Search Engine College
 
 
 
Search Engine College Article Library


Suggest an article for publishing.   Subscribe to articles: Subscribe to our Articles Feed



25 April 2008

Using Differentiators in Keyphrases: What Every Search Engine Optimization Company Needs to Know

As any good search engine optimization company knows, in search, more so than any other medium, you have a very short window of opportunity in which to engage your prospect. The only way to get a solid competitive advantage in this arena is to utilize various techniques in order to make sure that you are giving a prospect exactly what it is that he or she is looking for. Otherwise, your prospect will simply click the back button and visit one of your competitors – a process that only takes seconds.

One way to gain a competitive advantage, of course, is to work on the website itself. Any search engine optimization company worth its salt will also be involved in conversion testing on your website – in other words, making certain that the visitors who arrive on your site are likely to take a point of action that eventually leads to a sale. Split tests, modifications in content, different color schemes, and numerous other variable elements can all have a measurable impact.

There is also another way that a quality search engine optimization company will seek to maximize the value of the prospects that find your website through search engines. In this case, however, it is using your company differentiators in the keyphrases that they target to make sure that the traffic that comes to your site is of a very high quality.

Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Differentiators

As more and more companies turn to organic search to gain a competitive advantage while promoting their products and services, it can be increasingly difficult to achieve high rankings for the generic terms that everyone in your industry is pursuing. While any ranking is ultimately attainable, eventually a search engine optimization company has to decide whether the effort involved is worth it, especially when it recognizes that you can get overall better results from the campaign by making sure that a very high percentage of people that are typing keyphrases into search engines are looking for exactly what you offer.

This is why your search engine optimization company should be able to leverage differentiators in your keyphrases to give you the best competitive advantage available.

What Keyphrases Will Work Best for Your Business?

Suppose that you are in an industry where companies can have a wide array of prices, approaches, customer service levels, and so on. Instead of targeting, from the outset, the general keyphrase that defines the industry (for example "email marketing"), a good search engine optimization company will take the time to help you gain a competitive advantage by realizing what is different about your company in order to a.) attract very highly targeted prospects who know what they are seeking and b.) reduce the competitiveness of the keyphrases they are choosing.

Let's take a look at a high-end provider of email marketing that has advanced web-based functionality and focuses on the B2B market. This fictional business is seeking a competitive advantage by working with a search engine optimization company. We can safely assume that the percentage of people that type "email marketing" into a search engine who are looking for this exact type of company is anywhere from between 0 and 100%.

By looking into the popularity of other variations, however, we can see that it is nowhere near 100%. Phrases like "cheap email marketing" or "free email marketing" are very popular, demonstrating that many people seeking "email marketing" are not looking for exactly the service that the provider is offering.

Imagine that instead of targeting "email marketing", a daunting task (that, even if achieved, assures that a high percentage of visitors that come to the site are not looking for the provider's particular type of solution), the search engine optimization company takes advantage of the provider's differentiators. In this case, the search engine optimization company would instead target phrases such as "business to business email marketing" and "web-based email marketing". Suddenly the two objectives have been achieved - the provider knows that a much higher percentage of visitors that are typing these terms are actually looking for the right kind of company and the competitiveness of the phrases has also been reduced, leading to faster and higher rankings.

Using Modifiers to Give You the Edge

There are hundreds of modifiers that can give a competitive advantage by reflecting a company's differentiators, including words such as "free", "affordable", "high-end", "full service", "proven", "turnkey", etc. The point is that by making use of your unique differentiators in the search terms you target, your search engine optimization company is already setting the table for your prospect before he or she even clicks over to your website. When the message that is seen on your site then supports the keyphrase that was typed, you now have an engaged visitor. This can mean more leads, less site abandonment, and better overall website performance.

Conclusion

Remember, your company is better than the others out there. Ask yourself why, and then tell your search engine optimization company to take advantage of these differences in your keyphrases to give you a competitive advantage in your industry. The subtle addition of a few seemingly minor modifiers can have a huge impact on your bottom line.


About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of
Medium Blue, which was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld in 2006 and 2007. Scott has contributed content to many publications including The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Brown, 2008), Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.

Labels: , ,



take a search engine marketing course online



01 March 2008

Using Differentiators in Keyphrases: What Every Search Engine Optimization Company Needs to Know

By Scott Buresh

As any good search engine optimization company knows, in search, more so than any other medium, you have a very short window of opportunity in which to engage your prospect. The only way to get a solid competitive advantage in this arena is to utilize various techniques in order to make sure that you are giving a prospect exactly what it is that he or she is looking for. Otherwise, your prospect will simply click the back button and visit one of your competitors – a process that only takes seconds.

One way to gain a competitive advantage, of course, is to work on the website itself. Any search engine optimization company worth its salt will also be involved in conversion testing on your website – in other words, making certain that the visitors who arrive on your site are likely to take a point of action that eventually leads to a sale. Split tests, modifications in content, different color schemes, and numerous other variable elements can all have a measurable impact.

There is also another way that a quality search engine optimization company will seek to maximize the value of the prospects that find your website through search engines. In this case, however, it is using your company differentiators in the keyphrases that they target to make sure that the traffic that comes to your site is of a very high quality.

Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Differentiators

As more and more companies turn to organic search to gain a competitive advantage while promoting their products and services, it can be increasingly difficult to achieve high rankings for the generic terms that everyone in your industry is pursuing. While any ranking is ultimately attainable, eventually a search engine optimization company has to decide whether the effort involved is worth it, especially when it recognizes that you can get overall better results from the campaign by making sure that a very high percentage of people that are typing keyphrases into search engines are looking for exactly what you offer.

This is why your search engine optimization company should be able to leverage differentiators in your keyphrases to give you the best competitive advantage available.

What Keyphrases Will Work Best for Your Business?

Suppose that you are in an industry where companies can have a wide array of prices, approaches, customer service levels, and so on. Instead of targeting, from the outset, the general keyphrase that defines the industry (for example "email marketing"), a good search engine optimization company will take the time to help you gain a competitive advantage by realizing what is different about your company in order to a.) attract very highly targeted prospects who know what they are seeking and b.) reduce the competitiveness of the keyphrases they are choosing.

Let's take a look at a high-end provider of email marketing that has advanced web-based functionality and focuses on the B2B market. This fictional business is seeking a competitive advantage by working with a search engine optimization company. We can safely assume that the percentage of people that type "email marketing" into a search engine who are looking for this exact type of company is anywhere from between 0 and 100%.

