Until Bing turns into David and slays Goliath, the only search engine game in town is Google. While the other search engines can't be ignored or forgotten, when it comes to online search, Google will deliver the majority of your quality organic traffic. For webmasters and especially for online marketers, having your website virtually hard-wired to Google is a marketing Must-Do.
We are strictly talking about white hat stuff here. If you're seeking the opposite color, look elsewhere. As a full-time search engine marketer, I have learned a few things over the 10 years or so I have been working on the web. One of the most significant factors running constantly in the background has been Google. And, the underlying fact is that the more I intertwined my sites and content with Google, the more success I achieved. There seemed to be a direct correlation between the two, making it a little more than ironic that the original name for Google was BackRub.
Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label SEO. Show all posts
Thursday
Social Media Optimization - A Priority For Your SEO Campaign
Social media optimization (SMO) is an imperative ingredient of your SEO campaigns. In the past, social networking sites were little more than an oddity. Today, several have acquired enormous ranking authority from top search engines. If you are not leveraging these sites to improve your exposure and communicate with your niche market, your search engine positions are vulnerable to your competitors.
In this article, we will describe the influence that social media optimization is currently having on search marketing. We'll also give you the rules of engagement for executing an effective SMO campaign. We'll explain what SEO social media is, and the advantage of hiring an experienced SEO consultant to spearhead your social media optimization efforts.
The Influence Of Social Media Optimization On Search Marketing
Search marketing has always relied upon exposure in the search engines to drive targeted traffíc. For years, gaining that exposure was based solely upon the development of your site and generating links pointing to your site. Both are still important today. However, social media optimization has shifted the landscape of search engine marketing.
In this article, we will describe the influence that social media optimization is currently having on search marketing. We'll also give you the rules of engagement for executing an effective SMO campaign. We'll explain what SEO social media is, and the advantage of hiring an experienced SEO consultant to spearhead your social media optimization efforts.
The Influence Of Social Media Optimization On Search Marketing
Search marketing has always relied upon exposure in the search engines to drive targeted traffíc. For years, gaining that exposure was based solely upon the development of your site and generating links pointing to your site. Both are still important today. However, social media optimization has shifted the landscape of search engine marketing.
Friday
10 Things You Need to Know about SEO
I have compiled a list of 10 vital things - from choosing an expert to instructing your web developer - that every marketer needs to consider when undertaking search engine optimization as part of their marketing mix.
1. Strategy First
Please, don't ask for a full SEO proposal from an agency until you have set your strategy. Too often, agencies will respond with a full proposal, including lots of articles to be created, sites to be built and links to be implemented without a clear strategy.
Some sites are more straight forward but others are complex and would benefit from asking a couple of agencies to get involved at the research stage - ask them about the strengths and weaknesses of your site, what they think of your competitors, and what strategic approach they would take with your site.
To get the best advice from this process, expect to pay the agencies involved. A small percentage of your online budget spent on good strategy will save you dollars in the long term. Even better, pay two agencies for a strategy recommendatíon and then choose the best one for your business!
1. Strategy First
Please, don't ask for a full SEO proposal from an agency until you have set your strategy. Too often, agencies will respond with a full proposal, including lots of articles to be created, sites to be built and links to be implemented without a clear strategy.
Some sites are more straight forward but others are complex and would benefit from asking a couple of agencies to get involved at the research stage - ask them about the strengths and weaknesses of your site, what they think of your competitors, and what strategic approach they would take with your site.
To get the best advice from this process, expect to pay the agencies involved. A small percentage of your online budget spent on good strategy will save you dollars in the long term. Even better, pay two agencies for a strategy recommendatíon and then choose the best one for your business!
Wednesday
7 Social Media Tactics for Explosive Results in Your Business
First, let's define the term Explosive Results for our usage.
A standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.
An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community driven communication, helps make the web a better place, and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.
When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you're on the right track, but at the same time, you're limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn't have to be the case.
[SEO Company or SEO Campaign - Run both with Web CEO!]
If you're a business owner, you know that working harder doesn't necessarily mean better results - what if you're working hard on the wrong thing?
Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.
Explosive Social Media Tactic #1 - Hot Content
The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn't matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what's going hot in your targeted topic and find a unique angle to tailor your content into what people already like, without stealing their ideas.
A standard social media campaign helps spread the word about you and encourages other people to as well.
An explosive social media campaign has inherent viral exposure, inspires community driven communication, helps make the web a better place, and even brings joy to people, however fleeting.
When you share in social media, if your goal is just to get more people to see your links, you're on the right track, but at the same time, you're limiting your potential. You may think that getting explosive results from social media will take more time, energy and money, but this doesn't have to be the case.
[SEO Company or SEO Campaign - Run both with Web CEO!]
If you're a business owner, you know that working harder doesn't necessarily mean better results - what if you're working hard on the wrong thing?
Sometimes the remedy is working smarter. Here are a few small changes you can make to your social media approach that can propel your social media results from lukewarm to smoking hot.
Explosive Social Media Tactic #1 - Hot Content
The cornerstone to any social media campaign is the content. If you get this component wrong, it doesn't matter if all other elements are perfect. Study what's going hot in your targeted topic and find a unique angle to tailor your content into what people already like, without stealing their ideas.
This Is How You Track Internet Marketing
As with any marketing campaign you may run to assist your business, it is important to track the results of your Internet marketing campaign. This should be done on a continual basis so you can ensure the strategies you are utilizing are working.
It can also help you to determine when a strategy is not working so you do not continue to invest time and money on a strategy which is not beneficial to your business. This article will discuss some of the options for tracking the results of your Internet marketing campaign.
Business owners who use banner ads have a simple way to track whether or not their banner ads are effective. This is possible because they can place code in the banner ad which will supply them with feedback each time a user clicks on the banner ad. This information is transmitted to the business owner so he can evaluate which of his banner ads are generating the most interest.
If the business owner is currently using two different styles of banner ads on comparable websites he can use this information to determine which design is most effective. This is important because if one style is significantly more effective than the other it might be worthwhile to convert all of the banner ads to this style or to make changes which will make the two different styles more similar.
It can also help you to determine when a strategy is not working so you do not continue to invest time and money on a strategy which is not beneficial to your business. This article will discuss some of the options for tracking the results of your Internet marketing campaign.
Business owners who use banner ads have a simple way to track whether or not their banner ads are effective. This is possible because they can place code in the banner ad which will supply them with feedback each time a user clicks on the banner ad. This information is transmitted to the business owner so he can evaluate which of his banner ads are generating the most interest.
If the business owner is currently using two different styles of banner ads on comparable websites he can use this information to determine which design is most effective. This is important because if one style is significantly more effective than the other it might be worthwhile to convert all of the banner ads to this style or to make changes which will make the two different styles more similar.
Site Owners with SEO (search engine optimizer): -DOs & DON'Ts
As a search engine optimizer, I've had a great opportunity to work with many site owners for website submission and optimization services and had some working experiences to share with you in this article. Site owners come from different categories: e-commerce sites, services or personal pages. Some of them have the expertise in Computers and Internet but most of them are the neophytes in the search engine optimization (SEO) religion. So, the purpose of this article is providing novice site owners with some useful rules of behaviors (DOs and DON'Ts) to come along with their SEO campaigns.
* SEO firms DON'T help you out. DO help yourself - Search Engine Optimization process is more and more manipulated and it is becoming the big market nowadays. Many websites are offering SEO service with different costs. They promise that customers' sites will be on top of search engines. If so, who will be kicked out of the list? No one? So if you are a site owner with a small budget and modest knowledge of SEO, lean on SEO firm as just an advisor. They cannot do all the things for you. To help you out in SEO, do it yourself. In most cases, the site owners will play an important role in the success of SEO campaigns.
* DON'T submit your sites to thousands of search engines and directories - Simply, in reality, there are not even thousands of "engines" to submit to. There are, however, hundreds of search directories, hybrid search engines, free-for-all (FFA) pages and classified ad sites. They are simply a list of unorganized links to the last fifty or so URLs that were submitted to the service. The primary purpose of these sites is to gather email addresses from Web marketers so they can be sent offers for other products and services. By submitting, you are unknowingly giving your consent for them to email you. Some major search engines (e.g.: Google) are not fond of such link farms and may actively ban this type of site.
* SEO firms DON'T help you out. DO help yourself - Search Engine Optimization process is more and more manipulated and it is becoming the big market nowadays. Many websites are offering SEO service with different costs. They promise that customers' sites will be on top of search engines. If so, who will be kicked out of the list? No one? So if you are a site owner with a small budget and modest knowledge of SEO, lean on SEO firm as just an advisor. They cannot do all the things for you. To help you out in SEO, do it yourself. In most cases, the site owners will play an important role in the success of SEO campaigns.
* DON'T submit your sites to thousands of search engines and directories - Simply, in reality, there are not even thousands of "engines" to submit to. There are, however, hundreds of search directories, hybrid search engines, free-for-all (FFA) pages and classified ad sites. They are simply a list of unorganized links to the last fifty or so URLs that were submitted to the service. The primary purpose of these sites is to gather email addresses from Web marketers so they can be sent offers for other products and services. By submitting, you are unknowingly giving your consent for them to email you. Some major search engines (e.g.: Google) are not fond of such link farms and may actively ban this type of site.
Saturday
Writing Effective Search Engine Optimized Copy for the Web
Writing SEO copy can be like negotiating a minefield. Get it right and your website will attract new customers via search engines and see improved sales. Get it wrong and new customers simply will not find your site. The good news is, there are some simple things you can do that will make all the difference.
As far as the search engines are concerned, they want to find the most relevant content for each user's search. They do this by looking at two things. The first is inbound links, which tell the search engines how important you are. The second is the content, which tells the search engines what you do and how relevant you are for each particular search.
Think Web Pages, not Websites
Google looks at each of your web pages on its own merits, rather than looking at your site as a whole. So, when you are planning the structure of your website, you need to think about your key areas. Make sure that each area has its own page. That way, you can optimize each page for a particular product, offering or benefit.
For example, if your website sells electrical products, divide the site into separate pages for broad areas such as kitchen appliances, then create individual pages within these categories for products such as washing machines and irons.
Keyword Research
It is crucial that you get your keywords right, so rather than guessing, use keyword research. Single keywords tend to have more competition, making it difficult to get good organic search rankings for them, so it is far better to be more specific and choose keyword phrases.
For example, an airline should use 'cheap flights to Malta' rather than 'flights'. This also helps to ensure you get good quality traffic. People are more clued-in these days about search engines and know that more specific keyword phrases are more likely to deliver what they are looking for.
As far as the search engines are concerned, they want to find the most relevant content for each user's search. They do this by looking at two things. The first is inbound links, which tell the search engines how important you are. The second is the content, which tells the search engines what you do and how relevant you are for each particular search.
Think Web Pages, not Websites
Google looks at each of your web pages on its own merits, rather than looking at your site as a whole. So, when you are planning the structure of your website, you need to think about your key areas. Make sure that each area has its own page. That way, you can optimize each page for a particular product, offering or benefit.
For example, if your website sells electrical products, divide the site into separate pages for broad areas such as kitchen appliances, then create individual pages within these categories for products such as washing machines and irons.
Keyword Research
It is crucial that you get your keywords right, so rather than guessing, use keyword research. Single keywords tend to have more competition, making it difficult to get good organic search rankings for them, so it is far better to be more specific and choose keyword phrases.
For example, an airline should use 'cheap flights to Malta' rather than 'flights'. This also helps to ensure you get good quality traffic. People are more clued-in these days about search engines and know that more specific keyword phrases are more likely to deliver what they are looking for.
The Role of Articles in SEO - Achieving Top Rankings in Weeks
You have employed every trick in the SEO handbook but that first page ranking in the search engines has been eluding you. You are about to give up. But before you do, perhaps you may wish to consider taking up article marketing.
First of all, what exactly is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing and submittíng original content to article directories. This is not a new concept. For years, marketers have been publishing content in newsletters, magazines, and other publications to gain exposure for their businesses.
The process starts by submitting an article to an editor. If the content is suitable, the editor publishes the article, and the marketer gets some exposure. The process is then repeated with as many publications as possible. In theory, if each publication brings just one customer, then a hundred publications may bring a hundred customers. A hundred customers may just be what a new start-up is looking for.
On the Internet, the results can be astonishing. There are literally thousands of article directories on the Internet. With each article you submit, you are allowed to include two to three text links in the author resource box. Do note that most directories won't allow you to include links in your article body. So keep them to your author signature.
Every time an article directory publishes an article, the website will experience an immediate surge in traffic. This traffic comes from the subscribed readers. After that, the surge dies down a little. The marketer now waits for the search engines to index and rank the articles. Once the article ranks in the search engines, the marketer will receive a constant stream of traffic from the indexed articles.
In addition, the links in the articles will also give the search rankings of the website a much needed boost. When someone writes and submits articles, the wheels of SEO have already started to turn, whether the marketer is aware of it or not. Each published article carries at least two links, pointing back to the author website. In other words, the author website gets high quality back links from well established authority sites whenever an article is approved for publication. But to achieve high rankings in the search results, you need to execute article marketing in the correct manner.
