Is This A Quotdmoz Killerquot In The Making

Writen by Amber Snow

Is building a Human-Edited Fully "Democratic" Search Directory Possible?

The independent creators of the non-profit "BuildtheHive" (www.BuildtheHive.com) think so, and I think they're on to something. Here's why:

As a webmaster, I've long been frustrated by a certain human-edited directory (and you know who I mean) that has inexplicably refused entry of some of my clients, while accepting others without a second glance.

The problem (as I see it) is the same thing that makes these resource potentially great – human editors.

Let's face it…for some people, the power of being an editor of their very own category in a major search directory is simply too much for their character. Many a webmaster (myself included) has complained of the abusiveness of some of the editors, both in the way they perform their duties, and (at times) how they interact with the public.

To be sure…being a volunteer editor can be a thankless job, with the number of "Spam" submissions (i.e. those outside the guidelines) far outweighing the legitimate ones.

What's worse, and far more disturbing, are the "rogue" editors of certain categories that are abusing their "power" by adding their own commercial sites, and excluding their "competition". Think that's an isolated case? Think again. This writer found instances of this type of abuse in over 2 dozen different commercial categories. In fact, some editor's were so blatant about it as to add dozens of "mirrors" of the same exact site, essentially "taking over" the category with their own content.

After essentially ignoring this abuse for years, the editors (in a nod to the fact that it DOES exist) independently setup an abuse reporting system for users. However, the fact that they need such a system (in my opinion) just exemplifies the weakness in the current system of human-edited directories. What about the abuse that goes un-reported? The fact that you even need a abuse-reporting system to me says that you've already lost the battle. To be truly fair, a volunteer directory editing system needs to be IMPOSSIBLE to abuse. Unfortunately, no such system currently exists.

But one IS being built, and it looks like it may just revolutionize the world of human-edited directories.

Using a proprietary "voting" system, BuildtheHive will be (according to it's creators) a "directory built the democratic way". No one single editor can add, delete, or change a submitted website. All submissions & changes are voted on by multiple editors with the decision as to whether a site "makes it in" based on a simple premise of "majority rules". This removes the ability of a single editor to deny ANY site, as it takes several editors to either approve or deny a site.

This democratic system has even been extended to the acceptance/denial of new editors. Anyone will be able to apply to become a BuildtheHive editor. Once submitted, an editor's application is voted on, and acceptance/rejection is once again determined by majority rule.

The BuildtheHive creators have even solved the "expired domain" problem (i.e. sites that remain in a directory after being picked-up by domain speculators after their previous owners failed to renew the domain with their registrar) . Any site that gets accepted is automatically placed in a queue to be re-reviewed (and voted on again) after a specified period of time. This cool feature not only cures the expired domain problem, but it also eliminates the need for a category editor to manually monitor all the sites in their category (a HUGE plus for editor's of very large categories).

At this point, if you're like me, you're saying to yourself "Why didn't I think of that!"

The good news is, you can still be a part of it.

In an effort to remain completely independent, the creators of BuildtheHive have avoided seeking venture capital, and have been funding this project out of their own pockets. For a limited time, they will be accepting a very small number of editor's who will not have to go through the "voting process" to be accepted, in return for a small donation of only $19.

For a chance to be part of what could conceivably become the "buzz word" in human-edited search, take it from me…it's a bargain. If the creators of BuildtheHive only accomplish half of what they set out to do, it will turn the world of human-edited search on it's ear!

About The Author

Amber Snow is an independent freelance web designer and search engine optimization expert.

To read more, go to http://www.BuildtheHive.com.

Importance Of Web Contents Search Engine Optimization

Writen by Anthony Bae

As I was doing research for how to market my website once it's completed, I ran into Search Engine Optimization (SEO) services. Their services ranged from one time fee to continuous payment monthly as long as the site was constantly optimized by the company. I didn't really look into SEO services because they were way too expensive for me to afford. I just thought they were similar to Yahoo's Fast Track program, where they come up with keywords and descriptions, just that they charge so much more to keep my positions on the very top of every search page.

After meeting my potential business partner, I found out that there are two types of website optimization: one is to maximize website performance, and the other is for internet presence and visibility through natural listings on search engines, using meta tags of descriptions and keywords to give specific instructions for search engines spiders and robots. Spiders and robots 'crawl' every webpage to match and position the sites on their search engines.

I wasn't very interested in maximizing my site performance because it loaded faster than other comparison shopping websites. However, I realized that website optimization—SEO—would help me a lot with visibility on all search engines. I can always pay to get high positioning on search pages, but having high positioning with natural listings; it's like advertising the site for free. I felt like if I spent a little more and chose to go with SEO, I would've saved a lot more money in the long run.

Another $40,000 to invest to optimize my site was nearly impossible for me, unless the person I spoke to was willing to help out. I was ill prepared for this, and I blame this for me not being technologically savvy and just pushing my idea to work. This was when I realized my major setback – Part VIII.

If you have experienced any major setbacks with your business and would like to share with the audience, please feel free to email me at writings@imbae.net

By Anthony Bae
Raising Money for Charity by Selling Links to Online Advertisers
http://www.iGoLink.com

Torpedo And Sink The Ship Ss Search Engine Ranking

Writen by Mike Valentine

I was recently contacted by one of my best clients who asked me what I thought of his decision to make a major change to one of his highly ranked pages. His initial concern was that visitor sales conversion ratio was low. At almost one percent, it was just below normal, but I'm always happy when a client wants to improve. Conversion and rankings though, are very different beasts and his concern was overly focused on the former to the total exclusion of the latter.

As his SEO I should have realized that the top rankings of this already optimized page were in danger when his first sentence referred to the existing "Dusty, tired old page, that just isn't getting enough sales." That page had just been optimized for search engines about 6 months previously, and went from page 10 (invisible) or so of the Search Engine Results Pages (SERP's) to the top three on the first pages of all three major search engines virtually overnight after a few tweaks to gain traction from a popular movie reference to his product.

The page had been up for several years before the movie release without gaining substantial web sales of that same product, but our optimization six months ago lead to a leap in sales and consistently improving page visits after that theatrical release. But sales plateaued over time and slowly decreased after the movie which had mentioned his product transitioned to DVD sales. Somehow he hadn't forseen that decrease and wanted to continue the level of sales he had enjoyed while the movie mention was fresh.

To achieve the continued sales though, he wanted to completely replace the page text with new material he'd been given by the manufacturer of the product. As is the case with marketing material provided by many companies, keyword density was non-existent with emphasis was on slick new photos, covered with stylized, graphical text. Text with keywords that couldn't be repeated in any page text since they had already been embedded in the image graphics several times.

What to do? I suggested creating an entirely NEW page with the manufacturer provided information linked within his site menu links on each page and from the sitemap. While maintaining the old page for it's top rankings in the search engines we could simply use internal linking to keep the search engines crawling that (old dusty) fully optimized page. That way we would still rank in the top 5 for that page and it's coveted keywords and provide the new conversion focused page to site visitors from the menu links.

For some reason though, the client insisted on using the existing filename for the new content and moving the old content to a NEW filename! Why? Because he wouldn't have to have his programmer change a script which loaded a rotating banner to a select few highly trafficked pages. The programmer costs too much to change a few lines of code for a profitable product page?

This tactic meant that we would completely lose the existing rank on the next visit of the search engine crawlers after the new page was posted. I was convinced that we could gain the rank back, but only over time and with substantial extra work. The cost to the client to get a new page into the top five on SERP's was going to exceed the cost of programming updates of banner rotation scripts. But he insisted we use the new manufacturer provided (image only) content on the old filename. OK, I relent.

The web designer wanted to use the new manufacturer provided page in an iframe and embed the old page text in noframes tags - making it visible to search engines, but not visitors. Silly idea and borderline spam technique that may drop our top five rankings off the charts. I dug my heals in and refused that idea.

The client suggested simply keeping previous metatags and title tag to maintain ranking. Sorry, that simply won't work. If it did, we'd return to the bad old days of simplistic keyword stuffing in those (no longer) magical metatags. I started to wonder ... "Am I here as an SEO only to stop designers from using SE spamming techniques, programmers from having to write new code and clients from doing absurd keyword stuffing in metatags?"

No you actually have to use carefully crafted keyword rich text on the visible page - and NOT embedded in graphics files as text painted across photos with photoshop and illustrator software. Search engines can't read text on images and that image "Alt" text in the HTML is no longer useful in SEO since it has been so badly abused by simplistic optimizers for ranking gains before the search engines began to ignore it in their ranking algorithm.

The new page may initially see sales increases due to the pretty new photos (there is zero text on that new page) but after a long series of email exchanges with this client and a final phone discussion over ranking issues, he proceeded with this change anyway. I normally don't hope for poor rankings on client pages, but since this one runs counter to every fiber of my SEO being, I'm actually looking forward to that torpedo striking and the ranking to sink off the charts and the client to pay attention to his SEO's advice.

