By Tyler Houts

LEARN THE DIFFERENCES AND ACHIEVE HUGE RESULTS

Having a company website is a must to stay in competition and keep customers informed about your business. However, once your website is built, your internet marketing now begins! Obviously, people have got to know that you've got a website for it to be successful. What good is a website if no one is going to it? An overwhelming number of customers find and buy from websites they have found through a search engine. If your business is not listed within the first three pages, you're missing out on thousands of visitors. Getting your business listed within the first few pages of search engines is a surefire way to ensure thousands more visitors to your site each month! There are 2 main methods of search marketing - learn which approach will benefit more quickly.

Search Engine Optimization (Natural Search Results)

Future clients search the internet by entering keywords into a search engine. In order for your website to appear in the natural results pages, your site must contain those keywords or phrases. Certain style changes like placing keywords in bold, italics, or bulleted and numbered lists can optimize your site for search engines. Changes can also be made in the actual HTML
coding of your website, such as the title tags and meta tags, to better your chances of being found through natural search. Search engine optimization takes time, but is the most effective way to draw traffic to your website.

Sponsored Search (Pay-per-click)

There are two different types of sponsored search options. Sponsored search based on a keyword search allows companies to have links to their websites on results pages for a small fee. Sponsored Search based on content context is a different concept. Search engines have partner websites. On these partner websites, content specific advertisements can be placed. For example, a partner website may be a site about architecture. Perhaps a tool company may place advertisements on this website. Though not quite as effective as Search engine optimization, sponsored search gets results quickly.

Search engine marketing is a necessity for companies with a website. You must ensure that your site is being visited for it to be successful. Many companies will spend hundreds or thousands of dollars for a flashy website and forget about marketing it! This is extremely ineffective. Get your website found with search engine marketing!

About The Author:

Tyler Houts is the Public Relations and Online Marketing Director for Kinetica Media, an internet marketing company that works to harness the power of the internet for businesses of all sizes. Visit http://www.kineticamedia.com to see how their proven online marketing campaigns can enhance customer loyalty and attract new clients.

Labels: Pay Per Click Advertising, Search Engine Optimization

By Chris Taylor

There are a lot of Search Engine myths in existence today. This is because there are a lot of self appointed experts in the Search Engine optimization field. Some of the myths that you should be aware of include:

. There is no way to perfectly optimize for every site.
. There are 10,000 different Search Engines in existence.
. Page Rank is dead.
. Make sure that you repeat your keywords 100 times per page.
. The Search Engines do not have time to ban you for poor optimization.
. Make sure that you submit your site to every Search Engine in existence.
. Your site does not have to have content in order to be ranked high.
. Meta tags are extremely important.
. You just need to get more links to your site.
. You do not have to have patience in order to do Search Engine optimization.
. If you have a new site it cannot get listed in the Search Engines.
. You need to have multiple domain names.
. You should resubmit your site to the Search Engines every week or at least every month.

If you find that someone is telling you all of this stuff then you should run away from him or her. You should never pay any attention to Search Engine myths. All you should concern yourself with are the techniques that have been proven to increase a web site's ranking.

Unfortunately a lot of unethical, unprofessional business practices occur in the Search Engine optimization industry. A lot of this is happening because of inexperienced and unprofessional people working in the industry. This is unfortunate because then everyone in the Search Engine optimization business gets a bad name.

It is important that you get the facts. If you want to have a good Search Engine optimization campaign then you do not want to become a victim of these bad business practices. Make sure that you do not throw your money away on these practices when investing in good marketing, advertising and content could better spend it.

Now that you are aware of some of the Search Engine myths that exist today you should be able to spend your time and money wisely. This will truly pay off in the end when you look at how you rank in the Search Engines.

About The Author:

New to SEO? Learn seo basics, learn search engine marketing with our highly rated search engine optimization video membership site "High Rank Directories Plus". Visit us today -
http://www.high-rank-directories-plus.com

Labels: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

By S. Myers

When you run a website you are always looking for fresh content you can add to both keep the visitors to your site and the search engines happy. In an ideal world you'd be writing all this great content, but we don't live in an ideal world, do we? You may have a day job, other tasks on your website to tend to and maybe even own several websites that all need to be updated with new content on a regular basis. On top of that you'd like to occasionally spend some time with family and friends.

If only there was a cost-effective way to get fresh content to your site without having to spend either a lot of time or a lot of money. Well, there is. and not only one way, but 3 ways to get fresh content for your website.

Reprint Articles

The easiest and cheapest way to get fresh content for your site is to use reprint articles. You can go to any of the big article directories like ezinearticles.com, goarticles.com or isnare.com and search for articles on just about any topic. There are two downsides to using this content though: You have to provide a resource box with a link back to the article writer's site - which of course is only fair, since they did all the work. The other one is that the same article can literally be picked up by thousands of other webmasters. One way to work around this is to contact the author of the article and see if he or she would be interested in writing and exclusive article for your site. If you offer them a good link back, many of them will be happy to oblige.

Public Domain Works

The second option is to find texts and ebooks that are in the public domain. You could for example look for a public domain book on the topic of your website and split it up individual
pages for your website. Gutenberg.org is a great place to start your search for public domain work. A word of caution. Do your own research to make sure any so-called public domain document is actually in the public domain; otherwise you could get yourself easily into trouble by involuntarily breaking copyright laws. On the plus side, you can add the public domain content to your website without having to credit or link back to anyone.

Private Label Articles

The last option that I would like to share with you is private label articles. Private label articles are written and then they are sold to a limited amount of people for their own use on their websites, blogs, newsletters and info products. Private label articles can be changed, the buyer can claim ownership and pretty much treat it like any article he has written himself. Since these articles are sold to more than one person, they are much cheaper than buying ghostwritten articles. They almost always cost you well under a dollar per articles and often just pennies apiece.

Private label articles can be found on PLR membership sites, websites that specialize in selling individual article packs and even on eBay. Of course not all PLR sites and packages are created equal. Some provide quality content, while others could have been written by a third grader. Do you research before you buy and make sure there is some sort of a money back guarantee if the quality doesn't meet your standard.

About The Author:

To learn more about where to find good PLR articles and how to make the most out of them, sign up for this free PLR training course at http://www.plrtraining.com

Labels: Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

By Bill Platt

By Alexander Marlin

Everyone talks online about how easy it is to build a website and make money online. Is is really that easy or pure hype to get you to purchase the next great thing to hit the online market.

All I have to say is that it is not that easy building highly profitable websites online. But, you can learn how to build a website, that will be fully optimized for the search engines and highly profitable in a couple of weeks, using the same simple tricks I use daily. It doesn't matter if you want to build a website for free or for profit.

To win online, you have to build a website that gets free traffic from the search engines, and implement all other simple traffic methods like: posting to forums, using ads in ezines, submitting your site to link directories, writing reviews for other peoples products, reciprocal linking and pay per click.

First you have to learn how to do your onsite optimization, and for that you will have to:

1) Insert your keyword into the title of your page

It amazes me how many sites online don't have their main keyword in the title page. Just make sure to always include your main keyword in the tile page of your site.

2) Add Meta Tags

Not as important as it used o be, but I like to include it in every site I build. Add Description meta tags and your keywords meta tags.

Use one or two keywords per page only. Add your main keyword into your page description.

3) H1 Header Tags

Use your H1 header tag on each page, I always like to use a smaller font size, like 14pt.

4) H2/H3 Header Tags

Try and use at least one H2 or H3 Tags within the first three or four paragraphs

5) Last and First Paragraph

Make sure to start your first paragraph with your main keyword and to end your last paragraph with your keyword

6) Bold, Italize ad Underline your keyword

You must Italize and bold your main keyword just once, and you must use your main keyword to link out of your site to another website (use that link to create an underline keyword) , at least once.

7) The Alt Image Tag

Well, this is very useful if you have pictures that you will be including on your site. Try to use the Alt Image Tag for your pages, I use the alt image tag on my website header.

Those are the only onsite optimization tips that you should use on each and every site you build. Try to not make it look too obvious, and over do your web site optimization. Learn to build a website the easy way by just following the simple tips I have outline here.

For more optimization tips, try to get your hands on VEO Report by Colin Mc. Dougal. This is the best and most understandable guide to building fully optimized websites online.

I will leave you with one tip I learnt from The VEO report; Before you add any affiliate links to your website, you must first build a website that focus on pure content and include an about you page, and then submit that site to the open directories, like DMOZ.org, etc. After your website has been added to those free directories then you can add your affiliate links and start building reciprocal links and the above mentioned traffic methods will deliver even more traffic.

http://www.veoreport.com/

Now that you know how to build a website for fun and profit, it is time to learn by actually doing something with the information you just read. Go build your first website, the second will be better and your third will be a master piece.

About The Author:

Alexander Marlin, Ebenezer St. Maarten A.N. Discover the simple secrets I use to build a website that ranks high in the search engines. And make thousand weekly with affiliate programs this way. For more information:
http://how-to-build-website.com/

Labels: Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Design

By Shon Christopher

If you are looking for more website traffic, there are several marketing strategies you can do to increase your traffic. Knowing and understanding each one is crucial to determining which ones work best for you. If you use trial and error, you can quickly discover which marketing is generating more website traffic for you. Here are 7 ways to create more website traffic.

Clickbank Account

Clickbank is a product directory on the internet that allows you to sell various products through your website. When people begin searching for the product you offer they can end up at your site. It only takes 5 minutes to sign up for an account and it can create much more website traffic for you.

Submit To Search Engines

If you submit a site map to the search engines you have a better possibility of them examining your site more often. With visits from search engine spiders you will get more website traffic as your site climbs higher on the search engines.

Tell a Friend

By placing a "tell a friend" script on your website, you give visitors the option to refer your website to others. If you continuously add new content you will build up a list of returning visitors who will begin referring your website to others, thus generating more website traffic.

Article Marketing

There is almost no better way to get more website traffic today than article marketing. By writing articles you can use keyword optimization while placing a ad for your website on the bottom of the article. Then all you have to do is submit the article to various ezines and newsletters. You can then place articles on your own website giving people the impression that you are an expert on whatever it is your website is on, which will create more traffic and return visitors as well.

Press Releases

This form of marketing is often overlooked by internet marketers. It is a completely free way to quickly generate more website traffic easily. All you have to do is have a subject announcing a new product you sell or something newsworthy and submit it to online press release companies. If it is written well enough you can then have it be picked up by top search engines such as yahoo and google.

Affiliate Programs

If you sell a product or e-book on your website you should set up an affiliate program. This will allow visitors the chance to join your affiliate program and sell your product for you. Now you have a business within a business and this will allow you to receive more website traffic.

Joint Venture

If you team up with a company that sells similar products, you can swap links and promote each others' business as well. This will allow you to get more website traffic from their site to yours.

About The Author:

Shon Christopher's making money website will provide you with the tools needed to boost your internet income in no time. With various secrets and tips, you will find informational articles and more to help you become a successful internet marketer. Go here to find more:
http://www.moneymultipliermethods.com

Labels: Internet Marketing, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

By Neoone

Optimization in deviating conversation plug in structure clean-cut changes on a lacework page to make the site or webpage improve its rankings in major search engines. These days most people like to spend time on the web and be online always. Business owners have come to realize that the web is the best place where one can market their goods and wares. So these days selling and buying goods through the web is hugely popular among the public. For doing this successfully search engine optimization is one aspect that you need to take proper care of. Search engines are the source through which people search for any kind of information on the web.

So if you want to be blooming on the lacework with your business, you extremity make active consummate that you procure proper search engine optimization of your business. Search engine optimization is nothing but the different measures which are adopted for making a site extremely popular on the web. The idea is to make the product to a brand so that everyone easily recognizes it be it on the web or anywhere else. The whole idea behind search engine optimization is to make online visitors buy goods from your business site. Search engines do not view or receive a site like humans do. To get recognition on the web, sites must get rankings and ratings from all major search engines.

Now if you are faraway a game it does not lousy that you leave be an clever in research engine upsurge as well. So the best thing that you can do for your business is the hire the services of am professional to do the search engine optimization work for you. This will work out to be an advantage for you in several ways. First you can get the services of a professional who is qualified to do the work. Undoubtedly he will do the work much better then anyone else. Second you will no longer have to lose sleep over thinking and planning how to go about doing Search Engine Optimization for your business.

Once you boost over the tour engine upturn life for your force to a professional, you will just have to review the work done on a periodically basis. Most search engine optimization specialists work in affordable rates, so you will not feel he pinch in your budget also if you hire their services. Every business is different and so the methods required for search engine optimization are also different. Whether your online business is a success or failure all depends on you. As a business owner, you are the best judge of the requirements of your business.

Make undeniable to diagram the palpable showdown in the vend and treasure out what methods commit give benefits to your business. Just because some other business has adopted certain search engine optimization strategies do not mean that the same will yield results for your business as well. You have to make a wise choice as a business owner as everything depends on this.

About The Author:

The author writes about a number of different topics visit http://www.shotdogs.info

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By David Bain

Back-link building or creating inbound links has become a great preoccupation for web masters and search engine optimization professionals. Backlinks or inbound links are links found on another web site that would lead anyone clicking it to your web site. Backlinks have grown so important that software for auto linking have become just one of the many link building tools in the search engine optimization arsenal.

--- Why are inbound links so important ---

Links leading to your site create the impression that your web site has something worthy and relevant to say and offer. It doesn't matter whether or not you agree with this generalization. The search engines do - and that's what matters! In the formula - the algorithm - that search engine use to quantify whether or not a web page is important, relevant links into that page is extremely important.