By looking into the popularity of other variations, however, we can see that it is nowhere near 100%. Phrases like "cheap email marketing" or "free email marketing" are very popular, demonstrating that many people seeking "email marketing" are not looking for exactly the service that the provider is offering.

Imagine that instead of targeting "email marketing", a daunting task (that, even if achieved, assures that a high percentage of visitors that come to the site are not looking for the provider's particular type of solution), the search engine optimization company takes advantage of the provider's differentiators. In this case, the search engine optimization company would instead target phrases such as "business to business email marketing" and "web-based email marketing". Suddenly the two objectives have been achieved - the provider knows that a much higher percentage of visitors that are typing these terms are actually looking for the right kind of company and the competitiveness of the phrases has also been reduced, leading to faster and higher rankings.

Using Modifiers to Give You the Edge

There are hundreds of modifiers that can give a competitive advantage by reflecting a company's differentiators, including words such as "free", "affordable", "high-end", "full service", "proven", "turnkey", etc. The point is that by making use of your unique differentiators in the search terms you target, your search engine optimization company is already setting the table for your prospect before he or she even clicks over to your website. When the message that is seen on your site then supports the keyphrase that was typed, you now have an engaged visitor. This can mean more leads, less site abandonment, and better overall website performance.

Conclusion

Remember, your company is better than the others out there. Ask yourself why, and then tell your search engine optimization company to take advantage of these differences in your keyphrases to give you a competitive advantage in your industry. The subtle addition of a few seemingly minor modifiers can have a huge impact on your bottom line.

© Medium Blue 2008


About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of
Medium Blue, which was named the number one organic search engine optimization company in the world by PromotionWorld in 2006 and 2007. Scott has contributed content to many publications including The Complete Guide to Google Advertising (Brown, 2008), Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DS Waters, and Wake Forest University Baptist Medical Center. Visit MediumBlue.com to request a custom SEO guarantee based on your goals and your data.

Labels: , ,



take a search engine marketing course online



30 December 2007

How To Choose Right Keywords To Market Your Website

By Daniel Smith

Anyone who knows anything about how search engines work will tell you that you need to choose the perfect keywords in order to improve your search engine ranking. Yet, if you are relatively new to the website creation scene, you may have very little knowledge about what keywords are, what they do and how they enhance search engine optimization (SEO). Nevertheless, understanding what keywords are and how they work is critical to your websites success and the amount of traffic you will receive at your website. Let's take a look at what keywords are and how to choose the right keywords to improve your SEO techniques. In doing so, you will immediately be able to put such knowledge to use and improve your page ranking in search engines.

Keywords are used by search engines to determine whether or not your web pages will address the needs of Internet users that are conducting a search. The more keywords that are found on your web pages, the more likely your webpage will be listed as a response to a user's query. Yet, a webmaster must bear in mind that not enough keywords on a webpage will have little to no affect on a web page's search engine ranking, while a web page with too many keywords may also have little affect. Why? Quite frankly, an obvious attempt to sway a search engines listing actually reduces the quality factor of a web page and a search engine will rate it lower than it would a web page that contains quality information.

Therefore, choosing keywords is part of the website marketing process: having the right keywords appear on a webpage will result in increased traffic to your site. There are a number of web resources that will help you determine what keywords are frequently used, like keyword generators and the like, but the problem with such tools is they don't necessarily identify the right keywords that will ultimately draw traffic to your site. Instead, you need to be choosy about what keywords you use. First, you can go with the most popular keywords suggested, but the most popular keywords don't always necessarily work in drawing traffic to your site, nor do they always help you improve your SEO and page ranking within major search engines.

First, you will want to try and use truly specific keywords when generating keyword enriched web pages. Try not to be too vast in your descriptions-if a keyword generates 20,000 pages in a search engine, chances are your keyword enriched page isn't going to make a huge difference in you web traffic. Yet, if you are using keywords that few than a hundred sites use you may find that your search engine ranking is increased because so few sites use the specific keywords you have chosen. Obviously then, it serves to tell you that one keyword enriched webpage may not make a huge difference in your overall web traffic, but several keyword enriched pages will. Just be sure to use uniquely defined, themed keywords within your web pages and watch your ranking improve in the major search engines.

Another unique way of selecting keywords can be found in viewing similar websites to your own. Find out what other webmasters are using to draw traffic to their website. How do you do this? First, review many websites that are similar to yours. Watch for repeated themes within websites-do you see a pattern? Take that pattern and use it to your advantage, using a keyword generator determines which keywords are most unique that fit the pattern that other websites are using. Next, generate a few web pages that are keyword enriched with your selected keywords. Conversely, if you are familiar with html, you can view a webmasters source codes and see what Meta Tags they are utilizing. Meta Tags reveal the keywords of a page and can give you a good clue as to how the competition is approaching the keyword enrichment process, if at all.

Whatever you do, when in the process of searching for keywords, don't just throw your best guess out there and go with it. Although it is possible that you may get lucky and actually improve your website traffic and search engine ranking, it is unlikely. Most keywords that are the product of a webmaster's guess are far too broad to make any kind of difference in search engine ranking or web traffic.

There are a lot of little tricks one can use to make the best of the keyword enrichment process. You can write articles that focus solely on the keywords you have selected or you can hire freelance writers to do the work for you. You can make use of a variety of free and subscription web tools to improve the type of keywords you choose. Either way, once you have found the right keywords you will immediately note an increase in your web traffic-an increase that undoubtedly accompanies your improved search engine ranking-an improvement that is the direct result of your improve SEO techniques.


About The Author:

Daniel Smith writes about directory text links http://www.linksattack.com

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



07 December 2007

Search Engine Optimization for the Rest of Us

By Nowshade Kabir

When you have launched your website, whether it is an eCommerce store or a corporate promotional site, you must have set certain goals regarding the quantity of traffic you are expecting to have on your site. If you did not pursue your goal with specific web promotional marketing strategies, chances are there you are not very happy with the results you have achieved so far. Although, there are numerous web promotional methods available to your
disposal, optimization of your webpages for search engines is the uncontested leader in this field. If you sell products or services through your website, it is even more so for you. Consider this. Out of various possibilities which include: going to a shop, calling a shop, etc. the prospective buyer decided to search for the product online. Then he or she used certain key-phrase to make a query on a search engine and then among other sites, he or she chose yours to click in. As a seller this is the kind of visitors you need for your site! Search engines have more than twice the e-commerce conversion rate of other traffic acquisition sources. You can get these results for your site with the help of search engine optimization.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

SEO is a set of actions carried out with a webpage to improve visibility of that webpage in search engines. The goal is to ensure top places in the search engine results for a specific query.

