Hacked By Strange

Search Engine Optimization and Design

Building an attractive even beautiful is the goal of most website designers. In the process, sometimes the effectiveness of the website is diminished. We need to keep in mind that our goal is not only to have a beautiful website that will make people want to stay and look around and enjoy, but also a website that will be helpful to the engines in determining what our website is about or what it is relevant to.

Udi Manber, Google vice president overseeing search quality, in response to a question about webpage content evolving to be more search engine friendly explained, “It’s definitely still lacking. I wish people would put more effort into thinking about how other people will find them and putting the right keywords onto their pages.” Popular Mechanics – April 16, 2008

Search engine optimization or SEO is arguably the most essential way to drive targeted traffic to your website because it leads to improved search engine placement. Optimizing the benefits of a well-designed web site will result in much more traffic coming to the website thereby generating income for the company publishing the website. With this fact in mind however, optimizing your website might cost you thousands of dollars if you are not skilled in this area. Good search engine optimization that leads to improved search engine placement will, on the other hand, bring you a much higher return on the investment of either time or money you put into it.

My goal in this article is to give you the basics of search engine optimization so that you can understand it and incorporate it to help you accomplish your task. This will help you to improve your relevancy and search engines rankings for the best results possible through proven search engine optimization techniques.

What are the major mistakes in design

First is is important to remember that search engines are machines and read words they don’t see images or pictures. The most common mistakes form a search engine optimization standpoint are:

• Making a website totally in Flash
• Images without alt tags
• Minimal or nonexistent meta title or title tag

Flash to the search engines is just like an image it is invisible although the Flash may capture the intrigue of the viewer it won’t help the search engine to know what your website is about. While the text display as a part of the Flash my be rich in keywords and information it will be lost completely to the search engines and you will go unnoticed. Flash and pictures can be used to enhance a website but the site must have text in order to build relevance for the search engines.

In the same sense images are also invisible, however we can include alt tags that will give the search engines an idea of what the viewer will see. In fact the alt tags can be very helpful since the search engines will place a little more emphasis on the text in alt tags. Don’t go overboard using keyword phrases in the alt tags but use some to help where appropriate.

The title tag as well discuss later is an important place to tell the search engines what your webpage is all about.

Where do we start?

Why is search engine optimization (SEO) so important? SEO is important because this will make your website relevant to your keywords during the search engine ranking process and will lead to improved search engine ranking. This is the reason why some businesses hire an SEO company to do this task.

You can get information on low cost related services anywhere on the internet. However, few are really showing you how to work out an inexpensive plan for improved search engine placement. Some companies will even use antiquated techniques that may slow the process down. Good search engine optimization should help you to start improving the search engine ranking of your website and start driving traffic to it in a matter of days or weeks with expensive processes.

Search engine optimization begins optimally on your website, as you plan and build it. If it was not done at first you are not too late, you can do it after you have it built and go back and revise it to improve the exposure to the search engines and still lead to improved search engine placement. It consists of the following elements referred to as “onsite optimization”.

• Keyword Research – choosing the primary and secondary keywords you will use on your website or webpage
• Implementing the keywords naturally into important elements in the website header and body.

Keyword Research and Usage

Let’s start first with keyword research. Why is keyword research important? The keyword research helps us to find the keywords that connect us with our targeted audience. They are the words that we want to use on our website in a variety of ways to build relevancy on our webpage so when search engines find our website and view / crawl our pages, they will then index us for those keywords. Once that happens, then when those keywords are typed into the search engine by potential customers, the search engine will then display our site in the search results, which is how they tie us to our targeted audience.

Ideally you will use a reverse search tool that will enable you to type in words you think are keywords people would search for and which will tell you the number of times those keywords were searched for over a given period of time. Depending on the tool you are using and the databases and the search engines they have access to for their search results you will get different numbers in your reverse search results. Your search engine optimization professional will know and have access to these tools and which ones are appropriate for specific uses. These tools can significantly speed up the process of onsite optimization lead to quicker improved search engine placement.

One tool you can use for manual research is http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/search.html Keyword Discovery’s Free Search Term Suggestion Tool. It will limit your results to 100 keywords for any given search. Another manual search tool is http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword SEOBook.com’s Suggestion tool. Both of these manual reverse search tools will allow you to find the keywords that people type into the search engines and how many times they were searched for. Remember keywords are how we connect with our targeted audience.

How Do I Use My Keywords Once we have identified the keywords, next we need to know where and how to use them for improved search engine placement. The first and arguably the most important place to use our keywords would be the title tag for your website. The title tag appears in the header of the page and is the first opportunity we have to tell the search engine what our page is about.

The title tag should be 60 – 80 characters in length and use one or two of the most important and/or relevant keywords for that page and possibly your website domain name, especially if your domain name includes keywords in it. The title tag information appears in the blue header bar at the top of the window and is also used as the title of your listing when your website is displayed in the natural or organic search results.

The meta description should be about 2 – 3 sentences or up to about 200 characters that describe for the customer and the search engine what the webpage is about. In the natural or organic search engine results, this description will be the first choice for the text the search engine displays beneath the title. This description does not appear on the website page when the website is displayed for the visitor but is readable by the search engine and used in the search results primarily.

A third meta tag is the keywords meta tag which is also not displayed to the visitor of the website. The keywords meta tag is a hold over from early methods of search engine optimization, but because it was abused by website developers, it is seldom use by search engines. We still use the keywords meta tag, but most search engines ignore it due to those previous abuses. Some search engines may still evaluate it and you never know when search engines may start to use it again. The Keywords meta tag is simply a list of up to 12 keyword phrases separated by commas.

The example below exclude the angle brackets due to this article being written in HTML but the angle brackets are the less than and greater than signs.

“meta content=”Basic search engine optimizations concepts presented to give business owners and website developers and understanding of good SEO techniques…” name=”description” /” enclosed in angle brackets.

“meta content=”keyword phrase 1,keyword phrase 2,keyword phrase 3,…” name=”keywords” /” enclosed in angle brackets

Your keywords used in the title, description and keywords tags now need to be used on the page to validate to the search engine that your page is actually about what you told the search engine that your page is relevant to. If the search engine doesn’t see any of the keywords on your page, then it can only assume that your page is not relevant to the words you used in the title, description and keywords tags in the header area of the web site.

Now that we know that we need text on the page how can we use that text to help emphasize the relevancy of the keywords on the page? Mechanisms such as header tags for headings using keywords will give more emphasis to keywords. Hyperlinks where the anchor text is a keyword phrase will add relevance to the keyword phrase and since the anchor text and the associated hyperlink reference are indexed by the search engines, using a keyword phrase as the anchor text both on the website and in offsite marketing will increase your ranking for that keyword phrase. Bolding and italics also draw some attention to the keywords for the search engine. Each page needs to have enough text on it to allow that page to demonstrate the relevance of the keywords it displays in the header of the page to the search engine, if true search engine optimization is to be achieved.

Lets take a look at some of the other tags mentioned in the previous paragraph. Header tags alert the search engine to more important text on the page, much like the headline on the page of newspaper does to the reader. A header tag is a tag that contain a “H” and a number between 1 and 7. The lower the number the larger the text and the more important it is to the search engine. H1 tags can be formatted using font tags to control the size or .css files to control the formatting.

Hyperlinks consist of at least two components. The first component is the link destination represented by the term “href” referring to the hyperlink reference and the anchor text located between the beginning and ending anchor tags. An anchor tag is an “a” in angle brackets and ending with “/a” in angle brackets. The beginning tag also include the destination reference. Remember that you you could use a keyword phrase in place of the word home to designate your home page. That keyword phrase would be a link and would help to build relevance for your website for that keyword phrase.

As we use these structures in combination in a natural way we then are able to help the search engine to know what our page is about and also create a page that is functional for the user.

To optimize your website well for the search engines you should use unique meta tags on each page on your website. The keywords should be used in:

• The title tag – big three
• Meta description
• Meta keywords
• Header tag – big three
• Opening paragraph – about 4% density
• Alt tags on all images and using keywords on about 3 images per page
• Link / anchor text or hyperlinks – big three
• Body of the page – about 4% density (visible text)
• Closing paragraph – about 4% density

They should be used in such a way as to feel natural on the page. If the page feels awkward, then look for ways to reword the information on the page and make sure you are not forcing the keywords in too many times. This in combination with other activities to build your page rank are the best ways to get your page listed on page one of the search engines.

These strategies are what we call onsite page optimization. Each page needs to have its own unique page optimization for the content on that page. Don’t make the mistake of using the same title, description and keywords meta tags for every page on your site.

Using these strategies in conjunction with the design of your website will vastly improve your search engine placement.

Author: Karl Bennion
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital TV, HDTV, Satellite TV

A Search Engine Optimization Campaign – Quick & Dirty

An effective Search Engine Optimization campaign begins by using keywords to target the subjects which you intend your web site to rank for. In order to rank in the search engine results pages (SERP’s), a web site has to have a position of relevance to the search engine for a given search term. This is usually achieved by having keyword rich content on the site that coincides with the search term that the internet user types into the search engine.

In organic, (natural) search engine optimization, there are several factors that contribute to the ranking for a search term. Each search engine provider has their own unique set of criteria that they use to determine which web site is most relevant for that specific term. The factors that are used to determine search engine rankings are then calculated by a complex search engine algorithm.

Due to the high amount of targeted customer traffic that stands to be gained by a web site that has a top-ranked position in the search engines, the search providers keep the details of the factors which make up their algorithm a closely guarded secret.

Even though the search providers are careful with the exact formula that they use to gauge the rankings of web sites, there have been several constants discovered that when applied, produce favorable results.

Keywords – Content without Keywords = Website without Traffic

Keywords are at the center of any effective search engine optimization campaign. The basic rule of thumb in search engine optimization is that content is king. So, it is important to base all the content of a web site on accurate and informative content.

The first thing to perform in an optimization campaign is keyword research. To find the search terms that are generating traffic for the topic that you want to rank for, you need to determine what the internet users are searching for. This may be accomplished by several different means however the most common way is to use a keyword selector tool.

There are several different keyword tools that may be used. The one tool that was the industry standard for quite a while was the Overture keyword selector tool which, as of January 07′, has been retired . The data in the Overture database still remains available for historical data, but is no longer being publicly updated by Yahoo!, the company that now owns the service.

There are however several other keyword tools that may be used. Some free and some available for purchase or subscription based service.

• Free: SEO Book keyword suggestion tool:
  
  (http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/)
• Free: Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool:
  (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
• Various prices: Keyword Discovery:
  
  (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/)

You Have to do your Homework – Keyword Research

There are few things to keep in mind before starting keyword research. The fact is that you will probably not be able to rank for a very competitive single-word search term like “money” or “cars”. For that matter, there are many two-word search terms, like “real estate”, that you will not be able to rank for either. So, in order to achieve rankings for your site with a subject like real estate, you have to look for related terms that will allow you to obtain a high position and yet not be too obscure so that you will still be attracting relevant traffic. For instance, you might try ranking for the search term “South Florida Real Estate Agency”, or “South Florida Real Estate Brokers”.

In order to determine the best search terms to use on content pages, I generally make a spreadsheet based on the topics that I feel are of most relevance.

There is an instructional Video I Created on “Search Engine Optimization Keyword Research”, over in You Tube … (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lw1es477LI)

The research phase is generally considered a very crucial part of the campaign because if the keyword terms that you choose are not searched for by internet users or if there are too many pages indexed in the search engines for that specific search phrase, your chances of achieving decent ranking results are very low.