Inbound links from quality and relevant web sites give your site high link popularity ratings and the search engines will let this count towards your page ranking. The more inbound links you have from these quality and relevant web sites, the higher your link popularity becomes, and the more they enhance your total page ranking.

--- Valuable inbound links ---

Let's now talk about the quality and relevance of the web sites from which you should obtain these backlinks. A web site is quality web site when it has a high link popularity and page rank itself. The more reputable the web site is, the higher its quality and the more valuable it would be to have an inbound link from that site to your web site.

--- Build links from relevant web sites ---

A relevant web site is one that operates in a similar or the same industry as yours. Say you are running a web site that sells antiques. In this case, inbound links from other online antiques stores or web sites that provide information on antiques are more relevant than inbound links from pet shops as an example.

You have to remember that the quality and relevance of your inbound links are more important than quantity of inbound links. Of course the ideal arrangement would be to have many quality and relevant links, but failing that, you should aim for quality and relevant backlinks rather than countless weak inbound links.

--- Reciprocal linking ---

Some web masters solicit inbound links from other web masters through reciprocal linking. Reciprocal linking happens when one web site contains a link to another web site that also contains a link back to the former web site. This was the ideal arrangement for web site administrators were are having a hard time obtaining inbound links; that is, however, until search engines became more aware of the practice.

Now, search engines consider inbound links and outbound links together when grading link popularity and page ranking. The former raises your score while the latter often actively dilutes it. This new scoring system could be detrimental to web sites whose SEO strategy hinges on reciprocal linking without consideration to the quality and relevance of the other web sites it's reciprocally linked to. If your web sites are linked to unpopular and irrelevant web sites, then the inbound links that these generate do not count much, if at all. On the other hand, the outbound links that point to these same web sites would still be counted against you. The result is decreased link popularity and page ranking.

--- Link farms and site interlinking ---

To obtain inbound links, some web masters have stooped to building web pages or sites that provide only one-way links to other web pages or sites. Others have created other web sites which are heavily linked to the original web site. Creation of link farms is intentional SEO practice while site interlinking usually is mere ignorant practice. However, both of these practices are unacceptable backlink building strategies that have corresponding consequences.

--- The link building problem ---

Search Engines are becoming more and more aware of 'underhand' practices from Search Engine Optimization companies who artificially raise the prominence of their clients' websites by obtaining links from low reputable sources. Although this may help in the short-term, it could result in a high number of penalties being applied to the website that is being artificially lifted.

--- The link building solution ---

There is only one way to build links to your website in a manner that will be respected by search engines in the longer term. And that's the quality orientated slow and steady approach. Any other way could significantly harm your online business in the future.

About The Author:

David Bain is founder of the internet marketing training company http://www.PurpleInternetMarketing.com. Purple Internet Marketing offers Internet marketing seminars, One-to-one Internet Marketing Training and provide E-Business Strategy Consulting. Visit their site today to find out more.

Labels: Link Building, Search Engine Optimization

By Tim Whiston

Search engine optimization has long been the Holy Grail of Web marketing. Every website owner wants to see their sites rank well in the top engines, but exactly how to achieve this remains a mystery for most marketers.

The first thing I want to point out is this fact: The exact algorithms used by the major search engines are actually proprietary, so anyone who doesn't work for one of these companies who tells you they know exactly what it takes to put you at the top is probably lying to you.

The truth is the search engine companies don't want people like me understanding their systems and creating positive results for my clients. The people behind search engine technology believe their algorithms provide the perfect solution for a Web surfer's query.

But of course you and I know better. How many times have you tried to do a simple keyword search and ended up with page after page of irrelevant results?

Whether they like it or not, the search engines do need help from proficient designers and skilled marketers. It's up to us to add the human element that robots and software simply can't accomplish in an effort to bring searchers the best possible results.

SEO (search engine optimization) is a term with a very broad scope. There is a great deal of work and diligence involved in producing favorable search results for your website(s), but this article will take away much of the mystery that shrouds this subject and give you the basic fundamentals you'll need to create some real results.

First of all, you should know there are two aspects of search engine optimization; onsite and offsite. Onsite optimization refers to what you can do within your code to make your files more search engine friendly, and offsite refers to link building from other websites back to your web
pages.

Solid onsite optimization involves the following steps:

Title and Meta Tags:

Your title tag should reflect your primary keyword phrase. This is HUGELY important.

Often when I visit a site I see the domain name in the title bar. The title tag is the first thing a search engine robot is going to take notice of, and if you blow this aspect of onsite optimization your remaining efforts will have considerably less impact.

For instance, on one of my sites I sell an e-book to online marketers about the pitfalls of business opportunity programs found on the web. The title of my e-book is Net Marketing Exposed, which is pretty cool, but do you think this would be an intelligent entry for the Title tag of my main page? Of course not. Who on earth is going to search for 'Net Marketing Exposed'?

So my title tag reads: Internet Marketing E-book Internet Business Opportunity. My target market for the site I'm referencing consists of home-based opportunity seekers and Internet marketers so I have chosen keyword phrases that match these search terms for my Title tags.

And note you can use the pipe character ( ) to separate multiple terms in your title tag. I recommend going with at least two phrases in your title tag, but do not use the exact same words more than three times in your title.

The debate as to whether or not search engines still reference your meta tags when spidering your site is a hot topic among SEO experts. I honestly don't know if the major engines still read the keyword tag or not, but I add this tag anyway because it only takes a couple of minutes and why not take this extra step just in case right?

Whether or not you utilize the Meta Keywords tag is up to you but I do urge you to use the Meta Description tag. We know for a fact the engines read this tag because if you have it entered in the head section of your html it is what displays under your site title in the search listings.

So the description tag serves not only to add keyword relevance for the search engine spiders, it also acts as your ad when a searcher views your listing in the search results. Adding a quality description in this field can improve the clickthrough rate your listing receives once it is found through a keyword search.

Search engine Friendly File Names:

I recommend naming your page files in a manner that reflects your relevant keyword phrases. If you have a page that lists your articles on your site name that file articles.html instead of something useless like page02.html

Of course the main page in every directory will have to be named index, but that's ok as the engines are hip to that; just be sure to put some thought into your other file names.

Header Tags and Page Content:

You should also use Header tags (H1, H2, H3, etc.) to illustrate important keyword phrases within your site. For example, the page title your visitor sees at the top of your content should be enclosed in H1 tags and should contain your primary keywords.

And obviously your main keywords need to appear several times in the content of each page. Placing these phrases close to the top of your content is recommended, and you should use underline, bold, and italic tags to add emphasis to your keywords within your content.

I have found the 'strong' tag to be of particular effectiveness. While on a visual level it serves the same purpose as the 'b' tag (creates bold text) my research suggests that search engine spiders respond better to the 'strong' tag.

Be careful not to emphasize every keyword phrase with special tags, and avoid excessive and unnatural "stuffing" of keywords onto your pages as the engines may pick this up and flag your site as search engine spam.

Image Tags:

Many designers and marketers ignore the value of proper image tagging when optimizing their templates for the engines. I can tell you right now I have seen a huge jump in ranking as a direct result of changing the structure of a site's image tags.

First of all, remember that search engine robots read text, not images. So avoid giving your image files names like 'header.jpg' or 'photo014.gif' unless you are hoping to be ranked for search terms like header and photo.

You should also be sure to use an alt tag with every image, and enter a keyword relevant phrase as your alt tag.

Going back to my e-book site as an example, my header graphic is named
http://internet-business-opportunity.jpg, and has an alt tag of "Internet marketing e-book reveals the truth about Internet business opportunities." And the cover graphic for my book is named
http://internet-marketing-ebook.jpg with a matching alt tag.

Onsite Link and Navigation Structure:

Finally pay attention to the anchor tags and navigation structure of your site. It's better to use keyword terms for a hyperlink text than to simply use 'click here'. I also suggest applying the Title attribute to add keyword phrases to your link tags.

Of course if you use image links refer back to the image name and alt tag rules.

And your menu should also be built around search engine friendly tags. For instance never use a 'Home Page' tag on your navigation; instead apply a relevant keyword.

If your website is about swimming lessons, the menu button for your home page should say 'Swimming Lessons' or something similar and not simply 'Home'.

This may seem like a lot to take in, but it's really a very simple formula for building search engine ready templates. Review this info until it is second nature and apply it to every site you build and you'll be on your way to stronger placement in the major engines.

The last, and the most important element of basic SEO is offsite optimization. This is a fancy term for link building.

To get the most out of your onsite optimization, you need plenty of good links pointing back to your website. And you should always strive for keyword anchored backlinks over straight URLs.

Again using my example site that retails an e-book to folks with an interest in work from home opportunities, I want hyperlink text that reads "Internet marketing e-book" or "Internet business opportunity".

A correctly built link back allows you to control what search engine spiders look for once they follow a link to your site. Once they arrive through an anchor tag that reflects your primary keywords, the spiders will proceed to look for these terms in your file tags and page content, which will of course improve your potential rankings.

This article has covered everything you need to get started with successful SEO. Master these concepts and you are certain to see a big jump in your search engine rankings!

About The Author:

Tim Whiston is a full-time entrepreneur who helps small businesses and indivual professionals develop a profitable web presence for their ventures. Have a look at his Website Design Service to find powerful and cost-effective solutions for your business.
http://www.timwhiston.com

Labels: Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Design

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: Keyword Research, Search Engine Optimization

By Kirk Bannerman

For a long time I have been a member of several search engine optimization forums and I have recently noticed that the stress level of many webmasters has gone way up (this is especially
true since Yahoo and MSN have decided to seriously try their hand at competing with Google in the search marketplace). This applies not only to webmasters involved in Internet-based home
businesses, but to webmasters in general.

Additionally, it seems that many people that are in the business of search engine optimization (SEO) are, with good reason, going completely bonkers. As Google came on the scene in 1998 and quickly dominated the search business, website optimization became largely a game of shooting at a single target, namely, pleasing Google...for all intents and purposes, Google became the "800 pound gorilla" of the search engine business.

Since the advent of search engines (particularly Google) spawned the whole SEO business, I guess its only fair that the search engine industry can once again turn the SEO business on its ear, and it seems now to be sort of a cat and mouse (not desktop) relationship that can get really interesting as we move forward.

Not only are there now several viable players (most notably Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask Jeeves) in the search engine business, but they are all adopting different and frequently changing algorithms for determining the ranking positions for websites.

The current game is that webmasters are trying to figure out how the various search engines perform the rankings and, on the flip side, the search engines are striving to be unpredictable to those webmasters and SEO firms.

For those people using websites to promote a home based business, it can be stressful constantly trying to determine "what the search engines want" and agonizing over every downward fluctuation in rankings that their website may experience.

Looking forward in time, I think we can expect that rankings will fluctuate frequently and will not be at all consistent from one search engine to another. It will be quite common that for a particular search term a website might suffer a drop in position ranking for search engine "A" and an increase position ranking for search engine "B" at essentially the same point in time.

Rather than stressing out over every position ranking "wiggle", a better approach might be to just focus on "what do visitors to my site want?". The search engines are striving to give their users a quality (relevant) search experience and if you are focused in giving visitors to your website what they are looking for, these paths will meet somewhere down the road.

You can save yourself alot of consternation by focusing upon the needs of the website visitors you are seeking to attract, rather than chasing the frequently changing ranking algorithms of several search engines. Focus on a single target instead of chasing several moving targets at the same time.

This article pertains to natural searches only, as paid search engine advertising is a completely different situation.

About the Author

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and coaches others seeking to start their own home based business. Visit his website at Legitimate Home Based Business for more details.

Labels: Home Based Business, Search Engine Optimization

By Sitecritic .Net

From a search engine point of view, the perfect webpage has no graphics, no scripting, no tables... etc but just alot of normal, plain readable text. You can just take it that plain text is the food for search engine spiders. Therefore, the more text you have, the more you will keep the spiders happy. However, from the design point of view, such pages are very boring but the fact is that everyone is more interested in keeping the spiders rather than us happy. The argument is that if search engine spiders cannot find your site, no one will. Based on this philosophy, we witnessed the fall of flash and sites with strong graphics over the years. Many sites that utilized heavy graphics where no longer found. Web developers become happy because they have an excuse to create less impressive websites...

The question is can we make both the saerch engine spiders and us happy? The answer is definitely a "Yes" provided that web designers can follow certain rules when designing web pages. They need to step out of their comfort zone and learn abit more about new web technologies.

Domain Name and URL Naming Convention
Having a proper domain and url name is quite often neglected. Many search engines actually put some weightage in the way you name your domain or url files. You will definitely want to include some juicy words in your naming convention. For example, if you site is about website critics and your url is http://www.sitecritic.com, this will definitely be better than a domain like bluefish .com or someting. The same principle goes for hyperlinks. If you have 2 words as key words, you can use an underscore "_" or dash "-" to separate them.

Title
Do not fool around when writing the title. From my experience, this is the most important part of your webpage. Many designers like to put special characters such as " * "," ", " : " or " [ ] " in the title to make it look unique. If you really want to make your webpage special, I advise you to do it else where such as in the body of the HTML document. You should include your keywords in your title. Like the previous example, if your web site focuses on website reviews, make sure you have the words "Website Reviews" somewhere in the title. Noticed that "WebsiteReviews" is not the same as "Website Reviews". Spacing is important.

