Thursday, November 30, 2006

How to Create Killer Keywords to Get FREE Traffic to Your Website

How to Create Killer Keywords to Get FREE Traffic to Your Website was written by Brian Daniels and he writes "When exploring good keyword choices there are several steps one must consider. The most important step is putting your self in the shoes of the type of customer you want to target. Just make a list of the keywords or phrases you think that customer would enter into a search engine or directory when searching for your company or site. A good tool is WordTracker.com which will help you brainstorm different key phrases. Ask friends and associates which words they would use to search for your site on the internet, if they were looking for a site similar to yours.

Brands
If a brand applies, include more specific brand names that are applicable to your site or type of business. If you offer a service, then try to offer service brand names when ever possible. Legally, you should put a registered trademark (®) or trademark (?) symbol after the names when ever mentioning trademarked names on the page.

Concepts
Include concept type keywords. An example would be "Athletic Gear" Since this would be what a sports company might be selling..

Company Names
If your site offers a product from a well known company with brand recognition, include that company name in your keyword. Rid on the popularity of that company, why not? You're selling their product, correct? If that company has a good reputation and brand loyalty then this would only help in adding consumer confidence in your site even more.

Quality
Your keywords may only bring up poor quality type web sites that your core audience may have no interest in anyway. Try to focus on words that will bring in quality visitors to your site who will stay long enough to search your site for information regarding your product or service. Unqualified visits are not only a waste of your visitor's time but also a waste of your time. You wouldn't want to be barraged with unqualified emails regarding your product if it's not what your site is trying to sell.

Your Company Name
Unless your company has a well known brand name such as Nike or Ford Motors, it's generally less important to emphasize the company name as a keyword. A go around for this is to create an "About Us" page that focuses on optimizing your company name several times as the keyword on that page. This way if someone searches for your company name it would still come up as a relevant search result.

Target Phrases not Words
With over a billion pages on the web and millions added each day, it's virtually impossible to achieve to rankings for a common words such as "electronics", "web", "food" etc. Instead, try to focus on target phrases of between two and four words in length.

Test Your Keywords
Try to see how many web sites match your keywords or phrases before and after you launch your web site. Obviously the few matches found the easier it will be to obtain high rankings. With a proper strategy your site could be one near the top of that search. There may be phrases that are much easier to achieve a good ranking on than more common words or phrases. Some finding those obscure phrases and using this strategy can gain your site unexpected traffic.

Case Sensitivity
If a user types in the word "Web," many engines will search for "Web" with an uppercase "W" only. If your page has only "Web" in lowercase "w" in it, it won't be found. On the other hand, if a user searches for "web" many engines will search for it in lowercase and uppercase forms. There fore it helps to have some of your keywords in uppercase or starting with an uppercase letter if the user should search that way. The easiest way to do this is in the title of the page, in Meta tags and at the beginning of sentences. Some engines are not case sensitive like Google at this time. The easiest way to test this is to input your keyword or phrase into different search engines and see if the exact same search results come up.

Bad Spelling
Some times bad spelling is a good thing. Search for obvious spelling errors and grammatical mistakes people are likely to make and then incorporate them into your pages to pick up unexpected traffic. Also, product names can have a multitude of variations so focus on those too. For example, Ford may have "Ford Motor," "Ford Vehicles," "Ford Auto," or "Ford Cars" etc.

Implement these search engine optimization strategies and you will boost your traffic with higher rankings

About The Author
Brian Daniels is the Founder of XcelWeb.com. His latest eBook, "Ultimate Internet Marketing" is available at http://www.xcelweb.com for free
sales@xcelweb.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 8:58 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

Keyword Targeting Strategy In Your Site

Keyword Targeting Strategy In Your Site was written by Rakesh Ojha and he writes "Once the keywords have been decided for the site one has to come up with a strategy to target those keywords across the site. Here is a primer on that.

Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword of Single word:
Keyword of Single word is useful to attract general audience and helps in getting high rank ,if the web site is new. Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword of Single word is that they should be more used in the root level pages or top level domain pages. This is because these pages are the ones that attract the general traffic & are generally the pages which do not specify specifics. Hence single word keywords based on themes can be targeted for on these pages..

Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword of Multiple words:
Keyword of Multiple words are useful for attract targeted audience therefore should be used topic wise for each page according to subject of that web page. Relevant set of Keywords should be use in Title tag, Header Tag, Meta tag, Body tag, Alt tag, Anchor tag, Comment tag and in the url (uniform resource locator) of that specific web page. Use underscore or hyphen to differentiate Keywords. These keywords are normally targeted upon in deeper level or sub directory level pages.

Keywords Targeting Strategy for Keyword based on Theme:
Keyword based on theme is useful to attract targeted audience therefore they are strongly recommended to be used. Typically, although it is not a hard and fast rule but in theme based keyword we use general keywords in root level and uses specific keyword in directory level.