First of all, what exactly is article marketing? Article marketing is the process of writing and submittíng original content to article directories. This is not a new concept. For years, marketers have been publishing content in newsletters, magazines, and other publications to gain exposure for their businesses.
The process starts by submitting an article to an editor. If the content is suitable, the editor publishes the article, and the marketer gets some exposure. The process is then repeated with as many publications as possible. In theory, if each publication brings just one customer, then a hundred publications may bring a hundred customers. A hundred customers may just be what a new start-up is looking for.
On the Internet, the results can be astonishing. There are literally thousands of article directories on the Internet. With each article you submit, you are allowed to include two to three text links in the author resource box. Do note that most directories won't allow you to include links in your article body. So keep them to your author signature.
Every time an article directory publishes an article, the website will experience an immediate surge in traffic. This traffic comes from the subscribed readers. After that, the surge dies down a little. The marketer now waits for the search engines to index and rank the articles. Once the article ranks in the search engines, the marketer will receive a constant stream of traffic from the indexed articles.
In addition, the links in the articles will also give the search rankings of the website a much needed boost. When someone writes and submits articles, the wheels of SEO have already started to turn, whether the marketer is aware of it or not. Each published article carries at least two links, pointing back to the author website. In other words, the author website gets high quality back links from well established authority sites whenever an article is approved for publication. But to achieve high rankings in the search results, you need to execute article marketing in the correct manner.
Thursday
SEO Results Take Time
There is one important factor to remember whenever you are involved in improving the organic rankings of a website, and that factor is time. One of the most common questions I receive as an SEO is How long till I start to see results? This article is dedicated to anyone who has ever asked that question.
It doesn't matter what industry you are involved in, or what techniques you follow, in all cases you will be a prisoner of time. In the vast majority of cases search engine rankings don't come over night.
Regardless of the scope of the SEO campaign you are undertaking, you will have to wait for results. It doesn't matter if you are undertaking a massive link building & social media campaign combined with extreme content development - you will still have to wait for those results. Just how long you need to wait however, will depend on a large number of factors.
In this article I will discuss some of these factors and give a few scenarios to help you gauge how long you may need to wait to start seeing results.
It doesn't matter what industry you are involved in, or what techniques you follow, in all cases you will be a prisoner of time. In the vast majority of cases search engine rankings don't come over night.
Regardless of the scope of the SEO campaign you are undertaking, you will have to wait for results. It doesn't matter if you are undertaking a massive link building & social media campaign combined with extreme content development - you will still have to wait for those results. Just how long you need to wait however, will depend on a large number of factors.
In this article I will discuss some of these factors and give a few scenarios to help you gauge how long you may need to wait to start seeing results.
The WHY of Search Engine Optimization
There are many articles written on the HOW of SEO, covering the many and varied aspects of the art of improving your site's position in search engine ranking pages (SERPs). While most people have heard the term "search engine optimization" and have a vague appreciation (or apprehension) of the hoped-for outcome, surprisingly few people seem to really understand WHY it is absolutely essential.
That includes a depressing number of website designers, some of whom actually tell their clients that SEO is a waste of time and money, and that it's quite unnecessary these days because Google is smarter than ever before... Au contraire - it becomes more and more critical every day, as website numbers expand exponentially! Lack of knowledge is not confined to website designers, it also includes a number of wanna-be SEO firms who make outrageous claims about their special relationship and affinity with Google etc, but have little idea of what it takes to consistently succeed in attaining Top 30 rankings.
Be very aware that in most cases website design is taught as an Art, not as a Business discipline. Website designers are rarely taught anything about search engine optimization, and few are interested in mastering the skills required to produce optimal results. That's all very fine and dandy - but it leaves a lot of website owners desperately dísappointed in mediocre results! You've probably heard the analogy about building a shop in the middle of a forest too, I bet? Seriously, it really does not matter how beautiful the site is - if no one finds it, then it's just a gorgeous waste of virtual space.
Content is Still King
Regardless of the various conflicting opinions, Google conspiracy theories and misinformation, it comes down to a very simple concept - content quality, and accurate content classification.
Content is where many sites fail dismally! The sites that thrive are those with well written, well organized original, interesting and useful content. Don't copy other peoples stuff. Aside from being illegal, at best it immediately downgrades you to second best... As a general rule, from an SEO perspective, bear in mind the most fundamental issue - Google loathes duplicate content!
Classification
There are literally millíons of websites, each competing for viewers in a particular niche. Reasons for their existence vary across the A to Z spectrum - advertising, entertainment, comedy, educational, humour, informational, music, news, promotional, sports, wine, video, zoos... you get the picture, right?
In the world of books we have the Dewey decimal classification system. Every published work is assigned an ISBN number, and libraries classify all books under a rigid hierarchical subject classification system. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well because every one uses and understands it! Erudite people write insightful book reviews, which are sometimes included in advertising and promotions. Hold this thought, it's relevant to a following section. You want to find a book on a particular topic, or by a specific author, you do a search and Eureka! You've found it, there's a list, even! The best books are reviewed multiple times, and take pride of place in the "best sellers" rack.
Relevancy Ranking
Using different terminology, search engines are trying hard to do the same thing - to give their searchers the most accurate list possible, containing exactly what they want, so they can pick and choose from it! Unfortunately, there is no Dewey classification system on the web. The closest thing to a hierarchical subject listing is the Open Directory, Yahoo, or one of the thousands of other web directories - all of which are inconsistently organized into completely different illogical structures!
So, here we have Google and other search engines trying valiantly to index and categorize the billions of pages on millíons of websites, in hundreds of countries in a multiplicity of languages. Then, they have to calculate each page's relevance to specific search queries...
Are You Helping or Hindering?
That's where YOU come into the picture... It's a big, big task - have you made any effort at all to help Google to help you? Or is your website fuzzy and unfocused, with no clear statement of content or purpose? In most cases, sites are constructed with vague intentions to do SEO as an optional extra sometime in the future... What, you want Google to do everything for you?
Done Any Homework?
Do you have any idea how your primary audience searches for the information, products or services you offer? Do the pages on your site describe your content using terms your clients use? Because that's the only way Google can match searchers with relevant content! What? You actually forgot to do any market research before launching the site? You have no accurate, researched, hard data on the keywords your potential clients would use? You asked your friends at work for ideas? Absolutely incredible!
Let's pretend you're looking for clients for your small bed & breakfast business in Christchurch, New Zealand. You are optimistic that potential customers in New Zealand, Australia and the UK will be able to find your website amongst the millíons of competing B&B pages on the web, be convinced by your persuasive advertising copy and elegant pictures... you'd also like them to come and book directly with you, to avoid hefty commission payments on the dozens of B&B Advertising Directory sites who also want you to pay to advertise! Dream on!
So You Want Google To Work For You?
You'd really like Google et al to help connect your potential clients to your business via Search Engine Results Pages by making your site No.1... And you certainly want "qualified" traffic from Google, visitors who are specifically looking for exactly what you provide!
Anyone who thinks they can survive online without Google, Yahoo and MSN is either a thoroughly well-rounded idiot, or is a household name who does not need to advertise to generate qualified traffic. There is no middle ground.
But here's where it gets hard! How will Google do that? What solid information have you provided Google in your on-site content, and in the off-site links to your site? Have you got a Domain Name which encapsulates your business type and location; Bed-Breakfast-Christchurch.co.nz? Or a cryptic name, like; BnBChChNZ.com? Of the two, which is most likely to give the SE its first clue as to what your site is about?
What is On-Site SEO
Think about it this way... Does your home page have an explicit and accurate Title that provides a direct and unequivocal statement of the site's business purpose in 70 characters? Does the Title say "Bed & Breakfast Accommodation, Christchurch New Zealand" or does it say "Welcome to Dusty Lodge" or something equally asinine?
Does your home page have an explicit and accurate Description that provides a brief outline of your business purpose, unique selling proposition, and call to action, encapsulated in 150 – 200 characters? Or does it contain some vague warm and fuzzy drivel about beaches and sunsets?
Keep the book analogy in your mind, and take a look at your Home page, particularly the first heading and first paragraph... "Welcome to my website" is not a productive approach! What does it tell your visitors about you? It tells me that you are at best naïve and both you and your website designer need SEO counselling! And think about that first paragraph... is it an accurate summary of the site's reason for existence? Eliminate that fruity, cheesy, fluffy verbiage immediately!
If your website is required to deliver a return on investment, particularly by selling products or services, or delivering customer service, informing or entertaining, you really need to accurately describe your website's content, and allow it to become visible online. What's that I hear? Oh, you want it to make you rích as well? But you don't really want to make a serious commitment or effort to do the job properly? Right... good luck with that! And remember that old GIGO acronym - "Garbage In, Garbage Out!"
What is Off-Site SEO?
This may surprise you, but some people are dishonest about their site content. Frankly, some people handle the truth in a very awkward fashion indeed... Telling Google that your site is about Pamela Anderson, when its actually selling Bart Simpson comics, is deuced annoying to the people who visit it! Therefore, Google and other SE's decided long ago that some external verification of every website's content would assist their efforts to deliver the most relevant SERPs to their clients. Makes perfect sense to me...
How is this achieved, I hear you ask. Well, you've heard of links, right? Back to the book analogy - think of good links as being like a series of book reviews! What if lots of people are writing positive things about your site? What if multiple, external, widely distributed sites are all saying that your site is about "Bed & Breakfast Accommodation Christchurch NZ" huh? The balance of probability that your site is relevant to such a search is positively impacted by this external confirmation! A coincidence of keywords in on-site content and off-site links reassures Google immensely! Those keywords in the off-site links are referred to as anchor text, and should form the link title.
No, Its Not Rocket Science
Frankly, search engine optimization, in the pure sense of the term, is not particularly difficult to understand, or to do. The aim of the search engines is to provide their customers with the content most relevant to the search they are making. Therefore, your salvation lies in making your content relevant to the known searches! Do some thorough keyword research, learn and understand your target audience's searching behaviour. Plan pages that target specific, high-volume, low competition search phrases.
Don't be vague, don't waffle, and help Google to help you. When the economic gravy pot is bubbling merrily, and there's ample business gravy slopping over, even the mediocre get a share. But when the economic ice age casts midnight shadows at noon, and credít wolf packs softly pad the empty streets, howling balefully at the waning moon... When you're sucking the last congealed streaks of business gravy off your tarnished spoon... Ask yourself - can you afford your website to be 2nd rate, disorganized and inarticulate, with the Why of SEO ringing in your ears?
Source by: The SEO Guy, aka Ben Kemp
That includes a depressing number of website designers, some of whom actually tell their clients that SEO is a waste of time and money, and that it's quite unnecessary these days because Google is smarter than ever before... Au contraire - it becomes more and more critical every day, as website numbers expand exponentially! Lack of knowledge is not confined to website designers, it also includes a number of wanna-be SEO firms who make outrageous claims about their special relationship and affinity with Google etc, but have little idea of what it takes to consistently succeed in attaining Top 30 rankings.
Be very aware that in most cases website design is taught as an Art, not as a Business discipline. Website designers are rarely taught anything about search engine optimization, and few are interested in mastering the skills required to produce optimal results. That's all very fine and dandy - but it leaves a lot of website owners desperately dísappointed in mediocre results! You've probably heard the analogy about building a shop in the middle of a forest too, I bet? Seriously, it really does not matter how beautiful the site is - if no one finds it, then it's just a gorgeous waste of virtual space.
Content is Still King
Regardless of the various conflicting opinions, Google conspiracy theories and misinformation, it comes down to a very simple concept - content quality, and accurate content classification.
Content is where many sites fail dismally! The sites that thrive are those with well written, well organized original, interesting and useful content. Don't copy other peoples stuff. Aside from being illegal, at best it immediately downgrades you to second best... As a general rule, from an SEO perspective, bear in mind the most fundamental issue - Google loathes duplicate content!
Classification
There are literally millíons of websites, each competing for viewers in a particular niche. Reasons for their existence vary across the A to Z spectrum - advertising, entertainment, comedy, educational, humour, informational, music, news, promotional, sports, wine, video, zoos... you get the picture, right?
In the world of books we have the Dewey decimal classification system. Every published work is assigned an ISBN number, and libraries classify all books under a rigid hierarchical subject classification system. It's not perfect, but it works pretty well because every one uses and understands it! Erudite people write insightful book reviews, which are sometimes included in advertising and promotions. Hold this thought, it's relevant to a following section. You want to find a book on a particular topic, or by a specific author, you do a search and Eureka! You've found it, there's a list, even! The best books are reviewed multiple times, and take pride of place in the "best sellers" rack.
Relevancy Ranking
Using different terminology, search engines are trying hard to do the same thing - to give their searchers the most accurate list possible, containing exactly what they want, so they can pick and choose from it! Unfortunately, there is no Dewey classification system on the web. The closest thing to a hierarchical subject listing is the Open Directory, Yahoo, or one of the thousands of other web directories - all of which are inconsistently organized into completely different illogical structures!
So, here we have Google and other search engines trying valiantly to index and categorize the billions of pages on millíons of websites, in hundreds of countries in a multiplicity of languages. Then, they have to calculate each page's relevance to specific search queries...
Are You Helping or Hindering?