How important are the search engines? Data show 81 percent of Internet users find the sites they're looking for through search engines. Over 57% of Internet users search the Internet everyday. Up to 500 Million searches take place in a day. 55% of all Internet purchases originate at a search engine as oppose to 9 percent from banners. These statistics are pretty convincing, but surprisingly, according to StatMarket.com only 7 percent of websites are visible by search engines.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) can really bring amazing results. Our page http://trade-leads.rusbiz.com recently started to show on the first page of Google for the search phrase "trade leads". Within the last month we have noticed almost 30 percent increase of traffic to this page which is pretty much inline with the available statistics. If your optimization efforts started to bear fruits and you ended up on the second or third page of Google search, you can expect a dramatic increase of almost 5 times more traffic than before and after two months it can be over 9 times! An upward move from 2nd and 3rd pages to the much coveted first page will bring an increase of around 30 percent. Along with the traffic the conversion rate - the quantity of actual purchases - also goes up significantly.

Your position within the first page also makes a lot of difference. The top positioned web page in the sponsored - paid advertisement - receives 50 percent of all clicks and first three top ranked web pages garner 60 percent of all clicks.

Once you have decided to go for search engine optimization, your next step is to figure out for which search engine you should work on optimizing your site. After all there are so many search engines out there!

If you look at the latest statistics available for the month of November, 2005 compiled by Nielsen/NetRatings it, probably, won't be any surprise to you that Google at present has the most search market share. There were 5.1 billion searches done in November. Out of 60 search engines monitored, Google had a share of 46.3 percent,Yahoo - 23.4 percent, MSN - 11.4 percent, AOL - 6.9 percent, Ask Jeeves with its other affiliations MyWay, Teoma, Iwon and search sites of Excite Network has a combined share of around 6 percent, etc. This clearly shows that Google is the undisputed leader among search engines at this moment. That's why in your quest of getting more traffic to your site, you have to emphasize on Google. Other key indicators which favor Google as well are:

. Google is most favored by business people - 82.9 percent of all business users make their queries through Google.

. The Google users are more educated. They are more likely to have a college degree.

. The Google users are from higher income groups.

As mentioned earlier search engine optimization is a set of actions that you have to take regarding your web pages. Here are the key steps of the process:

Select keywords for search engine ranking
1. Make a list of keywords that you think buyers might use to search for products and services you sell.
2. Use a Thesaurus to check synonyms of the words and phrases that you have chosen. You may come up with additional keywords.
3. Eliminate all single words from the list!
4. Go to several of your competitors' websites and check out what keywords they are focusing on by viewing the HTML source of the pages.
5. Now go to Yahoo! pay per click search marketing site Overture, which has an excellent keyword selection tool. Google also has a similar tool located at
https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox.
6. Get the search phrases or terms that are popular enough and fall into your criteria from above mentioned lists.
7. Check where you stand with these keywords or key phrases in main search engines. Find the needed tool for this here. http://www.marketleap.com/verify/default.htm.
8. Now try to find whether you should use your keyword in singular or plural, or which one of the two similar search terms or phrases are more desirable by going to the following page:
http://www.onfocus.com/googlesmack/down.asp. Remember, studies show that conversion rate for plural words are in general higher than singular!
9. Now that you have a number of keywords, cluster two to three of them for one single page. Remember, every page of your site should be built surrounding one single theme and focused on
maximum two to three keywords.


Optimize the pages for keywords

Place keywords in Title tag, Meta description, Alt tags, Heading tags, Comment tags. Here is an example:

<title>Search Engine Optimization for the Rest of Us</title>
<meta name="description" content="Article about search engine ranking at ezine.rusbiz.com">
<meta name="keywords" content="search engine ranking, optimizing web pages for keywords, SEO steps">
<meta name="author" content="Nowshade Kabir">
<meta name="copyright" content="Nowshade Kabir">
<meta name="robots" content="index,follow">


Create content


Now develop informative content using these keywords. Use your key words in headlines and alt tag of the pictures. Make sure that you don't over do it! If you stuff keywords more than
necessary for a normal text, search engines can ban your site for keyword spamming. Here is a tool for checking density of keywords on a page: http://www.gorank.com/seotools/. Maximum
preferable density is 3-5 percent.

Submit to search tools

Effective promotion of a website starts with submission of the site to various search tools available on the Internet. There are two different types of search tools - search engines and
directories. Search engines index their listings based on the information retrieved by their spiders which crawl through the hyper links constantly looking for new websites. The directory
listings are compiled by human editors from the URLs submitted to the directory. If your website is listed in the directories you can be sure that the spiders of different search engines
sooner or later will index your site. That's why you should start submitting your website to the directories. The major directories are GMOZ, Yahoo!, LookSmart, etc.

Link popularity

The quantity of links in different websites pointing to your sites is called link popularity of your website. The more popular is your site the more links you get from other websites and vice
versa. Link popularity is one of the key factors that search engines consider in their search algorithm while indexing a website. What would be the rank of a website in a search result
depends on its link popularity in a very big way. Work on getting as many backward links as possible, preferably from the web pages with higher page ranking than yours.

Track ranking

Search engine optimization requires constant monitoring and updating. Don't forget that the competitors are working relentlessly on achieving high positions. The search algorithms are also constantly changing and improving. That's why every now and then you should check out how your site is doing.

Track traffic

If your work started to bring good results and you are getting more traffic, but the visitors are not taking expected actions, this means, you probably have selected wrong keywords. Start all
over again with keywords analysis.

Search Engine Optimization is the process of optimizing web pages for natural or organic - as they are also called - searches. Once you are certain that you have done everything possible to
achieve maximum results in this sphere, you should consider pay per click marketing with Google, Yahoo and MSN. Effective web promotion requires a combination of both of these two search engine marketing strategies.


About the author:


Nowshade Kabir is the CEO of Rusbiz.com, a global B2B Portal, which helps companies build web store, buy and sell products and services using eMarketplace, eCatalog and other features. Rusbiz also offers website development packages: http://www.rusbiz.com/design_package.html

Labels: , , , ,



take a search engine marketing course online



30 November 2007

How Keywords Affect Your Rankings

By James Mahony


This article explains a few things about SEO, and if you're interested, then this is worth reading, because you can never tell what you don't know.

We all want to know how keywords affect our rankings, but to find out we'll need to do a little work. Many say keywords are the key to good search engine rankings, although they aren't at
all the only factor.