Overall one can safely say that in keyword targeting one uses a dart board strategy. Wherein the smallest circle attracts your core audience & hence should have theme oriented multiple word keywords. As we move up on the theme (dartboard) the circle ( traffic) tends to get larger & the keywords tends to get simpler( singular) even though they are theme based.

KEYWORDS and KEYPHRASES usage in Domain Name:
Keywords and keyphrases use in Domain Name & urls of directory pages is also a factor in Search Engine Optimization (SEO) as well as it helps to inform targeted audience, about the sites content . Therefore, special care should be exercised in choosing a domain name. All the search engines start reading each web page with its respective domain name.

Having said that, let me add that there is a raging debate amongst the seo community to determine the exact importance of keywords in the domain name. One camp believes that it is hugely important to have keywords in domain whereas the other maintains that brand building domain name is more important than keywords incorporating one.

Whether keyword is a factor or not is debateble however it has been observed that domain name extensions do definitely play a part in rankings. Search engines ( specially google) have a predilection for sites having extension .gov,.edu,.mil in domain name. Search engines believe that information available at these domains would have a greater likelihood of being authentic as no commercial interest is served here.

Domain Name can be classifieds into two categories:

1. Keyword Specific

2. Brand Name Specific

Keyword Specific Domain Name
When Keywords and Keyphrases are used in a Domain name then its called Keyword specific Domain name.

Keyword in the domain name to my mind has two advantages.

One It is better to have a keyword domain name for it is worth remembering that most of the people link to you using your URL. If your URL has the keyword or the keyphrase then you are automatically using the keyword in the very important anchor tag.

Secondly, though marginally, in a ranking scenario with every other parameter remaining equal, the Keyword Specific Domain Name will enjoy a slight edge over the other web site. However remember Keyword used in Domain name should be primary and generic. Specific keywords can be used in the sub domains. Read about the use of subdomains.

Keywords and Keyphrases uses with hyphen/underscore in Domain name are said to preferred as they are read by search engines as separate words. So the domain name can have a search phrase incorporated into it. However the flip side of it is that domain names with hyphen or underscore are inconvenient to carry.

Brand Name Specific Domain Name
When company or organizations' name is used in Domain Name to brand it then it's called as Brand Name Specific Domain name.

Brand Name Specific Domain Name does not help online searches at all. However they are very powerful tools for company identification in the mind of users. In the anonymous online world a brand spells loyalty, trust & value. So if you choose to go for building your brand rather than deep rooted optimization, one way of incorporating keywords is through your directories & pages names.

KEYWORD DENSITY
Keyword Density is a proportion of the searched term ( Keyword or Keyphrase) against the whole words written on a given page. The ideal Keyword Density is 6%-8% though various search engines have various tolerance levels before their spam filters get activated. Higher Keyword Density does help to boost a pages' ranking.

Keyword Density can be increased by using target keywords repeatedly in Title tag, Header tag, Body tag, Comment tag, Alt tag, Anchor tag, Paragraph Tag , Domain name and in diretory/page names.

However one disadvantage of trying to hike the keyword density is that the visible text on the page starts to look spammy if it is not carefully crafted. That makes for a bad copy.

Rakesh Ojha is a successful Internet marketer utilizing both pay-per-click marketing and search engine optimization to increase website traffic. To learn more, visit http://sem.mosaic-service.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 8:36 PM | | Comments

Tuesday, November 28, 2006

Tips On Optomizing Your Website For Search Engines

Tips On Optomizing Your Website For Search Engines was written by Brian Beshore and he writes "I wish to give a few little tips, about optimizing. You may find it quite useful, depending on the type of website you have.

This is it; basically, when you optimize a website, you first want to enter at least 30 keywords into the 'head' of your web page. No problem there.

The next step in optimizing is that you must put each of your keywords into the text of your web page at least 4 times!

This is one area where your web page sinks or swims in the search engine 'spidering' process. This is where one must get, er.. creative..

We've all seen those web pages that are about a mile long and so wordy, that you kind of loose track as to what the heck they are talking about. Well, optimizing is what that's about. That and testimonials, which are a good thing to have, but most experts agree that you've got to get right down to the point and not loose your reader.

If this page is in a surf exchange, you're expecting your viewer to read a mile long page in about 30 seconds. Trying to get all your key words into your ad text 4 times, can make it read a bit funny.

So here are a couple of alternatives;

If you use graphics, (and who doesn't?), you are often able to enter text as mouse over text, as if you were going to link the graphic somewhere, but just put in some graphics that you don't plan to use as links and cram as many keywords into the mouse over as you can.

On some of my sites you see a few extra graphics that seem to be there purely for decoration, until you put your mouse on one and see a mouse over text that stretches off the screen.

But most folks don't put their mouse on a graphic unless they are told it's a link.

I honestly thought of that myself, but I have since seen the idea in Trafficology.

