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

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

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

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

Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Differentiators

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

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

What Keyphrases Will Work Best for Your Business?

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

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

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

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

Using Modifiers to Give You the Edge

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

Conclusion

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


About the Author

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

How to Start Your Own SEO Business

This article is for those of you who are learning search engine optimization (SEO) or working in the field with a view to starting your own SEO business or on-selling your services as an SEO contractor or freelancer.
Planning and Preparation

First up, you need to think about what type of SEO services you are going to provide and what type of goals you would like your business to achieve. You’ll need to prepare a business plan and answer questions such as the following:

· Will I require finance?
· What are my long and short term goals?
· How will I market my business?
· Who are my potential customers?
· Who are my competitors?
· What services will I offer?
· What should my business / trading name be?

Getting Started

Next, you need to decide how to set up your business structure. You’ll need to answer questions like:

· How will I structure my business? Will I be a sole trader? A partnership? A company?
· Will I need to hire staff?
· What taxes will I be liable for?
· Do I need to create a business bank account?
· What type of business stationery/marketing materials do I need?

Your Workplace

A key component of your new business is its location. Ask yourself questions such as:

· Do I need to rent commercial office space or serviced offices?
· Can I work from home?
· Can I claim home office expenses?
· Do I have a dedicated workspace?
· Can clients access my workplace easily?
· Do I need to purchase equipment or furniture?
· Should I buy a desktop or laptop computer?
· Do I have adequate room for extra staff?
· Can I set and stick to reasonable working hours?

Tools of the Trade

In the SEO business, there are quite a few “must have” tools of the trade that you will find indispensable. Some of these are huge time-savers and others are vital if you run an online business. These include:

Hardware

· At least one desktop computer with plenty of memory and hard drive capacity
· Broadband, ISDN or Wireless Internet connection
· Separate phone/fax lines
· A cell phone and/or palmtop
· A reliable fax machine or PC fax software*
· An answering machine*
· A printer / scanner / copier*
· A file cabinet / desktop filing system
· A large desk with drawers
· A comfortable, ergonomic office chair

* There are a large number of product manufacturers that offer a combination of all these elements in the one machine.

Software / Tools

There’s plenty of tools and software available to help the busy SEO / SEM operator. Here are some of my favorites:

· Freshbooks Invoicing and Timesheets
· Keyword Discovery
· Proposal Kit Proposal Creation Software
· ClickTracks Log File Analysis Software

You’ll find other tools and software in my articles 20 Must-Have Search Engine Marketing Tools and 20 MORE Must-Have Search Engine Marketing Tools.

Subscriptions

· Search Engine Watch
· The Search Light
· Search Engine Marketing News
· High Ranking's Advisor
· Search Engine Report
· Search Day
· Marketing Pilgrim
· Pandia


Books / E-books

· Search Engine Visibility
· The Nitty Gritty of Writing for the Search Engines
· Ring Bell For Service Usability Report


Memberships

· SEO Consultants
· SEO Pros
· SEMPO


Open for Business!

When you’re ready to start business, you need to spread the word about your business and start dealing with clients. You’ll need to address things like:

· What domain name should I buy?
· Can I design my own web site?
· How will I market my business online?
· How will I promote my business offline?
· What are my short and long term marketing goals?
· What clients do I want to attract?
· How will I invoice clients?
· How do I want clients to contact me?
· What type of client contract do I need?

Getting Clients

Finding clients can be difficult for new business start-ups. You haven’t yet developed a reputation and you have no clients to vouch for the quality of your services. Here are a couple of suggestions for attracting new clients:

· Ask friends and family if they need or know of anyone seeking SEO services.
· Approach your favorite charities and offer to do some pro-bono work in return for publicity and use of their case studies.
· Join SEO industry organizations like the SEO Consultants Directory.
· Spread the word you are open for business.
· Hang out at SEO forums and chat rooms offering free advice.
· Commence a PPC campaign targeting persons seeking SEO services.
· Optimize your own site so you rank high for SEO related searches!

Other Considerations

· Having a watertight contract
· Having a professional services proposal (e.g. Proposal Kit)
· Business and indemnity insurance

Keeping Clients

Once you have your clients, keep them happy. Try to address these issues:

· How can I provide the best customer service?
· How can I solicit client feedback on my services?
· Should I offer a satisfaction guarantee?
· Is my contract client-friendly?
· How can I reward my best clients?
· What can I on-sell to my clients? (Would you like fries with that?)
· Do I want to give my clients corporate gifts?
· How should I regularly keep in touch with clients?

Working in the SEO Industry

The SEO industry is a strange beast. It’s growing enormously fast, due to the boom in search and so the demand for search engine optimization services is huge. However it is also plagued with a bad reputation, thanks to a handful of fast-talking, money-grabbing companies claiming to be SEO experts and taking advantage of web site owners with little knowledge of how search engines work.

