The Search Engines Lost My Website...What Can I Do

There is a strong experimental element to search engine optimization research and failure is a frequent byproduct of testing out new ideas and techniques. An SEO will try something new on a "research site" and might realize that the experiment hasn't succeeded when the site disappears from the search engines. Losing a test website in a laboratory environment isn't a big deal to an SEO…it is part of an ongoing educational process that insures clients receive the best possible results for their investment (since ethical SEO's NEVER use client sites for such experiments).

On the other hand, having your corporate website vanish from the search engines is an extremely serious event that could have major ramifications on your revenues. If this happens to you, don't grieve … take immediate action. As bad at it seems initially, it need not be the end of the world--- over the long term, many businesses have gained strength and versatility after dealing with such a catastrophe.

What should you do reestablish your Internet presence if your company's website swan dives out of cyberspace?

1) Make sure you know what caused the calamity.

Sometimes, your site will disappear from the search engines due a technical issue such as an improper robots.txt file or a problem with your web host. If you determine that the cause of your problems is one of the above, consider yourself lucky…your website isn't penalized and you should be able to regain your search engine momentum shortly.

If your problems aren't IT related, it is possible that improper site optimization has triggered a search engine penalty. When such a problem strikes, it is very important that you work with an SEO expert to diagnose what occurred and formulate a strategy to bring back your online presence.

Were your playing "SEO Cowboy" with your own site? Did you push the envelope too far? Many search engine experts are able to perform "Lazarus SEO" whereby they take a site seemingly ruined by faulty optimization and bring it back to prominence through application of "SEO Best Practices". You will need to decide if the business case exists for engaging such an expert or whether you should cut your losses and start over.

Were you working with a SEO when your site vanished? If your SEO has been using safe and ethical optimization techniques, there aren't too many scenarios where your website should crash and burn. Should such a situation occur, demand accountability from your contractor. Don't just take any explanation at face value…ask him/her to provide you with a thorough accounting of the techniques used on your site supported by detailed web analytics. Excuses and platitudes aren't acceptable for such a catastrophic occurrence…if you aren't comfortable with the explanations given to you, bring aboard a new specialist.

Fortunately, search engines have been known to show sympathy for business owners who have been penalized due to reckless techniques done by rogue SEO's. Google's Director of Search Quality Matt Cutts has posted helpful advice in his blog about how to get your site reincluded in Google if you are victimized by bad SEO advice. Overall, the prevailing search engine attitude towards penalties is that websites get one "mulligan" for being caught breaking the rules so long as the site owner comes clean about what has occurred and fixes the problem. If you must appeal a search engine ban, it is strongly advised that you seek professional advice on how to successfully get your site reincluded in Google / Yahoo / MSN.

2) Alternate online lead generation methods

Pay-Per-Click (PPC). You don't need organic search to bring targeted traffic to your website…you can purchase your traffic instead. Many penalized websites rely upon PPC to keep them afloat while they are taking steps to get out from under the weight of their search engine penalty. Note that generating leads from PPC is an art form all its own…if you wish to create a new PPC Campaign, I recommend you read my article about creating specialized PPC landing pages.

Start from scratch. It might not be worth the time and expense to try to eradicate the penalty. If branding isn't a huge concern for you, you can move your site to another domain. Make sure your new website is hosted on a different C class from your old website. You should know that it might take 6-12 months for a new domain to gain search engine traction (especially in Google). Using an older domain name might be more advantageous to resurrecting your organic search traffic more quickly…though be sure to research the history of any old domain name before you transfer your site to it.

Focus on offline efforts. Direct mail, telesales, and channel development are excellent ways to drive revenue to your business. If you neglected these methods of lead generation when putting all your efforts online, you might want to revisit them. By generating offline sales momentum while rebuilding your Internet presence, your business will be much less vulnerable to the whims of the search engines.

If you are generating a lot of leads through organic search, there is a tendency to neglect other forms of lead generation where the ROI is much lower. However, smart web entrepreneurs know that lead generation diversification is the key to long-term success. It is always better to create your contingency plan before you actually need it.

About Cube Management

Cube Management delivers sales acceleration services to emerging growth and mid-market companies. The experts at Cube Management work across the entire spectrum of marketing, sales and business development to provide customized solutions (whether recruiting, interim management or consulting) that drive revenue and profit growth. Cube Management combines Strategy, Process & People to produce winning results. Download the Cube Management Inside Sales Guide and the Cube Management Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Guide.

[tags]seo, search engine optimization, internet marketing[/tags]

Writing Press Releases For Search Engine Marketing

Press releases are one of those mystical pieces of self-promotion. Whilst the wily press release hangs around in the shadows, a journalist picks up the content and writes his or her own version of events. Read a story in the press, in a magazine or on the web, and you probably won't think the idea originally came from the keyboard of a marketer.

If this marketer can get it right though, a press release is a great way of getting publicity. And specifically, the publicity that's the most effective and the hardest to come by – that of third-party endorsement. Well, third-party endorsement is not strictly true. But, because the journalist is writing an article that's essentially made up of his or her 'own' words, readers will think that it is an independent view on a product of service.

So, what do press releases mean for the world of search engine marketing? Not surprisingly, the internet is an extremely useful medium for distributing marketing messages. Get it to the right places and it'll be picked up by the websites where people will find your name or see what you do. Of course, this is a great way of promoting a product or service, improving brand recognition, or getting links back into your site.

Play your cards right though, and you can get more than visibility on other websites. For starters, search engines like Google place a great deal of importance on 'link popularity' when it comes to rating sites against search terms. Link popularity is the amount of other web pages that link into your site. The more links you have, the better a search engine will rate you.

Also, search engines list news items as readily as they do website pages. Millions of internet users (including journalists) use Yahoo!, Google News and other sites to look for stories and information. These sources are usually updated with fresh content that's less than 30 days old. So, they will always be a useful resource – and a resource that marketers can make good use of.

What about the press release itself? Well, there have always been rules about writing them. And, whilst the old print-based tips still stand (newsworthy topic, targeted messages, concise wording and important information at the top), there are some new things to think about for distributing on the web. Optimisation is the name of the game – and, in particular, the use of keywords. If someone is trying to find information like yours, you need to second-guess the search terms they might use. Then it's a case of using these terms to the right levels in headers and body copy.

Distributing press releases is certainly a marketing tactic that's worth taking notice of. Get it right and you might be surprised at the results. Don't be surprised when you see your own words in black-and-white, that's all I'm saying.

Damon Lightley is a search engine marketing consultant at Site Visibility Ltd. Site Visibility is a UK based search engine marketing company that helps clients increase online customer acquisition and retention using search engine optimisation, pay per click and online marketing campaign measurement techniques.

http://www.sitevisibility.co.uk

[tags]press releases, search engine marketing, seo, sem[/tags]

4 Simple Steps To SEO

Search engine optimization is the process of improving a website in order to acheive higher search engine placement. SEO is not a complicated process, it involves mostly common sense. This article explaines the 4 simple steps that will, if followed correctly greatly improve your search engine rankings and help you gain an inital foothold in the major search engines search results.

#1 Compile a keyword list: Target the most frequently used keywords on your page. Begin with around 10 keywords. Also use combinations of keywords for example: If your site sells video games and game systems, a good keyword phrase would be: video games and game systems or video game systems. Optimizing the word video games would be pointless because the competition would be so huge most websites will not be found in the search results, taking into account the age of the domain and the number of backlinks that point to a site, which will also dramatically affect search engine the rankings. Most searches made by internet users contain keyword phrases instead of just one keyword.

#2 Edit your title, meta description tag and meta keyword tag using the keywords from your newly compiled keyword list. The title should contain no more than 10 or 12 words, the description meta tag should contain no more than 150 characters. and the keyword meta tag should contain no more than 200 characters. Insert the keywords into the title starting with your three main keywords, keep in mind the number of words used, try to stay under 10 or 12. Next, edit your meta description tag using the same keywords, location of each word is crucial. Try to keep the title and meta description as similar as possible, not completly dublicated but as close as possible. It might sound a little strange but it works. This will greatly improve your search engine rankings. Stop words are also a factor than can affect rankings. Words such as: the, and, is, in, are, etc. are words that should not be used if at all possible. Removal of stop words is a guarantee of higher search engine placement. The location of your keywords in the title and meta tags will also affect your placement.

#3 Use keywords as links on your page, referring back to video games as an example, when editing your page use text such as video games, game systems and so on as links as close to the beginning of the page as possible. Keep in mind search engines read a page header first, then starting on the top left reading down the left side, after reaching the bottom of the page the content is read from the center of the page to the bottom. Then the right side of the page is read ending with the footer.

#4 Keyword placement: It is essential that all of your keywords are at the beginning and the end of your webpage. Keywords need to be placed in the first 50 words of a webpage. Keywords also need to be placed into the last 50 words on the page. Start with the header of your webpage, use keywords there first. Then place keywords on the left side of your page. Try not to repeat keywords, and do not stuff images with keywords. One keyword per image. Whenever possible use anchor text instead of images. To place keywords at the end of the page, use keywords in the footer and on the right side of the page. Remember how search engines read a page, header first, then top left reading down, center text reading down, top right reading down and footer last. If these 4 steps are followed exactly you can guarantee yourself excellent search engine placement even #1 on Google.

There are other factors which can improve your search engine rankings such as backlinks. When it comes to linking, reciprocal or one way links both are excellent ways to increase your link popularity. One way links however seem to be the way to go because there is no linkback required by you. Meaning no link pages to set up. Directory and article submissions are an excellent way to build quality one way links. You do not need thousands of useless links to gain high rankings on the search engines. Only a handfull of high quality and relevant links are needed to give you excellent search engine rankings. http://www.submit-site.org/

[tags]seo,search engine optimization,submit site,search engines,website optimization[/tags]

Dealing With Search Engine Stress In A Home-Based Business

As a member of several search engine optimization forums, I have recently noticed (especially since Yahoo recently decided to try their hand at competing with Google) that the stress level of many webmasters has gone way up. This applies not only to webmasters involved in Internet-based home businesses, but to webmasters in general.

Additionally, it seems that many people that are in the business of search engine optimization (SEO) are, with good reason, going completely bonkers. As Google came on the scene in 1998 and quickly dominated the search business, website optimization became largely a game of shooting at a single target, namely, pleasing Google...for all intents and purposes, Google became the "800 pound gorilla" of the search engine business.

Since the advent of search engines (particularly Google) spawned the whole SEO business, I guess its only fair that the search engine industry can once again turn the SEO business on its ear, and it seems now to be sort of a cat and mouse (not desktop) relationship that can get really interesting as we move forward.

Not only are there now several viable players (most notably Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask Jeeves) in the search engine business, but they are all adopting different and frequently changing algorithms for determining the ranking positions for websites. The current game is that webmasters are trying to figure out how the various search engines perform the rankings and, on the flip side, the search engines are striving to be unpredictable to those webmasters and SEO firms.

For those people using websites to promote home-based businesses, it can be stressful constantly trying to determine "what the search engines want" and agonizing over every downward fluctuation in rankings that their website may experience.

Looking forward in time, I think we can expect that rankings will fluctuate frequently and will not be at all consistent from one search engine to another. It will be quite common that for a particular search term a website might suffer a drop in position ranking for search engine "A" and an increase position ranking for search engine "B" at essentially the same point in time.

Rather than stressing out over every position ranking "wiggle", a better approach might be to just focus on "what do visitors to my site want?". The search engines are striving to give their users a quality (relevant) search experience and if you are focused in giving visitors to your website what they are looking for, these paths will meet somewhere down the road.

You can save yourself alot of consternation by focusing upon the needs of the website visitors you are seeking to attract, rather than chasing the frequently changing ranking algorithms of several search engines. Focus on a single target instead of chasing several moving targets at the same time.

This article pertains to natural searches only, as paid search engine advertising is a completely different situation.

About The Author

Kirk Bannerman operates a successful home based business and resides in California. For more details, visit his website at http://business-at-home.us

[tags]seo, search engine optimization, search engine ranking, search engine placement[/tags]

Steps For Search Engine Optimization - Placing Keywords, Part I

Experts who deal in SEO (search engine optimization) are of the opinion that in order to rank well in SERPs' (search engine result pages), each webpage of your site must include 2 to 3 keywords (rather keyphrases) spread 'evenly' over the page. This will enable search engines to understand the importance of those keywords vis-à-vis your webpage and list accordingly in SERPs' when queried for those keywords.

The trick here is how you can 'evenly' spread your keywords within your page content without making it too obvious. After all, the purpose of your webpage must usually be to retain your visitor long enough by imparting certain information or knowledge instead of typical hard-selling of your product or service right away. It is to be acknowledged that viewers who come from search engines are more than likely looking for information rather than deciding on an immediate purchase. The focus therefore will be to ensure that your visitor stays back awhile, so that a sale may result soon.

That being so, it follows that your webpage should be easily readable, yet contain subtle ways to serve your ultimate aim of selling your product or service. This calls for expertise in writing content suitable for your webpage such that a viewer finds sufficient interest to stay tuned to your website, and as a follow-up action, contemplates acquiring your product or service that would serve his need.

Since search engines tend to value your webpage content in a certain manner, it is thus important to have clear idea about where in webpage you must include your chosen keywords. This is necessary so as to convey to search engines the overall importance of your webpage with regard to those keywords.

This article (Part-I) will deal on the aspect of strategic positioning of keywords in your webpage. In the next part (Part-II), I will attempt to give examples of what an ideal content writing should be like. I will also glance through in Part-II what SEO experts say 'must-do' steps for overall optimization of your webpage for the search engines.

What search engines want to see?

Well, I am not about to explain complex algorithms of search engines. That, in any case, is beyond the scope of this article. However, from my experience, I have often felt that search engines look at your webpage just as examiners do while correcting an examination paper. Just as examiners expect that the content of your paper must be relevant, to-the-point and well-narrated, so do search engines.

Let us proceed with an example. Let us assume that you are to write an essay on 'Hurricane Katrina' to be assimilated in a webpage. For simplicity, let us further assume that 'Hurricane Katrina' is a keyphrase you have chosen for your webpage. We will now go step-by-step on how to proceed in order to make your page-content 'optimized' for search engines.

The title

Considering that 'Hurricane Katrina' is the main topic of your webpage content (and incidentally your keyphrase too), you may select to have the title (that is, the 'title' tag) as 'Hurricane Katrina creates havoc', or perhaps 'Hurricane Katrina brings life to halt'. You may like to be a little more specific with the title 'Hurricane Katrina rips through New Orleans'. Note that in all these cases, the title is concise and makes the subject of your essay clear at the outset. The second point to note is that the keyphrase is positioned right at the beginning of the title.

Description or synopsis

The meta-description (that is, description meta-tag) of your webpage ought to come right after the title tag. In reality the meta-description is more like a brief statement about the content of your webpage, just as you would write a brief outline or a synopsis if you are to write an essay on the subject. Let the sentence 'Hurricane Katrina takes everyone by surprise and leaves thousands homeless.' be our meta-description for the webpage.

There are a few points to take note here. First, the meta-description conveys an intent similar to the title above. Second, we have broadened the subject of discussion. That is to say, the content of the webpage will now deal not only on the surprise-factor of the hurricane as it hit the coastlines, but also the damage it did in its wake. This is necessary because search engines are known to quote from description meta-tag sometimes, and so a little elaboration is always a help.

Third, the keyphrase 'Hurricane Katrina' is once again located in the beginning, so that search engines begin to recognize that this keyphrase is indeed important for the page-content. And lastly, it is better that the description ends in a full stop.

At this point, let us ponder awhile. One may argue that the meta-description may not necessarily be one grammatically correct complete sentence. For example, what about 'Hurricane Katrina taking everyone by surprise, leaving thousands homeless.', or for that matter, 'Hurricane Katrina takes everyone by surprise. Thousands left homeless.'. I am inclined to believe that variations such as these are equally feasible, and should not come in the way of search engines' taking due cognition of page-content.

The second portion of this article (Part-I) describes how keyphrases must be placed in body content, including headings, main topic, sub-topic, etc. for search engine optimization. To read the full article, click here.

A freelance content writer, Partha Bhattacharya runs WebInfo, a free web marketing resource. Contact Partha at prioriti@gmail.com for your next content writing assignment. Get quality writing at reasonable rate.

[tags]seo,sem,search engine optimization,top search ranking,keyword,content writing[/tags]

Simple Search Engine Results

Without "Tricking" any search engine the most simplistic approach to getting found by those looking for your offering is to insure your specific Internet Community knows what your site is about. Search Engines do not trust the content on your site to tell them what it is about. There is a very solid reason for this, they've been duped. Web Sites have been "traffic" driven for a very long time. The term " Internet Super Highway " was coined under the premise that when a website is receiving a lot of visitors it is valuable real estate on a popular curve in the freeway of information. The more popular a section of highway is the more expensive the billboard space is. So since the people making the sites were only compensated by advertising dollars they drove traffic in. They did not care what kind of traffic; they just wanted visitors, lots of them. And they were duly compensated, even if the traffic was related to a term that was searched very often but had nothing to do with the site. The Search Engines began to lose face, people would stop using a particular engine because they could not find what they were looking for, they simply found sites that had a lot of banners and had a lot of the text they were looking for on the page, but nothing to offer. This is why the Search Engines do not trust your web site. They must determine what your site is about in some other logical manner. Remember these are machines, they only know numbers. So instead of the machine counting the words on your site, they count the words on all the sites that link to you. The sites that link to you are your Internet Community. If those sites are related, and they are popular, and you make sure the search engines can count the right words the right way, then you will have explained to the engine what your site is about without having to trick it in any way.

Search Engines must trust your internet community. Mathematically they have no choice. They are like any system, they are data driven, they have very little data to go by other than the data on your site and all of the sites that link to you. But because this is all they have to work with, they use every miniscule piece of information within. They look at title tags of your site and the site linking to you. They look at the text under the images, the descriptions, the keywords, and the text in the link. They count all the links on all the pages and all the pages, pages. They are counting everything.

When competing for a specific term all those little things that they are counting come into play! This is when they compare your site to other sites and decide the order in which to place your site. If the other site has more qualifiers than you they get a higher ranking. So in no way are you tricking the search engine, but an effort must be made to increase the qualifiers so your site can compete. Knowing which qualifiers hold more value to the search engine can help a great deal. The trump card of all qualifiers is the text in the link on all those other sites that point to you.

This is simple search engine results because the most effective sites are campaign driven. What this means in a nut shell is that they don't focus just on one term. When competing on many terms the playing field is complicated exponentially. Much attention must be paid to the details, and as you can imagine there are a lot of those laying around in our new Internet media.

Adam Yax is CTO of http://www.phoenixsynergy.com, which provides internet marketing in Phoenix, AZ.

[tags]Internet marketing,increase sales, SEO[/tags]

Search Engine Marketing – The Full Package

After conducting extensive research I have come to the conclusion that there is a great deal of misunderstanding surrounding the subject of Search Engine Marketing. The greatest misunderstanding is in confusing the terms Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Search Engine Optimisation (SEO).

One would think that those individuals claiming to be SEO experts should be knowledgeable about the subject and recognize the clear distinction. Apparently this is not the case; the internet is full of misguided information, from so called experts. Proving, I suppose that the industry is liberally spattered with cowboys.

To start, let us first define the term "Search Engine Optimisation" (henceforth referred to as SEO).

SEO

SEO is the process of manipulating the structure and content of a website in such a way that it will perform better in the search engine's organic listings. The techniques involved can be sub-structured into several areas of activity, as detailed below.

1) Page readiness – Search engines expect to crawl clean HTML code. Every page of a website should be validated to eliminate errors and sloppy coding.

2) Site readiness – Search engine web bots follow the links on your web pages and thereby find new pages to index. If a web bot meets a broken link it cannot continue spidering your site. Make sure you have no broken links. Also, provide a site map. A tool for creating site maps is available at my website, www.pro-seo.co.uk/ror-sitemap-generator.shtml.

3) Keyword selection – It is vitally important to select the right keywords for which a particular page is to be optimized. The most obvious keywords are not always the best choice, and are often mega-competitive. Choose wisely.

4) Site structure – Your website should be structured in such a way that each page can be optimized for a maximum of two keywords. Do not try to optimize for a lot of keywords on one page. Remember, you have to write for your users. Writing copy is a balancing act that keeps both users and search engines happy, and is better achieved on a well structured site.

5) Copy writing – the visible text on your web pages should be structured to include the two most important keywords for that page's content. Get the keywords into headers. Work the keywords into paragraph text, having your keywords appear near the beginning, near the middle, and near the end. Make some keywords bold, some italic and some underlined.

6) HTML tags – The most important of these is the Title tag. Get both keywords for that page into the Title tag, without repetition. For example, if your main key phrase is "diet plans", and your second phrase is "diet supplements", the Title tag should read "diet plans and supplements". Do not repeat the word diet, to search engines it may look like spamming. If your main concern is to improve your Google ranking, you may have overlooked the Meta keywords and Meta description tags, don't, there are more search engines than Google and they can all bring traffic. Also, get the keywords into H1 tags, H2 tags, alt attributes, and very important, your link text.

And after doing all that for every page in your website you may be asking: so where does SEM come in?

SEM

SEM includes SEO plus all the other things you can do to boost your visibility in the search engines and increase targeted visitors to your website. A condensed list may be as follows:

1) SEO (see above).
2) A link building strategy.
3) Pay per click (PPC) campaigns.
4) Banner exchanges.
5) Press releases.
6) And any other activity that will get your website noticed.

SEM then, is the full package. Whereas SEO techniques are a vital, but not the only, component of that package.

Richard Brennan is a search engine optimisation and marketing consultant, and founder of proSEO Zone.

proSEO Zone specialises in improve Google ranking techniques.

[tags]Search Engine Marketing, SEM, Search Engine Optimisation, SEO[/tags]

Search Engine Optimization --- An Overview

Search engine optimization is one of most popular online marketing tool for any website. With most websites looking forward to increasing the online sales of their products/services, search engine optimization can be a very cost-effective tool to target and procure your customers online. In this paper, we will discuss about search engine optimization, its benefits and how you can optimize your website for top search engine rankings.

What is search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization (also known by various other names like search engine ranking, search engine promotion, website promotion, SEO etc.) is a method through which a website is given top rankings in various search engines. According to a recent industry study, 1 in every 20 people go to the second page of search results pages, but only 1 in every 100 people go beyond that. So, by top search engine rankings, we mean that your website should be within the first two pages of the search results, preferably in the first page (i.e. within top 10 rankings).

2. What are the prime benefits of search engine optimization?

§ Top search engine rankings result in more pre-qualified business leads coming to your website which in turn can convert to greater sales for your organization.

§ Search engine promotion is one of the cheapest methods of advertizing for your organization. Compared to advertizements in the newspapers/magazines or in the television, search engine promotion costs many times less and can bring more traffic to your websites, thereby providing greater ROI.

§ Search engine optimization enhances online brand identity of your organization.

3. What are the key factors for your website to have top search engine rankings?

Search engines change their algorithms frequently, thereby forcing the search engine optimization companies to re-strategize their search engine optimization techniques. However, the following attributes are basic and play a major role in procuring top search engine rankings.

a. Keyword Research – Keywords play the most vital role in your search engine optimization campaign. Keywords (can be 1, 2, 3 or more words) are the search terms which a surfer types in the search box of a search engine to reach your website. Let us consider that you are an "India-based Outsourcing consultant" interested in optimizing your website for top search engine rankings. The following are some of the keywords which surfers will type to reach your website -

Keywords

bpo

bpo india

bpo outsourcing services

business outsourcing services

business process outsourcing

offshore companies

offshore outsourcing

offshore outsourcing services

offshore services

outsource india

outsourcing companies

outsourcing consultants

outsourcing india

outsourcing services

outsourcing services company

Keyword research tips –

• Always target keywords that best describe your products/service.

• Try to find multiword potential keywords compared to single keywords.

• Try formulating keywords which give answers to as "why/how/what …….?"

• Utilize your server log files to know what your customers searched most while visiting your site.

• Use keyword generator softwares like Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) or Overture (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)

• Include popular common misspellings (e.g. viagra typed as viagara etc.) in your keyword list.

b. Title of the webpage - …… - Title has a deep impact on your website's search engine rankings. Experience shows that most companies use the following as title of their index page which can prevent them from getting top search engine rankings.

Welcome to the website of XYZ.com

For example, let's continue with the above example of "India-based Outsourcing consultant".

An ideally optimized title should contain the top 3-5 keywords of your business, e.g. outsourcing consultants, outsourcing india, outsource india

Optimized Title - Outsourcing Consultants, Outsourcing India, Outsource India

c. Description Meta tag of the webpage – Description of a webpage also plays important role in getting top search engine rankings.

Optimized Description - Develop a suitable description based on your top 3 keywords

d. Keywords Meta Tag of the webpage - This meta tag was of great importance at one time. But rampant manipulations (i.e. multiple, often non-relevant keyword stuffing in the "keywords" tag), leading to abuse has resulted in search engines giving lesser importance to "keywords" tag while ranking sites. Nevertheless, you can always place top 3 – 5 keywords of your site in the "keywords" tag.

Optimized Keywords -

e. Importance of Content/Keyword-enriched optimized pages for top search engine rankings –

Well, if there is one aspect which holds supreme importance in search engine, specially in Google ranking, then it is this. Yes, content! The popular industry say – "Content is King" was perhaps devised by watching Google's love for content. Develop content based on the top keywords related to your business. While developing content for your web pages, keep in mind the keyword density (KD).

Mathematically speaking, Keyword Density is the ratio of the total number of time a keyword is repeated divided by the total content words. Since KD is normally represented in percentage, the above figure is to be multiplied by 100

For example, if you have developed a web page of around 250 words on the keyword "search engine optimization", and that particular keyword (search engine optimization) is repeated 10 times, then

Keyword Density (KD) = 10/250 * 100 = 4%

As a thumb rule, Keyword Density of an optimized page for top search engine rankings should vary between 2 – 7 % (this figure varies among different search engines)

4. Submission of Keyword-enriched optimized pages – After you have finished content development for the optimized pages based on the keywords targeted for top search engine rankings, submit those pages to various search engines.

1. Google - http://www.google.com/addurl.html

2. AlltheWeb - http://addurl.alltheweb.com/add_url

3. AltaVista - http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new

4. MSN - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

5. Role of Link Popularity in top search engine rankings –

Link popularity has assumed tremendous importance for getting good ranks in Google now a days. In fact, what started as a friendly reciprocal link exchange program among various webmasters has now become a sub-industry within the SEO industry itself, with thousands of link farms popping up every day! Yes, if you are interested in getting top ranks in search engines, especially Google, then you must pay effort in building up links for your site.

Create a html page, preferably named as "Resources/Links/Partners" and place a link of this page from Index Page of your site. This page should never be more than 1 click away from the index page of your site, else webmasters won't be interested in participating in the reciprocal link exchange program.

Target both "industry-related" and "non-industry-related" websites as your link exchange partners. For example, if you are providing outsourcing services, then try getting links from "industry-related websites (i.e. websites dealing with outsourcing services, maybe your business rivals!). This is important, because if 10 of your rival sites give links to your site, then Google will surely pay importance to your site, because getting links from rival companies are difficult. Your site MUST be of some high caliber, else the other 10 sites won't have linked! Also, try procuring links from top ranked general informative websites as well.

Always exchange links with websites which have high Google PageRank (PR) of at least 4, the more the better! (both Index Page as well as Resources/Links Page of the Link Partner's site should have PRs of >=4) [PageRank is a proprietary tool that Google uses to determine the importance of a page and varies in a scale of 0 (least important) to 10 (maximum importance)].

Have a link code ready for participating in link exchange program. Here is a sample link code for an India-based Outsourcing consultant.

- Indian outsourcing consultant providing guidance to companies willing to set up outsourcing centers in India.

Always prefer a text link (as given above) in comparison to a banner link, where your chance of Google and other search engine spiders finding the potential keywords is limited only to the "alt tag" of the banner. Also, Google pays importance to the text of the incoming link/anchor text (i.e. the incoming link text must contain high potential, relevant keywords), so develop a link text with title ("indian outsourcing consultant") which will help you in Google Ranking.

Refrain from javascript link code because Google spider finds it difficult to index.

Key SEO Factors

• Targeting the right keywords for your website

• Title of your webpage

• Description Meta tag of your webpage

• Keywords Meta tag of your webpage

• Quality, Informative Content

• Link Popularity

Conclusion -

With Google's numero uno position in the search engine market being threatened by arch-rivals Yahoo! [bought Overture, the largest PPC search engine recently, who in turn bought Altavista and Alltheweb] and Microsoft's MSN [believed to be developing its own search engine], it is no doubt that the search engine industry is going to experience tremendous changes in the next few months. The recent Google "Florida" Update is just one of the many upheavals that we may be witnessing in an industry where the only constant factor is the "change". However, the various techniques outlined in this paper are basic and are we believe that following them you will be able to achieve top 10 ranks in Google and other search engines.

About The Author

Prabuddha S Raychaudhuri is the Founder & CEO of Search Engine Optimization Guru Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.searchengine-optimization-guru.com), a premiere Search Engine Optimization and Marketing (SEO/SEM) consultancy firm, catering to clients which range from Fortune 500 to small home business start-ups. Our services include Top 10 Google and other search engines rankings, Pay Per Click (PPC) targeted traffic campaign, Paid Listing Management, Keyword Advertizing. Prabuddha holds a Bachelor Of Engineering (B.E.) in Construction Engineering and can be contacted at prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com.

prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com

[tags]seo,search engine,directories,internet marketing,websites,site promotion[/tags]

How To REALLY Profit From SEO

I want to give you a few more things to think about as you excel and grow in the craft of search engine marketing. If you are anything like me, you were hooked the first time you really made a difference to someone else's success. I soon realized that being able to help business owners to get results from these optimization methods and strategies could also be amazingly profitable. I found out that customers are your greatest resources and many of them are quite generous when you make an impact on their business. So the topic here is for those who want to profit from their skills (if you are not already doing very well and having an awesome time already).

It may seem like a strange thing to talk about but before I begin, I'll say this. There are many folks out there offering various SEO services and they are still not getting the profits that they would like to make. They are not REALLY profiting the way they might if they took a little different approach. The solutions that business owners need to really make a difference in the bottom line, require more than just bringing volumes of traffic to a site. You need targeted traffic mixed with a web strategy to compel response.

Then another group that seems to be doing well at first but the truth is they are making lots of promises and sales but they are not able to hang on to clients very long because they are not delivering long term results.

Many of my SEO clients have been with me 5 years plus. (I am still taking on new ones too.)

Let's talk about the benefits of SEO to you as a search engine marketer, then we'll give you 5 ways to profit:

Here are just a few legitimate benefits of offering SEO services to your clients.

--Increase your sales There's no telling how many sales you can make when you not only can talk the talk but you can walk the walk and REALLY deliver results. Prospects can sense there is something different about you and your services. You are known as the one who fixes up Web sites that don't work.

--Increase your repeat business I learned that just because someone buys a web site, it does not mean that they are happy with it. But if you can turn that Web site around and make it work, then that same client may even BUY a second or a third Web site, not to mention, buy various promotional services. All they need to see is, that what you do… really does work!

--Increase your referral business What can I say, but word gets around quick! Business owners talk to other business owners and every time you help someone out and make them successful on the net, it's like they tell everyone else they know. Referral business is wonderful!

--Increase your credibility With the right training and talent, your client comes to think of you as simply brilliant. This is not because you are REALLY brilliant, but you just look after your client's business as if it were your own. If your client insists that they have the best web marketer and SEO on the planet, why burst their bubble? You make them prosper and they make you prosper.

--Increase your confidence There is a difference your client notices in you...right down to your body language and that inner knowing that if I've gotten other folks awesome results last week, I can do it again no problem this week.

--Increase your authority I can not say enough about solid communication and managing client's expectations honestly.

--Build Client loyalty Let the competitor just try and steal your clients with false promises or tricky claims. You've done a great job of educating your client and making them web wise. Now these things are quite profitable sounding but honestly, they are really just fringe benefits. Lets move on to talk about real profit options.

5 Ways to Profit from SEO: Here's how it starts:

1. Stop focusing on sales and start focusing on your clients success!

There are so many "webmasters", web designers, graphic artists in this business. Does it not just scare you a little bit? Don't we have to enter into competition with other web developers and does it not become a rat race?

Start focusing on your client's success.

Do all that you can do to make them successful. Pour all of your talents into making their projects work. So many folks I talk to can never stop thinking about where they will make their next sale instead of delivering results to the clients they ALREADY have and in so doing, you establish lifetime residuals.

Make your client successful and they will literally become part of YOUR sales team.

2. If you're not up to speed, you better catch up fast. A difference in your performance is a difference in your profits!

If you are not up to speed on solid SEO marketing techniques and methods, start learning now. Take a course or study at a live workshop, but however you do it, get your SEO skills up to speed so you can really help people. If you can show them a strategy that really puts dollars in their pocket, they'll put dollars in YOUR pocket!

3. How's your batting average? How about profit sharing?

If your skills are medium to above average, why not share in the profits yourself. I am referring to offering someone a vertical contract. This would be a deal where you own part of the company in return for making it successful with your SEO skills. Don't brush this off. There are some exceptional deals to be had if you start thinking laterally.

4. Don't forget your community and charitable work.

When's the last time you helped promoting a charitable work at NO cost. Build a site and promote it for the Literacy counsel or the Easter Seals Society or your Local Rotary Group or your Chamber of Commerce. Don't forget that this work will often open unusual and even surprising doors. Help make others successful and you will not fail. Many important leaders within your local community will be serving on these committees right next to you! A great way to network and meet new people and help the cause.

5. Watch the latest SEO trends and position yourself to take advantage.

The study and practice of SEO has been very good to me. Five years ago, I never dreamed that my study of Optimization would lead to the Internet lifestyle. I look after my clients well and sometimes go a little beyond what some might do in the call of duty. I have clients that pay me well for my services and demonstrate that they care about my business. As a result of the work I have done, I have enjoyed wonderful repeat business and client loyalty. Referral business is the best type of business going because it does not really involve a lot of preparation or hard work. You know that when you arrive, that they really want YOU to do the job because of your track record. It's wonderful business.

I could write a lot more but I hope you get the picture. If you have not been enjoying good profits, a rewarding lifestyle and being appreciated by your clients your need a plan of action.

SUGGESTIONS:

1. You MUST be able to "deliver" and really make a difference. Do whatever it takes to get your SEO skills and lateral thinking skills up to speed.

2. Run a balanced business. Are you charging for what your services are worth?

There are some folks who charge steeply and don't know how to get the results. For gosh sakes, if you're good at what you do, make sure you are charging well for your services. You DESERVE fair reward if your considerable skills are helping other business owners to prosper. (some people are afraid to charge for their work)

Note: The ones that charge steeply but DON'T deliver may make a few dollars initially, but they won't enjoy the customer loyalty, the referral business, repeat business that you do and they won't have a "customer for life" like you will.

3. Don't forget to recognize and be thankful for the progress you've already made. Be sure to benchmark your victories but even more important, celebrate your CLIENT'S VICTORIES too! After all, you helped bring them about.

4. Give something back to your community (with gladness). Look for opportunities to help others who genuinely need help and avoid those who are only after your talents to exploit them. (Trust me, when your SEO talents and success stories increase, you'll have strangers coming out of the woodwork to take you to dinner and pick your brain). Proceed with wisdom.

5. You must be willing to change and take action! Performing the way you perform now has delivered a certain result. So if your happy with that result, carry on exactly the same way and you should get very similar results. If you are not happy with your results now, then you must change the way you do things.

Same action = same result

Different action = new results

Are you looking for new results?

Is it a time for a change of action?

Here's wishing you the ultimate success.

About The Author

John Alexander is the Co-Director of Training of Search Engine Workshops with Robin Nobles. Together, they teach 2-day beginner, 3-day advanced, and 5-day all-inclusive "hands on" http://www.searchengineworkshops.com in locations across the globe. John also teaches online search engine marketing courses through http://www.onlinewebtraining.com, and he's a member of Wordtracker's official question support team at http://www.wordtracker.com/moreinfo.html.

john@searchengineworkshops.com

[tags]seo,search engine,search engine optimization,traffic rank,web rank,internet rank,internet[/tags]

Your Master Keyword Chart

In this article, we will briefly touch on one method of finding the best keywords to position your web-site at the top of as many searches as possible.

The 'Master Keyword Chart' that we will create, will, however, fulfill many other functions that will make a definite impact on the effectiveness of our web-sites.

Now we all know that attempts to 'fool' the search engines are doomed to failure 99% of the time. The alogorithms have already been set to scupper your efforts, or if they haven't, they soon will be.

Nonetheless, there are many legitamate, effective ways of optomizing your site such as;

a.. creating well researched meta-tags;

b.. the trading of relevant, quality links;

c.. posting of articles, network posts & advertisements for inward links;

d.. referencing other websites for outbound links; and, most importantly;

a.. filling your pages with compelling, informative content.

The one thing that ties together all these methods, and many more, is KEYWORDS.

Everything a 'spiderbot' (a search engine's little hunter) does is guided by their search for the best keywords that match a search-term that a user enters everytime they perform a search.

With so many web pages (over 1 billion) competing for those prized No.1 spots, however, it pays us to spend some considerable time researching which keywords are worth trying to 'optimize'.

By using a very simple, free tool called the Keyword Selector Tool from Overture;-

http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/ , along with the search engine that we want to be placed highly on, we can find which specific 'keyword terms' will bring us the highest number of visitors, whilst offering the least amount of competition.

The result will be a 'Master Keyword Chart'.

1. Creating a 'Master Keyword Chart'.

This can be done in your choice of a database, spreadsheet or text file. I prefer a spreadsheet, but this is a matter of personal preference.

I don't recommend using a basic text editor (such as Notepad or Wordpad) as this will limit the functionality available and calculating the formulas that will be covered later, will be very time consuming. If however, you feel more comfortable using this, you can still produce just as good a chart.

(You can download an excellent free, open-source office suite at OpenOffice.org which comes with both a database and a spreadsheet program).

Using the spreadsheet example, you first need to create 4 columns as illustrated below:-

KEYWORD TERM SUPPLY DEMAND USE-ABILITY

article keyword 511 25 20

marketing keyword article 55,000 35 1571

i) In this example I have used the 'search phrase' or 'keyword term' of 'keyword article' and I created it by;

i) Opening the free Overture Keyword Selector Tool and in the box provided, entered my 'keyword term'. After a few seconds, depending on your connection, a list of all related 'keyword terms' that have been searched for in the course of a month (normally 2 months ago) will be shown. The numbers to the left are the amount of times these terms were searched.

I recommend that you start with a 'keyword term' that is relatively generic as it is often surprising to find what people search for. You may miss a well suited phrase if you are too specific to begin with.

ii) I have then copied each term and entered it into my chart as shown. I have then entered the number of times each was searched into the 'Demand' column.

(In this example, the top searched term was - 'article flighti*******al****keyword search****test' . Now this search term was either the result of a 'bot or someone purposely searching for the term in order to move their own site up the listings. One of the alogorithms the search engines use is that of how many times a term is searched. Many times, when using the Overture Tool used here, you will return results such as these. As in everything else, common sense plays an important part. Do not just blindly follow the formula or entirely hand over your own judgement to statistics.

iii) This search term only returned 4 phrases, which is very low, but fortunately, useful for use in this article. Most searches will return a much larger number.

As you go down the list, only copy those terms that you feel would have a place in your web-page content.

If for instance, you are writing about Birmingham UK, keyword terms that contain Birmingham, Alabama, would have no relevance. Ignore these.

iv) We now have our list of terms and the demand for their searches. Next, we need to know how much competition exists for each term. open your favorite search engine and enter each search term.

N.B. When you enter the terms, be sure to enclose them in " ".

If you just enter the words as on their own, you will be given ALL the sites containing the words, anywhere, and in any order. to illustrate - 'keyword article' above, entered without quotation marks, returned - 30,600,000 compared to 55,000 when using the quotations. you can be pretty sure that all of the 55,000 were relatively well placed in the 30,600,000 since they had the actual phrase as entered.

We are targeting for the top spot, so are only interested ion those other sites that also have the exact phrase.

v) At the top of the search engines window, you will see something like 'Results 1 - 10 of about 55,000'. It is the '55,000' that we now want to enter into the 'Supply' column alongside each keyword term.

vi) Now, before we apply the simple formula, we need to give our common-sense some more exercise. You may have some 'terms' that are showing hundreds of thousands, or even millions, that are optimized for that term. These would be unrealistic for many of us to try and position highly against, so can be deleted straight away. Conversely, there may be some terms that whilst are in very low demand - under 50, for instance. However, these are at times the most profitable.

Let me explain with a different example;-

Entering 'tableware' into the Keyword Selector Tool, I find that 'country moose tableware' had 44 people search for it. Now I have no idea what 'country moose tableware' is, but let us go with it.

On a search in Google, I find that there are only 13 sites returned for this term, and they are all suppliers.

If I can then find an affiliate and/or dropship deal with one or two of them and I write some good copy on 'country moose tableware', what are the chances of my site getting into the top 3 of the page. now only 44 people have searched, but with such a specific term, the chances of these people looking to buy are very high, resulting in excellent conversion, which, in the end, is what we are all looking for.

Anyhow, back on with our chart. We are almost done.

vii) Now we have eliminated all terms that have just too much competition, made a seperate note of any especially specific terms, and have a list of all others. We can now, simply divide the 'supply' figures by the 'demand' figures, entering the results in the 'use-ability' column. We then sort the results in ascending order. (This is where a spreadsheet is particularly useful).

The 'keyword terms' with the lowest 'use-ability' figures are the ones we are most interested in. These are the ones with the least competition, whilst being searched the most often. In the 'keyword article' example above, this was self-evident.

With only 511 sites coming up for 'keyword article marketing' and 25 people searching for it. It is going to be much easier to achieve a good position with these keywords, and click-thru's, than trying to compete with 55,000 others for 'keyword article' for the sake of only 10 more searchers. However, for most other keyword terms, your number of results, and the figures called up, will be much more variable and complex, so it is always worth applying the formula.

Now I know which keyword phrases I want to optomize my pages for, to bring me the best possible position in those searches that will bring me the highest return.

I have a completely FREE course on how to gain top-placement for any web-site available, simply request your copy at firstimp@britishwebmarketing.co.uk

This 250+ page course also gives access to SEARCH IT! - containing the Overture Keyword Selector Tool, and many more analysis tools to help your site optimization.

2006. Andrew E. Barnes. http://www.yourfirstimpression.info You are welcome to reproduce & reprint this article provided that the content & links remains unchanged and this resource box is included intact.

[tags]SEO, Search, Engine, Optomization, Keywords, Web, site, website, overture[/tags]

Tutorial #1 In Google, Yahoo, And MSN In 7 Days

Article submission was something I had tried in the past but I had always done so by hand submitting to 2 or 3 of the larger portals. In my test during February I was pleasantly surprised how easily I nailed #1 positions across Google, Yahoo, and MSN for some well searched terms. And in 7 days no less. On Big Daddy servers I was noticing #1 spots within 48 hours of posting. In this article I aim to explain, step by step, exactly how I pulled this off, and why it works.

About a week ago I noticed I was #1 in Google for most of the stories I had been submitting to submission sites. Yahoo seems to not like me so much but I am always on the main page at least. Another massive benefit in Google that you will see down the road due to link age considerations, is a large amount of backlinks to your website from pages with a decent PR. With one submission I even nailed two PR7 and one PR8 link. Also I found my article republished, links intact, on several same themed blogs and sites. All of this this as we know, is yummy in Google's tummy.

Obviously this can change but take a look for yourself:

VideoLan Tutorial on Google #1
VideoLan Tutorial on MSN #1
VideoLan Tutorial on Yahoo #1

Keep in mind this article was only published on February 20th – and these rankings were achieved in about 7 days. In fact if you search for any of the article titles in my side bar you will find most of them in the top 10 across all search engines – and quite a few are #1. Now you are not going to hit number #1 positions for very competitive keywords right away, but with a little work you can usually find some pay dirt. The trick is finding keywords that are an attainable goal and that still pull in searchers.

Now before any SEM people jump on me for helping to create an army of article site submission spammers, let me explain a bit. This will NOT work for you if you provide crappy, spammy, or just pain lame and useless content. I spend anywhere from 3-8 hours writing a quality article I intend to submit. If you have nothing new, fresh or insightful to write about, put your pen down until you do.

Also keep in mind you are not going to get a flood of traffic by doing this once or even 10 times. I only bother to submit articles that are worthy but article submission is now a time consuming part of my regular writing duties. The idea is to attain a trickle of traffic from many sources and get some chatter going. The next step is teaching your girlfriend how to submit articles for you...Heh, ok seriously...

So here is exactly how I did it:

• I wrote a solid 500-800 word paper on an emerging or current technology.
• I mention my keywords 2-3 times in my article in a natural non spammy way. 1 time in the first paragraph.
• I used my keywords in my title.
• I followed basic SEO principles for page layout: meta, file name, H1 tags etc.
• I triple checked my spelling and never used foul language.
• I use title and alt tags for accessibility reasons (Google positively weights this).
• I generously provide links to sites of interest woven within my article. (this too!)
• I submitted my article to Digg for free.
• I submitted to the top 25 article submission sites with Article Post Robot.

I paired my list down to about 25 article sites. My reasoning is that spammy, cheap looking submission sites that accept any old article, may one day be considered a bad neighborhood. Nobody wants links from the ghetto now do they? I will share the names of the sites I submit to in a future article on ProfitPapers.com.

I also should mention that duplicate content has never been an issue for me when submitting articles, but this is always a potential risk, but more of a long term after thought. Be sure to publish your original article on your website FIRST and always make it clear in your article where the piece originated – like in the bio portion of your submission for example. If you use copyscape keep an eye on things that way.

For now, the above method works extremely well and is quite simple to pull off when using a solid submission tool. The reward for me was a sustainable 500% increase in traffic for some competitive terms. Likely the fact you even found this article is more testimony that this stuff actually works.

Miles Evans provides indepth reviews on every SEO/marketing or killer app he can get his paws on. His reviews, essays, and tools on organic SEO, OLM, reporting, and other equally fascinating subjects are normally carried out at ProfitPapers.com - Thanks for reading ;)

[tags]organic seo, #1 in Google, article submission, article post robot[/tags]

Link Building In Light Of Vision-based Page Segmentation

The days of basing a successful link building strategy on link quantity and anchor text alone may be numbered. The link popularity theories behind PageRank and Hilltop remain important, but major search engines are continually adding new elements to their link algorithms to improve search relevance. One of these new elements is the concept of visual page segmentation which was recently proposed in a paper entitled "Block-level Link Analysis," by Deng Cai, Xaiofei He, Ji-Rong Wen and Wei-Ying, available online at http://research.microsoft.com/research/pubs/view.aspx?tr_id=690.

How VIPS Works

The paper introduces VIsion-based Page Segmentation (VIPS), which begins with the premise that current link popularity algorithms are faulty in that they consider each page on the World Wide Web as a single node. Different "blocks" on a page however often have different semantics; for instance, a block on the left side of the page might contain a general navigational menu or text link advertisements, whereas the block on the right side of the page might contain an informational article or links to other Web sites about a certain topic. When VIPS is applied, these blocks can be separated by a computer with a vision-based program. Each block can then be considered as the fundamental unit of analysis, rather than the entire page. When a link is scored in terms of its block, the link"s contextual relevance can be interpreted more intelligently by search engines.

What VIPS Means for Search Engine Optimization

In the near future major search engines such as Google, Yahoo! Web Search and MSN Search will likely integrate some form of visual page segmentation into their search algorithms. A successful search engine optimization strategy should incorporate knowledge of block-level analysis to ensure that the effects of a link building campaign will be maximized. But how exactly does a concept like VIPS affect search engine optimization? Two consequences in particular should make every SEO take pause.

Devaluation of Links from Certain Blocks

VIPS will allow search engines to differentiate between links from the content block and links from other blocks such as text advertisement blocks or footer blocks. As such, algorithms could easily weight links from each block differently.

A link from the content block could be considered as more likely to be a true recommendation than a link from a text link advertisement block. Search engines may therefore give extra weight to in-content links while devaluing links that appear to be advertisements. Sites that rent links through link networks usually do place them in a block above, below or to the side of the content block. When VIPS is implemented, there is a risk that many rented advertisement links could be devalued.

Improved Contextual Analysis

The theme in which your link is placed also will be more important than ever before. Many search engine optimizers have voiced their opinion that "anchor text is everything"; that is, the theme of a page linking to a Web site does not parse link relevance, but only the anchor text of the link does.

With block-level analysis, search engines will be able to recognize the theme of any given block more easily. This should have the effect of boosting the link relevance for links from tightly-themed content blocks, while devaluing links that are in a block with no apparent theme.

Links That Will Always Soar

A search engine optimizer need not fear the effects of VIsion-based Page Segmentation. Although VIPS will probably devalue certain types of links that are favored by many SEOs, it will concurrently increase the value of themed, in-context links.

I have always stressed the value of legitimate links from directories, articles and press releases. These types of links are placed in a content block and are also tightly themed (that is, your target keywords will be near your link).Webmasters who actively build these types of links will benefit from long term rankings even when new twists such as VIPS are added into the algorithmic mix. In fact, these algorithmic improvements should improve search relevance and neutralize some of the spammier link building methods. And that's something we should all be happy about.

Andy Hagans is a search engine optimization consultant who specializes in link building and risk management. Visit http://www.andyhagans.com for more information. Mr. Hagans also maintains The Link Building Knowledge Base at http://www.linkbuilding.info to help other webmasters.

[tags]seo,link building[/tags]

Search Engine Marketing Advice - Implementing A 301 Redirect

In the earlier days of the web, programmers used a line of coding called a META REFRESH to re-route visitors to another page if a page was updated or changed on a web site. For those unfamiliar, here is what the code looks like:

< meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="4;url=http://www.webtrafficteam.com" >

In this example, content = 4, relates to the length of time (in seconds) the page will display until forwarding to the URL listed. All one would need to do is have this snippet of web coding placed in the HEAD section of the page, and it would automatically redirect you to the URL, in this case www.webtrafficteam.com If you are going to use this piece of code, you will need to remove the extra spaces at the beginning and end of the code; they were added for formatting the article.

The search engines soon caught on that this coding was being used to manipulate the search engines by those who would obtain a high rank on a page and then re-route that traffic to another site which wouldn't normally rank as well.

So how do you avoid being looked at as an unscrupulous web marketer? Enter the 301 Redirect. A 301 redirect is simply a technical means of re-routing a visitor to a new web page without the search engines thinking that you are doing something to manipulate search results. As a side note, it is also a great way to hide an affiliate link.

The short of it is that you can add this code to a web page and now redirect your page without fear of hurting your search engine rankings - for now that is. Using the code below, simply change the URL to your destination URL and upload the page to your server. NOTE: If you have never done this before, please use a test page or folder so you don't take your site down unexpectedly.

Here are the 301 redirect code samples:

Below are samples of coding used to perform a 301 redirect. If you are running on a Microsoft platform, you should use the ASP (VB Script) code and if you are running any flavor of Unix (i.e. Linux), you should use the PHP code.

PHP – Unix/Linux platform

< ?php // Permanent redirection header("HTTP/1.1 301 Moved Permanently"); header("Location: http://www.destinationurl.com"); exit(); ? >

ASP (VB Script) – Microsoft Windows platform

< %@ Language=VBScript %>

I hope this helps you implement effective redirects that don't get you in trouble with the search engines.

Anthony Kirlew is an Internet Marketing Specialist and a life long entrepreneur. Among his diverse business interests, he is the founder of The Web Traffic Team located at http://www.webtrafficteam.com, an Internet Marketing firm committed to helping businesses increase their revenues, both online and offline, through effective Internet Marketing strategies.

[tags]301 redirect, meta refresh, meta redirect, search engine marketing advice, sem tips, seo[/tags]

Search Engine Marketing - Link Building Strategies

Link building is a pretty important factor in any web marketing campaign. Here are a few things to keep in mind when building links to your site.

1. Submit to all major search engines and directories. This may seem basic, but trust me, many people still don't know the basics. Make these sites your initial targets: Google, Yahoo (paid), MSN, bCentral (paid), DMOZ (Open Directory – Good luck, don't hold your breath), Business.com (paid), GoGuides, JoeAnt, and Gimpsy. This should get you started with several solid inbound links.

2. Make sure to focus on building internal keyword based links. Once you start to get listed in the above referenced search engines and directories, this will work to increase your keyword targeted traffic. A great way to do this is to create content pages that you can link to from other pages within your site.

3. Do a search for your competitors and find out what sites they are listed on. This is key and will help you find specialty directories and sites geared towards your niche market.

4. Use Press Releases and Articles effectively. Make sure your press releases have a link to your site; this is best done by creating a signature or "about" footer with your URL. For articles, make sure they are original, informative, and relevant and make sure you use a signature footer with your URL.

5. Don't give up. You will want to invest some time every month to increasing your sites inbound and internal links. If you are launching a new site, you will need to devote considerable time to link building, and also you will need to exercise patience as it will take a few months to see the effects of each link. Make sure to maximize secondary search portals as well. Some are very inexpensive but are good sources of inbound links such as Linkopedia or SiteSnoop, and others are just not worth the money (I wouldn't pay much for a not well known directory). Ultimately, you will see the evidence of an effective linking campaign in the form of an increasing Google Page Rank.

Happy Linking!

Anthony Kirlew is an Internet Marketing Specialist and a life long entrepreneur. Among his diverse business interests, he is the founder of The Web Traffic Team located at http://www.webtrafficteam.com, an Internet Marketing firm committed to helping businesses increase their revenues, both online and offline, through effective Internet Marketing strategies.

[tags]seo, sem, link building, search engine marketing, search engine optimization[/tags]

SEO-FAQ's

There are many question that comes to your mind when one thinks of SEO, In this article I am trying to answer few of those question. If you any question you can ask me at info@varshltech.com

1.) How can I use Robot file; can you give us an example of it?
Ans:- I believe you talking about robots.txt. It's a file in the main/root directory of a website which informs the crawler/search engine spiders where they are allowed to go, i.e which all pages in the website they should crawl.
A basic structure of robot.txt file is:
User-agent: *
Disallow:
You can disallow folders or files by putting this into the file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /foldername/filename or /foldername
Official guidelines is to keep the number of links per page below 100.

2.) How can I find out how many people have searched for my keywords?
A: There are number of tools available on Internet, but the one that is free and very good is overture, Google for "Overture keyword Toll" and you will find it. The Search Term This Tool will show you number of searches per month on Overture's network.

3.) What are SERPs?
A: Search Engine Result Pages

4.) What does term "ALGO" implies?
A: An 'Algo' is an abbreviation of 'Algorithm'. (Mathematical formula or calculation that Google uses in order to rank the websites.)

5.) Should I use Google's Site Map? An example. A: Every site should have a sitemap of some sort. It provides a way for visitors to navigate your website. Google for "sitemap" and you'll find nice examples, although it would be advisable to follow Google's

6.)My page is in Top 5 in Yahoo, but not in the top 1,000 in Google. Why is it so?
A. Yahoo and Google use two different algorithms to come up with their SERPs - Yahoo favors on- page optimization such as H1 tags, keyword density, etc whereas Google favors off page with good quality inbound links. If you have put more efforts on page then you will rank higher on Yahoo and vice versa.

7.) How can I find out where I rank on google/yahoo?
A: There are two websites that can help you to find the answer to you question, these are: a) www.googlerankings.com for Google

b) www.yahoosearchrankings.com for Yahoo. (This is for single keywords) If you are looking to track multiple keywords over time then the best (and free) tool is Digital Points Keyword Monitor at http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/keywords (Mind you this is only for Google)

8.) What is Hidden Text?
A: Text that is visible to the search engine spiders/crawlers but not to people who visit your website. Hidden text is primarily used to add extra keywords in the page without actually adding content to a site which may consist of images. Most of the search engines penalize websites which use hidden text to increase keyword density.

Author: Harish co-founded Varshyl Tech in 2005. As director of operations, he oversees the company's daily operations and develops the strategy for product direction and new product development. Harish has more than five years of experience delivering mission-critical enterprise software solutions for diverse applications such as supply chain management and corporate information delivery systems. Prior to co-founding Varshyl Tech, he was a program analyst with Infosys Technologies Ltd., and also worked as software developer and testing engineer for Microsoft Projects. Harish has significant experience working with Mainframe technology and holds a Bachelor's Degree in Mechanical Engineering from Visvesvaraya Technological University, Karnataka, India. You can also view this and other article by visiting our website http://www.varshyltech.com/home.html

[tags]SEO,FAQ's, search engine optimization, sitemap[/tags]

Marketing Articles Getting A Better Search Engine Rank For All Of Your Pages!

In one of my articles, I discussed how to market your web site link twice. It detailed out how to promote not only www.yoursite.com but how you should also promote your site without the www., like this: http://yoursite.com.

This article is to talk about promoting ALL of your pages within your marketing campaign. See, most of us typically only promote the main page on our sites. Ex. www.yoursite.com. The truth is, your site is much more than just the 1st page right? Well, let's condition ourselves to promote everything available within your site...

Search Engine Marketing is crutial for all companies who want to succeed online. I'm sure at one point or another, you will hear how "Optimizing your site for search engines is crutial". Of course, they aren't fooling you, it is a crutial marketing tactic but, what is also crutial is learning how to use different tools to boost your search engine placements once you've optimized your site for the web.

So let's talk about the marketing tactics available to you and implement strategies on how to promote all your pages within them.

LINK EXCHANGES:

Link popularity has become a norm for most small companies to implement in their daily promoting activities. Here's the problem, most companies that perform link exchanges daily fail to utilize it to their advantage. For ex. Let's say you perform approximately 10 link exchanges daily. For each one, you submitted your link "www.yoursite.com". What you'll want to start implementing is submitting 10 different links within your site.

Ex Link Exchanges:

• Link #1: http://yoursite.com

• Link #2: http://yoursite.com/resources

• Link #3: http://www.yoursite.com/services

• And so on...

A good strategy would be to open up "Note Pad" and create all the links you want to promote.

1. Add each link

2. Assign an appropriate title to each link

3. Create an appropriate description for each link

Now all you have to do is to copy and paste each link when performing your daily link exchanges.

WRITING ARTICLES:

Do you write articles to promote your site??? If you do, then you probably have created a "Resource Box" at the end of each article right??? Good, let's change the resource box a little.

My site is host to 100's of Marketing Articles and the 1 thing I notice time & time again is that each author (no disrespect to any of the wonderful authors) Typically only add the main page of their web site within their "resource box".

Ok, let's say you write articles about "Search Engine Marketing". At the end of the article, add a link to a page on your site that talks about "Search Engine Marketing" or something similar.

Ex. http://www.yoursite.com/search_engine_marketing.html

So with that in mind, try revising all your articles to point to specific pages on your web site.

DIRECTORY SUBMSSIONS:

Submitting your site to directories will give your site long lasting traffic. Not all directories will accept any link from your site besides the main page. This is ok though, there are literally 100's of other directories that will allow you to submit any page you want.

Experiment with this and try to change up all your links when your submitting to directories.

I WOULD NOT RECOMMEND : Using anything other than your main page for directories like: OPD Open Project Directory or Yahoo.

So now you have 3 proven marketing strategies on how to improve your search engine placements for all of your pages instead of only your main page. Be creative with this and look for more strategies you can implement this tactic with.

About The Author

Martin Lemieux
Smartads - President
http://smartads.info/top-10/download

Instantly download any Marketing Article created by Martin Lemieux for use within your web site and/or newsletter: http://smartads.info

Affordable Web Design & Web Site Marketing

support@smartads.info

[tags]articles,article writing,article marketing,seo,traffic building,internet marketing[/tags]

How To Do SEO For Google [Part 3]

In previous 2 articles I have mentioned some common techniques you should avoid before you start building your website. Now, I want to talk about search engine optimization (SEO) techniques you should follow during web development phase.

1. Write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

Is not it so simple? Just create useful, information-rich pages and your site will be the only one among millions on Internet. Is not it feels good? So go for it and be unique.

2. Think about the words users would type to find your pages.

This is very important because your site actually should include those words within it. This is all about relevant content. If your website is all about cars, then real estate related phrases will be not for good. It will lower your page rank. Be consistent and you will achieve good results.

3. Make a site with a clear hierarchy and text links.

Google has very simple rule "Every page should be reachable from at least one static text link". I think this what you have to keep in mind. Don't forget about unlinked pages, other wise no one on Internet twill see them. All pages must be linked so people can navigate throw them as well as search engines robots.

4. Check for broken links.

Google bots do not really appreciate opportunity to get to the dead end. I think people are the same. Who want to see an error message saying "Page not found" or something like that? Check you links constantly.

5. Check for correct HTML.

Here is only one-way to follow: use guidelines of World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) or use their W3C markup validation services.

6. Make sure that your TITLE, DESCRIPTION; KEYWORDS tags are descriptive and accurate.

These three meta-tags represent most important tags for Search Engine Optimization. These are tags search engines use to learn about your website in addition to your content. Those tags have to include phrases relevant to your web page.

7. Offer a site map to your users with links that point to the important parts of your site.

Here is a good idea how to tell users as well as search engines how to find page you need on the website. This is very useful when you use image links, java scripts, image maps. Make sure that each page has links number less than hundred. Otherwise, you may want to break the site map into separate pages. This rule applies to any page - keep the links on a given page less than 100.

Follow these search engine optimization guidelines and you will not have problem with your SEO. Of course, there is more stuff to talk about. Stay with me and I will tell you more in next articles.

Piter Gursky is Internet marketing expert who writes for various companies including LogicTechnologies.net (web design company). Don't miss your chance to subscribe to their newsletter and learn how to turn your website into the money making machine. Subscribe now at http://www.LogicTechnologies.net

[tags]Search Engine Optimization, PPC[/tags]

Link Building Tips

Link building is an extremely important part of any online marketing campaign. Since page rankings with the major search engines are influenced by the number, as well as the quality of links that direct traffic to your website, knowing how to formulate and execute a link building campaign is imperative.

The first step in any link building campaign should be to make sure that links exist on sites that you already do business with. It is usually simple to get links in such places, and they will more than likely remain there for quite an extensive amount of time. When starting out, make sure to have links in the following places:

• Vendors and suppliers websites.

• Trade associations.

• The Chamber of Commerce.

• Friends' websites.

• Customers' websites.

• Trade groups and associations websites.

Once your links have been placed with the aforementioned sites, there are numerous other steps that can be taken to efficiently build links.

Directories and Verticals

If you are serious about your website, you will definitely want to have it listed in all of the major directories, and if your website is industry specific, being listed with an appropriate vertical that services your industry will be extremely valuable. Major directories to be listed in include:

• Yahoo

• GoGuides

• Joeant

• DMOZ

• Business

Some of these major directories charge a fee, while some are free of charge, but do take longer to list your link. If you need to find out if your industry is serviced by a vertical, a quick search on the Internet will provide you with the answer.

How to Obtain Links

There are a variety of places, as well as ways in which to obtain links. There always seems to be a difference of opinion among webmasters as to what works and what doesn't work when it comes to link building. You will need to examine your specific needs, as well as what kind success you hope to have with your website in order to determine what will work for you. Some of the ways to obtain links are as follows:

• Unique Content-Having unique content on your site may draw webmasters who place a link to your site on theirs. This is often referred to as a "natural link."

• Reciprocal Links-This is simple, you trade links with another website. This is usually only beneficial if both websites are targeting the same market, but are not in competition with one another. This is commonly referred to as "link trading."

• Writing Articles-Getting articles published online that you write is a great way to build links, as it affords you the opportunity to place a link to your site within the text of the article. Hence, the more articles you write and get published, the more links you will be gaining.

• Message Boards and Blogs- Adding a link within the signature line of posts that you make to message boards and blogs is a good way to get free advertising and build links. However, be sure to only post on high quality sites, and only on those sites that pertain to the essence of your own websites' content.

Another way to find places for your links is to simply search for them! There are virtually thousands of sites that will allow you to place a link for free, or for a very nominal charge. To find these sites, use any major search engine and type in any of the following search phrases:

• "submit a site"

• "submit your site"

• "submit a URL"

• "submit your URL"

• "list a site"

• "add a site"

• "add your site"

• "add a link"

• "add your link"

You will discover many different sites where you can add your link. Do a bit of research, and make sure that you are placing links on quality websites that are offer relevant, authoritative information.

Since there are so many different ways to build links, you are sure to find a way that works great for you, and that will raise the ranking of your website. Remember that it is the quality of links, and not necessarily the quantity of links that is important.

Charles Preston is the president of Click Response. Click Response offers small businesses a search engine optimization service that guarantees 1st page ranking at an affordable price.

[tags]link building, link building tips, seo, search engine optimization, building link popularity, site p[/tags]

Is Overnight SEO Success Still Possible

As the owner of a search engine optimization company, I have seen the SEO industry evolve a great deal over the years but never more dramatically than it is right now. Lately I have noticed signs that the "free ride" of getting easy website traffic from search engines is coming to an end. And that has caused many optimizers and website owners to ask themselves, "Is overnight SEO success still possible?"

In the early years (very early), it sure seemed like it was. One could simply add a bunch of keyword meta tags and get almost instant results. Then, meta tags were out and doorway pages were in.

The next fad was links from any and all sites, the more the better. When relevancy in links became a factor, many webmasters rushed to get link scripts installed and set up link directories with relevant categories.

Then content got a good run for a while. And most recently, text link ads (paid links) became all the rage.

Paid Links: The Straw That Broke Google's Back?

As soon as link popularity became the holy grail of SEO and webmasters began learning how to artificially increase it with paid links, Google began working on filters to stop ranking manipulation. It also seems to have inspired the rumored "aging delay" in which new sites on newly registered domains face long waits to get indexed by the grand daddy of all engines.

While catching cheaters is a good thing, a lot of legitimate, quality sites are also getting caught up in Google's new fishnet. There is plenty of grumbling among webmasters who report waiting up to nine months to appear in the Google rankings for even the most obvious keywords such as their company name.

Yes, getting top rankings in Google is definitely a lot harder (and slower) than it used to be. This is partly because more sites are being indexed and the sheer volume of competition is making it tougher to rise to the top. But that's only part of the picture.

Google and the other engines are hell bent on preventing rankings manipulation, and since they hold all the cards, we'd better learn to play the game by their rules. And that, funnily enough, could mean going back to some of the "no brainer" promotional methods in use four or five years ago, when many of us took our businesses online for the first time. Back then, we did things like distributing articles and press releases and buying ads in relevant publications - not for the incoming links but for the visibility, traffic and credibility they generated. It just made sense.

With overnight SEO success a thing of the past, online business owners/operators not only have to change tactics - they also need to adjust their expectations.

Keeping SEOs on Their Toes

Responsible and workable SEO these days means not wasting your time or money trying to trick the search engines into ranking you highly for keyword phrases that you have no business ranking for in the first place. That's why it's so important before signing on with any optimization company to discuss these new expectations with them. You need to be an informed consumer because there are still SEOs living in the (very recent) past and still deeply committed to paid linking schemes, keyword stuffing, etc.

Now more than ever you as an SEO client need to investigate the optimization companies you're considering. That means pumping them for details not just about their proven results but about their methodology such as keyword selection and link popularity before you pay the deposit.

Another reality check: SEO is going to be a tad more expensive in this new world (unless you are among the few who have the time, skills and resources to do it yourself). Reaching your target audience with interesting and compelling information about your industry is now the best way to achieve link popularity. But it's definitely not as easy, fast or cheap as buying 100 site-wide text link ads or swapping links willy nilly.

If you don't have the resources to produce regular copy about your business or industry, hiring an optimization company that has content writers to do the research and writing for you is probably your best bet. The benefits of greater link popularity AND visibility will be worth it over the long haul.

In Conclusion...

SEO continues to evolve, which these days means we all need to accept that getting top ten placements for competitive terms will not happen overnight nor in one month or even two.

Your task as a responsible SEO consumer is to do careful due diligence in selecting an optimization company. Be wary of any SEO that offers a quick fix, uses dubious tactics, and guarantees #1 rankings. Expect your optimization results to improve gradually over time.

No, overnight SEO success is no longer a reality for competitive keyword phrases but don't let that get you down. It's still worth doing... only now it's worth doing well.

Anyway, the alternative - doing nothing - isn't really an option. It reminds me of a saying hanging on the wall in my karate class: "While you are sleeping, someone else is training to kick your...."

I'll let you guess the rest.

© 2005 www.eTrafficJams.com

About The Author
Michael Pedone eTrafficJams.com A search engine optimization co. specializing in getting targeted, eager-to-buy traffic to your site http://prs10.blogspot.com Build link popularity through RSS feeds http://www.etrafficjams.com/rss-link-popularity.htm.

[tags]overnight seo, seo consumer, link popularity[/tags]

Get Better Search Engine Rankings With RSS

RSS is the latest craze in online publishing. But what  exactly is RSS?

RSS or Rich Site Syndication is a file format similar to XML, and is used by publishers to make their content available to others in a format that can be universally understood.

RSS allows publishers to "syndicate" their content through the distribution of lists of hyperlinks.

It has actually been around for a while, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming the choice of ezine publishers who want to get their message across to their subscribers.

However, not much attention has been given to the advantages RSS provides for search engine optimization.


Why Search Engines Love RSS

Many SEO experts believe that sites optimized around themes,or niches, where all pages correspond to a particular subject or set of keywords, rank better in the search engines.

For example, if your website is designed to sell tennis rackets, your entire site content would be focused around tennis and tennis rackets.

Search engines like Google seem to prefer tightly-themed pages.


But where does RSS figure in all this?

RSS feeds, usually sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often correspond to a particular theme or niche.

By using highly targeted RSS feeds, you can enhance your site's content without having to write a single line on your own.

It's like having your own content writer - writing theme-based articles for you - for free!


How can RSS improve my Search Engine Rankings?

There are three powerful reasons why content from RSS Feeds is irresistible bait for search engine spiders.


1. RSS Feeds Provide Instant Themed Content

There are several publishers of RSS feeds that are specific to a particular theme.

Since the feed is highly targeted, it could contain several keywords that you want to rank highly for.

Adding these keywords to your pages helps Google tag your site as one with relevant content.


2. RSS Feeds Provide Fresh, Updated Content

RSS feeds from large publishers are updated at specific intervals. When the publisher adds a new article to the feed, the oldest article is dropped.

These changes are immediately effected on your pages with the RSS feed as well. So you have fresh relevant content for your visitors every hour or day.


3. RSS Feeds Result in More Frequent Spidering

One thing I never anticipated would happen as a result of adding an RSS feed to my site was that the Googlebot visited my site almost daily.
To the Googlebot, my page that had the RSS feed incorporated into it was as good as a page that was being updated daily, and in its judgement, was a page that was worth visiting daily.

What this means to you, is that you will have your site being indexed more frequently by the Googlebot and so any new pages that you add to your site will be picked up much faster than your competitors.

How does this benefit you as a marketer?

Well, for example, let's says a top Internet Marketer comes out with a new product that you review and write up a little article on, and that your competitors do the same.

Google generally tends to index pages at the start of the month and if you miss that update, you will probably need to wait till the next month to even see your entry in.

But, since your site has RSS feeds, it now gets indexed more frequently. So the chances of getting your page indexed quickly are much higher.

This gives you an advantage over the competition, as your review will show up sooner in the search results than theirs.

Imagine what an entire month's advantage could do to your affiliate sales!


Why Javascript Feeds Are Not Effective

Some sites offer javascript code that generates content sourced from RSS feeds for your site.

These are of absolutely no value in terms of search engine rankings, as the googlebot cannot read javascript and the content is not interpreted as part of your page.

What you need is code that parses the RSS feed and renders the feed as html content that's part of your page.

This is achieved using server side scripting languages like PHP or ASP.

A good free ASP script is available from Kattanweb
http://www.kattanweb.com/webdev/projects/index.asp?ID=7

An equally good PHP script is CARP
http://www.geckotribe.com/rss/carp/

So in conclusion, besides optimizing on page and off page factors, adding RSS feeds to your pages should be an important part of your strategy to boost your search engine rankings.

Satyajeet Hattangadi is the CEO of Novasoft Inc, a software
solutions provider, that specializes in affordable
customized software solutions. http://www.novasoft-inc.com
Get the Free Email Course "RSS Riches" and learn how to use
RSS to get high search engine rankings and monetize your
website at http://www.trafficturbocharger.com

[tags]RSS, XML,feeds,syndication,SEO, search engine optimization[/tags]