If you need a tool to help you decide on your keywords, try Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool - it allows you to test your keyword rankings by showing you statistics on recent searches for them. It's a great tool when you have no clue which keyword you should choose, as it can give you a list of terms that were recently searched on.

Keyword Density.

Keyword density refers to the number of the keywords contained within your text relative to the amount of text there is. Preferred keyword density ratios vary between search engines, but you should generally try to keep them between two and eight percent (major search engines prefer the lower end). Keyword analysis tools can help to optimize a web page's keyword density. These tools are good if you're not sure of what you're doing, as they're very intuitive and explain things as you go.

Counting the Keywords.

Many SEO experts will tell you that the keyword density of your text isn't a very important factor, and that you should be careful not to overdo it. So is there a limit? How many times should you use your keywords? SEO experts won't be able to answer these questions for you, because no-one's really sure of the answer. The best answer is that it changes regularly, and you can never be sure - you have to experiment to see what works for you.

Location of Keywords.

When testing the effects of keyword location, we found that pages with the keywords at the top and bottom of the page ranked higher on Google than pages with the keywords in the middle.

I trust that what you've read so far has been informative. The following section should go a long way toward clearing up any uncertainty that may remain.

Many other search engines also give keywords more or less weight based on their location, but keep in mind that each search engine's algorithm is different. Here's a list of how most search engines prioritize keyword positions, from most to least:

1. Domain name.

2. Page title.

3. Headings (i.e. H1, H2, etc.).

4. Body text (the first 2 to 3 KB usually counts more).

5. Meta tags (especially description).

6. Links (including keywords in the URL or link text of links to you).

7. Alt text (the 'alt' descriptions for your pictures).

Really, though, keyword density is one of those areas where you'll have trouble on your hands if you try to second guess the search engines. Be cautious.

As your knowledge about SEO continues to grow, you will begin to see how SEO fits into the overall scheme of things. Knowing how something relates to the rest of the world is important
too.


About The Author:

James Mahony is the founder of http://www.searchmama.com - A site dedicated to Search Engine Optimization http://www.searchmama.com
http://www.thedomaintycoons.com
http://www.articlesforwebsitecontent.com

Labels: , , ,



take a search engine marketing course online



26 November 2007

15 Tips To Drive Traffic To Your Blog

By David Riewe


There are many factors that make blogs much better than normal WebPages including the speed at which blogs are indexed, ability to submit to blog directories & normal directories, pings and track backs. All these little things can help drive more traffic to blogs. Here are 15 popular techniques you can use:

1.) Create at least four keyword posts per day. Most of the top blogs such as Boing Boing, Daily Kos, and Instapundit (with literally tens of thousands of visitors per day) publish an average of 30 small 100-150 word posts per day according to "Secrets of the A-list Bloggers: Lots of Short Posts" by http://TNL.net

2.) Submit to My Yahoo! When you submit your own RSS to My Yahoo it is indexed by Yahoo.

3.) Submit to Google's Reader. When you submit your own blog RSS to Google's Reader the Google Blog Search will index your site.

4.) Add a relevant link directory to your blog and trade links like a demon possessed! Although it may take more time than simply submitting to a search engine one time, this method is perhaps the best way to drive traffic to your site. Use software such as Zeus to speed up the link trading process.

5.) Use ping sites like ping-o-matic. Ping your site every time you add a new post.

6.) Submit your blog to traditional search engines such as AltaVista, and MSN.

7.) Submit your blog to traditional directories such as DMOZ. Directories (particularly DMOZ) increase relevance with Google. DMOZ is very picky, but what do you have to lose by trying?

8.) Submit to as many RSS Directories and Search Engines as possible. This is a simple but repetitive process that can be done with software such as RSS SUBMIT.

9.) Comment on other blogs. Do not just leave short, lazy comments like "I agree." Leave well thought out replies that will force readers to wonder "who wrote this?"

10.) Use track backs. If there is a blog that you refer to or quote and it is highly relevant to your subject, leave a track back. It increases your link popularity and may even score a few interested readers from the linked site.

11.) Go offline. Use newspaper ads, public bulletin boards, business cards, even stickers to let as many people as possible know your blog exists.

12.) Ad a link to your blog in your e-mail signature block.

13.) Use Groups (Usenet). Find a relevant group on Google groups, Yahoo groups, MSN groups or any of the thousands of other FREE group services and find like minded people and talk with them. Make sure your use your blog URL like it is your name.

14.) Use Forums. Forums are one of the best places to go for advice. Go to forums and find problems to solve. Make sure you leave your blog name, but be tactful about it; some forums get annoyed with those who selfishly drop a few links to their own site and leave.

15.) Tag your website. Tagging is a new idea that has erupted across the web. Sites like http://Del.icio.us, Technorati and many others have a social feature that allows you to place your article under keywords or "tags" that everyone interested in that tag can see.

Although these are some of the most popular ways to drive traffic to your blog, do not limit your self to tips and lists. Use your imagination and you will come up with thousands of ways to drive traffic to your blog!


About The Author:

David Riewe - Internet Marketer and Publisher
http://www.free-online-course.com

Labels: , , ,



take a search engine marketing course online



12 November 2007

6 Steps To Picking Profitable Adsense Keywords

By Greg Lietz


Knowing how to find the best keywords for use in your Adsense ads is not a straightforward process. Finding and implementing high profit, low competition keywords in your ads really is the trick for making Adsense payoff big.

After I had tried several things to pick out good performing keywords, I wrote down this process that should yield profitable, low competition keywords for your Adsense ads. This process is not perfect, but when you analyze it and try it for yourself, you can see that it makes sense. Adsense that is.

Step 1
Research some keywords for your niche that have a high CPC value. To do this, first find your keywords using the Google Adwords keyword tool or another tool that will give you niche specific lists of keywords. Save those keywords into a spreadsheet program as a csv file. Copy and paste those keywords into Google's Traffic Estimator (you will need an Adwords account). The traffic estimator will give you the estimated clicks per day and the average cost per click (CPC) for each keyword. Copy and paste this information back into your spreadsheet file for later reference.

Step 2
Multiply the average CPC by 30% to get an estimate of your maximum earnings per click. The higher the average CPC, the more likely the CPC for the 2nd - 8th positions are high as well. You want this higher average CPC to start because if the CPC starts to drop off significantly after the 3rd position, your chance of getting high click earnings as an Adsense publisher will be diminished.