For this reason, if you choose to work in the SEO industry, you may come across some skepticism and doubt from clients who have been burned by shoddy operators in the past. You’ll need to work extra hard at overcoming client fears and proving the value of your services.

But as long as you truly know what you are doing, can prove the ROI on your services, educate your clients about the SEO process, use ethical business practices and follow the guidelines set down by the search engines, you should build up a good reputation quickly.

Here are some resources that will help you in this direction:

· Search Marketing Benchmark Guide 2008
· Writing Useful Articles That Readers Will Love (Finding Your SEO Niche)
· Google Information for Webmasters: SEOs
· Questions to Ask Before Hiring a SEO Company
· Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company
· What SEOs Expect From Their Clients
· Working Well With Your Search Engine Optimization Firm
· Let Your Trusted SEO Do Their Job
· Search Engine Optimization

Getting Help

Even if you’re a seasoned pro at search engine optimization, there’s always something more to learn. Occasionally, there will be times when something has you completely baffled or you don’t quite know how to handle a particular client situation. That’s when you need a little advice or guidance from your peers.

The following forums are popular hang-outs for persons in the SEO industry. Whether you’re a novice or veteran, you’ll always learn something new, make new friends and possibly even get new clients by visiting regularly and contributing your time to the webmaster community:

· Cre8asite Forums
· SEO-News Forum
· High Rankings Search Engine Optimization Forum
· SearchEngineWatch Forums
· Webmaster World
· Search Engine Forums
· SitePoint Forums

Growing Your Business

After you’ve been in business for a while, there comes a time when you’ll need to decide whether to expand and take on more and more clients or to cap your growth capacity and turn down new projects. Here are some things to consider when that time comes:

· Do I want to expand my business?
· Do I really need more clients?
· Can I hire more staff?
· Should I take on an admin person or virtual assistant?
· Should I take on temporary or contract staff?
· Can I outsource some aspects to specialists?

Pitfalls to Avoid

Here are a few common pitfalls to avoid when running your own business:

· Don’t fail to create a business plan and update it regularly. Small businesses don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.
· Don’t let bad creditors get away with it – always chase overdue invoices before they cause a cash-flow problem and make sure your Terms of Trade are clearly available on your site, on your invoice and in your proposals.
· Don’t get caught up on administrative tasks. Delegate them where possible so you can concentrate on your clients and your business.
· Don’t forget to communicate with your staff regularly. Make use of collaboration software to manage your client projects effectively.
· Don’t take on more clients than you can handle.
· Don’t discount your services if you can help it – recognize the value of your knowledge, time and services.
· Don’t lose sight of your goals – spend at least one day per week on marketing and business development.
· Don’t spread yourself too thin. It’s better to let someone else handle a client than do a poor job of it yourself.
· Don’t become a workaholic, make sure you work reasonable hours and take regular vacations with your family.
· Don’t burn-out. Keep asking: Am I enjoying myself? Remember to have fun!!


About the Author:

Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running a daily Search Engine Advice Column, Kalena manages Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and other Search Engine Marketing subjects.

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

By Scott Buresh

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

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

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

Gaining a Competitive Advantage with Differentiators

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

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

What Keyphrases Will Work Best for Your Business?

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

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

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

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

Using Modifiers to Give You the Edge

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

Conclusion

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

© Medium Blue 2008


About the Author

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

All Search Engines Love Spiders: How Meta Commands Can Help You Love Them Too

By Scott Buresh

Nearly all search engines utilize spiders (which are also known by their original name, robots) to go out and scour the web looking for web pages. These search engine spiders then bring the data back to be indexed by the engine.

Since roughly 1996, individual meta commands have existed that can be used on individual web pages to modify how these search engine spiders behave. The most useful of these commands are fairly universal and respected by almost all search engines. What follows is a list of some of the more popular spider commands and instances in which you might want to use them. (Please note all <> have been replaced with [] for publishing purposes).

[meta name="robots" content="index"]

This meta command is one of the most common ones used – and it is also the least necessary. It tells search engine spiders to come on in and put the page in their indexes. However, all search engines do this by default anyway. Basically, if you want to put it in there for fun, be my guest, but this command is not giving you any special treatment. All search engines are going to index your page, unless you specifically tell them otherwise.

[meta name="robots" content="follow"]

The follow command is different from the index command. It basically requests that the search engine spiders follow the links that are on a particular page. Again, however, this piece of code is completely unnecessary because all search engines are going to follow the links on a page, unless otherwise directed.

[meta name="robots" content="noindex"]

The noindex command, the opposite of the index command, tells search engine spiders not to index the content of a page. It’s important to note, however, that search engine spiders will still follow the links on a page that uses only this command.

When not used for legitimate purposes, this tag can be dangerous because it can put you at risk for penalization by most, if not all search engines. This is because you can use a noindex tag to hide pages with multiple links that you don’t want visitors to see but that you do want all search engines to index.