When writing the title, try not to write more than 8 words. There are no hard and fast rules on that but the fact is that more does not mean good. In fact, the more you write, the more your keyword density will be diminished. If you keep repeating the same keyword in the title, search engines will see your site as spam and you will be dead in no time. For example, a title like "Sitecritic Web Reviews" is much better than "Sitecritic Web Reviews, Internet Marketing, Web Design Ideas, Internet Directories, Budget Web Hosting, Melbourne". I will have to stress again, do not fool around with your title.

Meta-Description
After the title tag is the meta description tag. Many people argued that meta description is no longer important. Based on my experience, they are still relevant in SEO rankings especially if your website is new. The principle in writing the meta description tag is the same as the title. The only difference is that you want explain abit more about the services that you provide in a friendlier format. You will also want to include your keywords in the meta description.

Menu, Content and Links
You should not use any javascript menus that hid the urls. Many javascript menus are fancy but actually not SEO friendly. What ever technique you are using to create the menus, make sure that the tag is visible. You might also want to include a variation of the keywords in the menus, links or text. Like the previous example, if your keyword is "Web Site Reviews", you might not want to use the same word over and over again. You can vary it by using "Professional Web Reviews, Reviews of Websites, Site Reviews...etc". Varying the keywords makes your content more interesting and is good for SEO as well.

When writing the contents, try to put the keywords in different areas of the document. Use tags like or to make the keywords stand out. Avoid urls that say "click here" or "view". Though often used, they are not advisable for SEO purposes.

Text links are stonger than image links. It is therefore not advisable to use images as the main navigation menu throughout the website. If you would like to incorporate images in the user navigation experience, you might want to consider separating the text from the images. This can be achieved easily using CSS or the background image option in the or tag.

Images
Unlike many Search Engine Experts, I strongly encourage the use of graphics because I am passionate about Web Design and is sad to see so many websites that are well optimized for search engines but look crap on screen. You need to balance between the amount of graphics used and downloading speed. Like I mentioned before, if your header banner or important images contains text , you could split up the text and use the images as a separate background or floating layer. That way, you can make the image size smaller and also make the text visible to the search engines. Transparent gifs are very useful for laying over other content or images. Appropriate use of jpegs and gifs can also cut down loading time by alot.

CSS Technology
CSS helps you to cut down your tag and gives more room for the spiders to read your content. The problem with CSS is that it is not as straight forward as tables. At the moment, CSS is also inconsistent in different browsers, so before you publish your web page, you need to check the layout in different browsers. I am actually not against designers using tables especially if they find the time spend in creating a full CSS site not justifiable. The fact is that there are still cases when using CSS is not advisable. An example is when displaying tabular data; Tables still excel in displaying tabular data at the moment. Unless you are using complex nested tables, the, or tags should not pose too much of a problem for the search engine spiders.

Conclusion
Web pages should not be boring and web designers should not bow down to the Google revolution. A well designed site combines both form and function and yet, still able to be search engine friendly. I strongly believe that this can be easily achieved if website designers are able to follow very basic rules in designing their web sites.

About the Author

Sitecritic.net is formed by a group of web addicts, mainly volunteers from all over the world. Our goal is to create a community of web designers and developers who share the common interest in bringing out the best in creatiing effective web sites.

View their website at: http://www.sitecritic.net

Labels: Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Design

By Judith Kallos

Everyone wants top 10 rankings as though just because they wished it that should make it so. Wishing has nothing to do with rankings. Unless you have a genie in a bottle, we all know it simply just doesn't work that way.

How about I get you thinking differently about this issue?

Don't Chase Search Engines-Let Them Chase You!

How is that possible?

Become a Search Engine All-You-Can-Eat Buffet!!

I can hear you out there.. "Yeah, sure!" Well, it's not that difficult of a methodology really. All you have to do is think differently than all the hype, amateur Web designers and unscrupulous marketing "gurus" have led you to believe about how getting found works.

First off, what search engines like is fresh content and lots of it; yummy! That's the fuel for their fire so to speak. So it goes without saying that if you keep adding new content on a regular basis that will encourage search engines to visit your site because you'll have a fresh buffet of tempting entrées.

How do search engines know you have new content? Certainly not by osmosis!

If you make the effort in the appropriate areas, much of which the costs are minimal, they'll get a whiff of the appetizing content you have to offer and act like they are at an all-you-can-eat buffet!! Your site will be like Mama's house on a Sunday afternoon. You know what I mean; dinner smells so good everyone in the house can't wait to get a plateful! That's how it goes with search engines and content.

If you don't have savory content-why should search engines visit you and give you higher rankings over those who serve up a delicious all-you-can-eat Sunday dinner? The answer is they don't.

The "build it and they will come" way of thinking does not apply to Web sites in this day and age, so everyone needs to wash that concept right out of their hair. All it takes is for you to be prepared to mix, cook and serve. Mix up a new article, cook it to perfection and serve it to the hungry search engines!

That's not too much to ask to succeed online is it? If it is, well, maybe you should reconsider your online endeavors. If you don't want to make these efforts, just forget about achieving no charge organic/natural listings. You'll never rank anywhere near the top so determine your PayPerClick budget and go setup your campaign straight away.

Now let's setup your buffet! Start a blog that you post to continually and submit it to all the blog directories. Make sure your blog offers a subscribe feature so visitors get notified by e-mail when you enter a new post. Also offer RSS and podcasting feeds of your blog posts so that visitors can get your information in as many flavors as they choose. See? Your mouthwatering buffet is growing!

Onliners visit your blog and then follow the links to the scrumptious new articles on your site. They like your articles and link to them or post them on their site with a link to yours. Incoming links to your site; lip smacking good!

You also offer an RSS feed of your top articles to get the word out. You add your new articles to your site map. Google checks for your site map XML file and updates its index with your freshly baked content. You add your seasoned articles to all the article banks that have popped up in the last year or so-more delectable links to your site! Can you see what is happening? We are creating a feeding frenzy!

This interactive medium called the Web is now more interactive than ever. At first when it all began, "interactive" meant some flashing this or moving that. Now interactive means just that; you need to interact and be involved by using all these tools or you'll be left in the dumpster by those who do.

One thing is sure; chasing search engine algorithms is a futile effort at best. But when you have the nourishment they want, tasty content, search engines are hungry little bots and it's hard to keep them away. Food for thought? You bet! Open your own buffet today and feed the beast!

About the Author:

Judith Kallos is an authoritative and good-humored Technology Muse who has played @ http://www.TheIStudio.com for over a decade. Check out her new Dot Com Business Starter Kit @
http://www.DotComStarterKit.com

Labels: Article Writing, Blogs and RSS, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

By Tyler Banfield

Over the past week, there has been a lot of discussion about the "SEO is/isn't rocket science" debate. Although this issue has been around for years, the spark that brought it back to life can be traced back to the Search Engine Strategies Conference and Expo in Chicago. During the Search Engines Strategies Conference in Chicago, which took place from December 4th through the 6th, Jason Calcanis (the cofounder of Weblogs Inc) completely wrote search engine optimization off as a complete waste of money and resources. His philosophy is that if you build a clean page and great content, the traffic and rankings will follow naturally.

This statement caused quite a stir among not only the audience (which was primarily made up of a bunch of SEOs) but also the search engine optimization community as a whole. Angry blog posts were flying up left and right, and there was not a lack of great discussion on both sides of the issue.

At the beginning of January, Shoemoney made the statement on his radio show and blog that ninety-five percent of search engine optimization is "super simple" and the other five percent is what really matters in the world of SEO.

After all this various discussion, Todd Friesen (aka Oilman) decided to write an excellent blog post to address all of these various issues. Although he does not update his blog very often,
the posts he does write are always well thought out. This particular post helped to give the SEO community some perspective on this issue. Even though ninety-five percent of search engine optimization may be extremely easy for someone who does it on a daily basis, it is still a complete mystery to ninety-nine percent of the population. The purpose of his post can be summed up by the idea that instead of spending time arguing within the SEO community, we need to realize that there is an entire world full of people who probably don't even know what the term SEO means.

About The Author:

The article was written to help conduct an experiment on the usefulness of article submissions for indexing sub domains like http://4.tylerbanfield.com

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Mel Strocen

By Chris Angus

When most people visit your site, the most articles that they will see is anywhere from three to fifteen depending on the length of them and whether or not you have linked them "behind the fold." Behind the Fold means that they are stuffed in your archives. Of course, this begs the question, Are these search engine optimized blogs lost forever in the archives or are they still accessible to search engines?

The good news that even though your blog posts from the past are not displayed on the blog page but this does not mean that they are not accessible to the search engines or your readers.
Most blog software and online providers supply some kind of archiving system so that readers can easily search your blog for other articles. In fact a little box that allows your readers to search a blog is a good plug in to look for when you are choosing a provider.

Sometimes the archives are listed in a separate list on another page by date or subject. On other templates, there may be a list of general categories scrolling down one side of your blog that people can click on to read other subjects. Another possibility is that a calendar object may be put on the page so that people can look up the blogs in the archive by date. Another technique
is to keep all of your category headings for your blogs as keyworded titles and to maintain a lot of them. The more categories you have describing your blog archives the more keywords you will have available to the search engines.

Even though these posts are not archived on your front page they are still searchable through the search engines. The more articles you have in your archives the more visible your site is likely to be in the search engines.

About The Author:

Christopher Angus is a SEO and Website Marketer. He can be contacted at: Sales (at) Brilliantseo.com
http://www.illustratemyname.com
http://www.mobility-direct.co.uk http://www.seocompanyuk.com

Labels: Blogs and RSS, Search Engine Optimization

By Mikael Rieck

As you have surely already read many times - getting links to your site is the solely most critical factor to determine your success for ranking well in the search engines. The big G (Google) has changed the way the rank sites from factors on the specific site to external factors giving you site credibility by wanting to link to it.

Ranking high in Google should be your number one priority if you are planning on getting your targeted traffic from the search engines. But as much as you want to rank well in Google so does everyone else and that makes it so much harder to accomplish. But if can possibly achieve it the rewards will follow.

Tips #1: Track your traffic and results. Before you start your linking campaign you should consider how you are going to track your effort. Working hard on building different types of links and not having a clue what works and what doesn't is just plain stupid. When you know what works and what doesn't it is much easier to focus your time and there by achieve a better result faster.

You will need to find a way to a) see what sites that sends your traffic and what sites that send you buyers (traffic that converts into sales or opt-ins). This information is SO VALUABLE that it must not be ignored.

If you go to Google and search for "free traffic analyzer" you will surely find a couple of site that can provide you with simple tools that will get the job done. On the other hand you might want to consider finding a more professional tool for the job so that you (over time) are able to track some of the more specific things that you will need in order to not only make sure you rank well but that your page will also convert the people actually visiting it.

A tool that I have had good experience using is the tool that Google provides named Google Analytics. It is free and has a lot of features. You are also able to combine it with your Adwords account if you are using PPC to drive traffic to your site.

Tips #2: Be consistent over a period of time. Things don't happen over night. Most search engines will take months before giving your site the full credit for the links you have attained. Surely you can see some benefit for links in days or weeks but often it is temporary and your should expect your rankings to jump up an down in the SEs for a few months to come (and this is if we don't factor in the changes that your competition will surely make on their sites in the same period of time).

So be sure to place links on sites where you can expect them to stay for months (and preferably years).

But that is not all. Even though you have build up a great number of quality links you will need to do a minimum effort in building more and more links to your site over time. This can be done in many ways that won't take up much of your time but make sure that you don't ever stop the effort completely. The strength you have build will erode over time so make sure that you keep adding "votes" to your site.

Tips #3: Be aware of outbound links. Most sites and pages have links pointing to other sites or other internal pages. The fewer links the page which you will have your link placed on the better. The effect the page has on your link (and therefore page) will decrease with the number of outbound links places on the site. You can say that the links share the pagerank of the page.

The best possible link you can get will be from a relevant page with a high PR and great rankings in the search engines and where the link to your site is the only one present. This is not something that you will often experience!!

A way to achieve a situation close to this is when you write great articles and have them posted on high quality websites. Here you will often see some internal links but for the most part the link to your site (in the reference section of the article you wrote) will be the only outbound link.

Writing great content articles and having them exposed on the right sites can do wonders for your ranking. So if you're not Shakespeare you might want to consider finding a ghost writer to do the job for you. Sure you can end up paying $30-$50 for a good article (800-1000 words) but if it will end up sending you more customers because of the improved ranking it might be a
great investment.

About The Author:

Mikael Rieck Kousgaard is a self thought SEO entrepreneur and has helped a great many people get good rankings for their sites. Constantly testing out different ways and products to increase an online profit and has currently got a good eye on the WELLNESS industry
(http://www.mrieck.com/wellness/)

Labels: Link Building, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

By Adrian Kennelly

...No they won't. On the web, building a web site is not enough. If there are no links to the site anywhere, no-one is going to visit it. The site won't even be listed in any of the search engines without some incoming links. To get traffic, you will need to do some promotion.

Web Directories

The basic part of any promotion campaign, web directories, whist they may not generate much in the way of traffic, will help in your site's search engine ranking. A good list of free, non-reciprocal, search engine friendly directories can be found at Vilesilencer's SEO Friendly List.

Pay Per Click Advertising

This is advertising such as PPC Search Engines, like Yahoo!'s Overture, and contextual advertising, like Google's AdWords. Be warned, it is very easy to go through a substantial amount of money for no reward using these services if you are not careful. AdWords (amongst others) lets you pick a maximum budget a day, but, although $5 may not sound like much, $5/day is $150+ per month. Better make sure your keywords are correctly identified, and, in preference, not highly competed on, and that your sales copy is good enough before doing this.