Another one that I thought up, and haven't seen anywhere else is this;

Just create a text box and load all your keywords into it as many times as you need, or use four boxes, (just copy and paste) then set the color of your fonts for the text in these boxes to match the background color of your web page. Now you have invisible keyword boxes that still work the same as if you had put them into your ad text!

Brian Beshore has been involved with Internet Marketing for several years. He publishes his own Home Business Guide. http://surfinsafari.net


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:39 PM | | Comments

Monday, November 27, 2006

One Way Link Building Secures Long Term Ranking Results

One Way Link Building Secures Long Term Ranking Results was written by Daria Goetsch and writes "One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results.

Why Are One-Way Links Helpful?

Link building in general is an important part of making sure your site ranks well in the search engines. Google and many of the other search engines include link popularity as part of the way they evaluate the web pages they include in the search engine databases. Links are seen as a positive "vote" towards the quality of the web page. Each individual page acquires link popularity based on the pages that link to it. Google and Yahoo both have toolbars showing the page rank of pages you visit, so you can use these tools to get a good estimate of your pages' link popularity. It is not necessary to get totally caught up in the minutia of which types of links from which types of pages are the most important. The bottom line is this: acquiring links pointing back to your website, particularly links from sites covering the same or related topics as your site, is helpful in the overall scheme of search engine ranking..

The big "plus" of one-way links is that you don't have to worry about linking back to a "bad neighborhood". If your site has links pointing back to sites that serve as "link farms" or "free-for-all" sites, you may not gain, and could actually lose page rank. These sites are rarely focused, and tend to have links to and from all different sorts of sites. Since there is no particular topical emphasis here, it is clear to Google and the other search engines that the sole purpose of these sites is to artificially increase the number of links pointing to your site. Since there is no value added for the search engine's users, they in turn give no value to these links.

Another advantage to these focused, one-way links is that they will tend to stay in place. A website that features a link to your site probably does so because that site's owner thinks that their visitors will benefit from the content your site has to offer. Rather than simply trying to manipulate search results, they want to add to the experience of their visitors; you benefit from having a long term link in place. Sites featuring reciprocal links may simply drop your link when it no longer suits their linking strategy.

How Do I Obtain Natural Links?

Building good content helps interest your visitors and keeps them on your website. By becoming an authority on your topic, you will attract more visitors. When another website in essence "votes" for the quality of your website by placing a link pointing back to it, you are obtaining natural linking. The more you can build upon helpful articles, FAQs and white papers, etc., the better reason for visitors to link back to your website because of the quality content.

One-Way Linking Sources

There are a number of ways to get links from other sites back to yours. The most important principle to keep in mind is that you will get the most links when you offer something significant to link to. Think of what you can provide that people will want to link to:

* Natural links given from topic-related websites that like your website

* Providing free content, such as access to articles, e-books, FAQ's and white papers

* Directory links, listed under the category related to your topic

* Business directory links, listed under the category related to your topic

* Blogs, submitted to a blog directory and archived online

* Business associations, listed under the category related to your topic

* Newsletter text ads promoting your business, archived online at topic-related websites

* Original articles, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites

* Original press releases, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites

* Original newsletters, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites

* White papers, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites

* E-books, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites

* Free software tools provided with required link back to website

For each of these types of content, you will want to have an active link pointing back to your site. Of course, when creating your own original content, always archive your own work on your website to build your content and increase your own link popularity by growing the number of pages on your website.

The extra value of one-way links is the fact that you are also promoting your website from the listing as well as the active link. Articles, newsletters, white papers, directory and business association links may bring in traffic from visitors who are interested in the description of your website listing.

How Do I Know The Links Are Valid?

To gain the most benefit from your links, the link back to your web page should be one that can be followed by the search engine robots. Plain old text links and image links usually can be followed by the search engine robots. More exotic types of links, like JavaScript links, cannot typically be followed by the search engine robots. When you provide suggested linking code, the simpler the better. Don't be afraid to suggest linking formats to owners of sites that link to you. The types of links that serve your purposes best will generally provide their visitors with the best experience as well.

Check to see if the page where the link will be located can be found in the search engine results. You can search via the entire website or by individual page. Different search engines use different syntax in looking for individual pages and links; refer to the advanced search function for each search engine for details.

Google Search Example:

Shows indexing of all pages listed in website

site:www.websitedomainname.com

Shows indexing of a specific web page in website

info:www.websitedomainname.com/pagename.html

If the page is listed in the search engine results, this means the page has been indexed by the search engine robots. This means the web page is valid for indexing and that your link will be picked up as well.

Research And Quality Content Equal Success

One-way link building means hard work and long term determination to achieve good link popularity. By improving the quality of your website, you improve the chance to obtain good quality natural links. Spend a set amount of time each week to seek out quality one-way links to achieve your goal. By using this long-term game plan you will be able to safely build links for optimum link popularity success.

Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing, a Search Engine Optimization company serving small businesses. She has specialized in Search Engine Promotion since 1998, including three years as the Search Engine Specialist for O'Reilly Media, Inc., a technical book publishing company.