There are, however, some legitimate uses for the noindex command. For example, if you have a dynamic site, and you’ve created static pages to replace some of your dynamic pages, which can make them easier for search engine spiders to access, you could put a noindex tag on the dynamic version.

As Google mentions in its Webmaster Help Center:

"Consider creating static copies of dynamic pages. Although the Google index includes dynamic pages."

About the Author:

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

Advanced Link Checks

By James Mahony

You should be able to find several indispensable facts about SEO in the following paragraphs. If there's at least one fact you didn't know before, imagine the difference it might make.

View the source of each and every page: is there JavaScript and CSS on the page? Remember that spiders may not index pages that have more than 10k or so of JavaScript or CSS embedded in them. Spiders don't enjoy getting tangled up in JavaScript. So as a general rule you should avoid putting out prompts and alerts using JavaScript every time that a page loads. Because of this rule, it is also wise to avoid link partners who do so on the pages that they link to you from. If anything looks fishy, it probably is.

CSS won't give you many problems. If you are going to use CSS, it is best to link to it from another source. Create a separate CSS page and use the tag to work it into the head of your HTML. This method will keep your file size down considerably, and since you will probably be using the same CSS on several pages, decrease your bandwidth usage. Normally a large quantity of CSS within the document isn't indicative of any suspicious behavior on the part of the linker. If you feel that you are, indeed, suffering from the fact that the site uses such an excessive proportion of CSS on the page itself, suggest to the webmaster that he/she may want to create an external CSS document and link to it in his/her header.

Check that you're still on the domain you clicked on a link to, and you haven't moved to another site or a subdomain. Some people will move you to another domain while telling that's their site and your link is there, relying on you not checking the address bar. This trick is all too common and happens to folks who are new to SEO every single day. This sad fact will continue until people begin to catch it every time.

If you don't have accurate details regarding SEO, then you might make a bad choice on the subject. Don't let that happen: keep reading.

If the domain has changed, delete your backlink to the site in question immediately and then email the webmaster with your complaint. If the webmaster does not fix the problem you may
even want to request that they remove the link as the site may wind up discredited as a link farm or some such thing that you do not want to be associated with for fear of being banned from many popular search engines with technology used to combat link farms.

On a related subject, when you check your back links, make sure that these links appear in legitimate places. If the site is completely dedicated to linking to other sites and doesn't seem to be a directory or something similar you will want to get your link removed as soon as possible. There is no time when one link is worth the risk of being permanently banned from any popular search engine. Aside from the traffic that you will lose from that one search engine, you may wind up "red flagged" so to speak. It seems to be common practice among search engines that
if one finds faulty activity the rest seem to find out soon afterwards.

Overall, if it seems dodgy, leave it alone. It's better to sacrifice one link in caution than to destroy your site's rankings by accepting one you're not sure of. There are hundreds of situations aside from link farms that can and will give you trouble. It would be impossible to list every scam as there are people who make their living (or seem to anyway) in creating and executing these scams. Whenever there is a new form of "SEO" technology that "can't fail," you should watch out because it is almost guaranteed to blow up in your face. The only truly powerful and guaranteed method of SEO is to make your site valuable to your visitors and then let it fall where it may in the realm of the search engine.

It is difficult, after you have optimized your pages and submitted them to search engines and directories, to sit back and wait, but there is not much that can be done aside from attempting to accumulate links from good, solid places. The work that you have done is bound to pay off sooner or later as long as you stay honest. When it comes to the world of SEO, honesty is, indeed, the best policy.

When word gets around about your command of SEO facts, others who need to know about SEO will start to actively seek you out.

About The Author:

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

What Is Black Hat Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?

By Dana Goldberg

SEO has been very useful and famous in internet marketing. There are many techniques that make boosting your site a success through different seo strategies. But despite the success of SEO, there are some black practitioners who tend to see the field of search engine optimization as war, and the search engines are doing anything to beat the competition whether it is fair or foul. Those white hatters market with the other search engines as associates or partners who can help them drive links and business to their client's sites.

Cloaking happens when a website or a web page displays different content for a certain search engine spider in opposition to a human user. Cloaking is the one that delivers a version of a page to an Internet user and a different description to a search engine. You will notice a cloaked page is filled with keywords and phrases that the site wants to make them rank high.

This is done by cloaking the programs that weigh the IP address of the other party to a database of the known IP address which comes from a definite search engine spider. If there is a match in the IP address on the list, it serves a page which is particularly written for the search engines.

Cloaking has several good reasons which include increasing advertising and promotion. If you are trying to control your rankings in the different search engines, it might result to penalize your site or it might be banned.

Spamming or the keyword stuffing is a long list of keywords placed in the content and also the code on the page which makes it unreadable. Have you seen a page that repeatedly displays an ad with certain words? It is obvious that the site is trying to rank its page. This is known as keyword spamming but it is just one tip that most SEO companies are trying to do to increase page rank.