There are some SEO’s that suggest that every page on a web site should be based on a keyword. This strategy may produce a high amount of pages that rank well in the SERP’s. However, the other side to that is sacrificing quality and readability. It may be difficult for a potential customer to perceive a web site as an authority or as a respectable source of information, if that web site has a directory structure that appears to be nothing more than a group of phrases. Moreover, it is very important to maintain a level of simplicity in the navigation and layout of a web site so that when a visitor comes to the site they may quickly identify the areas that would be of interest to them.

If a visitor is trying to determine which link on the navigation is relevant to their search and is only provided a selection of keyword-driven entry page links, the site may elicit a response of being shallow, which could in turn damage the reputation of the site.

As a good rule of thumb, it is suggested to have at least three, and no more than ten, keyword-driven content pages for every topic that you are attempting to rank for.

More Keyword Stuff? Oh Yes! … Keyword and Keyword Phrase Usage

After you have performed your keyword research for the topics that you want to target, there are some considerations that need to be addressed before actually sitting down to start writing. One of the key concepts that many successful SEO’s tend to focus heavily on is keyword or keyword phrase density.

Keyword density is the measurement of how many times a given keyword or keyword phrase is used in the entire body of the page. For instance, if your web page contains 500 words on the page, and your keyword or keyword phrase is used 10 times, you would have a density of 2%.If the keyword density is too high, the search engine algorithm may consider the results to be search engine spamming which in worst case scenarios, can have your site banned from the search engines. If on the other hand, the keyword density is too low, the page will not rank for the search term. Seeing that there are fairly severe consequences for creating a web page with a keyword density that is too high, it is generally suggested to air on the side of caution and limit your density to “safe” levels.

Though keyword density is a very controversial subject, I have found that keyword densities are relatively safe between 3% and 6%. However, you should keep in mind that algorithms may also consider an overall density of keyword usage for the whole site as well as for individual pages. If you have ten pages that use the keyword “real estate” at a density rate of 5 %, and those pages comprise half the pages on the site, then the site ratio for that keyword just jumped to 12.5 % which is not good.* (5% x 10 pages = 50% / 2 (half the pages)) = 12.5%
Keyword density should be used primarily as a gauge to determine if you have your search term either enough, or not enough times on a page, and should only be used as a gauge.

There are many other factors that contribute to ranking and density is really just a useful tool that can assist you in creating a good balance of keyword rich content. Keyword density alone will not produce search engine rankings.

*There is no evidence which suggests that search engines are calculating results based on total web site keyword density. However, many SEO’s consider total density to be an important factor to measure.

In Real Estate – It’s Location, Location, Location – In SEO – It’s Content, Content, Content

In search engine optimization, content CAN determine your location in the search engine results pages. Web sites that have a high quantity of quality content, naturally appeal to internet users. But, it is not the quality of the content itself that contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

Most internet users are searching for informative articles regarding the subject matter that they are searching for. So, it is only natural that if a web site contains information that the user finds authoritative and informative, they will be encouraged to have confidence in the views, opinions, and suggestions that may be implied from the content. However, if a web site has very little or poor quality content that does not express a level of confidence in the consumer, they are most likely going to return to the SERPs’ to search for information that they find confidence in.

Many people that are involved in the creation of web content have a misguided belief that if the content on the site is good, the site will rank well based solely on the quality of the content. This is simply not true. Though good content is paramount to a search engine optimization campaign, the quality of the content has little if any significance in search engine rankings. Again, the quality of the content is not what contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

So, you may be wondering, “If content is king why doesn’t that equate to rankings?” The answer is quite simple – the search engine algorithm.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

The search engines give relevance to content on a web site based on the factors in their algorithm, not the quality of the content. So to achieve rankings, it is necessary to understand what the search engine considers as relevant. Not what you or I consider as relevant.

To answer the question that’s on the fringes of your subconscious … it’s the keywords in the content.

How to Put it All Together – Web Pages for the Search Engines

In order to achieve search engine rankings for your web site, there are two things that are necessary.

First, you have to have keywords that internet users are searching for which;

1. There are not too many pages in the search engine index for …
2. You need to have good keyword rich content that is created following your own keyword / phrase density levels.

The third part of the process is based on creating the content in a manner that will produce effective results. One of the first matters at hand is the amount of text that should be used. I recommend keeping the length smaller and adding more pages because search engine robots have been noted as only crawling to a depth of around the first 100 – 150 words.

Personally, I write my pages anywhere between 400 and 600 words in length and sometimes a bit longer. But the basic logic here is this: The more pages that you have, the more crawlable content you have. So, the answer is to simply create more small-sized pages. Furthermore, robots seem to crawl and index lightweight pages better. So, it might be wise to keep the page size rather low by limiting the amount of words, and especially the amount of images that you use on a web page.

Note however, that there really isn’t an ideal page size because different search engines index at a varying rate of depth and page weight. For instance, Yahoo! doesn’t typically index pages that are over 200KB. Google on the other hand, finds pages that are between 500 to 550 KB as “preferable” with regards to page weight.

When creating the content there are some very important guidelines that need to be considered as well. The placement of your keywords on your web page should be at the top of the page since the prime real estate for the robots are the first one hundred words or so. I generally like to follow a self-guided rule of writing the keyword or keyword phrase with in the first two opening sentences.

After that, I follow a formatting technique which tends to elicit excellent results for me, which is:

• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Intro-bullet list
• Paragraph
• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Closing

This simple format has several powerful elements that contribute to optimization here. The key to using this format successfully is the positioning of the first three elements; the paragraph, call-to-action, bullet list. The use of this combination supports:

1. The creation of keyword or keyword phrases in the first few sentences of the opening paragraph.
2. The ability to create keyword or keyword phrase based links in the Call-to-Action.
3. Many more keyword linking opportunities and supporting topics in the bullet list.

Web pages that are created with this format and use relevant search terms in the bullet list have a tendency to rank for the content in the bullet list as keyword stems on the main keyword.

Oh Boy! Let’s work on In-Page Optimization

So now we come to the point where we start to look at the implications of actual HTML – web page creation. There are several key areas that are important to proceed carefully at when creating an optimization based web site. The first matter is deal with how the Meta tags are used.

There are three main Meta tags that are relative to the creation of optimized web pages.
The first, and with out a doubt the most important is the Meta Title tag. The Title tag should contain the keyword or keyword phrase and any relevant stems provided that the quantity of the entire title is within an acceptable character count. As with many areas of SEO / SEM, there are many opinions on how many characters should or should not be included in the Title tag. I normally stay between 50 to 60 characters when I am performing optimization on a site for a client. However, I will sometimes push the envelope if I am working on a site for which I am the only liable party. In short, if you use too many characters / words – the site may be penalized for “spamming” the search engines.

The next tag which I believe to be equally as important in an antecedent and consequent sort of way, is the Meta description tag. I feel that this tag is highly underrated and requires some consideration. The Meta Description tag works very much as a support to the Meta title tag and if it is created properly, can offer several opportunities to add keyword relevance and / or stems that may promote a wider marketing saturation for the keyword or keyword phrase.

For instance, let’s take a look at this example of the Meta Title tag and the Meta Description tag “in agreement” with each other:

<meta name="description" content="Meta tag optimization services - To achieve high search engine ranking

it is important to understand there are many factors which contribute to the performance of an SEO campaign. "/>

At first look, it seems that this is nothing more than a simple title and description. Well, it should because it is really that simple. The Title has the keyword phrase and relevant stems trailing after it to promote a wider saturation for the main topic of the keyword phrase. Though in this example the character count is a little higher than I would recommend, the Title contains strong keyword phrase support and the description reaffirms the keywords and stems so that the phrase is stated twice and the stems are stated twice. This is a simple example of how the description tag offers a lot of opportunity to increase saturation for relevant search terms.

The next Meta tag is the center of much controversy and that is the Meta Keywords tag. The rule for this tag is quite simple – and should be closely adhered to. Only use between 10 and 12 words at the most, and the keywords that are used in the tag should be on the page that you are placing the tag on.

Lastly, but equally as important, do not use keyword stems like “keyword, keyword stuffed, keyword stuffed Meta tag”. The search engine will consider this spamming and the web site could suffer quality deductions for improper usage.

It Might Look Great – But What If Your Customers Can’t Find It?

The careful creation of web pages is a vital part in developing a web site to perform in the search engines. However, there too are other design & layout considerations that need to be followed as well. JavaScript, oversized images and Flash based templates may add a degree of dynamic presentation to a web site and be appealing to users. However, search engine spiders have difficulty indexing the code. To explain further, spiders are relatively simplistic in design and must be to be able to move swiftly through the web. A text link browser such as Lynx, portrays what a web site would look like to a search engine spider.

The most practical way to accomplish the problem with code and spiders is to place all of the files for JavaScript and images into directories and then import the files in to the page at run time.

In order to build sites that are geared toward the search engine spiders, images, JavaScript and Flash should be on pages that are either not “created for rankings” or be positioned in ways that will allow the spider to index the text-based content prior to “crawling through the code.”

Though it may be much more complicated to build a web site based on the requirements of the search engine spiders, the results can be the difference between being on the first of the search engine results pages, and being so far in the results, that the site is rarely if ever visited for the search query which the page is (presumably) attempting to rank for.

Links – The Holy Grail of SEO

One of the main factors that a search engine relies heavily upon is the density of internal and external links. The largest major search engine, Google, gauges to a large degree, the “position” of a web site based on the quality and quantity of links for the site.

Internal links should be created with keyword relevance in mind. Link text and internal links are considered to be of major importance when weighing a web site’s relevance for a keyword or keyword phrase. The basic idea here is that a keyword in a link should point to a destination URL that is relevant to the keyword or keyword phrase.

If the keyword phrase is “web developer”, the link should be pointing to a URL that has the keyword phrase “web developer” in it. If the link has “web developer” in it and is pointing to a URL that has “contact form”, your keyword strength is “draining” and the value of that keyword is thereby reduced. I feel that an analogy using electrical current explains this type of scenario quite well. If the continuity is not consistent from end to end the power is either lost, or drained out of the connection.

Another important matter regarding internal linking is the amount of links on a page. My advice is to keep links to no more than one hundred per page. If a web page contains more than one hundred links, the search engines may consider the site to be part of a link-farm or a link-exchange which may result in obtaining negative consequences for having a “bad character”, and the site may receive penalties for being in a “bad neighborhood.”

A large part of search engine optimization is based on the quality of inbound links to a web site. The relevance of the links that point to a site, and the PageRank of the site that is pointing to that site, have a great deal of importance regarding the “class” of the site that is receiving the inbound link.

For simplicity, Google has categorized web sites into “classes”, much like the model that society or Object Oriented Programming where each web site (Object or Person) holds a certain degree or position based on their attributes, and characteristics.

This somewhat describes how Google considers the character of a site. Quite simply, web site links are much like that of neighborhoods. If you have neighbors (inbound links) that hold a position of status (respectable neighbors), then Google gives your web site credit as being of status based on the company you keep. (In a good neighborhood)

If however a site has low ranking inbound links that are of little or no relevance to a web site then Google considers the links as being of a poor quality and does not give credit to the site for those links.

That Should Get You … Started

Though this is no where near everything that should go in to a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign, you should be able to get a good start from here and build up enough information to get you on your way towards ranking in the SERP’s.