Quality Traffic, not Just Traffic

It's what everyone is after, more traffic to their website. Traffic is easy to obtain, though. Autosurfers, manual hit exchanges and purchased traffic will all send visitors to your website. However, this traffic is just visitors, many of whom will just burn up your bandwidth for no reward. Unless you are receiving decent money for pay per impression advertising, such as banners and popups, this traffic can be totally valueless.

Repeat Traffic

Unless you only require visitors to visit your site once, because you are selling a one-off product, and your sales copy is fantastic enough that they are hooked to buy on the first visit (and if you are regulary doing this, write an ebook explaining how and sell it), you will want visitors to return. If there is nothing of value at your site, visitors may come once, but they won't come back of their own accord. Typically, it is estimated that a prospective customer will be exposed seven times to a product etc. before buying.

Reciprocal Linking

Whilst somewhat frowned upon, and generally thought to not be as valuable as one-way linking (see below) for search engine optimization, a relevant reciprocal linking campaign can be an important traffic generating tool. swap links with sites in a related, but non-competing, business to your own. It isn't really a good idea to link to competitors; although visitors will be interested in your product, there is a good chance you will lose them to your competitor, especially if their website or product is better or looks better than your own. Not a desirable outcome. For example, a web hosting site could link to a site that sells scripts and programs; visitors to one will more than likely use the other, but the sites are not in direct competition. You can also swap links with web directories that require a reciprocal link.

One-Way Linking

Considered the best form of link for SEO purposes, this can also be a good source of traffic. There are a number of ways of getting one-way links. The easiest is submission to free web directories (see above). Another good source is by writing articles relevant to your site or industry, putting a resource box at the bottom, then posting the article on the directories such as GoArticles, or by sumbitting to the ezines. Webmasters and ezine publishers are always in need of fresh content, and will publish your article for free. The hardest way of getting one-way inbound links is by having websites voluntarily link to you. The only way to do this is by providing a valuable tool, service or resource that other webmasters will want to direct their visitors to.

About The Author:

(c)2005 http://www.egdcltd.com eGDC Ltd Adrian Kennelly is the webmaster of Directory Gold Web Directory
http://www.directorygold.com, which includes Scripts Gold Script Directory http://scriptsgold.directorygold.com

Labels: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

By Alice Seba

If you sell a service or product online you may not want to ignore the potential customers right in your own backyard. There are a number of potential local businesses who may be
interested in what you have to offer, and as more and more people are using the internet for local searches you'll want to make sure your website is optimized to attract these local clients.

One way to attract more search engine visitors locally is to use local keywords when optimizing your site. For example, if you offer web design services in Arizona, research keywords and include keywords with your location when optimizing your pages.

You should also submit your site for free local search engine listings. There are several local ones to choose from but Google and Yahoo are the two big ones. When you submit you can add details about your business including your address, office hours and so on. You can also grab a link to a map of your location which you can place on your website.

When targeting local clients, placing your local address, phone number and a link to a Google map of your business at the very bottom of the page footer may help in your local search engine
results.

Local city business directories can also be a good source of leads and traffic, but make sure you research the directory to see if it will actually produce results for you. There are many business directories popping up and you'll want to choose one with a good reputation and which can produce results.

But don't stop there; remember to include your website address on your business cards and local mailings so that local customers can view your website at their convenience. With many local business owners yet to get into the online marketing game, by starting early you'll stand out from your local competitors.

About The Author:

Alice Seba is a full-time online business owner that thrives on helping others say good-bye to their J-O-Bs forever. Sign up for her "Internet Marketing Prescriptions" to cure what ails your online business:
http://www.InternetMarketingPrescriptions.com

Labels: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

By Steve Phillips

When considering utilizing search engine optimization methods to help improve your website's overall ranking in search engines, here are some "facts" and "myths" about SEO:

Fact: Google, Yahoo and MSN are considered the "Big 3" when it comes to search engines.

Yes, it's true. In fact, just over 95% of all Internet searches are conducted using either Google, Yahoo and MSN. This leaves less than 5% percent for all of the other search engines combined.

Myth: There are 1,000 search engines on the Internet.

Nope. Not true. If you see an advertisement saying "we'll submit your site to 1,000 search engines", then they probably also want to sell you a bridge in Brooklyn. Actually, there are only 40 or so true search engines. The rest of them are actually using search engine results from Google, Yahoo, MSN or a combination of all three.

Fact: Search Engine Optimization is not a "one-and-done" process.

Good SEO is an on-going progress. You have to do so many things - and do them right - to get ranked at the top of search engines. Then, once you have earned those high rankings, you have to work twice as hard to keep your site there. Afterall, when you moved into the top spots, you've bumped someone. Rest assured, they are going to start working harder to regain that
spot.

Myth: You can trick search engines.

Go ahead and try. And, when you get caught, your website will be banned from search engines. There are all kinds of tricks search engine optimization consultants try and, yes, you might get ranked No. 1 in Google for your "black hat" efforts. But, when you get caught - and you will - your site will be doomed for a long time.

Fact: Search engines love fresh content.

Definitely. Just like people, search engine spiders (also called "robots") will come back to your site often when you write and publish fresh content.

Myth: Search engines don't look at Meta Tags anymore.

Wrong. Search engines do look at Meta Tags. Typically, they don't put much faith in what you've written there as the gospel, but they'll come back and look more at your site content to verify what keywords you're concentrating on.

Fact: Links will help get your site ranked higher.

True. However, create "backlinks" with sites that have a Google Page Rank of 5 or better. Avoid link farms. Don't pay for links and, if you can help it, don't trade links with everyone on the web.

Myth: The more links you have the better.

Wrong. Be selective. Get good quality sites to publish a link to your site. Don't pay to be listed in directories (with the exception being in Yahoo Directory). Avoid link farms (these are sites that are just a bunch of links).

Fact: A Sitemap is a good thing to have.

True. While a Sitemap, especially a Google Sitemap, will not guarantee a higher ranking in Google, it will help you make sure that all of the pages in your site are being crawled by Google.

Myth: Pay-Per-Click is not worth it.

False. If your website is not listed high in organic search engine results, then you should consider a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign. Yes, some click fraud does exist, but if you opened a
retail store, you'll probably be a victim of shoplifting at some point. Instead, create a smart campaign and stick to a budget. Then, perhaps as your organic rankings improve, you may
consider backing off the PPC campaign. Or, perhaps not!

About The Author:

Steve Phillips is a search engine optimization consultant and CEO of Purple Trout, LLC. You can learn more about SEO at http://www.purpletrout.com

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Jon Rognerud

How to use search engine optimization to be found (rescued) on the Web.

A few years ago, my good friend Bill B. bought his first sail boat.

He called and told me: "Jon, today - I bought a new sailboat, and it's the happiest day of my life"! I grinned and told him: "I also understand that selling it will be your happiest day of your life". (Turned out I was right).

What does sailing have to do with SEO and this article?

The story continues: My buddy Bill did end up selling it a few years later (you'll see why). I taught him how his boat could be found and sold via web search traffic to his website, which we set up together.

Today - he has a thriving web business, and he has bought and sold many boats and accessories since those early years. He went full-time into the web business, and he understands the power of SEO and ranking high for key search terms.

What is the definition of SEO, and why is it important to your business?

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, or as defined by Google: Search Engine Optimizer. SEO is a subset of the umbrella term Search Engine Marketing (SEM).

Properly applied search engine optimization allows your site to be not only seen by the search engines, but when a search term (keywords, phrases) is entered, you can rank very high in the
search engine results pages (SERPS). The results pages are typically a combination of natural (sometimes called organic) results, paid inclusions (directories) and pay-per-click (PPC) ads.

The wholly grail for online marketers centers around being found on the first page of Google, currently owning well over half of the market of all searches. If you further optimize in such a way that it brings *quality* traffic, that can be the ultimate return on investment (ROI), assuming you have a solid back office process. If you have optimized well for Google, you will rank good in the other majors (MSN, Yahoo) also.

Interestingly enough, Search Engine Optimization is not optimizing the search engines themselves, (SEO-ers can only make experienced and industry guesses) but rather optimizing
the websites, content and related parts (links) so the users can find you easily. It's all about relevancy. Many folks hire professional consultants to perform SEO, and some attempt to do it themselves, which I will help you with during the months to come.

My sailing buddy was lost at sea.

That third weekend of his boat saga, he told his wife that a trip outside of the safe harbor and into somewhat un-chartered waters would be a fun and challenging experience, and he brought a friend along to assist.

Normally, he would have reviewed the weather forecast, map (lat/long), trip log, flares, emergency contact info and courses outlined, including both physical and radio contact points to coast guards and ports, but he neglected all this by making a stupid mistake: he did not fully prepare and made some bad assumptions.

It was a poor weekend to go out as well. A tranquil beginning, they were relaxing and enjoying the sea. However, the weather turned quickly into one of the fiercest storms and many hours later, they were missing at sea.

The coast guard and others were looking for them (SEO: visitors), his boat and crew had not prepared a strategy (SEO: competitive analysis, know your audience, know where you are (your value proposition), and what keywords to use) and this was a different route than anytime before (SEO: know who your link partners are that can help you get ranking/visibility/popularity via relevant links in your topical, themed community).

The next 24 hours at sea were not good, to say the least. Here they were, way off course, nobody could find them, and they had run out of options. By stroke of luck, one ship happened to
cross their path almost 100 nautical miles off course. (SEO: Was this a random 'visitor'?)

My friend and his associate were rescued, and what a big lesson it was. They learned that careful preparation, planning and execution, as well as adjusting for bad weather (SEO: competitive analysis, thoughtful planning) are cornerstones to a successful trip. This also means never giving up, (SEO: keep content fresh, adust, and monitor changes in the search engine algorithms), you can survive!

Summary:
SEO done right can enable you to be found (in the sea of billions of web pages), and ranked well. You should always provide relevant information that the users are looking for, and you'll have a steady stream of visitors, 24x7x365.

Make sure to include solid search engine optimization strategy, tactics and operational context for a safer (relevant) trip on the World Wide Web.

SEO is one of the most powerful online marketing mediums there is, and the display of those query results are completely free, and doing it right will elevate your positions.

About The Author:

Jon Rognerud is a recognized authority on the subject of search engine optimization and has spent more than 15 years developing online solutions at companies like Overture and Yahoo! His website, http://www.microsaw.com - provides a wealth of great articles, resources and free courses on SEO & SEM.

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Tyler Banfield

Daron Babin-Daron is the CEO of Webmaster Radio. Daron has been teaching and lecturing on search engine optimization since 1997. Daron got his start in television by working for NBC, but
eventually found his way into the world of search engine marketing and optimization. His goal from the very beginning has been to create tools that benefit the community. According to an interview with the Online Marketing Blog, Daron is currently developing a pod cast search engine. He also mentions that Yahoo is his favorite search engine, while Google comes in second on his list.

Matt Cutts-Matt Cutts is a software engineer for Google. He began working for Google in January 2000, and is currently the head of Google's Webspam team. Thanks to the popularity of his blog, Matt Cutts has become a celebrity within the search engine optimization community. With an Alexa ranking of 1,262 (at the time of writing), Matt's blog is one of the busiest on the internet. Because Matt has become the unofficial ambassador/liason between Google and the search engine optimization community, he frequently attends search and web master conferences. No matter where he goes during these conferences, it is guaranteed that he will have a flock of SEOs following and watching his every move.

Rand Fishkin-Rand Fishkin is the owner of SEOmoz. SEOmoz specializes in providing companies around the world with search engine optimization services. SEOmoz is currently made up of
nine different people, including Rebecca Kelley and Si Fishkin. At the end of 2006, Rand and SEOmoz made the decision to release their financial statements for the past year. According to these statements (which were only rough estimates), SEOmoz earned a total of $600,000 during 2006. At the end of the year, they had $64,000 in the bank. Only a year early, they had less than $4,000 in saved in the bank.

About The Author:

Can this anchor text help a new sub domain rank for http://2.tylerbanfield.com ndablfei or andbielf?

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Steven Dennis

Web masters often feel like pulling their hair out and throwing a major childish tantrum when their search engine optimization strategy efforts don't pay off. It is indeed maddening to find
that SEO efforts that have cost so much time and energy have not borne anything fruitful. Has the search engine optimization work been done correctly, though? That's the important question!

There are SEO practices that are actually based on search engine optimization strategy misconceptions. Before embarking on another optimization attempt, web masters would find it
worthwhile to read about the common SEO fallacies that one should correct so that SEO will not be wasted.

Meta-tags and hidden text

Web masters include the keywords in their meta-tags and this is standard practice. However, some web masters stop there. This is very bad practice!

If a web master wishes to increase his or her pages' relevance to a search engine queries, then the keywords should also be found on the pages themselves, not only in the meta-tags or
codes. It is true that search engines see these keywords within the hidden coding of your website. But an important fact to bear in mind is that words within your page content, visible
to readers are now more important than meta-tags.

To compromise, some web administrators incorporate invisible keywords. These are called such because the human eye cannot decipher them. The texts' color is similar to the background
so they blend in with the background when the page is viewed. On the other hand, search engines still see this text so they count towards keyword relevance.

However, what some web masters don't realize is that these keyword phrases would have been a lot more valuable as keyword phrase anchor texts had they been visible. These anchor texts
could have also linked to other pages in the site so that the relevance of the whole site is promoted. It is also pertinent to mention that hidden texts are borderline search engine
optimization strategy for it is in fact fooling search engines to believe that the site is relevant to the query. In other words they could get your site banned from search engines!!!