Copyright © 2002-2005 Search Innovation Marketing.

http://www.searchinnovation.com All Rights Reserved.

Permission to reprint this article is granted if the article is reproduced in its entirety, without editing, including the bio information. Please include a hyperlink to http://www.searchinnovation.com when using this article in newsletters or online.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:32 PM | | Comments

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Choosing your Meta Keywords

Choosing your Meta-Keywords was written by Alan Cole and he writes "This article assumes you already know what a 'meta-tag keyword' is and know a little about their importance to search engines. In this article I will attempt to explain the art of choosing the most appropriate and best performing keywords for your web pages.

As you should already know keywords contained within your websites' meta tags are extremely important in allowing search engines to determine the content of your web pages. In order to make sure that these keywords are bringing your site up within Search Engine Results Pages (SERPS) and driving visitors to your site, the most important factors in determining your keywords are:

* Relevance.
* Choosing keywords that people actually search for.
* Choosing keywords without too much competition..

Relevance

All your keywords should ALWAYS be relevant to the content within the page they describe. Adding keywords to your site just because they are commonly searched for words is not recommended. Not only will it frustrate visitors who are looking for other information, but it may well get your site black-listed from search engine rankings.

Highly relevant keywords will attract visitors who are actually interested in the products and services your website offers. At the end of the day, it is better to attract fewer visitors who actually have an interest in your website than it is to attract more visitors who leave immediately.
Choosing Keywords people search for

Although your keywords should all be relevant, sometimes it is best not to be too specific.

For example, I once discovered a new fossil (honest!), it was new to science so I named it, wrote a paper on it and had it published. I didn't ever build a web page dedicated to it, but if I had the most used keyword and most relevant word would have been the fossils name (Trypanites fosteryeomani). You might therefore think that it would be sensible to use this as one of my most important keywords? However, that would (at least to start with) have been wrong. No one else has ever heard of this fossil, so it is very unlikely that anyone would ever type its name into a search engine. And sure enough, a quick check shows that during Dec 2004 there wasn't a single search for this term within a particular, popular search engine.

I would therefore need to be more generic with my choice of keywords. The fossil itself was a trace fossil of a worm from the Jurassic, so keywords/phrases such as 'fossil', 'trace fossil' or 'worm trace fossil' may be more successful.

There are several tools available that allow you to check the number of times a particular word or phrase has been searched for. It is important to choose keywords that are regularly searched for and these tools can help in this decision. It is also worth including common mis-spellings of your most relevant keywords as your competitors may not have thought of this when choosing their keywords.
Choosing keywords without too much competition

The section above may lead you to believe that choosing very generic keywords is your best bet as they are often searched for. However, if you get too generic in your choice of keywords then you will be competing with many more websites for the top spots in the SERPS. If we go back to our fossil example we can see what I mean. A quick search in Google brings up the following numbers of results:

* Trypanites fosteryeomani - 1 result (something I once wrote in a forum!)
* Jurassic Worm Trace Fossil - 4,320 results
* Trace Fossil - 407,000 results
* Fossil - 9,120,000 results

As you would expect, the more generic we get, the more results we get. It can be seen then that choosing the best keywords is a matter of balancing the number of times the keywords are searched for against the number of other sites competing for rankings with those keywords. The best keywords will be those that are searched for often but have few competing sites (assuming the keywords are relevant to your content).

I find that it is best to have a balance between the generic and specific keywords relating to your web page and using key-phrases is a useful way of achieving this. In this way the entire key-phrase can be specific to your particular page, but the individual words within it are fairly generic.

e.g. Affordable Website Design Wales (4 generic keywords to create a specific key-phrase)

To Summarise, choosing keywords is an essential part of producing a successful website. Your keywords need to be highly relevant to the content of your page and specific enough to reduce competition. They also need to contain some generic keywords that are often searched for. As always, the single most important factor is relevancy and good content to go with the keywords.

Alan Cole runs Pixelwave Design a one-person web design studio. His aim is to provide cost effective website design production and maintenance by offering professional web solutions that stand out from the crowd.

Pixelwave Design specialise in accessible, conformable search engine friendly websites.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 8:34 PM | | Comments

Friday, November 24, 2006

SEO Search Engine Optimization Link Building Guide

SEO Search Engine Optimization Link Building Guide was written Vance Christensen and writes "What is Link Building?

Link Building is simply the process of establishing and distributing your website's URL via the web. This is a critical step to the Search Engine Optimization realm as search engines often rely heavily on external links pointing to your website. In fact this is so important that without any links pointing to yours, you'll more than likely to be NEVER found by Google or Yahoo-yikes! This doesn't mean you should go to any site and just start spamming it with your website's URL -- the search engine's algorithms are far too advanced for primitive techniques like those. However, when done honestly, this can promote your website above and beyond your competition as Google vests a lot of its confidence in external linking from relevant websites..