The old page is still showing up in cached pages at the search engines, so they haven't yet crawled the new version. I will dutifully point out the sinking of the venerable "SS Search Engine Ranking" ship next week when Googlebot revisits this client site and finds all that text has disappeared from his previously #1 ranked page and suggest to him that he review his WebTrends traffic reports to see that it has settled to the bottom of the ocean.

I guess I better get busy finding a way to rank the previous (old optimized) page on the brand new shiny filename. Won't he be surprised to learn that most of his sales come from that (newly named) "old dusty page" within a few weeks?

Copyright © September 3, 2005

Have you done anything to torpedo and sink your ship "SS Search Engine Rankings" lately? Call me at 562-572-9702 if you need a salvage operation to raise that venerable ship from the bottom of the vast search engine rankings ocean. http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm Mike Banks Valentine operates the article distribution site http://Publish101.com and a Small Business Ecommerce Tutorial for Web Entreprenuers at http://WebSite101.com

Search Engine Optimizing Press Releases

Writen by Mark Nenadic

It is becoming common knowledge that a website that expects to get the most out of its search engine results must search engine optimize its content in order to achieve the highest possible ranking. What is not as well known is that website content isn't the only type of writing that can be search engine optimized to produce a favorable outcome for your website.

As a part of your marketing strategy, you will likely have include the distribution of press releases in order to let people know about the latest events and movements of your business or website. What you need to recognize is the fact that this is also one of your best opportunities to employ search engine optimization, and take advantage of another opportunity to have the search engines work in your favor.

To do this properly, there are a few things that you will need to do. The first, of course is to write the press release and make certain that all of your most important keywords are included within its text with a good density. You must then distribute your press release to the right places. There are a number of different press release services out there – both free and paid – that are willing to publish your press release and distribute it to different media representatives worldwide. Among the largest and most popular of these press release distribution websites are webwire.com and prweb.com.

By working with large distribution sites such as these, you'll be making sure that your search engine optimizing efforts are being used to their fullest. The reason is because these sites distribute to so many other sites, and because they are always having their information and content scanned by different search engine spiders and indexers, having your press release added to the possible top results for the keywords that you have selected.

This is such an easy process that it is, in fact, considered to be even easier than writing the press release itself. After all, you need to make certain that the press release is good enough that it will be picked up and republished by other websites, online journals, blogs, and ezines, and not just remain stranded at the press release distribution website, as handy as it is with website ranking.

Remember that the purpose of your press release is not just search engine optimization. That is a secondary advantage. You still want to make sure that the news that you are reporting is spread as far as possible, and read by as many prospective clients and site visitors as you can manage.

This being said, you need to understand that though your keyword needs to be included in your press release, the rest of the content has to be of high caliber. If you are not skilled in writing, you may choose to have a professional press release writer do it for you – they are quite worth the money.

An effective press release will have a strong, informative title, information that is straight to the point without any fluff, no spelling or major grammatical errors, no informational errors, and a healthy smattering of useful keywords. By ensuring that your press release fulfills all of these requirements, you dramatically increase your odds of having your press release well distributed, well ranked among search engines, and well read among your target market.

As far as the keyword is concerned, do make sure that it is mentioned frequently enough to count, but don't paste it into your press release so many times that it doesn't read naturally or that it might register as SPAM by the search engines who will be ranking it. A safe density is usually within the 2 to 3 percent range. Try to use it once in your title, and very close to the beginning of the first sentence in your first paragraph. After that, once or twice in the rest of the press release should do it.

It is important that you never overlook the value of search engine optimizing any online document that you may create. Press releases are among the most effective because of their high distribution, but you should include search engine optimizing in anything that you will be posting.

Copyright 2006 Mark Nenadic

Mark is the director and face behind FifteenDegrees-North http://www.15dn.com, where you will find articles and resources to help with SEO, marketing and Web design.

Seo Is Dead

Writen by Stoney DeGeyter

The death of SEO has been proclaimed (and forecast) for years. I have never bought into this and time has proven that belief correct. I do, however, believe the SEO landscaped has changed significantly causing the elimination of SEO-only providers within the next few years… if not sooner.

The reality is that while SEO will always remain an integral part online marketing, those that focus exclusively on achieving top search engine rankings will fail. Not only will they fail to deliver any kind of valuable service to their clients, but the bottom line is that without incorporating marketing aspects into an SEO campaign, achieving top placement for competitive keywords will become increasingly difficult if not impossible.

Over the last year, Google has released a plethora of free user tools and products. If you look closely at these products, most are really nothing more than information retrieval devices for Google to use to gather data about user behavior on the web as well as on particular websites. This information can then be used to build algorithms that take site popularity and conversions into account when determining ranking results.

The best of these tools released by is Google Analytics, which is a powerful traffic analysis tool for webmasters, which also provides a considerable amount of data about your website to Google. With Analytics installed, Google can see how users use and navigate to your site, and even how well your site converts visitors into customers.

I have previously defined SEO as being only about achieving top rankings. This is a narrow interpretation, but I used this to point out that many so-called SEO companies are still providing SEO as a stand-alone service without any thought to other more marketing oriented services such as usability, conversions, etc. These marketing issues are now, more than ever, necessary for any "optimization" campaign to succeed. Those seeking optimization services that fail to understand this will ultimately choose a firm that will be ineffective in meeting their needs.

Many SEO companies already integrate usability into their optimization services. While these companies may still operate under the "SEO" banner, their services truly are not SEO-only services. Any proposal received for optimization services should spell out the marketing aspects as well as the optimization aspects. Those that don't often rely on useless guarantees as a means to sell you their service.

It's far too soon to put "SEO" to rest, but it's not too soon to ensure that your SEO campaign properly integrates the marketing elements it needs to succeed.

Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing (PolePositionMarketing.com), a professional search engine marketing firm providing search engine optimization (SEO) and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He also contributes daily to the (EMP) E-Marketing Performance (eMarketingPerformance.com) search marketing blog as well as the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook. (ea)

Broken Links Are Bad News For Webmasters

Writen by Philip Nicosia

A webmaster or website owner's role or responsibilities do not end when the website he operates goes "live" and is now accessible by visitors online. There are a whole new set of responsibilities and functions that a website owner has to assume in order to make sure that his website continuously works perfectly and is able to fulfill its intended functions. Some of the responsibilities he has to assume include providing fresh content as much as possible, submitting the website to search engines and actively looking for reciprocal links in order to raise the ranking in search engines.

One of the most crucial responsibilities of a website owner is to check for broken links to his website. Broken links can be considered as one of the worst things that can happen to a website. A lot of not so good perceptions and negative effects arise from having a site that is riddled with broken links.

In fact, broken links are plaguing so many websites that it is being considered as a serious problem on the web. Many reasons can be cited for the spread of broken hyperlinks, the general causes of broken links include: Websites not being maintained with the appropriate degree of dedication, the architecture of the website and how information is placed within the site constantly changes, and the large incidence of websites that are closing down.

Hyperlinks are a very important component of websites because it aids in the navigation around the webpages and points to directions outside of the site. A website without links is like a ton of documents that are piled one on top of the other with no rhyme or reason and no intelligent way for you to get to the information that you need.

Link management is a very important and absolutely essential part of maintaining a website. As previously mentioned, broken links bring with it very negative perceptions about the website and these can have very detrimental effects on the traffic generated by the website.

From a technical perspective, broken links can stop search engine robots dead in its tracks, effectively preventing it from completely mapping out a website for submission to search engines. In addition, a website that is riddled with numerous broken hyperlinks gives visitors the idea that the site is unprofessional and that the website owner or owners have a dubious reputation – very costly image problems that are hard to change once it is established. Moreover, visitors who encounter many difficulties in a website will most likely not go back for a return visit, this is almost tantamount to losing prospective clients. They will be turned off because they won't get the page that they are looking for, thinking that it is not really in the site when in reality the page is there only that an error in coding made the page inaccessible.

With internet users becoming more and more sophisticated as time goes by, it will take website owners more effort to entice these users to visit their websites and broken hyperlinks will not help this very difficult process in any way.

Website owners and webmasters should be very aware of the bad effects of having broken links in their websites. They should diligently weed out and fix any broken links. Fortunately, there are now a growing number of handy utilities that can help webmasters located broken links. With these utilities, managing a website becomes relatively easier.

For example, xml-sitemaps.com has programmed a standalone script that will not only create sitemaps but also looks for broken links in a website and then informs webmasters or website owners what links they are and to which pages the links are associated with. This automation of the task of checking broken links is a great time saver for webmasters and website owners.

XML-Sitemaps.com lets you create a Google sitemap online and helps find and fix broken links in your website. create sitemaps

Submit All Of Your Pages And Watch Your Traffic Grow

Writen by Daryl Clark

Everyone is looking for "secrets" about how to get more qualified traffic to their web sites. What I'm going to share with you is no secret, however it is not practiced by very many companies or individuals. Many companies and individuals only submit their home page to search engines and directories. You can easily quadruple your traffic in 90 - 120 days by implementing the following procedures.

1. Create a unique title for each page of your site that covers a different subject matter. I am astounded when I surf the web and I find large and small companies whose web sites don't have a decent title for their home page, much less titles for any of their content pages. Your title should not be named "home". If you own a web design program or if you have competent web designers, your title can be changed on every page in 10 - 30 minutes. Your title should be short and describe the content on that page. In case you were not aware, the title of each page always appears in the upper left hand corner of the browser used by the person visiting your web site.

2. Create meta tags for each page that has a different title. Most people use the same meta tags for each page of their web site. If you have different content on different pages, then you should have different meta tags for those pages too! Meta Tags are the hidden text that programmers use to enable the search engine "spiders" to find your site on the world wide web. If you don't know what meta tags look like or how to write them, you can learn this information by visiting this URL at our web site: http://www.emarketingman.com/searchengine.htm

3. Submit your pages to search engines and directories every month. Once you have the proper title and meta tags for the interior pages of your web site, register them once a month. If you want ANY of your pages indexed by search engines, you have to submit them once a month! You can do this manually or you can do it through various submit programs. The most affordable method we have found are the free directory submit tool and free search engine submit tool at JimTools: http://www.jimtools.com

   JimTools allows you to register with 56 search engines and over 100 directories at no charge. If you do this once a month, you will start getting traffic to your newly submitted pages within 60 - 120 days.

In summary: Optimizing your title and your Meta Tags for each page can easily quadruple your traffic in just a few months. Submitting your internal pages of your web site to directories and search engines is an affordable and easy way to bring more qualified traffic to your web site.

About The Author

Daryl Clark is the owner of www.EMarketingman.com. A web site designed to teach individuals and organizations how to successfully promote their businesses on line. Visit his web site at http://www.emarketingman.com

Linking From High Pagerank Sites The Easy Way

Writen by Gary Huynh

One of the components of getting traffic from the search engines is to have another site linking to you.

You want to get links from a site that is frequently visited by the search engine spiders. The spiders will crawl the site and find the link to your page.

To find sites that get visited by the spiders frequently, you can view the pagerank of the sites. I will not go into detail about how Google determines pagerank or even what pagerank is for brevity.

You can find the pagerank of a site by either installing the Google toolbar or visiting third party sites such as:

Sites are given pagerank between 0 and 10. A rule of thumb is that you'll want to get links from sites with a pagerank of at least 5. Those sites get visited by the search engine spiders at least once a day.

To get links from sites with pagerank of 5 you can send the webmaster a link exchange request, submit content for their sites or you can take the simple method as outlined below.

Ezinearticles.com is a site where people visit and submit their articles for other publishers to use as content on their sites. You can go there and sign up for free to submit your own articles.

If your articles are approved, then they'll be published on that site and you'll have a link to your sites. If you check the pagerank of Ezinearticles.com, you'll find that it's a pagerank 6 site.

Just recently, Ezinearticles.com has added a commenting feature where you can put comments about any article.

Here's how to comment on any of the more than 150k+ articles in EzineArticles.com's database:

1. Go to http://EzineArticles.com and find an article about something of personal or business interest you want to comment on.

2. Click on the "Comments" link directly under the TITLE of the article.

3. Add your Comment

4. Enter the CAPTCHA code to authenticate you are a human

5. Within a business day or so, your comment will be reviewed by a human editor that is part of their comment management team.

6. You will receive an email after your comment is approved.

Now you can get a link back to your site without having to write an article. Submitting a comment is only suggested if you simply want the spiders to crawl your sites. I still suggest writing and submitting your own articles for the full benefit of one way links to your site.

There are many sites that you can get links from without sending an email to the webmaster and waiting for a reply. You just have to keep your eyes open and be aware of each site's pagerank.

Gary Huynh is a full-time online information publisher. Read more articles at his site: http://www.sixfiguremarketer.com

Google Search Engine Optimization Seo Branding Tactics

Writen by Scott D. White

"What have you Googled lately?" Ask anyone that question 10 years ago, and you would have gotten a strange look. But now, Googling is a part of life. When we need something, increasingly, we search for it on the Internet.

From a branding perspective, Google has much in common with the Kleenex's, Xerox's and Rollerblades of the world. It's a brand name that has become the name for a category—a far cry from the time, not that long ago, when only the urban hipsters with Tony the Tiger shirts knew what Google was.

The Yellow Pages may not be gone, but their star is fading quickly as more and more people turn to Google (or other search engines) when they need to find a product or service. Why? Better, more complete and up-to-date information. No contest. When someone looks up a company in the phonebook, they get their address, phone number and maybe some flashy ad graphics; depending on how much money they spent on the ad. On a Google search, they get a link to the company's website, where you can find as much information on a company and its offerings as you need.

For things like books, tickets and music, Googling will often lead to an instant purchase if the price is right. But even for more "considered purchases," where one competes on more than just price; Googling is often the first research step buyers take to arrive at a decision. They search keywords and combinations of keywords, comparing each set of results to the next, looking for the most relevant information.

In a perfect world, people would systematically study three to five competitors in a selection set, write down the pros and cons of each and come to a calculated decision. But a perfect world isn't the real world. Here's what happens: if a search result looks promising, the buyer will click through to the company's website and investigate the possibilities of a match further. If it looks like a fit, case closed. Customer won. No further research required—even if someone's out there with a better deal waiting.

This is why being on this "short list" of high-ranking search results is imperative in this day and age—the higher the better. Top rankings give you the chance of having prospective customers knock on your virtual door, knowledgeable about your offerings and eager to buy before you ever say a single word to them.

Don't be ashamed of self-Googling

Come on, you know you've done it: typed your name into an Internet search engine such as Yahoo or MSN. Don't feel embarrassed. We all do it. It is, after all, interesting to see what others are saying about you.

In a business context, it's not narcissistic at all. It's smart, especially when you're trying to build your brand online. But besides looking for your specific name, try looking for your category. For instance, if you're a Denver widget maker, look up "Denver widget" or any other combination of keywords or phrases relevant to your business. Where do you rank? Top two? Top 10? Top 1000? It doesn't take a genius to figure out the top five results will get a lot more clicks than Numbers 75-80. Are you where you want to be?

How top-ranked websites get their positions

Especially for the most competitive keyword searches, companies must engage in a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy, which encompasses strategic smarts, hard work and clean code.

How search engines rank your websites

Computer programs called "spiders" are responsible for visiting, indexing and ranking web sites. Each search engine has its own spiders with somewhat differing methods for ranking the websites it finds, and there are strategies you can use to make yours more appealing—and also mistakes that can negatively affect your rankings.

4 SEO Urban Legends

Legend #1: You can muscle your way into top rankings. Maybe in 1999, but not anymore. Simply repeating a bunch of hidden keywords on your page or in your META tags no longer fools the search engine spiders into giving you high rankings. Algorithms that power the software behind these spiders have become much more advanced, and employing tactics like this will more likely hurt your rankings than help them.

Legend #2: It starts and ends with traffic. Many people will click themselves repeatedly in the hopes of boosting their search rankings. However, this is a futile effort because spiders don't care one bit about traffic.

Legend #3: I can get rankings cheap from those nice folks sending me all those emails. If you fall for one of those spammer schemes, you deserve to be ripped off! Seriously though, you'd be paying good money for a clerical job you could easily do yourself. But even if you did do it yourself, you would run the risk of getting even worse rankings. It's like membership at Augusta National—if you say you want it, you won't get it. Search engines regard repetitive submissions as desperation, which they reject wholeheartedly.

Legend #4: A Search Engine Optimization service guaranteed a Top 10 position on Google. In short, nobody can legitimately do that. Such guarantees are a telltale sign of snake-oil salesmanship. Here's how the scam works: technically, they live up to their end by getting you top billing on a search term of their choosing, which is so specific to you that only your mom would likely search on it.

Smarty-pants spiders

Search engine optimization is far more complex than it's ever been. The obvious shortcuts to great search engine rankings have long since been identified and shut down by the search engine companies. These days, high rankings have much more to do with the structure of your HTML code, your acumen at avoiding "trip wires" that send spiders away, where certain keywords appear on a page, how you use JavaScript and Cascading Style Sheets and where your formatting instructions appear in relation to your website copy. If you used a WYSIWYG code-writing program—such as Front Page, GoLive or Dreamweaver—you almost certainly will get a much lower score from the spiders.

It really does take a team of people, like the kind we have at Brand Identity Guru, dedicated to monitoring the everyday changes on the battlefield to maintain a high-ranking web presence. And it does change frequently—search engines are notorious for changing their search algorithms often.

What about pay-per-click?

Organic ("free" or "natural") rankings are completely different from sponsored ("pay-per-click" or PPC) links. PPC can be an effective part of a brand's overall online marketing strategy, and a lot professional SEO companies work with clients to design PPC campaigns that are both cost-effective and eye-catching. But PPC won't substitute for SEO. High positioning on a relevant keyword search on Google, with its reputation for returning highly relevant results, bodes well for your brand in a way that sponsored links just can't. However, neither is it wise to engage in an all-SEO, no-PPC strategy. Serious online brand marketers get the best results with a comprehensive strategy run by professionals with both the branding and technical know-how to determine the right mix of the two.