For a really great resource of “FREE” stuff on SEO, check out the resources in Google’s Webmaster tools … there is a wealth of information in there that should really help you get up to speed with search engine optimization. If that doesn’t have what your looking for … just Google it!

Author: Edward Beckett
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Cellphone news

How To Use Search Engine Optimization to Destroy Your Competition in 3 Easy Steps

Search Engine Optimization – Secrets Revealed.

Let’s begin: What is ‘competition’?
Competition is described as “one that competes”, “a rival”, “selling or buying goods or sevices in the same market as another”, and even down to the biological level – “an organism that lives in competition with another”.

SEO & Web – Competitive Landscape.

Increasingly, web surfers are using search engines to find companies, services and goods. Big and smaller companies, are using search engine optimization and search engine marketing techniques to beat their competitors. On the Internet, we are dealing with virtual entities – and we all compete in increasingly tougher and user-aware market places. Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing focuses on building traffic and allowing you to leverage your websites, services and products. Through competitive research, optimal keyword strategies, quality content, link-back neighborhoods and educating yourself on Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and Search Engine Marketing (SEM), you should be well positioned to beat the competition — over time.

What options exist for creating revenue online?

A) Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing are two fantastic ways in which you can get visibility on the Internet. Additionally, you can and should include email marketing strategies, with a complete CRM and backoffice process. You can increase visibility and competitive edge hundred-fold. Great content with an intelligent link strategy is vital.

B) Affiliate Marketing Programs. Join and promote these (Mr. Jeff Bezos at Amazon is famous for this). Create one for your company – with potentially exciting and lucrative results. (The merchants, or you – offer affiliates commissions for sales activity generated by the affiliate’s web sites).

C) Adsense. A sophisticated affiliate online advertising program from Google. Complimentary Adsense Training Videos are worth a look. However, without search engine marketing and search engine optimization, you are missing out on other huge opportunities for smashing the competition and making large sums online.

D) Adwords. A break-through ad (’sponsored advertising’) system from Google that can bring traffic (quality) to your site within 1/2 hour! The complimentary adwords email courses show ways to beat the system, and lessen the frustration on your part. It can get expensive fast.

Create edge and stay competitive with SEO and SEM.

You must have a service or product niche – to create success on the Internet using these ’silent money making engines’. You need to understand that niche marketplaces is how you get there, along with sound search engine optimization and search engine marketing principles, quality content, backlinks and CRM sales backend processes.

Optimization Tip #1: On and off page optimization, what is that, and why is it important?

First of all you need to create a web site that is a related to a niche marketplace. (You already know who your customer is, right!?) It is very important that you do your keyword research first. In fact, competitive research as an action step is missed by over 98% of the online marketplace. There are many great keyword tools and many are free. Keep in mind that Google ‘owns’ over 50% of the search marketplace. (Yahoo receives about 30% and MSN about 20%). Google is a very important search engine for you to focus on, and I suggest you start with it (even though MSN and Yahoo are great resources – especially the newly launched MSN Adcenter).

Competitive SEO Research:

Try the following on yahoo and google (make sure syntax is correct): site: http://www.competitor.com. (replace ‘competitor’ with real name). It will show you how many pages that each search engine has indexed from the competitors site. Depending on the site, many results could be returned. Look to see if each page has a title and description associated with them. You will then be able to determine whether each page within your competitor site has been individually optimized.

When you start researching keywords do not start with the most common keyword. For example, if you are selling Canon products, do no start researching or optimizing for the word ‘Canon’. You need to break it down – for example – to ‘Canon power shot’. Even better -’Canon power shot SD400 memory sticks’. This way, you have created a niche keyword structure (many permutations from these keywords) within a larger category, and you will able to better optimize keywords for this area. With this in mind, go to Google and start typing in specific keywords and phrases to see where the competition is. As you are doing this, you should understand the page rank algorithm. It is Google’s way of giving specific value to how popular are popular your web site is. It’s essentially based on the number of votes of other web sites that have cast votes up for your web site. Votes are generated when another web site places a link on their web site that is pointing to your web site. The more votes you get, the better your chances are for good ranking. Try our free SEO tools and give yourself a kick-start.

To view the page rank, install the Google toolbar (toolbar.google.com). As you look at the competition, recognize that we talk about on-page and off- page optimization. On-page optimization are things like proper use of H1 header tags, using main keywords in the title tags, keywords and phrases are bolded underlined or italicized, using image tags and placing correct keywords within that tag. Many place keywords at the very beginning of the text, and once at the very end of the copy, with other sprinkled throughout the company. It’s an “hour glass” type of a concept. Keywords at the top, less in the middle and again repeated at the end. Do the things that the competition is doing just do it a little bit better – this is one way to get one step ahead of them. The “least imperfect” site wins.

Optimization Tip #2: How does Tagging really work, and why does it matter?

In our example, when we open the Canon landing page you need to start with the page title for your web site. The page title should only include the main keywords. (Do not ever say welcome to our web site!) Try to combine the keywords in your title. Make sure you use the H1 header tag early in your body text. Also, when Google reads the web page it uses the text from the top left-hand side of the page to the bottom right hand side of the page.

Next, you would need to create H2 header tags. You can think of that as the sub heading for a web page. This is a very common used tag, so it’s best to place the primary keyword in your H1 tags and your secondary keywords into your H2 tags.

Now you need to actually create the content for the page. When you try to write the contents, sprinkle your main keywords throughout the copy. But don’t overdo it, just make it a natural effort. Once you have written the copy you should then go back and bold underline or italicize some of the keywords. Only one time each, maximum. There are many HTML site building tools out there that use the Bold (B) tag for bolding keywords, and has been overused. Google doesn’t penalize you for it, but in fact, by using the tag STRONG it provides higher quality content for search engines. You can also add some images for your users, and when you do this you need to properly include the keyworded image tags. So for example, if we have an image on our web page called ‘oneshot.jpg’ you would include code that adds that ALT tag and text about that specific memory stick (from our Sony example).

Also, Google views your web page from top left to bottom right. Well, in general they do. However, you want to make sure that you code your HTML to compliment or support this, specially if you have non-related navigational elements to the left of page. There are techniques to do this, which is explained in a great series, try the Free SEO 3-day Email Course.

Optimization Tip #3: Off page search engine optimization – competition to the ground!

You have come up with your niche marketplace and associated keywords and phrases into your page. You will have completed proper approach to tagging from titles through the body content, including H1’s, H2’s and ALT tags. You are then ready to get your site indexed. Your first rule, is to never use the Google submission form. There are better and faster ways.

The first approach

You need to know how a search engine finds you in the first place. They will visit one web site that is already in their index and if they follow the link to that new site, it could be yours. For example, if you have a new site and you have a partner in this ‘Canon’ business space, and he puts a link to your page and he’s already visible on the Internet at Google, they’ll crawl to that site and find your link and get you into the index. Now what if you don’t have a partner in this space in your are brand new, you still can get into the index. There are article directories that you can submit to, places like PRWeb.com. Others are – goarticles.com, buzz article.com, article fever.com and many more. These are excellent sites for you to write something about your services or products. The engines will pick you out, and Google will find you.

The second approach (and to quickly get listed in the Google index)

Go see your competition. Type in the search terms you are competing with and find web sites that have a page rank of five or six or higher that you will notice in the green bar from the Google toolbar (above). Find six or 10 of these sites and locate their contact information. We have found that e-mail works – of course – but picking up the phone and commenting on their site and how discussing how a link partnership could benefit each others, rates higher. Top ranking sites may ignore you, and it’s certainly tougher persuade somebody to add your link to their web sites. You must give them a good reason to do this. Contact sites that are related to you and are complimentary – those are the best. Find good and great link neighborhoods within your topics. And always think of a way that you can give them something that they would benefit from. Think of this as an emotional bank account. You make deposits, and you (later) may make withdrawals. If you can manage to get at least one PR 6 web site to link your web site, you’ll be off and running. You should be indexed in under three days. If you get a PR 7 web site link to you – in most cases you’ll be there in 24 hours.

The third approach (and why you must be careful here)

Purchase links from high Page Rank websites. The easiest and fastest way to do this is to visit one of the many link purchasing websites. Here are a few of the better ones: a) http://www.linkadage.com, b) c) http://www.textlinkbrokers.com, d) http://www.text-link-ads.com. (NOTE: Only buy one/month, or you may get seriously penalized). Many times you can purchase 1 PR7 link for a 1 month time period for, say, $150. After the month is up, there is no need to renew because you are already in Google’s index. Paying $150, and you can be indexed by Google quickly and with little to no work on your part.

Tip #1:

Add a Google sitemap (XML). You can easily do this with free tools or directly via a Google account. You should also check the competitor sites for http://URLname/sitemap.xml. It’s the default for Google, and if the competition has it (it will load in your browser or reader) – you can be assured they are pretty agressive and informed about Search Engine Optimization techniques.

Tip #2:

Discover how many pages the competition has online. You can use free tools again, and the Xenu’s Link Sleuth is free – and fast – a good tool to keep close. The ‘Stats for Managers’ at the bottom of page is the important data for statistics.

Tip #3:

Use the ‘link: sitename.com’ syntax in Google to locate number of backlinks within a competitor site. Google and Yahoo have different estimates here, but it’s vital information from both. (Yahoo use ‘linkdomain: sitename.com’).

Much is written on the blogs’ approach to SEO rankings. We believe it has its place, but in moderation and always pertinent to your business. Blog spamming can get you penalized as well. The Microsaw Web 2.0 blogs are here, and recently a new service was launched at PayPerPost, written up in Business Week.

Continue the search engine optimization and search engine marketing work, and expand your strategy to include email marketing, affiliate, on / off-page optimization, along with traditional means for online marketing (keyword) dominance (print/media). Always provide great content, but that alone will not do it. Off-page strategies are very important, but may work too well. For example, check out the top result on Google for the search term miserable failure. It is not in position one because that web page had been optimized for that search term. The web site is in position one because huge amounts of web sites link to it with the text miserable failure in the link text. Can you guess which site it is?

Enjoyed this article? More on our website http://www.microsaw.com

Contact author directly at jrognerud@microsaw.com

CLICK FOR MORE ON OUR WEBSITE: Microsaw Search Engine Optimization

Author: Jon Rognerud
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Latest trends in mobile phone

A Search Engine Optimization Campaign – Quick & Dirty

An effective Search Engine Optimization campaign begins by using keywords to target the subjects which you intend your web site to rank for. In order to rank in the search engine results pages (SERP’s), a web site has to have a position of relevance to the search engine for a given search term. This is usually achieved by having keyword rich content on the site that coincides with the search term that the internet user types into the search engine.

In organic, (natural) search engine optimization, there are several factors that contribute to the ranking for a search term. Each search engine provider has their own unique set of criteria that they use to determine which web site is most relevant for that specific term. The factors that are used to determine search engine rankings are then calculated by a complex search engine algorithm.

Due to the high amount of targeted customer traffic that stands to be gained by a web site that has a top-ranked position in the search engines, the search providers keep the details of the factors which make up their algorithm a closely guarded secret.

Even though the search providers are careful with the exact formula that they use to gauge the rankings of web sites, there have been several constants discovered that when applied, produce favorable results.

Keywords – Content without Keywords = Website without Traffic

Keywords are at the center of any effective search engine optimization campaign. The basic rule of thumb in search engine optimization is that content is king. So, it is important to base all the content of a web site on accurate and informative content.

The first thing to perform in an optimization campaign is keyword research. To find the search terms that are generating traffic for the topic that you want to rank for, you need to determine what the internet users are searching for. This may be accomplished by several different means however the most common way is to use a keyword selector tool.

