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Simple And Successful SEO Strategies - On Page Optimization

2009-06-19T16:27:00.002+07:00

SEO doesn't have to be complex and by following these simple on-page optimization techniques you can give your SEO campaign the perfect start.

SEO is often seen as being a difficult and in-depth process, but the reality is that by following some reasonably common sense guidelines it is possible to get good rankings. That's not to say that optimization is a simple or quick process; there are, unfortunately, no short cuts. Your SEO efforts should be a concerted and long term endeavour, in order for you to enjoy the best possible results, and should incorporate both on-page and off-page optimization techniques. By following the on-page SEO strategies below you can set a strong foundation for all your SEO work.

Keyword Research

Before you begin penning content and writing title and meta tags you first need to research the keywords you will use on each of your pages. Using the wrong keywords can negatively impact your entire campaign, causing you to lose untold hours and days of work and eventually forcing you to concede that you made the wrong decision and start all over again.

The most appropriate and most beneficial keywords are popular enough that they will enjoy regular searches but without being prohibitively competitive or overly generic. A number of keyword research tools exist and your competitors' websites are a good place to start your early research. Ensure keywords are targeted specifically to the type of content you will provide as well as the service or product you will be selling. More targeted keywords will result in more targeted visitors and targeted visitors mean greater conversion rates and an improved return on your efforts.

Niche And Semantically Related Keywords

A good strategy is to incorporate a reasonable list of competitive keywords with less competitive ones. The more niche keywords will serve you well during the early days of your website and over time you should be able to start competing for the more challenging of the keywords you use. Also incorporate semantically or topically related keywords into your keyword list because the search engines are placing more and more emphasis on those pages that use related keywords as well as primary keywords.

Accessibility And Standards

Site accessibility is an integral part of good website design, but it should also be considered an important factor in any SEO strategy. Using standards based code for your website will help to ensure that anybody that wishes to access and view your website will be able to do so. It will also mean that the spiders used by search engines will be able to access and index your pages effectively ensuring that you get the full credít for your site.

Navigation And Intra-Linking

Your navigation menu and internal links should be prominently placed, easy to see, and easy to follow for the spiders. It is good practice to include a text link from the home page to a compliant sitemap on your site, alleviating any potential problems that might arise from broken links or the use of graphical or flash based navigation menus. You can also consider adding links into the main body of your content, although too many will make the page difficult to read and therefore diminish the overall effectiveness so don't get too carried away.

Title And Meta Tags

While search engines do not specifically use the meta tags to help assess the value of a page like they once did, meta tags are still critical to good SEO performance. The title and description tags that you add at the top of a page are used in various ways including in the compiling and display of Search Engine Result Pages (SERPs). This is the first thing a potential site visitor will see from your site so this mini listing needs to be as effective as any paid advert or PPC ad. Poorly written titles and descriptions can put many readers off viewing your pages so a little time and effort here can have a very positive effect.

Using your keywords in the title and the description is good practice because these will be highlighted in the search results if they were used in the search query itself. This will make your result more prominent and instantly identify your page as being relevant to the user. Don't needlessly use keywords, however, and don't throw extra keywords into the description at the cost of a well written, short ad.

Other Formatting Tags

On-page content should always be written with the visitor in mind, although obviously it can still be optimized for search engines. As such, proper page structure is important to your reader as well as to the engines. H1 and H2 tags are an effective way of breaking up page content, and give readers the chance to skim through a page and determine its relevance.

A page should only contain a single H1 tag at the top of the content but can include multiple H2 and H3 tags. Alt tags on images should also be included and these as well as the actual file path to the image itself can include important keywords (but do make sure that they actually make sense and are more than just a keyword thrown in for the sake of SEO).

Page Content Optimization

Finally, we get to the heart of the page - the content itself. Use the keywords you researched for a page, including semantically related keywords. Write as naturally and appealingly as possible while keeping those keywords in mind and don't get carried away stuffing or cramming them into the body of the text. Not only is this unappealing to readers but is seriously frowned upon by the search engines.

The reader really is the most important aspect of your content. If the majority of your visitors are coming from the search engines, remember that they arrived using specific keywords. This means that they are searching for equally specific information relating to those keywords - make sure you deliver on the promise that you made in your title and description tags.

By Matt Jackson (c) 2009

About The Author
Matt Jackson - WebWiseWords is a content writing service enabling website owners and online business owners to buy web content tailored to their needs. Services include affordable and high quality SEO content writing and more.

Social Networking: 10 Steps to Finding Your Target Market in Facebook

2009-06-18T16:53:00.002+07:00

Everyone is talking about social networking, and many claim social networking to be the panacea for all of your marketing ills. Marketing on social networking sites like Facebook, Linkedin, and Twitter can help you boost the size of your email list and help you grow your business. The key to success with this strategy is making sure that members of your target market are in your network.

Facebook is very strict and very particular about how its participants contact each other. Facebook limits the number of new invitations that can be sent in a given day or week. The exact number is a Facebook secret and unknown to the public, but if you exceed this secret amount you can get booted from Facebook. However, I think if you stick with no more than 10 per day, you will probably stay within their limits. Secondly, you are permitted only 5000 friends in Facebook, so if you're successful in this strategy, you may ultimately need to create a waiting list of friends.

How do you find your target market in Facebook? Whether you're an experienced social networker or just a newbie, here are 10 secrets to growing your target market network in Facebook:

1. Update-to-date profile and/or Fan page: Before you begin a "friending" (i.e. request to become another's friend), be sure that your profile is up-to-date with an accurate description of what you do, your interests, and your contact info, including your web site URLs. If you have multiple businesses, invite people in your appropriate target market to become fans of your niche-specific fan page.

2. Follow the gurus. Follow leaders in your field/industry and "friend" them. Anytime you make a friend request, include a personal note, as that will improve the likelihood that they will accept your request. Say something like, "I'm a big fan and have been on your ezine/blog list for several years. I'd love to have you in my network in Facebook." Once they have accepted your invitation, make comments about their status updates to help you get on their radar and in front of their networks.

3. Friends of friends. Take a look at the people in the network of your industry leaders, as they are probably part of your target market as well, and send friend requests to those of interest to you. When you friend someone that you only know by association, send a personal note as well, like "I discovered your profile in 's network and would like to get to know you better by adding you to my network."

4. Use groups. Look for groups that may contain your target market. In your search for groups, use keywords that describe your niche, your industry, your geographic area, the interests of your target market, or whatever other terms you might use to find members of your target market. Join and begin to participate in the group so that they begin to get to know you. Then peruse the member lists for good prospects, sic as the members you've connected with or have gotten to know. Since you won't be able to view the profiles of the group members because they aren't in your network, much of your decision-making about whom to friend may be based upon appearance or how you might be connected to them via other friends in your network.

5. Check your lists. Friend people that you already know from your high school, college, alumni associations, and places of employment if they fall within your target market definition.

6. Facebook-recommended friends. Facebook typically recommends friends based on your current friends list when you log into your profile. I've found these recommendations to be pretty solid. Take them up on their recommendatíon and add those folks to your network.

7. Add by interest or industry. Do a people search by job title, industry, geographic location, or interest. Those people with those terms in their profile will show up in your search, and you can request to add them based on common interests.

8. Build the relationship. Once you friend someone, you need to begin to get to know them and start them on the like, know and trust journey so that you become their top-of-mind expert in a particular area. Begin building the relationship by posting a quick "thank you" note on their wall, as well as a comment about something on their profile that interests you or in which you have in common. Watch for their status updates, as well, and comment on these when appropriate.

9. Create a group. Once you've got about 500 followers, create a group for your target market. Provide the group with useful content and and ask questions to stimulate discussion and get the members to return to participate in the group. You can post articles, links to blog posts, or videos you have created. Invite group members to any free virtual or face-to-face events you're hosting.

10. Integrate into your plan. No marketing strategy works unless you consistently implement it over time. As a newbie to Facebook, you might want to spend as much as 60 minutes per day researching friends and participating in groups. As your network grows, you many spend only 15 minutes 3 times per week on Facebook. The key to success is to put this strategy on your calendar and make it a routine part of your ongoing Internet marketing tasks.

While social networking is an inexpensive marketing tool and can be effective in helping you grow your business, maintain your other marketing strategies, as well, and simply add this strategy to your marketing mix. A well-rounded Internet marketing plan that includes social networking and is implemented consistently will mean that your prospect well won't ever run dry.

By Donna Gunter (c) 2009

About The Author
Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online retirement businesses by demystifying the steps needed to successfully market a baby boomer business online. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to improve your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketíng Toolkit, at ==> OnlineBizU.com .

The Three SEO Factors That Really Matter

2009-06-16T18:15:00.002+07:00

Search for a list of SEO factors and you'll find that most feature at least 50.

That's 50+ elements of your website that influence your ability to rank in search engines. Sounds complicated, doesn't it?

Some SEO Consultants will tell you that ranking in search engines is about applying a precise formula to these 50+ elements - about using "special proprietary techniques" fine-tuned to search algorithms to boost your website above the competition.

Not exactly.

There are actually more like 200+ signals that search engines use when ranking websites.

Imagine trying to reverse-engineer something like that? Sounds impossible, right?

That's because it is.

The good news: it doesn't matter.

You don't need to be a computer engineer to rank well in search engines. Relieving, isn't it?

The truth is that everything boils down to three factors:

1. Search-Friendly Pages
2. Relevant Content
3. A Trusted Website

All of those other factors and elements of SEO? They all fit into one of these three basic categories.

You don't need to be a search scientist to understand the basics of what's going on with these three factors and improve them for your website.

1) Search-Friendly Pages
Essentially, this first factor has to do with the technical aspects of how your website and pages work.

Search engines use crawlers (or "bots") to browse the web by following links. As they browse, these crawlers scan the content they see and store it in databases. These databases form the search engine's web index - and when a user comes along and enters a search phrase the index is scanned for pages that match.

The basic idea: you want to make sure your pages, and the content that fills them, are visible to search engine crawlers.

There are a few things you should know about crawlers:

• They don't support JavaScript - so that rollover menu, those drop-down links, etc, might not be visible to search engine crawlers.

• They don't support Flash (mostly) - while there have been a few developments in this regard recently, Flash websites still aren't too search engine friendly .

• They can't "see" - sometimes designers use images instead of HTML text (usually because they want to use a certain font that isn't web-safe), and search engine crawlers can't read or index this text. Crawlers can only read code - and if your content isn't found there it's essentially invisible to search engines.

• They skimp on resources - it takes a lot of energy and time (and money) to crawl the web (there are a lot of pages out there) so crawlers are usually programmed to be conservative with how far they'll dive into a page. If your web pages take a long time to load or feature a tremendous amount of content crawlers might leave without scanning/indexing everything.

There are some other things crawlers can't/won't do. To get a sense of what they can see on your website try SEO-Browser.com . This tool allows you to enter the address of a web page and see it as search crawlers see it.

The bottom line: you might have the best content in the world, but if crawlers can't see it you won't rank for relevant keywords.

2) Relevant Content
This factor is all about the words on your pages.

As we discussed above, the visible content on your pages is stored and searched every time someone uses a search engine. If the keyword or phrase entered doesn't occur on your page you probably won't show up.

There are a few key places where you'll want to use the right language on your pages:

• Title tags
• Headlines
• Body copy
• Anchor text (links pointing to internal pages)

As you browse the web you'll probably notice that lots of webmasters have gotten a bit, shall we say, "overzealous" with optimizing their content. Title tags stuffed to the brim with dozens of keyword variations is common. Sometimes even the body copy itself is stuffed with keywords in an attempt to boost rankings.

You might be tempted to do this yourself to try and enhance your chances of ranking for a given keyword.

Don't do it. Please.

Why not? Try reading a page that's been stuffed with keywords this way. It's an awful experience, right? Certainly enough to stop your reading flow and send you to another website, isn't it?

Don't sacrifice your user's reading experience in the aim of ranking for a given keyword. It's not worth it. All of the traffic in the world won't mean a thing if the users who land at your pages are turned off and leave. Your competitors are just a few painless clicks away.

To learn about what keywords people use when they search for your products/services/info try Google's AdWords Keyword Tool - enter either your website address or a keyword and this tool will return a líst of related keywords including numbers on how many people search for them.

The bottom line: it's rare to rank for a keyword that doesn't occur on your pages so use the language your users do when they search. Don't overdo it and stuff keywords, though, because you'll annoy your visitors (and search engines don't like it either - they might flag you as SPAM).

3) A Trusted Website
When you've got 1) search-friendly pages and 2) relevant content it's still not time to sit back and let the search traffic pour in.

The truth is that most of your competitors will have looked into these factors already - they're kind of the "low hanging fruit" of SEO, because they're not usually terribly difficult to work out.

Trust is what sets you apart. It is by far the most important of the three factors.

Before Google came onto the scene using PageRank (a measurement of link popularity) to rank websites, search engines generally based their rankings on the first two factors we've discussed.

What was the problem with that approach?

Webmasters are greedy. We can't help ourselves. We love traffic.

Keyword stuffing was rampant, and rarely did webmasters stick to the honest truth about what their website was relevant to. The result: search results littered with SPAM and just about anything with very little relevance.

The reason links were a better signal to Google was simple - it's harder to game. While you can control the content/keywords on your website, it's a lot harder to control it on someone else's. It's pretty tough to get someone to link to you against their will.

The model simply worked - Google's results were better. The other search engines quickly caught on and looked to signals of trust for sorting through the SPAM.