Step 3
I use a tool called Adword Accelerator to help with estimating the 1st - 8th position CPC values. This tool will estimate the CPCs for each position and allow you to see how much the CPCs drop off after the first position. This dramatically helps your analysis for picking the most profitable keywords. If the CPC values stay close to the each other and to the value of the first position, then you will more than likely have a profitable keyword.

Step 4
Now determine which Adsense ads occupy which positions. You can do this by searching on Google for your keyword and looking to see which Adsense ads are generated in the search results and in which order they are. Another way to estimate this is to use the Adword Accelerator tool. It has a feature whereby Adwords ads are dynamically displayed for a given keyword you input into the tool to check. If the Adwords advertiser has used "Adwords for Content" in his advertising, these ads will be the Adsense ads someone else is displaying on their website.

Step 5
Compare the ads you found in step 4 to the results of using the keyword check function at the website http://www.adsensecheck.com. If the advertisers you find by doing this closely match those you found in step 4, you will more than likely have a profitable keyword.

If the advertisers are not he same, then the advertiser is possibly not using the "Adwords for Content" mode of advertising in his campaigns. This means that the keyword may not be the basis for the Adsense ads and may not be profitable.


Step 6
Now you must get the traffic. If you decide to get traffic using the Adwords approach, then just use the keywords in your Adsense ads that scored well from the above evaluation. Then, use lower cost per click keywords in your Adwords ads. The difference between the earnings from the click you get on your Adsense word from the cost of the click you pay on your Adwords word will be your profit.

If you are planning to use search engine optimization techniques to get traffic to the website where your ads are, make sure the keywords you choose have the highest KEI possible. KEI is the ratio of the number of searches for a keyword to the number of competing sites having the keyword. The combination of a high KEI and a high score from the above evaluation will yield the best profit results.


About The Author:

Greg Lietz is a freelance writer and internet businessman. His main website is
http://www.theonlinebizplace.com where he provides content about internet based business opportunities, web site marketing strategies, writing articles and starting your own online home business.

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



01 November 2007

Using Keyword Research To Improve Web Traffic

By Ben Anton

The use of appropriate key words is one of the most important aspects of search engine optimization. Selecting and targeting pertinent key words and phrases is crucial for building web traffic and getting the audience you want for your web pages. Like any other type of advertisement, your key words must be carefully chosen to ensure that you achieve both high page rankings and relevant traffic. Achieving high page ranks is useless if the traffic it brings you is not the right audience. For this reason, many experts believe that the target key word list used for a site can mean either success or failure for a web site or online business.

It is no longer enough to simply choose a relevant domain name for an online business or web site. Choosing the right key words for the site is now equally if not more important. The majority of people who visit a site get there by using a search engine. They will type in two or three words that describe what they're looking for, scan the resulting list generated and pick one that seems relevant until they get the answer or product they need. This is where target key words are utilized. Key words are what enable people to find your site; choosing the right key words for your site will ensure the right people find you.

With this in mind, identifying your target audience is the first step in creating relevant key words and phrases. Again, this is not dissimilar to targeting television advertisements. Consider location when you are developing your target market. For example, if you own a used car dealership in Hayward, California, any traffic you get from outside a very specific area is virtually useless to you. Similarly, if you operate an online business that does not ship outside the USA, generating traffic from other countries will not help you make sales. By adding key words that are specific to your location as well as your product, you will better hone into your target audience, improve your rankings, and achieve a better conversion rate, which will help increase your site's page ranking, in turn.

Keyword competition should also be taken into consideration when developing a site's key word list. Going back to the used car dealership example, let's say a potential customer types in the word "cars" into a search engine. They'll never find what they need, because it's far too general-generating around 500,000,000 different sites to choose from. Typing in "used cars" generates almost 70,000,000. That's still too many to deal with effectively. Using "used cars Hayward" generates almost 900,000 hits, and narrowing the focus even further by using the zip code rather than the city name reduces it to less than 25,000.

Choosing key words for your web site works the same way. If your key words are too general, your target audience will never find your site, because the search terms generate so many web sites that it is impossible to look through them all. However, if you go too far in the opposite direction and use too many key words, or key words which are too specific, you risk losing business as well. The best key word phrases are no more than three words in length.

So how do you choose the right key words? The first step is brainstorming with colleagues, friends or an SEO professional, to come up with a list of 20 or more appropriate key words. The Google Keyword Tool is an excellent place to research key words. By entering key words into this tool it will give you an idea of the popularity of certain words and offers you alternative key words and phrases.

Once you have a good list of terms, you may want to refine it to call out the strongest terms that have the best potential for sales or traffic conversion. There are several good online research tools available, which can help you decide which words will be most effective for you. Some good examples are WordTracker and Keyword Discovery. These sites may charge a fee for using their database. After reviewing the terms, eliminate the key words that rank poorly or are very unpopular, then prioritize the remaining terms according to search popularity. These terms will become the keywords you will want to focus your initial SEO campaign on.

Always remember that when it comes to key words, you are focusing on optimizing your traffic rather than maximizing it. Setting up the right keyword list for optimization is the cornerstone to a successful web site.

~Ben Anton, 2007


About The Author:

Ben invites you to read more about key word research and PPC campaigns at Mad Fish Info's web site - http://www.madfish.info.

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



03 August 2007

How Can You Use Original Content To Market Your Website?

By Chris McElroy AKA NameCritic

Whether you sell a product or a service, whether your business is conducted exclusively online or only partially over the internet, marketing is essential. After all, just because you can reach millions of people online doesn't mean that you will.

After all, how many businesses similar to yours exist online? Without marketing, how will you set your company apart?

The simple answer is that you won't. Therefore, it's important to understand the ways in which marketing a business online is different from marketing a brick and mortar store in the center of town.

In order to market your business online, you need to understand the importance of original content. Original content - in the form of website pages, blogs and articles that you use to market your site - will be what sets you apart.

When your website is created, it's important to use unique, keyword rich, relevant language. In some cases, your web designer may provide this service, however, if content creation is not a part of their package it may benefit you to hire a content writer to create the text of your website.

Keyword rich, relevant text will help search engine spiders to rank your site. However, it's important in terms of search engine marketing to regularly update your site - to keep it relevant. A blog is an effective tool for keeping the content on your website fresh.

Think about this for a moment: a blog - short for weblog - is unique, keyword rich and relevant content that is updated daily. If offering great content on your site initially improves your search engine ranking, wouldn't it benefit you to have content that updates daily?

That content, however, should not exist solely for the search engine spiders; it should also provide information with your current customers as well as to prospective customers. A blog does just that: it opens a dialog, enabling your business to reach out to your customers and clients and to provide them with the information that they're looking for.