How do I get my URL on other websites, legitimately?

Publishing your website on just any website is a very bad idea as well. You want to make sure that you look over the website itself and see if it's relevant to the content on your own website. For instance if you place your website's URL that contains information about gardening on a site that's dedicated to automobiles, that's a bad idea. This tells Google NOTHING about your website and may actually penalize you in their search results. Look for websites not only relevant to yours, but also ones that are respected by the search engines. Avoid all sites that are cluttered with advertisements or affiliate links -- Google may penalize you for having your links here as well. Stay away from ad farms (pages consisting soley of external advertisement links) as this will further harm you in the rankings. Look for legitimate websites and the way to tell is really just using common sense. If it looks good to you, an honest and content rich website relevant to the content on yours, ask the webmaster if you could place your link on their site. It never hurts to ask :).

Don't do overnight linking

Overnight linking is when you prop up your website and then just go out and post your website any and everywhere you possibly can. Spread your link distribution out a bit so you don't have 100 links in a day and for 5 days you have no future external links. Google sees this as abuse and spam and will penalize your website. Trust me, it's all be done before and Google is just too smart nowadays for black hat SEO techniques. Rather, spread your links out so that instead of getting your website 100 external links in a day, aim for doing this in a month. Gradual linking is better in Google's eyes and if Google is happy, that means Yahoo, AOL, Ask Jeeves, and MSN are happy.

Google's PR

Also another way to tell about how generally respected a website is you can use Google's Page Rank tool that's included in the Google toolbar. The PR rates websites on a scale from 0-10. Most websites are only in the 1-4 range, but be happy if yours is 5 or above. This shouldn't be your only basis for rating websites, but it is a good rule of thumb. Don't just go after PR 6 or 7 sites, mix it up a bit. Place a few links here and there on 3 or 4 PR and then go for the big shots.

Note: Many websites have no PR and this is quite common. Some reasons could be due to the fact that it's a new website or is on a dynamic page (page using PHP, ASP, CGI, etc.).

Vary your anchor text

Your anchor text is the text that appears with your website's URL embedded in it. The most common example is "Click here". Now while this is distributing your website, it's not telling Google ANYTHING about what it is. Even if you post it on a website about flowers and your website is about gardening, try and get that anchor text to say something like "Gardening tips" or something more specific. Also try to work your keywords into your anchor text. If one of your keyword phrases is 'Gardening tips' place that in the anchor text. In addition don't place "Gardening tips" for your anchor text on EVERY website. Vary it by placing anchor text like "Gardening FAQ" or "Resource for Gardeners" -- if you have all your external links saying "Gardening Tips" this will raise a red flag with Google and may see it as artificial link building rather than 'organic' (pardon the pun) link building. Artificial link building is black hat and Google does not tolerate it. Your website WILL drop in the rankings if you do this...

IMPORTANT: This is a VERY common mistake. Many people will do what I said in the above paragraph completely right, but will only have the anchor text contain their keyword phrases. This is a bad idea as well. If your keyword phrase is "Gardening Tips" it's okay to have few links with that anchor text BUT not too many. Instead have the text say "Tips for your Garden" and vary your keywords and phrases. Google loves this and it looks less like you're trying to do it soley for internet marketing sake.

Article submission

This is a GREAT way to promote your website - by publishing content on a blog or article submission site. You not only (usually) have the ability to add a link back to you, but it also makes that page relevant to your website! So be explorative and helpful. Go to a website and give your gardening tips and then link back to your website. You not only contribute to the world wide web, but you get exposure as well. Just make sure the content you submit is valid and isn't copied from another source unless you have permission to do so. Keep in mind that you should also vary your articles so you don't just copy and paste the same thing for numerous article submissions on various websites.

Avoid link exhanging and reciprocal linking

These SEO technqiues were used years back and were effective - now it's not so much that case. Link exhanging is when you swap links with another webmaster so you place their link on your website and vice versa. This is hardly effective and if done in excess, Google won't think very highly of your website and may see it as spamming, further penalizing your website.

Submit to trusted directories

Submitting your website to directories such as DMOZ or Yahoo! will give you a monster boost in Google's eyes. At the time this article was written, Yahoo! cost $299 per website listed in the directory and may not be within your budget, that's fine. DMOZ is a free directory and is in fact the largest human-managed directory on the web with millions of websites listed. Unlike crawler based search engines like MSN, Google, or Yahoo, directories are manually submitted content and are reviewed. If your site is deserving of a listing,you're listed. I'd stay away from many directories, however. DMOZ is the best one you can get into, but is a long process (takes anywhere from 2 weeks to months) and you might not even be listed so keep that in mind.

Have permanent links

Make sure the links you post are permanent. Temporary links command less respect, so seniority rules on this one!

Closing statement

When it comes down to it, just be honest. Don't try to outwit the search engines' algorithms. You may discover a flaw in the system but you should not utilize it if you find it cunning or sneaky. Just stick to white hat techniques for search engine optimization and you'd be amazed how honesty is the best policy. In addition, search engines tend to be quite forgiving (just don't do bad stuff to where you get banned and removed from the search engine,that would be bad!). Finally, just to sum some stuff up, this article about covers what you need to know for effective link building. If done right, this art can radically transform your placement among the major seach engines.

Vance Christensen is a professional search engine optimization specialist who owns and operates SEO Cookie, an SEO online firm. His website is http://www.seocookie.com or you can drop him a line at vance@seocookie.com.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:57 PM | | Comments

How to Build Massive Keyword Lists

Rob Taylor has written How to Build Massive Keyword Lists and writes "As keyword marketing becomes more and more expensive and competitive, it has become essential when building your lists to focus on the maximum number of phrases and their variations that a surfer might enter into the search engines.

Why?
Because according to Amit Singhal, principal scientist at Google, a guy who really should know what he's talking about, over 50% of the 200 million searches performed a day have never been searched before. He also said: "When performing a search most surfers give a 2-4 word query".

So here are my top 18 recommended ways to build massive keyword lists:
1. Visit your competitor's web pages and look in the title and meta tags.

2. Search for brand names in Google's Sandbox. This will return additional keywords that searchers entered when using the brand name. You can also enter regular keyword phrases and get related keyword phrases that have been searched on Google.
Link: https://adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd=KeywordSandbox

3. Look over your past customer testimonials, and see if there are any keywords you can use. This strategy lets you get inside your customer's mind to produce more market centric keywords.

4. Consider synonyms. A synonym is a word having the same or nearly the same meaning as another word or other words in the language. Enter your keywords into Roget's Theasaurus for a list of related synonyms. Also visit LexFN. Links: http://thesaurus.reference.com & http://www.lexfn.com

5. Think of singular and plurals keywords.

6. What about verbs? Example: Ride, rode, ridden, ridding, rides.

7. Use hyphenation and variations. Example: off-shore, offshore, off shore

8. Consider domain names. Many people enter domain names into the search engines rather than their browser address bar. Example: cnn.com. In July 2004 cnn.com was searched 633677 times on Overture.

9. Get books on your subject and use the terms in the index and glossaries to grow your keyword lists.

10. Download a free copy of Weblog Expert Lite. Then ask your web host how to download your raw stats files. Run them through the software and you will then discover every possible keyword combination that surfers have used to find your website.
Link: http://www.megastep.com/wle

11. Use Wordtracker. What does Wordtracker do? "?helps you find all keyword combinations that bear any relation to your business or service - many of which you might never have considered." Wordtracker is an essential tool to use.
Link: http://www.keywordlistbuilder.co.uk

12. Then go to the Overture Keyword Suggestion Tool. Enter in a keyword and Overture returns all the prior month's searches that include your phrase. The problem with the Overture tool is that it doesn't give you the exact way that the search was entered. This is why it is essential to use a tool like Keyword Tumbler (see #18) to generate the maximum possible number of keyword combinations that a user might enter a search phrase into the engines.
Link: http://inventory.overture.com

13. Use abbreviations and misspellings. A good misspelling tool is Search Spell. Search Spell uses actual misspellings entered into the search engines. Misspelled Keywords is another software tool that will literally create thousands of misspellings for any given keyword phrase you enter into it.
Link: http://www.searchspell.com/typo & http://www.misspelledkeywords.co.uk

14. Use acronyms. An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters of a name. Example: due diligence becomes DD. A good acronym generator is Acronym Finder.
Link: http://www.acronymfinder.com

15. Combine your keyword phrase into one word. Example:
strawbale houses => strawbalehouses.

16. Use "space" and "+" with keywords. Example:
strawbale+houses
strawbale +houses

17. Visit Crossword Compiler and download their demo software. Plug in your keywords and discover a multitude of additional words.
Link: http://www.crossword-compiler.com

18. Once you have your list compiled visit Keyword Tumbler and download the free software. Put your keywords into a text file and then let Keyword Tumbler generate multiple variations of each keyword phrase you have? instantly!
Link: http://www.keywordtumbler.com

It does this simply by mixing the words in each phrase around. Example: "horses for sale" generates a list like this...

horses for sale
horses sale for
for horses sale
for sale horses
sale horses for
sale for horses

As Perry Marshall, author of the Definitive Guide to Google AdWords said at a recent seminar: "Every combination of keywords that somebody could conceivably type in on Google is a market."
Link: http://www.megastep.com/pm

I hope you have found this advice useful? It's the exact same procedure I use everyday when fighting the pay-per-click wars.

Copyright 2004 Rob Taylor
About The Author
Rob Taylor has been marketing online since 1996. He's sold anything from books, debit cards, security products to art prints. Take advantage of his battle tested marketing strategies that could quietly make you five figure cash profits every single month. Subscribe free to his Internet Marketing Strategies newsletter.