Yes, it's complicated.

But you get back a lot in return for your investment of time and money. A more "Googleable" online branding strategy will quickly yield improved sales and a more visible brand on the web, which, in turn, will also positively affect your bottom line.

Scott White is President of Brand Identity Guru a leading Corporate Branding and Branding Research firm located in Boston, Massachusetts.

Brand Identity Guru specializes in creating corporate and product brands that increase sales, market share, customer loyalty, and brand valuation.

This Article may be freely copied as long as it is not modified and this resource box accompanies the article, together with working hyperlinks.

Optimum Seo Keyword Density A Reallife Case Study

Writen by Glenn Murray

So you've built your website, you know what keywords you want to target (i.e. what words your customers are searching for), and you're ready to write your copy. You've been told that you should use your keywords frequently so that you appear in search results for those words. But what does "frequently" mean?

How many times should you use your primary keyword? This case study helps answer that question.

Some background on "Keyword Density"

In order to understand optimum keyword usage, we first need to have some way of measuring keyword frequency. In the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) world, frequency is actually referred to as density. Keyword density is a measure of the number of times your keyword appears on a page expressed as a percentage of the total wordcount of that page. For example, if your page has 100 words, and your keyword phrase appears 5 times, its density is 5%. So when you hear someone say "keyword density", that's normally what they're talking about. (TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your page at LiveKeywordAnalysis.com.)

However, there is another, more complex measure of keyword density which takes into account the text components in the HTML of the page (i.e. the meta tags: Title, Keywords, Alt Text, Description, and Comments). When using this measure, you don't just count the words your visitor sees; you also count the words in your meta tags. For example, if you have 100 words on your home page, 10 words in your Title tag, 20 words in your Description tag, 70 words in your Alt tags, and 10 words in your Comments tag, your total wordcount for the page is 100 + 10 + 20 + 70 + 10 = 210. Similarly, when counting keywords, you don't just add up the number of times a visitor will see your keyword, you also count the number of times that keyword appears in your meta tags. For example, if your keyword appears 5 times in the home page copy, 3 times in the Title tag, 5 times in the Description tag, 30 times in your Alt tags, and twice in your Comments tag, your total keyword count is 5 + 3 + 5 + 30 + 2 = 45. So with a total wordcount of 210 and a keyword count of 45, your keyword density is 45/210 x 100 = 21%. It is argued that this measure of keyword density is more relevant as the search engines measure density in this fashion. (TIP: You can automatically check the keyword density of your page using this more complex measure at GoRank.com.)

As you can see, you need to be very aware of which measure you're talking about when you're talking "keyword density". But let me reiterate; mostly when people talk about keyword density, they're talking the simple measure.

What is the optimum keyword density

And now down to business… What keyword density (of either kind) should you be targeting on your website?

There's a lot of debate surrounding this issue because the search engine companies don't disclose the details of their algorithms (as that would allow people to abuse the system). Instead, people working in the SEO world are left to figure it out based on their experience.

A recent article by respected SEO and Blog expert, Wayne Hurlbert, (see Keyword Density: SEO Considerations) suggests that Google sees pages with a keyword density of greater than 2% as spam. It was this article which prompted me to analyze the keyword density of my copywriting website.

CASE STUDY

The Website: This case study analyzes the website for my advertising copywriting and SEO copywriting business, Divine Write – http://www.divinewrite.com. For my primary keyword, my site is now on page 1 of Google.com (out of approximately 900,000 search results).

Number of pages on site: At the time of writing, my website contained a total of 53 pages.

Primary keyword phrase: "copywriter"

Average keyword density: Using the simple measure of keyword density discussed above, the average keyword density of my copywriting website is 1.9%. Using the complex measure it's 4.9%.

Keyword density range: Using the simple measure, my density ranged from 0.4% to 7.6%. Using the complex measure it ranged from 1.6% to 17.5%

Some comments on the figures

• The figures and corresponding ranking detailed in this case study may not be directly relevant to every site. There's a lot I don't know about the algorithms and there are bound to be other factors at play which I don't know about.

• With regard to Wayne Hurlbert's article, it would seem that he is referring to keyword density as calculated using the simple method discussed above.

• The range figures are noteworthy because they suggest that you don't need to be paranoid about having some pages with a very high density and some with a very low density.

Conclusion

A simple keyword density of 1.9% can be enough for a first page ranking in Google.com (assuming you have enough quality backlinks – see http://www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm and http://www.divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm for more information).

Happy SEO writing!

* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit www.DivineWrite.com or www.ArticlePR.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.

Whats The Most Important Part Of An Seo Campaign

Writen by Jeremy Knauff

If you're like many of the business owners that are beginning to see the importance of search engine optimization as a marketing tool, chances are that you've come across quite a bit of contradictory information. You've probably heard a dozen opinions of what the most important part of your SEO campaign is - everything from links to title tags and everything in between.

The fact of the matter is that selecting the right keyword phrases is the single most important aspect of any SEO campaign. If you choose keywords that are too competitive you may never achieve any ranking for them, and if you choose keywords that no one searches for you will not receive any traffic even if your web site ranks #1. That's why it's so important to put a little extra effort into your keyword selection or hire a professional to do it. Let's say that you are a real estate agent in Tampa, Florida who wants to generate additional business from the internet. While it may sound great to target the keyword phrase "real estate" because it gets over 67,000 searches each day, you would really be much better off targeting a keyword phrase like "tampa bay waterfront real estate" which gets about 6 searches each day. Visitors searching for 3-4 word keyword phrases are more likely to convert to clients than those searching for more general keyword phrases. When coupled with the competition you'll face for a general term like "real estate" you're ROI quickly dissipates, despite the high number of daily searches. You have to consider that someone using the keyword phrase "real estate" could be any number of people outside of our target market, such as a person looking for general real estate information, a person looking for a career in real estate, or a person looking for real estate in a location that you don't serve.

By choosing keyword phrases based on relevance, traffic and competition you will get the highest ROI out of your SEO campaign and see results more quickly.

Jeremy L. Knauff is the founder of Wildfire Marketing Group, an innovative marketing company that specializes in guerilla marketing techniques to help smaller companies compete with larger companies and win. article submission service & directory submission service at rcplinks.com

Sitemaps Uncover The Only Quick And Easy Site Submission Strategy

Writen by Joe Borges

What is the easiest and quickest way to get your site spidered and listed by Google and Yahoo?

This is an enternal question, one that many frustrated SEO specialists and online business owners are still trying to figure out. The trick to answering this question is to find out exactly what Google and Yahoo want you to do to get listed; not what you THINK they want you to do. That being said, the tried and true methods to get your pages indexed and listed by Google and Yahoo have been the following:

1. Blogging and Pinging

2. Submit your website through the standard submission form provided by Yahoo and Google

3. Pay a search engine submission service to do it for you

4. Figure out how to create a Sitemap for each of the engines to get the spiders to come to your site (you still have to manually submit)

These are all decent methods. However, the problems with 3 of these methods are many, and here are just a few:

1. Blog and Ping and submission forms are all slow ways to get listed. Who has that kind of time?

2. Search Engine Submission services can be expensive

3. Using an automated search engine submission service can get you banned, if the search engines think that you are "spamming"

Of all the methods listed above, both Google and Yahoo prefer that you create a sitemap and then submit your site to them. You create a database file that contains information about ALL of your web pages. You then load that file onto your website and then let Google know where that file is. Google is extremely specific about how the database should be submitted, which is in XML format.

By submitting your website in this way, you are cutting down on their overhead by a huge amount. You see, when you submit the old-fashioned way, using the standard submission form we talked about earlier, Google and Yahoo have to convert your information to the database XML format themselves. As you can imagine, this takes time, especially with the zillions of webpages that are submitted daily. So, those sites that are submitted in the manner and format that Google and Yahoo are already using will get their pages spidered faster...do you see the logic here? Using this process, you are enabling them to visit many MORE of your web pages quickly and easy. This is exactly what Google and Yahoo want you to do.

By submitting your sitemap in the preferred format, you will accomplish the following:

1. Save enormous amounts of your valuable time and money.

2. You don't risk getting banned

3. You will get Google and Yahoo to spider the pages of your site faster.

So, if you want to get your site spidered, and therefore listed, faster, you must create and submit the sitemap. In theory, the search engines can list your pages whenever they want. In reality, until you get them to spider your webpages, you will never get them listed!

Joe Borges makes it easy to get your website quickly spidered and listed in all the major search engines. Learn how by visiting our Google Sitemap website. Joe Borges is an experienced Internet Marketer and Software Consultant with experience in website development and implementation. He is also a professional SEO Consultant, helping internet businesses increase their web presence, website traffic and Search Engine Ranking. Get tools and strategies that you can use right now to make your online business thrive by visiting:

http://www.tekretail.com/seo-software.html

Search Engines 101 Search Engines Explained

Writen by Kristy Meghreblian

What Are Search Engines?

A search engine is a database system designed to index and categorize internet addresses, otherwise known as URLs (for example, http://www.submittoday.com).

There are four basic types of search engines:

Automatic: These search engines are based on information that is collected, sorted and analyzed by software programs, commonly referred to as "robots", "spiders", or "crawlers". These spiders crawl through web pages collecting information which is then analyzed and categorized into an "index". When you conduct a search using one of these search engines, you are really searching the index. The results of the search will depend on the contents of that index and its relevancy to your query.

Directories: A directory is a searchable subject guide of Web sites that have been reviewed and compiled by human editors. These editors decide which sites to list, and, in which categories.

Meta: Meta search engines use automated technology to gather information from a spider and then deliver a summary of that information as the results of a search to the end user.

Pay-per-click (PPC): A search engine that determines ranking according to the dollar amount you pay for each click from that search engine to your site. Examples of PPC search engines are Overture.com and FindWhat.com. The highest ranking goes to the highest bidder.

There are a few downfalls you should know about using PPCs:

1. The use of PPC search engines as part of your search engine optimization process will not improve your search engine positioning in the regular editorial search results. Instead, they will most always appear in a "Sponsored" or "Featured" area located at the top or side of the regular search page results. Even though your paid listing will appear at the top of the search page, many users will not click on paid listings because they look at it as an advertisement. In the past, people used to always click on banner ads, but now they are seen more of as a nuisance. Similarly, the same thing is happening with PPC listings. Also, PPC listings are not always as relevant to a query as the editorial search results.

2. If your site is not effectively search engine optimized before you begin to submit it to a PPC, it will still be poorly advertised afterwards. The optimization of your Web site is critical to the success of your rankings.

3. When you stop paying for a PPC submission, your listing disappears and so does the traffic.

PPCs can be an effective short-term solution for gaining exposure and driving immediate traffic to your Web site while you wait for full indexing, but it can become expensive if you use it as a long-term solution.

How Do Search Engines Work?:

Search engines compile their databases with the aid of spiders (a.k.a. robots). These search engine spiders crawl the Internet from link to link, identifying Web pages. Once search engine spiders find a Web site, they index the content on those pages, making the URLs available to Internet users. In turn, owners of Web sites submit their URLs to search engines for crawling and, ultimately, inclusion in their databases. This is known as search engine submission.

When you use search engines to find something on the Internet, you're basically asking the search engine to scan its database and match your keywords and phrases with the content of the URLs they have on file at that time. Spiders regularly return to the URLs they index to look for changes. When changes occur, the index is updated to reflect the new information.

What Are The Pros And Cons Of Search Engines?

Pro: With the vast wealth of information available on the Internet, search engines are the most effective and efficient way to find information based on your specific search requests.

Con: Because search engines index mass quantities of data, you are likely to get irrelevant responses to your search requests.

Are Search Engines All The Same?

Search results vary from search engine to search engine in terms of size, speed and content. The results will also vary based on the ranking criteria the search engines use. If you aren't getting the results you need, try a different search engine. While the results may not be wildly different, you may get a few search results from one search engine that you didn't from another.

How Do Search Engines Rank Web Pages?

When ranking Web pages, search engines follow specific criteria, which may vary from one search engine to another. Naturally, they want to generate the most popular (or relevant) pages at the top of their list. Search engines will look at keywords and phrases, content, HTML meta tags and link popularity -- just to name a few -- to determine the value of the Web page.

About The Author

As Submit Today's copywriter and editor, Kristy Meghreblian has written online content for many successful companies, including Monster.com. She has successfully combined her excellence in journalism with the delicate art of keyword density as it relates to search engine optimization. As a result, she has helped many Submit Today clients achieve top ranking. Submit Today is a leading search engine optimization, submission and ranking company located in Naples, Florida.

kristy@submittoday.com

Popup Does It Affect Site Ranking

Writen by Michael Russell

If you go on the Internet and browse the discussion boards, you will find topics on just about everything you can think of and even some things you wouldn't think of. One of these boards had a very interesting discussion that led to some very interesting testing. The discussion was about popups and whether they had an effect on search engine rankings. One guy at the site said, "How can it? Why would a search engine care?". This led to some interesting theories involving the "annoyance" factor and a number of other things. Finally, these people, who obviously had too much time on their hands, did some testing over a period of several months to see if this theory carried any weight.

They each took their web sites and tracked their progress without popup windows for a period of time. They did this for each of the major search engines. They then added popup windows to their sites and watched to see if their rankings went up or down. The results may surprise you.

As it turned out, the popup windows most definitely had an effect on search engine ranking. The problem was that not all the rankings were affected in the same way.

When tracing the progress of each site for Yahoo, the change in ranking was odd to say the least. When tracked for a period of eight months, the first three months showed a gradual lowering in ranking. Between months four and six the trend began to level off. Months seven and eight actually showed a slight increase in ranking almost to the level where the pages were back in month one.

With Google however it was a completely different story. From the moment the popups were installed on the sites Google rankings increased by a scale of +92 on a -100 to +100 scale. This is an absolutely amazing number. There was absolutely no doubt after the tests were completed that Google ranks pages with popups much higher than the same pages when they didn't have popups. Of course when contacted, Google would neither confirm or deny this. Their reply was simply that pages are ranked based on content and traffic.

There are a few things that need to be pointed out about how this study was done. For starters, over 1000 queries for over 10,000 sites were used as criteria for the results so the sample was certainly large enough.

Also, in conducting this test, no attempt was made to isolate different keywords in order to skew the results. Keywords were chosen randomly from all different types of sites from home business to healthcare to game sites. The number of keywords used was quite extensive.

At the end of the study, the people who conducted it came to the following conclusion. "While it appears on the surface that search engines do take popups into consideration when ranking a site, we can't say for certain whether this is indeed a factor or not."

You may or may not want to try this test with your own site. Proceed at your own risk.

-------------------------------------------------------
Michael Russell
Your Independent guide to Popups
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Wanted Ghost Writer To Make Webmaster Rich

Writen by Christopher Kyalo

It is a proven fact that a skilled ghost writer can make a webmaster client very rich, virtually overnight. There are several ways in which this is happening on the World Wide Web even as you read this article.

i) Wanted Ghost Writer Pulls In Tons Of Traffic

When the wanted ghost writer produces content based on keyword phrases that pulls in tons of traffic via search engines, a respectable amount of cash can end up in the webmaster's pockets. The higher the traffic any site receives, the more money they will tend to make for the entrepreneur. Some badly wanted but scarcely found freelance writers, are even able to use very high traffic keywords in certain high ranking article directories. The result is that part of the tremendously high traffic that views the article at the article directory end up at the client site via a well structured and attractive resource box at the bottom of the article.

ii) Ghost Writer Generates Content That Attracts Badly Wanted High Value Adsense Keywords And Plenty Of Clicks

Another badly wanted ghost writer is the type that understands Adsense well and are well able of originating the sort of content that attracts high-paying Google Adsense keywords. And even more important, are gifted to the extent that their content provokes so much clicking at the site, that the site owner is delighted beyond their wildest dreams.

iii) Wanted Ghost Writer Understand Affiliate Marketing

Then there are those ghost writers who deeply understand what exactly is wanted in lucrative affiliate programs. Do you know what kind of money is being made from some affiliate programs these days? More than enough to pay such a writer very well to keep on producing the magic that will keep the cash flowing in.

I can almost hear you asking yourself the question. Do these badly wanted ghost writers really exist, or is all this just hype?

Christopher Kyalo Is A leading web content provider who provides all the key traffic generation ingredients in all his work for clients. He is occasionally available to handle new client assignments. Get the details on how you can contact him at his content provider blog. Or learn all the inside secrets of high traffic generating content from his free newsletter. Subscribe now by sending a blank email to articlesrgold-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

The 7 Best Stealth Techniques To Improve Your Google Rankings

Writen by Mike Makler

Stealth as in Spying. But Knowing What your Top Competitors are Doing and how they are doing it you can greatly improve your very own search Engine Rankings.

Step 1 Do A Google Search

The First Step is to do a Google Search and Identify your top 5 or 10 Competitors for your Keyword or Phrase on Google.

Step 2 View Web Page

Click on the Web Page of your top Competitor. Look over the page. See the general layout. Look over the use of Font Styles, Bolding, Colors,Header Tags

Step 3 View Page Source

Do a right click view page source, in Steps 4 and 5 we will use the information from the web page source code.

Step 4 Description Meta Tag

Look over the Description Meta Tag. How many times is the keyword or phrase used in the meta tag? Does the Text of the description meta tag appear in the text of the web page anywhere?

Step 5 Title Meta Tag

Look at the Title Meta Tag. How many times is the keyword or phrase used in the meta tag? Does the text in the Title meta tag appear in the text of the web page anywhere?

Step 6 Keyword Density

See how often the Keyword or phrase is used on the Page. http://www.ranks.nl/tools/spider.html

Step 7 Link Partners

If you want to see who links to you in the Google search box type in link: followed by your domain. As an example if you want to see who links to the greatest baseball team in the world the New York Yankees type in. --- link:yankees.com

About The Author:
Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 When he Built an Organization of over 100,000 Members

Get Mike's Newsletter:
http://ewguru.com/newsletter

More Articles by Mike:
http://ewguru.com/tips

Permission Based E_Mail Marketing Methods
http://ewguru.com/hbiz/amazingoffer.html

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler the Coolest Guy in the Universe

Determining The Value Of Your Seo Service

Writen by Stoney DeGeyter

Every once in a while--and probably more often than we should--we find ourselves reviewing our SEO pricing models. Pricing SEO has always been a real sticking point for me because there is no one-size-fits-all pricing metric. As I began our most recent review of our pricing something really starting to become quite obvious; search engine optimization is requiring more and more research and analysis than it ever did before.

After doing SEO for several years (since 1998) I recently put all of our regular SEO duties into a spreadsheet and noting the amount of time spent on each activity on a one-time basis, monthly basis, and a per-page basis (both one-time and monthly). This format allows me to quite easily see the man-hours and costs involved in each distinct duty that we perform over the course of an SEO campaign. It also allows me to see the changes that occur in our SEO processes.

A year ago, the bulk of our optimization occurred in the set-up phase, with the monthly optimization consisting of a few hours of link building, rankings monitoring and on-page tweaking. Now, the set-up is just a mere fraction of the hours that go into each optimization campaign. The continual analysis performed on each account every month does not exceed that of the set-up, but add a couple months worth of optimization together and it does. Expand that to a six or twelve month campaign and the man hours of research and analysis performed far exceeds the initial set-up process. And believe me, we do a considerable amount of research up front!

Differing Pricing Models Between SEO Companies

SEO providers come in all shapes and sizes. We often have potential clients come to me price shopping. They are not comparing our services with our competitors, but they are comparing our pricing with our competitors. In that battle we lose almost every time, and the reason for that is because there is always an "SEO" company that will work for less. With SEO, however, you usually get what you pay for. If you want a cheap service, you'll get cheap results.

"But isn't SEO all about top rankings? If firm X can provide top rankings for less, shouldn't I go with them?" This is standard fare from bargain shoppers, but the basic questions to ask yourself is this: do you want top rankings or do you want more business? Most SEO companies are in the business of achieving top rankings and everything else is not their problem. Even still, it is rare to find inexpensive SEOs that can achieve top rankings for competitive, high ROI terms, maintain those top rankings through constant algorithm changes, and continue to beat out your competition which are optimizing for the same keyword phrases.

If you're paying someone only a few hundred or even just a few thousand dollars each year to work on your site, how many man-hours do you really think they are giving you each month? When your site gets dropped or rankings mysteriously crash, how much time do they spend trying to find potential issues and problems? Even the best sites—and those optimized by the best SEOs in the world—can suddenly disappear from the search engines. Sometimes it's a temporary issue, sometimes it's because of something the client did, and sometimes it's due to other external factors. Whatever the reason, the SEO needs to thoroughly investigate so the issue can be corrected.

Continuous Optimization Services

Recently we've changed our overall outlook on the month-to-month SEO services we provide. This is largely due to the number of clients that come to us each month after having been penalized by one or more engines because of previous SEO work performed which ran afoul of the search engines. Rarely do these cases allow for a quick fix which puts them back into the top positions overnight. With the suspected Google sandbox, over-optimization penalties and aging delays, many of these sites must go through a rather lengthy period before they are placed back in the index and allowed to perform well in the search results, long after penalization issues have been resolved.

We look at what we provide similar to having an investigator on retainer. Our job, each month, is to continue to seek out potential problems that may now, or in the future, be keeping our client's sites from performing as best as they can possibly be. If our clients are not in the first page for all their targeted ROI phrases, then our job is to find out why. And then if they are not in the top 5, our job is to analyze what it takes to get them there. And if they are not in the top 3 then we need to see what the competition has going for them that our client doesn't. And if they are not in the Pole Position, our job is to find and eliminate all potential external barriers, no matter how small. And all of this must be done while maintaining the integrity, usability, and performance of the client's site.

Sometimes all this is as simple as finding a duplicate URL somewhere that we didn't know about and other times after months of research we find that a client links out to sites that link out to other sites using spammy techniques. These types of things have to be under constant analysis, even if a site performs well. Heading off problems before they occur is a big part of the SEO game, and plays heavily into pricing.

Pricing is a big deal for the average business owner and it should be. However, pricing alone should not be the deciding factor in which SEO provider you choose. Find out what services you'll be getting. If you get the impression that the SEO is done after a few hours of up front work, you may not be getting enough investigation for potential or existent, yet unknown, problems. This can cost you later on.

On the other hand, just because someone charges huge fees does not mean they'll do you well either. This is a symptom of many very large SEO companies. Do your homework and find the company that will treat you as their only client. If you get that kind of service, you will undoubtedly reap a very significant return on your investment.

Stoney DeGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a professional search engine optimization and marketing firm based in Reno, NV, providing quality SEO services since 1998. Stoney has is also a moderator in the Search Engine Forums and Small Business Ideas Forum. You can read his SEM blog at (EMP) E-Marketing Performance. You can email him with any questions at stoney@polepositionmarketing.com

The Donts Of Search Engine Optimization Seo

Writen by John Cal

The topic for discussion today is about what not to do when it comes to search engine optimization (SEO). I was going to name this article The Do's & Don'ts of SEO, but I figure at this point you know what to do. I've dedicated many articles that are focused on what to 'DO'. Just check my articles "SEO Basic's for the Dummy" or "Dominate the Search Engines" or "The Art of Keywords" to understand what to do. Or just read this article and 'DO' the opposite of what 'not' to do.

The things that I will talk about in this article are about what is called in SEO "black hat" SEO. What's been talked in previous articles are what we call "white hat" To learn more on "white hat" strategies, refer to any of the articles above. From this point on, it'll be about "black hat" strategies.

Black Hat

What's this mysterious "black hat" SEO strategies? Is it the latest fashion trend? No it's not a fashion trend at all. Should I do it? Does it work with the SE's or is it just a waste of time? The answer to these questions depend upon who you are talking to. Many employ these strategies and continue to do so today.

My answer to these questions is yes they do work. However, in my opinion, Black Hat strategies are quick fixes with short term gains. I see it as continuing to work hard and not necessarily smart. I am lazy, so I want to do something once and let it go from there. Black Hat strategies do not allow this. Your site may get the rankings quick, but soon your site will be at the back of the line. (or out of the line completely). Black Hat involves spamming and the SE's do not like this. They will find your site, penalize or ban it completely from the index.

Then your off again starting a whole new site employing the same strategies. White Hat strategies start off really slow. And I mean ssllllooooowwww... But eventually get momentum and out last the rest. The reason it is so slow is your at the mercy of the search engines. Ever heard of the infamous Google Sandbox? Well experts say it could take any new site 6-12 months to get out of it! You kidding me? I have to wait a year to see results in Google? Who has that kind of time? You? Definitely not me. I'm lazy but not that lazy. I have bills to pay today, not next year. This is why many webmasters go with black hat instead of white hat.

Even with this flaw, white hat will pay off big in the long hall. It will flow continuous money into your mailbox while others are jumping around trying to get new sites started to keep their black hat strategies going.

What Not To Do?

Ok, ok, you have me convinced. I do not want to go with the black hat strategies. But what would be considered black hat? How can I avoid it? Just hold on a second. I'm getting there. Didn't I tell you I was lazy. The rest of the article is focused on the things not to do. By the time I am done, you will know what not to do to your website to not get it banned. There are 2 ways of spamming. On-page and off-page. Sounds familiar? Same factors to help you rank well are the same that can get you penalized or banned. Let's start with our own backyard. Your thinking…Yea, yea I know "As momma always told you." Yep. See your getting it!

On-page

Keyword Stuffing

First up to bat, keyword stuffing. What is that, you may ask. Almost sounds like some food. Making me hungry just thinking about it. I'll take some chicken with a side of chicken stuffing, mash potatoes and keyword stuffing please.

Anyway, in my opinion, there are 2 forms of keyword stuffing. I call them keyword list stuffing and keyword body stuffing. They will not get your site banned, but it won't rank you well either. Let's get into the first one, keyword list stuffing.

Keyword List

This involves adding every word known to your niche in the meta keywords. You see a website with meta keywords and it is stuffed full with 1000 or so keywords. Look like they got the dictionary and started writing. Seriously. As funny as it sounds, there are websites out there that do this. People, this not going to get you ranked. It will not get you banned, but definitely will not get your ranked on the first million pages!! Some SE's do not even read the list to begin with. Keep it short. No need to add the A-F section of the dictionary to your keyword list.

Keyword Body

This is the process of taking your keyword list (Probably too big to begin with) and repeating it all over the page. It makes no sense to the user, just a bunch of words all over the place. I haven't seen this much, and I hope I do not. Will not help you in anyway.

Also, while we are on the subject, over using the keywords is a no, no. Some websites will take their main keyword and repeat over and over and over. You'll see it in the Title, meta description, everywhere. This strategy will get you banned or penalized. Again, it's an attempt to appear more relevant than the website really is. I have seen the tactic work, but not for long. If your ranked well, and you put in your main keyword and you suddenly see a site up that has no business being there. Check back again in a few days and you'll see that site gone.

The Invisible KeyWord

Sounds like a Super Hero. When there is trouble with ranking your website, call "The Invisible KeyWord" No, please do not! He is a enemy, not a hero. This is involves taking your keywords, put them on the body of your website and make the color of the font the same color as the background of the website. It's invisible to you or I, but visible to SE's. It's a process of spam to make the website appear more relevant because it has the keywords in the body. SE's have caught onto this tactic and you will be penalized or banned for this. I have seen this tactic done. But I have the visible ink. One way to tell, is when you visit a website and you see a big blank space at the bottom or somewhere towards the bottom, take your mouse, point and try to highlight the space. When it highlights, it will reveal the words!!

Formatting Keywords

This is when you bold, italicize, or underline every keyword on the website. There is no need to emphasize every word. Now you know those words are not that important in every sentence. Come on now! Just once is fine. Twice at the most. This tactic could end up backfiring. The SE's will give less importance to the words.

Excessive Link Pages

This is having too many links on one page. Normally, it's 100 or more that's a problem. Experts have difference numbers that they believe will hurt. I believe 100 is most agreed upon that will hurt your SE rankings. A rule of thumb I try to do is stay with around 15-25 links on one page. Anything more than that can create clutter on your website. It will make it difficult for your surfers. Besides that, it does not help the websites you are linking to. If a surfer cannot find their site because it's buried on a page with over 100 links, do not expect any traffic.

Missing Title

I just had to put this in there. This won't get you penalized or banned, but since this article is about what not to do, I had to talk about this. This is so common among websites. You would be surprised at how many websites do not have a Title at all. Makes you want to put a ad up on the back of a milk box. "Has anyone seen this Title"? or a Wanted sign in the Post office Wanted "Website Title" $1000 reward if found.

This is so big. This is one of the top reasons why websites do not rank period. Just this one change alone could move a website from the 100millionth page to the millionth page. What is your site about? Why should I click on it?

Off-page

I really shouldn't call this off-page. Technically it's really not, but I wanted to make a clear difference here. The difference between on-page and off-page is on-page is the way you set your site up. Off-page involves more of the linking side. You cannot really help who links to you and SE's know this. That's why I am not talking about that kind of off-page. You'll see more of what I mean as you read along.

Link Farms

Link Farms? What is this? Is this where links are raised before sent out to the internet? Not quite. Link farms are a bunch of webmasters getting together to setup 1000's of sites and pointing the links towards each other. There are a few ways of accomplishing this. When you do your link campaign, stick with hard reciprocal linking. Many are not aware, but there are link director sites like PowerLinks or Linkvault that brag about helping your build links fast. These are essentially link farms. Avoid them like the plague. How do you know? The red flag is usually when you have to add some kind of script to your website in order to do a link exchange. Don't do it. Again, short term success, but short term gains.

Banned / Penalized Sites

Again, you cannot control who links to you, but you have full control over who you link to. Avoid linking to other penalized or banned sites. This can eventually affect you. Why? Remember, a link pointing to a site is a vote. So your voting for this banned or penalized site that the SE's have stated is bad news. If your voting for them, then that must mean your site is also bad news. Ever heard of the saying, "Birds of a feather, flock together?" I have. It's another one of the sayings that didn't make sense to me until later on in life.

How do I know if I am linking to someone that is banned? The easiest way to do this is by checking the pagerank of the site you are linking to. You can download the Google Toolbar to do this. If you see a grey bar for the pagerank. It's been banned. Now, do not confuse a 0 PR with a penalized site. Having a PR of 0 does not mean the site has been penalized. It'll be grey'd out if it is penalized.

That's all for now folks. I'm sure there will be other tactic's that will arise as SE's catch them. Malicious webmasters will continue to look for quick, easy ways to beat the SE's. The SE's will catch it, update their alogorithms and the cycle will continue. It's a endless cycle as to why I say "white hat" eventually will out last the "black hat" and flow continuous surfers to your site producing tons of money. White hat strategies will hold up through all the changes to the SE's. The choice is always yours. Whatever works for you. Good luck and happy optimizing.

For more on SEO, download the ebook SEO Made Easy at http://www.1st2shop.com

Where Is The Best Place To Hire An Affordable Online Writer

Writen by Christopher Kyalo

While many webmasters will acknowledge that they need to hire an online writer, their biggest problem is where to find an affordable one who will also be effective. So where does somebody find an affordable online writer to hire?

Many webmasters have gone straight to one of those popular work for hire sites and ended up being very disappointed. There seems to be a psychological belief that the web site has sanctioned affordable online writers who advertise at these sites. Actually any pretender-to-be-a-writer can advertise at most of these sites. Some of the more popular ones usually charge a small fee.

Actually the best way to find a good affordable online writer for hire is through recommendations from people you know and trust. This will usually be persons who have worked with the writer and ended up as satisfied clients.

However this is not always easy to do. More so because good online writers who are affordable are in very short supply. Actually the best place to look for an affordable online writer will shock you. It is at your favorite search engine.

What are you looking for in a writer? Is it not seo skills that ill help your site generate traffic via search engines? And surely that writer cannot do for you what they can't do for themselves. Meaning that any affordable online writer for hire with enough skill to get you to find them through a search engine will most probably also be able to do the same for you. That is by generating the sort of key-word-rich content that will help your clients find you through leading search engines.

Are you considering hiring a ghost writer? If so don't do anything until you've read a few of the articles at the author's hire a ghost writer blog. And if you're interested, you'll also be referred to an excellent SEO ghost writer.

A Brief Look And Overview Of Seo Techniques

Writen by Chris Taylor

What is SEO?

SEO is a way of analyzing your site and modifying it to allow search engines to read and index it more easily. SEO is all about maintaining and building websites that get ranked highly on the major search engines.

You see, when people use a search engine, they generally don't look beyond the top 20 or so results. If you want to make any money from your website, you need to get ranked in the top 20 out of potentially hundreds of websites.

How Does SEO Work?

Search engines maintain a huge database containing information from individual websites. Most of the information search engines collect isn't listed on their results pages, but it is taken into consideration when it comes to deciding those results' rankings.

It is very important that you encourage the search engines to rank your website in a high position, and you can do this through the keywords that you use on your website, as well as when you submit it. If the keywords you use in your submission tool don't match the ones on your site then you could harm your rankings - be sure to have all the keywords you want to use on the website itself before you submit it.

Most websites don't focus on their topic well, and so keyword lists containing 50 or more phrases per page are recommended. By focusing some of the pages of your site on keywords, you will score higher with the search engines.

Free Search Engines.

The major search engines on the Internet are still free, and it's not hard to take advantage of this free advertising - you can do it in as little as an hour.

There are several companies that provide free SEO tools, or you can pay a professional to take care of it for you. Looking around on the web will turn up all sorts of useful resources.

What is Unethical SEO?

Unethical search engine optimization techniques can be unlawful, unscrupulous, or just in bad taste. You'd be surprised how many people use these methods. A lot of what is now called unethical SEO used to be accepted, until people went overboard and it started to have a negative affect on the web as a whole.

Keyword stuffing is when your site consists of long lists of keywords and nothing else. Don't do it. There are ways to put keywords and phrases on your site without running the risk of getting banned.

You may have seen 'invisible text' if you've been selecting the text on a page and found words that are the same color as the background. This text is often lists of keywords put there in the hope of fooling search engine spiders while hiding the words from visitors. This is considered unethical, and you shouldn't do it.

A doorway page is a page that isn't designed for real people to see - it's purely for the search engines and spiders, in an attempt to trick them into indexing the website in a higher position. This is a big no-no and should be avoided.

Even though unethical SEO is tempting, and does work, you shouldn't do it - not only is it annoying to users, but it's likely to get you banned from the search engines sooner or later. You sites' search engine rankings just aren't worth the risk. Use efficient SEO techniques to get your site ranked higher, and stay away from anything that even looks like unethical SEO.

SEO is a set of techniques used in order to attract visitors or prospective customers to your website, and the goal of a search engine is to provide high quality content to the users of the Internet. These two objectives are not in opposition, if you do SEO the way it should be done.

Chris Taylor – CEO Catdynamics, author, marketing & SEO Specialist.