Electronic newsletters work in a similar way: with them, you can reach out to those who are interested in learning more about the products or services that your business offers. You can use a newsletter to provide information about upcoming product releases, to offer tips and tools that will save readers time or money, or even to offer discounts and incentives to your subscribers.

Of course, just as you can create keyword rich, relevant articles that reach out to your newsletter subscribers, you can use article marketing to draw in a wider customer base. By
creating articles that focus on keywords and phrases associated with your product or services and publishing those articles in directories online, you will be able to establish your knowledge, experience and expertise in the marketplace.

Those prospective customers who are seeking products and services similar to yours will find you credible and follow links back to your website. They will feel confident that you understand what they are looking for and that your product or service will benefit them.

The important thing to focus on, however, is that your content must be relevant to what current and prospective customers are looking for. Your content must contain the information that these individuals are looking for - and, in order for them to find it, it must be written in a way that draws on your keywords and key phrases.

For many, this seems daunting. Creating fresh, keyword rich, relevant content is not something that everyone is good at - especially when it means creating that content on a regular basis, weekly or daily.


About The Author:

Content providers such as http://www.ArticleContentProvider.com to create this content for you. Creating website content, writing a daily blog, ghostwriting articles, creating ebooks, Article Content Provider makes it easy for business and individuals to use original content to promote their websites.

Labels: , ,



take a search engine marketing course online



25 May 2007

Right Words Key To Being Found Online

By Raymond Lee

Regardless of how great your website looks or how good of a product or service you have to offer, if you can't be found online, you're your wasting time and money. It's like building a fancy billboard along the highway and no one driving down the road - no one sees it.

Today's search engines are hard to fool and if a website attempts to manipulate the results, there's a good chance of being removed from that search index. There are some things you can do to make your site more attractive to search engines, and the main one is making the site more attractive to users.

Forget Search Engine Spiders, Focus On Users

When a web user is searching for a product or service, they will use a search engine, entering a search term related to what they are looking for. If the title page of your web site or the information contained on your site does not include that term, your site will be ignored during that search.

A couple things search engines examine when they index pages is the information on your site and how many other sites link back to you. A link is like a vote for your site and the more votes you have, the higher the opinion the search engine will have of your site. However, if that search term isn't on your site, you will still be ignored.

Focus On Your Site's Visitors

Having quality text-based information can do wonders for your site recognition from search engines. Typically called keywords, articles containing the ones associated with the information on you site will be more recognizable to search engines and have more of a chance of being listed for a particular search term. While there is no magic number of times a keyword should appear on your page, having it appear too many times, a practice known as keyword stuffing, may hinder your efforts of being recognized.

The main idea is to offer quality information on your site, pertaining to the main subject of your site, geared toward user who find your site through a search. If the user can find informative text when they visit your home page, they will be happy. A search engine spider may also find your site and move your name up in the listings. However, gearing your site towards the search engine does not promise anything more than getting you listed. It's the quality of the information on your site that will bring visitors back and increase your sales.


About The Author:

Raymond Lee is a freelance writer with over 20 years of business experience as well as the winner of numerous writing awards. He is the owner of WritePro Writing Services at http://www.writepro.biz

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



02 May 2007

Keyword Optimization For Building Internet Traffic

By Professor Jeff

Keyword optimization is one of the most surefire ways of building some reliable traffic for your site. Keyword optimization is a way of enriching the content of your pages to meet the requests that people put in for on search engines. If the request they put in match the keyword son your site, your site will be in the list of websites that appear that match the search the customer put in.

The thing about keyword optimization is arranging your pages and finding the keywords that will draw the attention of the search engines. You have to either use software that is found on the internet or the power of your brain to think about what it is you are trying to do with your keywords. If you were looking for information on the particular niche that your website has to do with, what kinds of searches would you put in on the search engine you usually use?

Think about the way you would phrase your words; those are your keywords. The more times you use your keywords and other related key phrases that people may put in in a search engine blank, the more hits you will get off of those search engines, increasing your traffic. Using variations of the original key phrase and key words, and secondary keywords and key phrases are important when it comes to proper keyword optimization. This gives your potential site browser more chances to get in touch with your site based on the keywords they decide to use.

Keyword optimization must also be an accurate representation for the content on your web pages and what you have to offer through your site. The higher your site ranks in the search engine rankings, the more hits you will generate through your page which can only mean more traffic, and ultimately more dollars, for you.


About The Author:

Professor Jeff has been inspiring and teaching students for years. He began his career in the public schools and since has served on the faculty of many prestigious institutions including the University of Michigan. His passion for helping others has helped him to establish a strong presence on the internet and a firm foundation in marketing. To learn more about Professor Jeff's winning MyWorldPlus team,visit: http://www.MyWorldPlusPro.com
http://www.MyWorldPlusPro.com/info

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



10 April 2007

Try Using Long Tail Keywords For Your Website Marketing Campaign

By Tom Niehoff

Like many website marketers, I use long tail keywords in many popular pay per click programs to drive targeted traffic to my websites. For those new to long tail keywords, a `long tail' is simply a keyword phrase that is very specific, and longer than your average keyword.

Let's say you have a website about credit repair. Here are a couple example keywords for that:

Credit repair
Credit repair online
Credit repair program
How do I repair my bad credit
How do I repair my bad credit score
Help with repairing my credit score

The first three keyword sets would probably be considered normal keywords, and the last three would be considered long tail keywords. Long tail keywords have several advantages, and some disadvantages:

Advantages:

- Highly targeted traffic. If the user searched for that particular phrase, they are ready to buy, and know what they want.

-A LOT cheaper bid prices. Not much competition on that keyword from other PPC users.

Disadvantages:

- Less traffic coming from those keywords.

- You have to come up with quite a few of these long tails to get much traffic on them.

Considering that you have a chance to drive highly targeted traffic to your website, while save a lot of money on your pay per click program, I would highly suggest getting started on long tail keywords.

The best tool I have found to start your long tail keyword list is Google Adword's Keyword Tool. Simply log into your Google Adsense account and click on Tools. This tool takes a given keyword, and gives you results that often contain many valuable long tail keywords. The results can show you how much search volume there is for that given keyword, and what the average cost per click will run.

Of course, you can also export this list, and use the same keywords in other pay per click campaigns.