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Thursday, November 23, 2006

Keyword Selection- The Dark Horse of Search Engines Optimization

Craige Stacey has written Keyword Selection- The Dark Horse of Search Engines Optimization and writes "Below are what I call the "10 Commandments" for Keywords.

To start with select "keyword phrases" NOT keywords. This is very important. After all, the keyword itself is included in the keyword phrase.

Consider select different endings for your keywords, (ing, ed, s and es).

Rack your brain and brainstorm with your friends to come up with a list of 25 to 50 keywords or keyword phrases..

Find out what keywords and keyword phrases your competitors are using. Do this by going to your competitor's Web sites and click on "View" in the top toolbar and then click on "Source." Scroll down to the "Keywords Meta Tag" and you will see the keywords this competitor thinks are important. Repeat this with all of your important competitors.

Go to http://www.overture.com. Go to the "Term Suggestion Tool" and type in your keywords and keyword phrases. (Keep in mind that Overture groups singular and plural words together.)

Words with a count of 300 to 500 are good. Words with counts of 500 to 1,000 are great (maybe). It depends on a term called KEI that we will talk about later in this article.

Use Google's Keyword Suggestion Tool at http://www.adwords.google.com.

The best place to get help with keywords is http://www.wordtracker.com. You can get a lot of free information here or pay about $7 and get even more information. The reason this site is so great is that it tells you how many times a keyword phrase is searched for, but it also tells you how many other sites are competing with you for the keyword or keyword phrase.

This information is combined into a term called a "Keyword Effectiveness Index" or KEI. A keyword phrase with a KEI of 0 to 10 usually should not be selected. 10 to 100 is good. 100 to 400 is great and above 400 is a gift from heaven.

All of this is explained completely on the WordTacker Web site so I won't repeat it here. Take time to read all of the instructions and information.

You can only optimize a page for 2 to 5 keywords or 2 to 3 keyword phrases. Don't try to do everything on your home page. Decide how many pages you are going to have (3 to 5 are the minimum number of pages for high search engine rankings). Then use all of the above techniques to come up with your list of keyword phrases.

After you have selected your list of keywords and keyword phrases another good test to run is to find out the keywords that people are actually spending their money on. How do you do this? It's simple. Go to http://www.Amazon.com and search for book titles with your selected keywords or keyword phrases. Then check to see how the books rank in sales for Amazon. The lower the number the better.

A number of 5,000 means it is in the top 5% (assuming Amazon has one million books. They actually have many more.). If people are spending money buying books (on the Internet) about your keywords, it tells me that you have a good chance of selling your goods or services on the Internet also.

The last point to consider is how many times do you use your keyword phrases on each page? I have seen #1 ranking with a keyword phrase density of only 0.5% to over 20%. Google doesn't like high keyword densities any more. A good range to shoot for now is about 1% to 2%. Maybe a little higher, but not much. Google may increase this number in the future, but for now, keep your keyword phrase density low. Google calls a high keyword density "over optimization" and they can penalize a site for this.

That means if you have 300 words on your page, you would need to have about 6 to 21 keyword phrases on your page. Don't over do it and make your page sound silly. Read your page out loud and see if sounds alright. Be creative and you can get a lot of keyword phrases into your page and still make it sound reasonable. Also, it's important to have a high keyword density in the first 150 words on the page, but remember that if your page is in columns, the first word is the first word in your LEFT Nav. panel . . . NOT the first word in your center panel.

Use your keywords and keyword phrases in a sentence. Search engines define a sentence as a group of three or more words that start with a capital letter and end with a period or other acceptable puncation mark. This also means you should put a period or question mark at the end of each heading or headline to make them look like a sentence and NOT like a group of keyowrds.

This means you should NEVER have just a list of keywords. Keywords that are not used in a sentence have very little (if any) value to increase your search engine ranking. In fact, if you go overboard, it could be labeled as keyword spamming by the search engines. This also means that keywords listed in your left Nav. panel will NOT help your rankings. The search engines cops are not stupid. They know what you are trying to do if you insert lists of keywords.

In summary, be creative, take your time and find the very best keywords and keyword phrases. After all, what good would it do you to get #1 rankings for keyword phrases that no one actually searches for.

The above information does not tell you everything about keywords and keyword phrases, but it points you in the right direction. I didn't repeat the instructions that are included in the Web sites I referred you to.

Make sure your keywords or keyword phrases are used in all of your outbound links and try to get sites that are linking to you to use your keywords or keyword phrases in their links to your site. Otherwise, the links would not be very valuable to you.

Craige Stacey has been studying search engines optimization as a hobby and has achieved some very good search engine positions in the past for membership software


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Wednesday, November 22, 2006

Effective Keyword Optimization and Analysis Techniques

Thomson Joseph has written Effective Keyword Optimization and Analysis Techniques article and writes "Keyword optimization involves vital keyword selection and placement strategy depends on successfully identifying your industry related important keywords and then where you can place those keyword for maximum effectiveness.