Some signals that search engines use to determine whether they can trust your website:

• Inbound links - quality is more important than quantity here - that's why those "500 directory links for $49.95" deals are worthless. The easiest links to get are the least valuable/powerful. A single link from Google.com, for example, would outweigh tens of thousands of weaker links - that's how much quality matters.

• Website age - if your website is new there's not much you can do about it without a Delorian and a working flux capacitor ("Marty, the website is in place - now we gotta go back to the future!"). A website that's been around for a while is simply more trusted by search engines.

• Who you link to - it's not just about inbound links. Search engines also look at what websites you link to from your pages. If you're linking out to SPAMMY websites, they might consider you part of that "bad neighborhood" and penalize your website. Be careful who you vouch for.

There are other signals involved, but if you've got these three trust factors working in your favor you're very likely to dominate the competition.

The bottom line: search engines don't like getting burned by ranking SPAMMY websites. They want to know they can trust your website. Once you've got your on-page factors right (#1 and #2 above), you'll need to build trust signals before your website will rank competitively.

By Mike Tekula (c) 2009

About The Author
Mike Tekula is the Director of Marketing of Unstuck Digital - an Internet Marketing company that provides SEO Consulting and other custom-tailored services.

How to find the Right Keywords To Optimize Search Engine Results

2009-06-13T00:10:00.002+07:00

Search engine is the vehicles that drive potential customers to your website. But in order to achieve the goals they find your website, you must give them the signs of effective direct to your site with a carefully selected keywords.

Keywords are used as the basis of your marketing strategy. If they do not selected is very appropriate, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign, perhaps, the right person may not get the opportunity to find out about it. So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You may think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrase. Unfortunately, if you do not follow some specific steps, you may be WRONG. It's hard to be a destination when you right in the center of the network business, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose keywords that are most efficient from the inside. You must be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from many potential customers as you can. You will most likely know that the understanding of your business and your customers' understanding is significantly different.

Consumer is an invaluable source. You will find the word you accumulate from them are words and phrases that you may not have considered from deep in the trenches of your business.

Only after you collect words and phrases from outside resources, if you add keywords to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you're ready for the next step: evaluation.

The objective of the evaluation is to narrow the list to a number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By "quality visitors" I mean those consumers most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site, and friendly environment to relieve pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because of the quality objectives. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the possibility akan typed into a search engine which will then open the URL.

Now you can buy software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will suggest variations of your words and phrases. The higher the number for this software provides a keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. One of the only with this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you go down at the bottom of the search results, consumers may not akan scroll down to find you.

Popularity is not enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must switch to the criteria that determine the future. The more specific your keywords, the more likely that consumers who are ready to purchase goods or services you will find you.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself in the mind of the customer than the seller to find out what the motivation is to encourage the search for a product or service in a particular type of word or phrase.

Let's see another example, as a consumer to find a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you must choose between "Seattle job list" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do you will be more useful for consumers? If you are looking for a specific type of job, which keyword would you type? The second one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have decided on their careers, have the necessary experience, and ready to get you as a recruiter, rather than someone just out of school so just try to find out what to do with his life in beer between the parties.

You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering keyword until you find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to your site.

After you select your keywords, your work is not finished. You must continue to evaluate the performance of various search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as it is not popular lingo. You can not rely on log traffic analysis alone because it will not notify how many of your visitors make a purchase.

Fortunately, several new tools have been invented to help you assess the effectiveness of keywords in each search engine. There is now software available that analyzes the consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to see which keywords bring you the most valuable customers.

This is an important concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; advantages of each visitor to do. You have to find keywords that direct consumers to actually buy your product, you fill out a form, or download your product. This is the most important factors in evaluating the benefit of a keyword or phrase, and you have to wield a sword when discarding and not effective or efficient does not change with the keyword with the keywords that bring in better income.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for a successful search engine. This may sound like a lot of work - and it is! But the amount of information you put your keywords in a campaign that will ultimately generate your business' rewards.

Free Traffic and the 4 Vital Elements of a Successful Website

2009-06-10T20:23:00.002+07:00

Let's face it, anyone can build a website. There are countless companies out there offering a vast array of web building solutions, some good, some great, and some quite frankly are a complete waste of time! But throwing together a website is really only part of the story, only part of the process. There are literally, hundreds of thousands of web pages, that won't ever be viewed and therefore stand no chance of commercial success. Some of those sites are relatively good; unfortunately their owners have misunderstood the process and have the cart before the horse...

In the online world no one just happens by your website, credít card in hand! If you've yet to build your website, or about to create a new site, stop! consider first exactly what you wish to achieve with that site, before you start. "Creating a website should follow a process proven to deliver a commercial end result... or run the risk of ending up, just another pretty picture in cyberspace!"

Fortunately there is a process, and I highly recommend you take a look at it... perhaps you already know it...

Content > Traffic > Pre-sell > Monetize

A time tested, 4 step process, proven to produce websites that deliver... commercially! Ok so, let's now look briefly at each step and why they work in this particular order.

1. Numoro Uno, as always. Content. Very, very important. Building information-rich sites is crucial. You must have high quality, unique, relevant content on your site, A; because you want to attract visitors in the first place and B; to generate long term, search engine based free traffic.

Online, people are looking for solutions, for information that leads to solutions. They use the search engines to hunt for the most relevant facts to reach this end goal solution. Your job is therefore easy... give it to them... but don't just plonk down any old garbage and hope for the best... take your time, put in the effort, provide good quality information that will over-deliver and keep your visitor interested, satisfy her need and you will be rewarded. Over time, gradually add new fresh, useful content and you will be creating web pages valued by humans and search engines alike. On the internet, high value content is king!

2. Traffic... Ahh! The Holy Grail... Much has been written on the subject, and many are making a good living providing (?) this elusive element.

Truth is, (excluding social media) there are but two ways to get it - you either pay for it, or you optimize for it. If you take the time to understand the basics, you can easily do both.

Paid search, (PPC) such as Google Adwords has its place, and can provide an immediate stream of targeted visitors to your website; however it is a study of its own and can, if not understood, be very costly very quickly! If you want to go that route learn with small amounts (of money) and don't be tempted to throw good after bad... owch! been there!

Safer and arguably better, is optimization (SEO) for the organic results, as reached via a Google or other search engine search. This is simply intelligent website construction, a process anyone can do. The important point is, the optimization should be built in during the creative process, at the time you're constructing the site; you are literally building your website to principles that make it search engine friendly, thus leading to high natural positions in organic search results, leading to of course, significant free traffic flow to your site...

3. Don't sell... Pre-sell. You have created a website with value rich content, and fully optimized its pages for indexing by Google (and other search engines)... Folks are arriving at your site as directed by their search results. You are keen to have them buy your goods or services, ready with your pitch... but wait! There's another vital step in the process of converting your visitors into customers, and you've done half the work already...

Pre-selling is a warming up process, whereby you develop trust and confidence in your offering... it's already well known that people are more willing to buy from those they like, trust or respect. By over-delivering relevant high value information, without appearing to be forcing a sale you will almost by default, create an atmosphere that inevitably leads to sales. Simple!

As far as your visitor is concerned, her needs are being met, his wishes are being fulfilled, you are providing the very information that is the solution to that which they are searching for in the first place. Pre-selling creates an open-to-buy mindset that smoothly introduces your visitors to your monetization offer.

4. Monetize. Ok thanks for sticking with me, here's the home run... This is where you make your offering enticing by introducing and highlighting the many benefits of your product or service, and detailing exactly how it offers the solution to their predicament. You have paved the way with informative, relevant content and can now look to close with persuasive sales copy.

Your call to action should be strong and concise. Tell your prospect exactly what they need to do to order. If you have a good product, and you should, let them know exactly how they will benefit by ordering from you... Today!

So there it is... in brief... A formula simple, yet highly effective. Generate targeted free traffic via your highly optimized website, provide information packed content that offers solutions, warm up or pre-sell your visitors by over-delivering on the quality of that content, then and only then, monetize by introducing persuasive, benefit focused sales copy to convert pre-sold visitors into enthusiastic customers. For full details on how to implement each of these steps (with no technical knowledge whatsoever!) grab yourself a free 48 page e-copy of The Simple Art of e-Persuasion at the info link below... or visit my site.

By Brye Bishop

About The Author
Brye Bishop is a highly successful internet entrepreneur and marketer, committed to providing quality source information and assisting others in their quest for fínancial freedom. Clickfig.com ...Get your free copy of The Simple Art of e-Persuasion now, simply email "eBook offer" to info@clickfig.com

Google Adsense Income: The Three Keys

2009-06-03T18:00:00.001+07:00

Many people put together numerous (even hundreds) of niche websites to make Google Adsense income. You may have heard that a good target is earning $1/day from each web site, and you may have wondered if this is possible. Yes, it is, if you understand the three keys to Google Adsense income: click-through rate, earnings per click, and traffic.

You can improve the Adsense click-through rate by modifying your web site design. Observe which changes increase or decrease the Adsense click-through rate. It may sound funny, but you want a site that is good enough that it gets indexed by search engines and attracts visitors, but that is incomplete enough so that people want to leave in search of something more. And you want all of the obvious exit links to be Adsense ad links that seem to offer people what they are looking for.

Earnings per click depend on getting the content on a page (especially targeted keywords) to trigger Adsense ads that many advertisers are bidding on. One keyword might only make you $0.05 per click. Another keyword might make you several dollars per click. You want to target your page content around keywords that have many advertisers competing.

This is actually the opposite of what you want for search engine optimization. In general, you will be able to rank higher in the search engines for keywords with less competition. So how do you do this without destroying your search engine rankings? The secret is called “long tail” keywords.

Long tail keywords are longer keyword phrases that have searches yet have little competition in the search engine results. Be sure the phrases contain keywords that have high advertising competition. Google makes their money from advertising, so they will display the highest price ads that match the content on the page. But since you made sure you have one of the few pages targeted for the long-tail keyword phrase, you should also be able to rank well in the search engine results for the long tail phrase.

Once you improve your click-through rate and your earnings per click, it’s simply a matter of increasing traffic to your site. Getting traffic generally takes the most effort, in my experience. Basically, there are two ways to get traffic: You can buy advertising or you can get traffic through links and search engine results.

You could easily get traffic by buying Adwords ads. But it isn’t always easy to make more income than you spend on advertising. For an Adsense site, that generally means that you cannot profitably advertise it, so you need to get it listed in the search engines and get as many links as possible with a reasonable amount of effort. The two easiest ways to achieve this currently are article marketing and social networking.

Article marketing, sometimes called “bum marketing,” is pretty simple. You write one or more short articles (about 500 words or so) and submit them to article directories on the Web. You get to include an author’s resource box that links to your site at the end of the article. There are even services such as iSnare or Article Marketer that will submit your article to hundreds of article directories for you.

The more articles you do for a given site, the more links and traffic you get and the higher you get in search engine results. And you can get article ideas from anywhere. For example, this article started out as a response to one of my customers about how to do this. Since it was a long response, it was logical to also turn it into an article and publish it!

In social networking, you get your link on various social networking sites. Be sure to look through each site first and see what other people are doing and fit in with the community. Social networking sites have their own community rules, and you don’t want to get banned for spam.

These techniques will usually get your website indexed by the search engines within days. You will also get traffic from them, so don’t just do it for links, do it for traffic also.

Now that you know the three keys to Google Adsense income, click-through rate, earnings per click, and traffic, it’s time to start creating your Adsense empire!

By Mike Adams

Mike Adams - There is one more resource you need to create your Adsense empire: content! Creating numerous web sites takes a lot of content. Want a shortcut? Check out Mike Adams’s PLR-Content.com for all of the content you will ever need: http://www.plr-content.com/

Knocking on Google’s Door? Twitter Incorporates Search

2009-06-03T17:02:00.001+07:00

Google beware? Twitter has just announced that it is incorporating search functionality into its site. This means you can now easily acquire popular trend data for keywords and look deeper into what people are talking about in real time.

So what is the significance of this? That of course is still up to debate. Some people think that Twitter is on the heels of Google already and others say that Twitter is no search engine at all.

Both sides of the argument have good points. Still, there’s no denying that Twitter is a race horse with a great future, especially with this new function. Twitter is getting huge and recently turned down an offer from Facebook for $500 million. And with its business model of Q & A features and search ads, you can see why. Not to mention the fact that Facebook is trying to keep pace by adding various Twitter like functions…

Some people can’t see much value in Twitter calling it just another social media site for friends to chat with each other. What people don’t recognize is the fact that Twitter is an extremely large pool of information based on our personal lives- which is invaluable to the marketer.

Despite the increasing value that Twitter leverages, it is still a new born compared to Google and may require a decade before being able to develop the technology and accuracy of Google’s search results. Still it has all the right stuff to get there eventually. Google’s market share is safe…at least for now anyhow.

Consider that Twitter communications are a true representation of the masses’ opinions. People can log on and get answers they can trust because they have their own network of people who they’ve already established relationships with. Google gives great results, but they are impersonal and often inaccurate. With people’s online lives enveloping more and more of their time, the personal touch works wonders. Corporate media and celebrity spokespeople only go so far.

In addition to that, information gathered on Twitter is more relevant to one’s location. With the personal profiles, and the ability to send messages from mobile devices, (enter GPS technology) Twitter can leverage this value and exploit what it can do and Google can’t.

Twitter is quickly proving it is the future of search. Its power lies in the fact that it enables people to get the opinions of others in regards to relevant current information. When searching, people want real opinions as well as the facts.