Web page design

Some web masters focus so much on the elements of the web site to the exclusion of other offsite search engine optimization strategy aspects. It is true that a web site should have
worthy content that has search engine optimized keywords in place. Keywords distributed in the content of the page increases its relevance to a search engine query in that keyword category. Pages that are aptly and keyword titled are also a very good way to improve the site's ranking.

Nevertheless, web masters should never believe that having very relevant and keyword-rich pages is the only way to increase page ranking. Search engines actually give much weight to link
popularity in their search algorithms. A web administrator must therefore maintain appropriate keyword density but must also work towards improving link popularity through inbound links from other renowned web sites that have related content.

Short-term SEO

Some web masters think that once search engine optimization strategy measures are initiated, they should see the jump in page ranking immediately. This is the most common misconception about search engine optimization and this leads to unnecessary aggravation on the web masters' part.

Search engine optimization measures do not give instant returns; they take time, sometimes months, to work properly and give a web site's rank a boost. Web traffic would eventually
increase after search engine optimization strategy is set into motion. Meanwhile, web masters can save themselves so much frustration if they just wait for progress and find other means
to increase traffic to their sites.

About The Author:

Steven Dennis is the Co-Founder of http://www.SearchEngineOptimizationForBeginners.com ~ Visit the site today to get your FREE report worth $47 ~ "The 10 BIGGEST Search Engine Optimization Mistakes".

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Tyler Banfield

Jim Boykin

Jim Boykin is a self-proclaimed "internet marketing specialist specializing in search engine optimization." Jim is the CEO of We Build Pages. We Build Pages is an internet marketing
services company, which specializes in link building, analytics and content writing. Jim also has a personal blog that he uses to discuss various topics in internet marketing. One of the main focuses of his blog is link building. Many of his posts deal with subjects like how to acquire links, how to evaluate links and why Page Rank isn't nearly as important as many SEOs think that it is.

Aaron Wall

Aaron Wall is the author of SEO Book. SEO Book is arguably the best introductory e-book on the subject of search engine optimization. It is a very well-written, thorough book, and covers virtually every topic of search engine optimization (with the exception of techniques that are normally considered to be black hat). In addition to updating SEO Book whenever necessary, Aaron also runs the Threadwatch community. Threadwatch gathers news related to marketing and technology from all over the internet, and posts it in an easy to read/discuss format. According to the official SEO Book web site, Aaron also does SEO consulting on a very limited basis.

Danny Sullivan

Danny Sullivan is the creator of Search Engine Watch. He created Search Engine Watch in 1997, but decided to leave on November 30th, 2006. He currently writes about search engines for the web site Search Engine Land. In addition to writing on search engines, Danny does a daily pod cast called The Daily SearchCast. Although these two obligations keep him extremely busy, he does find time to run his company, Calafia Consulting. Although it is a small company, Calafia Consulting provides a variety of excellent search engines services, including web site design and development.

About The Author:

Anchor text is useful if it helps you rank for terms like http://3.tylerbanfield.com, dlnifabe or
eldfbnia.

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Chris Angus

The problem with SEO copy (search engine optimized) is that
often reads very robotic, repetitive and cold. However so many
marketing experts say that you need to make an emotional
connection with your reader in order to make sales. This means
that you need to find the fine balance between making your copy
sound personal and pleasing the search engine spiders and
robots.

First of all never pose yourself an expert or a guru if you are
not one. People can usually tell that you aren't within the
first paragraph or so of an article, especially if it is
peppered with keywords and not much quality content. This type
of content is easily identifiable as it is based on
old-fashioned direct sales marketing techniques. Once people
see those long sales letters on sites, they know it's snake oil
salesman time. It is better to connect with them on a one to one
basis rather than in an imitation of some hotshot copywriter
from the 1970s.

Never use the royal "we". Stay away from phrases like "We here
at Search Engine City promises to deliver you the best copy"
instead make it more personal by using the "you or your" form
as in: "You are certain to find a keyword analyzer that is
perfect for that special someone at here at Search Engine
City."

Another tip is to try and identify with your audience in some
way. For instance if your audience is a bunch of affiliate
marketers, refer to the practice of creating blogs with
affiliate links as bum marketing which is the nickname for it.
Try to write in the niche language that they are used to. Of
course if you truly are an expert in your niche then writing
this type of SEO enriched, yet user-friendly copy will not be
difficult for you at all!

About The Author:

Chris Angus is a SEO and website promoter, he
can be contacted at sales(at)brilliantseo.com
http://www.illustratemyname.com,
http://www.mobility-direct.co.uk and
http://www.everest-oxfordshire.co.uk

Labels: Copywriting, Search Engine Optimization

Tuks Engineer

How do you create a website that the search engines love? It's
simple really - have lots of targeted content that closely
relates to your site theme.

Recently though, we have heard a lot about "duplicated content"
and how that can damage your site rankings in Google. You'll see
a frenzy of people saying things such as:

"Oh I mustn't publish this article, I'll get done for duped
content".

"I shouldn't use private label rights content because others
will be using the same content and that will hurt my chances of
getting free search engine traffic."

But do you know what? Before jumping on the "duped content is
evil" bandwagon, consider these facts:

(a) There are a LOT of high ranking websites that are just
plastered with nothing BUT duplicate content. If duplicated
content really does matter, why aren't these sites being banned
from the engines?

(b) Google itself has not said that duplicated content is a
no-no. Sure, it doesn't exactly wear its heart on its sleeve
when it comes to disclosing the factors it uses to rank sites
but even so there has been little indication from Google that
duplicated content will hurt your website.

(c) There are those to whom this "duplicated content" hysteria
is very convenient and profitable. For example it gives people
the opportunity to create products, books and software that
deals with the dreadful issue of duplicated content. Article
content changer software is a prime example of this - this
niche market is worth a small fortune as content publishers who
buy private label rights are forced to fork out a hundred or so
bucks to allow them to make their purchased content unique in
the eyes of search engines. It's in the software developers
interests to cause a stir about duped content because the
moment it's revealed that duplicate content isn't really an
issue they'll lose a lot of sales overnight.

So how do you move forward with any level of certainty? You
know search engines do like fresh content but what if you just
don't have the time to plug in content that's 100% unique? The
best way is to use a model that adds both unique content as
well as purchased content (or free content from article
directories) and optimise the page accordingly (remember - your
page titles should all be individually optimised to the
content).

Ultimately, unless you are employing blatantly unethical
tactics to trick the search engines, the issue of duplicated
content will not be a particularly tricky one for your
websites. What does matter is that your site is well optimised
and has plenty of back links from high ranking sites coming in.
That's the sort of thing that gets you rated high - even if your
site has some content that's commonly plastered over the
internet.

About The Author:

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Traffic For Free Then You Need To Check Out This Sensational New
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Labels: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

The SEO Guide Part 1

David Fishman

It helps you to get your web site to appear in search engine
result pages (SERPs) for keywords that that are relevant to
your business.

Google, MSN, and Yahoo all use their own formulas to calculate
the relevance of your pages, but here are a few common factors
to guarantee you will rank above those not using them. Of
course, one of the most important factors you want to check out
is the company's track record of results. There are a couple of
factors that have effect on your search engine positioning,
here is one important one, the on-page optimization factors.

If you want a healthy return on investment (ROI) with search
engine optimization (SEO), your success - or failure - hinges
on the keywords you select when combined with other factors
like link popularity and web site design. This would include
such tasks like modifications to your keywords, description,
title tags, comment tags, alt descriptions, and title
descriptions of anchors and the actual text of your web page.
The TITLE tag first is the most important part, the "< TITLE >"
tag. Words people are most likely to search on put first in the
title (called "keyword prominence"). Optimizing Your Title Tag.
This is because most engines & directories place a high level of
importance on keywords that are found in your title tag. Your
page title is one long uninterrupted road sign instead of
several small ones.

If it was possible to master seo techniques, and be sure that
we can get high rankings by editing just the Meta tags that
would be very easy, but this is only one part of search engine
optimization, but that's just not going to happen. These
factors all relate to your own site and include your domain
name, page names, meta tags, keyword density, titles, headings
and last but not least the content. Optimizing your meta tags
and dropping a few keywords into your web site won't pay the
rent. Things like the page title, Meta tags, heading tags,
comment tags, and anchor text were the only things that
mattered. Back couple of years ago you could just tweak, title,
headers and description on each page and by doing this you could
create fantastic seo results.

By including local information in your tags and web pages, you
help prospective customers find specific information on the
area and business they are searching for. Localized search
engine optimization is the addition of local search terms to
your tags and web pages. Keywords / Description / Alt Tags /
Title Tags / Page Content.

Make sure that all your tags properly closed and that there are
no tags missing, when search engines spider your site and your
pages are not complete the search engines might ignore the
page. The science is formatting the pages with the right meta
tags and submitting them in the right way to the search
engines.

Search Engines are also interested in the text of the site.
Anchor text is the text the web visitor sees on the web page,
which is hyperlinked to your domain name or URL. When
submitting to other sites use your keyword phrase for your
anchor text when ever possible. You can just take it that plain
text is the food for search engine spiders.earch engines.

About The Author:

http://www.linknetics.com is software that
helps http://www.linknetics.com/reciprocal-link-exchange.html

Labels: Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Design

Turn a one-night-stand with Google into a long-term relationship

Diane Metz

Google is like a girlfriend who wont talk. You're dying
to woo her, but when you ask her what she likes, she bats her
eyelashes and keeps quiet.

Now of course, Google isn't going to talk anytime soon about
what goes into (and comes out of) its notorious algorithm "" its
proprietary secret formula for calculating which pages will get
listed when someone types in a search phrase.

Ah, but we SEO specialists and experts have our ways of figuring
out what that seemingly fickle gal named Google likes and what
she could care less about.

And, ahem, things have changed since 2001.

Google seems to be a lot more subtle and isn't charmed by
obvious overtures like:

* Keyword stuffing "" Yes, an alarming number of webmasters
still do this and think they"(tm)re getting away with something.
If you haven't been penalized yet, it's because
you've moved onto other tactics that your competitors are
also employing. But it's only a matter of time before what
separates you from the competition will come down to keyword
stuffing and guess who ain't gonna get asked to dance
anymore? Hint: It's spelled Y-O-U.

* Reciprocal linking campaigns "" If you're still relying on
this, trash it right now. You're wasting time, money and
server space. And you're spamming. You've probably got
hundreds of worthless inbound links from PR0 sites. And Google
will (if it hasn't already) recognize the "~footprint" or
template left behind by your link exchange software. Maybe you
think you're being creative by naming your link pages
something like "Cool Stuff I Really Like". But once the clothes
come off and Google inspects the actual page, that savvy
gal's gonna know she's seen this one-trick pony before.

* Article exchange programs "" Strip it down and what you've
got is a ramped up link exchange program, with a bunch of extra
words around the links. Keep chasing this one and you'll end
up right back where you started when mass link exchanges started
to crumble. Yeah, Google's been around the block before on
this one. Think you can fool Google by doing 3-way linking, 4-way
or even 5-way linking if you can manage it? Don't take
this the wrong way, but Google is smarter than you. By a
landslide.

* Article and content spinning programs "" If you think software
that spins articles into "~unique content" will fool Google,
keep dreaming. But please, keep your fantasies to yourself. The
idea of writing just one article, popping it into a software
program that will generate new phrases and shuffle around
paragraphs, then spit out 100 versions of the same article"¦well,
that's a brilliant idea. But Google is even more brilliant.
Check out anything written on the shingle theory and you'll
know that Google is no dumb blonde. Shoot. There's nothing
more deadly than a desirable female with brains, is there?

So what's left? Well, in today's competition to seduce
Google, the web sites that radiate natural charm and staying
power will win in the end.

Natural charm means that you appeal to both visitors and spiders.
This isn't a new idea, but it's more important than ever.
Because while the search engines get savvier and savvier, so do
Internet users and shoppers. And there are plenty of sites out
there who deliver the best user experience while attaining high
search engine rankings.

You can "" and should "" do the same. Instead of spending 3 hours
trying to adjust your title tag just so, why not write one so
that people who are looking at a search engine results page will
actually click on your link. That is the first of many obvious
goals, isn't it?

There's also a lot to be said about staying power. After all,
you are in this for long haul, aren't you? If you're
looking for a short-term relationship with Google, there are
plenty of tricks to get ranked fast and then drop like
yesterday's drawers.

But staying power ahhh, that's what Google is really into
these days. Register your domain for more than a year or two.
After all, if you're planning to be around for a while,
you're going to want your domain for a long time.

Of course, we now know that Google likes combing through domain
registration information. And we really think that certain
subtleties like age of domain are becoming not-so-subtle factors
anymore in the race for first-page rankings.

Finally, think about all that time you're investing "" I
mean, wasting "" on tactics like article exchanges and linking
programs. Instead, spend that time hunting down sites that will
actually want to do one-way links to you. They do exist, but you
have to find them yourself, not with a program.

Yes, this will take a little bit of work, and you may actually
have to pick up the phone to negotiate with a real person. But a
one-way link from even a lowly PR2 site or page will carry more
weight than 5 dozen 2-way or 3-way links from PR-whatever pages.
Trust me, those pages that are involved in mass linking programs
"" I mean, schemes "" will eventually drop to PR0 if they
haven't already.

So that's it. Be honest, charming, hard working and stick
around for a while. You'll win the girl "" er, Google ""
every time.

About the Author:

Contact author & SEO specialist Diane Metz to write free,
exclusive content for your website. Her sites include
Crown CD Duplication (http://www.crowncd.com/),
which also specializes in CD replication
(http://www.crowncd.com/cd_replication.html)
for online and offline marketers.

Labels: Link Building, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Labels: Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Labels: Internet Marketing, Pay Per Click Advertising, Search Engine Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Michael Singer

What A High Ranking In Search Engines Can Do For You

Do you currently run your own online website? If so, what type
of website do you have? Popular website types include online
retail stores and content websites. Whether you own a content
website or an online retail store, do you know where your
website ranks with the main search engines? If not, you should.
If you aren't already aware, you will find that there are a
number of different ways that you, your online website, or your
online business can benefit from high search engine rankings.

As you likely already know, search engines are websites which
allow internet users to quickly search for a particular topic
or website. Online, you will find hundreds, maybe even
thousands of different search engines, but it is important to
remember one thing; not all search engines are created equal.
In reality, you will find that there are only a limited number
of search engine rankings that will actually make a difference,
by increasing the traffic to your website. Those search engines
tend to include Google, Yahoo!, Ask.com, MSN, and AOL. Of
course that doesn't mean that you should forget about all of
the other search engines, but it does mean that you should
place most of your focus on the aforementioned search engines.

Although it is important to know which search engines you
should target, you may also be wondering why you should even
bother. As previously mentioned, search engines are designed to
connect internet users with what they need or what they are
looking to find online. Whether you run an online business that
sells a particular product or a service, you can greatly benefit
from having a high ranking in the search engines. In fact, you
may very well find that your sales increase, maybe even double
or triple! This is because the ways of finding a business are
changing. Phone books and directory assistance are slowly
becoming a thing of the past. Instead, many individuals are
using the internet to find what they are looking for, including
a retailer who is selling what they want.

As you can see, a high ranking in the search engines will help
your website see an increase in traffic and maybe even in
sales. The only problem is that getting a high search engine
ranking is a little bit easier said than done. For example,
what type of online business do you run? If you run a business
that has a fairly large amount of competition, such as a baby
clothes store, there is a good chance that you may find it
harder to get your online website a high internet search engine
ranking. Of course, that doesn't mean that it isn't possible,
but it will likely take a fairly large amount of work. This is
because a high ranking is often considered one that gets you on
the first or second page of results, third page at the most.
With all of the competition out there, you may find that it
takes time and trial and error to get your website to reach a
search engine ranking that can benefit you.

As you likely already know running an online website, whether
it be a business website or not, can be a time consuming
process. That is why, if you are interested, you may want to
think about seeking professional assistance. That professional
assistance could come from an internet marketing firm that
specializes in SEO. SEO, as you likely already know, stands for
search engine optimization. Whether it be through link building,
article syndication, or press releases, or a combination of them
all, you will find that a professional internet marketing firm
that specializes in SEO can give you want you and your online
website needs to survive in the world of online businesses.

Whether you make the decision to familiarize yourself with
search engine optimization or if you hire the services of a
professional internet marketing firm, you are advised to take
action. With the proper steps, you, your website, or your
online business could start seeing an increase in traffic in as
little as a month!

About The Author: Want us to start http://www.smokedog.net?
Sounds funny but we can do it faster than anyone else. We hear
people all the time screaming "help boost my internet sales!".
Well now your goals are ours!

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

David Fishman

Optimizing Your Web Page

Meta tags are not a magic solution. Meta tags are HTML codes
that are inserted into the header on a web page, after the
title tag. Meta tags are contained in the HEAD section near the
top of the page. Meta tags are HTML tags that help you control
how some search engines may index your site, by using the
keywords and descriptions you provide. A good question to ask
is if meta tags are still necessary. Meta tags are useful in
getting better listings in the search engines. The title,
keyword and description meta tags are standard HTML tags and
should be placed within the HEAD section of a Web page.

Some believe that HTML meta tags will bring you to the top of
the search engine rankings. Many vendors of software that
generates HTML will make use of their own custom Meta Tags to
identify different pieces of information about the document.
You can define your own search fields with HTML meta tags.
While many search engines are placing more and more emphasis on
the keywords used on your actual HTML page, some are still
looking at your meta tags.

Everyone knows that to obtain high search engine rankings all
you have to do is put the keywords that you want to rank high
with into your meta tags, right. You know that keywords should
go into your HTML title and meta tags, but did you know that
you also need to place them in heading tags. The description
meta tag explains your site's content and data, giving the
search engines' robots and spiders a brief summary of your
site. Use the keywords in the META tags in your ALT image
description for a boost in some search engines. Being specific
and accurate are the ingredients to success with keywords. At
the present time, most search services extract keywords from
the page text, but some services may use the keywords meta tag.
It's important not to repeat words in the description or
keywords meta tags; Meta is not the only way to have your site
seen by search engines. Keywords may be separated by a space or
a comma or a comma followed by a space. Never, repeat the same
word over and over in any single one of those places.

The meta description tag describes your site's content, giving
search engines' spiders an accurate summary filled with
multiple keywords. In search engine listings you see a title
and a short description. Titles and Description tags are the
most important meta-tags that search engines consider to
determine relevancy. Try to always include your keywords within
the description tags, if you can put the keywords near the
beginning of the meta tag. We recommend keeping your
description tag to 170 characters or less. Some services obtain
descriptions from the text of the page, while other services use
descriptions given in description meta tags. Just a few years
ago, good META description and keyword tags were a ticket to
success for many sites and many spammers. The Keyword and
Description Meta Tags are the two principle META tags that
search engines look for when indexing your website. The
keyword, title, description tags, have been abused by many seo
gurus, because of this many search engines do not pay attention
to the meta tags.

Meta tags are used to provide structured data about data,
similar in many ways to the information provided in traditional
library catalogue records. Meta Tags are most commonly used to
distinguish the keywords that are relevant to a page's content.
The robots meta tags are used and respected by all major search
engine robots. META Tags are still important today.

About The Author: David Marc Fishman created
http://www.linknetics.com. We offer free memberships to create
one way links

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Chris Angus

Although Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) does fall into two
distinct categories there is no ethical stance on SEO.
Don't let a search Engine Optimiser sell you that they have
ethical ways of working when optimising your site. Either a
technique works or is doesn't. Period.
As long as you know the risks, there is nothing wrong with
"Black Hat" SEO. It is not illegal or immoral. The only
downfall is that your site MAY get black listed.

People attempting to do SEO will invariably push the boundaries
in trying to get their website to the top of the search engines.
This article will briefly explain what to do and what not to do.

Search Engine Optimisation has two areas of functionality.
White Hat SEO and Black Hat SEO.

White Hat SEO - is typically working within the search engines
guidelines, by working within the Search Engines guidelines
your site should be safe and won't face the chance of being
banned or de-indexed by the search Engines.
This involves on-page optimisation and link building. There are
many, many different types of on-page optimisation and link
building that are deemed acceptable and there are many that are
seem as unacceptable. The easiest way to explain what you can
and can't do is by starting with what you can't do. That falls
under the "Black-Hat" banner.

Black Hat SEO - is working outside the Search Engines
guidelines, while there are many a grey area, I will list the
definitive actions you should avoid if you don't want to put
your website at risk.

Hidden or Partially hidden text - This is making your copy the
same colour as your back round.

Cloaking - This is showing search engines on page in visitors
another. This is a risk but effective way of boosting your
ranking.

Keyword Stuffing - This involves stuffing keywords into the
picture descriptions or Meta Tags.

Participating in Link Farms - This is where thousands of
unrelated sites link to one another.

About The Author: Chris Angus is a SEO and Website Marketer. He
is also a White Hat SEO. http://www.mobility-direct.co.uk
http://www.mdhsasbestosconsultants.com
http://www.everest-oxfordshire.co.uk

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Andy West

The Most Reliable Ways To Improve Search Engine
Ranking

With the online market continuously getting bigger each day,
many companies are searching for ways to improve search engine
rankings. There are many methods that are successful but there
are also some things that you should stay clear of, for the
sake of your business. It you are educated about the market,
you can make educated decisions regarding what avenues to
choose to improve your search engine ranking.

In order to improve the search engine ranking for your website,
you will need to use what is commonly referred to as Internet
marketing. Although this term applies to a wide variety of
methods, it is generally just a lot of different methods of
getting higher search engine ratings. It depends on the size,
budget and appeal of the business to decide which Internet
marketing strategy is best for that particular business.
Quality Internet marketing will give your business more
qualified leads sent to your website. A qualified lead
generally means that someone who is already interested in the
service that you are offering will be able to access your
website. If you have a site about horse racing and you get
visitors to your site who are looking for relationship advice,
it probably will not help your sales.

One of the simplest and most effective ways to improve your
search engine ranking is through SEO articles. This term refers
to search engine optimized articles and can greatly influence
your rankings on the large search engines such as Google, Yahoo
and MSN. The process in itself is quite simple. An article is
written about a general aspect of one of the services that you
provide and there are proven popular keywords integrated into
the text that will improve search engine ranking. This works on
the premise that the article will be sent out to article
directories and websites that every time someone clicks on it,
it will bring more traffic to your website. And, by improving
your search engine ranking, you will improve your business.
Remember the last time that you searched for something online
with a search engine. You most likely did not choose from the
matches at the very end of the list. Rather, you would choose
from the top ten matches or the matches found just on the first
page. Therefore, imagine how much business could be gained if
you were assured that your website would consistently be in the
top of the matches on the major search engines.

Article marketing is not the only way to improve search engine
ranking. It is also possible to garner more traffic to your
website from professionally written press releases. These press
releases can be used to inform the general public of what your
business is up to these days and also ensure that your name is
kept out in the conversation circles. A well written press
release that is distributed to the proper agencies can have an
incredible effect on your online business and will serve to
bring more qualified traffic to your website.

Another very important aspect to improving your search engine
ranking is to have a quality link building strategy. There are
many companies that offer this type of service but there are
also many that don't fully come through on their promise. A
proper link building strategy will place links to your site on
pertinent websites that will have visitors that are interested
in your product or service.

There are many different items to take under advisement when
trying to improve search engine rankings for your website. It
is important to find the best possible method for your type of
business in order to ensure maximum results.

About The Author: Andy West is a freelance writer for Vertical
Measures. Vertical Measures is an Internet Marketing Company
that can help improve search engine rankings. For more
information, please visit http://www.verticalmeasures.com .

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Faraj Balousha

Search engine optimization is the process of choosing targeted
keyword phrases related to a website, and ensuring that the
website places well when those keyword phrases are part of a
Web search.

ON-PAGE OPTIMIZATION FACTORS:

The Major Factors Are:

Meta Tags, Header Tags, Text-body tag and Alt image tags:

1- META TAGS:

Meta Tags are code in your HTML that is invisible to the
visitors of your web site but are read by some web spiders and
search engines.

Meta tags used by a large percentage of the top search engines
as one of the main guidelines on how they will index your site

The Main Meta Tags are:

. Title Tag
. Description Tag
. Keyword Tag

Targeting the right keywords:

Do keyword research- it is very important in building traffic

To do your keyword research visit this website
http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Select a short list of 3 to 4 keywords

Title tag:

The page title should include ONLY your main keywords. The
least amount of words you can place in the title, the more
weight Google will give to each of the keywords and the higher
you will rank.

The title is the most important piece of information search
engines use to index Web pages. Include the title of your page
and 3-5 important keywords. Format your site title as follows:

Site title, keyword1, keyword2, keyword3

You may use your URL, or the name of your company as your site
title.

. Make sure it specifically describes your product or service,
. Makes proper use of 3 or 4 keywords,
. Use between 10 and 80 characters long.

Tips:

. Taken out all of the "ands"
. Replaced one of the "ands" with a "" character
. Always Combine Your Keywords In The Page Title

Description Tag:

The Meta description tag describes your site's content, giving
search engines' spiders an accurate summary filled with
multiple keywords.

. Use a descriptive paragraph or sentence that is relevant to
your page.
. If possible, use a sentence or paragraph that is present in
the content of your page
. Use up to 500 characters, including spaces.

Keyword Tag:

Use a list of keywords that are relevant to the content of your
web page. Use your url as the first key word and separate the
keywords with commas. Format the key words as follows:

www.sketch-plus.com, keyword1, keyword2, keyword3, ...

Add 5-10 Keywords

. For best results a tag sized between 50 and 250 characters.
. Note that keywords should be separated with commas.

Free Meta Tag Analyzer:

This Meta tag analysis tool will help you analyze your web
pages and
check for search engine compatibility.
http://www.hypergurl.com/form.html

More Sites for SEO:

http://www.submitnet.net/
http://www.submitexpress.com/

2- HEADER TAGS:

Headers are used to break entries up into logical sections.

Add h1 header tags- (Place your most important keyword) it's
best to place your h1 header tag on the top left hand or
top/middle portion of your page.

When Google reads a webpage, it views the text from the top
left hand side of the page to the bottom right hand side of the
page.

Add h2 header tags- (Place your 2nd most important keyword)
should be placed somewhere towards the top half of your
webpage.

3- TEXT- BODY TAG:

The body element defines the documents' body. It contains all
the contents of the document (like text, images, colors,
graphics, etc.).

. When writing the content, try to evenly sprinkle your main
keywords throughout the copy. Don't overdo it though.
. Try to mention each keyword in a natural way as you are
writing
. Include at least one of the keywords per 1-2 paragraphs,
depending on how large your page is.
. Make sure to mention your main keyword at the very top left
and the very bottom right hand side of the webpage
. Bolding, italicizing and underlining...Once we've finished
writing the copy, we should go through and bold, italicize, or
underline some of the keywords only 1 time each, maximum.
. Any keyword must be used 4 times or more in your site's HTML
body. This is highly recommended for best ranking results.
. Avoid Excessive Keywords- No word to be used more than 30
times throughout the page.