You might not notice the page may have invisible text, title tags, meta tags and comment tags. If a page repeats a certain keyword repeatedly, google might place a filter to lessen the ranking or much worse, ban the site. Keyword density can be quite tricky but following the general rule, 3% t0 12 % is the percentage to which a site can use the targeted keywords.

You will notice there are some hidden texts in SEO strategies. This happens when a text or link is invisible to the website visitor but can still be seen by the search engines. If this happens it is considered hidden. Before, people used small fonts to hide the text or they would even use the same color for the background.

This makes them able to put some links which are unseen, but has long been noticed by the search engines that is why they have come up with another strategy this time. Spammers are using the cascading style sheets in order to hide the text. Some are also using tags which are set to hide the text on the page. These strategies are considered hidden if they are left unseen but search engines have their own technique of spotting invisible links so better not do it at all.

The doorway pages are those that exclusively exist to rank well in the different search engines. You may notice some of the pages being ugly and some contain paragraphs which do not have any relation to the topic. Most of the time these doorway pages are not part of the regular navigation of the site which are called orphaned pages.

A black hat SEO can use very good software to filter or generate the doorway pages. This happens when they plug a few keywords and search the page.

You may notice some sites linking to other sites which are have no relation at all. Some sites just link to other sites which is part of their strategy. Now, you will find this truly spamming.

If you are going to put up your own website, make sure that you will avoid these things and keep SEO marketing fair and do not think of competition. Think of how you can increase your site ranking fairly.

About The Author:

D. Goldberg is editor of Make More Money Easily. Insider tips on creating wealth online.
http://www.makemoremoneyeasily.info

Top Seven Ways How Writing Articles Can Explode Your Business

By Nikki Mhlanga

The importance of attracting highly targeted traffic to your website cannot be overemphasized. Routing web traffic to your site can be your only means of survival, especially in the very competitive ecommerce world. Getting a high search engine ranking can be very difficult. Fortunately, there is plethora of website promotion strategies you can use to drive traffic to your website.

There is a wide variety of strategies you can adapt, from paid advertising to affiliate marketing. However, most of these techniques require payment. Nevertheless, there are ways to promote your website and increase your web traffic without spending anything.

Writing articles is one of the best web site promotion strategies you can use, and they can be very effective. How, you may ask, can writing articles help improve your web traffic? Here are the top seven ways in which it can help explode your business.

1. Reach more people When you write good articles, you must share them with other people, and attract traffic to your site in the process. You can post your articles in your website or you can submit them to other sites such as e-zines and online publishers. By submitting your articles to these sites, you give exposure not only to your ideas but also to your website. Simply include a link back to your site or include your information in the resource box. With this, you get exposure and free advertising as well.

2. Free Advertising Submitting your articles to other websites presents an opportunity to advertise your website without paying exorbitant fees. Although you should avoid marketing language in your articles and make it informative and useful to your readers, you can always include your site's link in the resource box. In addition, by making your article relevant and helpful to your readers, you are making a good impression for your website, which could ultimately lead to a visit and hopefully a purchase. Good quality content in an article is far better and more effective than a few lines of ad space.

3. Gain High Search Engine Ranking Create a new web page for your article in your website. Optimize your article to make it search-engine friendly. Use top-ranked keywords and Meta tags that can give your website a high search engine ranking. As soon as you upload your new webpage to your server, search engines will spider through it and you can gain an increase in search engine ranking. Remember that search engine optimized content is a very effective strategy to gain a high ranking in search results.

4. Increases Link Popularity

Instead of looking for other sites who would want to establish reciprocal links with your site, you can simply submit an article to other sites. Just do not forget to include a link to your site in your resource box. When these websites pick up and publishes your article, you automatically get a link partner. Link popularity is one of the factors used by search engines in determining search engine rankings. Make your article especially useful and appealing, so that more websites will be encouraged to publish it.

5. Optimizes your site for improved search engine ranking

By making your site keyword rich, you can greatly improve the search engine ranking of your site. Remember that keyword density is one of the most important factors that search engines use when determining the search engine ranking of site. However, you should always provide relevant, useful and pertinent information. Avoid the temptation of overusing keywords just to gain a high ranking as this may turn off most web surfers. Relevance and quality is still the most important things to consider when writing articles and it will be doubly useful to your site if you make these articles search-engine optimized.

6. Establishes a Good Impression and Reputation

By writing excellent, original and relevant articles, you not only give your site exposure, you are also creating a good impression on your prospects. Encourage more people to visit your site and do business with you by establishing an impressive reputation through your articles. Be seen as an expert in the field and your will ultimately gain more customers eager to do business with you.

7. Enhances your credibility through references and testimonies

Certainly, your articles are going to receive feedbacks and testimonies when you publish them in e-zines and free article sites. Record these positive feedbacks and comments and use them as promotional material in your website or in any of your advertising efforts. Your credibility will be greatly enhanced by these feedbacks, as it will create a good impression on your prospects as well as your existing customers.

Original, relevant, useful and pertinent articles are important tools you should utilize to improve and explode your business.

About the Author:

For 3 Easy Steps To Make Money Online, Visit: http://www.smart-homebiz.com/pips.html

Branding, Branding, Brand-Ing? :: MSN Fails To Keep It Straight

By Rob Sullivan

Sometimes you see promotions come along and you wonder - did they just do that? The current MSN promotion - msnsearchandwin is a prime example of this.

Not only do they use "black hat" or at least "questionable" tactics on the site, but the messaging is inconsistent.

In this article I look at the new MSN promotion and ask the question: Why bother?

By now you've probably heard about the new MSN promotion where you can win prizes simply by using MSN search.

They did do something right by registering a domain name that implies that message. If you go to http://www.msnsearchandwin.com/ you will see the familiar MSN search box.

Wait a minute...Why is this search box blue? Didn't MSN just rebrand with a nicer, cleaner silver grey look?

That, my friends, is mistake number one. It's as if the technical team and the marketing team didn't get together to discuss this program.

I mean, when you go through something as complex and massive as a rebranding, you should make sure the messaging is consistent across the various media. Especially when the promotion and the rebranding launch within days of each other.

This is eerily similar to the article I wrote about Superbowl Ads:
http://www.textlinkbrokers.com/blogs/comments/329_0_1_0_C/. In that article I talked about how advertisers spend millions on a 30 second or 1 minute TV commercial yet they fail to carry that messaging over onto their website effectively if at all.

And here we have MSN - probably one of the most recognized brands on the web and subsidiary to the company with one of the most effective and ruthless marketing arms in the world - and it can't seem to communicate it's message that MSN is rebranding.

I mean, how hard would it have been for someone in Tech to phone up someone in Marketing and say, "By the way, you know that search and win promotion you are doing? Be sure that the colors match the new look of MSN that's launching in a few days."

But wait, it gets better.

First spotted by http://www.kerrydean.com/blog/, if you view source of the msnsearchandwin home page what do you see?

That's right, about a million keywords stuffed into the keywords tag. (OK maybe not a million but there are 256 keywords in the meta keywords tag).

It gets worse. Immediately below the overstuffed keywords tag you will see a bunch of keywords stuffed into a comments tag. Again the same 256 words used in the meta keywords tag.

So tell me, is it OK for a search engine to spam itself?

Perhaps we could all learn a little something from MSN's marketing mistake: Keep it consistent!

About The Author:

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for http://www.textlinkbrokers.com. Textlinkbrokers is a link building company. Please provide a link directly to Textlinkbrokers when syndicating this article.

Google Sitemaps :: Are They Or Aren't They Lucrative SEO Tools?

By Rob Sullivan

Google has had a feature out for some time which allows webmasters to create a sitemap file to help Google's crawlers find and index content.

It sounds like a great idea. After all, it's much easier to feed the crawler the content then hope it finds it on it's own.

But is a Google sitemap worthwhile? Is it even necessary?

When the Google Sitemap program first started my thought was "That's kinda cool but what's the real benefit?"

So, I thought I'd try it out and submit sitemaps for a few sites that I own.

When Google Sitemaps first came out it was very difficult to figure out what all the entries meant as well as how to actually create the sitemap.

Sure, it was XML based, and I could plainly see what they expected but when you have a large site, how do you go about creating this?

Then Google came out with http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html, a sitemap generator which is a program intended to help you create a sitemap for your site. This does help speed up the process but unless you are a developer it is a little difficult to implement.

Also, you need access to your server to run the script required to generate the sitemap. If you are unsure you should check with your web host to see if you have terminal access to execute Python scripts.

Personally, I've never tried the Google Sitemapper tool but I have used others. For example, on my personal blog which uses Moveable Type, I found a blog post which shows How to build a Movable Type Google sitemap template http://www.niallkennedy.com/blog/archives/2005/06/google_sitemaps.html. And I've used Xenu and an Excel spreadsheet http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=199253 which works great as well.

Now that the sitemap creation is covered, let's get into the question at hand. Is a Google sitemap really worth the effort?

A few months ago I would have said no, but lately Google has been adding features that make me think otherwise.

For example, if you've gone through the verification process (which is really just placing a blank HTML file on the site and having Google find it) and ensured your 404 errors are properly configured you can get access to a wealth of additional intel.

One such feature is the "Top Search Queries." This tells you which queries were used when your pages appeared in the search results but may not have been clicked on.

In other words, these are actual searcher queries that were performed on Google where your site may have appeared but not had click-through's.

From a keyword research point of view, this is a huge advantage to you. By monitoring your sitemap stats you can easily see some of the terms people are using and perhaps determine what you need to do to rank higher for those terms so you too can get the clicks that your competitors are receiving.

If you don't have ready access to log analysis or other stats, the Google sitemap can also tell you what terms actually drove traffic to your site.

In other words, these were searches performed on Google that actually generated clicks for your site.

There's also a wealth of other information. For example, "Crawl Stats" shows you how Googlebot sees your site, errors generated by it, and even a PageRank distribution chart detailing how well PageRank is distributed.

So, if you are like me and wondering if a Google sitemap is worth it I'd say yes, it is. The information provided, while mostly technical, can help you troubleshoot problems as well as provide ideas to help you improve your positioning.

About The Author:

Rob Sullivan is a SEO Consultant and Writer for http://www.textlinkbrokers.com. Textlinkbrokers is a link building company. Please provide a link directly to Textlinkbrokers when syndicating this article.

How To Choose Right Keywords To Market Your Website

By Daniel Smith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

About The Author:

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

Search Engine Optimization: Four Vital Steps For Optimizing Your Website

By Donald Nelson

There is a bit of confusion about search engine optimization. Some people think that SEO (the abbreviated form) is nothing more than tricking search engines into giving a high ranking for a particular site. Others think that search engine optimization is so complex that they could not possibly understand it. Neither of these views are correct. Search engine optimization is best defined as the art and science of building web pages that are both search engine friendly and
user friendly. Below are four basic steps that you should take when optimizing your web pages.

1. Your web design should emphasize text and not graphics.

"Search engine friendly" means that search engines should be able to find data on your site that they can put in their data bases. While a picture may be worth a thousand words, a search engine is trying to classify pages by text and not by images. If you have an opening page with a beautiful picture of the sea and only two words of text saying "enter here" then this page will not rank high in searches for Florida Vacations. Similarly if you have a headline with important text containing your site's keywords it should not be displayed as a gif or jpeg image. Pages that are all flash or all images are not search engine friendly, and often are not user friendly as well.

2. Links to your interior pages should be easily found by search engines

An important thing to remember is that you want not only your main page, but all of your interior pages to be included in the search engine index. While most people will probably enter your site through the main page, many will enter after doing searches which lead them to your inner pages. The best way to make sure that search engines will find and index your inner pages is to include text links to these pages. If you have navigation system which uses Java script or images, then it is best to add an additional text link navigation bar at the bottom of the site to ensure that the robot follows the links to your inner pages.

3. Your pages should be built around specific keywords or keyword phrases

Robotic search engines and human users have one thing in common: they are trying to figure out what your site or your particular web page is all about. It is not possible to get high rankings for thirty different search terms with only one web page. However it is possible to build separate web pages which explain and give importance to various aspects of your organization's activity. These sub pages can be optimized so that they perform well in searches for your various keywords.

4. Once your material is organized, then your keywords should appear in strategic portions of your web pages

If your site is about Florida Vacations, then these words should appear in the following places of your html pages:

a. In the file name or the url.

If your site is called www.floridavacations.com then this will give you a head start in any searches for this term. Similarly if your company is called XYZ Travels you may have a web page with this url: www.xyztravels.com/floridavacations.html

The url or file name is an important indicator to a search engine, so don't miss the opportunity to put your important term either in your main domain name or in your file names.

b. In the title tag

The text that is displayed in the blue line at the top of your browser is your title tag. The title tag is located in the section of the document. If your main phrase is "Florida Vacations" then the title tag in your html document should look something like this: Florida Vacations: Florida Vacation Information by XYZ travel

c. In the Description tag

The description tag is not seen on the web page but search engines often display it as the text which gives the searcher an idea of what your page is about. The description tag should be compelling, and make someone want to click and see your page, while also containing the keywords that are in your url and your title tag. A description tag for this site might look as follows:

d. In the headlines

Just as someone reading a newspaper looks at headlines to find out what is important, a search engine robot looks at the headlines of a web page in order to pick up the essential feature of that page. Put your main phrase in a headline and place it near the top of the page. Your headline text should be enclosed with special header tags such as , , . A headline tag for our hypothetical page could be written as follows: Florida Vacations: Plan Your Vacation Now And Save Money or Accommodations, Entertainment and Transport in Florida

If you don't like the look of the h1 tag, then use a smaller tag, h2 or h3, or adjust your site's style sheet so that the h1 tag is displayed in a small font which better matches your body text.

e. In the body text of your page

Your main keywords or key phrase should appear in the first paragraph of text and in a natural way throughout the text and also at the end of the page. In normal writing you would first introduce your subject, then explain what it is about and then summarize at the end. Follow this same procedure when you start writing your web page. Pages written in this style will automatically have correct keyword density and distribution.

f. In anchor text on your page

Anchor text is the clickable portion of links on your web page. Suppose you are describing your Florida Vacations and you want to direct your web visitors to an inside page with more information about this subject. Instead of making a link that says "click here," it would be better to have a link that says "Click here for more information about Florida Vacations" or even better, the link text will only be "Florida Vacations" and the "click here" will be rendered as normal text.

If you follow these search-engine-optimization steps when building your website you will end up with web pages that are easily understood by your visitors, and easily classified and indexed by search engines.

About The Author:

Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He is the proprietor of A1-Optimization http://www.a1-optimization.com and provides search engine optimization, copywriting, reciprocal linking and article marketing services. He recently launched a new reprint article directory located at http://www.a1-articledirectory.com

Setting Up An Art Affiliate Site - Part 3

By Jeremy Zongker

The phrase "If you build it they will come" definitely does not pertain to websites. Getting visitors to your site is easy; doing it in a way that is profitable is very difficult and takes a lot of work. This is the most difficult and most critical phase to operating a profitable art affiliate site or any website for that matter. There's no magic formula to follow, but in the sections below you'll find some key pieces of advice that will greatly increase your odds of succeeding.

Step 8 - Monitoring Your Traffic

This is very important. Random odds dictates in part the number of sales you make, so if you do not monitor your traffic you will have no idea how well your efforts in getting traffic to your site are working. Your stats can provide a lot of valuable information such as how many visitors come to your site each day, how many pages they view, how long they spend on each page, where they came from, what path they followed from your site, etc. You can use this information to make changes to your site to help improve your traffic.

The good news is your host most likely provides a free utility for monitoring your stats, but you may have to turn on the stats monitoring or request that your host do this for you. If your host does not provide a tool for doing this or the tool they provide doesn't provide much information then you can visit StatCounter for a free one.

Step 9 - Build Links

To be successful it's important to have a fair percentage of your traffic to be "free traffic". The primary source of this free traffic is going to be from search engines and other sites. We already discussed how to optimize your pages to increase your search engine ranking, but that's only half the equation the other half is links to your site.

To get links to your site the easiest way to start is by submitting to directories. There are hundreds if not thousands of these directories that will accept your website for free. It's important when you submit to these directories or do any link building that you use your keywords as the link text such as Tropical Art. This helps your rankings by having other sites
affirm that your site is about the keywords you selected.

This is work is something anyone can do but is also time consuming. If you don't have the time, once again you can use a site such as RentACoder to hire someone to do this for you. Let me just point out two things you do not need to do and shouldn't do. The first is submit to search engines. Once you have some other sites linking to yours they will find it, and you're better off if they find it on their own instead of you having to tell them about your site. The second is submitting to link farms or free for all (FFA) sites. This will gain you nothing and is a waste of time and money.

Step 10 - Pay for Traffic

Some directories such as Yahoo Directory and other websites require you to pay for inclusion. Some are worth it, others are not. It's going to be up to you to decide. One benefit of paying for this type of traffic versus pay per click is it will also help your sites ranking by providing you with extra back links.

Another option is to use Pay Per Click (PPC) programs such as Google Adwords. With these programs you pay for each visitor that comes to your site. This can be a great way to gain traffic but you also have to be careful with it in order to be profitable. What you need to know is how much you earn per average user. For example if last month you had 500 visitors and made $75 in commission, then on average each visitor made you $0.15. Knowing that you can bid below $0.15 per click and will most likely make a profit on the visitors referred to you from the PPC program.

Step 11 - Wait, Analyze and Revise

It takes time to get your site to rank with search engines. Usually you'll be able to find first on MSN within weeks, then Yahoo within a few months and finally Google possibly up to a year or more later. At the time of writing this MSN gets about 5% of search traffic, Yahoo gets about 15% and Google gets a whopping 75%. Your traffic will come in phases and it will take a long time to see the large payoffs.

Each month you need to analyze your stats again and determine what adjustments need to be made. You may need to increase or decrease how much you are paying per click on PPC sites, adjust your site layout to get more visitors to purchase or perform more link building to improve your sites rank. Just keep with it, continue to read and learn more and not give up and eventually your efforts will pay off. Good luck with your site!

About The Author:

This article has been provided courtesy of Art Affiliate, http://www.artaffiliate.com .

Control The Success Of Your Internet Business With One Simple Step

By Larry Potter

Motivational speaker Anthony Robbins once said, "If you want to be successful, find someone who achieved the results you want and copy what they do, and you'll achieve the same results."

It's an idea I became familiar with many years ago.

When I was first getting started online, I made a lot of mistakes. Not because I wasn't trying to model successful businesses, but because there simply weren't businesses online to model. (In 1996, I was among the first handful of people to actually start selling products over the Internet.)

So I gathered as much information as I could from successful offline marketing experts like Jay Abraham; however, the challenge was adjusting their techniques to work in the online world. I'm sure it will come as no surprise to you that many of the techniques used to market and sell in the "real world" either.

a) Didn't work at all on the Internet.
Or
b) Needed to be seriously adjusted, tested, tweaked, and adjusted some more to really get results online.

The point that I'm trying to make here is that it literally took me years of testing and hundreds of thousands of dollars to discover the same techniques that you'll now see commonly used online today. Fortunately, there is no reason for things to be nearly this difficult for you. Today, modeling the Internet "successes" is relatively easy. (Though, be careful that you separate the phonies and fakes from the "true experts" -- look for those who honestly practice what they preach and who can prove it!)

The biggest investment that you'll need to make is your time.

If you're interested in long-term, life-changing success, then a few extra days of reading and researching shouldn't matter. It's the success of your business that we're talking about here, so don't make the fatal mistake of thinking that you're "wasting time." Remember that what you learn today could be the technique or strategy that saves you not only wasted time and effort, but thousands of dollars in "could have been" profits.

It's an extremely simple concept.

Guarantee Your Success By Modeling The Successful

1) What Should My Web Site Look Like?

Why spend thousands of dollars having a flashy site designed that's loaded with theme music and spinning graphics? Some of the most successful web sites online today have extremely sleek, simple designs.

Of course, before I tell you to model proven successful web sites, I want you to be aware of "the catch".

When researching web sites to model, the ones you should be paying closest attention to are your competitors' and sites that have a profit model similar to your own (i.e. look for sites that make money in a similar way).

For example, if you sell cotton balls on your web site, you shouldn't be modeling your site design after Amazon.com. First off, they sell books (among other things). You sell cotton balls. They offer a wide variety of titles and choices. You offer one product -- cotton balls. Finally, let's face it -- their advertising budget is out of this world! If you're a small or home-based business, you likely don't have the same kind of luxury to experiment and make expensive mistakes.

So think practical -- be realistic -- and start looking for other sites that are successfully selling their cotton balls online (or one, similar product), and model your site after theirs. Your site doesn't need to be the next Yahoo! or eBay for you to be earning a significant 6 figure income.

2) How Do I Write Sales Copy That Really Sells?

Writing sales copy that really sells takes practice -- and education! I have yet to meet someone who just has a "natural gift" for writing award-winning copy without any education whatsoever.

Sure, some people might get "lucky" and stumble onto bits and pieces of the proven approach -- but I can guarantee you that anyone who hasn't studied the "art & science of sales copy" is missing key elements that could increase their sales by 400% - 1,200%. I'm not kidding here.

So rather than playing a "hit or miss" guessing game with your copy, I highly recommend looking for sales copy that makes YOU want to buy and studying it. After you've read enough quality copy, you'll start to notice a distinct pattern that you can apply to your own writing.

3) How Do I Rank At The Top Of The Search Engines?

If you plan on ranking at the top of the search engines, then I can't stress enough the importance of educating yourself. The search engines are a highly competitive arena where only those who have taken the time to "learn the rules" claim a top 10 spot.

Very rarely these days will you hear of someone "getting lucky" and just magically sliding into a top ranking.

So if you want a top 10 listing under your best keywords and phrases (i.e. you want your site to appear in the top 10 listings when someone searches the key phrase "cotton balls" in MSN, Yahoo!, Google, etc.), then you need to do two things.

a) Examine the web sites that already rank in the top 10 under your best keywords and phrases -- and look for patterns.

b) Use the proven know-how of the search engine experts to learn the ropes. If you want a top ranking, then you'll want the experience and advice of someone who makes it their mission to keep up with the constantly changing rules of each search engine and directory.

In fact, before you spend a lot of time examining the sites of your competition for clues as to why they are listed among the top 10, I recommend seeking out these search engine gurus. With their advice, you'll be better prepared to critically examine your competitors' web sites for clues that explain why they're at the top of the ranks.

4) How Do I Drive Targeted Traffic To My Web Site?

If you want to increase the number of targeted potential customers who are arriving at your web site each day, then a listing in the search engines is a good start, but it's also exactly that -- a start.

Again, take some time to research your competition. How are they attracting their visitors? Do they have a lot of links on other sites? Do they have their own Affiliate Program? Do they participate heavily in newsgroups? Do they have an established viral marketing campaign?

Use the experience of your competition to your advantage by learning their secrets -- and then tweaking and improving on their approach to do them one better!

Work Smarter -- Not Harder -- And See Bigger Rewards And Profits

Even now, I still scour the Web to see how others are creating their own success. I analyze my competition. I read everything that I can get my hands on. and I remain open to new ideas and new approaches.

Today, it's relatively cheap and easy to get a solid education in what Internet marketing techniques work, which to avoid, and how to build guaranteed success the first time around! So why would you waste your valuable (and limited) time and money by stubbornly insisting on making mistakes that you could easily avoid with a little education?

Model the success of others and you'll not only guarantee your success, you'll achieve your goals in less time with less expense than you could on your own.

About The Author:

For More Great Tips, Vist: http://homebusiness.kim-lar.com And if you would like to compare your site with the top 10 in your area of interest and see what their keywords are, then download this free program at: http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/wallmann/4

Search Engine Optimization for the Rest of Us

By Nowshade Kabir

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

What is Search Engine Optimization?

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

How important are the search engines? Data show 81 percent of Internet users find the sites they're looking for through search engines.