For example imagine typing something into Google and seeing all of the results pop up…They are put there from the businesses and individuals who want you to believe certain things about their product or service. Well, what if in addition to that, it had thousands of third party opinions that have no vested interest in those products or services? And imagine if all those opinions are from people you know? This is the dynamic that Twitter leverages, and if it plays it’s cards right, it will be siphoning off Google clicks in a few short years.

By Jeffrey Smith

About the Author: Maverick Money Makers is a private society that will teach you how to build a six-figure a month business on the internet. If you want to make money online, join the society before it’s too late. Maverick Money Makers

Some Link Building Strategies

2009-06-02T21:57:00.002+07:00

Building link popularity is the most difficult and time-consuming aspect of search engine optimization. Search engines tend to ignore links from free web sites or artificial links in their link analysis system, leaving there no easy ways to build link popularity.

The secret to a successful web site in a pure link analysis system is the content. Be sure that you have a content rich site before submitting the link.
Some legitimate ways of building link popularity for your site.
Ask for a link: directly contact the owner of a site via email or other means asking for a link to your site.
Start developing more content if your site is lacking it and become a content provider.
Have a high quality newsletter or article section on your site. People will want to link to you to provide their visitors useful information.
Submit your web site in the appropriate categories of the major search directories.
Search for "submit a link" and “most important keyword." This will display a list of sites that have link pages related to your keyword. Post links to them.
Submit your site to the thousands of relevant specialty search engines and directories
Submit to as many as relevant themed directories as possible.
Post an article in their ‘ezine' or content library section. This gives the site owner something that represents real value to the content of their web site.
Write articles that are related to the keywords and market these articles to online content providers.

Source : www.synapseinteractive.com

Effective Link Building

2009-06-02T21:16:00.003+07:00

Search engine optimization SEO, the technique or the process of helping a website rank high in search engine pages, is becoming increasingly difficult with number of websites multiplying at an alarming rate and search engines becoming increasingly complex to filter out the genuine ones. Even five years back simple keywords could help a website rank high, a scenario that cannot be imagined today.

Today, search engine algorithms are much complex and only keywords will not work to attract their attention. SEO experts are continuously devising out new strategies to find out ways of attracting the search engine crawlers. However, backlinks are still one of the most effective ways of SEO.

Backlinks are incoming links that points to a particular webpage. Major search engines use the number of backlinks to determine the popularity of the website and hence its ranking.

Links can be built through a number of methods such as reciprocal linking where you offer the opportunity to provide a link to another website in return for the same. Another widely popular method of building links is through articles. In this case, you need to write articles, blogs and submit them to various directories. A link to your website with every article or blog can serve as an excellent one-way link. One-way linking is more effective than reciprocal linking, as these are more preferred over reciprocal linking by search engines such as Google.

However, reciprocal linking, if done correctly can fetch favorable results. If you desire to go for reciprocal linking, the most important checklist is to strictly sharing link with relevant websites only. For example, if your website is about Internet consultancy, which is also your keywords, then the best way is to link with such websites who have Internet consultancy as their offering, or their keywords. The more similar kind of links you share, the more easier it will be for search engines to figure out your website related to your ‘Internet consulting’ keyword.

However, featuring an array of links is only one of the many optimization methods and successful SEO means utilizing all the individual practices in the right combination to achieve the desired results.

Source : www.synapseinteractive.com

Protecting Your Search Engine Rankings

2009-06-02T21:08:00.003+07:00

Your website's ranking on search engines is a vital element of your overall marketing campaign, and there are ways to improve your link popularity through legitimate methods. Unfortunately, the Internet is populated by bands of dishonest webmasters seeking to improve their link popularity by faking out search engines.

The good news is that search engines have figured this out, and are now on guard for "spam" pages and sites that have increased their rankings by artificial methods. When a search engine tracks down such a site, that site is demoted in ranking or completely removed from the search engine's index.

The bad news is that some high quality, completely above-board sites are being mistaken for these web page criminals. Your page may be in danger of being caught up in the "spam" net and tossed from a search engine's index, even though you have done nothing to deserve such harsh treatment. But there are things you can do - and things you should be sure NOT to do - which will prevent this kind of misperception.

Link popularity is mostly based on the quality of sites you are linked to. Google pioneered this criteria for assigning website ranking, and virtually all search engines on the Internet now use it. There are legitimate ways to go about increasing your link popularity, but at the same time, you must be scrupulously careful about which sites you choose to link to. Google frequently imposes penalties on sites that have linked to other sites solely for the purpose of artificially boosting their link popularity. They have actually labeled these links "bad neighborhoods."

You can raise a toast to the fact that you cannot be penalized when a bad neighborhood links to your site; penalty happens only when you are the one sending out the link to a bad neighborhood. But you must check, and double-check, all the links that are active on your links page to make sure you haven't linked to a bad neighborhood.

The first thing to check out is whether or not the pages you have linked to have been penalized. The most direct way to do this is to download the Google toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com. You will then see that most pages are given a "Pagerank" which is represented by a sliding green scale on the Google toolbar.

Do not link to any site that shows no green at all on the scale. This is especially important when the scale is completely gray. It is more than likely that these pages have been penalized. If you are linked to these pages, you may catch their penalty, and like the flu, it may be difficult to recover from the infection.

There is no need to be afraid of linking to sites whose scale shows only a tiny sliver of green on their scale. These sites have not been penalized, and their links may grow in value and popularity. However, do make sure that you closely monitor these kind of links to ascertain that at some point they do not sustain a penalty once you have linked to them from your links page.

Another evil trick that illicit webmasters use to artificially boost their link popularity is the use of hidden text. Search engines usually use the words on web pages as a factor in determining their rankings, which means that if the text on your page contains your keywords, you have more of an opportunity to increase your search engine ranking than a page that does not contain text inclusive of keywords.

Some webmasters have gotten around this formula by hiding their keywords in such a way so that they are invisible to any visitors to their site. For example, they have used the keywords but made them the same color as the background color of the page, such as a plethora of white keywords on a white background. You cannot see these words with the human eye - but the eye of a search engine spider can spot them easily! A spider is the program search engines use to index web pages, and when it sees these invisible words, it goes back and boosts that page's link ranking.

Webmasters may be brilliant and sometimes devious, but search engines have figured these tricks out. As soon as a search engine perceives the use of hidden text - splat! - the page is penalized.

The downside of this is that sometimes the spider is a bit overzealous and will penalize a page by mistake. For example, if the background color of your page is gray, and you have placed gray text inside a black box, the spider will only take note of the gray text and assume you are employing hidden text. To avoid any risk of false penalty, simply direct your webmaster not to assign the same color to text as the background color of the page - ever!

Another potential problem that can result in a penalty is called "keyword stuffing." It is important to have your keywords appear in the text on your page, but sometimes you can go a little overboard in your enthusiasm to please those spiders. A search engine uses what is called "Keyphrase Density" to determine if a site is trying to artificially boost their ranking. This is the ratio of keywords to the rest of the words on the page. Search engines assign a limit to the number of times you can use a keyword before it decides you have overdone it and penalizes your site.

This ratio is quite high, so it is difficult to surpass without sounding as if you are stuttering - unless your keyword is part of your company name. If this is the case, it is easy for keyword density to soar. So, if your keyword is "renters insurance," be sure you don't use this phrase in every sentence. Carefully edit the text on your site so that the copy flows naturally and the keyword is not repeated incessantly. A good rule of thumb is your keyword should never appear in more than half the sentences on the page.

The final potential risk factor is known as "cloaking." To those of you who are diligent Trekkies, this concept should be easy to understand. For the rest of you - cloaking is when the server directs a visitor to one page and a search engine spider to a different page. The page the spider sees is "cloaked" because it is invisible to regular traffic, and deliberately set-up to raise the site's search engine ranking. A cloaked page tries to feed the spider everything it needs to rocket that page's ranking to the top of the list.

It is natural that search engines have responded to this act of deception with extreme enmity, imposing steep penalties on these sites. The problem on your end is that sometimes pages are cloaked for legitimate reasons, such as prevention against the theft of code, often referred to as "pagejacking." This kind of shielding is unnecessary these days due to the use of "off page" elements, such as link popularity, that cannot be stolen.

To be on the safe side, be sure that your webmaster is aware that absolutely no cloaking is acceptable. Make sure the webmaster understands that cloaking of any kind will put your website at great risk.

Just as you must be diligent in increasing your link popularity and your ranking, you must be equally diligent to avoid being unfairly penalized. So be sure to monitor your site closely and avoid any appearance of artificially boosting your rankings.

By Filomena Serraino (c) 2008

About The Author
Using one way links for your Web Promotion gets results. WHY? Link popularity is one of the most important factors in search engine performance. Increasing the number of links to your Website will get your site listed higher in search engine results, generating more Website Traffic, increasing your Google PR and improving your site's overall strength. http://www.seolinkmart.com

Creating High-Leverage Marketing Assets

2009-06-01T19:42:00.002+07:00

The single biggest, non-renewable asset you have is your time. There are only three things you can do with it: waste it, sell it, or invest it. As an entrepreneur or a service professional, what you do with your time acutely impacts how much money you can make.

If this year you want to make clients come to you, earn a six-figure or beyond income, become the expert in your chosen field, positively impact lives of many people, gain fame and earn respect of your peers — you have to invest your time into creating marketing assets!

Just like the wealthy invest in assets that continuously appreciate and generate more money — like real estate, the savvy entrepreneurs invest in creating marketing assets that grow your business with no additional expense. What are those assets? Here is just a short list:

* Content
* Info products
* Referral partners
* Ezine subscribers list
* Customers list
* Incoming links to your website
* Testimonials
* Education

So if you want to become the ‘top dog’ in your industry, you’ve got to start doing what the ‘big dogs’ do.

To begin investing your time into creating high leverage marketing assets, use this short checklist:

DON’T design expensive logos. While establishing your uniqueness is important, people will not do business with you because you spent money on a cute graphic!

DO survey your ideal clients. Learning and understanding their needs allow you to offer them solutions they want — and that makes you incredibly attractive to them.

DON’T place ads that feature little more but your logo, phone number and address. Stop kidding yourself thinking you are the next IBM or Coca-Cola and that merely mentioning your name will get people pounding on your door!

DO create content that addresses the most pressing needs your prospects and clients are desperately trying to solve! Write articles, create special reports, publish an e-zine or e-book (or regular book), and record audio/video products. If you advertise — advertise those products not your services.

DO take time to learn and leverage free publicity. Research media contacts, take time to understand what type of information appeals to them, and become good at presenting your information in the format they like best.

DON’T attend every networking meeting you can find. Your time is much too valuable to try to attract business in one-on-one fashion. Contrary to the popular belief — networking isn’t cheap!

If you sum up the cost of your time, the price you pay to eat all that rubber chicken, and the energy to follow-up with people who will likely never do business with you — it’s a very expensive (and ineffective) way to find only a handful of qualified prospects!

DO develop informative presentations. Find large gatherings of your ideal prospects and become good at getting yourself invited as a speaker.

DON’T fiddle around adjusting the shades of colors on your website!

DO look for online communities that already attract your ideal clients and find a way to make them link to you. Ask them to post your articles. Make your site content rich so they will want to list it as a resource. Or sell an info product and invite them to become an affiliate.

DON’T beg for referrals!

DO create ways your current clients can easily ‘give you away’ (like an article or an audio CD)

DO build relationships with referral partners. Create ways in which they can introduce you to hundreds or even thousands of prospects at once!

DON’T try to figure everything out on your own — that’s a very expensive way to learn marketing and build your business.

DO invest in knowledge products and access to experts. An hour or two with a knowledgeable advisor can save you thousands of dollars in time and money wasted on wrong strategies and improperly implemented tactics.

Providing people with easily accessible information about solutions will position you as a valuable resource and an expert. These tools will not only attract all the new business you want, but they will allow you to charge the money you deserve and create the lifestyle you desire.

So stop wasting time eating all that rubber chicken and chasing people who will likely never do business with you nor refer a single client. Instead, start creating high-leverage marketing tools that over time will generate an avalanche of new business!

By Adam Urbanski

2009 Marketing Mentors. All Rights Reserved. The author, Adam Urbanski, teaches service professionals and business owners how to develop better marketing strategies to increase sales and profits. His website offers more how-to articles and free tips to create a winning marketing action plan at http://www.themarketingmentors.com

Blogging Your Way to the Top

2009-06-01T19:35:00.005+07:00

It is no real secret that a well written topical blog can significantly help out your website - so why aren't you doing it?

The most common reasons I hear for not starting a blog involve a lack of time to write posts, and limited ideas to write about, but taking that extra time to get some useful content out there can do wonders for your search rankings among other things.

An established blog that is updated regularly gets spidered by Google often, and increases the chances of new search rankings considerably. I have seen multiple situations where regularly updated blogs wind up ranking #1 in Google for relevant phrases literally within a couple hours of posting. It usually takes a well established website and blog to make this happen, but there is big potential if you do things the right way.

While blogs work best if updated multiple times per week, even those with a new post every week or two have advantages. Blogs don't have to be a major undertaking, spending only an hour or so a week on posting can have you seeing results in no time.

There are many advantages to adding a blog to your website. Here are a few.

Increased Rankings
By boosting your topical content, you increase the value and relevance of your site. The more new stuff you add, the more of an authority you make your site, and this helps to improve your overall search rankings. It can also help you obtain rankings for "long tailed search phrases".