About The Author:

Tom Niehoff has been marketing websites full time since February 2006. You can learn how to market your website too, visit http://www.GuaranteedWebsiteIncome.com

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



03 April 2007

Optimize Your News Releases

By Harry Hoover

Today's news release is written differently than those from the past. It needs to be newsworthy and it needs to sound like a human wrote it. However, you must include the right keywords in it. Let's examine some news release optimization techniques. Research Is Key. If you have already optimized your website, then you know what keywords to include in your releases. However, if you are starting from scratch, it is important to do some keyword research. There are some decent free keyword research tools, like the stripped down version of Wordtracker, the one from SEO Company and Google AdWords. Look for keywords that have the highest volume and the least competition. For instance, when we launched AccessURP, we searched for keywords that would bring people looking for commercial real estate in Charlotte, NC to the site. We used several variations of that phrase in our pay-per-click ads, in our search engine optimization, and in our news releases.

Anchor's Away. Use anchor text in your releases. You'll notice in the news release how I anchored the phrase commercial real estate. This provides an important backlink using keywords. PRWeb has a wealth of tools to help improve your release for the online environment. Additionally, PRWeb distributes directly to consumers and journalists interested in your topic. They also distribute releases to bloggers, and thousands of websites syndicate their content.

So, for as little as $120 per release, you can build high quality backlinks to your site and cost effectively reach people interested in your release.


About The Author:

Harry Hoover is a partner in Charlotte, NC ad agency http://www.mycreativeteam.com/creative.php My Creative Team. He has 30 years of experience in crafting and delivering bottom line messages that ensure success for serious businesses like Bank of Commerce, The Bray Law Firm, CruisingTheICW.com, Duke Energy, Jacobsen, Levolor, National Gypsum, North Carolina Tourism, Rubbermaid, TeamHeidi, VELUX, and Verbatim.


Labels: , ,



take a search engine marketing course online



27 March 2007

Don't Compete For The Most Popular Keywords

By Roy Carter


A common mistake that website owners make when trying to drive traffic to their sites, is to try to compete for the most popular keywords within their niche.

Let the novices fight over these keywords. They will have virtually zero chance of getting on to page 1 of the major search engines because every man and his dog is trying to use the most popular and competitive search terms.

Just because the Overture/Yahoo keyword selection tool, or Wordtracker says there are no searches for a particular keyword or keyword phrase, that does NOT mean that nobody is using that keyword phrase to look for your product or service.

The above mentioned tools are a first port of call for hundreds of thousands of website owners. However, that means that the keywords that are thrown up are used by thousands of people as well, making them extremely competitive.

Those tools are also skewed in favour of USA results, simply because there are more people in the USA using the tools than anywhere else.

Let me give you an example...

One of the websites that I own is to do with moving to Cyprus to live.

If you type 'Moving to Cyprus' into the Overture/Yahoo keyword selection tool it reports that virtually nobody is using that keyword phrase.

That's because very few people in the USA are looking to move to Cyprus to live.

However, more than a million people a year from the UK and Europe are thinking about moving to another country to live and Cyprus rates in the top 10 destinations that they are considering (Australia is first and Spain second, USA third etc).

The lesson to be learned here is that I get a lot of traffic to my various sites from keyword phrases that are given a zero or low score by these commonly used tools.

So, if you think of a keyword phrase that you think YOU would use for a particular search, don't decide against using it, just because these tools return a supposedly low result.

While others are fighting over the most popular search terms, you can be working smart and driving traffic to your sites using keywords that are being totally ignored by others.

Remember...Work smart not hard!

regards,
Roy Carter


About The Author:

No.1 on Google out of 59,400,000 results. Want To Drive Massive Traffic To YOUR Website The Easy Way? Work Smart Not Hard!
http://www.TrafficMadeEasy.com

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



13 February 2007

Getting The Most Out Of Your Pay-per-click And Keyword Campaign

By ShirleyA Kelly

Before you start your next Pay-Per-Click or keyword campaign, you had better get a good understanding of what to do and what not to do or you will spend far more money than you intended and your ROI (rate on investment) will not be good. Having a good understanding of how pay-per-click advertising works can help drive targeted traffic to your website and increase your bottom line.

Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising is quickly becoming the fastest and most effective way to reach the top search engine rankings for given key words and phrases. The concept is simple - we pay
or bid competitively, for the placement within each search phrase.

While many of the search engines still have free inclusion, this does not always guarantee top placement. Keyword saturation and search engine optimization or the purposeful use of the keywords often within the website content, is also an unpredictable and often unsuccessful method of gaining ranking.


PPC ads are similar to typical ads within Search Engine Ranking Pages (SERP's), but they are above free listings often labeled "Sponsored Sites." While some offer image or banner advertising in the same auction manner, most PPC ad services focus on text ads with a website URL and brief description of what the site offers.

Where each ad is placed depends on the keywords and key phrases you select for your ad campaign. Depending on the PPC search engine, this fee may be as low as $.01 going up based on popularity, demand and exactly how much others are willing to pay for high placement.

While advertisers pay only by the actual clicks made, visibility is, in essence, free. However there is an unspoken fee associated with "unpopular" or rarely clicked ads. Most Pay-Per-Click services balance the ad click-through rate (CTR) or how many times a viewer clicks the ad and the bid amount we're willing to pay for each click when determining the ultimate seniority of each ad. Because CTR does play a significant role in placement, its wise to bid higher at the outset to gain significant clicks. It is also wise to gain as much interest and click through with each ad as possible to establish a stronger and lower priced ranking. Once this seniority is established, the cost may be lowered without harming the position quite as much.

PPC advertising offers instant results, good or bad. Once an ad is placed, it may be online immediately (in the case of Google AdWords) or within a week (in the case of Overture), receiving clicks and being rated immediately. Because of this instant response, unpopular keywords can be disenabled if not attended to fast enough making it next to impossible to use the keyword or phrase again. Also, because Pay-Per-Click advertising is an auction-style marketplace, SERP placement changes constantly.

To meet these needs, many major PPC advertising engines allow budget and automatic bid set-up. This allows you to put a maximum per day or per campaign budget on clicks, after which
the ad is taken down until the budget is either replenished or automatically rolled-over to the next period. For instance, an advertiser may place a budget of $100 dollars per day on a campaign. When clicks meets this ceiling, ads stop until the next day to use up the next $100.

When conducting a Pay-Per-Click ad campaign, remember to keep the customer and their motivation in mind, develop a list of keywords that describe the products and services, target
keywords the customer will be searching for and use specific phrases that clearly define the offering. Veer away from broad keyword matches, items we don't offer or information that isn't
available on the website.