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Getting The Top Result In Search Engine With Successful Marketing Is Harder But Not Impossible

Writen by Adams Gill

Search Engine Marketing

Importance of Search engine optimization (SEO) and Search engine Marketing (SEM) are getting increase day by day. Now every website has to be well optimized with the effective search engine marketing strategies. There are a lot of different strategies that you can use. But here you have to beware of whatever you are doing is an ethical way. That follows the search engine policies. Otherwise you will be panelized by the search engine spider. If you not now than must be later on

What is search engine marketing?

For the new comers in SEM there will be the first question. "What SEM is?"

"This is the way of having huge number of visitors from all over the internet by the search engines."

There will be next question what is the benefit of this? The benefit is very big as you can't imagine that it can take to the heights of success in your field. For example you a have websites of your online business in start you can't have that much visitor by just telling about your online business to the people around you and on the internet as well. Well that quantity of people is not that enough for the boost of your websites (Business). As most of them are not interested in your product, services etc.

There is a research that 60 – 80 % of website traffic comes from Search engines. That's why Search engines are very useful for having larger number of online visitors. The website only can have these viewers by occupying the top results with the proper keyword in any search engine. Top ranking in any search engine can be hard and can be very hard but not impossible. These is a phrase that

"In computing there is nothing impossible"

Only if you have constancy and the right way

Keywords are very important in Search engine marketing. The first thing that a search engine examines is your content and the proper placement of your targeted keywords in it. Those keywords should be related to your business theme. Think about your business need. Ask some questions to yourself

What is the theme?
Why are you making this?
For whom you are making this?

People usually use phrase to find their desired information or the product which they are looking for. Try to find out the keywords which have less competition and higher targeted traffic.

For example

"If you have a website that is about manufacturing and selling jeans products than your first thought will take the 'Jeans' as a targeted keyword which is the right one. But if you use the logic than come to know that the keyword Jeans has much competition. It's a bit hard and time taking to occupy this keyword. It's also possible that most of the people are not interested in you. On the other hand it can be more effective if you use "Kids jeans jacket", "men jeans trousers" and so on…! I hope you understand what I am trying to tell you. Less competition and targeted keywords will give you quality traffic who is definitely interested in your products as well.

After deciding the target keywords the other important work starts that get the quality votes from the other well known sites. Search engine consider a link from SiteA to SiteB as a vote for SiteB from SiteA. Use your target keyword as a anchor text when you are placing link on other sites.

What Search engine thinks about you?

• Are you having quality content for your website?
• What are your targeted keywords and their placement?
• The quality back links to your sites.
• Are you following its rules?
• Is your website informative for the visitors?
• What is the purpose of you website?

Just pay close intention to these aspects if you want massive traffic from any search engine. And after a certain period of time search engine even doesn't matter. You will be very well known among the people and they'll come to you without surfing on search engine. That time your marketing will go on automatically. I must say again that is harder but not impossible.

#1 Search Engine Marketing

Googles Pr System Explained

Writen by Claude Beavers

The complexities of Google's PR (Page Ranking) System have grown more difficult to understand since the Hilltop Algorithm was introduced. This beginner's guide to the PR system explains the basics of what PR is, what it does, and how it affects your site's rankings. This revolutionary search algorithm has made it to where the most relevant and popular sites with the best content do the best on Google's search page. Keep in mind, this algorithm is kept secret by Google for fear of it being exploited, but the basics have been released for study.

In a nutshell, Google's Page Ranking is a system devised to rank pages based on their content and popularity and place them accordingly within the search results based on their relevance to the general topic. Or, in laymen's terms, it's a system to make sure sites are put where they need to be, both in search results and in rankings. A site dealing with pet care is not going to be listed in the top 10 when searching for "web design," but depending on its content and popularity it could be well towards the top of the list on "pet medicine" or "sick dog."

PR is on a scale of 0 to 10, with 10 being the highest ranking possible. Of course, only a very few sites have a PR 10 or even a PR 9 for that matter. PR 7 and PR 8 sites are considered very good sites, with lots of original, relevant content and a great deal of inbound links. You will usually find sites with a high PR at the top of the list under Google's search engine, and many others, since relevant content and lots of links is almost a prerequisite for being placed high in any of the major search engines on any of the major keywords.

PR "Spread"

PR is set up to "pass on" from one site to another, or one page to another if it is within your own site. As the PR "spreads" throughout your site, you will get less and less utility from it. A link from a PR 5 site to your main page will give you a PR 4 link to your main page. Since your main page will be linked to other pages within your site, any links on your front page (up to 100 pages) will then receive a PR 3 link from your main page. It continues to trickle down, exponentially losing power until it peters out.

Keep in mind, however, that depending on what page linked to you, and how many links were on that page in the first place, your PR could be significantly lower than expected. If a PR 5 page links to your site, but has 300 other links on that single page, you may get anywhere from 0 to 4 PR. Thus it is beneficial to have a limited number of links on your main pages, due to the smaller amount of PR being passed down with the more links it is being passed to. Overall, a small, concise site with lots of inbound links and few outbound links would be the ideal "PR trap," although relevant, original content is needed as well.

PR's Effect on Rankings

The effects of PR are plainly viewable to anybody with the Google Toolbar. Simply search for a keyword, and look at the PR rating of the top 10 sites. The highest PR will usually be on the top of the list, depending on content. If a PR 8, however, has a keyword that does not match their content, they will most likely be ranked lower than a PR 6 on the same keyword with more relevant content on the subject matter. A site with high, relevant, and original content, along with matching keywords and a multitude of links from related sites, will place extremely high on searches containing their keywords. A site with old content that is not updated often with links from non-related sites and keywords that do not relate directly to their content, on the other hand will probably not show up within the top 100 sites on the same search.

So basically, PR is what drives listings on the Google Search Engine. How to optimize your site to take advantage of this system, however is the real challenge.

Utilizing PR

To make proper use of the PR system, many different things must be done to assure your website is "acceptable" within their guidelines. Basically, making your site more relevant to your topic will have a great effect on your PR ranking, especially if you are "popular" among those sites, or have many links coming from related sites. Each site on the internet has a Page Rank, assigned by Google, based on their content and popularity. To view the page rank of each site, download the Google Toolbar from their site. It will automatically show you the rank of the page you're on with a small counter on your task bar.

Now, obviously a "good" site links to you, it will have a better effect on your website's popularity. Say, for example, a PR 3 website puts a link on their links page to your main page. That link will be considered a PR 2 link to your site (PR - 1), giving you a PR of 2 on your main page. If, however, a PR 0 site adds a link to your site, there is almost no change. A link from a grayed-out site, which means they have a negative PR, will actually be a detriment to your PR, as they have been deemed a site not relevant to anything (or relevant, but banned) by Google. Of course, a link from a PR 7 site to your own will be drastically more effective in boosting your PR than even 20 PR 3 links would.

Getting Good Links

One of the most important things to remember about getting a high PR ranking is to get links from "good" sites. These include sites that are directly related to your own site in some way, and preferably sites with a high PR of their own. Good examples include award pages and directory listings. With relevant links coming from related sites with a high PR, your site will not only gain PR fast, but will gain in real popularity. High PR sites traditionally have high traffic due to their link volume and content. If there is a link to you, it is a sign that you have a good site on a related topic with good content as well, attracting visitors who didn't find exactly what they wanted. More visitors means more PR, which in turn gets you more visitors. You can see how important good links can be.

Try to steer away from sites with unrelated topics, as these will probably not help much, if any with your traffic, and may actually bring a penalty to your PR. Other sites to steer away from when trying to work up your PR would be FFAs, or Free For All link programs. These sites allow browsers to enter their link into a huge list (sometimes of thousands of other sites). Usually you will find that these sites have been "grayed out," or given a negative PR effect by Google, bringing your PR down if you have a link from them.

Doorway pages are another thing to avoid. These are shorter, shallow sites that are created simply for putting as many keywords and links as possible on their pages in order to "farm" PR for higher rankings on Google. These, in general, once they are found are "grayed out," as well as sites they link to. Enough links from these will assure that your site will not show up on Google's search at all.

Getting Good Content

Good, original content is not as hard to obtain as some might think. By writing articles for your site you can provide pages of completely relevant and unique content, as long as the articles are on subject. A few articles will give you plenty of original content to get a fairly good "relevance rating" with Google, which contributes to your PR rating, and it will not trigger the dreaded "duplicate content" tag that will doom your site to obscurity.

In addition, if you can get enough relevant content together, you can eventually become recognized as an "expert" in the field. With that status, you will get enough traffic to boost your PR even more. People are always in need of information, and if you provide good enough information, you will find yourself getting links from all over the internet.

PR in a Nutshell - An Overview

Basically, with enough unique content and relevant links, you can have a high PR site and be ready to take on the internet. Overall, things to keep in mind are to stay consistent with your main topic, both in links and in your content, and stay away from the "no-no" sites mentioned above. If you can do these things, you can gain a high PR and a good ranking with Google in a relatively short period of time.

You can see other articles by Claude Beavers on this topic at: SuperFaster.com - Free Web Promotion Articles and Resources