Long tailed search phrases are those that are less commonly searched, and usually exceed 3 or 4 words in length - they are also very targeted to your product or service. Blogs are great for getting rankings on long tailed search phrases. If you see a long tailed search phrase you want to rank for, use the phrase as the post title (if it makes sense to do so) and write a good, content rich post about it and your ranking potential for this phrase will rise.

By writing blog posts with your target phrases in mind, you can often help improve your overall rankings by increasing the relevance of the site to that search phrase. Consider also linking to other relevant pages within your site from the post.

Increased Traffic
Blogs are great for increasing traffic. Aside from the added traffic you may see from search ranking improvements, if your blog is interesting and topical, you will get some repeat visitors to your site as readers check back for new posts. If people really like your blog, they will spread the word, resulting in even more visitors. Just think, have you ever emailed or instant messaged a friend with a link to an article you have read? Don't you want your link to be the one passed around?

Credibility
By blogging regularly about your industry you will help to establish yourself as an expert. Many of your potential customers will see your blog and notice that you know what you're talking about and be more likely to utilize your services. By sharing your knowledge it can help to instill trust onto your visitors which can actually result in increased conversions. There are a lot of faceless, anonymous websites out there - an active blog can help people relate to you and trust you.

Links
A good, well written blog can result in free one way links to your site. Sometimes it is as simple as a fan adding your link to their blog roll, and other times it may be RSS working its magic. Try to squeeze in a link or two into your posts and direct them to other internal pages on your website. If anyone then republishes or syndicates your posts on their sites, you will also end up with a relevant back link. (If you would like some other ideas on link building be sure to check out Ways to Increase Link Density & Building Links with Directory Submissions )

A blog is not a magic bullet used to skyrocket your inbound link counts, but it can certainly help.

What Platform To Use
I am a firm believer in the power of WordPress and the seemingly unlimited plug-ins available to help you. That said, just about any blog platform will work. It is probably best to stick with the main stream providers as they tend to have more options available and better support forums in case you get stuck with customization issues. In the end however, any search friendly blog platform will ultimately do the trick.

Blog Post Ideas
If after reading this you are sitting there thinking, "What should I write about?" here are some ideas to help you get going:

• New product launches
• Press releases
• Industry relevant news
• How to's related to your product or service
• Answers to reader comments
• Posts revolving around relevant long tailed phrases
• In depth product descriptions or tutorials
• Company history or interesting stories
• Reviews of related products, services or online tools

Blogs are relevant for pretty much all industries, and they don't have to take a lot of your time. A little creativity can help you come up with ideas for posts, just try to think outside the proverbial box.

If you've been putting off the blogging idea for some time, consider getting started now. There is much to gain and very little to lose.

By Scott Van Achte (c) 2009

About The Author
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc.; based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Scott's articles and those of the veteran StepForth team at news.stepforth.com or contact us at www.stepforth.com

Quick and Easy Keyword Research for More Traffíc

2009-05-29T16:40:00.002+07:00

To get visitors to your webpage you really need to know what keywords people will type into the search engines to find the service or product your specific site or webpage offers.

Before you say "Oh no, not another keyword research article", let me just say you will learn exactly how to quickly and easily do keyword research and even create SEO friendly pages based on keywords you find.

Clearly one of the most beneficial ways to generate more traffíc to your site is to create backlinks to it. Backlinks from relevant sites helps to boost your page rank and can even get your website, or a particular webpage, showing on the first pages of a Google search for that keyword.

Now you don't want just any old backlinks but ones that contain specific keywords you have optimized a particular page, blog or website for.

Lets say your website is about "dog training". A common and highly sought after keyword, but one that a new or even established site is going to find hard to be ranked high for.

Now we all know that trying to get a webpage ranked in Google for one of the primary search terms is a real challenge. Those keywords are in effect, out of the range of most marketers, both in time and money resources to try to rank for.

So the best possible way to raise search results and rank in your niche is to select secondary keywords that still get a lot of searches but don't eliminate you from the possibility for ranking for them.

Stick with me here because this isn't as hard as you were perhaps ** lead ** to believe.

Now the first thing you should do is to narrow down the keyword(s) that you want to build or optimize a webpage for. You can do this very easily by going to the following website SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and typing in a primary keyword in the search box.

In the results that show, you are going to get a good líst of the highest searched for keywords related to the primary keyword you entered in the search box. You will also find a lot more information presented that can really help you narrow down your selection. You are looking for phrases that contain part or all of the primary keyword that you started your search with.

The next thing you must do is determine what keywords are being used successfully to market products, services or websites online. To do this, I suggest you use the Google Adwords search term tool.

You can simply copy and paste a keyword from the líst into the form, hit enter and get a listing of keywords based on the one you input and also provide a líst of additional keywords to consider that expands the possibilities even further.

Most importantly you will see a listing of keywords followed by a box filled in with the color green.

At this point, my suggestion to you is that you choose a keyword that has good monthly search quantity but whose box [colored in green] is only about half or less green. Less green means there is less competition for that particular keyword phrase.

Now we want to measure the link building competition for a keyword in Google's search engine by selecting a keyword from the above líst and placing the phrase in the Google search box using the specific search operator: inanchor:"your keyword goes here"

Being that we are narrowing our keyword to a specific one you want to be sure to include the quotation marks before and after the keyword. If you use the inanchor operator without the quotation marks, it will give results for every page that contains every word in the phrase you entered individually or together, instead of the specific phrase, and doesn't narrow the pages down to relevant ones that you would be directly competing for on that particular keyword phrase.

Using the inanchor operator with the quotation marks will show the results (pages or links) shown (at top right of page) that contain the exact keyword phrase. These are sites already using that "keyword search term" on their webpages.

Note: you can find a full description of all google search operators at: GoogleGuide.com

After you find a suitable keyword with good search volume and minimal competition and build a webpage around it, you can begin creating backlinks to that page using several resources. Your backlinks should be from high traffic sites because they usually get spidered for new information regularly by the search engines looking for new content and links.

Here are some suggestions:

* Post to forums with your sig file containing the link to your webpage
* Leave a comment on blogs
* Write and submit articles

Be sure that somewhere you include the specific search term that you have optimized your webpage for and the link to that specific page.

Is there an easier way to create backlinks without having to spend hours and hours of your time doing it?

Yes, there are automated sites and systems to help with creating backlinks. Just be sure the systems mesh with your needs and don't send up red flags to the search engines.

By Ed Duvall (c) 2009

About The Author
Creating quality permanent backlinks is easier and quicker than you think. www.cashway.com/d/backlinks.htm . Reprint OK with resource box as is.

Avoiding Top SEO Mistakes

2009-05-29T16:17:00.003+07:00

Following are the 9 Biggest SEO Mistakes which Web Designers & Web Developers should avoid.

Splash Page

I've seen this mistake many times where people put up just a big banner image and a link "Clíck here to enter" on their homepage. The worst case - the "enter" link is embedded in the Flash object, which makes it impossible for the spiders to follow the link.

This is fine if you don't care about what a search engine knows about your site; otherwise, you're making a BIG mistake. Your homepage is probably your website's highest ranking page and gets crawled frequently by web spiders. Your internal pages will not appear in the search engine index without the proper linking structure to internal pages for the spider to follow.

Non-spiderable Flash Menus

Many designers make this mistake by using Flash menus such as those fade-in and animated menus. They might look cool to you, but they can't be seen by the search engines; and thus the links in the Flash menu will not be followed.

Image and Flash Content

Web spiders are like a text-based browser, they can't read the text embedded in the graphic image or Flash. Most designers make this mistake by embedding the important content (such as target keywords) in Flash and image.

Overuse of Ajax

A lot of developers are trying to impress their visitors by implementing massive Ajax features (particularly for navigation purposes), but did you know that it is a big SEO mistake? Because, ajax content is loaded dynamically, so it is not spiderable or indexable by search engines.

Another disadvantage of Ajax - since the address URL doesn't reload, your visitor cannot send the current page to their friends.

Versioning of Theme Design

For some reason, some designers love to version their theme design into sub level folders (i.e. domain.com/v2, v3, v4) and redirect to the new folder. Constantly changing the main root location may cause you to lose backlink counts and ranking.

"Click Here" Link Anchor Text

You probably see this a lot where people use "Clíck here" or "Learn more" as the linking text. This is great if you want to be ranked high for "Click Here". But, if you want to tell the search engine that your page is important for a topic, then use, that topic/keyword in your link anchor text. It's much more descriptive (and relevant) to say "learn more about {keyword topic}"

Common Title Tag Mistakes

Same or Similar Title Text:

Every page on your site should have a unique tag with the target keywords in it. Many developers make the mistake of having the same or similar title tags throughout the entire site. That's like telling the search engine that EVERY page on your site refers to the same topic and one isn't any more unique than the other.

One good example of bad Title Tag use would be the default WordPress theme. In case you didn't know, the title tag of the default WordPress theme isn't that useful: Site Name > Blog Archive > Post Title. Why isn't this search engine friendly? Because, every single blog post will have the same text "Site Name > Blog Archive >" at the beginning of the Title Tag. If you really want to include the site name in the title tag, it should be at the end: Post Title | Site Name.

Exceeding the 65 Character Limit:

Many bloggers write very long post titles. So what? In search engine result pages, your title tag is used as the link heading. You have about 65 characters (including spaces) to get your message across or risk it getting cut off.

Keyword Stuffing the Title:

Another common mistake people tend to make is overfilling the title tag with keywords. Saying the same thing 3 times doesn't make you more relevant. Keyword stuffing in the Title Tag is looked at as search engine spam (not good). But it might be smart to repeat the same word in different ways:

"Photo Tips & Photography Techniques for Great Pictures" "Photo" and "Photography" are the same word repeated twice but in different ways because your audience might use either one when performing a search query.

Empty Image Alt Attribute

You should always describe your image in the alt attribute. The alt attribute is what describes your image to a blind web user. Guess what? Search engines can't see images so your alt attribute is a factor in illustrating what your page is relevant for.

Hint: Properly describing your images can help your ranking in the image search results. For example, Google image search brings me hundreds of referrals everyday for the search terms "abstract" and "dj".

Unfriendly URLs

Most blog or CMS platforms have a friendly URL feature built-in, however, not every blogger is taking advantage of this. Friendly URL's are good for both your human audience and the search engines. The URL is also an important spot where your keywords should appear.

Example of Friendly URL: domain.com/page-title
Example of Dynamic URL: domain.com/?p=12356

These things are the pillars of Search Engine Optimization and so to your web site's success path.

By Robin Dale (c) 2009

About The Author
Robin Dale is the publisher for www.teeky.org. We provide useful, quality articles and news about Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing, Dedicated Server Hosting, Windows VPS Hosting UK, Linux VPS Hosting UK, e-commerce hosting, cPanel Hosting, hosting tips & UK Web Hosting.

10 Free and Easy Ways to Improve Your Alexa Ranking

2009-05-28T17:35:00.002+07:00

Alexa, which is owned by Amazon.com, gives away a free toolbar that you can download and install in your browser. Alexa is then able to keep track of the sites you visit and compute the traffic ranking of those websites, with a rank of "1" being the assigned to the most visited site.

If you want a more technical definition, Alexa explains it like this:

"The traffic rank is based on three months of aggregated historical traffic data from millions of Alexa Toolbar users and data obtained from other, diverse traffic data sources, and is a combined measure of page views and users (reach). As a first step, Alexa computes the reach and number of page views for all sites on the Web on a daily basis. The main Alexa traffic rank is based on a value derived from these two quantities averaged over time (so that the rank of a site reflects both the number of users who visit that site as well as the number of pages on the site viewed by those users)."

http://www.alexa.com/site/help/traffic_learn_more

In April 2008 Alexa revised its methodology so as to "aggregate data from multiple sources to give you a better indication of website popularity among the entire population of Internet users".

http://awis.blogspot.com/2008_04_01_archive.html

How accurately this method reflects the actual surfing patterns of all Internet users is open to question. However, if you bear in mind that by the end of 2005 the toolbar had been downloaded well over 10 million times you will realize why many people still think that Alexa offers one of the best approximations that we have of website ranking, especially for the top 100,000 or so websites.

That is why Alexa remains an important measure of a website's status and is used as a quick way to assess the popularity of a website by advertisers looking for the maximum exposure for the their money. Websites with a higher Alexa ranking also tend to be trusted more than those with a low ranking, so it is in the interest of website owners to get their sites ranked as highly as possible with Alexa.

Here are some quick and easy tips to help you do that without spending a single dollar!

1. Install the Alexa toolbar and set your website as your homepage.

2. Copy and paste an Alexa rank widget onto your website. You can get the widget code at http://www.alexa.com/site/site_stats/signup. As well as informing your visitors about your Alexa rank, it will also keep Alexa updated about the number of unique visitors surfing your site.

3. Create a customized version of the Alexa tool bar, Then place a link on your site to the download page and invite your visitors to download it. You will also earn Amazon commissions every time a user shops on Amazon via the toolbar link.

4. If you have a Wordpress blog there is a plug-in for Alexa Ranking (wp-Alexa-redirect-0.3plug-in) that you can use. Editor's Note: This plugin may no longer work.

5. Submit your site to web directories. Although a lot of directories charge a registration fee, you can still find many that are willing to list your site free of charge or in exchange for a reciprocal link. A lot of the webmasters who browse web directories have the Alexa bar installed, so if they click your link it will help your Alexa traffic rank.

6. Become an active participant on Internet marketing and SEO forums. Again, a lot of those forum participants are already webmasters and a high percentage will use the Alexa toolbar when they surf. Place a link to your site in your signature and your rank will improve when any of those people click through.