The current PPC marketing has more advertising demand than available, top-ranking spots. It's not yet known how this demand will measure out or how PPC services will address this concern in the future.

Possibly the most important part of developing PPC ad campaigns is finding the right keyword phrases. To begin developing a strong keyword phrase list, type the initial ideas of what people would search for when seeking the website in a new Excel spreadsheet. Look through the site and analyze the words that describe the products or service. Review the website, identifying words that would be of most interest to the viewers. Check web server logs to find the words visitors currently use to find the site and what pages they find most interesting. Consider what action the customer should take - find information, purchase something, bookmark the site for later shopping or other positive advertising result.

Use the Google Keyword Tool, Overture Keyword Tool or http://WordTracker.com to find other relevant searches around the initial ideas. Its best practice to use the longest search phrases possible, using those no less than three words long. The more specific, the lower the cost and the more targeted traffic received. If selling specific brands, use the brand names in the keyword phrases.

Customers search during all phases of the shopping cycle - from gathering data to comparing prices and finally submitting their credit card with the store. Use keywords within each phase,
considering the highest conversion will come from the audience ready to buy.

Each keyword phrase should be product or service specific. Select the type of keyword searches the ad will show under, such as broad matches, exact matches, negative matches and so forth. For example, a bookshop may want to advertise under the key word phrase "car books," but not show up for the search term "Kelly blue book cars." They have the option of blocking searches with the term "Kelly blue book cars" in the phrase.

Keyword selection is important to narrow down the exact target audience and search relevance. Additionally, the ads gain a stronger click-through rate or CTR when carefully targeted to the search traffic. Ads with low CTR may be disenabled. Ads with high CTR will gain higher ranking at a lower bid cost.

When we target exactly what the consumer is looking for, conversion rate increases significantly.

When searching online, potential customers may type many variations of the keywords including misspellings, plural form or switched word orders. So use these in the Pay-Per-Click ads also to gain the strongest and broadest audience range.

When we target exactly what the consumer is looking for, conversion rate increases significantly.

When searching online, potential customers may type many variations of the keywords including misspellings, plural form or switched word orders. So use these in the PPC ads also to gain the strongest and broadest audience range.

Needless to say there are far more aspects to Pay-Per-Click and Keyword Selection than I can cover in this article but the information provided here should give you a good insight into understanding how important it is to have a good understanding of how the whole Pay-Per-Click and keyword selection works.


About The Author:

Shirley Kelly is a full-time internet marketer who has written over 200 articles in print and published 5 ebooks. To read her latest book, "The Newbies Guide To Internet Marketing" visit her at http://www.websitemarketing2.com

Labels: ,



take a search engine marketing course online



Drive Traffic To Your Website Using The Right Keywords

By ShirleyA Kelly

Search engines are the #1 tool people use when shopping for products, services or information online. Optimize your website with the proper keywords or keyword phrases for your content and watch your traffic explode. If you gain an understanding of how to properly promote your website your efforts will reach it's full potential.

To rank relevantly within search engine results, each website must be considered relevant to a particular search algorithm for a given keyword or phrase. Keyword selection can be a challenge to both experts and neophytes. While anyone can come up with various words that may be used when searching for their product or service, these words may not be the ideal mix for search engine ranking. Why? If a marketer chooses a popular keyword phrases, he or she and a million other businesses compete for top placement. Top SERP placement is dense, searchers typically giving up after the first three pages. To succeed, one must use relevant keywords that are not being used by everyone else and that are searched for quite often. This may include misspellings and other alternative data. After finding relevant keywords and phrases, the results must encourage conversion or success based on each business' criteria. For example, while it may be possible for a DVD rental firm to get top listings under the search criteria "free DVD rentals", the person who visits is looking for free merchandise and will leave if its not found.

For optimal search engine rankings, a page will be optimized for only one to two popular but non-competitive keywords or keyword phrases.

Keyword Coding

HTML coding are two words most people never want to hear, especially in a learning environment. But it's important to understand the basic web page header structure and where the search engines look to find key words for search engine ranking pages (SERP).

Sites rank highest when each page is optimized separately. For instance, a business may have one website with unlimited interlinking pages. The top page must be named "index.HTML."
While each sub-page may be named according to the designer or programmer's preference. Ideally sub-pages are named according to the strongest keywords or phrases for each business. Both the domain name and the URL or complete web address string, are important factors in determining search engine relevancy

Three important META tags are on each individual HTML page located between the "head" tags: description, keywords and title. The webpage description is the short sentence that displays after the listing name is the SERP's. The keywords are not viewed by the casual surfer, but offer a clear-cut description of what is found on the website or who's behind it. The title is the most condensed of all metatags. The title should repeat the top 1-2 keywords and describe what the site is about.

We can take the keyword theme as far as necessary, yet success through search engine optimization is not a 100% guaranteed way to gain top rankings and can often dilute the site and
information quality by becoming a string of repetitive keywords, not value-added information. Some of these tactics include adding pages of keyword-rich articles solely to rank high. Another is developing a mini-empire of interrelated sites not for expert information, but solely to make the sites appear more important and relevant to the main site focus.

To ensure a small 30-page website is optimized, it must first renew keyword use each month to find the most popular terms for the three major search engines, Yahoo!, Google and MSN. Each
page must be optimized for different but interdependent terms to strengthen the site as a whole. This involves new keyword research and website content for each page every month.

An example of a good ecommerce site using paid advertising instead of keyword optimization is buy http://automotive.com. Notice the content is relevant to the visitor entering and seeking the product. In contract, auto http://anything.com, a competitor site, relies heavily on keyword content, uses text that has no purpose and confuses the visitor with too many navigation links and useless words meant for search engines alone. Though this may gain rankings with work and keyword saturation, it can also damage a business reputation and ultimately lead to less sales.

Needless to say there are far more aspects to choosing the right keywords than I can cover in this article but the information provided here should give you a good insight into understanding how important it is to design a website that is keyword friendly.

Let's face it, there is no magic bullet when it comes to successfully promoting your online business. There are pros and cons to almost everything you do. If you never develop a plan and put that plan into motion, you'll never know if that's the plan that will ultimately be the "magic bullet" that launches your online business to new found success.

Do give up! If at first you don't succeed, TRY, TRY, AGAIN! There is a lot to learn when starting a online business. Give yourself a break and don't set unrealistic goals. Contrary to
popular beliefs, having a successful, profit making, online business doesn't happen overnight.

So, Good Luck, Make Money and Have Fun Doing It - Shirley Kelly


About The Author: