Seo And Your Targeted Market

Writen by Vickie Scanlon

SEO is a continuing process and one that should not be ignored. As you know, or will soon realize, is that the search engines are the main entry point at which your customers will find your website. But there are other issues you must be aware of to get the targeted customers that you want.

Keywords

You may have optimized your webpages and people are coming -- but not many. Why? It could be the keywords you are choosing.

Choosing the right keywords take time and effort, and it is an important factor to consider. When choosing keywords you should be asking yourself -

1.) What are the exact words people are using to find the product or service that you are offering. For example: Is it refurbished tools, cheap tools, free tools, red, ugly tools -- you get my meaning.

2.) Are my keywords too general, or overused. If the keywords are too general, you may receive visitors that are not buyers, just browsers. If the keywords are overused, you may be so far down in the search engine rankings that your site will never be seen.

3.) Do you have your keywords or keyword phases in your "Title Tag". Your keywords in the Title Page should be relevant to what your web copy relates too. If it doesn't, you've just wasted an important keyword tool that the Search Engines utilize.

4. Meta Keywords Tag -- Some people use the meta keywords Tag and others say that the search engines no longer use them. And still others, claim that it gives their competition an unfair advantage. I personally will continue to use them, because I don't believe all the search engines ignore this tag.

Finding the correct keywords is no easy task. However, did you think of asking the people around you what keywords or phases they would use to get to one of your web pages. You might be surprised -- it may not have been a keyword or phase that you even considered.

Popularity

Even though a keyword may be popular to the masses, you also must consider if it is targeting your specific market. Why? You may begin to get the traffic, but not the specific target market that will buy your products. And that is the bottom line, not so much the popularity of the word, as the quality of the traffic that the keyword brings.

And if the keyword is popular, you may find your web page competing with established websites -- which translates into poor positioning. Thus, you could consider other smaller niche words, and still get the ranking you seek.

Experiment

You will have to experiment with the keywords that you use on your webpage/website, to determine if the keywords you are using is giving you the sales you want.

I have found testing, evaluating and re-evaluating is the name of the game of SEO. If you keep that in mind, you will begin to see the results you want.

However, once you are in the top ten of the search engines, do not think your job is done. You must continue to monitor -- because the Internet is not a static environment -- and people can come online that can slide your web page or website down the line in the search engines.

Vickie J Scanlon -- Visit her site at: http://www.myaffiliateplace.biz for free tools, articles, ebooks, how to info, affiliate opportunities, security software and computers -- for the business person or individual.

Google And Webmasters A True Lovehate Relationship

Writen by Matt Jackson

Any SEO fact finding mission will inevitably lead to reports from webmasters on how Google doomed or saved their website. True to human nature, those who feel hard done by are most often the loudest of the talkers. For every report of how Google has lavished a website with tens of thousands of visitors there are probably ten, a hundred or even more reports of how Google have doomed sites to failure.

Persuading Google To Respect Your Site

In all honesty, a webmaster that is looking for search engine success must gently persuade Google to love them. The rewards for doing so are far greater than any other form of advertising or marketing. Conversely, the punishment for sites left out in the cold by Google really is enough to break the soul of any webmaster.

The Google Effect

According to statistics, Google received 91 million American searches per day in the month of March 2006. Their closest rival, Yahoo, managed 60 million and MSN, in third place racked up only 28 million searches per day in the same period. It would be foolhardy to ignore other search engines but to ignore the 43% Google market share is outright online suicide and persuading Google that your site offers everything their visitors want will inevitably give you advantage with the remaining search engines too.

The Most Important Point

OK, so this is hardly breaking news – after all, every SEO site on the Internet harps on about Google being the be all and end all of online marketing but it is a vitally important point that you must pay attention to. One of the major contributing factors for Google's success is trust. So many billions of people regularly use Google to search because they trust the results will be as close to relevant as is virtually possible. There is no way to financially hammer your way to the top of the listings and even the sponsored listings at the side of the page are quite clearly listed as exactly that. Remember this point:

Google has become successful by providing relevant results to their visitors and they reward websites for doing the same.

Understanding Google Algorithms

The exact science behind Google algorithms are as much of a mystery as the whereabouts of your missing socks but there are certain factors that all good SEOs and webmasters know.

The right amount of relevant content and a clean design indicates a useful website.

Tricks and underhand SEO tactics are a thing of the past. They are best left to webmasters who know no better. That's not to say there aren't guidelines you should follows to ensure a greater success for your site. However, SEO guidelines are beginning to merge with visitor optimization tactics.

Love Your Visitors

Including "keywords" is still vital but not to set percentages. The inclusion of keywords makes the reading of your content easier for your visitors and has the added benefit that it also signifies a topic for your website making it easier for Google to assess it's relevance. Similarly, a clean and simple website design is easy on the eye and quick to navigate for visitors and Google spiders can easily crawl your website.

So, in order to optimize your website for Google you should primarily optimize for visitors.

Give It A Little Time

This neatly brings us to the question of the Google sandbox. This name has been given to the phenomenon that Google essentially ignore websites for the first few weeks of their inception. Clearly, this is an irritant to many webmasters and one of the least understandable parts of their algorithms.

The principle behind the action is to ensure that brand new sites don't pay for thousands of inbound links and propel themselves to the top of the rankings illegitimately. Google have always strived to ensure that links are gained organically based on the relevance and strength of a website and its content. Purchasing links completely bypasses this and, in Google's opinion, degrades the value of linking.

What To Do

The next time you sit down to promote a website with the view of increasing your standings within the search engine results remember that ignoring Google because you've read bad press from other webmasters is a dangerous choice. Google is, by far, the most widely used search engine on the web and "optimizing" your site to climb the ranks is easier than many would have you believe. Among the key ingredients is fresh, original content that is useful to your visitors. In order to build up links to your website, the submission of articles to article directories is one tactic that shows positive results.

Matt Jackson, founder and operator of WebWiseWords, is a professional copywriter offering many services including those of an SEO copywriter, advertising copywriter and more. For more information visit http://www.webwisewords.com or email info@webwisewords.com. Please mention where you saw this article in any communication with WebWiseWords.

The Madonna Approach To Sem

Writen by Dana Wallert

What in the world does Madonna have to do with Search Engine Marketing? Well, at first glance, probably not much. Stay with me for a few moments, and I think the analogy will become clear.

For those new to marketing websites, the amount of information out there on SEO, SEM and the like can be quite overwhelming. How can you possibly keep up with all of it or know who to listen to?

Well, in my own experience, I tried to do as much research as possible on the so-called proven tactics, as well as the trends of the day. I decided to try to do all of the grunt work myself. I wanted to try as many of the different techniques I had seen without spending any cash! I know, it sounds extremely naïve, but I felt that if I could at least try to implement these strategies and get a feel for what works, I'd have a better idea as to whether I needed help or not!

Thus far, those strategies seem to paying off extremely well for me.

So, back to the whole Madonna approach, it's my number one piece of advice to anyone just starting their site. Madonna's career and success have been based on her ability to constantly re-invent herself and her image. She is constantly marketing that new image and "new content." Things seem to be going fairly well for her, so I think it's a viable strategy to implement with your site.

Now, in the world of the internet marketing, your best bet is Search Engine Results Page/Positioning (SERP) or in English, getting your site to show up immediately when a potential customer searches for keywords that relate to your product.

So, to apply the Madonna approach here is quite simple. You must constantly be "re-inventing" your site to entice the mighty spiders of the search engines to come to your site and come back often. If you keep on top of this, it really won't be a huge task. All you've got to do is be committed to making your site the best it can be. I know that sounds cheesy, but it is true. All that you do to entice the spiders to come index are the same things that will bring your customers and visitors back time and time again. Content really is king.

Make a simple goal and find new ways of fulfilling it. Maybe you'll plan to add one new page of content a week. Maybe you'll add new features to it once a month. And, obviously, you should constantly be updating any "News or Time Specific" information.

Of course there are many other methods to SEM, but try implementing my Madonna approach and you'll be well on your way to increasing your rankings in those search results.

Dana Wallert is the owner of an online virtual assistance company. She has many years experience in sales and marketing, as well as office management. Find more about Dana and sign up to receive her free monthly newsletter at DW Office Solutions - Virtual Assistant Services.

Link Popularity How To Boost Your Rankings

Writen by Marty Pukstys

So, after hard and time consuming process you got your web site on the internet, optimized it for certain keywords and can't wait to see it at No.1 position on Google, Yahoo and MSN? Not so fast. First of all, you'll need 3 things to be taken care of: on-site optimization, search engine submission and some major work on link popularity building. There's plenty of information about internal web page optimization on the internet, and it's not a secret how to submit all your web pages to Google or Yahoo through their new feed systems. If it is – you should educate yourself about the first two elements first, and then worry about link popularity.

The first thing you should do is to listen to what search engines have to say about search engine optimization. It's not a secret that they hate web pages artificially stuffed with keywords or bought incoming links. Such techniques give them a hard time to deliver relevant results to their users. In fact, current search engine ranking algorithms are so advanced that in a lot of cases they can distinguish between natural and bought incoming links.

So, what do search engines have to say about their rankings? Never try artificially boosting your rankings. Don't participate in link farms. Don't buy links. Don't stuff your text with keywords just to get higher rankings. In conclusion – do not interfere with their function to deliver relevant and useful information to the user.

Well, it's not a bad idea to listen to them for a change. The techniques of getting links that I am going to tell you about are both search engine "legal" and "not so legal". The choice is yours.

The first thing that everyone should do is make the content of their web site useful and informative to people. Doesn't matter what kind of website you have, try to give something useful to your visitors. This can be useful information, some attractions, free service, or anything you may come up with. This may sound banal, but this strategy eventually will pay off. Other web sites will notice that you have something useful and original, and will start linking to you. This is the best and most "legal" link building strategy anyone can come up with, although it takes the most time and patience.

Second "legal" choice for building link popularity is through articles. Try to write an interesting article about something you are good at and know a lot. Then find thousands of article submission and publishing web sites that are available on the internet. Use your best friend and enemy at the same time – Google – to find them. The most important part of the article is the Resources box, where you can use HTML code and place links to your web site.

The next perfectly "legal" and effective area to build your link popularity is forums. You can find millions of forums on the internet – take advantage of them. Post your answers to relevant topics, and don't forget to use HTML and links to your site. It can't get any easier than that, and at the same time, it might help your rankings a lot.

I bet you heard about reciprocal links – when you link to some web page, which in exchange places a link to your web page on their site. This strategy may be not as effective as couple of years ago, but it still works. Search engines simply can't ignore links to your webpage. The most important thing to remember about reciprocal linking, as with all other links, is that links from related websites will have much higher impact on your rankings than those from unrelated ones. Also, don't forget the importance of keywords and rephrases in the anchor text – without it, your links are close to useless.

Do some research and find websites similar to yours. They don't have to offer exactly same services or information – something broad as computers or internet if you are offering web design services is good enough. E-mail their administrators with a request to exchange links. How to persuade them to place a link to you, especially if their web site has good rankings on the search engines – that's another subject. Offer something useful in exchange – for example, suggest placing a link to them on your home page, while they put the reciprocal link on their partners or resources page.

Find millions of directories where you can submit your web site. Some of them offer free inclusion, some of them ask for a reciprocal link, while others require to be paid for the listing. Whether to pay or not, that's totally up to you, but from my experience, some of their links are worth several dollars that they are usually asking for. Make sure they have substantial Page Rank, and sacrifice several dollars. It will pay off eventually. But to start, try to find countless free directories and submit you web site there.

Finally, time has come for the most controversial and dangerous link building strategy – link buying. I don't recommend anyone to use it, but a lot of search engine optimization specialists are utilizing this unfair tactics, placing honest optimizers in serious disadvantage. If you decide to go ahead and buy some links, make sure of two things: the page you are buying a link from has a high Page Rank, and find the links for sale in search engine optimization forums – never buy links from the websites that specialize in this. Otherwise, Google will weed your web site out from their index faster than your eyes blink.

In conclusion, I would recommend staying away from unethical link building strategies, and concentrate on long-time goals versus short-term ones. Keep in mind, that if everyone starts buying links and using other unethical search engine optimization techniques, search engines will not be able to deliver relevant results, and eventually come up with new and smarter algorithm to kick such websites out from their indexes. With all the ethical search engine optimization methods I told you about, everyone can build substantial link popularity and get good rankings.

If you liked what you read - visit our Search Engine Marketing Service LLC website and find out more about search engine positioning services and improved search engine rankings.

Yahoo Ranking Tips

Writen by Tay Weiliang

Title
The most important thing you can do to your ranking is to include the keyword in the title you submit to Yahoo. If your title does not contain any keywords, you'll never rise high enough to collect a large amount of clicks. Is including the keyword once in your title enough, or should you risk it and try to repeat the word? I didn't see a single site that had two or more instances of the same keyword in its title. That doesn't mean there aren't any, but I don't believe that having two keywords will give you a big advantage over having one. Also, trying to repeat the keyword might get your title edited or your submission rejected, so I wouldn't try it.

Description
This really surprised me. I started the experiment with the belief that having the keyword in the description is absolutely vital in order to gain a high ranking. However, the data seemed to prove otherwise. The top ten sites actually had less keywords in their descriptions than those listed after them. Still, I don't believe that including keywords in your description will actually hurt you. It is likely to boost you upwards a bit, but I think the boost will be significantly smaller than what it has generally been claimed to be.

URL
No clear data here, so I won't make too strong conclusions either. Some words are in order, though. My current position is that having the keyword in your URL is worth something, but less than having the keyword in any of the other places (description, title, category). Is it necessary to get a keyword rich domain name if you're desperate to reach the top ten? Not in my opinion, unless it will give you a valid reason to include your keyword in your title.

Category
Being listed in a category that has a keyword in its name definitely increases your ranking for that keyword. More than having the keyword in the URL and more than having the keyword in your description, but less than having the keyword in your title.

What Can Seo Do For Me

Writen by Apisith Chawla

Your search engine optimization strategy should focus on two fundamental goals:
- deliver as targeted as possible visitor traffic;
- acquire high conversion rates (visitors taking the desired type of action on your web site).

This is what SEO can do for you and your business: ultimately bring you customers and/or partners.

These goals are most likely to be attained when the following conditions take place:
- search engines index the site;
- search engines crawl the site frequently;
- high ranking among SERPs for your web site's keywords;
- high link popularity;
- high page rank.

For every query performed on search engines there is a human being at the end of the keyboard looking for information, products, or services. You have to direct your focus towards grabbing as much search engine traffic as possible with your most important keywords while keeping the objectives of the search engine optimization in clear focus.

Before you get too excited about attaining a top 10 ranking on the search engines, you should be clear on the objectives behind bringing visitors to your website.

It's not a good idea to go from 1,000 visitors to 10,000 visitors over a month if your website is not relevant to your visitors' search terms. Having "forced visitors" onto your web site will simply eat your resources (bandwidth, for one) but for sure these visitors will not become your customers if the topic of your web site is of no interest to them.

Such an accomplishment, like a major increase in traffic stats, may make you SEO hero of the day, but if your web site visitors are not interested in your products or services you will have just squandered your efforts.

Your goal is to help the search engines return the most relevant pages from your web site in response to user queries. Using tricks and tactics to get your pages to show up under search terms that are irrelevant and have nothing to do with your site only annoys web surfers, and can get you banned from the search engines.

Ultimately, the number of hits measured in your web server logs will make no difference if your visitors are not taking action on your website to sign up for a newsletter, download your software, submit a quote request, or buy your products and services online.

Most of the web sites in the top positions for even moderately competitive keywords got there because:

- they used highly targeted keywords effectively throughout their website; - they gained substantial link popularity from relevant websites and directories.

Although simplistic in terms of today's very complex search engine algorithms used to return relevant search engine results, the two above key points lay the foundations for all our future discussions about how to gain top rankings on today's search engines.

Apisith Chawla is an author, consultant, and SEO Trainee. His eBook is available at http://www.equalseo.com/ebook

Search Engine Optimization Not Search Engine Domination

Writen by Joe Borowy

In a quest for high rankings among increasingly competitive markets, webmasters generally have an ongoing mission to achieve and maintain high rankings for popular search terms. Since smaller companies and websites have limited advertising budgets, search engine optimization is recognized the best way of gaining long term exposure and driving targeted traffic to a website.

A problem often arises when webmasters, particularly newer and less experienced ones, start researching ways of obtaining high rankings. Most websites that offer resources on optimizing pages for search engines still lean towards writing efficient Meta tags and selecting the best keywords. Although this helps, it's a known fact that Meta tags have become less important over the years. In fact, Inktomi is the only search engine that still uses them for ranking websites. Yahoo!, Google, and all other main search engines have abandoned the Meta system. The keyword tags no longer impact rankings. The description tag is still important, but it won't have a tremendous impact on rankings like it once would have.

Webmasters often become very disappointed when they see that much of the work put forth to optimize a website was unnecessary. It's even more devastating to see that all the work put into optimizing pages will not gain you high rankings. Many start to wonder what they did wrong. One important factor is almost always initially overlooked- more credible websites will always have higher rankings, regardless of how optimized a smaller website may be. Keyword densities and title tags are still important in categorizing a website for the engines, but link popularity has become the main factor in ranking websites. That's not to say that optimizing websites isn't important.

The point here is that optimizing a website means no more than exactly what it says- optimizing. It means that a website is fit to be considered relevant for the selected keywords when indexed for placement. It does not mean that a website will automatically achieve high rankings in those keywords. It can mean potentially pulling ahead of a competitor with more link popularity but less relevance. But don't be fooled- even if a website with 100 good back links in Google is optimized perfectly, it won't outweigh a less relevant competitor with 10,000 back links and a higher PageRank when competing for a popular keyword. Most webmasters are baffled when they don't get the rankings they have worked for. The solution is gaining link popularity; this can be achieved by trading links with relevant websites and submitting to popular directories. It will build up over time and a website will gain the credibility it deserves when it has many websites linking to it.

Finding a good source for continually submitting to the search engines and keeping track of rankings and link popularity is a very important factor in having long term success with search engine optimization. MDTrafficBuilder is a website that has proven to be very effective and cost-efficient in continually submitting to search engines and monitoring progress. The link to this website can be found in the author resource box. They have a free 5 day trial, so there's no risk at all. It's a good way of keeping track of competition and monitoring link popularity.