7. A lot of Asian and Australian websites feature in the Alexa top 100,000 and you can bet that a lot of website owners will have the Alexa toolbar installed, so it makes sense to join social networking sites that are popular in those regions, such as:

* http://www.orkut.com - Orkut is owned by Google and is the second most visited site in India.

* http://hi5.com - Hi5 has an Alexa ranking of 17 at the time of writing this article.

8. Become an Alexa expert and post articles that discuss Alexa ranking and SEO tips. This will attract people to your site who may be interested in downloading your toolbar, or people who have already done so. Either way, it will be good for your Alexa ranking. You could even build a whole category of articles on your website devoted to this theme.

9. Set up a freebie page on your website and post a list of useful tools to attract other website owners to your site. Include another link to your Alexa toolbar download page.

10. Get into the habit of using Stumbleupon and other bookmarking sites to spread the word whenever you post a new article on your website or blog. Set up a group of fellow website owners so that you can have run reciprocal stumbling campaigns for better results.

If you apply these ten quick and easy methods you will definitely see an improvement in your Alexa rank and you should also start to attract more traffic to your site!

By Darrell Howell (c) 2008

About The Author
Darrell Howell is an Internet Marketer and Blogger. Visit his Blog at www.blueridgemoney.info .

Search Engine Optimization:11 Basic SEO Strategies for Beginners

2009-05-28T17:22:00.002+07:00

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process getting your website ready to be found in organic web searches. By organic searches, I'm referring to web searches that appear naturally as the result of a search for a particular keyword or phrase, rather than appearing in the sponsored links (pay-per-click advertising) section of a search page.

Frankly, for the first few years I was online, the thought of doing my own SEO made my eyes cross, and I was overwhelmed at where to start. I even toyed with the idea of hiring a specialist to do this for me, but never got around to it. However, over time, I slowly began to see a pattern emerging, and started to optimize some of my sites accordingly. One of the best days of my business was when I recently ranked #1 for a particularly competitive search term.

I'm not a search engine optimization (SEO) specialist, nor do I play one on TV. However, even a new business owner who creates and updates her own websites can implement some very basic SEO strategies to make her website appear higher in the organic rankings on certain keyword searches.

Here are the 11 strategies that I regularly implement on my sites for better SEO positioning:

1. Page title tags: This is the page information that you see in the blue bar of your browser in the upper left-hand corner when you visit a website. For best SEO, use your top 2 keywords in your title tag. The best way to do that is separated with a bar, as illustrated in this example: Internet Marketing | Web Marketing.

2. Domain name: If at all possible, use one primary keyword in your domain name. You will have a slight edge over your competition by doing so. If you already have a domain that you have used for some time, include a keyword in the name of files for your website pages. Example: http://www.yoursite.com/internet-marketing.htm if your keyword is Internet marketing.

3. Meta tags: These are descriptions on a web page that are not seen by most visitors except when looking at the page source code in their browser. While the keyword and description metatags used to be the primary way that search engines indexed sites, that is no longer the case. However, you shouldn't ignore them entirely, as it is still worthwhile to include them as a part of your page description. For optimal SEO, your meta description and keyword tags should be no more than 150 characters each.

4. Header tags: Header tags are the HTML code that indicate a headline, like H1, H2 and H3 and show up as bolded headlines in your page content. The first 3 header tags are the only ones you need to be concerned about, and the primary header tag, H1, is the most important. Use your primary keyword once in the H1 tag, 2-3 times in your H2 tags, and multiple times in your H3 tags.

5. Alt image tag: The alt tag typically describes an image in a floating text window when you put your mouse over the image if the image isn't able to be displayed. The best use of any tag is to use your keywords in your image descriptions.

6. Content formatting: Search engines pay attention to formatted content, as in when text is bolded, italicized, and underlined. Make sure that you are bolding your keywords in the content of your website.

7. Keyword density: Keyword density refers to the number of times a keyword or keyword phrase appears on a web page. Rather than trying to focus on the number of times a keyword appears in the content of your page, aim for a more natural density by keeping your keyword phrases in mind as you write the copy for your page. Optimally, keyword density should be between 2% - 7%. There are a number of keyword density checkers available online to assist you with determining the keyword density of a page.

8. Anchor text: Anchor text refer to links on a page that connect your visitor to other pages. So, rather than telling someone to "click here" in the content of your page, include a keyword in your anchor text, as in "click here for dog training tips."

9. Inbound links: Reciprocal link exchange (you link to my site and I'll link to yours) used to be a great way to attract the attention of search engines to your site. Now, search engines pay attention only to the quality and popularity of the site providing you with an inbound link that is not a reciprocal link. One of the best ways to get quality inbound links back to your site is to submít articles to high traffic article directoríes and submit press releases to paid press release services.

A second way to gain high quality inbound links is by listíng your site in search engine-friendly directoríes in which humans review the listings. Google and other search engines place more credibility in the directories in which the listings are reviewed by real people than they do other kinds of directories. Consequently, these links are weighted more heavily and favorably in the inbound link evaluation process.

10. New content: Content is still king, so one way to improve your page rank for a search term is to write high quality articles containing one or two of your keywords in the title and posting those regularly (weekly is best) to your site. Search engines are always seeking good, fresh, content, so your goal should be to make your site into an information-rich resource for your industry.

11. Site maps: There are sitemaps that help a visitor navigate a site, and sitemaps that are expressly designed for the search engines. The two are not the same. To enhance your site, submit an xml sitemap to Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer. I use XML Sitemaps to build search engine-friendly sitemaps on my sites.

Search engine optimization strategy is not as difficult as it appears. Take some time to do some keyword research for your site, and then spend another 15 minutes a day employing a few of these strategies until you have a well-optimized site. Why pay for visitors through pay-per-click advertising if you don't have to?

By Donna Gunter (c) 2008

About The Author
Online Business Manager and Online Business Coach Donna Gunter helps independent service professionals learn how to automate their businesses, leverage their expertise on the Internet, and get more clients online. To claim your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketíng Toolkit, visit her site at www.OnlineBizU.com . Ask Donna an Internet Marketing question at www.AskDonnaGunter.com .

Top 5 Free Keyword Research Tools For Web Developers And Online Marketers

2009-05-24T15:40:00.003+07:00

The benefits of finding the best free keyword research tools online today are plentiful for you. With so many popping up online you often ask yourself which one is worth using for my basic keyword research needs.

Well in this article I’m going to give you some great links to what I think are the best free keyword research tools on the web to help you with your keyword analysis. They’ll give you some great stats to work with and hopefully do the job you were hoping for.

There’s just one thing I want to mention about these free keyword research tools below and that is they only give you the amount of searches for that given keyword phrase. What they don’t give you is your competition for those given keyword phrases.

But what we’re really trying to do here is find out if there’s a market for your interests and passions before you start building and marketing your website.

So with that said here are the free keyword research tools I think are the best for you to get started with and are very easy to use.

Lets start with the first one.

1) Wordtracker

With this free keyword research tool all you need to do is enter a starting keyword to generate up to 100 related keywords and an estimate of their daily search volume.

Go to: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com

2) Google Adwords

This keyword research tool I think is by far the best because it allows you to enter keywords for analysis or a website URL(Hint: Great for analysising your competitors sites).

Go to: https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

3) SEO Book

SEO Books keyword research tool is powered by Wordtracker’s API, plus it cross references Google and Yahoo search results to give you a detailed view of your keyword analysis.

Go to: http://tools.seobook.com/keyword-tools/seobook/

4) NicheBot Classic

With NicheBot Classic which also uses Wordtracker’s API allows you to insert your keyword and will give you the TOP 50 keywords and there daily search count and competing pages in Google, MSN and Yahoo.

Go to: http://www.nichebotclassic.com

5) Good Keywords

Good Keywords is a free Windows software for finding the perfect set of keywords for your web pages. Good Keywords is completely free. No registration, no payments and no nag screens.

Go to: http://www.goodkeywords.com

So there you have it, 5 of the TOP free keyword research tools available to you on the web for free to get you started with your keyword research.

There are of course paid services and software that give you more detailed keyword analysis but if you don’t have the money to spend these are a great starting point for you.

It all starts here with your keyword research because what’s the point of starting a website or paid advertising campaign without this valuable information in your hands.

I hope this list of free keyword research tools helps you and the best of luck with your websites and advertising campaigns.

By Cory Threlfall

About Author
Cory Threlfall owns and operates a blog called The Web Development Central BLOG. Here you’ll receive Expert How-To Articles, Video Tutorials and Recommended Resources for getting your first website up and generating traffic. Visit today and subscribe to his Free RSS feed or Twitter feed so you’ll be the first to receive his latest blog updates. Go now to: Free Keyword Research Tools

Universal Search Strategize Your Way to the Top

2009-05-24T15:26:00.003+07:00

While we all work to beat the competitors for targeted search terms, hoping to land that top ten ranking; Google's Universal search provides additional opportunities to improve your website's exposure by mixing in universal search results.

Most companies are not taking full advantage of universal search and are really missing the opportuníty to improve their exposure and interact with their visitors in a new exciting way. We'll show you how you can utilize Universal Search to push your website to the top of the search results and drive more traffíc to your website with this exciting addition to Google Search.
While Google offers up paid search results via Google Adwords and organic search results within the center of their search results page; they are now mixing in other types of results in attempt to give visitors a taste of everything that is related to their search. This includes:

• Products (Google Product Search)
• News (Google News)
• Images (Google Image Search)
• Blogs (Google Blogs)
• Geo-targeted Business Listings (Google Maps)
• Video (Google Video )

Benefits of Universal Search

For visitors, the benefits of universal search are that they can see various types of results without having to leave the organic search results page. Another benefit is that it breaks up the page adding images, video still shots and information in a way that is appealing.

For site owners, there are quite a few benefits. First, there are now multiple ways to have your products and services listed on the 1st or 2nd page of Google.

Second, if visitors did not select your organic listing, they may select your image, blog or business listing; offering more opportunities to obtain targeted visitors to your website.

And finally, some Universal Search results are bumped ahead of the organic listings. If your website is listed in the #12 spot on page two and you just can't get your site to the 1st page, you may be able to have your images, videos or products listed above the organic results for specific search terms.

Users Intent

If you searched for the word "Apple" using Google in 1999, you were presented with various types of informational websites; discussing the various types of apples, how to use them in recipes and other great apple related information. But over time, people who typed in "Apple" would complete their search and then run another search for "Apple computers". As this trend continued to happen, Google's Algorithm learned that a trend was emerging. Most visitors who typed in the word Apple were looking for computers, not fruit.

Now when you type in "Apple" into Google, you are presented with the Macintosh Apple website, websites that review Apple computers and e-commerce stores where you can purchase an Apple computer. Google's focus is to not only provide searchers with relevant search queries based on their search term, but to emulate the thought process that is derived from the search term itself.
When a searcher enters a query, Google's artificial intelligence attempts to understand what the visitor may want to see before returning the search results. They have come to learn that when a visitor types in a brand name or a product, that searchers may want to:

• See Photos of the Product
• Read Product Reviews
• Purchase The Product
• Research The Product

In an attempt to give the visitor what they want they try to return the types of results related to the user's intent.

To use Universal Search to your advantage, you must understand the user's intent when they type in the search terms related to your website. The best way to see which universal search products are being used for your search terms is to search them within Google. Once you enter the search query, above the search results in the top left area of the screen you will see a listing for the products pulled into the results. For example, if I enter the search query "red scarf" I see the following Google Products listed at the top left area of the screen:

1. Web
2. Shopping
3. Images

Essentially this means that Google attempted to pull in (web) organic search results, Google Product Search and Google Images.

The Strategy

Creating a strategy to improve your rankings through Universal Search can allow you to locate opportunities that your competitors missed; giving you more exposure and targeted traffíc.

In the example of the "red scarf", you will notice that although Google attempted to pull in images, there aren't any images displayed within the results. This essentially means that you could possibly receive a listing on the 1st page of Google via Google Images if you optimize your images and submit an Image Map through Google Webmaster Central. Additionally, you can upload your red scarves to Google Base to get them listed within the Google Shopping results.

Now if you visit the second page of results, you'll see that they are now showing different universal search results.

• Web
• Video
• Images

Towards the top of the results you will see 1 video; however in most searches where videos are in the results, you will usually see two. This indicates that you could potentially have a video listed towards the top of the second page. As you continue to view the remaining results on page two you will again notice that you don't see any photos on page two; another opportuníty to gain exposure over your competitors.

Once you have completed this type of research and analysis for the keywords important to your website, begin creating and optimizing your shopping feeds, videos, images, blog posts and other universal search products to gain the competitive advantage before your competitors do.

Optimizing Images

You can improve the chances of your images showing up for relevant search queries by optimizing your images. There are a few key areas that will help improve your ability to raise rankings for your images in Google Image Search, as well as where images are shown in Google Search.

Although these tips are for Google Images, these examples can be used throughout various areas of your website; to improve all of your universal search results.

File Names - Give your images accurate names rather than defaulting to what your camera or image editor provides. If the image is of a cashmere red scarf, then consider naming our image cashmere-red-scarf.jpg. This help to further classify the image and show relevancy to the search terms you are targeting.

Image Alt Attribute - Ensure that you have provided a quality description for your images using the image alt attribute. Try using product colors, sizes, materials, brand names, textures, manufacturer names etc. Remember not to overdo it, but provide an accurate description of the product to assist with increasing relevancy for desired search terms.

Captions - Include a caption for your image that describes or relates to the product. The text that surrounds the image helps Google to understand the subject matter of the image.

Anchor Text - The text you use when linking to the image helps to describe and classify the image. Try using descriptive anchor text rather than words such as "click here", "larger image" or "more photos" when describing the link.

Google Image Labeler - While you can do your part in helping to optimize your images, you can also improve your chances of having your images appear in Google Image Search by allowing others to help classify your images through Google's Image Labeler. By simply enabling the Google Image Labeler from the Google Webmaster Console, you allow Image Labeler users to provide words and phrases they believe accurately describe your images in a fun online game. As users are shown images from your website, they type in a few words they feel accurately describe the photo, which is later used to further classify the subject matter of your image.

Summary

Google has provided many new opportunities for you to reach searchers in the ways they want to be reached. Search engine optimization has been taken to another level; it's no longer about who has the most number of pages, the best density; or who has the most inbound links. It is about who is utilizing all their available opportunities.

Almost every aspect of your website is being analyzed and classified; use it to your advantage. Now is the time to take advantage of these opportunities and improve your visibility in every area of universal search; allowing you to grow your traffic and exposure in new and exciting ways.

By Leona Griffin (c) 2009

About The Author
Leona Griffin is a SEO Specialist at 1st on the List Promotion Inc. As a 12 veteran search marketing professional, she specializes in universal search, on-page SEO and creating search marketing strategies that deliver long-term results for their clients.

7 Hidden Methods to Get High Rankings on Google

2009-05-24T14:41:00.003+07:00

If you have a website, the next thing that you must do is to increase its visibility on search engines like Google and Yahoo. The way to do it is through search engine optimization (SEO). SEO is the process of improving the volume or quality of traffic to a website from search engines via search results. When people hear about SEO, they always see it as a daunting task. Yes, I do agree that SEO is a tedious process which you need to do it consistently. But by applying the tips that I am going to share with you, you can definitely improve your search engine rankings and get more traffic to your website.

1. Target the right keywords. When you optimize wrong keywords, you are wasting time, money and effort. Therefore, it is important that you conduct a thorough keyword research to identify the best set of keywords and key phrases. The keywords should be closely related to what your website is offering.

2. Create quality content. When it comes to SEO, content is king. With quality content, you can turn your website into a link bait. Other webmasters will provide a link back to your site so that they can share your good content with their website audience. So do update your content regularly. The last thing that you want to see is to have a website that has outdated content.

3. Article marketing. Write and submit articles to various search engine friendly article directories. You can include your website link in each article that you submit to the directories.

4. Directory submission. Submit your website link to various search engine friendly directories to get back links. Some directories require you to pay a listing fee so make sure that you find out the cost before submission.

5. Place important keywords in the Title, Meta, H1 and Alt tags of your website. These are important places where Google will look for keywords. By placing keywords in these places, you will increase your keyword relevance and increase the chance to get higher rankings on Google.

6. Add a XML sitemap to your hosting server. A XML sitemap consists of all the links to every page of your website. This will help Google to discover any new page for indexing.

7. Create profiles on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace, YouTube, etc. Then place your website URL links on your profile page.

Start applying these 7 tips now to see an improvement in your rankings on Google.

by Cheow Yu Yuan

About the Author
Cheow Yu Yuan is the co-founder of OOm, an online marketing agency providing search engine marketing service. Find out more about search engine marketing at OOm Singapore.

Ten Ways To Get Web Traffic Fast - And Free

2009-05-24T14:26:00.002+07:00

There are several ways to get website traffic fast and free, and I'm going to share ten niche ways with you.

Article Submission
You don't need to be an award winning expert on the topic you are writing about - just pick an area that is related to the theme of your website, do a bit of research using a search engine and before you know it you will have more knowledge on that subject than most. Write in a relaxed, straightforward way. And, of course, when you add your details at the end of your article, make certain that you include your web address as well.

URL Submission
This sounds so obvious, yet so many people overlook it. Website URL submission is about getting more links to your website to help your website get ranked high on major search engines, thus getting more visitor traffic by, well, submitting your website URL to the major search engines. You can buy or subscribe to software that will do this, but it is quite possible to get a good return by submitting manually.

Social Bookmarking
Social bookmarking is a way for internet users to store, classify, share, search and discover Internet resources that they find useful. Since social bookmarks are saved online, users are able to access them from anywhere - at home, at work or while travelling.
These lists can be accessible to the public by users of a specific network or website. What you need to do first is register with a social bookmarking site which allows you to store and tag bookmarks. Most social bookmarking services allow users to search for bookmarks which are associated with given "tags", and rank the resources by the number of users which have bookmarked them. This means that other visitors and members of social bookmarking sites can search for resources by topic, category, keyword, tags, or popularity to see what others have saved. As a user, social bookmarking sites let you find useful, informative resources through pages that have been tagged because others have found them to be valuable sources. Voila - more web traffic. Free.

Forum Posting
Forum posting is a hands down alternative to paid advertising methods. For only a few hours of work every week, you can capture batches of interested leads everyday. The more forums you contribute to, the more you will gain traffic. If you are an active forum poster, you will also get a good feel about the kind of products that are hot on the market.

Please don't overlook the forum signature or commonly called resource box - it's a powerful free advertising tool for you. What you must do is edit your forum signature. Basically, a curiosity inducing one-liner and a link to your website is great. Once you have edited and saved your signature, it will appear at the bottom of all your comments in the forum discussions. That means, the more you participate in the discussions in the forums, the more people see your semi-ad written on your signature. I promise, this will encourage people to visit your website, and hopefully buy from you.

Affiliate Marketing
Affiliate Marketing is one of the best ways to get the word out about your website and can be done with very little technical expertise and therefore is easy to start up. If you have a product or service you believe in, visit a site such as Clickbank and open an account. Follow the simple instructions to gain affiliates - and traffic.

Press Releases
It's a fact that a well-written Press Release can dramatically increase your sales, expose your company to the masses, and greatly enhance the image of your business or products. Publicity is the most cost-effective web traffic building marketing tool there is, and, surprisingly, web traffic can be generated by ink and paper!

Classified Ads
Again, it's easy to associate Classified Ads with yesterday's technology, but they are extremely cheap and a one line product or service description, together with your website, will pay dividends.

Blog Comments
If you are an avid blog follower, you have to include Blog Commenting in your web traffic arsenal. You will almost always find a "comments" link at the end of each post. Good blog commenters add to the discussion and are known as knowledgeable, informative, friendly and engaged. Join them

FaceBook
Don't forget that you can use Facebook to its full potential to attract more visitors to your website. You can get away from just interacting with your school or college friends and start interacting with people within your industry or other industries that you want to get into.
An easy way to do this is to join groups that interest you as well as make friends with people that you want to get to know. Fill out your profile (fully) - the best profile on Facebook is a complete one.

Videos
Finally, why not make a video and post to video sites too! This is not a Warner Bros. effort! Your PC or Mac may well have a webcam, or you can borrow a camcorder or Flip. Write a brief script - lights- camera - action - and upload to YouTube. (Just remember to be sure to link it back to you.)

Well - there you are. Not all of the ten suggestions I've outlined may appeal, but if you select three or four, stick with them, and implement them on a regular basis, you will see your web traffic increase significantly. My best to you.

By James Gladwin (c) 2009

About The Author
Did you find these suggestions helpful? Is your website making you money? Go to UltraSimpleWebTraffic.com to find out more and claim your free visitor traffic mini course by James Gladwin.

6 Things You Can Do Today to Drive More Traffic to Your Website for Free

2009-05-24T12:57:00.002+07:00

Website (and business) marketing is not a one off exercise. Whether you have a brand new website or one that you've had for a while, you need to continue promoting it in order to bring you more visitors.

You need to constantly work on it, fine-tune it, discard methods that are not working and implement new ones.

The following 6 methods are simple to implement and can be done for free by you today.

1. Email Marketíng

Your first step should be to send an email to your existing clients announcing the existence of your website. You should also ask your customers to forward your email onto their friends, family and colleagues.

Think Web Pages, not Websites

If you are starting a new business and don't have any customers yet, send an email to people you know who may be interested in your products/services.

Remember to email your clients every time you make changes, add new offers or features to your website to remind them to come back.

The next step could be to send your announcement to an opt-in email list. Opt-in email lists contain people or businesses who have requested to receive information about certain topic(s). There are many companies who can provide you with these lists.

Under no circumstance should you EVER send unsolicited email (spam) to people you either don't know or who have not requested to receive your information.

2. Search Engines & Directories

Submít your website to as many search engines and directories as you can. (A search engine is a searchable database of websites collected by a computer program (called a crawler, robot or spider). When you enter a keyword, the search engine looks for keywords in its database, and any relevant records are displayed.)

Currently there are thousands of search engines and directories on the internet. Some of the main ones include Google, Yahoo, MSN. When submittíng your website to the search engines, you can either do it manually by going to the search engine website and adding your URL (website address) or you can employ the services of a Search Engine Submission company, who will do it for you.

Search engines try to rank sites that contain good content higher, so you need keywords and phrases on your pages that best describe your service and products. For example, if you are a florist, use words such as "florist, online florist, virtual florist, wedding florist, florist in Sydney, florist on line, flowers, floral, bouquets, floral arrangements etc." as many times as possible to ensure high search engine ranking. To find out what keywords your customers may be searching use Google's Keyword Tool or Wordtracker.

Once you decide on your keywords, use them in:

(a) Your website's domain name

(b) The title of your page - This is displayed in the top bar of your browser window.

(c) The heading of your home page.

(d) The first paragraph of your home page.

(e) Meta tags - Keywords, description.

(f) Titles of your graphics.

While it is important to use keywords as much as possible, it is also important you use them only if they are relevant and do not sound awkward. If you spam your keywords, you may be penalized or even banned by some search engines.

If this all seems too overwhelming, you can employ the services of a Search Engine optimization company, who will make your website's content more search engine friendly to make it rank higher.

3. Link Exchanges

Find websites whose business complements yours and add their website to your links/resource page. Then contact the company and ask for a reciprocal link. For example if you are a wedding dress designer, you could contact businesses that sell wedding cakes, jewellery, flowers and also venues, celebrants etc. By doing this your website will become a valuable resource for your visitors, since it will provide information they need. They may return to your site over and over to find more information.

On the other hand, you will have visitors coming to your website when they follow a link from your link partners.

Results in search engines are determined by the material you have presented on your site and by other off-page factors such as how many other sites link to your site. The more links you have pointing to your site from relevant websites, the higher your site will rank.

If you need help with this task, you can employ the services of a Link Exchange Company. They are generally inexpensive and can save you hours of time.

4. Email Signature

Every email you send should have an email "signature." This is text that is automatically attached to the bottom of your email message. This text can be used to publicize your business. You can include your name, business name, email address, street or postal address, website details, phone number, fax number, company slogan, description of your company and its products/services. You can set up different signatures for different purposes.

To set up your signature using Outlook Express:

Step 1: Select Tools > Options from the menu bar.

Step 2: Click "Signatures" .

Step 3: Make sure that you select "Add signatures to all outgoing messages" - within the "Signature settings" section. It is up to you whether you would like your signature to appear in "replies" and "forwards"

Step 4: Click "New" (you can change the name from "Signature #1" by clicking "Rename") - within "Signature" section:

Step 5: Type in the text that you would like to appear at the end of your email messages - in "Edit signature" section:

Step 6: If you're happy with this, click "Apply" and "OK".

5. Office Stationery & Merchandising Materials

It is extremely important that your website is included on ALL your office stationery so that customers can see it over and over again. That way they are more likely to remember it. If you've just had your letterheads printed, you can always add your website address on your wordprocessor, when printing your correspondence. For brochures, business cards etc, consider having small labels printed up. Your office stationery should include not only your website address, but also your email. Consider adding your details to:

• Letterheads
• Business Cards
• Flyers
• Brochures
• Labels
• Packaging
• Merchandise bags
• Catalogs
• Invoices
• Fax headers
• Display units

6. Set up a Blog

A blog is basically a journal that is available on the web. Blogs are typically updated daily or weekly and can easily be managed by you. They provide a way for you to communicate with your customers directly, give you an increased presence on major search engines, allow you to stay ahead of your competition and so much more.

You can easily publish the following information in your blog: Articles, Media releases, Industry news, Surveys - so you can get feedback from your customers, Testimonials, Product reviews, Interviews, Case studies, Links to complementary businesses, Frequently asked questions and problem resolutions, Inspirational quotes, Research findings, etc.

Blogs give you an increased presence on major search engines, like Yahoo! and Google. If you use Blogger(Google's Blogging Tool), every message you post creates a new page on Google so in a very short time you could have a lot of pages pointing to your website, bringing you lots of new visitors.

Don't be scared to try some of these marketing methods - you have nothing to lose!

About The Author
Ivana Katz of Websites 4 Small Business makes it easy for you to get your business on the internet. If you're looking for a professional and affordable website designer, visit Websites 4 Small Business and download a website plan for free.

Why Profitable Keywords are the Cornerstones of Your Internet Marketing?

2009-05-24T12:37:00.006+07:00

Keywords are ground zero. They are essential to your online success. You must get your keywords right or it's game over before you even get started. Mainly because keywords are the most important element of your online marketíng.

It can't be emphasized enough, especially to beginning online webmasters or marketers, choosing the right profitable keywords will largely determine whether or not you succeed with your online endeavors. You simply must get this element right or your marketing will be in big trouble.

What are Keywords?

Lets start at the very beginning, keywords are the exact words someone types into a search engine to find what they're looking for on the web. Some keywords are valuable/profitable, while others are virtually worthless.

Profitable keywords are the ones that convert into a sale, a lead or potential client/customer for your company or product. These are the words someone is searching in order to buy a product or hire a service. Someone searching for "honeymoon vacatíon packages" is probably in the market to book a honeymoon vacatíon and could turn out to be very profitable for the right website or business.

Profitable keywords are the ones where the searcher is in the right "mind-set" or frame of mind to buy what they're searching for on the web. Tailor your marketing online to target these profitable keywords and it can spell success.

So what's the whole process for finding or choosing profitable keywords to use in your marketing? Lets look at some ways to proceed...

Number of Keyword Searches?

You need to find out how many searches are made for your chosen keywords each month. Simply use WordTracker or a site like SEOBook. These will give you a preliminary number of searches made each month for your keyword. Highly popular, well-searched keywords with hundreds of thousands of searches each month will be extremely hard to rank for because you will have stiff competition from major companies with limitless resources.

I like to pick less popular keywords that get only a couple of hundred of searches each day because my chances of getting on the first page greatly increases. But don't get fixated on the number of searches, some keyword phrases that only get four or five searches daily, can still be very profitable.

For serious keyword research in a particular niche market I like to use Brad Callen's Keyword Elite which is professionally designed software that makes all your keyword research so much easier. But there are plenty of free keyword tools you can use. One handy keyword tool is Google Adwords external suggestion tool which will help you find valuable keywords.

Commercial Intent of Keywords?

But how do you know if a keyword is profitable? Well, one convenient tool is from MSN which helps you with "Detecting Online Commercial Intention" of keywords. Just type in a keyword and it will give you a percentage or probability your keyword query has commercial benefit or intent.

Conversion Rate of Keywords?

Once you have your chosen keywords in place, next you want to have a landing page that converts those keywords or traffic from those keywords into buyers or leads for your online business. This is another crucial element of your online marketíng - you must have a landing page or content/site that converts into a sale or you obviously won't make any revenue.

Keep in mind, if you're into affiliate marketing, you main goal is not to sell but to "pre-sell" your products or services. One effective way I have found to do this is to give potential customers/clients valuable information they can use in making their final purchasing choice. Comparison sites do well, as do review sites, top ten sites... potential customers use the Internet and keywords to not only find products but more so, to find information on those products. Your goal should be to provide this valuable information to make their task a little bit easier for them and they will reward you with a sale.

Long-Tail Keywords?

Long-Tail keywords are simply that: long three or four word phrases that searchers use to find what they're looking for on the web. Because they are highly specific, long-tail keywords have proven to have better conversion rates than general keywords. This is also just common sense, someone searching for a "2005 ford mustang convertible" may just be in the right mind-set to buy such a vehicle; as compared to someone searching for a more general keyword phrase such as "sports cars."

Study your website traffic logs religiously to find long-tail keywords that turn into a sale. Target these long-tail keywords in your marketing. Even buy PPC (Pay Per Click) advertising in the three major search engines - Google Adwords, Yahoo! Marketing and MicroSoft AdCenter - for these valuable/profitable keywords.

And build higher rankings in organic search for these long-tail keyword phrases. It's really not that difficult for long phrases, especially if they're related to your site; many times you can reach the top spot in a matter of days, especially in Google.

How to Rank High for Your Chosen Profitable Keywords?

Of course, the million dollar question is: HOW do you rank in the top spot for your chosen keywords? I believe the key to ranking high in the search engines (especially Google) is to be persistent in building your rankings for your keywords. Take a long-term view or approach, sometimes it may take months, even years, to rank in the top Five for your highly competitive keywords.

The best strategy is to "stick to it" and keep building relevant links to your keyword landing page. Create related blogs with valuable content linking back to your keywords. Write keyword related articles and distribute them all over the web. Create Google Alerts for your keywords and then place comments/links in the newly formed pages on the web that Google is indexing.

Be pro-active, download the SEOQuake toolbar and find your main keyword competitors. Check out their links and then go out and get the same links. Write better, higher quality content than your main competitors because Google always rewards great content. Plus, use the free Addthis.com button and let your visitors bookmark your great content in all the social bookmark sites and build your keyword links for you.

Do keyworded Press Releases with your embedded links and spread them all over the web. Get these Press Releases into Google news and other important places on the web. PRWeb.com is really a great place for your press releases since you can embed your keywords in your links.

If you can try to get your most important keywords in your domain name. Many SEO experts argue the merits of this but from my own experience and marketing - it is much easier to rank high for your keywords if you have them in the domain name. Again, it is just common sense, if you have your main keyword in the domain, this keyword is obviously telling the search engines this is what your site is all about. I have even bought domains and created sites specifically around certain keywords just to rank high.

Always remember, you have to be persistent, I have been fighting some keyword battles for over four or five years! For really profitable keywords, it can be a constant struggle to remain on the first page, but the trick is not to give up, just keep fighting away at your competitors. Persistence usually pays off in the end and those profitable keywords will have your links in the top spot. Make ranking high for those profitable keywords your number one marketing strategy. Concentrate all your marketing efforts towards getting plenty of quality traffic for those keywords and you will succeed online.

About The Author

The author is a full-time online marketer who has numerous websites. For the latest web marketing tools try: BizwareMagic.com . If you liked the article above, why not try this Free 7 Day Marketing Course. Titus Hoskins. This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

SEO Primer - 7 Basics of SEO

2009-05-23T16:45:00.005+07:00

We are going to look at 7 Basics of SEO below. These aren't the only things you want to know about SEO, but are the areas you should learn first. Some topics will only take you a minute, some will take a little longer, and others will become an ongoing process. But after reading through this list you should have a good handle on where to start and where to proceed next.

SEO Basic 1: Let's start off with a definition. SEO stands for "Search Engine Optimization" and is the process by which you Optimize your web site so that it is positioned well in the search engines. This is not the same thing as designing a site so that it attracts customers and entices them to buy.

SEO is what you do specifically on your site to improve your Search Engine Position. If you do a search on Google for any search term you will be presented with a list of links. At the top of the page and along the right side will be PPC links where someone pays an amount per click to get positioned. With PPC the more you pay the better your position. Most people only glance at these listings. You don't need SEO to get one of these positions, just lots of money.

The body of the page contains "organic" listings. These links are listed in the order that Google determined best fit your search, with the best match first. There are only 10 listings per page, most people will only look at the 1st page, maybe the 2nd. So your site needs to be listed within the top 10 and at the worst within the top 20 for any useful exposure. With SEO you will be adjusting your site code so that your site will rank highly. This can be a daunting process as there may be thousands of sites competing for the same top listing. A trick is to aim your pages at less popular search terms to get higher placement. It is better to be on page one for a term that gets 1,000 searches per month than to be on page three for a search term that gets millions of visits.

SEO Basic 2: Your web site must be search engine friendly. The search engines send out "spiders" or "bots" cataloging web pages they come across. If the search engine has trouble getting through to your pages it will either rank your page poorly, or skip your site all together. Making your site Search Engine Friendly means having the code easily accessible, no errors in the code, and guiding the search engine through your site.

Try to steer away from complicated coding when possible. Check your site for coding errors. This is fairly easy to do with web programs like Dreamweaver which do this for you automatically. Plan on having text based navigation on every page. This is usually placed at the bottom of the pages. You may also want to have a "Site Map" page with easy to follow text based links to all of your important pages. Search Engines will look for a Site Map and will use that to navigate a site if available.

SEO Basic 3: The Most Important SEO Aspect is Keywords. Keywords are the terms you type into a search engine to find interesting web sites. You need to know what search terms people are likely to use to find your site, then use those terms as your Keywords. Make a list of the keyword combinations you can think of that you would use to find your site. Try them all on a search engine and see the results.

You need to see how these search terms perform on the web and what other search terms could be used. A great free tool to help with this research is available at Google:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

You type in a search term, then you are given a list of similar search terms, how often they were searched and some advertiser comparison figures. You can quickly find additional keywords and to see how well they perform. A good idea is to optimize your site for a less frequently used keyword combinations so that you can achieve a higher placement. The Google Keyword Tool will help you figure this out.

Focus on keyword groups with 3 or 4 keywords. Many times keywords will overlap, so you can focus on a longer keyword combination and cover many other combinations at the same time. For instance, if you are designing a page to sell Photoshop Training, you can optimize for this keyword phrase "Adobe Photoshop Training Video". This will not only give you optimized performance for this keyword combination but also for these other keywords and combinations as well:

Adobe
Photoshop
Training
Adobe Photoshop
Photoshop Training
Adobe Photoshop Training
Photoshop Training Video

So try to come up with a multiple keyword combination that will contain several other keyword combinations as well.

Once you know what keywords you want to use you are ready to place those keywords on your page. The main places you want to use the keywords are:

In the meta title of the page
In the meta description of the page
In the first sentence on the page
In all of the image alt tags
In links to and from the page
Well represented in the body text of the page

Make sure you Pick the right keywords, and make sure they cover more than 5% of the word usage on the page. An easy way to get more keywords onto a page is by using lists such as:

We carry:
Adobe Photoshop Training Video Sets for Educators
Adobe Photoshop Training Video Sets for Students
Adobe Photoshop Training Video Sets for Business

Keep in mind that your page text should still be user friendly. If you use your keywords too frequently or in strange ways on your page, it may rank better in the search engines, but it will drive away visitors. Who wants to read a poorly written page?

SEO Basic 4: Don't try anything funny. There are lots of "tricky" things you can do to cram more keywords into a page without annoying your visitors. The problem is that the search engines know about these tricks and will penalize your site if you use them. So don't do any of the following or you may find your web site disappear completely from the search engine listings.

White letters on white background, or any other similar text coloring trick. Even using a very light gray text on a white background, or very dark gray text on a black background can get you bumped from the search engines.

Don't repeat your keyword over and over again. People used to do things like this at the top or bottom of their pages: Photoshop Photoshop Photoshop. This worked in the early days of search engine optimization, but no longer. You should also not try this trick in alt tags, image names, links or other places in your code. The search engines will spot this and you will be penalized.

Don't put keywords into comment tags. Also don't put keywords in hidden form fields. The search engines will spot these and mark you down accordingly.

Even though putting keywords into image names and alt tags is a great idea, don't think that you can just create a bunch of clear gif images sized at 1x1 and fill those with keywords. The search engines are very good at spotting tricks like this as well.

So use your keywords appropriately, don't try to sneak one past the search engines and you should do just fine. Just keep in mind, if you think that you need to hide the keywords to trick the search engine you can rest assured that they have already thought of that and will do their best to devalue your site accordingly if you use these "black hat" tricks.

SEO Basic 5: All pages should have links to other pages. The main search engines like links. They like outside sites linking into yours, but they also like links within your site going to other pages. So in this case having more pages can be useful. Also since you now have all these pages that you are linking to it gives you a great place to use some more keywords. Make sure that your links include your keywords.

But, and this could have been in section 4 above, don't create "doorway pages" that redirect you to another page. It used to be common SEO practice to create lots of doorway pages, each one stuffed with specific keywords, all of which would redirect the visitor to the actual page they were looking for. This would give your site lots of pages, with lots of internal links and would allow you to tightly optimize these doorway pages for specific keywords, but the search engines have gotten wise to this trick and now penalize the use of redirect pages. So don't use redirects unless you absolutely need to and never use doorway pages.

SEO Basic 6: Only optimize a page for one or two keyword groups. More than that just dilutes your keyword ratio. The search engines will analyze your web page to determine which words are used as keywords. They do this by looking at the title, the description, the page heading and the words used on the page. They then determine how relevant your keywords are to your page. So, if you try to use too many different keywords on a page, it will only bring down the percentage of any individual keyword or group for that page. It is better to optimize for a larger keyword group as discussed above than to try to optimize a page for a lot of individual keywords that can't be easily used in one sentence. If you need to have a page optimized for several different, unrelated keywords you are better off creating several different pages and re-writing the body text on each page to match the keywords you are optimizing for. This will make each page relevant for the specific keyword and will get a better placement in the search engines.

SEO Basic 7: Be patient. Even with a perfectly optimized web site it can take several months for it to rise in the search engine standings. I usually recommend waiting at least 90 days and up to 6 months to see how well a web page is doing in the search engines. Also, even though you have gone to great lengths to target a specific keyword or keyword combination keep in mind that the search engines aren't required to agree with you. So when checking your standings look at several different search terms that you discovered in your research and see how well your page is placing. Hopefully you will find that your chosen keywords are getting your page listed the way you want, showing that your SEO has worked properly.

If you find that your page is ranking better for a different keyword, you should examine your page code to see why and make adjustments as needed. Maybe your page is placing higher for a keyword combination you weren't focusing on, but it is still a good combination for your goals. This gives you an ideal opportunity to go with that new combination to achieve even higher placing.

So, get started right now on your SEO. The longer you wait, the longer it will be before your web site is showing well up in the search engines.

In Closing

There is a lot more to SEO than just these 7 quick points, but this will get you started on the right path. Go through these steps and your web pages will be well positioned for any other SEO you may want to perform on your site in the future.

About The Author

George Peirson is a successful Entrepreneur and Internet Trainer. He is the author of over 40 multimedia based tutorial training titles and several design articles. To get his Free e-Book "Web Design Tips" visit www.howtogurus.com .

Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Content Relevancy and Link Popularity Explained

2009-05-23T14:06:00.002+07:00

How does a web page get ranked #1 on Google? There is no doubt that the methods of the 1990s no longer work - and most definitely, not since Google went public in 2004.

Back then, the content of your website's pages was the major factor. Today, however, having links on the Internet that point back to your website is another important criteria, which will require that you involve yourself in the Internet community.

The latter point is very interesting to consider. How do you involve yourself in the Internet community? What does this have to do with search engine optimization (SEO)? Actually, involving yourself in the Internet community doesn't directly have anything to do with SEO; however, many people seem to pigeon hole anything related to the search engines into SEO. Therefore, we will need to define the various acronyms that are used in the Internet industry.

The Internet has also created an environment in which institutional control of information has been lost. As a result, control of information has trickled down to the individual level. Imagine the transition from several thousand companies once controlling messages through traditional media to today's expansive communication via several million individuals free to distribute their own information on the Internet. What you find is that the logic process has also been spread over millions of people; and for this reason, it is harder to explain why certain things happen on the Internet.

Because the Internet has opened communications to the individual, the individuals are now exposed to the concepts of business. Not everyone has a business degree and most only have a superficial understanding. As such, the definition of marketing and how advertising plays a role in this process is not well understood at the individual level. This has caused improper usage of the various acronyms used on the Internet today.

Marketing and Advertising Defined

Before we can understand the various acronyms being used within the Internet industry, it is important to understand the definitions of marketing vs. advertising.

'Marketing' is the process or technique of promotion, selling and distributing a product or service.
'Advertising' is to make your product or service publicly known; an announcement to call public attention by emphasizing qualities to arouse a desire to purchase.

You can see from the definitions that advertising is part of marketing. Marketing includes everything about raising the awareness of your business from branding, messaging, public relations, advertising, events, customer relationships and much more. Advertising is a component of marketing and should never be the only method used to promote your business.

Defining SEM, SEA, SEO and LP

Using what we have learned about the definition of marketing, Search Engine Marketing (SEM) would include all processes related to promoting all of your website's pages with the search engines. Included in this process would be Search Engine Advertising (SEA), which would be sponsored search advertising - or, what some also refer to as pay-per-click (PPC) advertising. These are the sponsored links along the top, right side and bottom of search results. Also, included in SEM would be SEO and your outreach program on the Internet away from your website that increases the number of links to your website, also known as Link Popularity (LP).

What is SEO?

It is important to understand how to tell the search engines that a particular page of your website is an authority on a particular topic. Keywords and phrases are utilized to communicate this expert status to search engines. You will notice that we are talking about pages of your website. Each page of your website can be optimized for a topic based on its visible content. We are no longer optimizing blindly the entire website for the same information, but using each page to help drive traffic to our website. By all means, this does mean that for a particular search result, visitors may enter your website from somewhere else other than the home page!

Each search engine has a different algorithm in deciding what the person searching is seeking and how relevant the information on the individual pages of your website is to the search. They take into account the title of the page, the meta description, and the visible text. Some search engines do look at your meta keywords, but not nearly as much as they used to in the past. What you are presenting with visible text is what the visitor will see; and therefore, the content has more value than the Meta keywords. This also prevents spammers and fraudulent websites from hiding their true identity.

Why is SEO Important?

The volume of information on the Internet is staggering. The Internet seems larger than our real world. Search engines have an enormous task to filter all of this information to provide something meaningful to the searcher in a matter of seconds. Compared to the old days of using search tools like Archie and Veronica that required hours and sometimes days to find information on the Internet, the results from the current search engines are significantly improved.

The competition of web pages (whether they are direct competitors or not) as well as your business competitors are all seeking to also be ranked within the first three pages of search results. It is important that you seek out the right resources to help you optimize your pages to give you a fighting chance.

What to do before you SEO

Research, research, research! There are many tools out there that provide you information about what people actually type into the search engine, the number of searches performed over a 30 day period, as well as how many competing web pages exist for that search term. These are the three major parts to the research you are doing. The search engines can provide you the first two with their tools, while the third item may require you to perform a search in quotes to get a real understanding of the total competing web pages. There are third party tools that can also provide complete information, however, always keep in mind that the search volume is not an absolute from any source including the search engines. Use the information as a guideline to give you direction. Regardless of the tool(s) you use for your research, they will all provide you options for other key phrases to consider based on your initial entry. This will be helpful to consider other alternatives you may not have thought about.

In this process you will learn two important items.

First you will learn that the rest of the world may not necessarily search for your website's products and services the same way you expect them to. For example, you may be ranked number one for a particular term, but if no one is searching for that term, what difference does it make if you're number one or number 100? Go with what people are searching.
Secondly, you will want to seek out a balance between the number of searches and the number of competing web pages. The search term that has several million competing web pages will take you longer to rank whereas those that are only in the thousands will be easier. Take a look at the search volume to see what would happen if you had 1% of those visitors purchase? Based on what you are selling you may not need to be ranked for terms that have thousands of searches. For your business, those with lower search volumes and less competition may suffice as a foundation.

Consider your research as a starting point, not an end point. You can always change your optimization later; and always keep in mind that you can optimize the pages within your website to cover a variety of possibilities from your research.

What you do to SEO

Search Engine Optimization does require some technical understanding of HTML code in order to add the necessary meta tags, insure you have the right image alt descriptions, the right link title descriptions and lastly, to appropriately write the visible text on the pages. The elements of this process include the following:

HTML Code

Be sure that your HTML code adheres to the World Wide Web Consortium's (W3C) standards. Many will ask the question why and the answer is simple. If you adhere to the standards, you can't go wrong. If you don't adhere to them, there is a higher chance that it will have a negative effect for browsers and search engines.

HTML structure

Websites with outdated Flash animations, frame designs, and broken links are certainly not going to allow search engines to identify the content of their web pages. Use current coding methods, not table based websites. Can you easily navigate your website? If not, then neither can the search engines; and therefore they cannot identify how to rank your web pages.

Website Flow

Does your website allow a visitor to reach your business objective easily from the point of entry? Make sure you have a call to action on all pages of your website.

Use of all meta-data

Meta data goes beyond Title, Keywords and Descriptions. There are a variety of meta tags that inform search engines about the content of your web page. Use all of them. Don't forget to have unique Title, Keywords and Descriptions for each of your web pages. Duplicate content is not something the search engines appreciate.

Visible Content

Be sure to have well-written, grammatically correct and spell-checked content on your web pages. If your website becomes a resource for its unique content, you are more likely to receive traffic-seeking information about your business.

Your Outreach Program: Link Building

Consider link building as a process that will increase the critical mass of information about your business. The information or content you post (vs. advertise) on the Internet will have a shelf life of years. Therefore, the links to your website will also accumulate over time and also have a shelf life of years.

The more links you have pointing back to your website the more popular your website is considered by the search engines. Based on the content that is posted, your website will be considered an authority on that topic.

The process of posting content on the Internet will not only generate traffic from the search engines, but also generate traffic to your website from the websites where the content is posted. Oddly enough you will get traffic from these websites before receiving traffic from the search engines.

Content you post on the Internet will come in five primary forms: Articles, News Releases, Videos, Photos and Social Media Marketing. The process of content marketing is quite involved and is also labor intensive when done correctly. If you come across anything that looks like a "link farm", you should want to run because link farms will not give you any long term results and are not considered responsible link building.

Finally the link building process comes in three formats: direct links to your website, cross linking content on the Internet, and deep linking to specific pages within your website. Understanding this process becomes a strategy in order for your prospects to find you and have all paths lead back to your website.

Conclusion

Is this an overnight process? Absolutely not! It is an ongoing process that acts not only as a public relations tool, but also as a long term advertising tool. The process of maintaining your website and the content marketing process of link building is something you do daily, weekly and monthly. Part of this process and Internet marketing strategy also require the initial research process and the measurement of the results and the effects of your efforts.

About The Author
SmartFinds is a digital marketing agency providing mid- to large-sized corporations with digital creative, digital marketing, and digital advertising solutions for the Internet. The most critical element of SmartFinds Internet Marketing service is the creativity and imagination to apply the technological aspects of the digital marketplace to the marketing objectives of a particular business. Initial research provides SmartFinds the ability to develop a digital strategy that can be measured every step of the way. Some of SmartFinds' clients include Delphi, Flagstar Bank, Guardian Industries, McCann Erickson, Wendy's and Vietnam Veterans of America. You can learn more about SmartFinds at www.smartfindsmarketing.com Contact: Doug Menzer, 330 E. Maple Road, Suite 503, Birmingham MI 48009, 866.501.5758, doug@smartfindsmarketing.com

The Role of Articles in SEO - Achieving Top Rankings in Weeks

2009-05-22T16:40:00.003+07:00

You have employed every trick in the SEO handbook but that first page ranking in the search engines has been eluding you. You are about to give up. But before you do, perhaps you may wish to consider taking up article marketing.

First of all, what exactly is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing and submittíng original content to article directories. This is not a new concept. For years, marketers have been publishing content in newsletters, magazines, and other publications to gain exposure for their businesses.

The process starts by submitting an article to an editor. If the content is suitable, the editor publishes the article, and the marketer gets some exposure. The process is then repeated with as many publications as possible. In theory, if each publication brings just one customer, then a hundred publications may bring a hundred customers. A hundred customers may just be what a new start-up is looking for.

On the Internet, the results can be astonishing. There are literally thousands of article directories on the Internet. With each article you submit, you are allowed to include two to three text links in the author resource box. Do note that most directories won't allow you to include links in your article body. So keep them to your author signature.

Every time an article directory publishes an article, the website will experience an immediate surge in traffic. This traffic comes from the subscribed readers. After that, the surge dies down a little. The marketer now waits for the search engines to index and rank the articles. Once the article ranks in the search engines, the marketer will receive a constant stream of traffic from the indexed articles.

In addition, the links in the articles will also give the search rankings of the website a much needed boost. When someone writes and submits articles, the wheels of SEO have already started to turn, whether the marketer is aware of it or not. Each published article carries at least two links, pointing back to the author website. In other words, the author website gets high quality back links from well established authority sites whenever an article is approved for publication. But to achieve high rankings in the search results, you need to execute article marketing in the correct manner.

How to Prepare Your Articles for Submission

Article submission can take up a lot of time. So you want to be sure that you get the highest rate of approval from the editors. Here is what you should do to ensure that you get most of your articles approved.

Appropriate word count - Articles should ideally be 500 words and above. You can write whatever you want. But bear in mind that the editors are looking for valuable content that their readers will enjoy reading. So your articles should not be self promotional. All promotional materials should be included in the author resource box, which will appear at the end of the article.

Proper formatting - The article does not have to be perfect. But it has to be legible, and relatively free of grammatical errors. The style of writing is not that important. Most styles will be accepted. Use the hard return to separate paragraphs, and do not include any HTML. Not all article directories accept HTML tags in the article body. As long as the article is of decent quality, it should be approved.

Include target keywords in article title - Your target keywords should be included in the article title. This will improve the chances of your articles rising to the top in the search results. Having keywords in the article title is also part of SEO. When performing SEO, you want the search engines to find relevant content that links to your sites. Having your target keywords in the title is one way of letting the search bots know that the content in the article is related to what you provide on your website.

Write a catchy title and interesting summary - The title is very important because if it cannot capture the attention of your reader, you have just lost a potential visitor. Your title should be speaking directly to your target audience. The article summary should also be clear and concise. Don't beat around the bush. You can elaborate further in the article body. For the summary, use short and powerful sentences.

Delivering the promise of your article title - Make sure that you stay on topic and deliver the promise in the article title. For example, if your article is about link building, then make sure you share some methods on how to build one way back links quickly. Don't stray and write about your pet and then forget to go back to your main topic.

Using anchor text in links - Anchor texts are the words that are in between a set of HTML link tags. Before going into article marketing, you should already have a set of keywords to target. Use these keywords not just in your article title, but also as your anchor texts. For instance, if you are targeting the keywords "Search Engine Optimization", use these words in your links. Don't use words like "clíck here" or any other generic term.

Once you have the above in place, you can start submittíng the articles to the article directories.

How to Submit Articles Quickly and Easily

Before you start submitting articles, you must first get a list of article directories. Your list should contain at least 200 article directories. Choose directories that have been around for years, and have high page rank.

The article submission process can be grueling if you don't have the right tools to help you. As a business owner, you shouldn't be doing such manual tasks yourself. You have more important things to do, like developing products, marketing, and so on. The process shouldn't be consuming too much of your valuable time. Here are some quick suggestions.

Use a free form filling tool to help you - There are tools available for download, such as RoboForm that will help you fill up the forms at the article directories. Once you set this up, it's just clicking and submitting. That will save you from having to copy and paste the article into each and every submission form. A great way to submit articles if you are on a shoe string budget.

Invest in article submission software - There is special software on the market that will help you submit your articles either on a semi-automated basis, or on a fully automated basis. If it's a fully automated process, you don't have to be actively involved. You will, however, have to let the software complete the submission process before shutting it down.

Outsource article submission - You can hire someone else to submit the articles for you. This can be a dedicated person that you work with, or it can be a professional service provider. The difference between this option, and that of using software, is that you don't have to monitor the submissions. Simply place an order, and you can switch off your computer and go work on other stuff.

Article marketing, when done right, can bring short, mid and long term traffic. The short term traffic comes from the current readership base of the article directories. The mid to long term traffic comes from the search engines and the articles. As articles remain online indefinitely on the Internet, they remain as traffic baits and help to attract more visitors to your websites.

If you have done your keyword research, and heed the advice given above, your site could achieve top rankings in the search engines within weeks.

About The Author
Darren Chow is a full time article marketer. He founded a successful article submission service and has been offering high quality article writing and submission services to hundreds of Internet Marketers worldwide.