4- ALT IMAGE TAGS:

ALT tags are images' descriptions.

. Place your keyword 1 in the alt image tag of the very top
image in your webpage.
. Place your other 2 keywords plus an extra word like "picture"
or "image in the alt image tag of 2 more graphics throughout
your webpage.

LOAD TIME ANALYSIS:

If your Web site does not load in 12 seconds or less with a 56k
connection, statistics show that about 45% of visitors will
leave the site.

. Optimized you site for 56k modem users- Load time 12 second
or less.
. Try to keep your homepage under 50k and your other pages
under 40k.

SEARCH ENGINE GUIDELINES:

Always remember this general rule when building your site:
"Search engines do not like to be fooled". Do not try to
manipulate your listings through sneaky methods. Provide
useful, relevant content, and you will never have to worry
about search engine guideline violations.

. Hidden Text - you never hide text.
. Excessive Keywords-Use keywords naturally in sentences and
paragraphs.
. No word to be used more than 30 times throughout the page.
. Repeated Keywords- No keywords to be repeated multiple times
in a row. We recommend using keywords naturally in sentences
and paragraphs.
. Doorway Pages- Doorway pages are discouraged by most search
engines.
. Harmful Redirects- Redirecting pages have a hard time being
indexed by search engines.
. Frame Issues- It is recommended for sites that use frames to
implement a descriptive NOFRAMES tag with relevant text
content.
. Macromedia Flash Issues- Don't create all-Flash pages for any
content you want to get indexed - instead, put that content in
the HTML portion of the page.

Enjoy!

About The Author: Article by Faraj Balousha, the founder of
http://www.49adwinners.com and http://www.Sketch-Plus.com, he
enjoys giving tips on how to design and develop your website.
Do you want to learn about website design? Well, visit
http://www.Creating-Website-Stores.com today!

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Article Written by: Bill Platt

Article written by: Andy West

In this day and age, the Internet has quickly become the best
and most efficient way to advertise your business's particular
services. Affordable search engine optimization has quickly
replaced standard advertising and is becoming more and more
popular each and every day. The premise is actually quite
simple. Almost everyone who uses search engines will
automatically choose from the first few matches that they
receive. Therefore, affordable search engine optimization is
the perfect answer to increasing your online potential.

On any given topic, there could be upwards of thousands of
websites. If your website doesn't even make the first ten
listings in the search engines, then you will lose out on an
incredible amount of business. Also, the average consumer will
be more likely to trust a site that comes up among the first
matches, rather than on the last page of the results. However,
there are some companies that will charge you an arm and a leg
for this type of service. Therefore, finding something in your
price range is the answer.

There are many companies that offer this type of service but it
is important to investigate their credentials before enlisting
them to help your business. There are some companies that say
that they are experts in the field of SEO but are in fact just
looking to take some money out of your pocket, without ever
increasing your standings on the search engines. A good way to
avoid this is to find a company that seems credible and then
ask them if you could get a reference from one of their past
customers. This way, you will be able to find out first hand
whether or not that company will be able to give you the proper
SEO service that you deserve.

A professional SEO company will not only drive traffic to your
website, but will work alongside of you to ensure that the
traffic that comes to your site will be interested in your
particular service. There is not much point to having people
looking at your site if they have no use for your services.
This is another reason to get a qualified professional to help.
Proper SEO will drive qualified customers to your website.
Customers that are specifically searching for your particular
service and who are looking for it at this very moment.

Imagine the possibilities. Whenever anyone online is searching
for your service, they are immediately matched up with your
company's web site. Once they get to your site, they will
realize that you have absolutely everything that they could
possibly need. So why would they search any further? Affordable
search engine optimization is the single most effective way to
drive more qualified traffic to your site and works better than
any other method. This is perhaps the only way to increase your
businesses online potential and it doesn't even have to cost
you a lot of money. Don't be fooled into thinking that
companies that charge a higher rate will give you better SEO
service. After careful research and investigating, it is very
easy to find a company that will give you proper affordable
search engine optimization that will benefit your business for
years to come.

With the Internet becoming bigger and bigger each day, you
cannot even afford to not take advantage of SEO. The amount of
business that you will receive from this simple process will
astound you and the profits will amaze you. Before attempting
any other online marketing processes, keep in mind that
affordable search engine optimization is your first and final
answer.

About The Author: Andy West is a freelance writer for Vertical
Measures. For more information on affordable search engine
optimization services, please visit Vertical Measures at
http://www.verticalmeasures.com .

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Article written by: Oleg Ishenko

Internet Search

For the last decade the Internet has emerged itself into an
integral part of our everyday life. What previously was mostly
a network of research institutions has become an unprecedented
medium for commercial and social use. With the number of web
pages now exceeding 12 billion it is extremely difficult to
find information without using search engines.

Search engines appeared almost immediately once the WWW was
born. A pioneering search engine called Archie was created in
the University of Montreal in 1990 and was used to search files
located on public FTP sites. The first search engine created to
crawl and index text files on the web, World Wide Web Wanderer
or Wandex, was introduced in 1993 in MIT and worked on
principals similar to those used by the modern web search
engines.

However it was not until late 90s when search engines have
become the major tool to find information on the Internet.
Before Internet directories such as Yahoo! or BestOfTheWeb were
used to locate web pages. But it didn't take long for web users
to recognize the usefulness of the Internet search, once
indexing and ranking algorithms have reached a state where
search engines were able to quickly return highly relevant
results

Search Results Relevancy

It is all about the relevancy of results. In their infancy
search engines were utterly vulnerable to abuse. Originally
search engines used to index file names and later meta-tags. It
doesn't take much to stuff file names and meta-tags with popular
keywords which are irrelevant to the document's content. When a
user queried a search engine with a keyword he received results
that couldn't satisfy him. That is why Internet directories with
pages classified into directories by human reviewers were far
more useful than the search engines of those days.

The problem of relevancy has become increasingly important with
the growing commercial use of the Web. The profits of commercial
websites depend on their exposure and if there is anything that
can help improve the exposure in search results - it must be
done. And the first attempts to influence the search results by
using popular but not relevant keywords to drive more traffic
were made.

With their increasing computational and storage capacity search
engine have become able to index the entire content of a page.
But it was still possible to abuse search results by using
excessive keyword stuffing, hidden keyword-rich text or many
other spammy techniques. Basing solely on the page content it
was impossible to ensure the relevancy of search results and
more advanced ranking algorithms were introduced.

Search Engine Optimization

But even modern sophisticated search engine algorithms are not
perfect and can't guarantee 100% relevancy. There still exist
many loopholes that can be exploited to manipulate search
results. Search results manipulation is not necessarily an
unethical conduct. Consider three biggest travel websites:
http://Travelocity.com, http://Expedia.com and
http://Priceline.com. They provide booking service of a similar
quality and are equally relevant for keywords like 'vacation' or
'airline tickets'. But nevertheless they rank differently in
search results, and it is natural for a lower ranked site to
try improving its position by using search engine optimization
techniques.

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, is about defining what
factors influence the placement of a page in search results and
adjusting these factors to obtain a higher position. To optimize
the relevance of a page you have to adjust keyword frequency and
proximity, add keywords into headings and bold text. It must
look natural though - excessive keyword stuffing might have
negative effects. To increase the popularity of a page you must
obtain incoming links with targeted keywords in the anchor text,
and make sure that links come from authoritative pages but not
from irrelevant link farms.

Search engine optimization is an extremely dynamic field. Once
a loophole in ranking algorithms becomes known and widely used,
search engines change their algorithms to neutralize its effect.
Every algorithm update can drastically affect positions and
traffic of websites utilizing aggressive crash and burn
optimization strategies. Such strategies are based on the most
recently discovered loopholes and tricks and are able to put
your pages into top positions quite quickly. Their effect
however lasts only to the next algorithm update.

Another far more time-consuming approach is the creation of
websites with high quality content following so-called Google
quality guidelines. This approach emphasizes the website's
value for users and persuades against using tricks to
manipulate search results. In short - good websites eventually
will rank high. But it takes years and tons of effort to make a
site popular this way. Some sites are by their nature difficult
to promote this way. For example few grocery stores can afford
turning their websites into top Internet grocery portals; it
just wouldn't be worth the effort.

SEO alone can't guarantee a lasting effect. Not using SEO at
all requires too much effort to promote a site. The wise way to
make a website popular is make sure that it is useful for users,
obtain quality incoming links and do not forget to fine tune
your pages focusing the targeted keywords. Follow the famous
Brett Tabke's Successful Site in 12 Months with Google Alone -
after four years it is still a valid approach.

About The Author: Oleg Ishenko, Berlin, Germany. BSc in
Telecommunications Industry Business Management. Master student
in Humboldt University Berlin. MCSE and MCDBA certifications.
Get more useful information at our Comprehensive SEO and Online
Marketing Research - http://www.seoresearcher.com

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Article written by: Danny Wirken

Each time you key in keywords or terms in search fields,
whether it is in Google, Yahoo or MSN, you will be presented
with the so-called pages of results. These pages have undergone
a process called "SEO" and have earned their respective page
rankings.

What is SEO, you ask? SEO or search engine optimization refers
to the process of increasing the number of visitor that a
website gets by ranking high in the search results of a search
engine. Ranking high in the results of a search increases a
website's chance of being visited by a user.

How so? Well, it is common knowledge that most Internet users
tend to simply visit the first website in the results instead
of browsing through pages and pages of search results.
Therefore, it is same to conclude that where a site ranks in a
search is crucial in garnering more traffic for the site.

Most people assume that SEO is a very complicated process that
is simply too much to comprehend. Meanwhile, others believed
that ranking high at the search engine is simply a matter of
luck. Both statements are fallacies.

Ranking high at search engines has nothing to do with luck nor
is it impossible to understand. All you need is a couple of
simple things in order for your web pages to do well at the
search engines.

Search engine rankings play a significant role in Internet
marketing campaign, which is why it is important that you
understand the basics in SEO. Good search engine ranking is not
an overnight phenomenon, therefore you must be patient.

There are a lot of search engines out there; some even offers
specialized categories that utilize multiple search engine
results to compile an outline of listed results, rather than
taking results from its own databases.

However, if your main goal is to be successful on the net, then
optimization for MSN search engine is a must. MSN is definitely
one of the leading search engines on the net today. What
separates it from other search engine giants? Well, MSN place
great importance in using page optimization techniques, whereas
Google and Yahoo concentrates on incoming link anchor text
alone. What this means for you is that MSN indexes more pages
than other search engines, consequently allowing your pages to
rank higher and faster.

Moreover, the search engine giant has recently undergone a
major change. What kind of change, you ask? MSN Search has
incorporated "neural networks" into its search engine
algorithm, or what is now referred to as "RankNet." This
monumental change took place last June. This algorithm is
indeed a breakthrough, and is fast becoming a matter of great
consideration among search optimizers.

Just what is RankNet and how does it work? Basically, RankNet
is a "learning machine" which considers the patterns of human
searches and then learns from them thus, providing a more
relevant result not only on the current searches but for future
searches as well.

Since SEO is not a matter of chance but of strategy, there are
certain steps that you could undertake in order for your pages
or site to have good rankings at MSN. MSN Search highly advised
that you remember two important things. One is to use
well-formed HTML code and the other is not to have any broken
links in your pages.

There are other steps that you might also consider. For
starters, it might be a good idea to use a robots.txt file to
control how MSNBot indexes your site. This is also vital for
other crawlers.

Keep in mind that MSN is all about content. So, what do you do?
Limit all pages to a reasonable size and drop pictures that are
lower than 150 KB. Adding a site map would also be beneficial
since, it will allow MSNBot to locate all of your pages without
difficulty. Remember also to pick one topic for each page.

Avoid putting words that are not relevant just to increase a
page's keyword density. Hidden text or links are also a bad
idea, this usually indicates spam, and thus, MSN may remove you
from their index.

Another thing you can do is place a descriptive content at the
top of each web page. Make sure that each page has a clear
topic and purpose. You can also add a website description at
the Description meta tag. Now, if you ever you change your
content, make sure that you update your website description.

One of the most important factors in page optimization,
particularly RankNet is the keywords. Placing keywords in a
strong paragraph at the beginning, in link text, and repeating
it near the end of a page might not be new ideas. As a matter
of fact, this has been part of good optimization practice for
quite a while now. Moreover, it also makes logical sense when
it comes to providing solid information for website users. It
is the importance on these elements in the new MSN search
engine that is interesting.

Remember that MSN is quite a very content and keyword sensitive
search engine. If you give extra care with the use and placing
of your keywords as well as great consideration on your
content, then you can be assure that all your efforts will not
go to waste because MSN Search will reward your site with good
search engine rankings.

MSN offers various features and services; MSN Search is just
one of them. Optimization for this search engine can very well
mean success on the web, what's more is that it can be
accomplished quite easily (provided that your site features a
lot of original content). Page optimization is important not
only at MSN Search but for other search engines as well. Good
optimization of your page will certainly improve your ranking
not only at MSN but in other search engines as well.

So what are you waiting for? Why not try it out and see for
yourself if you can pull your pages up and do well not only in
the MSN search engine but in others as well.

About The Author: http://www.theinternetone.net

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

Article by: Rebecca Welch

Every internet marketer knows that to create the most traffic
potential and the most profit opportunities, you must get your
website to the first page of the Google Search engine. Google
is the "top dog" of search engine and can greatly increase you
profits if you know what to do. The real question remains. How
do you get top Google ranking websites?