That's where YOU come into the picture... It's a big, big task - have you made any effort at all to help Google to help you? Or is your website fuzzy and unfocused, with no clear statement of content or purpose? In most cases, sites are constructed with vague intentions to do SEO as an optional extra sometime in the future... What, you want Google to do everything for you?
Done Any Homework?
Do you have any idea how your primary audience searches for the information, products or services you offer? Do the pages on your site describe your content using terms your clients use? Because that's the only way Google can match searchers with relevant content! What? You actually forgot to do any market research before launching the site? You have no accurate, researched, hard data on the keywords your potential clients would use? You asked your friends at work for ideas? Absolutely incredible!
Let's pretend you're looking for clients for your small bed & breakfast business in Christchurch, New Zealand. You are optimistic that potential customers in New Zealand, Australia and the UK will be able to find your website amongst the millíons of competing B&B pages on the web, be convinced by your persuasive advertising copy and elegant pictures... you'd also like them to come and book directly with you, to avoid hefty commission payments on the dozens of B&B Advertising Directory sites who also want you to pay to advertise! Dream on!
So You Want Google To Work For You?
You'd really like Google et al to help connect your potential clients to your business via Search Engine Results Pages by making your site No.1... And you certainly want "qualified" traffic from Google, visitors who are specifically looking for exactly what you provide!
Anyone who thinks they can survive online without Google, Yahoo and MSN is either a thoroughly well-rounded idiot, or is a household name who does not need to advertise to generate qualified traffic. There is no middle ground.
But here's where it gets hard! How will Google do that? What solid information have you provided Google in your on-site content, and in the off-site links to your site? Have you got a Domain Name which encapsulates your business type and location; Bed-Breakfast-Christchurch.co.nz? Or a cryptic name, like; BnBChChNZ.com? Of the two, which is most likely to give the SE its first clue as to what your site is about?
What is On-Site SEO
Think about it this way... Does your home page have an explicit and accurate Title that provides a direct and unequivocal statement of the site's business purpose in 70 characters? Does the Title say "Bed & Breakfast Accommodation, Christchurch New Zealand" or does it say "Welcome to Dusty Lodge" or something equally asinine?
Does your home page have an explicit and accurate Description that provides a brief outline of your business purpose, unique selling proposition, and call to action, encapsulated in 150 – 200 characters? Or does it contain some vague warm and fuzzy drivel about beaches and sunsets?
Keep the book analogy in your mind, and take a look at your Home page, particularly the first heading and first paragraph... "Welcome to my website" is not a productive approach! What does it tell your visitors about you? It tells me that you are at best naïve and both you and your website designer need SEO counselling! And think about that first paragraph... is it an accurate summary of the site's reason for existence? Eliminate that fruity, cheesy, fluffy verbiage immediately!
If your website is required to deliver a return on investment, particularly by selling products or services, or delivering customer service, informing or entertaining, you really need to accurately describe your website's content, and allow it to become visible online. What's that I hear? Oh, you want it to make you rích as well? But you don't really want to make a serious commitment or effort to do the job properly? Right... good luck with that! And remember that old GIGO acronym - "Garbage In, Garbage Out!"
What is Off-Site SEO?
This may surprise you, but some people are dishonest about their site content. Frankly, some people handle the truth in a very awkward fashion indeed... Telling Google that your site is about Pamela Anderson, when its actually selling Bart Simpson comics, is deuced annoying to the people who visit it! Therefore, Google and other SE's decided long ago that some external verification of every website's content would assist their efforts to deliver the most relevant SERPs to their clients. Makes perfect sense to me...
How is this achieved, I hear you ask. Well, you've heard of links, right? Back to the book analogy - think of good links as being like a series of book reviews! What if lots of people are writing positive things about your site? What if multiple, external, widely distributed sites are all saying that your site is about "Bed & Breakfast Accommodation Christchurch NZ" huh? The balance of probability that your site is relevant to such a search is positively impacted by this external confirmation! A coincidence of keywords in on-site content and off-site links reassures Google immensely! Those keywords in the off-site links are referred to as anchor text, and should form the link title.
No, Its Not Rocket Science
Frankly, search engine optimization, in the pure sense of the term, is not particularly difficult to understand, or to do. The aim of the search engines is to provide their customers with the content most relevant to the search they are making. Therefore, your salvation lies in making your content relevant to the known searches! Do some thorough keyword research, learn and understand your target audience's searching behaviour. Plan pages that target specific, high-volume, low competition search phrases.
Don't be vague, don't waffle, and help Google to help you. When the economic gravy pot is bubbling merrily, and there's ample business gravy slopping over, even the mediocre get a share. But when the economic ice age casts midnight shadows at noon, and credít wolf packs softly pad the empty streets, howling balefully at the waning moon... When you're sucking the last congealed streaks of business gravy off your tarnished spoon... Ask yourself - can you afford your website to be 2nd rate, disorganized and inarticulate, with the Why of SEO ringing in your ears?
Source by: The SEO Guy, aka Ben Kemp
How to Create a Bad Website and Frustrate Your Visitors
If you're a sadistic kind of webmaster or website owner and have a burning desire to royally frustrate and anger your site visitors each and every time they visit your site, these three lists are just for you. If you want to have a terrible website that looks bad, works horribly and breaks fundamental marketing rules, read on.
First let me explain why there are three lists. One way to look at any website is to break it up into three equally important segments; design, technical and marketing. In other words, every site on the Web contains these three components.
They all have a design or look and feel (design), they all have to be on a server and coded properly to be live on the Internet (technical) and they all have ways in which they attract visitors and make sales (marketing).
Let's look at the top ten ways in which you can annoy your website visitors and basically fail miserably at the whole website endeavor in each of the three segments. The following is a líst, broken up into the three categories, defining exactly what NOT to do.
Top 10 Web Design Mistakes:
1. Not using Web conventions, instead use crazy and wacky formats that no one's ever seen and no one can understand.
2. Writing trite, predictable, boring or copied content only and not updating your site.
3. Creating totally different and unique navigation for every page so that your visitors need to waste time re-learning your navigation every time they go to a new page. Also creating totally different look & feels for every page so that your visitors don't know if they're on the same site or clicked away.
4. Using confusing, obfuscated and mysterious labels for all your links and buttons so that no one ever has any idea where they're going if they click. The more confusing, the better.
5. Making it impossible to search the site. Offering no search box, no site map and basically no possible way to find anything on your website.
6. Including content that only talks about you. Not mentioning anything about your visitors or how you can help them, just talk about you and your history and all your achievements. Including a big picture of you and your office building right on the home page.
7. Including only poorly-written copy with lots of grammar mistakes, and ubiquitous, curious and horrendous spelling and punctuation mistakes throughout your site.
8. Not including any text. Making every page on your site one big picture. So for instance, on your home page have one giant picture of you and your office building and have no text so search engines can't see your site at all.
9. Using buttons for your navigation only, or use complicated JavaScript drop down menus that complicate your site's navigation. Either way, if you do this and include no text links, the search engines won't be able to spider (navigate and record) your website.
10. Making your site as difficult to read as possible. Use teeny, tiny fonts that are hard to read against some funky-colored background. For instance, use blue fonts on a black background.
Top 10 Technical Mistakes:
1. Making your website take forever to load in people's browsers. The longer the better.
2. Making it so that your site looks completely different on everybody's computer. So for Macs your site looks one way, and for PCs it looks another way. Or having it look totally different in Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.
3. Making it so that any functionality on the site is confusing to figure out and works improperly and inconsistently every time it's used.
4. Including lots of broken links and missing images throughout.
5. Setting it up so that it regularly crashes. For example, if more than three people are visiting the site at the same time, the home page becomes inaccessible.
6. Has no form validation. Allowing visitors to enter any thing under the sun into your website forms. Maybe some smart hacker-types will enter executable code that corrupts or takes over your server.
7. Making all your site visitors have to download and install lots of plug-ins to view your site properly. If they don't, too bad.
8. Telling people that they have to view your site in a specific browser and browser version only.
9. Making it so that there are tons of pop-ups, moving newsletter sign-up boxes, running videos, animations and Flash movies that take forever to download before you can view the site.
10. Using lots of frames.
Top Ten E-Marketing Mistakes:
1. Making your website completely bounce-friendly. In other words, make it 'un-sticky' so that when people arrive on one of your pages, they leave immediately.
2. Including no calls to action so that your site doesn't ever ask your website visitors to do a thing. Making it so that every page is a dead end that leaves your visitors scratching their heads and then clicking away.
3. Does absolutely nothing to build your brand.
4. Has no terms or policies page.
5. Evoke no emotions. Making your site flat, boring, gray, dull and forgettable.
6. Making sure there is no way for anyone who visits your site to sign up for anything or give you their contact info or email address. Certainly don't use your site to build any kind of email líst.
7. Converting absolutely no one who visits your site into a paying customer. Ever.
8. Including no phone number, email and absolutely no other way to contact you. Hide behind your website.
9. Not using any kind of an analytics program like Google Analytics or Web Trends and not measuring or even looking at your website activity.
10. Making it so that search engine can't read your site and make it so that people can't really read your site either.
Follow these three lists perfectly and you'll be well on your way to having a bad and useless website and frustrating and angering everyone who visits.
Source by:
Jason OConnor owns and operates Oak Web Works, LLC, www.jasonoconnor.com and writes a periodic, free web design and marketing newsletter www.thenetgazette.net .
First let me explain why there are three lists. One way to look at any website is to break it up into three equally important segments; design, technical and marketing. In other words, every site on the Web contains these three components.
They all have a design or look and feel (design), they all have to be on a server and coded properly to be live on the Internet (technical) and they all have ways in which they attract visitors and make sales (marketing).
Let's look at the top ten ways in which you can annoy your website visitors and basically fail miserably at the whole website endeavor in each of the three segments. The following is a líst, broken up into the three categories, defining exactly what NOT to do.
Top 10 Web Design Mistakes:
1. Not using Web conventions, instead use crazy and wacky formats that no one's ever seen and no one can understand.
2. Writing trite, predictable, boring or copied content only and not updating your site.
3. Creating totally different and unique navigation for every page so that your visitors need to waste time re-learning your navigation every time they go to a new page. Also creating totally different look & feels for every page so that your visitors don't know if they're on the same site or clicked away.
4. Using confusing, obfuscated and mysterious labels for all your links and buttons so that no one ever has any idea where they're going if they click. The more confusing, the better.
5. Making it impossible to search the site. Offering no search box, no site map and basically no possible way to find anything on your website.
6. Including content that only talks about you. Not mentioning anything about your visitors or how you can help them, just talk about you and your history and all your achievements. Including a big picture of you and your office building right on the home page.
7. Including only poorly-written copy with lots of grammar mistakes, and ubiquitous, curious and horrendous spelling and punctuation mistakes throughout your site.
8. Not including any text. Making every page on your site one big picture. So for instance, on your home page have one giant picture of you and your office building and have no text so search engines can't see your site at all.
9. Using buttons for your navigation only, or use complicated JavaScript drop down menus that complicate your site's navigation. Either way, if you do this and include no text links, the search engines won't be able to spider (navigate and record) your website.
10. Making your site as difficult to read as possible. Use teeny, tiny fonts that are hard to read against some funky-colored background. For instance, use blue fonts on a black background.
Top 10 Technical Mistakes:
1. Making your website take forever to load in people's browsers. The longer the better.
2. Making it so that your site looks completely different on everybody's computer. So for Macs your site looks one way, and for PCs it looks another way. Or having it look totally different in Internet Explorer, Chrome and Firefox.
3. Making it so that any functionality on the site is confusing to figure out and works improperly and inconsistently every time it's used.
4. Including lots of broken links and missing images throughout.
5. Setting it up so that it regularly crashes. For example, if more than three people are visiting the site at the same time, the home page becomes inaccessible.
6. Has no form validation. Allowing visitors to enter any thing under the sun into your website forms. Maybe some smart hacker-types will enter executable code that corrupts or takes over your server.
7. Making all your site visitors have to download and install lots of plug-ins to view your site properly. If they don't, too bad.
8. Telling people that they have to view your site in a specific browser and browser version only.
9. Making it so that there are tons of pop-ups, moving newsletter sign-up boxes, running videos, animations and Flash movies that take forever to download before you can view the site.
10. Using lots of frames.
Top Ten E-Marketing Mistakes:
1. Making your website completely bounce-friendly. In other words, make it 'un-sticky' so that when people arrive on one of your pages, they leave immediately.
2. Including no calls to action so that your site doesn't ever ask your website visitors to do a thing. Making it so that every page is a dead end that leaves your visitors scratching their heads and then clicking away.
3. Does absolutely nothing to build your brand.
4. Has no terms or policies page.
5. Evoke no emotions. Making your site flat, boring, gray, dull and forgettable.
6. Making sure there is no way for anyone who visits your site to sign up for anything or give you their contact info or email address. Certainly don't use your site to build any kind of email líst.
7. Converting absolutely no one who visits your site into a paying customer. Ever.
8. Including no phone number, email and absolutely no other way to contact you. Hide behind your website.
9. Not using any kind of an analytics program like Google Analytics or Web Trends and not measuring or even looking at your website activity.
10. Making it so that search engine can't read your site and make it so that people can't really read your site either.
Follow these three lists perfectly and you'll be well on your way to having a bad and useless website and frustrating and angering everyone who visits.
Source by:
Jason OConnor owns and operates Oak Web Works, LLC, www.jasonoconnor.com and writes a periodic, free web design and marketing newsletter www.thenetgazette.net .
Quick and Easy Keyword Research for More Traffíc
To get visitors to your webpage you really need to know what keywords people will type into the search engines to find the service or product your specific site or webpage offers.
Before you say "Oh no, not another keyword research article", let me just say you will learn exactly how to quickly and easily do keyword research and even create SEO friendly pages based on keywords you find.
Clearly one of the most beneficial ways to generate more traffíc to your site is to create backlinks to it. Backlinks from relevant sites helps to boost your page rank and can even get your website, or a particular webpage, showing on the first pages of a Google search for that keyword.
Now you don't want just any old backlinks but ones that contain specific keywords you have optimized a particular page, blog or website for.
Lets say your website is about "dog training". A common and highly sought after keyword, but one that a new or even established site is going to find hard to be ranked high for.
Now we all know that trying to get a webpage ranked in Google for one of the primary search terms is a real challenge. Those keywords are in effect, out of the range of most marketers, both in time and money resources to try to rank for.
So the best possible way to raise search results and rank in your niche is to select secondary keywords that still get a lot of searches but don't eliminate you from the possibility for ranking for them.
Stick with me here because this isn't as hard as you were perhaps ** lead ** to believe.
Now the first thing you should do is to narrow down the keyword(s) that you want to build or optimize a webpage for. You can do this very easily by going to the following website SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and typing in a primary keyword in the search box.
In the results that show, you are going to get a good líst of the highest searched for keywords related to the primary keyword you entered in the search box. You will also find a lot more information presented that can really help you narrow down your selection. You are looking for phrases that contain part or all of the primary keyword that you started your search with.
The next thing you must do is determine what keywords are being used successfully to market products, services or websites online. To do this, I suggest you use the Google Adwords search term tool.
You can simply copy and paste a keyword from the líst into the form, hit enter and get a listing of keywords based on the one you input and also provide a líst of additional keywords to consider that expands the possibilities even further.
Most importantly you will see a listing of keywords followed by a box filled in with the color green.
At this point, my suggestion to you is that you choose a keyword that has good monthly search quantity but whose box [colored in green] is only about half or less green. Less green means there is less competition for that particular keyword phrase.
Now we want to measure the link building competition for a keyword in Google's search engine by selecting a keyword from the above líst and placing the phrase in the Google search box using the specific search operator: inanchor:"your keyword goes here"
Being that we are narrowing our keyword to a specific one you want to be sure to include the quotation marks before and after the keyword. If you use the inanchor operator without the quotation marks, it will give results for every page that contains every word in the phrase you entered individually or together, instead of the specific phrase, and doesn't narrow the pages down to relevant ones that you would be directly competing for on that particular keyword phrase.
Using the inanchor operator with the quotation marks will show the results (pages or links) shown (at top right of page) that contain the exact keyword phrase. These are sites already using that "keyword search term" on their webpages.
Note: you can find a full description of all google search operators at: GoogleGuide.com
After you find a suitable keyword with good search volume and minimal competition and build a webpage around it, you can begin creating backlinks to that page using several resources. Your backlinks should be from high traffic sites because they usually get spidered for new information regularly by the search engines looking for new content and links.
Here are some suggestions:
* Post to forums with your sig file containing the link to your webpage
* Leave a comment on blogs
* Write and submit articles
Be sure that somewhere you include the specific search term that you have optimized your webpage for and the link to that specific page.
Is there an easier way to create backlinks without having to spend hours and hours of your time doing it?
Yes, there are automated sites and systems to help with creating backlinks. Just be sure the systems mesh with your needs and don't send up red flags to the search engines.
Before you say "Oh no, not another keyword research article", let me just say you will learn exactly how to quickly and easily do keyword research and even create SEO friendly pages based on keywords you find.
Clearly one of the most beneficial ways to generate more traffíc to your site is to create backlinks to it. Backlinks from relevant sites helps to boost your page rank and can even get your website, or a particular webpage, showing on the first pages of a Google search for that keyword.
Now you don't want just any old backlinks but ones that contain specific keywords you have optimized a particular page, blog or website for.
Lets say your website is about "dog training". A common and highly sought after keyword, but one that a new or even established site is going to find hard to be ranked high for.
Now we all know that trying to get a webpage ranked in Google for one of the primary search terms is a real challenge. Those keywords are in effect, out of the range of most marketers, both in time and money resources to try to rank for.
So the best possible way to raise search results and rank in your niche is to select secondary keywords that still get a lot of searches but don't eliminate you from the possibility for ranking for them.
Stick with me here because this isn't as hard as you were perhaps ** lead ** to believe.
Now the first thing you should do is to narrow down the keyword(s) that you want to build or optimize a webpage for. You can do this very easily by going to the following website SEO Book Keyword Suggestion Tool and typing in a primary keyword in the search box.
In the results that show, you are going to get a good líst of the highest searched for keywords related to the primary keyword you entered in the search box. You will also find a lot more information presented that can really help you narrow down your selection. You are looking for phrases that contain part or all of the primary keyword that you started your search with.
The next thing you must do is determine what keywords are being used successfully to market products, services or websites online. To do this, I suggest you use the Google Adwords search term tool.
You can simply copy and paste a keyword from the líst into the form, hit enter and get a listing of keywords based on the one you input and also provide a líst of additional keywords to consider that expands the possibilities even further.
Most importantly you will see a listing of keywords followed by a box filled in with the color green.
At this point, my suggestion to you is that you choose a keyword that has good monthly search quantity but whose box [colored in green] is only about half or less green. Less green means there is less competition for that particular keyword phrase.
Now we want to measure the link building competition for a keyword in Google's search engine by selecting a keyword from the above líst and placing the phrase in the Google search box using the specific search operator: inanchor:"your keyword goes here"
Being that we are narrowing our keyword to a specific one you want to be sure to include the quotation marks before and after the keyword. If you use the inanchor operator without the quotation marks, it will give results for every page that contains every word in the phrase you entered individually or together, instead of the specific phrase, and doesn't narrow the pages down to relevant ones that you would be directly competing for on that particular keyword phrase.
Using the inanchor operator with the quotation marks will show the results (pages or links) shown (at top right of page) that contain the exact keyword phrase. These are sites already using that "keyword search term" on their webpages.
Note: you can find a full description of all google search operators at: GoogleGuide.com
After you find a suitable keyword with good search volume and minimal competition and build a webpage around it, you can begin creating backlinks to that page using several resources. Your backlinks should be from high traffic sites because they usually get spidered for new information regularly by the search engines looking for new content and links.
Here are some suggestions:
* Post to forums with your sig file containing the link to your webpage
* Leave a comment on blogs
* Write and submit articles
Be sure that somewhere you include the specific search term that you have optimized your webpage for and the link to that specific page.
Is there an easier way to create backlinks without having to spend hours and hours of your time doing it?
Yes, there are automated sites and systems to help with creating backlinks. Just be sure the systems mesh with your needs and don't send up red flags to the search engines.
Using Keywords as Part of Your Internet Marketing Strategy
Whether your internet marketing strategy utilizes websites, blogs, article marketing or press releases correctly using keywords is an absolute must.
Anyone involved in an online business will tell you their marketing efforts are dramatically reduced if they haven't optimized their published content correctly with the right keywords.
Keyword optimization is a very integral component of an effective online marketing strategy.
The proper keyword optimization of content helps anyone searching for information like yours to easily find it. Done correctly and you'll be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results. The manner in which you use keywords within your content will make or break you in the search engine rankings. A low search engine ranking will make you virtually invisible to anyone searching for content like yours.
Search engines rely heavily on keywords to accurately identify and rank sites found on the internet for people searching for the content that these sites contain. Under or over utilizing keywords will only hurt the ranking of the site giving it a very weak showing in any search results.
There are 3 areas of focus you'll need to be concerned with to correctly utilize keywords within your content. By doing so you'll gain the favor of the search engines and also quite a bit more traffic to your site.
Let's discuss these 3 important areas of keyword optimization below:
ACCURACY
Any keywords you select to use should be relevant to the content itself. Search engines are very strict about this and will bury you in the search results if they feel your keyword selection doesn't reflect the content. When people search keywords on the internet they're expecting to find information directly related to the words they are searching on. Search engines for their part want to insure that people using their search engine find what it is they're looking for.
POSITIONING
Another factor to be considered when using keywords is the placement of these words within the content itself. For instance it is recommended to use keywords in the title of your content when you can. Even within the title it is better to place the selected word or phrase at the title beginning if at all possible. Again you must remember that these keywords must accurately describe, reflect, or relate to the content within.
Another consideration is to place your primary keyword at the beginning and the end of the body of content you're performing the keyword optimization on. Additional theme keywords should be used conservatively thru out the content when their use makes grammatical sense.
FREQUENCY
Here's an area where some people may have a tendency to get carried away. In an attempt to gain the attention of search engines some may overuse their selected keywords throughout the content. Keyword 'stuffing' as this is known is frowned upon by search engines as a deliberate attempt to gain higher search rankings. Search engines discourage this by penalizing you with a lower search engine ranking.
Opinions vary on what is the right percentage of keywords to use within the content that will maximize your optimization efforts while avoiding penalties. Generally any keyword usage between 2 and 5 percent of the total body of content is considered safe. A free keyword density tool you can use online to check your content can be found at live-keyword-analysis.
Always remember to use your selected words in a natural way within the body of your content since you're writing for the reader and not the search engine. So before you hit the 'submit' bottom proof-read your work to ensure it reads like a human wrote it and not some cyborg.
Proper keyword placement and utilization is almost always at the core of any successful internet marketing strategy. Thru the correct implementation of this online marketing technique you will increase your search rankings thereby boosting the awareness of your online presence. Whatever your reasons for being online may be, if you're looking to boost your traffic this is one of the most effective and fundamental ways to achieve that!
Source by :
TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For additional online success tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://blogbrawn.com.
Anyone involved in an online business will tell you their marketing efforts are dramatically reduced if they haven't optimized their published content correctly with the right keywords.
Keyword optimization is a very integral component of an effective online marketing strategy.
The proper keyword optimization of content helps anyone searching for information like yours to easily find it. Done correctly and you'll be rewarded with a higher ranking in the search results. The manner in which you use keywords within your content will make or break you in the search engine rankings. A low search engine ranking will make you virtually invisible to anyone searching for content like yours.
Search engines rely heavily on keywords to accurately identify and rank sites found on the internet for people searching for the content that these sites contain. Under or over utilizing keywords will only hurt the ranking of the site giving it a very weak showing in any search results.
There are 3 areas of focus you'll need to be concerned with to correctly utilize keywords within your content. By doing so you'll gain the favor of the search engines and also quite a bit more traffic to your site.
Let's discuss these 3 important areas of keyword optimization below:
ACCURACY
Any keywords you select to use should be relevant to the content itself. Search engines are very strict about this and will bury you in the search results if they feel your keyword selection doesn't reflect the content. When people search keywords on the internet they're expecting to find information directly related to the words they are searching on. Search engines for their part want to insure that people using their search engine find what it is they're looking for.
POSITIONING
Another factor to be considered when using keywords is the placement of these words within the content itself. For instance it is recommended to use keywords in the title of your content when you can. Even within the title it is better to place the selected word or phrase at the title beginning if at all possible. Again you must remember that these keywords must accurately describe, reflect, or relate to the content within.
Another consideration is to place your primary keyword at the beginning and the end of the body of content you're performing the keyword optimization on. Additional theme keywords should be used conservatively thru out the content when their use makes grammatical sense.
FREQUENCY
Here's an area where some people may have a tendency to get carried away. In an attempt to gain the attention of search engines some may overuse their selected keywords throughout the content. Keyword 'stuffing' as this is known is frowned upon by search engines as a deliberate attempt to gain higher search rankings. Search engines discourage this by penalizing you with a lower search engine ranking.
Opinions vary on what is the right percentage of keywords to use within the content that will maximize your optimization efforts while avoiding penalties. Generally any keyword usage between 2 and 5 percent of the total body of content is considered safe. A free keyword density tool you can use online to check your content can be found at live-keyword-analysis.
Always remember to use your selected words in a natural way within the body of your content since you're writing for the reader and not the search engine. So before you hit the 'submit' bottom proof-read your work to ensure it reads like a human wrote it and not some cyborg.
Proper keyword placement and utilization is almost always at the core of any successful internet marketing strategy. Thru the correct implementation of this online marketing technique you will increase your search rankings thereby boosting the awareness of your online presence. Whatever your reasons for being online may be, if you're looking to boost your traffic this is one of the most effective and fundamental ways to achieve that!
Source by :
TJ Philpott is an author and Internet entrepreneur based out of North Carolina. For additional online success tips and a free guide that demonstrates how to find both profitable markets and products visit: http://blogbrawn.com.
Search Engine Optimization and the Three-way Benefit
Who benefits from using Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Everyone.
Let me explain.
It can be easy for business owners to look at SEO as an attractive means of improving their position with search engines. This can be a great long-term strategy that really works well for online business, but the benefits don't stop there.
Your diligence in SEO also benefits the search engines. That's right. The search engines place a lot of stock in the best websites available. They want consumers relying on search engine results.
If you are not diligent in SEO techniques you run the risk of placing the search engines at a disadvantage by passing on higher rankings to sites that may be inferior to yours.
When you concentrate on learning the skills of SEO you are also improving your position with customers who can benefit from your site. When you focus on SEO you are fine tuning your site to assist the consumer in locating the best content, products and services related to their original search query.
Some may think that SEO provides an unfair advantage, but the truth is it actually provides the best direction signs allowing consumers to find what they are looking for.
Look at virtually any large retailer. They will place strategic signs around their store to allow customers the best chance of finding the products they are looking for. They delineate the store into aisle numbers that allow customers to make return visits in comfort knowing they can find what they need every time they visit.
This is the thinking behind SEO. It becomes a store map and directory all in one. Customers can easily find you and the attention to detail can help consumers locate exactly what they need.
Search Engine Optimization shouldn't be thought of simply in terms of a novel approach to advertising - it is by far the least expensive way to develop ecommerce. Even if the personal motive for SEO is selfish the result is a three-way benefit that goes beyond your personal motivation.
You should know that the role of SEO is dependent on fresh content. The growth of your site will be assisted by new articles that adhere to your SEO strategies. This content is what consumers look for in sites they plan to visit more than once.
Let's face it, if your website looks like a billboard it is entirely likely you won't find people intentionally surfing the information superhighway to rediscover your billboard. They want to know more and they will place more trust in sites that provide that 'something extra' even if the consumer has no immediate intention of buying.
SEO is not some magical formula that automatically places your site at the top of the pack; it is simply the best way to gain an ally in companies that can help you the most in driving consumers to your site.
Search engines want you to succeed, but they can't force you to learn the skills. They can simply make it advantageous for you to do so.
Source by :
Scott Lindsay - Now you can make a website incredibly fast at HighPowerSites.com. Start a home business and be an, Ebook Reseller at BooksWealth.com.
Everyone.
Let me explain.
It can be easy for business owners to look at SEO as an attractive means of improving their position with search engines. This can be a great long-term strategy that really works well for online business, but the benefits don't stop there.
Your diligence in SEO also benefits the search engines. That's right. The search engines place a lot of stock in the best websites available. They want consumers relying on search engine results.
If you are not diligent in SEO techniques you run the risk of placing the search engines at a disadvantage by passing on higher rankings to sites that may be inferior to yours.
When you concentrate on learning the skills of SEO you are also improving your position with customers who can benefit from your site. When you focus on SEO you are fine tuning your site to assist the consumer in locating the best content, products and services related to their original search query.
Some may think that SEO provides an unfair advantage, but the truth is it actually provides the best direction signs allowing consumers to find what they are looking for.
Look at virtually any large retailer. They will place strategic signs around their store to allow customers the best chance of finding the products they are looking for. They delineate the store into aisle numbers that allow customers to make return visits in comfort knowing they can find what they need every time they visit.
This is the thinking behind SEO. It becomes a store map and directory all in one. Customers can easily find you and the attention to detail can help consumers locate exactly what they need.
Search Engine Optimization shouldn't be thought of simply in terms of a novel approach to advertising - it is by far the least expensive way to develop ecommerce. Even if the personal motive for SEO is selfish the result is a three-way benefit that goes beyond your personal motivation.
You should know that the role of SEO is dependent on fresh content. The growth of your site will be assisted by new articles that adhere to your SEO strategies. This content is what consumers look for in sites they plan to visit more than once.
Let's face it, if your website looks like a billboard it is entirely likely you won't find people intentionally surfing the information superhighway to rediscover your billboard. They want to know more and they will place more trust in sites that provide that 'something extra' even if the consumer has no immediate intention of buying.
SEO is not some magical formula that automatically places your site at the top of the pack; it is simply the best way to gain an ally in companies that can help you the most in driving consumers to your site.
Search engines want you to succeed, but they can't force you to learn the skills. They can simply make it advantageous for you to do so.
Source by :
Scott Lindsay - Now you can make a website incredibly fast at HighPowerSites.com. Start a home business and be an, Ebook Reseller at BooksWealth.com.
Seven Words That Will Make Your Website Worth Viewing
Seven. It's just a number like any other, but it does seem to come up on a fairly regular basis. There's the Seven Wonders of the World, The Seven Deadly Sins, and the Seven Dwarfs: Happy, Sneezy, Sleepy, Bashful, Doc, Dopey, and my personal favorite, Grumpy.
Phone numbers are seven digits, and they say the optimum brand name should be no more than seven letters long. Seven it seems is a magical number, as the average human brain can only grasp seven things at a time. Interesting, my wife says I've got trouble with two, never mind seven, but that's another story.
So I've been thinking, what are the seven most important words associated with Web-marketing. I'll give you a hint: Search, Engine, and Optimization don't make the cut.
So what words do make the líst? What are the seven words that will make your website worth viewing?
Words Can Move You
By someone's count there are 171,476 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, plus another 47,156 words that have fallen out of favor. This of course doesn't count the 9,500 additional permutations, that don't deserve their own special attention.
Fifty percent of these words are nouns, twenty-five percent are adjectives, and 14.285% are verbs, with the rest made up of all those other things, the purpose of which most of us have long since forgotten.
Others may find fault with these numbers, but no matter what the total, it's a lot of words. Of the several hundred thousand words to choose from, the average person recognizes less than ten percent, while the average teenager seems to only be able to handle about half that amount; of course that doesn't count slang, instant messaging jargon, or the ever-popular four-letter variety.
Why the heck are there so many words if we all refuse to use them. I mean why waste all those perfectly good words on English teachers and college professors. By the way, they say swearing is the refuge of the feeble-minded, people who can't express themselves in a more articulate manner, but to be honest, I really don't give a damn.
Here's the thing, words have meaning and impact, and they provide the emotional context of our communications, to which we can add subtlety and nuance through their delivery by means of tone, cadence, and gesture.
So as important as words are, the way they are delivered is even more important.
What Website Design Is Really About
The other day I was listening to a local all-news radio station. It is mostly rip-and-read wire service stuff that they repeat over-and-over like some kind of psychological torture, but they do provide traffic reports on a nauseatingly regular basis. You only have to wait ten minutes until they repeat everything, so if you want to hear what traffic snafus to avoid just wait a few minutes; but here's the problem: the announcers talk so fast that no matter how hard you concentrate, you can't quite get the particular information you need; and if you're driving, you have other things to consider, like the idiot in the Hummer who just cut you off.
None of these guys ever uses a period, let alone a semicolon or comma. Either they have very small bladders and are under pressure to finish quickly, or they're late for their afternoon pilates class. They seem so intent on rushing to the commercials that they don't ever deliver the content in an appropriate manner. And your website just might have the same problem.
Too much information is as bad as not enough. Information overkill leads to information anxiety, buyer's remorse, reduced satisfaction, unattainable expectations, and purchase-decision paralysis.
Website owners have been told that visitors won't wait for anything, that they are impatient, and you've got to get to the point fast, make the pitch and close the deal; well that just isn't going to work with any sophisticated product or service.
Your website presentation needs to slow people down so they hear what you have to say, and you have to say something worth hearing.
Website design is about more than layout, markup language, and technical wizardry. Website design is about communication, it's about turning advertising into content, and content into an experience that viewers will remember.
Seven Words To Remember
1. Communication
People are always asking us what's wrong with their websites, and the answer in the vast majority of cases can be summed-up in a quote from the movie, "Cool Hand Luke" (1967): "what we have here is a failure to communicate." Communication is the key to success, and that doesn't just apply to your website, it applies to almost everything you do both inside and outside your business-life.
If your website isn't communicating on both a rational and emotional level, if it doesn't provide the psychological and emotional context of your marketing message, then exactly what is it doing?
2. Audience
I can't think of too many people who actually like being sold. In fact, sometimes customers get so irritated by sales tactics that they end up not buying the thing they came specifically to your website to purchase.
Solving the problem is merely a question of altering your perspective; the average buyer is predisposed to dismiss and ignore high-pressure tactics, and meaningless sales pitches. So instead of treating customers like customers, try treating them like an audience. Audiences want to be engaged, enlightened, and entertained. And that is the most effective way to make a sales impact.
3. Focus
All too often websites inundate their Web audiences with facts, figures, statistics, and an endless líst of features, benefits, options, and whatever else the sales department can think of throwing in. All that stuff just confuses people.
Focus your message on the most important elements of what you have to say. If your website can embed that singular idea in an audience's mind, then it has done its job.
4. Language
The words used, and how they are put together provides meaning; they inform personality; they provide mental sound bites; and they make whatever you are saying, worth remembering.
Language is one of the critical elements of 'voice', the ability to convey personality; and writing without a 'voice' is instantly forgettable.
5. Performance
Even the most articulate prose can be lost in a befuddled delivery. Communication is more than words; it's a combination of language, style, personality, and performance.
Things are rarely what they seem. Even our memories are a stylized version of what we've actually experienced. Creating a memorable impression is about managing the viewer experience, and providing the right verbal and non-verbal cues that make what is being said memorable.
6. Personality
Every business has a personality. The first problem is, few medium-sized companies ever attempt to manage that persona, and as a consequence, the buying public forms its own opinion. And that opinion is often not the way you want to be regarded.
The second problem is companies either don't have a firm grasp of who they really are, or they know, and they are afraid to promote it. If your company's identity isn't worth promoting, it is time to think why that is, and change it. The bottom line is, a company without a personality is a company without an image, and that makes you instantly forgettable.
7. Psychology
The most important feature you can provide your audience is psychological fulfillment, not deep discounts, fast service, or more bells and whistles.
The real reason people buy stuff is that it makes them feel something. Cosmetics make women feel attractive or sexy, while cars make men feel they've achieved some level of status. Even services make people feel important, as in "I've got a guy, who does that for me." Finding the psychological hot spot in your marketing, and promoting the hell out of it consistently and continually should be your primary marketing goal. All those features and benefits are merely the excuse for a purchase, not the reason.
The Web Is Fast Becoming A Video Environment
Websites are not just marketing collateral; they are not just digital brochures. They are a new presentation medium that requires specialized communication skills, and knowledge of how best to use the medium.
You may be a great salesperson, and nobody knows your business like you do. You may even be skilled at delivering speeches at conventions and seminars, but performing effectively in front of a camera is a whole different ball game, and for most people, it's way out of their comfort zone, let alone their skill level.
The same old methods that used to work won't work any more. You're no longer competing with just the company down the street; you're competing with the entire world.
Web-businesses may not ever actually meet their customers face-to-face, or even talk to them on the phone, so it is imperative that they use marketing presentation methods that deliver an experience worth remembering.
Source by :
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit MRPwebmedia.com, 136Words.com and SonicPersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.
Phone numbers are seven digits, and they say the optimum brand name should be no more than seven letters long. Seven it seems is a magical number, as the average human brain can only grasp seven things at a time. Interesting, my wife says I've got trouble with two, never mind seven, but that's another story.
So I've been thinking, what are the seven most important words associated with Web-marketing. I'll give you a hint: Search, Engine, and Optimization don't make the cut.
So what words do make the líst? What are the seven words that will make your website worth viewing?
Words Can Move You
By someone's count there are 171,476 entries in the Oxford English Dictionary, plus another 47,156 words that have fallen out of favor. This of course doesn't count the 9,500 additional permutations, that don't deserve their own special attention.
Fifty percent of these words are nouns, twenty-five percent are adjectives, and 14.285% are verbs, with the rest made up of all those other things, the purpose of which most of us have long since forgotten.
Others may find fault with these numbers, but no matter what the total, it's a lot of words. Of the several hundred thousand words to choose from, the average person recognizes less than ten percent, while the average teenager seems to only be able to handle about half that amount; of course that doesn't count slang, instant messaging jargon, or the ever-popular four-letter variety.
Why the heck are there so many words if we all refuse to use them. I mean why waste all those perfectly good words on English teachers and college professors. By the way, they say swearing is the refuge of the feeble-minded, people who can't express themselves in a more articulate manner, but to be honest, I really don't give a damn.
Here's the thing, words have meaning and impact, and they provide the emotional context of our communications, to which we can add subtlety and nuance through their delivery by means of tone, cadence, and gesture.
So as important as words are, the way they are delivered is even more important.
What Website Design Is Really About
The other day I was listening to a local all-news radio station. It is mostly rip-and-read wire service stuff that they repeat over-and-over like some kind of psychological torture, but they do provide traffic reports on a nauseatingly regular basis. You only have to wait ten minutes until they repeat everything, so if you want to hear what traffic snafus to avoid just wait a few minutes; but here's the problem: the announcers talk so fast that no matter how hard you concentrate, you can't quite get the particular information you need; and if you're driving, you have other things to consider, like the idiot in the Hummer who just cut you off.
None of these guys ever uses a period, let alone a semicolon or comma. Either they have very small bladders and are under pressure to finish quickly, or they're late for their afternoon pilates class. They seem so intent on rushing to the commercials that they don't ever deliver the content in an appropriate manner. And your website just might have the same problem.
Too much information is as bad as not enough. Information overkill leads to information anxiety, buyer's remorse, reduced satisfaction, unattainable expectations, and purchase-decision paralysis.
Website owners have been told that visitors won't wait for anything, that they are impatient, and you've got to get to the point fast, make the pitch and close the deal; well that just isn't going to work with any sophisticated product or service.
Your website presentation needs to slow people down so they hear what you have to say, and you have to say something worth hearing.
Website design is about more than layout, markup language, and technical wizardry. Website design is about communication, it's about turning advertising into content, and content into an experience that viewers will remember.
Seven Words To Remember
1. Communication
People are always asking us what's wrong with their websites, and the answer in the vast majority of cases can be summed-up in a quote from the movie, "Cool Hand Luke" (1967): "what we have here is a failure to communicate." Communication is the key to success, and that doesn't just apply to your website, it applies to almost everything you do both inside and outside your business-life.
If your website isn't communicating on both a rational and emotional level, if it doesn't provide the psychological and emotional context of your marketing message, then exactly what is it doing?
2. Audience
I can't think of too many people who actually like being sold. In fact, sometimes customers get so irritated by sales tactics that they end up not buying the thing they came specifically to your website to purchase.
Solving the problem is merely a question of altering your perspective; the average buyer is predisposed to dismiss and ignore high-pressure tactics, and meaningless sales pitches. So instead of treating customers like customers, try treating them like an audience. Audiences want to be engaged, enlightened, and entertained. And that is the most effective way to make a sales impact.
3. Focus
All too often websites inundate their Web audiences with facts, figures, statistics, and an endless líst of features, benefits, options, and whatever else the sales department can think of throwing in. All that stuff just confuses people.
Focus your message on the most important elements of what you have to say. If your website can embed that singular idea in an audience's mind, then it has done its job.
4. Language
The words used, and how they are put together provides meaning; they inform personality; they provide mental sound bites; and they make whatever you are saying, worth remembering.
Language is one of the critical elements of 'voice', the ability to convey personality; and writing without a 'voice' is instantly forgettable.
5. Performance
Even the most articulate prose can be lost in a befuddled delivery. Communication is more than words; it's a combination of language, style, personality, and performance.
Things are rarely what they seem. Even our memories are a stylized version of what we've actually experienced. Creating a memorable impression is about managing the viewer experience, and providing the right verbal and non-verbal cues that make what is being said memorable.
6. Personality
Every business has a personality. The first problem is, few medium-sized companies ever attempt to manage that persona, and as a consequence, the buying public forms its own opinion. And that opinion is often not the way you want to be regarded.
The second problem is companies either don't have a firm grasp of who they really are, or they know, and they are afraid to promote it. If your company's identity isn't worth promoting, it is time to think why that is, and change it. The bottom line is, a company without a personality is a company without an image, and that makes you instantly forgettable.
7. Psychology
The most important feature you can provide your audience is psychological fulfillment, not deep discounts, fast service, or more bells and whistles.
The real reason people buy stuff is that it makes them feel something. Cosmetics make women feel attractive or sexy, while cars make men feel they've achieved some level of status. Even services make people feel important, as in "I've got a guy, who does that for me." Finding the psychological hot spot in your marketing, and promoting the hell out of it consistently and continually should be your primary marketing goal. All those features and benefits are merely the excuse for a purchase, not the reason.
The Web Is Fast Becoming A Video Environment
Websites are not just marketing collateral; they are not just digital brochures. They are a new presentation medium that requires specialized communication skills, and knowledge of how best to use the medium.
You may be a great salesperson, and nobody knows your business like you do. You may even be skilled at delivering speeches at conventions and seminars, but performing effectively in front of a camera is a whole different ball game, and for most people, it's way out of their comfort zone, let alone their skill level.
The same old methods that used to work won't work any more. You're no longer competing with just the company down the street; you're competing with the entire world.
Web-businesses may not ever actually meet their customers face-to-face, or even talk to them on the phone, so it is imperative that they use marketing presentation methods that deliver an experience worth remembering.
Source by :
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video. Visit MRPwebmedia.com, 136Words.com and SonicPersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.
Search Engine and Website Optimization
SEO is an essential part of website optimization, involving the formatting of a web page so that search engine algorithms score it highly for the relevant keyword.
Each page should be optimized for only one keyword so that the page is listed in as high a position as possible for that keyword.
If you understand how search engines work you will be able to apply your knowledge of SEO to optimize your website and ensure, not only a listing, but a search engine listing worth having. So, exactly how does a search engine such as Google work?
The answer to that is that nobody knows - except some Google employees of course. However, by carrying out certain actions and analyzing the results, it is possible to come to certain conclusions as to what Google are looking for and using that information to your advantage. Keep in mind, however, that the number of variables Google is evaluating is believed to reach three figures, so you will only ever scratch the surface, but we know that some of these are given more weighting than others.
SEO variables come in groups, and your website optimization strategy should take as many of these into account as possible. These groups can be categorized into increasingly narrower sets, the broadest being on-page and off-page optimization. The variables with most weighting are currently believed to be:
1. ON-PAGE WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
On-page optimization is, as the term suggests, carried out on the web page itself. This can either be on the visible part of the page, or in the underlying source html code. This optimization can be further classified into:
a) The Keywords. Each web page should be optimized for one keyword, and can contain a few sub-keywords for which the page might also be listed. These, however, are less important than they once were in view of Google's latent semantic indexing (LSI) algorithm. That is another subject! The choice of keyword is important, and there is software available (free and not so free) to help you choose the best keyword for your needs. Do not overuse keywords - instead use lots of related text and synonyms to tell the spiders what your page is about.
b) The Title. This 'title' is not visible on the page, but contained within the html 'Title' tag prior to the 'Body' section of the page html. It should contain the keyword, and is the title that appears at the head of the search engine listing for the page.
c) Meta Tags. In SEO, the Meta tags, again contained prior to the visible 'body' section, provide the search engine crawlers or spiders with information about your site. The only tags of use today are:
i. The Description Meta tag. This describes the content of your site and is shown in full or part below the title in your search engine listing. Include your selling point and any toll-free number you might have.
ii. The Keyword Meta tag. Not generally used, but who knows - it costs nothing and does no harm.
iii. The Robots Meta tag should be used to block any page from spiders that you don't want visited, in case they dilute the overall site relevance. For example, duplicate sales pages. Use it blank even if you are not blocking anything.
d) Headings Page and paragraph headings should be in bold text within H (heading) html tags, H1 for page and H2 for paragraph headings. Use keywords because heading tags stress the importance of the text within them, especially if formatted bold.
e) Navigation Links
i. Your navigation is best if made using keyword anchor text and with a small description of the page linked to just below it.
ii. Try to arrange your html so that the spider sees your body text first, followed by the links that will lead it away from your page. Most importance is placed on the first 100 words and the last paragraph, so don't let these words be your navigation links.
iii. Pay attention to your on-site linking strategy. There is a formula you can use to maximize the PageRank points for each or any individual page.
2. OFF-PAGE WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
Off-page optimization is a massive subject, and would require a separate article to even scratch the surface. It includes techniques such as one-way back links, reciprocal linking, article marketing, directory submissions, interlinking your own sites and blogs, use of social bookmarking sites and social networking, Twitter and so on.
These SEO techniques can in many respects be more important than on-page SEO, and it is not uncommon to see a page with no content but adverts listed at position #1 on Google due solely to the number of other web pages linked to it.
SEO is an extensive subject, but you can improve your chances of getting a high listing if you take advantage of what is known. Information is available, some of it genuine and some opinion. Make sure you find the former and avoid the latter in your website optimization strategy.
Source by :
Peter Nisbet - These are the basics of SEO. For the details that determine succes or failure visit SEOcious where Pete also offers a free SEO course.
Each page should be optimized for only one keyword so that the page is listed in as high a position as possible for that keyword.
If you understand how search engines work you will be able to apply your knowledge of SEO to optimize your website and ensure, not only a listing, but a search engine listing worth having. So, exactly how does a search engine such as Google work?
The answer to that is that nobody knows - except some Google employees of course. However, by carrying out certain actions and analyzing the results, it is possible to come to certain conclusions as to what Google are looking for and using that information to your advantage. Keep in mind, however, that the number of variables Google is evaluating is believed to reach three figures, so you will only ever scratch the surface, but we know that some of these are given more weighting than others.
SEO variables come in groups, and your website optimization strategy should take as many of these into account as possible. These groups can be categorized into increasingly narrower sets, the broadest being on-page and off-page optimization. The variables with most weighting are currently believed to be:
1. ON-PAGE WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
On-page optimization is, as the term suggests, carried out on the web page itself. This can either be on the visible part of the page, or in the underlying source html code. This optimization can be further classified into:
a) The Keywords. Each web page should be optimized for one keyword, and can contain a few sub-keywords for which the page might also be listed. These, however, are less important than they once were in view of Google's latent semantic indexing (LSI) algorithm. That is another subject! The choice of keyword is important, and there is software available (free and not so free) to help you choose the best keyword for your needs. Do not overuse keywords - instead use lots of related text and synonyms to tell the spiders what your page is about.
b) The Title. This 'title' is not visible on the page, but contained within the html 'Title' tag prior to the 'Body' section of the page html. It should contain the keyword, and is the title that appears at the head of the search engine listing for the page.
c) Meta Tags. In SEO, the Meta tags, again contained prior to the visible 'body' section, provide the search engine crawlers or spiders with information about your site. The only tags of use today are:
i. The Description Meta tag. This describes the content of your site and is shown in full or part below the title in your search engine listing. Include your selling point and any toll-free number you might have.
ii. The Keyword Meta tag. Not generally used, but who knows - it costs nothing and does no harm.
iii. The Robots Meta tag should be used to block any page from spiders that you don't want visited, in case they dilute the overall site relevance. For example, duplicate sales pages. Use it blank even if you are not blocking anything.
d) Headings Page and paragraph headings should be in bold text within H (heading) html tags, H1 for page and H2 for paragraph headings. Use keywords because heading tags stress the importance of the text within them, especially if formatted bold.
e) Navigation Links
i. Your navigation is best if made using keyword anchor text and with a small description of the page linked to just below it.
ii. Try to arrange your html so that the spider sees your body text first, followed by the links that will lead it away from your page. Most importance is placed on the first 100 words and the last paragraph, so don't let these words be your navigation links.
iii. Pay attention to your on-site linking strategy. There is a formula you can use to maximize the PageRank points for each or any individual page.
2. OFF-PAGE WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
Off-page optimization is a massive subject, and would require a separate article to even scratch the surface. It includes techniques such as one-way back links, reciprocal linking, article marketing, directory submissions, interlinking your own sites and blogs, use of social bookmarking sites and social networking, Twitter and so on.
These SEO techniques can in many respects be more important than on-page SEO, and it is not uncommon to see a page with no content but adverts listed at position #1 on Google due solely to the number of other web pages linked to it.
SEO is an extensive subject, but you can improve your chances of getting a high listing if you take advantage of what is known. Information is available, some of it genuine and some opinion. Make sure you find the former and avoid the latter in your website optimization strategy.
Source by :
Peter Nisbet - These are the basics of SEO. For the details that determine succes or failure visit SEOcious where Pete also offers a free SEO course.
Discover The Answers To The Top 10 SEO Questions
Owning any type of online business will strongly benefit from a few SEO techniques. However, everyone and their brother has advice on how to do it. All this 'expert' advice can make the simple task of optimizing your site incredibly confusing.
Here are some straightforward answers to the most common SEO questions.
1. What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine is a tool many internet users use to find sites that are relevant to their needs. The three biggies when it comes to search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are however, hundreds of search engines available to internet users. Search engines work by sending out spiders to crawl through the World Wide Web and gather information. If you have the information they're looking for, in the places they are looking, they'll find you and place you in their results when a person is looking for your information.
The task of understanding what search engines are looking for and putting it in the right places on your website and in your content, is the essence of search engine optimization. So now you might be asking…what do search engines look for and where do they look for it? The answer is keywords and links. Keywords in your html coding, keywords on your webpage content, keywords in your content, and the number of incoming links you have to your website.
2. How important is SEO?
Let's just put it this way. What's better a few visitors who stumble upon your website or hundreds of visitors that go to your website with the direct intention of learning more or making a purchase?
With more and more people searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job and becoming an internet millionaire.
3. What are text links?
Links are just one of the tools you can use to increase your search engine optimization. The more quality links you have, the better your search engine ranking will be. Text links are links that contain only text. Wikipedia is a great place to examine internal text links. The links are contained within a sentence and when a reader clicks on them they are taken to a different page on the same website. The kind of text links you're looking for will be text links that will take readers from your article, ebook, or web copy to your website.
An excellent tool to generate incoming links is to write copy for online audiences like article directories, blogs, and ezines and insert text links in the copy. Webmasters will link to the content and thus to your site. Additionally, when you allow free reprints of your copy provided the links are maintained, you're encouraging links to your website.
4. What are link farms and link exchanges?
Search engines don't accept just any old link. The link has to be from a relevant and quality company. This means you don't want to participate in link farming. If a search engine suspects your links to be lacking, they'll actually penalize you. Link farming or link exchanging is essentially the process of exchanging reciprocal links with Web sites in order to increase your search engine ranking. A link farm is a Web page that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites. Stay away from link farms. When you generate a link from another site, it had better be relevant and coming from a real web site.
5. What is duplicate content?
The definition of duplicate content is web pages that contain substantially the same content. Search engines will penalize you for this. How do you avoid duplicate content? Don't publish the same article in several locations. There are many tools available online to help you re-write your content so that it is 30%, 40%, and even 50% different. However, the best way to avoid duplicate content is to simply write new content.
6. How do I find the right keywords?
There are several steps to finding the most profitable keywords. The first step is to generally do a bit of brainstorming and come up with a list of keywords you think people will use to find your products. The next step is to research supply and demand for those particular keywords. Supply means how many other websites are using those same keywords and demand is how many people are looking for those particular keywords.
The key is to find keywords with high demand and relatively low supply. There are many effective and useful keyword tools to help you find this information and to generate keyword ideas. Once you decide on a few keywords, it may be useful to do a bit of testing before you commit to them.
7. How do I optimize my web pages?
Placing your keywords in the right location is a good start to optimizing your web pages. Search engines look to the headings, subheadings, domain name, and title of your website. They also look in the content on your page and primarily focus on the first paragraph.
Try to get a domain name with your primary keyword included. When you include your keyword in your URL it tells the search engine spiders immediately what your site is about.
Title Tag. Your title tag is the line of text that appears on search engine results pages that acts as a link to your site. This is a crucial element of your webpage as it describes to your visitors what your page is about.
If you view your source code, your title tag will look something like this: <TITLE>Search Engine Optimization Tips</TITLE>
Keep your title tags brief, descriptive, up to date, and keyword rich will help to increase the relevance of your site in the eyes of the search engines, as well as giving your potential visitors a good idea of what they can expect from your site.
Meta Tags have lost their importance to the search engines however it is still helpful to place your keywords in your meta tags. In your source code they look something like this: <META NAME="description"......
8. Do I need to submit my site to the search engines?
The simple answer is - no. Search engine spiders are always out there doing their job and collecting information. Every time you update your website, add content, or change your keywords, the search engines capture the information and record it. However, if you want to be listed on a directory, like the DMOZ Open directory project, then you will need to submit to those.
9. What are spiders?
Search engine spiders are also called web crawlers or bot. They're basically automated programs which scan websites to provide information to search engines often for the purpose of indexing or ranking them.
10. How does content help my SEO?
Content is one of the best tools to improve your search engine ranking. It is a great place to emphasize keywords, encourage linking to your site, and increase traffic. The key to content is to make sure you're offering quality content and you're updating your website and your content frequently. Content can be provided in many forms including:
* Blogs
* Forums and chat rooms
* Articles
* Reviews
* Case studies
* Reports
* How to guides
* Tutorials
* e-books and much more.
Source by:
Jeremy Gislason - Want to know proven ways to dramatically increase membership sales? Want to take membership marketing to a whole new level of overflowing profits? Build high-earning membership sites like a pro by going to http://www.membershipmillionaire.com.
Here are some straightforward answers to the most common SEO questions.
1. What is SEO?
SEO stands for search engine optimization. A search engine is a tool many internet users use to find sites that are relevant to their needs. The three biggies when it comes to search engines are Google, Yahoo and MSN. There are however, hundreds of search engines available to internet users. Search engines work by sending out spiders to crawl through the World Wide Web and gather information. If you have the information they're looking for, in the places they are looking, they'll find you and place you in their results when a person is looking for your information.
The task of understanding what search engines are looking for and putting it in the right places on your website and in your content, is the essence of search engine optimization. So now you might be asking…what do search engines look for and where do they look for it? The answer is keywords and links. Keywords in your html coding, keywords on your webpage content, keywords in your content, and the number of incoming links you have to your website.
2. How important is SEO?
Let's just put it this way. What's better a few visitors who stumble upon your website or hundreds of visitors that go to your website with the direct intention of learning more or making a purchase?
With more and more people searching and shopping online, getting on the first page or two of the search engine results can mean the difference between keeping your day job and becoming an internet millionaire.
3. What are text links?
Links are just one of the tools you can use to increase your search engine optimization. The more quality links you have, the better your search engine ranking will be. Text links are links that contain only text. Wikipedia is a great place to examine internal text links. The links are contained within a sentence and when a reader clicks on them they are taken to a different page on the same website. The kind of text links you're looking for will be text links that will take readers from your article, ebook, or web copy to your website.
An excellent tool to generate incoming links is to write copy for online audiences like article directories, blogs, and ezines and insert text links in the copy. Webmasters will link to the content and thus to your site. Additionally, when you allow free reprints of your copy provided the links are maintained, you're encouraging links to your website.
4. What are link farms and link exchanges?
Search engines don't accept just any old link. The link has to be from a relevant and quality company. This means you don't want to participate in link farming. If a search engine suspects your links to be lacking, they'll actually penalize you. Link farming or link exchanging is essentially the process of exchanging reciprocal links with Web sites in order to increase your search engine ranking. A link farm is a Web page that is nothing more than a page of links to other sites. Stay away from link farms. When you generate a link from another site, it had better be relevant and coming from a real web site.
5. What is duplicate content?
The definition of duplicate content is web pages that contain substantially the same content. Search engines will penalize you for this. How do you avoid duplicate content? Don't publish the same article in several locations. There are many tools available online to help you re-write your content so that it is 30%, 40%, and even 50% different. However, the best way to avoid duplicate content is to simply write new content.
6. How do I find the right keywords?
There are several steps to finding the most profitable keywords. The first step is to generally do a bit of brainstorming and come up with a list of keywords you think people will use to find your products. The next step is to research supply and demand for those particular keywords. Supply means how many other websites are using those same keywords and demand is how many people are looking for those particular keywords.
The key is to find keywords with high demand and relatively low supply. There are many effective and useful keyword tools to help you find this information and to generate keyword ideas. Once you decide on a few keywords, it may be useful to do a bit of testing before you commit to them.
7. How do I optimize my web pages?
Placing your keywords in the right location is a good start to optimizing your web pages. Search engines look to the headings, subheadings, domain name, and title of your website. They also look in the content on your page and primarily focus on the first paragraph.
Try to get a domain name with your primary keyword included. When you include your keyword in your URL it tells the search engine spiders immediately what your site is about.
Title Tag. Your title tag is the line of text that appears on search engine results pages that acts as a link to your site. This is a crucial element of your webpage as it describes to your visitors what your page is about.
If you view your source code, your title tag will look something like this: <TITLE>Search Engine Optimization Tips</TITLE>
Keep your title tags brief, descriptive, up to date, and keyword rich will help to increase the relevance of your site in the eyes of the search engines, as well as giving your potential visitors a good idea of what they can expect from your site.
Meta Tags have lost their importance to the search engines however it is still helpful to place your keywords in your meta tags. In your source code they look something like this: <META NAME="description"......
8. Do I need to submit my site to the search engines?
The simple answer is - no. Search engine spiders are always out there doing their job and collecting information. Every time you update your website, add content, or change your keywords, the search engines capture the information and record it. However, if you want to be listed on a directory, like the DMOZ Open directory project, then you will need to submit to those.
9. What are spiders?
Search engine spiders are also called web crawlers or bot. They're basically automated programs which scan websites to provide information to search engines often for the purpose of indexing or ranking them.
10. How does content help my SEO?
Content is one of the best tools to improve your search engine ranking. It is a great place to emphasize keywords, encourage linking to your site, and increase traffic. The key to content is to make sure you're offering quality content and you're updating your website and your content frequently. Content can be provided in many forms including:
* Blogs
* Forums and chat rooms
* Articles
* Reviews
* Case studies
* Reports
* How to guides
* Tutorials
* e-books and much more.
Source by:
Jeremy Gislason - Want to know proven ways to dramatically increase membership sales? Want to take membership marketing to a whole new level of overflowing profits? Build high-earning membership sites like a pro by going to http://www.membershipmillionaire.com.
Debunking the Top 10 Search Engine Myths
We've all done it at some point in our professional lives. We search a keyword that describes our business only to scratch our head as to how our competitor's website shows up on the top of the list instead of ours. If you've gone one step further and read about Search Engine Optimization, then surely you have come across the conflicting information online.
One article tells you to do one thing while another tells you to do the opposite. Which one should you believe?
This gray area of what you should or should not do is much like the modern day "Bat Cave." If you are lucky enough to stumble upon it, chances are you don't quite know how you got there and if you had to go back one day you would probably just find yourself lost in the woods.
So what should you believe? The general rule is to combine what you read or heard with what you have experienced and somewhere in there lies the truth. To get you started, let's debunk some of the more commonly used myths floating around.
1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name:
It is widely believed that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.professional-website-design-in-nj.com it will greatly increase your rankings. This is not true. It is best to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name.
2) Google Partnership:
If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, run in the opposite direction. There is no such thing as a "preferred" relationship with Google and in fact on Google's website it even states: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google.
3) Meta Keyword Tag:
It used to be that the Meta Keyword Tag was given a lot of weight in the early days of Search Engine Optimization, but people abused it and now it does very little. You may still want to include your keywords here, but know that it will not do much and in fact most search engines won't even check it.
4) Bold or Italicized Text:
Adding emphasis to certain keywords like using bold or italics can make your text easier to scan for the reader if done properly, but has little to no affect on your search engine ranking.
5) Content Length:
There is no search engine rule stating that your content needs to be a specific number of words in order to get indexed. Any recommended length is more to assist the reader in understanding what you do than to aid the search engines.
6) Duplicate Content:
Posting specific content like an article or blog entry on your site and then on another site will not get you penalized. In the search results, Google will recognize that the content is the same and only choose one of the pages to display, but it will not hurt your overall search engine ranking.
7) Avoid Flash:
Any text that you place in Flash will not be readable by a search engine, but this doesn't mean you have to avoid flash altogether. You can still very successfully incorporate Flash into your site through rotating pictures or a header on the page. Just don't have an all Flash site or use a Flash intro if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings.
8) Pay-Per-Click:
Some say that using Pay-Per-Click will help your organic listing while others say it will hurt. Both are false. The fact is that Google has gone to great lengths to separate the two departments of organic and paid listings to a point where the two departments don't communicate or even sit at the same table for lunch.
9) Update the Site Frequently:
Updating your site often is a good idea if you have something new to say. Just don't change around a few words to accommodate the search engines as that won't help your listing at all. Regularly adding legitimate content like articles, press releases and blog entries will help though.
10) Doorway Pages:
Many companies will sell this idea of increasing your ranking by creating hundreds of one page sites loaded with keywords that link to you from various domains. This is considered spamming the search engine and is not recommended. If you properly optimize your site and focus on the correct way to get listed, you will increase your ranking much quicker than these doorway pages ever could.
Of course there are many other myths out there confusing the general public about what works and what doesn't work. Some of them are spread by people who don't really know the truth and others are spread by SEO companies in an attempt to make search engine optimization confusing... mission accomplished! Regardless of where the myths come from, if you or the SEO Company you hire use common sense and do things the right way, you will have no trouble finding the proverbial Bat Cave…and when you get there please tell them that I want my utility belt back!
Source by :
Marc D. Ensign is the CEO and Visionary of Sound-n-Vision, a New Jersey web design and Internet marketing company. Marc actively teaches workshops and seminars on web design and search engine optimization throughout the New York Metropolitan area.
One article tells you to do one thing while another tells you to do the opposite. Which one should you believe?
This gray area of what you should or should not do is much like the modern day "Bat Cave." If you are lucky enough to stumble upon it, chances are you don't quite know how you got there and if you had to go back one day you would probably just find yourself lost in the woods.
So what should you believe? The general rule is to combine what you read or heard with what you have experienced and somewhere in there lies the truth. To get you started, let's debunk some of the more commonly used myths floating around.
1) Use a Keyword Rich Domain Name:
It is widely believed that if you include your keywords in your domain name like www.professional-website-design-in-nj.com it will greatly increase your rankings. This is not true. It is best to choose a domain name that is short, easy to remember and if possible includes your company name.
2) Google Partnership:
If you are ever approached by a company claiming to have a partnership with Google, run in the opposite direction. There is no such thing as a "preferred" relationship with Google and in fact on Google's website it even states: Beware of SEOs that claim to guarantee rankings, allege a "special relationship" with Google, or advertise a "priority submit" to Google.
3) Meta Keyword Tag:
It used to be that the Meta Keyword Tag was given a lot of weight in the early days of Search Engine Optimization, but people abused it and now it does very little. You may still want to include your keywords here, but know that it will not do much and in fact most search engines won't even check it.
4) Bold or Italicized Text:
Adding emphasis to certain keywords like using bold or italics can make your text easier to scan for the reader if done properly, but has little to no affect on your search engine ranking.
5) Content Length:
There is no search engine rule stating that your content needs to be a specific number of words in order to get indexed. Any recommended length is more to assist the reader in understanding what you do than to aid the search engines.
6) Duplicate Content:
Posting specific content like an article or blog entry on your site and then on another site will not get you penalized. In the search results, Google will recognize that the content is the same and only choose one of the pages to display, but it will not hurt your overall search engine ranking.
7) Avoid Flash:
Any text that you place in Flash will not be readable by a search engine, but this doesn't mean you have to avoid flash altogether. You can still very successfully incorporate Flash into your site through rotating pictures or a header on the page. Just don't have an all Flash site or use a Flash intro if you are interested in increasing your search engine rankings.
8) Pay-Per-Click:
Some say that using Pay-Per-Click will help your organic listing while others say it will hurt. Both are false. The fact is that Google has gone to great lengths to separate the two departments of organic and paid listings to a point where the two departments don't communicate or even sit at the same table for lunch.
9) Update the Site Frequently:
Updating your site often is a good idea if you have something new to say. Just don't change around a few words to accommodate the search engines as that won't help your listing at all. Regularly adding legitimate content like articles, press releases and blog entries will help though.
10) Doorway Pages:
Many companies will sell this idea of increasing your ranking by creating hundreds of one page sites loaded with keywords that link to you from various domains. This is considered spamming the search engine and is not recommended. If you properly optimize your site and focus on the correct way to get listed, you will increase your ranking much quicker than these doorway pages ever could.
Of course there are many other myths out there confusing the general public about what works and what doesn't work. Some of them are spread by people who don't really know the truth and others are spread by SEO companies in an attempt to make search engine optimization confusing... mission accomplished! Regardless of where the myths come from, if you or the SEO Company you hire use common sense and do things the right way, you will have no trouble finding the proverbial Bat Cave…and when you get there please tell them that I want my utility belt back!
Source by :
Marc D. Ensign is the CEO and Visionary of Sound-n-Vision, a New Jersey web design and Internet marketing company. Marc actively teaches workshops and seminars on web design and search engine optimization throughout the New York Metropolitan area.
Sunday
Improving Your Web Site Ranking With Powerful Title Tags
One of the most important factors in website optimization is your title tag. This is written in the HTML code for your page in the "head" section. Many companies make the mistake of simply using their company name on every page of their site. This is a costly error, since today, search engines use the title plus key words in your content, more than ever to determine your standings. Here are some tips for getting better standings through the proper use of title tags.
In addition to ranking, your title tag will appear in the title bar of web browsers for visitors who open your page. Having a descriptive title tag is important for visitors as well as for search engines.
A Word About Keywords
Before building any web site or even any web page, it is important that you choose 3 or 4 prime key words and a number of lesser words as well. The web is full of keyword selection tools, but we suggest you begin with an excellent keyword tool that is free from Google. We cannot cover this process in this article, but we have other articles that go into this critical area. For each page of your site, select two or three major keywords you believe people will use to find your page in the search engines.
What To Put In Your Tag
Many web sites just have the company name in the title tag. This is great if you are so well known that people will use your name to search when they want to find your site. For example, www.cocacola.com. However, if your company name is less well known than Coca Cola, GE, IBM and others you will do far better to put your name, your city and two or three of your primary keywords. An example for my company web-star.biz might be , "web-star marketing affordable consulting". This title has about 60 characters. It describes the prime keyword for the page and identifies the company name.
If you are going for a local market, we suggest you include your area such as Denver or Denver CO or CO because more and more searches on the internet (about 30% in Nov 2008) are searches for local products and services. It is far easier to get to the top of the search engine pile for a city or state than for the world as there is less competition.
Proper Length
We suggest that you limit your title tag to 65 characters or less as that is the limit most search engines display. Don't waste any characters using "and" or other words that take up space in the prime area.
Critical Title Errors To Avoid
There are three common title errors that really cost. The first is no title. It is amazíng to me how many sites have no title. This is very costly as the title is an important factor in telling the search engines what keywords to líst you under. The second error is using just your company name. Unless you are world famous, people will not be keying in your name to find you. Use your name but also use two or three prime keywords. The third most common error is using the same title (usually the company name) on every page in your site. Many search engines penalize sites that do this by moving them down in the ranks. More importantly, using a unique title tag for each page allows you to get lísted in the search engines for several keywords and make your page content very relevant to those keywords. This makes for better engine placement.
Other Considerations To Move Up
There are a few other things you can do to improve your ranking. When you put a hyperlink to another page, instead of using a phrase like "Clíck here", use a keyword. For example if you want a visitor to click on your upcoming seminar page, use a hyperlink like "upcoming seminars". Using the keyword in a hyperlink helps the search engines rank that page and your link higher and more specifically.
Also, when you select file names for the pages on your site, use the appropriate keyword. For example, if you save your page on seminars as "p10345987.htm" you will not be as successful as if you assign a page name like "seminars.htm" which contains a prime keyword.
These are a few simple ways to improve your title tag that will result in more visibility, more traffíc and more sales.
Source by :
Web Star Internet Marketing. Carl Davidson discusses how to improve site ranking through the proper use of title tags. The article also discusses common errors to avoid. Finally, the article discloses little known secrets that will draw additional traffic and sell more on line through internet marketing and search engine optimization.
In addition to ranking, your title tag will appear in the title bar of web browsers for visitors who open your page. Having a descriptive title tag is important for visitors as well as for search engines.
A Word About Keywords
Before building any web site or even any web page, it is important that you choose 3 or 4 prime key words and a number of lesser words as well. The web is full of keyword selection tools, but we suggest you begin with an excellent keyword tool that is free from Google. We cannot cover this process in this article, but we have other articles that go into this critical area. For each page of your site, select two or three major keywords you believe people will use to find your page in the search engines.
What To Put In Your Tag
Many web sites just have the company name in the title tag. This is great if you are so well known that people will use your name to search when they want to find your site. For example, www.cocacola.com. However, if your company name is less well known than Coca Cola, GE, IBM and others you will do far better to put your name, your city and two or three of your primary keywords. An example for my company web-star.biz might be , "web-star marketing affordable consulting". This title has about 60 characters. It describes the prime keyword for the page and identifies the company name.
If you are going for a local market, we suggest you include your area such as Denver or Denver CO or CO because more and more searches on the internet (about 30% in Nov 2008) are searches for local products and services. It is far easier to get to the top of the search engine pile for a city or state than for the world as there is less competition.
Proper Length
We suggest that you limit your title tag to 65 characters or less as that is the limit most search engines display. Don't waste any characters using "and" or other words that take up space in the prime area.
Critical Title Errors To Avoid
There are three common title errors that really cost. The first is no title. It is amazíng to me how many sites have no title. This is very costly as the title is an important factor in telling the search engines what keywords to líst you under. The second error is using just your company name. Unless you are world famous, people will not be keying in your name to find you. Use your name but also use two or three prime keywords. The third most common error is using the same title (usually the company name) on every page in your site. Many search engines penalize sites that do this by moving them down in the ranks. More importantly, using a unique title tag for each page allows you to get lísted in the search engines for several keywords and make your page content very relevant to those keywords. This makes for better engine placement.
Other Considerations To Move Up
There are a few other things you can do to improve your ranking. When you put a hyperlink to another page, instead of using a phrase like "Clíck here", use a keyword. For example if you want a visitor to click on your upcoming seminar page, use a hyperlink like "upcoming seminars". Using the keyword in a hyperlink helps the search engines rank that page and your link higher and more specifically.
Also, when you select file names for the pages on your site, use the appropriate keyword. For example, if you save your page on seminars as "p10345987.htm" you will not be as successful as if you assign a page name like "seminars.htm" which contains a prime keyword.
These are a few simple ways to improve your title tag that will result in more visibility, more traffíc and more sales.
Source by :
Web Star Internet Marketing. Carl Davidson discusses how to improve site ranking through the proper use of title tags. The article also discusses common errors to avoid. Finally, the article discloses little known secrets that will draw additional traffic and sell more on line through internet marketing and search engine optimization.
The Cunning Brilliance of PageRank
A few weeks ago I found myself in the subway of New York City. Posters and billboards from a prominent bank promoted credit card decaled the underground landscape.
These well-crafted advertisements promised ten dollars back for every $100 spent on subway fares. It gave the current economic crisis and recession as the explanation for their incredible generosity and compassion.
Everybody around me seemed thoroughly impressed by this overwhelming gesture of selfless charity; many discussed in earnest how they were planning to sign up for this card to enjoy these charitable savings. It seemed I was the only one, the Christmas Grinch of the crowd, who perceived this advertisement strategy as more cunning and brilliant than selfless and generous. What an ideal time to hook people on yet another credit card, especially with the holiday season already upon us. Obviously the long-term interest this credit card company was anticipating far overshadowed their likely short-term promotional costs.
Indeed it was a cunning and brilliant strategy, much the same, I thought to myself, as Google's page rank system.
At first glance it seems a very wise, fair and indeed brilliant system for determining positioning within the search ranks. On closer inspection, however, it is even more brilliant and cunning than most are giving it credit.
In the past, creating good, unique and newsworthy content, coupled with intelligent onsite optimization strategies, was at least enough to get your website found. These days are now gone, regardless of what some naïve or misleading SEO experts might still tell you.
Page Rank has now become the single most important factor in having your site found in the organic search results of the leading search engines. Page Rank is determined by the quantity and quality of websites that are linking to yours. Each website link acts as a kind of vote for the site it links to, and passes some of its own page rank to this site. The higher the page rank, and the more relevant the content of the site, the more significant the affect will be.
Since search engine bots cannot view your site in the same way a human views it, this strategy allows user popularity to have a significant affect on the algorithm these search engines are using. The belief is, of course, that the more quality and relevant sites that are voting for yours, the higher the probability that your site is a good one, and therefore deserving of a higher position.
Of course, this system is not perfect, and for obvious reasons, but it is certainly superior to deciding the importance of a site purely on onsite content. The reality is, there are thousands if not million of webmasters who can write unique, quality content. There are even more who know how to optimize this content for the search engines. However, millions of sites cannot be number one for a single keyword or phrase. Page rank must decide the difference.
The problem, however, is that the top search engines have now leaned so far away from onsite optimization, in preference of offsite optimization (i.e. page rank), that you are likely to find all kinds of lousy content and add riddled sites at the top of your searches. Putting a greater importance on links, however, plays significantly in Google's favour. This is especially true today, as reciprocal and 3-way link exchanges have now been significantly devalued, along with paid links and link directories.
Google's intent is that links should be entirely organic, occurring naturally when other webmasters like your site enough to add a link to it. This way of achieving links however, can take a very, very long time, as most Internet users do not know that they are supposed to do this. Most Internet users add the sites they like to their favourites, they don't create a keyword rich link to it from their own highly relevant site. Nevertheless, this is just one of the many ways Google favours older more time-proven sites over newer, get rich quick sites. The fact is, unless the content of your website has just revealed something of tremendous news importance, it could take years before your quality site acquires enough natural, keyword rich links from relevant sites to significantly boost you to the top of the search engines.
The conundrum, however, is that nobody will find your great content, and thereby link to it, unless you are on page one or two for at least one keyword or phrase (one that gets searched for that is). So if you do want to acquire natural one-way links, you pretty much have only one choice. You will have to advertise.
Google now provides the best online advertising available. Not only is it inexpensive, it is targeted towards your keywords.
This means a much higher conversion rate. People will find your product or service when they are looking for it, not when they are looking for something else. And with around 80% of North American searches done on Google, it just wouldn't make sense to concentrate your efforts anywhere else (unless your loyalty lies elsewhere).
Knowing this, guess who will reap the largest rewards of this new lean towards offsite optimization? The reality is, if you want your internet site to one day make it to the top of Google (and Yahoo and MSN) for an important keyword or phrase, you will have to acquire a substantial number of natural links. Since this could take years, as most webmasters are selfish and don't link for nothing, and most Internet users don't know to do this, you are bound to spend a small fortune with Google before your site is able to stand on its own. Of course Google won't make as much of a profit from you once your site is on the top, but there will be millions of others who will still be vying for this position.
The bottom line is, you will need to spend money if you one day want to make money.
The only question is how much money can you afford to invest? Or should I say gamble, because no matter how much money you spend, there are no guarantees.
The results, of course, are purely organic, and Google's algorithm can change at any time. Besides, by the time you're actually on the top, your content and unique features will likely be outdated and not that impressive anymore.
Google insists that you cannot purchase or pay for the organic results located on the left side of the screen. If you are caught purchasing links that are intended to indirectly improve your search engine ranking position, you will either be significantly penalized, or removed from Google entirely. However, the only significant way to increase naturally is to pay for advertising on the right side, so people can actually find your great content and unique features, and provide you with these natural links.
Of course, there are some other ways to promote your site, such as blogging, posting on forums, and creating videos on Youtube, etc. The catch is, however, that if you're not careful, you will be penalized for spamming (excessively promoting your site where you are not supposed to). This is why most forums these days have the no follow meta tags added to their code. Otherwise, you will just have to get creative in achieving and maintaining high PR links that are relevant and keyword rich.
Unfortunately, if you do find a way to attain these links in any way that Google considers unnatural, it will eventually update its algorithm and ensure you are penalized for your imaginative endeavours.
Personally, I've never seen so many people work so hard at what is considered cheating. Couldn't we at least give them part marks for creativity? After all, you won't even let them see the marking rubric.
Source by: Jack Strawman is the cofounder of Late Night Chat and HookUpCanada Chat and Dating, both sites intended for late night encounters.
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