Regardless of which way you choose to gain higher rankings for your website, remember the real meaning of Search Engine Optimization, and think realistically of how your website compares with the competition. Achieving high rankings is a long term project, not a quick fix for low traffic websites. If you think realistically and work hard for higher link popularity, high search engine rankings will eventually find you.

Joe Borowy is the Owner of http://www.SuccessForFreedom.com where they work hard to maintain an honest and reliable source for honest work at home internet business opportunities.

If you need to contact Joe please email him at Ravenfan3888@gmail.com Thank you!

MDTrafficBuilder can be found at http://www.mdtrafficbuilder.com.

Link Building Nightmare

Writen by Darren Dunner

Link building is one of the best ways to get more performance from your web site. No matter how many times the search engines changes, this does not.

Some of the most talented people on the web will spend 8 hours a day on this and get little results.

There are many programs on the net you can use to gather potential links, request links from other members of paid link site, etc. The biggest problem with these is that you still spend hours and hours filtering through links, requesting trades from members and much more.

Here are a few things you can do to help in this painful process. Go to yahoo.com. Type in the search box: site:yourdomain.com and hit enter. This will tell you how many pages are indexed into yahoo. You can do this on your site or a potential link trade site.

Then in yahoo type: links:yourdomain.com and see how many link backs a site has.

Compare this information to your site and determine if this is a compatible site or not.

NOTE: you can do this on google and several other search engines.

Also, on the links pages of a site that you want to trade on, make sure that there links pages are indexed into the search engines. Make sure they are SEO friendly URL's and even check the page rank on them.

Hope this helps in your long search for Link Building. We are currenlty research link building sites and hope to have some articles soon on them.

Internetzone I has been in business for over 5 years, has a very good reputation for producing results. We are not here to make a fast buck, but want to educate our clients on what is best measures to take on the web. You can visit us at: http://www.internetzonei.com.

Search Engine Optimization What To Avoid

Writen by Margo Courtney

While there are many strategies to use for Search Engine Optimisation, there are some things you shouldn't do. Your site can be penalized by the search engines for some of these. Or while you think a strategy is helping to raise your rankings, it may not.

TEXT IN GRAPHICS
Most search engines don't read pictures or graphics, so use as much text as possible and make sure it's relevant text. Good information and solid content that focuses on your product and services will allow the search engines to identify your site and give you a better positioning within those search results. Sites that use an image full of text, instead of text, can appear as an empty page to a search engine. This is specially relevant on a home page.

MOVING A PAGE THAT ALREADY HAS A PR
If you move a page, it will lose its PR until the next time Google indexes it. So set up the page's original URL to direct people to the new page, and tell them whether the move is permanent or temporary

DEAD ENDS
All page should have a way out or exit via a link.

ARTIFICIALLY INCREASE A PAGE'S KEYWORD DENSITY
Loading pages with irrelevant words in an attempt to increase a page's keyword density will penalise your site. This includes stuffing ALT tags that users are unlikely to view.

USING HIDDEN TEXT OR LINKS
You should use only text and links that are visible to users.

LINKS FROM LINK FARMS AND NON-RELEVANT SITES
Make sure they are from other relevant sites, not link farms or FFA sites. Best is links from pages without many other links, from sites whose content/theme is similar to or complementary to yours.

UNNATURAL LINKS
The search engines prefer your linking to be 'natural', to appear as if they were placed in the normal course of your business dealings. Not too many at a time, not all coming from link pages, not all reciprocal links, and not all coming from only PR 5 or above sites (looks like you bought them).

USING THE SAME TEXT IN INCOMING LINKS
It isn't natural to have every website that links to you have the same text on the link description. The natural tendency would be to have a certain percent be the site's name, but after that it should be a wide variety of description. Your link text description is a key factor for how your site/page will rank, so make sure that you keep that in mind as you specify your preferred link text description on your website.

Register for our free SEO tutorial at http://www.free-web-site-marketing.com

The Google Strategy

Writen by Diane Thomas

Webmasters across the Internet were totally floored by what happened to their Google ranking recently. Those whose pages were ranked on top seemed to totally disappear, and many who had been ranked at the bottom were suddenly in the top 10.

So what caused this phenomenon? Simply put, Google spent a lot of time (and probably money) coming up with new ranking guidelines. In Webmaster speak, "Google changed their algorithm".

Why? you ask...Google, from the beginning has been more in tune with what people are searching for than any of the other search engines or directories. They have always seemed to be more in sync with the average surfer - in other words when you search you actually find what your looking for.

Well, apparently they just weren't satisfied. So they decided to make it even better.

On first glance I thought they had made a huge mistake, but as Webmasters began reworking their websites and pages to get back to the top ranking positions, it appears to me that their idea was right.

In case your wondering, I was one of the Webmasters whose site seemed to disappear! And let me tell you it was scary. I lost 700-800 visitors a day - and a lot of income.

I went to the Google site to try and figure out what they were looking for, and frankly didn't find much that I didn't already know, so I set about reworking my pages and website so that this couldn't happen to me again.

In record time, after evaluating and reworking and submitting my pages, they went back to the top. In fact, some that I could never get to the top are there now.

What I found was that although keywords are still a prominent factor and linking was important, that the relativity of the pages became very important.

In other words, the keywords and links really have to be relevant to the entire page - and to the site as well. Google likes everything linked internally. I'm sure the idea being that this ensures the "search results" will indeed provide what the surfer is really after - and that's their bread and butter.

The bottom line is that after going thru a very harrowing experience, my website and my profit line are all the better for it. In other words, I ended up with a better website, a better idea of what my visitors are really after, and long term I don't think this could ever happen to me again.

Google seems to really have come up with what people are looking for and is offering good web sites with rich content as their top ranking sites. This is good news for the serious webmaster.

I know that everyone is out there giving advice and speculating, not to mention the new products that have risen up to get you listed fast!

My advice - save your money, and put the elbow grease to work - you'll be all the better for it. And if your really thinking, it won't take long.

©2005

Diane Thomas is the editor of eBook Crossroads.com specializing in resources for writers, publishers and promoters of eBooks and Audio Books. She publishes a monthly ezine, the eBook Crossroads Insider, offering articles, tips, contests, free downloads and much more!

Subscribe to the eBook Crossroads Insider.

Search Engine Optimization Seo An Overview

Writen by William King

Run a search on any of the 200 major search engines, and the results will come up in similar orders on quite a few of them. How a website owner/operator gets their website to the top of a list is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Optimizing a website involves many of the same techniques, whether the aim is to optimize for Google adwords, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves or others. There is a list of what not to do as well, and that list is applicable to all engines, as it mostly refers to tricks and hacks unscrupulous designers use to try to trick the engines. These kind of pages generally get removed by automated tools and don't generally last very long, so they are not recommended to bother with.

Website optimization starts with content. If the content is irrelevant, the website will not last long in the rankings, no matter how many keywords are included. The best way to get relevant content is to get an expert to write the content. General content may be more friendly to beginners, but in the search optimization arena, content is what is going to keep readers coming back and webmasters linking to the page. Many search engines use link counters to rank sites. If enough people like and value the site, they will link to it from their own site as an example of expert help for visitors seeking more detailed information than they can provide, or are willing to provide. Often, general-interest sites will link to expert sites, thereby also driving their own traffic up as the initial portal to those expert sites and improving their own rankings in the optimization listings. The quality of the sites linked is also a major factor in the rankings, as quality sites such as Microsoft and Google are going to be more effective "heavy hitters" than a link to Bob's House of Website Optimizing.

When the content is being created, keywords are the "anchors" that search engines hook onto, but just filling your content with keywords risks being dismissed as a spam site, as many spammers merely fill a page with keywords, hoping to hook anyone searching for anything. These kind of pages are usually removed quickly, but they exist nonetheless. Specific keywords are the key--instead of Search Engine, use Search Engine Optimization for Google, or combinations of the key words or phrases. Optimization for Search Engines in one area, then Optimizing for higher Search Engine rankings in another increases the chances of an engine ranking your website content a little higher than it may have otherwise.

The guidelines for content also go for Meta tags such as the title. Title is very important, as it is one of the bigger spots for an engine to catch, as well as the hook that draws a surfer in once the rankings have been displayed. A recommended length is 50-80 characters (including spaces), with keywords located near the beginning in case the window is resized on the screen. A good example would be "Search Engine Optimization tips and tricks for Google", instead of "How to do important SEO for websites."

Search Engine Optimization--what to avoid: Don't use huge strings of keywords without relevant content--you may be labeled as a spammer and blacklisted off the engine(s) you're trying to climb. Stay away from pop-ups, excessive load times (by keeping the page clean and using fast hosting servers), and lots of flash animation, as this takes time to load and also detracts from the readability of the site.

More specific information can be found by typing "Search Engine Optimization" into any major search engine like Google or Yahoo and following the links. Good luck!

William King is the director of Wholesale Pages, Wholesale-Canada and Dropshipping Directory. He has 18 years of experience in the marketing and trading industries and has been helping retailers and startups with their product sourcing, promotion, marketing and supply chain requirements.

How To Boost Your Wisconsin Sites Search Engine Ranking Part 3

Writen by Johnny Smith

When choosing your Wisconsin search engine ranking optimization strategy, there are a few things you would like to consider in order getting a high ranking in the search engines for your site.

In this article you will find a few top tips about off-page factors that can help you Wisconsin site to rank high in the search engines.

When you read below you will learn about the importance of inbound links and how to get those top sites linking to you.

Here are a few basic tips that can help you in your Wisconsin search engine ranking optimization efforts:

1. Do not engage in excessive link exchange programs. That means, do not trade links with sites that bury your link along with a hundred others on a link page, because the search engines do not like that.

2. Improve your site by writing high quality optimized content that other webmasters find useful. This way you will get natural inbound links to your site.

3. Write useful articles with top content and submit them to article directories with your link in the resource box. Since these articles are free to use for others to publish on their sites, you will get a great number of top inbound links that will help the improvement of your Wisconsin site.

4. Finally a tip that I have not tried myself yet. As a part of your Wisconsin search engine ranking optimization strategy, you also could buy text links on other high traffic Wisconsin sites.

Implement the above four steps and you will see that your Wisconsin search engine ranking optimization efforts will bear fruit.

Johnny is an author who thinks Wisconsin is the best place on earth. He also writes about ice hockey equipment and the NHL.

Are You Using Roboform

Writen by Brian Shoemaker

Why not? Maybe you have not heard of it. Well, it's a program that can store the titles, URLs, descriptions and anything else you need for listing your websites into directories. It can also store the information for your articles including the titles, article bodies, signatures, keywords and whatever else you like.

It does more than just store all of this information. Having already entered all your websites' directory listing information or information for your articles, just go to the directory's web page with the submission form and with the press of one button, it can fill and submit the form for you. No more copying and pasting all your directory listings and articles. With the amount of time it takes you to copy and paste just one directory listing or article, you can submit all your directory listings or articles using RoboForm.

Since using RoboForm, I have upgraded to RoboForm Pro. RoboForm Pro allows you to enter an unlimited amount of websites and articles. RoboForm Pro also offers an unlimited amount of custom fields for each website and article. Using RoboForm Pro, I can submit 10 different articles to around 200 article directories in just one day. Without the program, it could take me a week or longer.

Brian Shoemaker is the owner of cheap web hosting directory Find-A-Web-Host.com. Find web hosts for your websites and/or articles.

Expert Help From Google Answers

Writen by Jakob Jelling

Web users turn to search engines for answers to their questions. This is usually done through various levels of searching the engine's database. Sometimes though, no matter how hard they try, searchers can't find the information they need. Maybe they're not familiar with how to narrow and focus searches, or they may not have enough background in the subject they're researching to recognize the answer they need. Google Answers offers a solution.

With Google Answers, you hire an experienced researcher or specialist in your field of inquiry to provide answers to your questions. In a sense, this process works much like bidding on an item at eBay or hiring work done through a freelancer web site. You will create a Google Answers profile, a nickname, enter your credit card information, and when you post your questions, you specify how much you're willing to pay for answers and an expiration date for replies.

There is a 50 cent per question listing fee, and your payment offer for an answer can range from $2.00 to $200.00 currently. Your offered price needs to be high enough to justify and compensate the time a Google researcher will spend finding an answer. Researchers receive 75% of your offered fee, and Google receives the remainder to help support the Google Answers service. Once you receive an answer, your credit card will be charged the offer amount you made for that answer.

Previously asked questions and answers are posted, searchable, and freely available at the Google Answers site. Other users may make comments on the questions and answers, to help clarify the information you receive.

Google Answers isn't magic. They can't answer unanswerable questions, and they won't provide medical, legal, or financial advice. But for other tough questions that you just can't find an answer for on your own, Google Answers may be, well, the answer!

About The Author

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.

Winning The Search Engine Wars

Writen by Lee Traupel

Creating and building effective Search Engine marketing campaigns is like trying to nail jello to the wall! The challenge can be daunting to many, requiring very specialized knowledge of process that must be blended with unique and disparate technology. Here is some insight gained from years of experience providing these services to clients.

• SE marketing is very effective in driving qualified traffic to a web site. Over 85% of global surfers utilize Search Engines to find goods and services.

• What can you expect for Search Engine ranking via back-end conversions or desired responses? There is no "silver bullet" answer to this question; we've seen results vary from a low of 1.4% to a high of 22%. You'll make a dangerous assumption if you measure results purely by focusing solely on SE marketing. Your back-end response mechanisms (sales rep interaction, e-commerce fulfillment, newsletter signup, web site, etc.) will greatly affect the ROI. Assess and critique from a holistic perspective.

• It's a zero sum game if you use any of the low cost "we submit to thousands" of search engines service companies. These submissions do very little to drive viable rankings. If you aren't achieving rankings in the top 20-30 (page 1-3) listings then you're wasting marketing resources.

• Don't make the mistake of focusing solely on Search Engine marketing to drive market awareness (online branding) and revenue. Develop mutually reinforcing processes that are synergistic by utilizing Directory submissions, Usenet/Newsgroup seeding, Newsletter sponsorships, Opt-in e-mail, PR and other offline marketing processes.

• Stringent keyword analysis for HTML text is one of the underlying foundations of a successful Search Engine Ranking campaign. It's analogous to the importance of ad copy for a conventional print campaign. Most good SE firms use a commercial database service like WordTracker which enable them to analyze the relative popularity of keywords and then build a submissions and optimization process around the selected keywords.

• The actual Title for your Index and Interior pages will also have a significant impact on whether or not a campaign works. It needs to be the right length, typically 10-20 words, have no hyperbole and pique a searcher's curiosity.

• Contrary to endless marketing hype, there are no quick solutions in this form of interactive marketing. It will take at least 1-2 months before you see any immediate results. And for significant results; i.e., page 1-3 listings via top tier engines add another 2-3 months on top of this on average.

• Web site content development impacts good SE rankings - the more the better. Develop content which is relevant to keywords. We use linguistic analysis software for our clients and then build a standalone "stealth web site" which has content expressly designed for SE spiders (bots). This level of sophistication and proprietary process is expensive and time-consuming but very effective.

• Remember the Armand Hammer quote about Russia? "An enigma wrapped inside a box buried deep in the ocean." This is apropos to the Search Engine world, as the top tier SE's all change their submission rules and algorithms on a regular basis. So hire a SE firm that understands the market - or be prepared to invest a great deal of time to achieve tangible results.

About The Author

Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com

Lee@intelective.com

Selecting The Title Of Your Link Exchanges

Writen by Martin Lemieux

I want to touch base with selecting the title of the links that are added to other sites. Adding your link on another site is very important for your search engine saturation and rankings.

More importantly, what title do you chose?

Many seo firms our there now believe that web sites are getting penalized from link swapping. Even today, I had an seo company that wanted my company to link to his site #1 but he would link to my site from his site #2. I don't think so.

For those of you who think that getting people to link to site #1 and then you link to them with site #2 is going to get great responses, your wrong.

That's a whole other topic but I felt it should be addressed.

So here you are, you're about to add your link onto another site, but what do you write for the title?

Well you have to ask yourself a couple of questions 1st.

• Have you checked your site for key words?

• Did you create proper meta tags?

• Are your meta tags reflecting your content?

• Do you realize that inbound links bring traffic?

So let's address these important issues...

1) Have you checked your pages for key word density?

One of my larger clients came to me trying to get back some of his crucial key phrases within google that he just recently lost. I added his site to my "key word" density program and realized that the key phrases he was attacking didn't leave a single trace within his site.

Here is a great key phrase density checker for those of you who don't have a personal script to help:

http://www.abakus-internet-marketing.de/tools/topword.html

When your looking at your page results within the key word analizer, make sure to select one paragraph that best describes that page.

For instance, here are the results for my main page:

web (28) / design (16) / marketing (11) / search (10)

tips (10) / advertising (10) / affordable (10)

web design (8) / business (8) / articles (7) / site (7)

marketing tips (6) / smartads (6) online (6)

newsletter ... etc

These results have been somewhat filtered and made smaller for this example. So taking a look at that, you can start to see what search engines are going to see. There are 2 key phrases that I want to have great search placements with so I chose these two phrases from those words to best fit the title of my main page...

"Affordable Web Design & Internet Marketing Tips"

Notice that I DIDN'T use all the most important words, I only used exactly what I am trying to get when it comes to search terms online.

So now that I have that, I now have a title that I can add on other sites. Depending on whether the link category is about web design or internet marketing, I create the appropriate link.

If I add my site to a web design category, I submit this title...

Affordable Web Design - and link it to my main page.

If I add my site to a web promotion category, I submit this link title...

Either: Internet Marketing / Web Advertising / Marketing Tips / or Internet Marketing Tips

If you take a good look at the results from above, all these title's are perfect for that page.

Here is something you shouldn't do... Don't take ALL the key words from the results above and make them your title like so...

Affordable web design, web design, internet, internet marketing, internet marketing tips.

Read that whole paragraph out loud, sounds stupid doesn't it? I think so 2 and so do search engines.

Don't forget that inbound links bring you A LOT of traffic! It's a fact that inbound links usually give your web site a lot more traffic than search engines do! That's why it's so important not only to select the right title for search engines but to also consider the visitor who will read your title. Make it simple and easy to understand.

Now that you've selected the right title for your main page, get a little more creative and select your most important pages from your site so that you can also analize and select a number of titles for your site. Doing this work before hand will improve your daily marketing arsenal.

I wish you much success with this article!

About The Author

Martin Lemieux
Founder & President
Affordable Web Design & Internet Marketing

http://www.smartads.info & http://www.smartads.ca

OASES - Online Advertising Search Engine Services

http://www.flyinggelatingames.com

Its All Very Well Having A Website That Gets Lots Of Traffic But Sales Are Its Life Blood

Writen by Neil Swift

You have optimised your website, found the keywords that get lots of traffic and don't have much competition. All the keywords are added to your site (Title, Meta tags etc) and you have done some excellent flowing writing with your keywords peppering your homepage.

Great, you now have a website, it is fairly well optimised, you are getting lots of traffic and guess what there is still something else needed in the mix.

You need to juggle all of the above with excellent copywriting.

What is copywriting? Well it's the text that appears on your website, the bits that sell. And yes that's mainly what websites are for, they are your representative, they sell you places that you wouldn't have dreamed of looking or find people you just wouldn't have talked to.

For starters whatever is above the 'fold' of your page i.e. before you start scrolling is THE most critical area, you literally have about 8 seconds to grab the 'surfers' attention before they're gone to the next site.

What is said to your visitor when they arrive at your site is just as or even more important than getting them there in the first place! What would you prefer, 1,000 visitors a day with 2 sales or 100 visitors a day with 2 sales? Personally I would prefer the 100 visitors, at least then I would know my copy was working and could easily ramp up the visits.

So, what makes for great copywriting and a great landing page? There is lots of information out there and I can recommend a few people, just search for them on the web; Chris Cardell and Alan Forest Smith (Orange Beetle)

Some of the main fundamentals:

• Tell your customers the benefits of your service & what problem it is going to solve in their lives

• Talk about your customer (don't talk about you, your company etc blah, blah, blah). Everyone likes talking about themselves, your customers are no different. Include YOU and YOUR as much as you can in your copy.

• Start building a relationship with your customer, give something away for free, ask them to join your mailing list in exchange for something free.

• Break the text up and use bullets (bullets draw attention to areas of text)

• If you can, give your product away on a 30 day trail, with customers agreeing to return or pay on xxxx date.

• You need to write with some level of energy and passion.

• Test and Measure EVERYTHING

Well there are a few bits to start with. And remember test and measure, once you have got your new page up, ruthlessly test all the results and tweak your copy until you have something that just reels them in.

You can get something called Google analytics that measures all your traffic and where people go, where they leave your site etc and it's free. You will need to apply and there may be a waiting list, but well worth it.

Wishing you all the sales you deserve. Neil Swift

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and any changes you make to your website are done at your own risk. Neil Swift cannot be held responsible for any outcomes, unless you make millions and you want to say thanks…=) You may use this article for anything you want as long as no changes are made to any part including this footer.

Enjoy life and prosper. Regards Neil Swift owner of http://www.canvasimagery.co.uk Canvas Art and Photos on Canvas, http://www.makeamoneytree.co.uk Froogle Resource Guide,

Most Overlooked Search Engine Optimization Technique

Writen by Scott Fish

Some of the basics when it comes to SEO and getting high ranking in search engines starts with using a keyword and then placing it strategically throughout the website in content, title, headline, etc. Using the keyword multiple times in your content is great, but lets look at something that a lot of websites completely overlook.

Simply put...

Take your keywords and current links within your site and USE them!

What I mean by this is, you have certain keywords that are spread across your website. You also have links going to other websites, affiliates, advertising, resources, etc. Combine your links with * Relevant * keywords and you will see an increase in page rank and traffic due to the increase in PR. Just take a few minutes – scan through your site – find links that may be the name of a company, anything that says "partner" or "affiliate" -- Change them! Make them say anything related to your main keywords.

Follow this strategy, it takes just a few minutes and this plus other simple strategies will add up to a good increase when your key words are searched for in search engines.

Some of the basics when it comes to SEO and getting high ranking in search engines starts with using a keyword and then placing it strategically throughout the website in content, title, headline, etc. Using the keyword multiple times in your content is great, but lets look at something that a lot of websites completely overlook.

Scott Fish
President, http://www.TopSatelliteRadio.com
Personal Blog: http://www.ScottFish.BlogSpot.com

Search Engine Marketing Ethics Dont Believe The Hype

Writen by Mark Hochhaus

Getting to the top of the search engines, and staying there, is an ongoing process. This does not mean it is expensive to stay at the top. In fact, in most cases, it's rather affordable. But beware, there are pitfalls along the way to search engine Zen.

The old adage, "If it sounds too good to be true", applies to SEO (search engine optimization). There are many companies that will promise top results using less than ethical methods. Including slick salesmen that will convince you that all the top sites cheat the search engines in order to stay on top. You will run into web site owners that mask keywords to get top positions making it sound very tempting to follow in their foot steps.

Don't be fooled by such hype. These are short term solutions that can lead to a permanent ban in the top engines. Once you are banned in Google, Yahoo, MSN or ASK, you may as well dump your site and start over. If you're looking for long term success on the internet, don't cheat the search engines.

One of the cheats I have been seeing lately is masking content with "noscript tags". The noscript tags are used to define an alternate content (text) if a script is NOT executed. People have been taking advantage of this and filling it with content that visitors don't see, but the search engines do. While this does work, it is short term and believe me when I say, you will be caught. You will have no warning, no second chances. You will wake up one day and your site will not be found.

There is no phone number to call, your emails go unanswered, and traffic to your site drops off overnight. Your income dries up and it's all over. It can take six months or more to undo the damage and, in some cases, it's permanent. The major search engines are always on the lookout for new cheats. When found, they will program the search engines to drop the sites using these methods. Without warning, you're gone. Also, don't forget, your competition watches your site and is looking for ways to rank higher than you. Your competition may report your unethical methods to the search engines.

If you're planning to be around for the long haul and want some success on the internet, then you need to be ethical in your promotion. Unless you have daily time dedicated to studying SEO and making the needed changes, you should contract with a reputable SEO company. You need a company that studies the SEO industry on a daily basis to keep on top of what it takes to rank at the top for the long run. A company that is above cheats and quick fixes. A company that offers solid optimization that can keep you on top of the search engine results. A company that will take the time to target your specific audience to get you visitors that are interested in your product or service.

Many SEO companies will promise thousands of visitors a day. Unless those visitors are interested in what you have to offer or ended up at your site and did not find what they searched for, they will remember you. They will remember that you did not have what they wanted. They may leave disappointed and your good name will have a black mark next to it. Don't get sucked into damaging your image by slick salesmen.

When looking for a company to handle your SEO, first and foremost, be comfortable with the people you will be directly working with. They will need total access to your web site and server to make the needed changes. At times, the verbiage of your site may need minor changes. A word or two may need to be changed to improve keyword density. You need a company you can trust with your company's image.

In today's business world, you must have a web site. After all, your competition does. Your site must be marketed ethically and monitored daily. Changes must be made ASAP when conditions change. Hire a professional to handle SEO. When your business is booming, it's too easy to put SEO on the back burner. Before you know it, your rankings will have dropped from top to bottom, as well as your bottom line.

About the Author:

Mark Hochhaus co-owner of Technet Internet Marketing has been developing web sites and optimizing for search engines since the early days of the Internet. To keep abreast of his latest articles, visit: Technet's SEO News Blog: The Optimizer

A Quick Introduction To Search Engine Optimisation Seo

Writen by Peter Smith

SEO is currently a buzz word across the Internet but many normal people do not know what it is let alone how to do it. This is the massively growing trend of Search Engine Optimisation or SEO for short. SEO essentially is a way of altering websites in order to appear higher on a search engines for specific key words or key phrases. Now the theory behind this is relatively simple and the following list will cover the basics of how to achieve a higher ranking page (these basics follow white hat principles).

1. Chose one to three key phrases per webpage you create. Key phrases can be researched using Wordtracker or Overture in order to find the optimum key phrase for you. These 2 resources will basically help you find a phrase that hundreds or thousands of people search for, rather than just a few dozen if you choose the keyword off the top of your head.

2. When you have defined your key phrase create a relevant title for your webpage, and make sure your keyword/phrase is in it.

3. Write some content based around your key phrase, making sure you repeat your key phrase within the content. It is good practise to have between 6 – 12% of your content being the key phrase; however you need to try and make the content as readable as possible.

4. Create valid HTML or XHTML for your page and any ALT attributes used in images that are used should be specific to the image itself. If the image is relevant to your key phrase make sure you try and use the key phrase in the explanation. Images that have no meaning add the Alt attribute but set it to "".

5. Add your keywords into the Meta keywords and also create a description about the page and include the keywords within the description. Now these 2 Meta tags are not taken into consideration by many Search Engines now-a-days but it is generally good practice to have them in place.

6. Any links within your document make sure you use relevant text as the link for example instead of having "Learn about SEO click here" with click here as the link just use "Learn about SEO" and have the sentence as the link. This is known as anchor text.

Steps 1-6 cover the on page optimisation briefly. A webmaster can then look into building up their link popularity. This is where web pages link back to your page, and arguably is one of the more important parts of SEO. When a search engine spider visits your page it will look at how many other pages link to your page, it will also look at them pages and see what the pages are about. The more pages linking to your site then the more likely the search engine will think your webpage is important. However it is not quite so simple as that, the Search Engine will also look at the site that has linked to your page and if that page is based on the subject you have written about it will regard the link as more useful to lets say a poker site linking to a cricket site.

Finally the SE will also look at how well the linking page is rated itself if no one has linked to the linking page then it will not be classed as that important so the weight of the link will not be that great to your site. However let's say apple.com linked to the linking page along with hundreds of other sites and the page was based on the same subject as yours then the link would be very valuable indeed. Now if we look at Google they have a way of ranking how important pages are, called Page Rank (PR) the higher the PR the more important the site.

• 1 Way linking, this is the best form of linking and normally mean the content on your site is a useful resource or just generally interesting to the linking website and they have decided to link to you.

• 2 way linking. This is the more common way for SEO experts to get links; they literally swap links with websites.

• 3 way linking. This is less common but is an attempt to make search engines think your website has 1 way links not 2 way links. For example Site A will link to Site B, then Site B will link to Site C and finally Site C will link back to Site A.

If these strategies are put in place then a website will be well on the way to achieving better results in the search engines. Unfortunately because websites can be optimised to appear higher in search engines it has tempted a lot of people to find devious ways to improve a sites ranking in search engines.

If you are serious about getting the best SEO for your site why not hire a dedicated company to perform White Hat SEO then look no further than Blue Echo

I currently work for Blue Echo UK Ltd as the online promotions manager.

Has Google Destroyed Surfing On The Web

Writen by James Newton

Because that is what we used to do! We used to ride the waves of information and see where it took us. Remember those day's? We would type in a key word or phrase in our favorite search engine and start clickin'. Each site would have a link leading us to another site, and as you went you would always see something else cool, and click that. You started out looking for apples and ended up with zebras.

You could start with same word as many times as you wanted and never end up in the same place twice. It was the information highway, and you went on a road trip. It was an ocean of information, and you went surfin'. We didn't care what it was we were looking for at first, because we found all this other cool stuff we would have never known about.

Times have changed. Google pushed relevancy to the extreme. Or have they? Let's face it, search engines are nothing more than word searchers, and add posters. Any good word processing program has a way for you to search a document for key words. That is what Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all the others do. It used to be the words would link to other words in ways you would have never dreamed. You would just follow those paths. Now these word search programs have become more and more advanced. Google has led the industry by taking good idea's and making them better.

They took search engine's to new level. They grew to such power that they are now shaping the world wide web into their vision. To not be indexed by Google is almost certain obscurity. So, you have to play by their rules. Yet, they keep changing the rules.

Google said content is king. Quantity of links determined popularity. And key words were aptly named because they were the keys to the indexing. Webmasters and Search Engine Optimization companies scrambled to meet Google's demands. Google had become the most popular search engine because it promised relevancy to it's users. Link farms, and link trading sites sprung up over night. SEO companies made huge profits giving advise that many never followed. Some found loop holes and used them to their advantage. To get to the top of Google required money, and/or, innovation. Google saw it's rules were being bent, so, it changed the rules.

They have apparently decided that too much emphasis was on the links, at least the link trading. They still wanted content to be king, however bloggs were doing their share of bending that rule too. Just before the biggest shopping week of the year, they mixed it all up again. Many of those that were at the front, are now in obscurity. Some that were doomed into obscurity are now scrambling to meet the demands that they suddenly face. Everyone is in a rush to get their sites to meet the new Google standards. We now write articles, or use others, with key words used in very specific positions in hopes that the word search program we know as Google will find our site relevant to their users. They have launched new beta programs that will build new ways to determine relevancy.

One of those, allows Google to pier deeper into web sites than ever before. Google site maps beta. Good news is webmasters now have the Google ruler in front of them, and can now, instantly see how they measure up. They can now tweak their sites to conform to the Google mold. Bad news is, this is a stepping stone to a bigger shake up, and a mold made of concrete. They want to see what your users are doing on your site to help determine popularity, and relevancy.

This could lead to dead locks. A site will have to be popular to be at the front of Google. How do you get to be popular without being at the front of Google? If Google doesn't send you traffic, then how do you get your site in front of everyone. The sites that get to the front will grow in popularity, while those at the back are forever doomed. Or, will they be?

Google is all about making money. How do they make money? With click through adds. The links Google says have the most relevancy are one way text links. Like an add. If your site is in obscurity, then you will have no choice, but to create good content and purchase adds. And, of course, one way to make money is to put Google adds on your article pages. Google is creating a money machine. Hey, I have no problem with that. I believe in free enterprise. The problem is in the content and relevancy. Remember Google got to the top by providing that to it's users. When you typed in apples, you got apples. Do you really?

If content is king, then those with the most articles about a given subject will be at the forefront of a key word. I wanted to know how to make a motorcycle helmet. I typed in "How motorcycle helmets are made". What I got back, was a bunch of sites trying to sell helmets. None of them had articles on how a helmet is made. I looked through page after page of Google listing and could not find the information I was looking for.

On the flip side, if I want to purchase some lingerie for my wife, and I type in lingerie, I don't want to read about it. I want to see some lingerie, and make my selection at a safe, cheap, and secure web site. I don't care about the history of lingerie, I just want my gal to look sexy. How do I know if the site at the front of Google is going to offer me the best deal? Granted Google, and other search engines have come up with shopping links. You can compare prices on the same item listed at many different sites. Cool, that is what I want when I shop. Then why is a shopping site listed in front of information sites when I type in lingerie? What happened to all the cool sites I used to find when I typed in apple?

I don't think the relevancy problems are going to be fixed any time soon. Not until someone splits the web. At least two sections. Shopping, and information. If I have lingerie for sale, should not my site be indexed on shopping experience. If I am a search engine, and someone wants to shop, I should want to provide them with the best possible shopping experience, at the best possible prices, and the best possible selection. All the shopping sites are trying to fit the Google mold so creativity is lost.

For instance, Google frowns on javascript. I can't have fun javascript pages and get to the front of Google. I thought it would be cool if I could create a virtual reality mall. The shoppers walk into the front door (mouse manipulation) and tour the mall and look at the various shops. Will never be indexed. I want to create a super clothing store where shoppers can but shoes, purses, clubwear, lingerie, sportingwear, and accessories. Too many departments depletes your relevancy in any one department and destroys your indexing power. Google has destroyed web surfin'. Web users and web builders are now conforming to what Google says is relevant. Will this ever change? They greatest thing about the web is, it is ever changing.

The industry started with Apple computers and is now at Google. Bill gates started making a program with a bunch of guy's that eventually formed Apple Computers. Bill Gates went on to form Microsoft. The leaders of Google came from Microsoft. Who knows what, or who will sprout off next. It started with Apple, and may end in Zebra.

James Newton ownes and operates a retail store and a web site called Hot Stuff Leather and Lace, where he hopes to be at the top of Google one day.

A Good Headline Is Always Needed For Your Seo Content Provider To Succeed

Writen by Christopher Kyalo

A good headline is so badly needed that without it your SEO content provider is doomed to fail. It matters little how good their writing is or even how good they are in finding the best keyword phrases.

Good keyword phrases will give you a good position in search engine results, but if you have a poor headline, readers will ignore your site listed at number one on the page. Instead they will eagerly click on the site listed at number ten and right at the bottom of the page, simply because it has a more catchy interesting headline.

You do this yourself all the time. Just try and remember the times you have clicked on the site that is listed right at the top of the results from your search? Not many I can assure you. This is precisely why without a needed catchy headline, a lot of the other good wok from your SEO content provider will be wasted.

There is something else that is very important once you've gotten somebody to your site. Everybody knows that the longer you can keep them there, the higher a chance you have of making some money from them. The only way to keep them there is with good content packaged in the sort of headlines that grab them by the scruff of their necks and drag them to read your content. That's what is needed from a SEO content provider to succeed at your site.

Are you considering hiring a ghost writer? If so don't do anything until you've read a few more articles at the author's hire a ghost writer blog.

3 Key Offpage Search Engine Optimization Methods

Writen by Portia David

On-page search engine optimization is definitely one of the key methods if a website owner would like to improve the results for his or her website's searchability. However, on-page SEO often entails technical skills. Why? Not a lot of people are HTML enthusiasts. This is often what needs to be tweaked to do an excellent job in optimizing web pages.

What if a geek friend already did the on-page optimization and now you want to know how you can contribute to the "search engine goodness" of your website? Off-page optimization is the next step. And the results you will have to pine for are one-way backlinks. Why? This is how many of the major search engines such Google, Yahoo! and MSN rank websites. The more backlinks from relevant sites with good page rank, the merrier.

So how exactly do you gather backlinks? It's not an easy task but it's definitely less nerve-wracking than HTML if you are not the techie type. Here are some off-page SEO tips:

1. Article Marketing

Quality content has been discovered to be real king. Everyone is hungry for fresh and quality info and providing it will make backlinks go pouring in. It helps a lot to be a keen writer to be successful on this endeavor. Also, practise the proper way of using a resource box. It should only include a website that contains information relevant to the article you submit to article directories.

2. Forum Participation

Look for forums that are relevant to your website's content and keep on sharing information that will be indispensable for the members of the forums. Your signature or that tag-along message at the last part of each of your posts is what will work for your off-page SEO campaign. Keep it simple and make sure that it conveys something about your website. Learn how to hyperlink to make it easy for the people who want to visit your site.

3. Blogging

Blogs or web logs are now the most popular weapons of SEO experts. Aside from being easy-to-update, they don't require a too formal tone, which is what many readers are into. Informal dialog which can be accomplished through readers leaving comments and the blog author replying to the comments is what also keeps blogs fresh and search engine friendly. Maintaining a blog that's again relevant to your website's content will keep the search engines in touch with your site. Don't forget to have a link on your main website from your blog.

The secret to be successful in carrying out these off-page SEO methods is to be consistent. Submitting quality articles to websites at least two to three times a week and regularly producing content for your personalized blog is a surefire way to make your website stand out. Forum participation should also be something done more frequently since it will not only help you up your website's popularity with the search engines but also make you learn new stuff from other forum members' participation. Also, if you discover that you don't enjoy these stuff, there's always a plan B - hire someone to do them for you!

Note: This article may be freely reproduced as long as the AUTHOR'S resource box at the bottom of this article is included and all links must be Active/Linkable with no syntax changes.

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Informal SEO is the way to go: Isulong SEOPH

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Secret Internet Marketing Tactic Lets You Dominate The Search Engines

Writen by Michael Senoff

If you want to get a LOT more Internet traffic than you are now, without having to do a lot of complicated key word and SEO tricks, then this article will show you how.

Listen to this:

The key to getting a lot of traffic to your website...is audio.

Why?

Because search engines are now starting to pick up what is called ID3 tags.

What are ID3 tags?

Well, you know how when you put a CD in your CD Rom, or if you have a car CD player, and you put it in there and you see the little title of what you're putting in there flash across?

That's an ID3 tag. There's code embedded in the actual mp3 file, and also when people download digital files onto an iPod.

This allows people to sort their music by title, artist and other criteria.

And, when you have an mp3 file up on your website, the search engines start picking it up that information like they do HTML text.

So, imagine if you have twenty or thirty audio recordings on your site, and you've got millions of people searching for whatever it is you sell.

By using audio, in addition to your regular web page content you have now, you have an extra "layer" of content being picked up by the search engines at the same time.

And by having those ID3 tags, and the keywords within, it's going to be easier to dominate your market because the websites can't search the actual audio portion.

All they can go by is what's on the ID3 tags on your files. This is the strategy I do with my own websites with phenomenal results. And it will work for you, too.

The whole key to this is to simply get that audio content up there on your site with the ID3 tags and then let the search engines do the rest.

Michael Senoff is a sought-after Internet marketer, interviewer and business coach with more than 50,000 students on four continents. For a limited time he is giving away free over 120 hours of in-depth audio interviews with some of the richest and most successful marketers, copywriters and business experts in the world at his famous website http://hardtofindseminars.com.

How To Build A Site To Get Search Engine Rankings Part 1 Of 2

Writen by David Wells

There are many ways to get visitors to your website but none are as desirable as search engine traffic. It's highly targeted (provided you build your site correctly), has the potential to drive large numbers of visitors to your site and, best of all, it's free.

Trouble is, there are only five major search engines and each one has ten spaces on the first page of results for any given keyword phrase. That makes only 50 front page spaces for your keyword. The competition can be fierce.

The internet is mature enough that you probably aren't going to be able to target a top-level general keyword and have any hope of getting top rankings. There are just too many established players to compete with and they have a huge head start on you.

The key is to start small and focus on a very narrow sub-niche. The process of selecting your niche is half the battle. Many people are eager to get the building part and rush past the all-important planning phase. This is a mistake.

You wouldn't build a house without a complete blueprint. A website should be treated the same. Take your time and develop a careful plan before you start posting pages. It will save you time in the long run and your odds of success will be much better.

The analysis and design of a website should follow a series of logical steps. Pick your topic, identify your keywords, determine the competitive landscape and then build your site.

The first item of business is to select the general topic your site will be about. It's important to recognize that your final topic selection will be driven by market forces and competitive pressures. Your goal is to achieve high rankings in the search engines after all and you aren't likely to achieve that if you choose a topic in a well-defined and highly competitive market. So this process is essentially one of narrowing your focus until you have a niche that you can effectively compete in.

You will do better in every way if you pick a topic that interests you. First, your passion, or lack thereof, for the topic will come through in your writing. Passion and enthusiasm for a subject are necessary ingredients for writing content that people actually want to read. Second, you are far more likely to stick to it if you have a genuine interest in the subject matter.

To begin your topic selection process you should brainstorm general topic ideas for at least 30 minutes. During the first few minutes the ideas will come fast and furious, but then you will have to start thinking about it deeply and intently. This is the point where most people quit and take the list they have and run with it. That's a mistake.

Your topic selection is the most important determining factor to your success or failure on the internet. Take your time and do it right the first time. Spend the entire 30 minutes focusing intently on listing every topic that interests you, even if it sounds silly. The first benefit of staying on task is that you will create a much larger initial list than you would if you quit after the ideas stopped flowing freely.

The second benefit, and the real power of this technique, is the message you are sending to your subconscious. When you focus intently on a question for a full 30 minutes your subconscious gets the message that you want an answer, so for the next few days your subconscious will provide answers to your brainstorm question. And many of these ideas will be the best you'll get from your brainstorming session. Be sure to capture these ideas and add them to your list.

You now have your general topic list. This list will form the basis of your research for this site and the next so be sure to keep it safe and back it up with a hard copy.

Go through your list and select the top five topics based on the sole criteria of how excited you are about writing content on this topic for the foreseeable future. Your topic must interest you or your writing won't interest your visitors.

Now you have your short list and step one of your website analysis and design is finished.

Step two is much more involved. During this step you will narrow your topic down into a set of competitive niche keywords to build your site pages around. These keywords will form the foundation of your website promotion efforts. I can't stress enough how important it is to do a thorough analysis of your niche market before you start building pages.

Take the first topic term from your short list. This will be your first research project. It may seem like a lot of work but you should go through this market analysis process for each of your five short list topics. Only by doing all five will you have a clear picture where your best opportunities for success lay.

This works best if you create a spreadsheet or a chart to help you organize the data you collect for each topic. Start by labeling your columns from left to right with the following:

1. Keyword
2. Searches
3. Results
4. Results / Searches
5. # of Google AdWords Campaigns
6. 1st AdWords bid
7. 2nd AdWords bid
8. 3rd AdWords bid
9. # of Yahoo Search Campaigns
10. 1st Yahoo bid
11. 2nd Yahoo bid
12. 3rd Yahoo bid
13. 1st site
14. 2nd site
15. 3rd site

Collecting the data and filling in this spreadsheet will take some time and effort but it will prove worth it in the long run.

The data for columns 1 & 2 can be obtained by using Overture's free search tool. Go to http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ and enter your topic into the search box. You will get a long list of keywords that include variations on your topic along with the number of searches performed for that keyword during the last month. Go down the list and enter your keywords in column 1 and their corresponding search volume in column 2.

You should have quite a list here. Remember, this is the process of narrowing your niche so it's ok to have lots of potential terms to pick from. At this stage it's good to have a big list.

For column #3 go to Google or Alta Vista and do a search for each term on your list. Be sure to put quotes around your search term to narrow the results to a more targeted subset.

The results page for your search will provide you with the data you need to fill in columns #3, #13, #14 and #15. Column #3 is simply the number of results returned. This will be listed at the top of the page. For columns 13, 14, and 15 simply enter the URL's for the top three sites listed in the order listed on the search results page. These sites are your primary competitors for this keyword. You will come back to these sites later to determine how well optimized they are and to help you develop your site promotion strategy – but more on that later.

At this point you have a list of keywords related to your topic, search volume (demand), search results (supply), and the top 3 sites for each keyword. Column #4 can be calculated by dividing the search results by the search volume. This will give you a number you can easily use to compare the supply vs. demand of each keyword. The lower the number the less competitive the market is with regard to searches verses websites targeting that niche.

Columns #5 through column #12 will tell you how expensive the pay-per-click market is for this keyword. You can get a good feel for how competitive a market is and how profitable it is by how many other marketers are paying to advertise for those keywords and how much they are spending for a click.

Another important reason for collecting this information is to reveal arbitrage opportunities. Often there will be an imbalance between the cost per click for Yahoo and Google. You can take advantage of this imbalance.

In simplest terms you add content that has a high PPC cost in one engine. Add page display ads (AdWords etc…) to the same page for the high cost PPC engine. Then drive traffic to that page with the same keywords using the low-priced PPC engine. This isn't necessary for site rankings but it can earn you some extra revenue.

To fill these fields you will need to go to Google AdWords and sign up for an account (https://adwords.google.com/select/). It costs $5 to get started and is well worth the price. Use your AdWords account to go through each keyword and determine the number of campaigns and the top three bids for each keyword.

The process for Yahoo search is basically the same. Although Yahoo does require a $50 initial deposit, you can use this money towards click costs. Sign up here http://www.content.overture.com/d/.

The process has been tedious to be sure but you now have a valuable collection of data for your first topic idea. Now it's time to begin narrowing the field. Print off your spreadsheet so you can cross off keywords. This way you won't lose any of the data you've collected – it may be of value in the future.

This concludes Part 1 of "How to Build a Site to get Search Engine Rankings"

Go to Part 2 - http://EzineArticles.com/?id=200407. Learn even more about SEO at Search Engine Marketing

How To Manage Seo

Writen by Michael Murray

Whether you launch a search engine optimization program in-house or outsource the program, you should keep the following training opportunities and skill sets in mind:

• Advanced SEO techniques, including page titles, META descriptions, META keyword sets, internal page cross-linking, search engine submissions, robots.txt files and domain name management;

• Comprehends keyword weighting, proximity, density and related factors;

• Search term ranking analysis;

• Link popularity building research, management and strategy;

• Online forum and industry newsletter monitoring;

• National SEO conferences;

• HTML and advanced programming languages;

• Web site content writing;

• Essential Web site usability practices;

• Keyword research, including a firm understanding of language and the way people search;

• Web analytics, including understanding common and complex metrics associated with visitors, unique visitors, page views, online sales, profitability and more;

• Ability to see the big picture and not go so overboard with SEO practices that the web site gets banned from major search engines;

• Appreciation for ethical standards (i.e. should know about cloaking, keyword stuffing and the differences and nuances associated with "black hat" and "white hat");

• Marketing and branding experience;

• Project management, including ability to effectively communicate needs and foster cooperation from appropriate stakeholders;

• Familiarity with pay per click (PPC) programs and how their performance directly relates to natural SEO results;

• Management of paid inclusion (72-hour rapid indexing programs);

• How to adjust to the changing algorithms of search engines.

The search engine optimization field is complex and ever-changing. To keep pace, you should have plenty of skills on hand. Overall, the SEO program process should be simple: set goals, choose the best keywords, optimize pages, submit to search engines and refine efforts in light of rankings and web analytics.

Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a Cleveland, Ohio-based SEO firm. He authored the "U.S. Manufacturers Resist Natural Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Online Sales Leads" study and a white paper, "Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game." michael@fathomseo.com

Ignoring Google

Writen by Sangam Mulmi

Google is the lord of websites, there is no any doubt about it. Every one is running behind Google for an opportunity for Google to turn back and look at them. This is the evil going on in the web world. Building a website must have an objective to satisfy the website viewers rather than Google. If your website is liked by all then Google cannot ignore it. After all Google is also running behind visitors to satisfy them.

If your website has good content as the desire of your website viewers then Google cannot neglect your website, since Google itself wants to satisfy its website viewers so how can Google hate your website if it is liked by all. So while building a website always give first priority to your visitors and market you are looking for.

Google is nothing but only the medium to pull visitors to your website which you can do by simply writing your website URL in the wall of your house with a pencil, stamping a website URL in Paper notes, wearing T-shirt after printing a website URL in it, and there are many other Techniques how you can promote your website very cheaply and shortly. Saying this I am not suggesting you to avoid Google but I am saying you to stop running behind Google. Google is an excellent destination for all but why don't you try to make your own website the destination for Google.

Many webmasters are wasting their valuable time just to see one more green bar in the PageRank box of Google Toolbar and for getting listed in first page of Google Search Page but most of them are unsuccessful for doing so. If that time was spent for the modification of their website then there would be something more they could contribute to the world. Your intension of running behind Google always keeps you backward but if you think of running your website yourself individually then the day will come when Google runs after you to get inside the frame of your eyes for a single sight of yours.

Up to today, Google is successful because it is running independently. It didn't pray any one for its website's promotion, that's why Google is at the top today. Be careful, promoting a website with dirty tricks may cause a demotion of the website which can never be promoted again. You must not promote your website for getting Google's eye but for dragging more visitors to your website. Aren't you being blind by running foolishly behind Google? Think once, are you correctly knowing the value of website promotion and the value of website search engines like Google, Yahoo, MSN.

Author is a student studying at high school in Nepal. He is also involved in building a website. Some of his websites are Guide for Abroad Studies

Top Position In Google Tips For Ranking High

Writen by Sunny Hoggard

SEO Firms Websites that gets found in Google, Yahoo, and MSN, etc. is not hard to do, But most people are confused where to begin.I can offer some search engine optimization tips as per my knowledge.

Try not to purchase a new domain unless you have to. Google's aging delay is trouble for all new domains, it is better to use your existing domain/website if at all possible. If you're redesigning or starting from scratch and you have to use a brand-new domain for some reason, you can expect to wait a good 9-12 months before your site will show up in Google for any keyword phrases that are important to you.

Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines The content should ne relevent. The search engines are looking for pages that best fit the keyword phrase someone types into their little search box. If those "someones"(http://www.kvcindia.com) are typing in search words that relate to what your site offers, then they are most likely members of your target audience. You need to optimize your site to meet their needs. If you don't know who your target audience is, then you need to find out one way or another. Look for studies online that might provide demographic information, and visit other sites, communities, or forums where your target audience might hang out and listen to what they discuss. This is crucial information to your website design, keyword research, and copywriting.

Do Research on your keyword phrases . The phrases you think your target market might be searching for may very well be incorrect. To find the optimal phrases to optimize for, use research tools such as Wordtracker, Google AdWords, and Yahoo Search Marketing data. Compile lists of the most relevant phrases for your site, and choose a few different ones for every page. Never shoot for general keywords such as "travel" or "vacation," as they are rarely (if ever) indicative of what your site is really about.

Design and categorize your site architecture and navigation based on your keyword research. Your research may uncover undiscovered areas of interest or ways of categorizing your products/services that you may wish to add to your site. For instance, let's say your site sells toys. There are numerous ways you could categorize and lay out your site so that people will find the toys they're looking for. Are people looking for toys to fit their child's stage of development? (Look for keyword phrases such as "preschool toys.") Or are they more likely to be seeking specific brands of toys? Most likely, your keyword research will show you that people are looking for toys in many different ways. Your job is to make sure that your site's navigation showcases the various ways of searching. Make sure you have links to specific-brand pages as well as specific age ranges, specific types of toys, etc.

Program your site to be "crawler-friendly." The search engines can't fill out forms, can't search your site, can't read JavaScript links and menus, and can't interpret graphics and Flash. This doesn't mean that you can't use these things on your site; you most certainly can! However, you do need to provide alternate means of navigating your site as necessary. If you have only a drop-down sequence of menus to choose a category or a brand of something, the search engine crawlers will never find those resulting pages. You'll need to make sure that you always have some form of HTML links in the main navigation on every page which link to the top-level pages of your site. From those pages, you'll need to have further HTML links to the individual product/service pages. (Please note that HTML links do NOT have to be text-only links. There's nothing wrong with graphical image navigation that is wrapped in standard < a href > tags, as the search engines can follow image links just fine.)

Label your internal text links and clickable image alt attributes (aka alt tags) as clearly and descriptively as possible. Your site visitors and the search engines look at the clickable portion of your links (aka the anchor text) to help them understand what they're going to find once they click through. Don't make them guess what's at the other end with links that say "click here" or other non-descriptive words. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and graphical link on your site. The cool thing about writing your anchor text and alt attributes to be descriptive is that you can almost always describe the page you're pointing to by using its main keyword phrase.

Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site based on your chosen keyword phrases and your target market's needs, and make sure it's copy that the search engines can "see." This is a crucial component to having a successful website. The search engines need to read keyword-rich copy on your pages so they can understand how to classify your site. This copy shouldn't be buried in graphics or hidden in Flash. Write your copy based on your most relevant keyword phrases while also making an emotional connection with your site visitor. (This is where that target audience analysis comes in handy!) Understand that there is no magical number of words per page or number of times to use your phrases in your copy. The important thing is to use your keyword phrases only when and where it makes sense to do so for the real people reading your pages. Simply sticking keyword phrases at the top of the page for no apparent reason isn't going to cut it, and it just looks silly.

Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page's unique Title tag. Title tags are critical because they're given a lot of weight with every search engine. Whatever keyword phrases you've written your copy around should also be used in your Title tag. Remember that the information that you place in this tag is what will show up as the clickable link to your site at the search engines. Make sure that it accurately reflects the content of the page it's on, while also using the keyword phrases people might be using at a search engine to find your stuff.

Make sure your site is "link-worthy." Other sites linking to yours is a critical component of a successful search engine optimization campaign, as all of the major search engines place a good deal of emphasis on your site's overall link popularity. You can go out and request hundreds or thousands of links, but if your site stinks, why would anyone want to link to it? On the other hand, if your site is full of wonderful, useful information, other sites will naturally link to it without your even asking. It's fine to trade links; just make sure you are providing your site visitors with only the highest quality of related sites. When you link to lousy sites, keep in mind what this says to your site visitors as well as to the search engines.

Dont overemphasise any one keyword phrase or worried too much about rankings. If you've done the above 9 things correctly, you will start to see an increase in targeted search engine visitors to your site fairly quickly. Forget about where you rank for any specific keyword phrase and instead measure your results in increased traffic, sales, and conversions. It certainly won't hurt to add new content to your site if it will really make your site more useful, but don't simply add a load of fluff just for the sake of adding something. It really is okay to have a business site that is just a business site and not a diatribe on the history of your products. Neither your site visitors nor the engines really give a hoot!

Seo Consultant working for improvement of the ranking of websites in various search engines like google, yahoo & msn by using different SEO techniques.