The more search engine friendly your web pages are, the better
your chances of rising to the top of the search engines. A
properly optimized and search engine friendly web page can
easily show up on the first page of most any search engine.
This is called organic search engine traffic. But how do you
make your web pages search engine friendly?

In order to get top Google ranking websites, what you need is a
plan for search engine optimization, or SEO. Proper search
engine optimization will result in organic search engine
traffic for your website. Organic search engine traffic is what
you want because it's advertising for your website that doesn't
cost you a penny! One of the easiest ways to get organic search
engine traffic is with a good piece of website generating
software.

If you can program in multiple computer languages, you probably
don't need website generating software. But, for the rest of us,
website generating software can cut both the learning curve and
the frustration level associated with building websites for
internet marketing. So how do you cut through the hype and find
a good program that will generate a properly optimized website?

A good website generating software program should meet the
following criteria. It should be easy to use. It should enable
you to be indexed in all the major search engines. It should
properly optimize your web pages for MSN, Yahoo and Google. It
should allow you to get on the first or second page of most of
the search engines within 30 days or less. It should allow you
to test and tweak your webpages in order to get optimal
results. A really great software program will also allow you to
see what your competition is doing and let you manipulate your
web pages in order to get ahead of them.

There are many good website generating software programs on the
market and many of them work well enough to get top ranking
Google websites. Consistency and testing are the keys to making
the most of your website generating software programs. Never be
afraid to test your theories, you might just happen across the
next big thing in internet marketing!

About The Author: Can you afford to have your website stuck on
page 10? Get top Google Ranking Websites with
http://www.usfreeads.com/594362-cls.html and receive a FREE
Website Traffic Course just for visiting.

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By: George Christdodolou

By Editor Sg-Web

I just finished watching a video that shared some updates on
what's happening at the major search engines lately. Since
webmasters are always interested in learning more about search
engine optimization (SEO) techniques, I thought it would be
good to share a neat trick using Google's webmaster tools.

The first time I heard about Google webmaster tools, it was
known as Google sitemaps. That was very little that we can do
with it, except upload a sitemap so that a new site can be
included in Google's index quicker. After toying with it for a
couple of days, I find it a hassle to generate those sitemaps.
If a website is destined to grow, that would mean taking up
more time submitting those sitemaps. Strapped for time as it
is, I figured it would be better to just concentrate on
building more content for my websites.

It's still hard for me to refer to Google's new toys with a new
name but I guess it's a much more suitable name, now that so
many new tools have been added. To begin using the tool, login
to the control panel using a valid Google username. If you do
not possess one, just sign up at the site
google.com/webmasters. After logging in, enter the URL that you
would like to obtain more information about. You'll be required
to verify that you own the site. To do so, you can either add a
META tag or upload a HTML file. Verification is instant and
you'll see your verification status as Verified if it's
successful.

Upon verification, all kinds of interesting tidbits about your
site will be available. The one that interests me most is the
page analysis (Statistics > Page Analysis). This allows any
webmaster to view information about external links. In other
words, Google learns about a website's general theme from
external text links. You'll be able to see all the keywords
that other people have used in the text links that link to your
site.

Many webmasters have already discovered the "secret" that
anchor texts should be used in text links. Anchor texts look
something like Anchor texts. There are many ways to obtain
keyword targetted external links. One popular way is to submit
to web directories.

In many instances, web directories allow webmasters to submit
their sites for free. Some web directories become more
established and may charge a small fee for a site submission.
However, fees are usually one-time payment and are better deals
compared to text links that require monthly subscription.

So, take a look around the webmaster community and spot SEO
friendly web directories and start submitting some links. Your
competitor may be doing exactly the same thing and I don't know
about you but I hate to lose. See you at the number 1 spot!

About The Author: Darren Chow owns a network of quality sites.
He also owns a couple of unique web directories.
http://www.awardtrophy.net and http://www.suggestlinks.org

Labels: Search Engine Optimization, Web Site Design

By Stephan Miller

Google's recent Patent Application contains a lot to read and
reading it may take some time, but if you own any type of
website, this is all information you need to know. It also
brings some interesting points up. While I go over some of
the important points, know that no one knows which of these
factors is given more weight than the others.

Domain Name Registration - Google is now going to track when
a domain is registered among other things. An older domain
will get a higher ranking. No more throw away domain names.
No more jump to the top of Google results in thirty days.

They will also be tracking the length of renewal on the
theory that a person that renews for ten years will be more
likely to build a worthwhile site than someone who only
holds their domain for a year.

Google will also be keeping a blacklist of known spammers
and will be using this list when checking dns records of
websites. So spammers who make sure to get their new
throwaway domains with different nameservers in order to
throw Google off may have to try something new.

Google Spyware? - They are using "user behavior" to rank
sites. In my book, if spyware removers try to remove Alexa
every time I run it, then this function of the Google
toolbar can only be called spyware. Yes, you may check the
box on the terms of service for the toolbar, but it still
tracks your internet browsing.

But, I think the theory will make search engine results much
better.

Google will be tracking the number of times a document is
selected from the search engine results. This is a great
idea. It means you now have to write the titles of your
pages to grab the searcher's attention. And since the search
terms are highlighted in the results, maybe placing them at
the beginning of sentences in your page may make then stand
out due to capitalization. But I also see a way that this
can be spammed by a network of "search and click" spammers.

They will also be tracking the amount of time a person
spends on the page that they find. I don't know about you,
but I have been around long enough to notice a spam page and
I am gone in two seconds. This may help drop them out of
legitimate results.

Content Changes - I think this comes down to just updating
your information the way it should be updated. If you have a
forum that hasn't been active in a week, the one that is
very active with new posts every minute will definitely rank
higher.

But the document also mentions that some stale sites may not
be ranked lower if not updated that much. For example, a
site on the Civil War will not be expected to change as much
as a news headlines site and an older, more stable site may
get the rank boost.

Query Analysis - A search for "American Idol Winner" will
produce different results than it did last year, even if a
page on last year's winner has more links pointing to it.

Google will be following trends by the increase or decrease
in the usage of certain search terms or phrases. I am not
sure how this will be implemented. Will there be a quicker
ranking algorithm for new trends? Or will sites that have a
tendency to break new topics get top billing for such terms?

The search engine will also be sensitive to terms that could
be used for different subjects. When you search for "Deep
Throat" are you looking for Mark Felt or a Linda Lovelace
movie? Google will track what searchers are actually looking
for and changes in searching trends.

A Google Browser? - Google also says that they will attempt
to track bookmarks and favorites files along with cache
files to help determine the ranking of sites. The only way I
see this happening is through their own browser and again,
this brings up the question of spyware.

Topics - Pages will now be tracked for the topics they
cover. Maybe this is what Site Flavored Search is all about.
Google says that changes in topic will traced for scoring.
So a drastic change in a site may drop in down in the search
results. I think this must already be in effect, just for
some of the things I have seen with my own sites.

Anchor Text - Google says that links to pages from other
sites tend to have differing anchor text if they are
obtained naturally. Artificial linking campaigns tend to
produce anchor text that is the same.

Anchor text that changes when the page the link is on
changes will be counted as being more relevant.

Anchor text that changes with time may indicate a change in
topic on the site.

Anchor text that is no longer relevant to the site linked to
may be discounted.

Traffic - Google will track traffic to a page to determine
if the content is stale or not. This is a cue that sites
will no longer be create and forget. Google will also factor
in Advertising traffic.

Linking - Google says that legitimate sites attract links
back slowly. Whether this is true or not depends on the
definition of "slowly". I know of sites like
stumbleupon.com, where users comment and rate sites
constantly and one site sent into the mix can get hundreds
of links to it within a day just from comments posted about
it.

Google also says that exchanging links, purchasing links, or
gaining links from documents where their is no editorial
discretion are all forms of link spam. Does this mean that
if you link to someone and they link to you, that is spam?
Than a lot of bloggers out there who aren't really trying to
spam may get accused of doing so.

They will also be measuring the authority of the page that
the links are on, mentioning government documents
specifically. This smacks of information control. Who
assigns this authority and what makes one person more of an
authority of another? If a political issue is searched for,
will a Democrat's or a Republican's page come up first?

The freshness of the page that the link is on will also help
determine the freshness of the linked-to page. This is a
good argument for using a blog and pinging after your
entries.

A page that is updated while the link on that page remains
the same is a good indicator of the relevant link.

Ranking History - Ranking change is another feature that
Google will use to detect spam. Not that all sites will be
flagged as spam sites if they see a huge jump in ranking.
Some of these sites could be topical. The authors of the
site may have caught onto a new trend just as it was rising.

But Google also will measure the change in a sites ranking
to determine if the content is becoming stale, i.e. a drop
in links to the site.

Now this must mean some sort of balance and I hope they have
leeway for traditional SEO. For example, If you have written
new software and have created a PAD file for it, you can
literally get hundreds of new links in a weeks. It only
takes a second to submit.

What about if you started your own affiliate program. You
can get a lot of links quickly that way? Will Google see
this as spam? We will have to wait and see.

Finally Hope - Competition always inspires a better product
and more options for internet users. Despite the focus on
Google in search engine forums and its name being used to
define "search for something on the internet", i.e. I
Googled him, Google hold on the market has actually dropped.

When once you could optimize for Google and leave it that,
now the combined use of MSN and Yahoo is greater than
Google, with Yahoo nipping at Google's heels.

This leaves options for us as search engine marketers and
internet searchers. If one search engine doesn't suit us, at
least we know that it isn't the only one we have to choose.

About the Author:

Stephan Miller can be reached via:
http://www.stephanmiller.com

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Christoph Puetz

More and more webmasters are building websites with publicly
available content (data feeds, news feeds, articles). This
results in websites with duplicate content on the Internet. In
cases of websites build on news feeds or data feeds you can
even find websites that match each other 100% (except for the
design). Several copies of the same content in a search engine
does not really do any good and so Google apparently decided to
weed out some of this duplicate content to be able to deliver
cleaner and better search results.

Plain copies of websites were hit hardest. If a webmaster was
publishing the exact same content on more than one domain, all
domains in question were eventually removed from Google's
index. Many websites based on affiliate programs suddenly took
a big hit in loss of traffic from Google.com. Shortly after
this started some webmaster forums saw the same complaints and
stories again and if 1 + 1 was put together a clear picture of
the situation was available: a duplicate content filter was
applied.

Duplicate content is not always bad and will always exist in
one way or the other. News websites are the best example of
duplicate content. Nobody expects those to be dropped from
Google's index.

So, how can webmasters avoid the duplicate content filter?
There are quite a few things webmasters can do when using
duplicate content of any sort and still create unique pages and
content from it. Let's see some of these options explained here.

1) Unique content on pages with duplicate content.

On pages where duplicate content is being used, unique content
should be added. I do not mean like just a few different words
or a link/navigation menu. If you (the webmaster) can add 15% -
30% unique content to pages where you display duplicate content
the overall ratio of duplicate content compared to the overall
content of that page goes down. This will reduce the risk of
having a page flagged as duplicate content.

2) Randomization of content

Ever seen those "Quote of the Day" thingies on some websites?
It adds a random quote of the day to a page at any given time.
Every time you come back the page will look different. Those
scripts can be used for many more things than just displaying a
quote of the day with just a few code changes. With some
creativity a webmaster can use such a script to create the
impression pages are always updated and always different. This
can be a great tool to prevent Google to apply the duplicate
content filter.

3) Unique content

Yes, unique content is still king. But sometimes you just
cannot work around using duplicate content at all. That is
alright. But how about adding unique content to your website,
too. If the overall ratio of unique content and duplicate
content is well-balanced chances that the duplicate content
filter applies to your website are much lower. I personally
recommend that a website has at least 30% of unique content to
offer (I admit - I am sometimes having difficulties myself to
reach that level but I try).

Will this guarantee that your website stays in Google's index?
I don't know. To be most successful a website should be
completely unique. Unique content is what draws visitors to a
website. Everything else can be found somewhere else, too and
visitors have no reason to just visit one particular website if
they can get the same thing somewhere else.

About The Author:

Christoph Puetz is a successful Entrepreneur
and international book author. Websites currently operated by
Christoph are: http://www.highlandsranch.us and
http://www.smallbusinessland.com

Labels: Search Engine Optimization

By Kalena Jordan

Last year I discovered a terrific new business tool and I was so thrilled with its potential that I wrote a review article about it to share my discovery with others.

The product was Proposal Kit. My review was called Close the Sale With Proposal Kit and I've had a lot of feedback from readers of that article, thanking me for introducing them to the product.

In case you're not already familiar with the software, Proposal Kit takes the guesswork out of drafting a proposal or contract. It automates the chore of putting together a complex business proposal. Basically, Proposal Kit provides a comprehensive range of templates to suit any business requirement and helps you build a framework for your proposal to match virtually any product or service offering. You then flesh out the templates with your own data and contact details. Templates are particularly suited to online businesses and include documents for the initial sales pitch, the planning stage, estimating, contracting, project timelines, analysis and even invoicing.

I've been using Proposal Kit for over 8 months now and I am still as enthusiastic about it as ever. So when developers of the product (Cyber Sea) told me of their latest upgrade this month, I was very excited.

You see, amongst the 28 new contract templates available in the new versions of Proposal Kit Pro and Contract Kit Pro is a Search Engine Optimization Services Contract, designed for SEOs just like me.

More about that later, but first let’s take a look at what’s been upgraded in the latest versions of the product:

Proposal Kit Pro 8.0 / Contract Pack Pro 7.0

• 28 new contracts, agreements and related documents have been added (consisting of over 100 pages of new material), for example: