Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Keyword Research And How To Do It Right

Keyword research is an indispensable phase of your "search engine optimization". If you are homing in on the incorrect keywords, you are discarding all the clip and energy you set into making your land site to rank and you are putting cherished selling monies in danger. To stay viably competitive, you can't afford to make that or take that chance.

The First Two Steps In Keyword Selling are:

1. Busting the Myths

2. The Santa Clause Syndrome

1. Busting the Myths

A widespread myth about conducting keyword research for a hunt engine optimisation political campaign is the thought that you already cognize which terms, or phrases a client would use to detect or turn up your site. But, no unfortunately, you probably don't.

First you necessitate to make some research.

You may cognize what your land site is about inside and out and backwards and forwards, and how you would happen it, however it's often modern times a crapshoot to seek to foretell what ways a paying client would travel about determination it. Web land site proprietors measure their land sites using too good of a lens, effectively causing them to come up up with words that read like stereo system instructions, not viable, or possible keywords.

Bear in mind, your client most likely habit be employed in the same line of work that you do. That is the ground they name upon you. When unfolding the benefits of your site, service or product, disentangle yourself from the stereo system direction or, industry gobblydegook. Your clients won't be searching that manner and if you focus on your land land site on these terms, they'll not only never happen you, they wont' even be looking for you.

A additional inaccurate belief is that generic or "high dollar" footing are the most effectual for rankings, even if the term you're going after have not a thing in common with or to make with your site, service or product. Imagine an car store attempting to rank for the term "Real Estate". Sure, thousands, if not 100s of one one thousands of seekers probably cardinal that peculiar term into their hunt barroom each and every day; however, they're not doing it to seek to happen you.

They most likely are not even looking for you. They really desire Real Estate. Being ranked figure 1 for a term no 1 would associate with your land site is a squandering of of time, resources and money. Your land site may undergo a batch of 'unqualified' traffic, a sum waste material of your bandwidth and the clients won't hang out or lodge around.

2. The Santa Clause Syndrome

Just like Kris Kringle must do a listing and bank bank bank check it twice to present the commodity to the children, you must follow the illustration of St. Dent and check and dual check your listing of possible keywords and terms. The initial thought of keyword research can be daunting, trying to come up up with the ideal grouping of words to drive clients to your site. Gearing up to magnify up your transition charge per unit and let the spiders to see you as an expert could easily afflict anyone with a latent hostility or megrim concern and the demand for a powerfulness sleep or in the lawsuit of a woman, big measures of chocolate.

A suggestion, or hint, is to begin slowly.

In this systematic process, the first measure is to develop or make a listing of prospective keywords. Insight all the words you believe a client might utilize to type into their hunt box when attempting to turn up you, or your services or products. This includes thinking of phrases that are broad and wide as well as targeted and focused. What is your land site trying to convey, or? What is it hoping to carry through or accomplish with it's message? Come up with adequate words to cover each and every services your land site offers.

Avert yourself from using overly generic footing like 'cars' or 'boats'.

These words are incredibly complicated to rank for and won't drive the appropriate, targeted, traffic to your page. Focus on words that are relevant, but not persistently and continually used. Limelight words that are relevant, pertinent, applicable, and significant. Try to elude from words that are constantly used.

If you necessitate aid brainstorming ideas, seek out friends, co-workers or past clients facilitation. Sometimes they can see your land site differently, in another way, than the manner you see it. Finally, don't be afraid to take a mouse peep at your competitor's Meta Keyword tag. What words are they targeting? Can you spread out on their keyword listing to better yours? It's accepted and all right to acquire a small oblique and crafty here.

All is just in love and SEO rankings.

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Thursday, October 18, 2007

How to Optimize Your Outgoing Links for Search Engine Optimization

Many hunt engine optimizers believe it's bad to have got outgoing golf course on their websites because they would leak Pagerank. What they don't cognize is the benefit you can have got by linking to other websites!

The original usage of outgoing golf course is to supply other information to the reader so they can read on if they havn't establish what they were looking for. So the golf course are actually contented of your website. And because of this you actually have got got more than content on your website than you would have without the links. And Google wishes content! But Google also wishes it if you associate to another relevant webpage to supply more than information for your visitors. But there are ways to do this wrong!

First of all you have got to make certain the websites you're linking to are relevant to the subject of your website. If they aren't subject related it have no usage for linking to them. It can even ache your ranking! Google may believe the golf course are payed for and can punish your website!

You must also do certain never to associate to a so called "bad neighbourhood", this volition ache your rankings. So don't associate to spammy websites. Also it's outdo to associate to websites which are optimized for hunt engines. The higher a page you associate to ranks in Google the better the page is to linked to. Because the websites that rank high in Google are quality websites in Google's eyes. And it's break to associate to a high quality webpage than a low quality webpage.

It's outdo to have got got the golf course on your website to associate to internal pages of other websites, those internal pages often have more than specific content. The homepage of a website is mostly a general page with information about the whole website, those webpages are often less relevant to your website then associates to internal pages. It's also good that the page you associate to have a batch of textual matter on it.

Don't overdo it. One to three golf course per webpage are enough, more than tin be less effective. Also, the more than than golf course you put the more hazard you take for linking to a bad neighbourhood.

You should also associate with a combination of your chief keyword. First of all by doing that you state Google that the page is relevant to yours. But 2nd you state Google there is more than elaborate in-depth information available for your visitors. If you associate with your chief keyword you're actually telling the hunt engines that your website itself doesn't have got got all the information it should have, so read on over there. You don't desire that! So just associate with an ground tackle textual matter which is a combination of your chief keyword. For example: if your chief keyword is apples, nexus to other websites with the anchortext "green juicy apples" and not just "apples".

By following these regulations you can actually rank a small better than your rivals who don't utilize this technique. This is a piece of onpage optimisation that most SEO forget.

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Tuesday, October 09, 2007

Easy Search Engine Optimization With Key Phrases

OK, allows acquire to business. If you have got got ever advertised or marketed online, you have experienced being bombarded by assorted selling terms. For every term that exists, there bes multiple sentiments on how to use the tactics SEO people prescribe.

Among the most focused upon facets of hunt engine optimisation is the ill-famed keyword. Marketers are told to take the right 1s and to shoot them into their content to let for the targeted traffic to happen them via hunt engines. Having read multiple hunt engine optimisation articles and employed much of the same techniques on the website I own, it is astonishing to see the deficiency of willingness to delve a spot deeper into the concern of employing those carefully chosen keywords.

Sure, we all cognize that certain keywords in your web content can sack you more than traffic than others, but many would-be marketers happen the technique of putting the keywords on their pages and wait for traffic, to be an uneffective and saturated one. Command warfares and the shear figure of retail merchants utilizing the same scheme bids the demand for invention when sellers effort to stand up out of the crowd. One such as tweaking of the usual keyword scheme is to elect for a more than comprehensive key phrase scheme instead.

Think about it. Many of your rivals are using the same keywords you are. They are attempting to procure the same sell that you are and they are listed in all of the same topographic points that you are. This do first-class placement in hunt engines bad at best. Don't go forth it that way. Employing cardinal phrase techniques to additional heighten your websites public presentation in hunt engines and communicating your message is an of import portion of hunt engine optimization.

For instance, the word (restaurant) is a heavily searched word every month. Millions of web surfboarders utilize the Internet to happen eating house locations, contact information, directions, menus, and much much more.

However, the word eating house is rarely searched alone. If web surfboarders simply searched the word eating house it would go back too many irrelevant listings. Italian eating house is no better. Most people will seek footing like Italian Restaurant Houston Lone-Star State or even Italian Restaurant Houston Lone-Star State North Side. The physical object is to have got the exact twine that they are looking for look on your website. Utilizing the cardinal phrase scheme rapid climbs your pages right past times rivals that lone focusing on stand-alone keywords.

The above illustration is a simple one, but the rule uses to all keyword deployments. Compound this scheme with the scheme of developing back associates to your website and your website additions the border in hunt engines. In the competitory sphere of the Internet, word combination or cardinal phrase schemes are the easiest manner to rank better in the hunt engines. A website that have the word (tires) on it twenty modern times can be eclipsed by a website that have price reduction snowfall tyres Houston Lone-Star State on it once.

To find what web surfboarders are searching, you can utilize keyword-analyzing software. Some hunt engines actually supply keyword tools to assist you in your quest. Either way, it is imperative to take phrases that are hot and mesh them into your communicating at least twice.

Why twice? This volition give you an even better opportunity of placing well in the hunt engines, as many webmasters be given not to utilize phrases twice to avoid being redundant in their communication. However if done well, it can look not to be redundant but rather informative. Use of qualifying footing such as as, (to recap) or (I state again), nullifies the visitants feeling that he/she is being told the same information. It do them experience that you are just being thorough. While employing cardinal phrase techniques necessitates a shade more thinking, its benefits can be quite substantial.

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Friday, September 14, 2007

Google's Universal Search - Is it Going to Affect Our SEO Efforts?

Let's first explicate how the new Universal Joint Search works. Google have started to blend lists from their news, video, images, local and book hunt engines (their perpendicular hunt services) among its regular hunts that are crawled from the existent Web. They predicted that Universal Joint Search would have got a large impact on those sellers that did not take into business relationship the importance of perpendicular searches, but those sellers that proverb to it that their land sites were listed in assorted perpendicular hunts should not see a large difference. What they will see is more than exposure for their selling message. Before I travel any additional allow me make a speedy recapitulation on perpendicular searches. Vertical hunts are those engines or services that are industry or subject specific, where you can happen information about your subject without having to seek through billions of responses on the regular horizontal hunt engines.

Say for case you were looking for a particular news related story. You could make a regular hunt on a horizontal hunt engine like, Google, MSN/Live Oregon Yahoo! or you could make a perpendicular hunt on Google's News Service. The likeliness that you would happen better consequences on a perpendicular news service is greater then sifting through the regular consequences from a horizontal hunt engine. Or state you only desire to happen a photograph of Saint George Washington, you could seek for it on the regular Google hunt or narrow your hunt down and usage Google's Image perpendicular hunt service and happen your consequences much quicker. If you hadn't noticed Google have its ain perpendicular hunt services and you can happen them above the hunt box on their place page. They have got tried for old age to acquire people to contract their hunt down additional by using perpendicular hunts but they just could not acquire adequate users to detect them. Many Internet hunts have got all been fixated on the regular hunt box that they really did not cognize what the perpendicular hunt services were all about or even to utilize them. So hence…this is the ground for Google's Universal Joint Search. Google is hitting respective of its perpendicular hunt services all at once and bringing back those consequences to blend in with the regular hunt results. They wanted this alteration so the perpendicular hunt consequences could go a normal experience instead of relying on people to detect the specialised checks for their perpendicular hunt services. What makes this mean value for your rankings? It intends that your place may or may not drop depending on how many perpendicular hunt consequences are mixed in with the regular consequences for any 1 search. So what can you do? To begin with you still necessitate to look for qualified golf course and directories to associate to that are industry related. Google will still look at those partnerships to find relevance so you still necessitate to be certain your golf course are from trusted land sites that lucifer your content. Next, I would propose you reexamine Google's Vertical Search Services. Bash any of their classes fit your content and do sense for your land site if you submitted to their images, news, or picture databases. Here are some tips to acquire your land sites ready for Universal Joint Search.

1. First, your SEO attempts should still stay the same. Construct high quality, hunt engine optimized web pages following all the basic SEO rules you already know.

2. Dressed Ore on working on schemes that include creating multimedia system content such as as blogs, pictures and podcasts, and then acquire them listed on societal mass media selling land sites like Del.icio.us, Digg, Reddit and StumbleUpon. Be certain they are tagged and cataloged properly.

3. Use Google Image Search – Brand certain the mental images on your land site all have got relevant elevation tags that clearly depict the mental image and don't utilize your elevation tags for keyword stuffing. Use them as they where intended to be used.

4. Video Files – Create a page on your web land site to establish your video, optimize it for the content it incorporates and submit it to Google Video.

5. Are you using the powerfulness of "Press Releases?" – Submit your fourth estate releases as news and release information on new products, services or events and Google News will likely pick it up.

6. Every local concern should be using Google Maps. Give your land site a local presence through Google Maps Local Business Center. This is great for Google's Individualized Search!

7. Submit your Blog to Google Blog Search So what makes this all really intend to us…?

It intends that over clip the organic web page hunt consequences may decrease and perpendicular hunt consequences may prevail. As SEO's we necessitate to recognize that our web pages, by themselves may not be the Prime Minister hunt consequences as we once knew them so we necessitate to really begin considering every other word form of digital content available to us. Google, as well as all of the other major hunt engines, that may follow lawsuit only desire to give their users the most qualified hunt consequences as possible. They will go on to pinch and perfect Web hunts until the consequences we acquire are exactly what we are looking for using all different word forms of selling from, web pages, news, blogs, images, maps and video. Start preparing your land site for the hereafter now leap on board Google's Universal Joint Search!

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Thursday, August 16, 2007

SEO Will Work Best For Your Real Estate Business

If you have got a existent estate business, you desire this to obtain success. You have got to do usage of the popular cyberspace selling in order to accomplish your ends for your business.

By agency of hunt engine optimization, your existent estate concern can obtain success. Definitely, you desire your website to be visited with tons of cyberspace users, to derive traffic and popularity, addition top rank to the hunt engines consequences and to have got got more than profits; you can accomplish these by optimizing your website.

Are you familiar with SEO, make you have the better understand how it works for your existent estate business? Certainly, you can accomplish your ends for your concern if you take clip to optimize your website. Yes, you can make it on your own, but of course, you necessitate to take clip to cognize how to optimize your website especially if you make not have got the better apprehension how it should be done. So in order for you to derive traffic for your website, addition top rank on the hunt engines results, be at Pb with your rivals and to have got more than profits, you tin work with a SEO company.

SEO Company possesses methods, strategies, and experiences that can aid you accomplish your goals. Yes, SEO is quite complicated, so it is better to work with a professional SEO company to guarantee that your existent estate concern will derive success.

Having existent estate business, you definitely cognize that you have got tons of competitors. You will not be popular, you won't be visited by cyberspace users, and your website will be left hanging there if you do not make improvements with your website. Your money will just be set into waste material because you can't do any sale.

Definitely, you cognize that most people utilize the cyberspace to acquire the information that they need, and they acquire it with the usage of the hunt engines. The hunt engines will give about 100s of results, but cyberspace users only trust those websites that are on the top rank. So being on the top rank is one of your goals, but you can accomplish this with the aid of SEO Company. With there schemes and skills, they tin aid you to be on that top ranking of the hunt engine results.

If you desire to cognize how to happen the professional SEO Company that can help you to accomplish all your ends for your existent estate agent, you can make this with the usage of the major hunt engines. If you are into Miami existent estate, simply type the keywords Miami existent estate at the hunt engines and bank check out the websites that are on the top rank, and then look for the SEO Company that made that possible.

There are tons of stairway that should be done in order to optimize your website, but this professional SEO Company cognize all of these stairway and they will do certain that your existent estate concern will obtain success. So start searching for the professional SEO Company that tin aid your business.

Eliza Maledevic Ayson
http://www.jump2top.com

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Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Obtain Success With the Aid of the Best SEO Company

SEO is the thing that stirs the online marketing world. So if you have online business, for sure you have heard about SEO.

Yes, you may have heard the term SEO but do you truly understand it? Do you know what can SEO do to your online business? You have to continue reading to have the questions to these questions.

What is SEO - it stands for Search Engine Optimization. SEO or search engine optimization is the process of increasing the traffic of your website and it can bring visibility and popularity to your website. It is a helpful and valuable tool that can make your business be popular and to earn plenty of money. Even if your business have good products, if you do not have visitors in your website, then you will not gain customers an earn profits. With the aid of SEO, you can gain a lot of visitors and you can turn these visitors as your customers.

Most people use the internet for information, products and even services. They search for their needs through the search engines. As you can see, as you type a specific keyword at the major search engines such as Yahoo, Google and MSN, you will find a lot of results – about thousands of results. But of course, those results that are found on the top rank are the ones that visitors or internet users will take time to look and visit. Since they believe that those results are the reliable ones for the information, products or services that they need.

Now, you maybe wondering on how your website gain traffic and can be on the top rank of the major search engines and can be ahead of your competitors online? For you to achieve all of these, you have to make use of search engine optimization. Search engines use algorithms so to supply answers to users who are searching for information online.

Search engine optimization uses a lot of methods in order to make sure that your website remains at the top of the search engine listings. This happens through the keywords articles. So in order to remain on the top rank, you have to create valuable articles that are useful to internets users and with the search engines as well.

In order for you to achieve you goals – to be on the top rank of the major search engines, to obtain traffic, visibility and popularity, to be ahead of your competitors and to earn a lot of profits, it is better to make use of the best SEO Company who can do the work for you effectively.

Maybe you are wondering on how to find the best SEO Company that can aid you in achieving success. One good way to find the best SEO Company is by typing your business theme or topic on the major search engines such as Google and Yahoo. Like for instance, if you are into Florida real estate, then type Florida real estate on Google or Yahoo, surely you will be given a lot of results but just open those on the top rank and look for the SEO Company that made them on the top. Then simply contact the SEO Company.

Definitely, this SEO Company can make your website and business successful since the Company will use effective tools to achieve your goals.

Eliza Maledevic Ayson

Jump2top - SEO Company

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Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Aaron Wall's Vision On Search Engine Optimization (Part 1 Of 3)

Because of the fact that Aaron Wall's SEO Book is now available for sale on ebook-scene we provide three articles in which Aaron Wall gives his comment on the different ranking factors search engines use. Together with 37 other SEO experts Aaron Wall voted on the various factors that are estimated to comprise Google's ranking algorithm (the method by which the search engine orders results). Each factor regarding the search engine optimization is listed, briefly described and added with Aaron Wall's comment.

Keyword Use Factors.

In this first article we concentrate on the use of keywords on your website. The following components relate to the use of the user's search query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.

1) Keyword Use in Title Tag


Placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page's HTML header.
Aaron Wall about this: "If it is overdone it can actually supress a site's rankings, but if the site is well mixed and the titles look more like descriptive newspaper titles than overt SEO it helps a lot. Plus many people link at documents by their official names, and thus the title acts as anchor text for viral content".

2) Keyword Use in Body Text


Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page.
Aaron Wall says: "If it is overdone it can suppress rankings. I think they are moving more toward topic analysis to learn what is relevant though".

3) Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords (Topic Analysis)
Topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords.
Aaron Wall his comment on this issue: "Using semantically related terms allows you to help associate your page with other topical pages and helps your page rank for many long tail keywords".

4) Keyword Use in H1 Tag


Creating an H1 tag with the targeted search term/phrase.
Aaron Wall about the use of keywords in the H1 Tag: "May hurt your rankings if it is too well aligned with the page title and anchor text. If templating issues cause too much duplication in a large section of a website it may also lead to reduced crawling".

5) Keyword Use in Domain Name


Including the targeted term/phrase in the registered domain name, i.e. keyword.com.
Aaron Wall about this: "If the domain name is an exact match I believe it is strongly weighted because it might be a sign of a navigational query. Plus having an exact match domain means their were either early to their topic (and thus perhaps a topical leader), or they may have paid a domainer nosebleed prices for the domain".

6) Keyword Use in Page URL


Including target terms in the webpage URL, i.e. seomoz.org/keyword-phrase.
According to Aaron Wall: "Not weighted anywhere near as much as an exact match domain name, but helps improve CTR (and thus relevancy if CTR factors into relevancy scores) and some people will link to pages using the URL as anchor text".

7) Keyword Use in H2, H3, H(x) Tags


Placing targeted terms in the H2, H3 headline HTML tags.
Aaron Wall about this: "May hurt your rankings if it is too well aligned with the page title and anchor text. If templating issues cause too much duplication in a large section of a website it may also lead to reduced crawling".

8) Keyword Use in Alt Tags and Image Titles


Using target keywords inside alt HTML tags and img title tags.
Aaron Wall says: "Important for helping images rank, but not as important for helping a page link, unless the image is a hyperlink, in which case the alt text acts similar to anchor text".

9) Keyword Use in Meta Description Tag


Utilizing keywords in the meta description tag in a webpage's HTML header.
Aaron Wall: "If done well it helps improve CTR by making your listings look more appealing. May hurt your rankings if it is too well aligned with the page title".

10) Keyword Use in Meta Keywords Tag


Utilizing keywords in the meta keywords tag in a webpage's HTML header.
Most of the SEO experts agree that this last component doesn't influence rankings at all in Google which doesn't index the information provided within it. Is fractionally weighted with Yahoo, but should only help if there are no other pages indexed that actually use the words in more important areas of the site.

(Next week Aaron Wall's comment on page attributes)

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Sunday, May 20, 2007

Search Engine Visibility News - The Values of Search Engine Optimization

The Web is growing at an exponential rate. ComScore Networks reported that in January 2007 there was a whapping 747 million active Internet users, a 10 percent increase versus January 2006.

Every day, individuals on the Web use major search engines to launch over 400 million queries for products, services and information. Can they find your Web site? Successful online marketers recognize the potential of this enormous online market, and have developed comprehensive Web site positioning strategies for capturing their share of this immense market.

Search engines are the most popular vehicle to connect users to Web sites. Search engines and directories provide the first step in the online communications link. Search engine results are the bridge between potential consumers and your Web site. It is crucial that your Web site possess search engine visibility and that it is listed prominently (the top 30 results) within search results for relevant key phrases.

Search Engines: Permission Marketing

The Internet is an interactive medium where we can be "in touch" with interested parties 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. Potential customers use search engines and directories to locate content and discover new Web sites every day, and a typical search query will often result in over a million search matches. If you have not considered a Web site positioning strategy, you are probably losing valuable business.

Over 80% of Internet users use search engines and directories to find Web sites, according to Forrester Research.

Online shopping continues to grow at a healthy clip. It reached a total of $65 billion last year, jumping 26 percent higher than the previous year.

Internet spending for 2006 totaled $102 billion, an increase of 24% from the previous year.

The first 10 results for any search have click-thru rates of 65% according to a study by Berrier & Associates.

A study conducted by IMT Strategies found that search engines are the #1 way people find Web sites. Random surfing and word-of-mouth ranked second.

Traffic from search engines is the most valuable kind of internet traffic because it is comprised of people actively looking for a specific product, service, information or solution.

Search engine users make four separate and distinct choices:

* They don't usually go beyond the first 30 search listings.

* They choose to use the Internet to research an issue or solve a problem.

* They choose one of the 8-18 major search engines to launch their search.

* They choose a particular keyword or phrase as the basis of their search.

These are highly qualified targeted visitors. They are very close to reaching a buying decision. This is the visitor you want to attract. These are buyers, not window shoppers.

Search Engine Optimization - Is it worthwhile?

After spending thousands, even millions, of dollars developing a Web site, businesses often discover that the site is invisible in the major search engines. Failing to take your Web site's search engine and directory visibility into consideration when making site development decisions, is an untimely and expensive mistake.

Businesses must either reinvest in a post-launch redesign of their site, or accept the extremely limited results that they will achieve with their site. Recognizing the importance and the need of search engine optimization in the development of your Web site is very important in your online success.

Creating customer satisfaction and loyalty?

Users of Internet search engines are on a mission to solve a problem. How quickly they are able to find an answer to their problem is directly related to customer satisfaction. How quickly they are able to find your Web site, if they are searching for you by name, is directly related to their opinion of your brand. A lifetime relationship with your brand is at stake every time someone conducts a query via a search engine.

Only one of two outcomes is possible each time a member of your potential audience, or an existing customer, performs a search in a major engine:

* They will find your Web site or a competitor's Web site.

Your online success is very dependent upon the quality and success of your Web site positioning campaign. A search engine optimization strategy must be created and implemented so that your Web site can be found in the major search engines and directories when someone performs a keyword or phrase query relevant to your site's product or service offering.

There is alot at stake every hour of every day that you do not have a comprehensive Web site positioning strategy in place. You are losing critical revenue with every passing minute.

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Friday, May 11, 2007

Long Term Search Engine Optimization Strategies

When it comes to what works in the search engines, a lot of advice you read is the latest flavor of the week or loophole that someone's uncovered that will help you get great search engine rankings… for about a week.

It's also true that little things change on a monthly or weekly basis. These little changes can be almost impossible to keep up with.

So what's a person supposed to do to get great search engine rankings?

Simple. Stop focusing on the little things, like tweaking your keyword density, or changing your meta tags, and focus on the factors that are going to matter long term.

Fortunately, there are some basic principles that you can apply that can help you weather the storm of constantly fluctuating search engine algorithms. These are methods that have worked for years, and will work for the foreseeable future.

1) Write Great Content

Make the focus of your site on having really good content. I know that if you've read some of my previous articles, you'll know that I continually harp on the importance of having great content. Well, the reason is that the search engines want to rank the sites that have the best content the highest. Also, people will naturally link to great content. Give the search engines and people what they want – quality content. Avoid quickly thrown together crap, and if you hire writers, make sure they know the subject matter they're writing about.

2) Update Frequently

Your website should be updated frequently. This means not just going in and tweaking what's already on your site, but having a steady stream of new content flowing into the site. I like to use blogs for this purpose since they're really easy to use and maintain.

3) Get Links

Build up your links. You should always be seeking out quality one way links. Whether you're using article marketing, directories, or press releases, be proactive in getting new links to your website.

Once you start focusing on long term optimization methods, you'll find that your rankings will improve without you having to go in and make little changes every time you read about what the search engines are favoring that month. Your content will rise to the top over time without you needing to constantly mess with it.

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Friday, April 27, 2007

Google Search Engine Optimization - My Own Road Map For Internet Success

One of the most profitable marketing techniques I've used for my businesses is without any doubt search engine optimization.

Since venturing into SEO, I've encountered much success for my websites. At first when I saw the top 10 websites in Google for a popular search term in one of my markets, it was kind of dream for me. I knew what they did to get there but I knew there was hard work to be done. But certainly it was achievable.

I have to admit it was a kind of obsession to get my website in the top 10 placement because I knew once I am there I will receive targeted traffic and sales for a long time to come. That thought just keep coming in my mind.

All I know is I have to take action right now and I was also really motivated to attain my goals. I know getting search engine traffic is passive and that to profit from passive traffic, I have to start promoting my site right now or else it will take more time to get those coveted rankings.

And once I've worked on my search engine rankings, I can leave it aside and concentrate on other aspects of my business but also look for other ways to promote my business. One fundamental thing you should always remember is to FOCUS. Focus on one marketing strategy and keep at it. Give it all you can before moving on to the next one. If you try to do too many things at once, it's very difficult to find success and you will most likely fail.

The day will come when you will do a search for a keyword phrase that you have been working on and to your surprise, you'll see your site in the SERPs(Search Engine Result Pages). This will just prove that what you're doing is working. I've been there and I can tell you that you will feel proud and happy with such an accomplishment. It's an amazing feeling. It's kind of you don't believe you are really there.

If you want to achieve those top search engine rankings in Google and other major search engines, educate yourself well and learn the search engine optimization strategies and techniques that work because you won't be wasting your time and time is so precious in search engine marketing. Have a plan like what you're going to do everyday to achieve your objectives ie doing some valuable link exchanges with related and relevant websites, article writing, directory submissions, text link advertising.

Link exchanges are not useless. In the past, they were the major ways to get top rankings but now they have been a bit devalued but still they are worth getting. Why? Simply because related and relevant links will bring direct traffic to your website and will help your link popularity too. They will help you in rankings automatically but less as compared to several years ago. Well just focus in getting targeted links and you will be surprised how much traffic you can get just with links from related and relevant sites. Even if one day, reciprocal links are completely dead, those links will still be of value in terms of direct traffic. So don't get reciprocal links just for search engine ranking benefits and for a boost in link popularity. Article writing should be an ongoing process for direct traffic and automatically, it will help your link popularity. Directory submissions will give your site a solid foundation for link building and can make your site stable in the rankings. Concerning text link advertising, if you can afford it, it's worth it. Just advertise your website on relevant and related sites and if they are high traffic sites, you can get good traffic and potential business. There was a discussion about paid text links and that Google might detect those in the future and maybe devalues them and here is what I have to say.

I think this would have happened sooner or later. Google might detect paid links depending on some criteria. Suppose a website is new and is getting a bunch of high quality links eg sites with good link popularity, high PageRank, high traffic, this might raise a red flag like this site is buying links. But that as well, it can be getting good links due to article submission.

Whatever happen in the future concerning paid links, I believe if you have to do it, do so such that you are getting targeted traffic from those links and websites alone and bypassing PageRank and backlinks. But first, check that website's alexa ranking to get an idea of its traffic levels(the lower the number, usually the higher the traffic) and check its rankings for its primary keywords in the major search engines as an additional plus because you can have high traffic websites which don't depend on search engine rankings. They can depend on other traffic sources. Now if you were to check the rankings, a top 10, a top 20 and even a top 30 is worth considering. The website's homepage html title will usually contain the primary keywords. By knowing the alexa ranking and search engine rankings, this should give you an idea whether it's worth advertising or not. This alone can justify your investment.

If there is good return on investment, why bother about the search engine ranking benefits from that link. Even if you don't get any benefit, you won't care as long as you're getting business from your text link advertisement. You might need to test which sites bring you results or not. Advertise for a month with one or two good sites and see if there is any improvement in traffic and business. You can know which site brings you more traffic via your traffic logs. You will see visitors coming to your site from another website. If you're getting traffic but no business, you have to work on your conversion and tweak it. You can have different business models like selling your own products, affiliate products and generating money from AdSense for instance. Here as well, focus is important. Don't try to give too many options to your visitors or else they can get confused and leave for good. You need to test which business model is more profitable and lucrative for your Internet business. Testing is absolutely crucial in Internet marketing.

I don't think there is anything wrong if you purchase links on relevant and related sites for the purpose of advertising but if you have to do it solely for PageRank and link popularity, you might be affected if Google detects paid links in the future and devalues them. You might not get any PageRank passed to your website and your rankings might not benefit. So what's the use? You can be advertising for nothing. No traffic, no backlinks and no PageRank. You have just wasted your money. Usually when you go for PageRank and link popularity only and not focusing on the traffic rewards, you will not be too concerned about what type of sites you are advertising on whether they are related and relevant or not. You can just buy links on unrelated and irrelevant sites simply for the sake of getting PageRank and backlinks. And usually, you will go after high PageRank websites. Well this is not recommended at all. Opt for a long term strategy which can produce results time and time again not short term results.

On another note, it's important to remember that before starting a search engine promotion campaign, it's fundamental that you have already created useful, quality and original content on your site. You might need to outsource your content creation if you have problems coming up with original content. A website without useful content won't have much merit for the search engines. Search engines love content and best of all if it's original. It's also a good idea to build a solid link structure for your site.

So here you are, to get top google rankings, create your own google search engine optimization plan and have your own road map for Internet success. You'll be glad you did.

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Friday, April 20, 2007

Turbocharge Your Links With Killer Anchor Text

These days, everyone knows that, to get top rankings in any of the engines, your site needs links. Not just any links, but links from quality sites and lots of them. One thing I have noticed is that for many webmasters that are newer to SEO, they often over look the importance of "anchor text" or "link text" as it is often called.

If you are unfamiliar with these terms, let me give you an example below.

This is Anchor Text

In the above example, the text "This is Anchor Text" is the anchor text. Anchor text is simply the text used as the clickable portion of a link. A while back (a few years now), the engines decided that, quite often, the text used as the anchor text of a link was a description of the target page. So, knowing this, they decided to start looking at the anchor text of links to a page an incorporating what those links "said" about the page into the algorithms used to rank pages.

To this day, Google still seems to give the most weight to anchor text, but all the engines use it to some extent.

It's also important to understand that the anchor text of an inbound link (at least today) still applies to that specific PAGE, not to the entire site.

What does this mean? Well, it means that, to get the absolute most bang for your buck out of each and every link pointed to your site, you should do your best to make sure that the anchor text used for each inbound link is relevant to the page that link is pointing to. This applies not only to external links (those from a different site pointing to a page within your site), but to internal links as well (those links pointing from one page of your site to another page on your site).

Internal anchor text is an area that a VERY large percentage of webmasters don't fully take advantage of. These are the links that you have full control over, so you should do everything you can to make sure that the anchor text for each and every internal link in your site best reflects the target keywords for the page it's pointing to.

The same goes for "homepage" links. What is your homepage about? I would bet that for 99% of the people reading this article, the topic of your homepage is NOT about "homes". So why is it that the vast majority of webmasters still utilize the anchor text "home" or "homepage" etc. when linking to their homepage? Don't you think it would make more sense for the anchor text of that link to be relevant to the page it's pointing to? After all, the homepage of most sites tends to target the most competitive phrases of that market don't they? So why wouldn't you want to get the most possible use of all those internal links pointing to your homepage by using some more appropriate and relevant link text?

Quite often I have seen the proper and improper use of anchor text be the difference between which page(s) make it to the top of the results and which ones end up on pages 2 and on. Where do you want to be?

See you at the top!

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Thursday, April 19, 2007

Page Structure - Make It Lean N Mean

One of the least understood and utilized areas of SEO is probably page structure. Webmasters will use an editor such as Frontpage, Dreamweaver, etc. to create there pages making sure to get the right keywords in the title tags, spread throughout the pages, in links, alt tags, etc. all the while forgetting one important fact, what it looks like to the search engines.

Unfortunately, a fairly small amount of webmasters actually know how to code in HTML. They use a WYSIWYG editor (What You See Is What You Get)such as one of those mentioned above. There is nothing wrong with that, in fact, it is how I originally started. The problem is that most of these types of editors produce horrible and I mean HORRIBLE code.

This is often referred to as "code bloat" and while it isn't NECESSARILY bad, it is not good either. First, this "code bloat" increased
the overall size of each page. For some pages, this isn't a big deal, but for pages that are already fairly large in file size, this can make a big difference.

I once went through a page that was roughly 50kb in size and removed all of the offending code bloat caused by a WYSIWYG editor. Once finished, the size of the page was reduced to roughly 30kb. That means just under 50% of the pages size was extraneous code! Now, you may be asking yourself..."Self...that's a lot, but what's the big deal". Well, the issue is that at 50k, a visitor on dial-up will have to wait an average of 10-12 seconds for the page to load, while at 30k a dial-up using visitor will only have to wait 7-8 seconds for the page to fully load.

That 3-5 seconds may not seem like a lot, but it could mean the difference between the visitor staying on your site or leaving to visit a competitor.

Now, there are definitely other reasons to avoid "code bloat". That brings us to SEO. Remember, while your pages make look pretty when viewed in a browser, that is NOT how a search engine sees them. They see only HTML. Have you ever pulled up a page to look at the HTML of the page only to go "Whoa...I can't make heads or tales of this!". Well, put yourself in the place of a search engine spider.

In order to know what your site is about and to properly index AND rank your site and all it's pages, it needs to be able to properly read your pages. This means the less code the spider has to sift through to find your content, the less chances there are that something will cause them to get "tripped up".

Over the past 9 years, I have seen the search engines get MUCH better at spidering sites, but if you think it is impossible for an error on a page to cause a spider to not be able to properly index a page...think again! I've seen it happen on more than once occassion.

So...what can you do to avoid the issues associated with code bloat?

First, lean HTML! There is nothing wrong with using a WYSIWYG editor to create your pages, but you definitely want to be able to go through them and remove some of the offending code. Today's WYSIWYG editors are better, but they still have there quirks.

Second..use CSS! Learning and using CSS is probably the single best thing you can do to decrease the amount of code on your pages. I would hope you already are using CSS, but if not, it's time to learn.

Third..place all unnecessary code in external files! Does your site use javascript? Put it in an external file and call it. Same goes for CSS. You've done the work of using CSS, now put it into one file and call it instead of letting it take up space on each page.

By keeping the actual code of your pages as lean as possible, you make it that much easier for the search engines to read the actual content. This isn't an treasure hunt. We are trying to make it as easy as possible for the engines to find this treasure so stop hiding it behind piles of code!

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Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Search Engine Optimization Tips

For websites, their ranking on the main search engines is one of the most crucially significant factors. Why this is so central is because when websites rank high on the search engines, there is a torrent of targeted web traffic from visitors, totally free, who are looking for information or products. So, it goes without saying that all those kinds of activity that might hurt a website's chance of achieving a top search engine position must be avoided at all expenses; avoiding those kinds of actions is a very important search engine optimization practise. Here are a number of issues that websites should avoid, at any cost, if they really wish to optimize their rankings with the most important search engines.

Tip #1 Don't Spam

No major search engine indexes websites for too long, if they are found to engage in spamming. What's more, from time to time, search engines refine the way they delineate "search engine spam", so it would be valuable, both as a visitor and a website administrator, to educate yourself and stay updated with the definition of spamming by the major search engines. Search engines frequently blacklist websites that spam, which means you don't get off by just not getting indexed but you might also knowledgeable get your website blacklisted forever. Just build many pages of good, valuable, non spammy content, apply the basic on-page search engine optimization techniques and you will be safe.

Tip #2 Don't Use Frames

It's a good search engine optimization habit to avoid using frames.Search engine spiders spidering the web do not react well to websites using frames and often miss many of the pages that are listed within the website.

Tip #3 Don't Have Pages Under Construction

Make sure when you submit your URL to the search engines to get indexed, that you do not have pages still under construction. Search engines as a law don't like to index pages that are yet under construction. So, always finish them before you submit your websites for indexing. Also, never use the phrase "Under Construction" on your pages that are incomplete It does not create a good impression.

Tip #4 Never use devious Tricks like hidden Text

Do not use hidden text stuffed with keywords to try and increase your SE rankings. Search engine Optimization has to be natural, don't fill your pages with keywords making them unreadable, the search engines will ban your site in no time. It may not be apparent to your visitors that you are using invisible text or keyword stuffing, but the search engine spiders will discover it easily. Play safe and fair and at all times, use natural search engine optimization, go by the rules and look for long term success.

These are just a few of the most oft-used suggestions to keep your web pages indexed by the search engines. Though, these rules are not complete. There are others that also matter a lot.

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Sunday, April 15, 2007

Search Engine Optimization - Promoting Your Web Based Business Enterprise

In this day and age there has been a proverbial explosion in the number of business enterprises that have established a Net presence. Competition is intense on the Internet and World Wide Web today. With this in mind, if you are involved in an Internet business, you will want to pull out all of the stops when it comes to developing and implementing a website promotional effort. In this regard, you will want to make certain that you include search engine optimization in your overall Internet marketing plan.

When it comes to search engine optimization, you need to understand that it really is a complicated process. There are many different elements that need to be included in an overall search engine optimization plan in order for you to be able to reap actual benefits from search engine optimization.

With this in mind, you will want to give very serious consideration to engaging the services of a search engine optimization professional. By hiring an experienced and well trained search engine optimization expert or specialist you will have a far better chance of realizing a truly effective SEO program in the final analysis. While there obviously as fees and costs associated with hiring a search engine optimization specialist, most business owners who've used the services of such a professional consider it a solid investment in the future of their online operations. Search engine optimization efforts can be invaluable when increasing the revenues and profits associated with a Net based business enterprise in this day and age.

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Sunday, April 08, 2007

Vital Tips For Successful Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages appear attractive to the search engines. The better optimized a website is, the higher the ranking it will receive from a search engines web crawlers, the higher its ranking the more traffic your website will have, the more traffic your website has the more profit your website will generate. The key is good internet search engine optimization.

Why is having a receiving a high ranking so important to the future success of your online business? Studies have shown that consumers seldom look at websites that do not rank a spot on of the first two pages the search engines displays. Websites that receive a ranking that places them on the third page (or any other pages after that) see a significantly lower amount of traffic at their websites then one that is ranked on the second page. There is even a staggering difference between the first and second page. In the world of e-commerce ranking and strong search engine optimization is everything.

At first search engine optimization may feel like trying to rappel down the Grand Canyon, a huge scary world full of big words like web crawlers, PageRank, Meta tags, and algorithms. You have never heard of any of these things. A quick internet search of the world algorithm does not help; all you got was a printout of strange symbols and numbers arranged in complex algebraic equations.

Sit back, take a deep breath, and try to relax. Search engine optimization is a lot simpler then you might think. First things first.

Algorithms really are every bit as complex as they look. Simply defined they are a finite set of carefully defined instructions. Most, if not all, computer programs are designed with strict algorithms.

PageRank is simply the program Google designed to search, index, and rank it registered webpage's. PageRank operates on a link analysis algorithm. PageRank is credited for Google incredible success.

Web crawlers are tools search engines use to browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. When web crawlers are browsing websites they are looking for algorithms.

Meta tags are special HTML tags that provide information to about a web page. Meta tags are written directly into the title tag and are only visible to the search engine.

The reality of search engine optimization is that you can start to optimize your website without any knowledge at all of the technical stuff involved in search engine optimization. Simply stated the very first step in designing a website that is going to be well ranked by the search engines is to create a content rich site. What this means is that you must cram as much information about your product into your website as you possibly can.

The third step to search engine optimization is to fill your site with keywords that will attract the web crawler's attention. The final step in a wonderfully optimized website is to submit it to the search engine that will compliment it.

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Saturday, April 07, 2007

Search Engine Optimization – 4 Basic Rules for Quality SEO III

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a wonderful technique if you are trying to bring in more and more visitors to your website. The search engines employed by web surfers should clearly ensure that your site is always available as a result of relevant 'searches'. This is going popularize your website like never before. There are 4 basic requirements for a quality SEO.

1.) A definite requirement in search engine optimization is definitely possessing all the knowledge of notions followed by search engines, specifically, you should be attuned to the lists if rules and regulations provided by the more popular ones like Google and Yahoo. Once you've known them stick to them to ensure best results.

2.) Use of keywords, in the course of search engine optimization is quite significant. Use them as much as you can in your websites and as strategically along with specific links on your site as possible. SEOs have their basis in keywords. So interpret the desires of the surfers in terms of your key words and place them on your sites for best results.

3.) The usage of more and more relevant words to substantiate your content on your website would obviously lead to greater success in search engine optimization. The title tags should carry the key words whose choices have to be made carefully. Follow this and greater number of times your site would surface in course of your searches.

4.) Analyze your content and in course of search engine optimization find more and more content which are similar in quality and update your content from time to time. Thus you would serve the dual purpose of knowing your competitors better and more often will your website surface as a search result.

Take to this basic, simple 4 step process and find your website on top of rankings continuously in terms of search results.

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Friday, March 23, 2007

RSS – Taking It To The People

If you are business blogging (b-blogging) you are likely finding Real Simple Syndication (RSS) an informational bonus for you in developing knowledge-based content for your blog or website.

In reality you have participated in the successful marketing of someone else's blog. Obviously this is good news for the blog you are gleaning information from, but it can also be a positive lesson for you as well.

Let's follow this line of thinking to its logical conclusion.

1) An online business developed a blog in an effort to drive consumers to their online business.

2) You visited the blog and found the information useful.

3) You sign up for an RSS feed so you are made aware of new content when it is posted.

4) You routinely link to the blog you visit because it has great material your readers would be interested in.

5) That business receives additional visits because your blog readers trust you enough to accept your recommendation of the material.

If you are b-blogging without incorporating an RSS feed there are many potential visitors who are left in the dark about the potential of your blog. An RSS feed can act as a mini press release. The notice is sent to a group of individuals interested in any new information you may have available.

I have always spoken highly of the use of a press release, and an RSS feed is an online equivalent for a more specific and motivated group of consumers. Certainly they are interested first in the information you can provide, but there will be a certain consumer conversion rate that may be attributed to your willingness to offer an RSS feed.

You can also consider an RSS feed a means of directing potential customers to your own 'publication'. In an interesting twist, the marketing of your online store through blogging or knowledge-based content has made it possible for you to become an actual publisher of valued content.

Publishing is no longer an elusive genre reserved for the gifted or fortunate. You can effectively use your time, talent and passion to create a blogging publication that can gain a substantial readership. While this is important in and of itself it is not simply a matter of playing into your own personal interests, it should be called what it actually is – crucial marketing. The same concept applies to new site content you make available.

This strategy is not simply for those who are more established or have a bigger name. As an online company you have the ability to take your message to the people using an RSS feed – and they might just love you for it.

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