your site has great content. The more help your website is to the industry, the more people will want to see it, and the more it will get linked to from other sites.

Another way to get inbound links to your website is simply to ask for them. Find industry leaders and/or websites that are showing up in the top ranking positions in the search engine results pages. Once you’ve done that ask the sites for a link to your site. If by chance they agree they will probably want a link to their site from yours as well. Also, check out what sites have already been linked to from an industry leader and ask them for links as well.

When asking for links, keep it friendly, personal, and explain the benefits of linking to your site. Whoever you are asking for a link from, make them feel as though they are the only company you are asking this favor of.

Don’t overlook getting inbound links to your website in your search optimization campaign. Links are one of the most important factors a search engine spider looks for when evaluating your website and its content. Start link-building today!

What's Better For Your Business - Search Engine Optimization Or Pay-Per-Click Sponsored Search?

2007-04-03T04:22:00.002-07:00

Having a company website is a must to stay in competition and keep customers informed about your business. However, once your website is built, your internet marketing now begins! Obviously, people have got to know that you’ve got a website for it to be successful. What good is a website if no one is going to it? An overwhelming number of customers find and buy from websites they have found through a search engine. If your business is not listed within the first three pages, you’re missing out on thousands of visitors. Getting your business listed within the first few pages of search engines is a surefire way to ensure thousands more visitors to your site each month! There are 2 main methods of search marketing – learn which approach will benefit more quickly.

Search Engine Optimization (Natural Search Results)

Future clients search the internet by entering keywords into a search engine. In order for your website to appear in the natural results pages, your site must contain those keywords or phrases. Certain style changes like placing keywords in bold, italics, or bulleted and numbered lists can optimize your site for search engines. Changes can also be made in the actual HTML coding of your website, such as the title tags and meta tags, to better your chances of being found through natural search. Search engine optimization takes time, but is the most effective way to draw traffic to your website.

Sponsored Search (Pay-per-click)

There are two different types of sponsored search options. Sponsored search based on a keyword search allows companies to have links to their websites on results pages for a small fee. Sponsored Search based on content context is a different concept. Search engines have partner websites. On these partner websites, content specific advertisements can be placed. For example, a partner website may be a site about architecture. Perhaps a tool company may place advertisements on this website. Though not quite as effective as Search engine optimization, sponsored search gets results quickly.

Search engine marketing is a necessity for companies with a website. You must ensure that your site is being visited for it to be successful. Many companies will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a flashy website and forget about marketing it! This is extremely ineffective. Get your website found with search engine marketing!

Why Ranking High In Search Engines Is Critical To Your Online Success!

2007-04-03T04:22:00.001-07:00

Search engine optimization methods for getting to the top.

Millions of searches are performed everyday on the most popular search engines the web has to offer. Here’s the question. If someone is searching for your product or service, where does your website rank? Think about how you perform searches. Do you bother to look past the second or third page? A lot of people don’t bother to click on anything past the second or third link. The key benefits of having your website show up first in a search are obvious. The higher up your site is, the more people will go, and the more people will buy. The best way to get your website to the top of the list is with search engine optimization. There are certain specifications your website must meet and comply with to get the best positioning within search engines.

Search engines need to know exactly what your site is about in order to index or rank it correctly. Keyword research is huge for your website’s content. You have got to know what people are searching for and how they are searching for it. There are several websites like seobook.com that can help you find this information. Once you have a list of keywords people are entering into search engines, you can begin to use those keywords to help sell your site.

Search engines crave content. If your site doesn’t have enough content the search engine may not be able to determine what your site is about. Also, within your site’s content, remember to continue using specific keywords relevant to your products and services. Spread keywords throughout your site in different areas. Use them in headings and subheadings. Use them in creating an opening paragraph for your site. Keyword placement is critical for optimization.

Avoid broken links, temporary redirects, and poor navigation structure throughout your website. Problems like these can cause search engine spiders to avoid your site and drop your ranking. Be sure to use unique and relative titles to name each page. Replace vague wording with specific terminology relative to your business and provide accurate descriptions in meta tags. By following those simple to implement strategies – you’re on your way to getting closer to the top!

Plus, you’ll be getting highly qualified customers wanting to buy what you sell. Optimizing your site no only makes it easier for search engines to read and understand – it also helps your visitors, too! If the user cannot navigate through your site to find what they want, they’re exiting the site, plain and simple. Search engine optimization will get your site the best placement with all of the best search engines, more qualified users, and more sales.

What All Customers Really Want-How To Create Sticky Businesses!

2007-03-27T02:50:00.004-07:00

There is a popular sales and marketing axiom that states, people don't buy goods, services, products or expertise. People buy solutions to their problems.

I believe this statement is true but I have had to clarify it for many of my consulting clients.

In spite of the billions of dollars of merchandise for sale in todays marketplace, customers are really looking for only three things;

1) Good Feelings
2) Solutions to Problems
3) Genuine Relationships

Do you know what your clients are REALLY buying?

Top business consultants generate billions of dollars in fees every year to make companies understand this simple truth.

Most companies engaged in professional services such as brokers, accountants, lawyers and doctors assume that their clients are buying their knowledge and expertise. In these expert industries a vendors expertise is usually ASSUMED by the customer. Rarely is it understood.

I assume that the legal advice you are giving me is correct.
I assume that the estate plan you have created for me is accurate.
I assume that the tax return you spent months working on is legal.
I assume that it is my appendix that has to be removed.
Customers in all industries purchase the EXPERIENCE of doing business with you.
As a professional merchant or vendor it is your job to make that experience as distinctively unique, pleasant and memorable as possible.

The hard lesson that Corporate America has had to learn is that customers are not purchasing what you think you are selling.

Customers buy the experience.

My question to you is, are you clear on the experience you are selling?

I do not purchase insurance. I acquire the peace of mind that when something goes wrong you will be there for me.

I do not purchase gifts for my children. I acquire the joy and pleasure that my child will have with your merchandise.

I do not purchase clothes. I acquire the comfort the wardrobe provides and the unique experience of being fashionable, stylish and attractive.

I do not buy food. I am acquiring relief from hunger and the joy my taste buds will feel with this incredible culinary delight.

I do not buy software. I purchase the pleasure of time saved, the prestige of recognition and the inside knowledge on how solutions are created.

I do not buy pest control chemicals. I acquire the pleasure of not seeing rodents and cockroaches in my home.

I do not buy airplane reservations. I acquire safe, on time, reliable and pleasant transportation to sexy destinations.

If you want to increase your companies sales you must understand that customers do not purchase things.

Customers buy ideas, feelings, happiness and positive experiences.

Worth remembering when you talk with customers.

Want to increase your sales? Provide the experience. Its been a wonderful blueprint for companies like Disney. Ever notice they never say come to our park, and ride our rides? They refer to it as the "Magic Kingdom." Disney understands that you sell the experience.

What does this have to do with traffic and Search Engine Marketing? Everything.

Most newbies think they have a traffic problem. Generating Traffic is the easy part of the equation. Most online businesses have a conversion problem because they ignore this simple truth.

Why Search Engines Reward You For Writing Articles

2007-03-27T02:50:00.003-07:00

Yes, you are rewarded with increased traffic and possibly backlinks, which leads to increased page rank. But why would the creators of these search engines want these articles that are duplicated millions of times, necessitating the need for even larger servers, want you to submit more articles? Because they know that special roast beef dinner recipe or the diary you are storing could be lost to the world forever, by fire, decay or disposal.

The decision makers behind the search engines know there are important events, historic happenings and information that every human being in the world can share.

To give you a few examples, an ancestor, Eli, left his handwritten diary to this family. I have been reading it on occasion and transcribed one article, and shared this article on the internet. The title is Lady's Book Magazine Review by Elisha Hotchkiss 1840. It is a delightful, and entertaining view by Eli on the day he recorded this entry in his diary. Elisha Hotchkiss was one of the first Mayors of Cincinnati and wrote in his diary while traveling by river to Washington DC where he met President John Tyler. The entry below was recorded when Elisha arrived in Washington, where he met the President of the United States of America:

January 1, 1842: Fate, fortune or chance has thrown us into the city of Washington. This is a gala day. The Presidents House is open. The people go there to greet him. The streets are crowded with happy, giddy strongs, winding their way to the Presidential Mansion. There surrounded by the Ministers of State and the Ambassadors of Foreign Princes, stands John Tyler, the President in the plain simple dress of business, ready to receive the salutations and congratulations of the people. The ceremony being past, all retire peacefully and happy. No Gens Des Armes with glittering bayonet's were there to owe into silence, the disorderly, for all of the latter, there were none such there. The people who love to pay a willing homage to worth, it may be hoped that the temperance reformers after they shall have reformed all the drunkards, may engage in the cause of reforming the dandies, both male and female. Their services also might be extended to the preaching of those loathsome and unsightly encumbrances from their upper lips and chins. This latter reform would venue to restore but a few to the fellowship of humanity, from which many are now most unfortunately separated by their beauty and their personal appearance.

The above diary entries are worth sharing with the world and would be lost forever, as the diary is degrading, had I not shared this with you. And this is why the search engines reward you for submitting articles of worth.