There are several different keyword tools that may be used. The one tool that was the industry standard for quite a while was the Overture keyword selector tool which, as of January 07′, has been retired . The data in the Overture database still remains available for historical data, but is no longer being publicly updated by Yahoo!, the company that now owns the service.

There are however several other keyword tools that may be used. Some free and some available for purchase or subscription based service.

• Free: SEO Book keyword suggestion tool:
  
  (http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/)
• Free: Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool:
  (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
• Various prices: Keyword Discovery:
  
  (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/)

You Have to do your Homework – Keyword Research

There are few things to keep in mind before starting keyword research. The fact is that you will probably not be able to rank for a very competitive single-word search term like “money” or “cars”. For that matter, there are many two-word search terms, like “real estate”, that you will not be able to rank for either. So, in order to achieve rankings for your site with a subject like real estate, you have to look for related terms that will allow you to obtain a high position and yet not be too obscure so that you will still be attracting relevant traffic. For instance, you might try ranking for the search term “South Florida Real Estate Agency”, or “South Florida Real Estate Brokers”.

In order to determine the best search terms to use on content pages, I generally make a spreadsheet based on the topics that I feel are of most relevance.

There is an instructional Video I Created on “Search Engine Optimization Keyword Research”, over in You Tube … (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lw1es477LI)

The research phase is generally considered a very crucial part of the campaign because if the keyword terms that you choose are not searched for by internet users or if there are too many pages indexed in the search engines for that specific search phrase, your chances of achieving decent ranking results are very low.

There are some SEO’s that suggest that every page on a web site should be based on a keyword. This strategy may produce a high amount of pages that rank well in the SERP’s. However, the other side to that is sacrificing quality and readability. It may be difficult for a potential customer to perceive a web site as an authority or as a respectable source of information, if that web site has a directory structure that appears to be nothing more than a group of phrases. Moreover, it is very important to maintain a level of simplicity in the navigation and layout of a web site so that when a visitor comes to the site they may quickly identify the areas that would be of interest to them.

If a visitor is trying to determine which link on the navigation is relevant to their search and is only provided a selection of keyword-driven entry page links, the site may elicit a response of being shallow, which could in turn damage the reputation of the site.

As a good rule of thumb, it is suggested to have at least three, and no more than ten, keyword-driven content pages for every topic that you are attempting to rank for.

More Keyword Stuff? Oh Yes! … Keyword and Keyword Phrase Usage

After you have performed your keyword research for the topics that you want to target, there are some considerations that need to be addressed before actually sitting down to start writing. One of the key concepts that many successful SEO’s tend to focus heavily on is keyword or keyword phrase density.

Keyword density is the measurement of how many times a given keyword or keyword phrase is used in the entire body of the page. For instance, if your web page contains 500 words on the page, and your keyword or keyword phrase is used 10 times, you would have a density of 2%.If the keyword density is too high, the search engine algorithm may consider the results to be search engine spamming which in worst case scenarios, can have your site banned from the search engines. If on the other hand, the keyword density is too low, the page will not rank for the search term. Seeing that there are fairly severe consequences for creating a web page with a keyword density that is too high, it is generally suggested to air on the side of caution and limit your density to “safe” levels.

Though keyword density is a very controversial subject, I have found that keyword densities are relatively safe between 3% and 6%. However, you should keep in mind that algorithms may also consider an overall density of keyword usage for the whole site as well as for individual pages. If you have ten pages that use the keyword “real estate” at a density rate of 5 %, and those pages comprise half the pages on the site, then the site ratio for that keyword just jumped to 12.5 % which is not good.* (5% x 10 pages = 50% / 2 (half the pages)) = 12.5%
Keyword density should be used primarily as a gauge to determine if you have your search term either enough, or not enough times on a page, and should only be used as a gauge.

There are many other factors that contribute to ranking and density is really just a useful tool that can assist you in creating a good balance of keyword rich content. Keyword density alone will not produce search engine rankings.

*There is no evidence which suggests that search engines are calculating results based on total web site keyword density. However, many SEO’s consider total density to be an important factor to measure.

In Real Estate – It’s Location, Location, Location – In SEO – It’s Content, Content, Content

In search engine optimization, content CAN determine your location in the search engine results pages. Web sites that have a high quantity of quality content, naturally appeal to internet users. But, it is not the quality of the content itself that contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

Most internet users are searching for informative articles regarding the subject matter that they are searching for. So, it is only natural that if a web site contains information that the user finds authoritative and informative, they will be encouraged to have confidence in the views, opinions, and suggestions that may be implied from the content. However, if a web site has very little or poor quality content that does not express a level of confidence in the consumer, they are most likely going to return to the SERPs’ to search for information that they find confidence in.

Many people that are involved in the creation of web content have a misguided belief that if the content on the site is good, the site will rank well based solely on the quality of the content. This is simply not true. Though good content is paramount to a search engine optimization campaign, the quality of the content has little if any significance in search engine rankings. Again, the quality of the content is not what contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

So, you may be wondering, “If content is king why doesn’t that equate to rankings?” The answer is quite simple – the search engine algorithm.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

The search engines give relevance to content on a web site based on the factors in their algorithm, not the quality of the content. So to achieve rankings, it is necessary to understand what the search engine considers as relevant. Not what you or I consider as relevant.

To answer the question that’s on the fringes of your subconscious … it’s the keywords in the content.

How to Put it All Together – Web Pages for the Search Engines

In order to achieve search engine rankings for your web site, there are two things that are necessary.

First, you have to have keywords that internet users are searching for which;

1. There are not too many pages in the search engine index for …
2. You need to have good keyword rich content that is created following your own keyword / phrase density levels.

The third part of the process is based on creating the content in a manner that will produce effective results. One of the first matters at hand is the amount of text that should be used. I recommend keeping the length smaller and adding more pages because search engine robots have been noted as only crawling to a depth of around the first 100 – 150 words.

Personally, I write my pages anywhere between 400 and 600 words in length and sometimes a bit longer. But the basic logic here is this: The more pages that you have, the more crawlable content you have. So, the answer is to simply create more small-sized pages. Furthermore, robots seem to crawl and index lightweight pages better. So, it might be wise to keep the page size rather low by limiting the amount of words, and especially the amount of images that you use on a web page.

Note however, that there really isn’t an ideal page size because different search engines index at a varying rate of depth and page weight. For instance, Yahoo! doesn’t typically index pages that are over 200KB. Google on the other hand, finds pages that are between 500 to 550 KB as “preferable” with regards to page weight.

When creating the content there are some very important guidelines that need to be considered as well. The placement of your keywords on your web page should be at the top of the page since the prime real estate for the robots are the first one hundred words or so. I generally like to follow a self-guided rule of writing the keyword or keyword phrase with in the first two opening sentences.

After that, I follow a formatting technique which tends to elicit excellent results for me, which is:

• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Intro-bullet list
• Paragraph
• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Closing

This simple format has several powerful elements that contribute to optimization here. The key to using this format successfully is the positioning of the first three elements; the paragraph, call-to-action, bullet list. The use of this combination supports:

1. The creation of keyword or keyword phrases in the first few sentences of the opening paragraph.
2. The ability to create keyword or keyword phrase based links in the Call-to-Action.
3. Many more keyword linking opportunities and supporting topics in the bullet list.

Web pages that are created with this format and use relevant search terms in the bullet list have a tendency to rank for the content in the bullet list as keyword stems on the main keyword.

Oh Boy! Let’s work on In-Page Optimization

So now we come to the point where we start to look at the implications of actual HTML – web page creation. There are several key areas that are important to proceed carefully at when creating an optimization based web site. The first matter is deal with how the Meta tags are used.

There are three main Meta tags that are relative to the creation of optimized web pages.
The first, and with out a doubt the most important is the Meta Title tag. The Title tag should contain the keyword or keyword phrase and any relevant stems provided that the quantity of the entire title is within an acceptable character count. As with many areas of SEO / SEM, there are many opinions on how many characters should or should not be included in the Title tag. I normally stay between 50 to 60 characters when I am performing optimization on a site for a client. However, I will sometimes push the envelope if I am working on a site for which I am the only liable party. In short, if you use too many characters / words – the site may be penalized for “spamming” the search engines.

The next tag which I believe to be equally as important in an antecedent and consequent sort of way, is the Meta description tag. I feel that this tag is highly underrated and requires some consideration. The Meta Description tag works very much as a support to the Meta title tag and if it is created properly, can offer several opportunities to add keyword relevance and / or stems that may promote a wider marketing saturation for the keyword or keyword phrase.

For instance, let’s take a look at this example of the Meta Title tag and the Meta Description tag “in agreement” with each other:

<meta name="description" content="Meta tag optimization services - To achieve high search engine ranking

it is important to understand there are many factors which contribute to the performance of an SEO campaign. "/>

At first look, it seems that this is nothing more than a simple title and description. Well, it should because it is really that simple. The Title has the keyword phrase and relevant stems trailing after it to promote a wider saturation for the main topic of the keyword phrase. Though in this example the character count is a little higher than I would recommend, the Title contains strong keyword phrase support and the description reaffirms the keywords and stems so that the phrase is stated twice and the stems are stated twice. This is a simple example of how the description tag offers a lot of opportunity to increase saturation for relevant search terms.

The next Meta tag is the center of much controversy and that is the Meta Keywords tag. The rule for this tag is quite simple – and should be closely adhered to. Only use between 10 and 12 words at the most, and the keywords that are used in the tag should be on the page that you are placing the tag on.

Lastly, but equally as important, do not use keyword stems like “keyword, keyword stuffed, keyword stuffed Meta tag”. The search engine will consider this spamming and the web site could suffer quality deductions for improper usage.

It Might Look Great – But What If Your Customers Can’t Find It?

The careful creation of web pages is a vital part in developing a web site to perform in the search engines. However, there too are other design & layout considerations that need to be followed as well. JavaScript, oversized images and Flash based templates may add a degree of dynamic presentation to a web site and be appealing to users. However, search engine spiders have difficulty indexing the code. To explain further, spiders are relatively simplistic in design and must be to be able to move swiftly through the web. A text link browser such as Lynx, portrays what a web site would look like to a search engine spider.

The most practical way to accomplish the problem with code and spiders is to place all of the files for JavaScript and images into directories and then import the files in to the page at run time.

In order to build sites that are geared toward the search engine spiders, images, JavaScript and Flash should be on pages that are either not “created for rankings” or be positioned in ways that will allow the spider to index the text-based content prior to “crawling through the code.”

Though it may be much more complicated to build a web site based on the requirements of the search engine spiders, the results can be the difference between being on the first of the search engine results pages, and being so far in the results, that the site is rarely if ever visited for the search query which the page is (presumably) attempting to rank for.

Links – The Holy Grail of SEO

One of the main factors that a search engine relies heavily upon is the density of internal and external links. The largest major search engine, Google, gauges to a large degree, the “position” of a web site based on the quality and quantity of links for the site.

Internal links should be created with keyword relevance in mind. Link text and internal links are considered to be of major importance when weighing a web site’s relevance for a keyword or keyword phrase. The basic idea here is that a keyword in a link should point to a destination URL that is relevant to the keyword or keyword phrase.

If the keyword phrase is “web developer”, the link should be pointing to a URL that has the keyword phrase “web developer” in it. If the link has “web developer” in it and is pointing to a URL that has “contact form”, your keyword strength is “draining” and the value of that keyword is thereby reduced. I feel that an analogy using electrical current explains this type of scenario quite well. If the continuity is not consistent from end to end the power is either lost, or drained out of the connection.

Another important matter regarding internal linking is the amount of links on a page. My advice is to keep links to no more than one hundred per page. If a web page contains more than one hundred links, the search engines may consider the site to be part of a link-farm or a link-exchange which may result in obtaining negative consequences for having a “bad character”, and the site may receive penalties for being in a “bad neighborhood.”

A large part of search engine optimization is based on the quality of inbound links to a web site. The relevance of the links that point to a site, and the PageRank of the site that is pointing to that site, have a great deal of importance regarding the “class” of the site that is receiving the inbound link.

For simplicity, Google has categorized web sites into “classes”, much like the model that society or Object Oriented Programming where each web site (Object or Person) holds a certain degree or position based on their attributes, and characteristics.

This somewhat describes how Google considers the character of a site. Quite simply, web site links are much like that of neighborhoods. If you have neighbors (inbound links) that hold a position of status (respectable neighbors), then Google gives your web site credit as being of status based on the company you keep. (In a good neighborhood)

If however a site has low ranking inbound links that are of little or no relevance to a web site then Google considers the links as being of a poor quality and does not give credit to the site for those links.

That Should Get You … Started

Though this is no where near everything that should go in to a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign, you should be able to get a good start from here and build up enough information to get you on your way towards ranking in the SERP’s.

For a really great resource of “FREE” stuff on SEO, check out the resources in Google’s Webmaster tools … there is a wealth of information in there that should really help you get up to speed with search engine optimization. If that doesn’t have what your looking for … just Google it!

Author: Edward Beckett
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Information

A Search Engine Optimization Campaign – Quick & Dirty

An effective Search Engine Optimization campaign begins by using keywords to target the subjects which you intend your web site to rank for. In order to rank in the search engine results pages (SERP’s), a web site has to have a position of relevance to the search engine for a given search term. This is usually achieved by having keyword rich content on the site that coincides with the search term that the internet user types into the search engine.

In organic, (natural) search engine optimization, there are several factors that contribute to the ranking for a search term. Each search engine provider has their own unique set of criteria that they use to determine which web site is most relevant for that specific term. The factors that are used to determine search engine rankings are then calculated by a complex search engine algorithm.

Due to the high amount of targeted customer traffic that stands to be gained by a web site that has a top-ranked position in the search engines, the search providers keep the details of the factors which make up their algorithm a closely guarded secret.

Even though the search providers are careful with the exact formula that they use to gauge the rankings of web sites, there have been several constants discovered that when applied, produce favorable results.

Keywords – Content without Keywords = Website without Traffic

Keywords are at the center of any effective search engine optimization campaign. The basic rule of thumb in search engine optimization is that content is king. So, it is important to base all the content of a web site on accurate and informative content.

The first thing to perform in an optimization campaign is keyword research. To find the search terms that are generating traffic for the topic that you want to rank for, you need to determine what the internet users are searching for. This may be accomplished by several different means however the most common way is to use a keyword selector tool.

There are several different keyword tools that may be used. The one tool that was the industry standard for quite a while was the Overture keyword selector tool which, as of January 07′, has been retired . The data in the Overture database still remains available for historical data, but is no longer being publicly updated by Yahoo!, the company that now owns the service.

There are however several other keyword tools that may be used. Some free and some available for purchase or subscription based service.

• Free: SEO Book keyword suggestion tool:
  
  (http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword/)
• Free: Google AdWords keyword suggestion tool:
  (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal)
• Various prices: Keyword Discovery:
  
  (http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/)

You Have to do your Homework – Keyword Research

There are few things to keep in mind before starting keyword research. The fact is that you will probably not be able to rank for a very competitive single-word search term like “money” or “cars”. For that matter, there are many two-word search terms, like “real estate”, that you will not be able to rank for either. So, in order to achieve rankings for your site with a subject like real estate, you have to look for related terms that will allow you to obtain a high position and yet not be too obscure so that you will still be attracting relevant traffic. For instance, you might try ranking for the search term “South Florida Real Estate Agency”, or “South Florida Real Estate Brokers”.

In order to determine the best search terms to use on content pages, I generally make a spreadsheet based on the topics that I feel are of most relevance.

There is an instructional Video I Created on “Search Engine Optimization Keyword Research”, over in You Tube … (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Lw1es477LI)

The research phase is generally considered a very crucial part of the campaign because if the keyword terms that you choose are not searched for by internet users or if there are too many pages indexed in the search engines for that specific search phrase, your chances of achieving decent ranking results are very low.

There are some SEO’s that suggest that every page on a web site should be based on a keyword. This strategy may produce a high amount of pages that rank well in the SERP’s. However, the other side to that is sacrificing quality and readability. It may be difficult for a potential customer to perceive a web site as an authority or as a respectable source of information, if that web site has a directory structure that appears to be nothing more than a group of phrases. Moreover, it is very important to maintain a level of simplicity in the navigation and layout of a web site so that when a visitor comes to the site they may quickly identify the areas that would be of interest to them.

If a visitor is trying to determine which link on the navigation is relevant to their search and is only provided a selection of keyword-driven entry page links, the site may elicit a response of being shallow, which could in turn damage the reputation of the site.

As a good rule of thumb, it is suggested to have at least three, and no more than ten, keyword-driven content pages for every topic that you are attempting to rank for.

More Keyword Stuff? Oh Yes! … Keyword and Keyword Phrase Usage

After you have performed your keyword research for the topics that you want to target, there are some considerations that need to be addressed before actually sitting down to start writing. One of the key concepts that many successful SEO’s tend to focus heavily on is keyword or keyword phrase density.

Keyword density is the measurement of how many times a given keyword or keyword phrase is used in the entire body of the page. For instance, if your web page contains 500 words on the page, and your keyword or keyword phrase is used 10 times, you would have a density of 2%.If the keyword density is too high, the search engine algorithm may consider the results to be search engine spamming which in worst case scenarios, can have your site banned from the search engines. If on the other hand, the keyword density is too low, the page will not rank for the search term. Seeing that there are fairly severe consequences for creating a web page with a keyword density that is too high, it is generally suggested to air on the side of caution and limit your density to “safe” levels.

Though keyword density is a very controversial subject, I have found that keyword densities are relatively safe between 3% and 6%. However, you should keep in mind that algorithms may also consider an overall density of keyword usage for the whole site as well as for individual pages. If you have ten pages that use the keyword “real estate” at a density rate of 5 %, and those pages comprise half the pages on the site, then the site ratio for that keyword just jumped to 12.5 % which is not good.* (5% x 10 pages = 50% / 2 (half the pages)) = 12.5%
Keyword density should be used primarily as a gauge to determine if you have your search term either enough, or not enough times on a page, and should only be used as a gauge.

There are many other factors that contribute to ranking and density is really just a useful tool that can assist you in creating a good balance of keyword rich content. Keyword density alone will not produce search engine rankings.

*There is no evidence which suggests that search engines are calculating results based on total web site keyword density. However, many SEO’s consider total density to be an important factor to measure.

In Real Estate – It’s Location, Location, Location – In SEO – It’s Content, Content, Content

In search engine optimization, content CAN determine your location in the search engine results pages. Web sites that have a high quantity of quality content, naturally appeal to internet users. But, it is not the quality of the content itself that contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

Most internet users are searching for informative articles regarding the subject matter that they are searching for. So, it is only natural that if a web site contains information that the user finds authoritative and informative, they will be encouraged to have confidence in the views, opinions, and suggestions that may be implied from the content. However, if a web site has very little or poor quality content that does not express a level of confidence in the consumer, they are most likely going to return to the SERPs’ to search for information that they find confidence in.

Many people that are involved in the creation of web content have a misguided belief that if the content on the site is good, the site will rank well based solely on the quality of the content. This is simply not true. Though good content is paramount to a search engine optimization campaign, the quality of the content has little if any significance in search engine rankings. Again, the quality of the content is not what contributes to rankings – it’s the keywords in the content.

So, you may be wondering, “If content is king why doesn’t that equate to rankings?” The answer is quite simple – the search engine algorithm.
http://infolab.stanford.edu/~backrub/google.html

The search engines give relevance to content on a web site based on the factors in their algorithm, not the quality of the content. So to achieve rankings, it is necessary to understand what the search engine considers as relevant. Not what you or I consider as relevant.

To answer the question that’s on the fringes of your subconscious … it’s the keywords in the content.

How to Put it All Together – Web Pages for the Search Engines

In order to achieve search engine rankings for your web site, there are two things that are necessary.

First, you have to have keywords that internet users are searching for which;

1. There are not too many pages in the search engine index for …
2. You need to have good keyword rich content that is created following your own keyword / phrase density levels.

The third part of the process is based on creating the content in a manner that will produce effective results. One of the first matters at hand is the amount of text that should be used. I recommend keeping the length smaller and adding more pages because search engine robots have been noted as only crawling to a depth of around the first 100 – 150 words.

Personally, I write my pages anywhere between 400 and 600 words in length and sometimes a bit longer. But the basic logic here is this: The more pages that you have, the more crawlable content you have. So, the answer is to simply create more small-sized pages. Furthermore, robots seem to crawl and index lightweight pages better. So, it might be wise to keep the page size rather low by limiting the amount of words, and especially the amount of images that you use on a web page.

Note however, that there really isn’t an ideal page size because different search engines index at a varying rate of depth and page weight. For instance, Yahoo! doesn’t typically index pages that are over 200KB. Google on the other hand, finds pages that are between 500 to 550 KB as “preferable” with regards to page weight.

When creating the content there are some very important guidelines that need to be considered as well. The placement of your keywords on your web page should be at the top of the page since the prime real estate for the robots are the first one hundred words or so. I generally like to follow a self-guided rule of writing the keyword or keyword phrase with in the first two opening sentences.

After that, I follow a formatting technique which tends to elicit excellent results for me, which is:

• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Intro-bullet list
• Paragraph
• Paragraph
• Call-to-action
• Closing

This simple format has several powerful elements that contribute to optimization here. The key to using this format successfully is the positioning of the first three elements; the paragraph, call-to-action, bullet list. The use of this combination supports:

1. The creation of keyword or keyword phrases in the first few sentences of the opening paragraph.
2. The ability to create keyword or keyword phrase based links in the Call-to-Action.
3. Many more keyword linking opportunities and supporting topics in the bullet list.

Web pages that are created with this format and use relevant search terms in the bullet list have a tendency to rank for the content in the bullet list as keyword stems on the main keyword.

Oh Boy! Let’s work on In-Page Optimization

So now we come to the point where we start to look at the implications of actual HTML – web page creation. There are several key areas that are important to proceed carefully at when creating an optimization based web site. The first matter is deal with how the Meta tags are used.

There are three main Meta tags that are relative to the creation of optimized web pages.
The first, and with out a doubt the most important is the Meta Title tag. The Title tag should contain the keyword or keyword phrase and any relevant stems provided that the quantity of the entire title is within an acceptable character count. As with many areas of SEO / SEM, there are many opinions on how many characters should or should not be included in the Title tag. I normally stay between 50 to 60 characters when I am performing optimization on a site for a client. However, I will sometimes push the envelope if I am working on a site for which I am the only liable party. In short, if you use too many characters / words – the site may be penalized for “spamming” the search engines.

The next tag which I believe to be equally as important in an antecedent and consequent sort of way, is the Meta description tag. I feel that this tag is highly underrated and requires some consideration. The Meta Description tag works very much as a support to the Meta title tag and if it is created properly, can offer several opportunities to add keyword relevance and / or stems that may promote a wider marketing saturation for the keyword or keyword phrase.

For instance, let’s take a look at this example of the Meta Title tag and the Meta Description tag “in agreement” with each other:

<meta name="description" content="Meta tag optimization services - To achieve high search engine ranking

it is important to understand there are many factors which contribute to the performance of an SEO campaign. "/>

At first look, it seems that this is nothing more than a simple title and description. Well, it should because it is really that simple. The Title has the keyword phrase and relevant stems trailing after it to promote a wider saturation for the main topic of the keyword phrase. Though in this example the character count is a little higher than I would recommend, the Title contains strong keyword phrase support and the description reaffirms the keywords and stems so that the phrase is stated twice and the stems are stated twice. This is a simple example of how the description tag offers a lot of opportunity to increase saturation for relevant search terms.

The next Meta tag is the center of much controversy and that is the Meta Keywords tag. The rule for this tag is quite simple – and should be closely adhered to. Only use between 10 and 12 words at the most, and the keywords that are used in the tag should be on the page that you are placing the tag on.

Lastly, but equally as important, do not use keyword stems like “keyword, keyword stuffed, keyword stuffed Meta tag”. The search engine will consider this spamming and the web site could suffer quality deductions for improper usage.

It Might Look Great – But What If Your Customers Can’t Find It?

The careful creation of web pages is a vital part in developing a web site to perform in the search engines. However, there too are other design & layout considerations that need to be followed as well. JavaScript, oversized images and Flash based templates may add a degree of dynamic presentation to a web site and be appealing to users. However, search engine spiders have difficulty indexing the code. To explain further, spiders are relatively simplistic in design and must be to be able to move swiftly through the web. A text link browser such as Lynx, portrays what a web site would look like to a search engine spider.

The most practical way to accomplish the problem with code and spiders is to place all of the files for JavaScript and images into directories and then import the files in to the page at run time.

In order to build sites that are geared toward the search engine spiders, images, JavaScript and Flash should be on pages that are either not “created for rankings” or be positioned in ways that will allow the spider to index the text-based content prior to “crawling through the code.”

Though it may be much more complicated to build a web site based on the requirements of the search engine spiders, the results can be the difference between being on the first of the search engine results pages, and being so far in the results, that the site is rarely if ever visited for the search query which the page is (presumably) attempting to rank for.

Links – The Holy Grail of SEO

One of the main factors that a search engine relies heavily upon is the density of internal and external links. The largest major search engine, Google, gauges to a large degree, the “position” of a web site based on the quality and quantity of links for the site.

Internal links should be created with keyword relevance in mind. Link text and internal links are considered to be of major importance when weighing a web site’s relevance for a keyword or keyword phrase. The basic idea here is that a keyword in a link should point to a destination URL that is relevant to the keyword or keyword phrase.

If the keyword phrase is “web developer”, the link should be pointing to a URL that has the keyword phrase “web developer” in it. If the link has “web developer” in it and is pointing to a URL that has “contact form”, your keyword strength is “draining” and the value of that keyword is thereby reduced. I feel that an analogy using electrical current explains this type of scenario quite well. If the continuity is not consistent from end to end the power is either lost, or drained out of the connection.

Another important matter regarding internal linking is the amount of links on a page. My advice is to keep links to no more than one hundred per page. If a web page contains more than one hundred links, the search engines may consider the site to be part of a link-farm or a link-exchange which may result in obtaining negative consequences for having a “bad character”, and the site may receive penalties for being in a “bad neighborhood.”

A large part of search engine optimization is based on the quality of inbound links to a web site. The relevance of the links that point to a site, and the PageRank of the site that is pointing to that site, have a great deal of importance regarding the “class” of the site that is receiving the inbound link.

For simplicity, Google has categorized web sites into “classes”, much like the model that society or Object Oriented Programming where each web site (Object or Person) holds a certain degree or position based on their attributes, and characteristics.

This somewhat describes how Google considers the character of a site. Quite simply, web site links are much like that of neighborhoods. If you have neighbors (inbound links) that hold a position of status (respectable neighbors), then Google gives your web site credit as being of status based on the company you keep. (In a good neighborhood)

If however a site has low ranking inbound links that are of little or no relevance to a web site then Google considers the links as being of a poor quality and does not give credit to the site for those links.

That Should Get You … Started

Though this is no where near everything that should go in to a comprehensive search engine optimization campaign, you should be able to get a good start from here and build up enough information to get you on your way towards ranking in the SERP’s.

For a really great resource of “FREE” stuff on SEO, check out the resources in Google’s Webmaster tools … there is a wealth of information in there that should really help you get up to speed with search engine optimization. If that doesn’t have what your looking for … just Google it!

Author: Edward Beckett
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera News

Top 10 Google Ranking – Use Ezine Article Submission For Free, Natural Search Engine Optimization

Worldwide internet marketers and owners of online businesses pay a small fortune to market their business on the web rather than using natural search engine optimization and ezine article submission to get top 10 google rankings. One very common form of getting customers to your business is by using pay per click marketing. Another traffic generator that costs absolutely no money at all is natural search engine optimization through ezine article submission. This article will discuss the best way to use ezine article submission for natural search engine optimization and top 10 google rankings through free search engine optimization management.

Many internet marketers spend tens of thousands of dollars every month using pay per click advertising traffic to their site. However, there is a much simpler and cheaper method (ie free) to get highly targeted website traffic through natural search engine optimization and search engine optimization management.

The best way to get natural (organic) search engine optimization placement is by targeting keywords in your ezine article submission with low competing pages in Google. This represents a good guide for getting free natural search engine optimization traffic through effective search engine optimization.

The best way to search for potential competition in Google is to use search engine optimization management tools such as the overture tool, wordtracker, the free keyword tool at Good Keywords or the free tool at Digital Point. If you are an Adwords user then you can log into their system and search for competing phrases that way.

You can also search for your competition directly on Google. This search engine optimization management involves simply doing a search in Google for the one word or if it is more than one word put the keyword phrase with quotes around it.

For effective search engine optimization management using ezine article submission, you need to find a product that has searches of at least 300-3000 per month plus has few competing pages on Google. If you can find 500,000 competition that’s okay, under 100,000 you’re onto a good thing, but under 40,000 competition and today’s your lucky day for search engine optimization management and natural search engine optimization.

That being said, you can get traffic to a site with over 1 million competing pages, however, why make your life that difficult and delay getting sales when you can target some smaller but more targeted phrases that will result in free natural search engine optimization through ezine article submission.

Now not all ezine article submission services or directories are treated equally for the purpose of natural search engine optimization and search engine optimization management. There are some ezine article submission directories that are adored by Google. Some of these are Ezine Articles http://www.Ezinearticles.com, Go Articles and Article Dashboard. The reason why these ezine article submission directories are so highly regarded by Google is that their page rank is so high. Also, with Ezine Articles, every new article gets briefly listed on their home page (currently page rank 6) which means you get a brief PR6 linking back to your site mentioned in your resource box.

This is what makes natural free search engine optimization and search engine optimization management so easy through ezine article submission. This search engine optimization management causes good rankings extremely quickly. There is a trick though to achieving high natural search engine optimization rankings and that is that when you submit your article to any of these ezine article submission sites that your article is unique. If it’s not you will be affected by a duplicate content penalty.

Make sure that your target keywords are mentioned frequently throughout the article, particularly the beginning and the end, to achieve the best natural search engine optimization.

Natural search engine optimization and search engine optimization through ezine article submission sites is a wonderful and easy way for people new to internet marketing or people with little or no money to invest in promoting their website to get highly targeted traffic to their website and page one rankings on Google.

Keep reading below to learn more natural search engine optimization tips and get top 10 Google rankings for all your website very time!

Author: Karin I Manning
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Digital Camera Times

Questions to Ask a Potential Search Engine Optimization Company – Part 3

The first part of this series was about questions to ask a potential search engine optimization company regarding the tactics that it will use to optimize your site. These questions are crucial because there are search engine optimization companies out there that will use techniques that can put your site at risk of penalization by the major engines. The second part of the series covered questions that could determine the competence of a particular search engine optimization company to determine if you will be able to trust them with your business.

Now we come to the final part of this series, in which we will look at business assurances made by search engine optimization companies. If your prospective search engine optimization company has satisfactorily answered all of your questions as outlined in the first two articles, it may indeed be a perfect fit for your business. However, there are still some important areas that need to be covered – primarily related to business assurances and expectations.

Business Assurances

What type of guarantee will you give me?

Many search engine optimization companies will tell you that they can’t offer you a guarantee at all because they don’t control the engines. Other firms will try to give you a guarantee that is rankings-centric and that is, as demonstrated in my article “Leprechaun Repellant and Guaranteed SEO Companies – The Disturbing Link (http://www.mediumblue.com/newsletters/seo-companies.html),” rather useless unless the search engine optimization company can prove that all of the keyphrases that will be targeted are both relevant and popular.

On the other hand, a search engine optimization company may offer you a truly meaningful guarantee in the form of one that is traffic-centric and drawn from targeted keyphrases. In such a case, you will approve the keyphrases and the search engine optimization company will guarantee a percentage increase in targeted search traffic. This guarantee is meaningful because the firm cannot pick unpopular phrases and you will approve the phrases to be certain that they are relevant. Not all search engine optimization companies offer this type of guarantee, but it’s worth looking for one that does.

Will you work with my competitors?

Few search engine optimization companies will give you a blanket “no.” If they do, ask them to delineate. It’s rare that a search engine optimization company will block out an entire business segment, and its idea of what comprises a competitor may be much narrower than yours. Some firms will not give you any promises regarding your competition. This response is not satisfactory, as the last thing you want a search engine optimization company doing is learning about your industry from optimizing your site and then soliciting your competition, using the knowledge they have gained to benefit from economies of scale.

Other search engine optimization companies will charge you extra for exclusivity – which can seem a bit like extortion. Remember, the vendor does not have control. YOU are the one paying the bills, and any search engine optimization company that uses this policy is not worthy of your cash. Quality search engine optimization companies will ask you to submit a list of your primary competitors and will not work with any of them for as long as you maintain a relationship with the firm. Period.

How much work is expected of me?

As discussed in the first part of this series, quality search engine optimization almost always requires the creation of new content. But who is responsible for writing this content? If your company is like most, everyone is pretty busy. If you embark on an SEO campaign, will you have to pay extra for an outside copywriting resource? Will you have to give the job to an overburdened internal person?

Search engine optimization companies that are interested in taking as much off of your plate as possible will ask only that you make a resource available for a phone call and will then handle the copy for you (giving you, of course, the opportunity to approve it all). You should also be prepared to provide the firm with any marketing materials, brochures, or whitepapers that explain your product and your messaging. Since writing for search engines is a learned art, it is not practical to expect a new person to come in and get it right the first time. This means that if a copywriting resource is not available from your search engine optimization company, your campaign can take much longer.

Additionally, once your search engine optimization company has made all of its change recommendations, will it drop a huge document in your lap and require you to make those changes? Or will the firm instead make a resource available to do the implementation at no extra cost? Certainly, there are some sites, especially those that draw on dynamic content, where you may not want an external company coming in to make the changes (although you should still limit your search to search engine optimization companies that are capable of handling this). Simpler sites, such as those created using strict HTML, are easy to change.

Your search engine optimization company should be able to implement these changes on a test bed site for your approval before the site goes live. Much like copywriting, implementation of SEO changes is a specialty that regular designers do not often face. It is usually faster to have your firm do this, since it has handled such a task so many times before.

Well, you’ve asked the questions, narrowed your choices, and now have to select between any of the vendors that answered satisfactorily. Of course, some search engine optimization companies will tell you whatever it is you want to hear to get your business. Your best bet is to take your time and read the fine print–and make sure that anything of particular importance to you is added to the contract. I’m not saying that all salespeople are liars–just the really good ones. But if you’re savvy and ask the right questions, that shouldn’t be a problem.

Author: Scott Buresh
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty rates

RSS Feeds and Search Engine Optimization

In few ways RSS is pretty much identical to HTML, the language normally put in place to create websites. As is the case with HTML, webmasters opting for traditional search engine optimization techniques when creating an RSS feed will come to know that their RSS feed is getting additional exposure and interest.

Below mentioned measures can go a long way in optimizing an RSS feed for search engines:

1.) First and foremost, the title should consist of pivotal search terms.

In simple terms, the title should be up to the mark and not misleading, while still pinpointing keywords. In an ideal scenario, the title should generate curiosity among the readers to read on, not mislead them.

2.) Secondly, it is of utmost significance that you display RSS feeds properly.

Theoretically speaking, majority of webmasters display their feeds as content on their website. Remember to use PHP, ASP or HTML when displaying a feed, as this can lead search engines to spider the contents of the feed displayed. On the other hand, if you are using a template to display feeds, it is advisable to use header tags to emphasize the appearance of the Channel Title and Item Titles. It is worth pointing that few search engines weight header tags with more significance.

3.) Get accustomed with the concept of internal & external Links.

According to experts, within a feed you should always opt for the full path of any links, keeping in perspective that other sites may syndicate the contents of the RSS feed. Furthermore, links that are not local to the site should be open in a new browser. This process though not specific to search engines but it will play a prominent role in keeping visitors on your site.

4.) Link text should pinpoints keywords.

There is no denying the fact that the text used for incoming links will give a boost to the site in terms of helping it in contextually defining the keywords that the site appears for in the search engines. Keeping that into account, it is quite mandatory to use keywords in any link text that roll back to your website.

5.) Concept of My.Yahoo and My.MSN.

This is very straightforward to implement but often overlooked by publishers and webmasters. In theory, the quickest way to have an RSS feed spidered by Yahoo or MSN is to include the feed on a personal my.yahoo or my.msn home page. You just need to register an account on the respective search engines. Then comes the next step of customizing the home page to include your RSS feed. This is normally been implemented by inserting content and listing the URL to the RSS feed. Normally, within 1-2 days the feed’s contents will be spidered and indexed by Yahoo and MSN.

6.) What is theme feeds?

It is quite pivotal that feeds should be themed. This is pretty significant as it will help with themed links back to a publisher’s website from anyone syndicating the feed’s content.

7.) How to increase link popularity?

You can enhance link popularity by submitting the RSS feed, blog or podcast to the appropriate directories. It is worth pointing that these directories offer submissions of specific kinds of RSS feeds. Thats why, be clear in your mind to follow the guidelines of each site and choose categories wisely.

8.) What is RSS feed descriptions?

RSS feed descriptions can be termed as the general summaries or introductions to other content. Nine out of ten times, feed creators will offer additional input on an HTML site, creating curiosity among the visitors to click through for the full detail if it is a topic that is of interest to them. But for that to happen, it is pivotal that you provide number of teaser copy that the visitor can easily discern if the contents are something that is pivotal to them.

9.) Getting the feel of subscribing to feeds.

Though seem straightforward at first glance, but fact remained that a surprisingly huge chunk of publishers do not subscribe to their own feed. In an ideal scenario, this is an ideal way to get the feel of your clients and innovating with formatting and integrating HTML into feeds.

10.) Increasing your corporate identity with image ads.

It is advisable to insert your corporate logo to your RSS feed. In addition, create a brand and give the overview of that brand by including the image in the RSS feed. In simple terms, the image will increase your corporate identity as well as dress up the look of your feed by inserting your corporate logo.

11.) Alphabetical rank is essential.

Few feed readers list feeds alphabetically in the reader. Because of this reason feed channels that begin with A will normally appear in the top of the feed list in majority of feed readers. In case if you are interested in appearing in the top of list of feeds that a reader has registered to, keep this point in mind.

12.) Concept of meaningful links

It is quite mandatory that each item in your feed should consist of a unique URL attached with it. This will give direction to users to attached inputs. You can find using target URLs with the “#” symbol in the link to get accustomed with the fact that this content is very useful.

There is no denying that majority of marketers have a love-hate relationship with search engines. Search engines can make the most confident Webmaster looks insipid. But following above-mentioned steps can give you a much-needed cushion in optimizing feeds for search engines.

Search engine optimization

If you are dealing in website marketing, role of search engines is quite pivotal in your success. Theoretically speaking, they are the most crucial way to bring traffic to your website. But for that to happen, it is quite mandatory that you understand the working of search engines and their requirements.

In simple terms, there are two types of search engines: active and passive. An active engine makes full use of crawl technology that constantly searches out websites, inserts them to its database and most importantly come up with listings automatically with what it finds. On the other hand passive engines need registration of your website directly with them. In addition, they rely on editors to insert your site to their directory. As search engines have started making its presence felt, few have adopted a combination of passive and active techniques.

Definition

Search engine optimization can be defined as the utilization of techniques that will result in your website being identified and included in the database of search engines. There are tried and tested methods to search engine marketing containing website design and content adaptation, and keyword strategy. Fact remained that the main objective of these methods is to bring traffic to your site. Furthermore, the secondary objective is for that traffic to be targeted to your product/ services. In the World Wide Web marketing game, exposure is of paramount importance. Remember that marketing efficiency needs effective exposure to the right prospects.

All in all, search engine optimization is all about taking your site to the pinnacle of success in search engine rankings. In present day scenario, everyone wants and has an online site about any goods or service they are offering. As a matter of fact, if you want to sell something to the general public, it is essential that you must have a website. In this fast paced world, time is of essence to everyone. More often than not, people do not have the time to go to stores to check out and purchase any goods/ services that they required. For these people, the Internet has become the market place to buy anything. It is worth pointing that fast and simple accessibility is what people prefer when buying in the Internet. Thats why, Internet can turn out to be the best source for you to sell your goods and services.

Search engine optimization: Pivotal for online success

Though, you have a site that contains all relevant information about your business, but fact of the matter is how many people know about your site. And this is where search engine optimization comes in. Search engine optimization employ certain techniques that can be pretty helpful in popularizing your website. Remember that you have to tell everyone regarding your site as well as its features. Search engines have a crucial role to play in your quest for success in your online business.

There are plenty of things that can be implemented for search engine optimization of your site. First and foremost, link building is the most popular and the most effective way for popularizing your site very fast. But for that to happen, it is crucial to search in the Internet and identify those sites that deal with identical product to yours. In other word, this clearly emphasizes that your link will be placed on those sites, and people who visit that site can actually come to your site by following that link. Always remember that one way inbound links are more advantageous for your site.

Secondly, blogging is also an effective route for you to become visible in the Internet. However, the key to blogging is to write top-notch blogs about different properties of the product/ services that you are offering. In case if your blogs are written in very concise and simple manner, your site is bound to attain popularity. As a matter of fact, people will even start discussing about your site in various forums. You can imagine how much you can gain from this exercise. Therefore, just go ahead and start blogging and enhance the popularity of you and your site.

No one can deny the fact that search engines are the kings in the web. Thats why, if you want your site to be a success story, you have to do something to increase your reputation among various search engines. For this to happen you will certainly require high rankings in search engines. Remember that search engines give rankings to websites after judging them on various parameters set by them. Search engine spiders also termed as bots crawl my many identifies if they are meeting all search engine eligibility criteria or not. On the basis of this process, websites are given rankings by search engines. And furthermore it is this ranking that gives you an overview of how your site is doing in the web.

Apart from that, there are plenty of other factors for you to gain popularity in search engines. A recent study has clearly pinpointed that most of the people using the web take the cue from search engines to gather information about any thing in the web. Thats why, if you are in top of the ranking you will be listed at the top of search findings when someone search for information regarding your product and service. This in turn leads to popularity of your site and more selling of your products and services.
Before you opt for any search engine optimization method for your site, it is of utmost significance that you know what you are exactly doing. It is advisable to collect as much information as you can about any process that you are interested in for the purpose of search engine optimization of your website. Fact remained that this is your site and you must know everything that has something to do with your site. After all the success of your business depends on this.

Skills required for search engine optimization

Since search engine optimization is still considered to be a new thing, plenty of business organizations think it is mandatory to hire search engine optimization firms to handle the online marketing part of their businesses. But the question now arises: What if you cant afford to hire the services of search engine optimization firms? Furthermore, what if youre just entering into the business and you dont have enough funds for additional advertising? If this is the case, you have no option other than to do it yourself.
But dont treat it as a burden because fact of the matter is search engine optimization is quite straightforward, contrary to the belief that it is a hard grinding task. No denying that you have to practice hard before you can take full benefits of search engine results for your website or business but its at least a very possible and achievable task. But for that to happen, you must know the types of skills required for better implementation of search engine optimization.

What is your target Market?

If you are interested in search engine optimization for your website, it is quite mandatory that you are aware of your target market. As the Internet is such a big place to roam around, it is essential that you know your target market. This in turn leads to more visitors for your target market because they can easily get accustomed with your service and can give you a feedback.

All important content of your Ad

Lets just assume you know your target audience already and everything that is there in the site are in proper order and impressing the visitor to buy the product. But the fact remained that how do they get to your website initially? And thats where the role of search engine optimization is very important. By following this route, its a guarantee that your website would get more visitors.

But always remember that that its the content of your ad that will put your website on top of MSN and Google searches. As number of companies chooses to use text ads because of its shorter length and economic nature, its your responsibility to maximize the content of your ad. In an ideal scenario, make sure that youre able to depict your message in the shortest, precise and most efficient way possible.

The concept of Keywords

There is no denying that keyword is one of the major parameters affecting search engine optimization. In case if you are interested in optimizing searches done by MSN, Google or Yahoo, you have to ensure that the keyword list you are implementing under your companys name should be identical to the keywords of your target market.

When talking about keywords, only two things count: spelling and relevance. Theoretically speaking, make sure that you include keywords in their correct spellings and of course, it has to be relevant.

RSS Feeds helping to improve Search Engine Optimization and Ranking

RSS is fast becoming a buzzword for a proper search engine optimization. But the question now arises: What exactly is RSS?

RSS or Rich Site Syndication or Really Simple Syndication is a type of file format identical to XML, and is implemented by publishers to make their content available to other people. The best part about this format is that everyone can understand it quite easily. In addition, RSS offers the listing of articles on third party websites, RSS newsreaders, and the like, giving rise to simple distribution of a website’s content across the Internet. In other word, RSS can be termed as a form of content syndication, using distribution lists, hyperlinks and the like to create curiosity among people, which in turn leads to increased traffic in your website.

RSS is not the new term, as a matter of fact it has been there for so many years, but with the advent of spam filters and online blogging, it is fast becoming a necessity for ezine publishers that are interested in getting their message across to their members.
Despite all this, not much emphasis has been given to the benefits RSS offers for search engine optimization, until now.

The question now arises: Why Search Engines Love RSS?

Majority of SEO experts is of the view that that sites optimized around themes, or niches, where all pages depicts one particular subject or set of keywords are bound to fare better in search engines as compared to the website dealing with plenty of subjects and different keywords. For instance, if your website is specifically designed to sell gadgets, your entire site content would be focused around gadgets.

It is worth pointing that search engines such as Google seem to prefer tightly themed pages.
But million-dollar question is: Where does RSS come in all this?

Remember that RSS feeds, normally sourced from newsfeeds or blogs, often pinpoint to a particular theme or niche.
And thats where you can increase your sites content without a need of writing on your own, by opting for highly targeted RSS feeds.
It will give you an impression that you have hired content writer that is writing for you but in actual sense you have not. Furthermore, you are getting all this free of cost.

How can RSS improve your Search Engine Rankings?

In simple terms, there are three main parameters why content from RSS Feeds is so much advantageous for search engine spiders.

1. RSS Feeds offer Immediate Themed Content

There are plenty of publishers of RSS feeds that are focused to a particular theme.
As the feed is highly targeted in nature, it could consist of number of keywords that you want to rank highly for.

Inserting these keywords to your pages plays a pivotal part in Google tagging your site as one with relevant content.

2. RSS Feeds offers new and regularly updated Content

Theoretically speaking, this is the most significant feature of RSS. It is worth pointing that RSS feeds from big publishers are normally updated in hourly or daily basis. Remember that when the publisher inserts a new article to the feed, the oldest article is deleted.
Furthermore, these modifications are instantly updated on your pages with the RSS feed as well. Thats why you new and updated relevant content for your visitors every hour or day. Few of the search engines like Google and Yahoo have come to a conclusion that the relevancy algorithm historically used to rank pages is not a good option. In an ideal scenario, they do no not show correct results. Because of this reason they have added parameter like freshness to judge the page rank.

A simple example can illustrate this point better. In case if you were to do a search for the key phrase “Football”, you would likely to get a large chunk of articles. In that case just take two articles for the purpose of simplification. Let’s assume both articles contain the phrase “Football” the same number of times, have the same number of inbound links, and all else is more or less identical between the two articles. As a matter of fact the only difference between the two is that one article was written 10 days ago and the other was written yesterday. In that scenario, it would be difficult to find out which one would be more likely to contain the information for which you are looking?

Well, by taking the help of relevancy algorithm, both articles will appear equally relevant. Though, fact remained that it is not the case because obviously the newer article is more likely to give you the fresh information, which you are looking for. Due to this reason the search engines have come up with a freshness component to their ranking repertoire- in an effort to offer the best results to their users, they should not only offer you relevant articles but fresh one as well. Thats why, at the moment, the most recent article (or most frequently updated website) would be listed on top as compared to the less frequently updated website.

The question now arises: Does this make sense? The answer is yes. By following this route, you can easily understand why a proper search engine optimization will include the use of fresh content such as an RSS feed, apart from an optimization for key phrase relevancy.

Author: Vipin Agnihotri
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Hybrid and Electric Cars

Search Engine Optimization Certification Considerations

Search engine optimization certification confirms that search
engine optimization providers have actually received industry
training in regard to search engine optimization strategies.

Some search engine optimization providers display a certification
seal on their websites while others will simply state that they
have been certified in search engine optimization.

While certification may be preferred due to the level of
difficulty and the expertise required to effectively optimize a
website for the search engines, certification doesn’t necessarily
make one provider better than the next.

Skill comes with experience and a successful search engine
optimization provider should be able to give you references
including the names and contact information of satisfied
customers and information about their keywords and website
ranking so you can see for yourself whether or not the specialist
is truly capable of results-producing search engine optimization.

The search engine optimization industry is not regulated and
doesn’t have set professional standards like some professional
industries do.

Thus, search engine optimization certification that is provided
by one company for $50 may be compared to professional search
engine optimization certification programs that charge closer to
$3,000.

Some certification issuers provide one to three day seminars,
some provide internet based training, some provide coaching
services, and some actually provide very little training at all.

For that reason, I don’t place a lot of weight on certification
when evaluating search engine optimization providers unless I can
confirm not only the certification, but also the credentials and
certification standards of the company who issued the
certification.

There are several organizations that seem to be working toward
standardizing search engine optimization certification.

Perhaps some day the search engine certification will be as
valuable as Microsoft certifications, but at this point in time,
with a lack of industry standards and designated certification
requirements, it really just isn’t.

Now that is not to say that a certified search engine
optimization provider isn’t experienced or isn’t capable of
achieving good search engine rankings.

Some very well may be. One thing that a valid certification does
verify is that the provider has completed some type of search
engine optimization training and has apparently met someone’s
standards in order to receive the certification.

In that light, you may view certified providers as more desirable
than non-certified providers as a matter of personal preference.

My personal preference is to see a proven track record in regard
to achieving desirable search engine rankings.

I place experience and results a lot higher on the priority list
than search engine optimization certification.

Whether you choose a certified search engine optimization
specialist or not is a matter of choice. I do not make a
recommendation one way or the other.

Rather, I emphasize the need to find a search engine optimization
specialist who has a solid record for achieving results through
their search engine optimization efforts.

Search engine optimization is challenging and it isn’t usually
easy to get good ranking in the search engines.

Some website owners opt to do their own optimization while others
hire professionals.

If you hire a professional to optimize your website, it is only
logical to review their credentials to ensure that they are
capable of providing you with the best possible results.

It might not be possible for them to achieve top search engine
ranking. That depends on your industry and the level of
competition you are up against.

However, if they employ sound search engine optimization
strategies that are based on experience, they should definitely
be able to boost your search engine rankings and obtain a
desirable position in the search engines.

Experience and perseverance is the key to getting a good search
engine ranking that will increase your traffic and revenues.

Author: Christopher J Enders
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Canada duty

Beginner’s Guide to Search Engine Optimization

Search Engine Optimization, also known as SEO, is the art and science of making web pages attractive to the search engines. The better optimized the page is, the higher a ranking it will achieve in search engine result listings. This is especially critical because most people who use search engines only look at the first page or two of the search results, so for a page to get high traffic from a search engine, it has to be listed in those first two or three pages.

In short, Search engine optimization is the process of increasing the amount of visitors to a Web site by ranking high in the search results of a search engine. The higher a Web site ranks in the results of a search, the greater the chance that that site will be visited by a user. It is common practice for Internet users to not click through pages and pages of search results. Search engine optimization (SEO) helps to ensure that a site is accessible to a search engine and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.

Search engine optimization is the practice of guiding the development or redevelopment of a website so that it will naturally attract visitors by winning top ranking on the major search engines for selected search terms and phrases.

Search engine optimization is the adjustment of html page entities and content for the express purpose of ranking higher on search engines. Search engine optimization is the skill of designing or re-designing a website in order to improve the search engine ranking of that website for certain relevant keywords.

How do Search Engines Work?

In order to use Search Engine Optimization one must know full functionality of Search Engines. The working is as follows:

Search Engines for the general web do not really search the World Wide Web directly. Each one search a database of the full text of web pages selected from the billions of web pages out there residing on servers. When you search the web using a search engine, you are always searching a somewhat stale copy of the real web page. When you click on links provided in search engine search results, you retrieve from the server the current version of the page. Search engine databases are selected and built by computer robot programs called spiders.

Although it is said they “crawl” the web in their hunt for pages to include, in truth they stay in one place. They find the pages for potential inclusion by following the links in the pages they already have in their database (i.e., already know). They cannot think or type a URL or use judgment to decide to go look something up and see what’s on the web about it. Computers are getting more sophisticated all the time, but they are still brainless. If a web page is never linked to in any other page, search engine spider’s cannot find it. The only way a brand new page – one that no other page has ever linked to – can get into a search engine is for its URL to be sent by some human to the search engine companies as a request that the new page be included. All search engine companies offer ways to do this.

After spiders find pages, they pass them on to another computer program for indexing. This program identifies the text, links, and other content in the page and stores it in the search engine database’s files so that the database can be searched by keyword and whatever more advanced approaches are offered, and the page will be found if your search matches its content.

Some types of pages and links are excluded from most search engines by policy. Others are excluded because search engine spiders cannot accesses them. Pages that are excluded are referred to as the Invisible Web. The Invisible Web is estimated to be two to three or more times bigger than the visible web.

Brief Introduction to Search Engines

While the public generally refers to all Internet searching tools as search engines, there are actually three different types of it. These types are as follows:

Search Engines – AltaVista, Google, Teoma, AllTheWeb, MSN etc

Directories – Open Directory, Yahoo, LookSmart etc

Portals – AOL, Netscape, iWon, Lycos, HotBot, Excite etc

Search engines and directories take the following variables into consideration when determining your site’s ranking in the results for a specific search:

Quality – The quality of your Web site affects the directory editor’s evaluation of your submission. Quality refers to utility or usefulness and comprehensiveness.

Title – The title is one of the most important factors in your site’s eventual search engine ranking. Because directory search engines such as Yahoo! only search through the title, description, and URL you submit, having important keywords in your title is critical.

Content – For search engines that index your page using an automated process, such as AltaVista, Google, Teoma, AllTheWeb, MSN, Inktomi, the content is critical. The content must be brief, focused, and internally consistent.

Description – The Meta description tag must speak convincingly to the search engine user and must include key words and phrases.

Popularity – Popularity is a term used to describe search engines’ measurement of your site’s importance to the Web community. It factors in the number, quality, and type of Web pages that include links back to your page. Google has a branded version of popularity it calls Page Rank. Links to your Web site increase your popularity and offer search engine spiders robots more opportunities to index your page.

SEO – Search Engine Optimization fine-tune the code on your page to help you win for specific searches.

Search Engine Optimization is a science as well as an art

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the science and art of achieving higher visibility across today’s most important search engines. In order to achieve the maximum and most beneficial results, search engine optimization today needs to be carefully planned and executed as an integrated project.

Benefits of Search Engine Optimization (SEO):

Search engine optimization will absolutely provide the lowest-cost traffic to your site but results generally take months to show up

Search engine optimization could be thought as an investment for your site

Search engine optimization involves a one-time fee and minimal monthly outlay

Search engine optimization is time-consuming to implement, can mean recoding entire site

Search engine optimization take months for results to kick in

There is no guarantee for a specific ranking in Search engine optimization.

Targets a relatively low number of high-trafficed keyword phrases in Search engine optimization.

Over the long-term is much cheaper than pay-per-click

Produces long-lasting results – good Search engine optimization can last for a year or more

Substantial Increase in Search Engine Traffic, When the site ranks for words which people search often we get lots of targeted traffic, Compare the Organic listing search engine traffic with other types of online advertisements this one is much cheaper,

Return of Investment is very fast and well worthy, Since Search engine optimization send only targeted traffic to a site the ROI for a site is quick and pretty high

Return of Investment has direct impact n the conversion Ratio since this is targeted traffic the conversion rate is very high.

Search engine traffic never stops once achieved high ranking for you, Search engines promote your site 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

Who needs search engine optimization services?

There are over a billion web pages over internet, and most of them are never known. Only one company in hundred-employ search engine optimization services. It is vital to the business of any start up company, or even a traditional established company to be seen and know in the Internet. Search engine optimization services are required by the vast majority of companies in the Internet.

What does search engine optimization services do for your company?

Search engine optimization services greatly increases the number of customers to your website by optimizing your site to make it rank high in the major search engines, which would increase one’s business and sales.

Author: Sharad Saxena
Article Source: EzineArticles.com
Provided by: Excise Tax