Effective use of keywords optimization and Phrases on your website
Key to successful web optimization begins with effective use of keywords selection and placement. When researching keywords to use on our website we need to understand how customers really search. As web visitors get more and more internet savvy, they have started searching for two or three words phrases instead of a single word. As study suggest people are using more than a keyword for searching on the net..

By fine-tuning your keyword selection, you're targeting traffic that is looking for your particular web page. You'll stand a much greater chance at getting top rankings under the particular keyword phrase. Once you've achieved this, move on and look for another competitive keyword phrase. This will get leads for your website.

Ask your customers for advice what they think when surf the net. As a family member, a close friend, or your next door neighbor how he or she might try to find your site on the web. Get different opinions.

Consider keyword phrases that are distantly related to your industry and the competitive are on the web. Web is full of bad spellers, and they're certainly to use this misspelled keywords, take advantage of that by including these misspelled version as on of your keywords.

If your services are region specific then concentrate on the keywords and phrases that are relevant to that particular region, it may be a country, city, or area of that particular city. People in different area express words differently capitalize on this to get maximum advantage of your keywords and phrases.

Stop using "Stop Words" these are the common words that are often totally ignored by the search engines. Don't use inappropriate keywords. If you have a particular keyword or phrase in your met tag or web page which is not relevant to content of your website, certain search engines could find yourself banned for those engines altogether.

This article was written by Thomson Joseph a freelance website designer and website promotion expert websites -http://www.website-promoiton-expert.com , http://www.digitallabz.com digitallabzinfo@yahoo.com


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Monday, November 20, 2006

4 Tricks For Lightning Fast Indexing

4 Tricks For Lightning Fast Indexing was written by Anik Singal and writes "The biggest problem that most are running into seems to do with getting INTO the search engines. Rankings aside, you need to first get them to index you. Here are the four main ways to assure yourself fast indexing:

Indexing Tip #1:
Never launch a new site with a lot of back links. Build natural links over weeks and months.

Let's face it, there is no guaranteed method of getting indexed by Google fast, and buying links from high-ranking sites does not guarantees anything either.

The most immediate red flag you should watch out for is your number of incoming links. According to Google, it takes time to get link popularity and sites should not have more than 100 incoming links..

It's okay to launch with a quality link or two. But beyond that, you are pushing it!

Here is the scoop! It takes 30-45 days for Google to deep index new sites. Instead of sitting around during "sandbox" time, use that period to build a strong set of natural back-links with a variety of sites.

Indexing Tip #2:
Register your domain name at least four months before you plan to launch the site.

No I am not kidding! Whether you agree with it or not, history shows that Google takes older URLs far more seriously than newer ones. So register your domain name as soon as you plan on developing a site.

Indexing Tip #3:
Blog and ping carefully.

Blogging & pinging is one of the fastest ways to get into the Yahoo index - it can literally get you into Yahoo overnight - helps with MSN as well.

Will blogging and pinging help get you into Google? Maybe. But over-pinging can set off red flags on the ping servers, and if you're using automated blogging software, overdoing it can cause Blogger.com and other services to shut down your blog.

Blogging and pinging intelligently can get your blog indexed in Yahoo quickly, but ping carefully.

Does Yahoo de-index junk blogs? Absolutely. Especially since the creation of all this software, the search engines are watching closely for red flags (use software wisely).

So what can you do about Yahoo Search? Not much? You can be smart about blogging and pinging or even better, you can create real (not by software) blogs. You still have to be careful with pinging though.

In the end, blogging and pinging should be part of every beginner's indexing strategy.

Indexing Tip #4:
If you build bulk directory/portal sites - keep them in the 200-300 page range.

We know it's such a blast to build those monster 1000-5000 page sites, even with growing evidence of Google bots' tendencies to stall after indexing the first 200 pages or so?

So if you're into blasting out those gigantic directories and sick of waiting months for them to get indexed, experiment with building smaller sites around more targeted niches.

In a nutshell: Divide those mega-keyword lists, spend a little time grouping your sub-lists, and build smaller sites.

All in all, the best way to get indexed, stay indexed and eventually get ranked is to recruit incoming link partners. See, blogging and pinging could be gone tomorrow. But, linking is an integral part of how the internet works - it will never go away.

Concentrate on building sites and recruiting links - the links get you indexed, ranked and even bring you free traffic from those who click the links!

Copyright 2005 Kurma Group
Anik Singal is a 21 year old successful internet marketer who has developed his own affiliate marketing system which helped him earn over $10,466 in just 60 days.

Join his FREE Course at: http://www.AffiliateClassroom.com


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Sunday, November 19, 2006

How To Find Good Keywords

Trenton Moss has written How To Find Good Keywords and writes "Good keywords are frequently searched for (high demand) but not being targeted by many other websites (low competition). There are a number of tools out there that can help you find them.

Wordtracker
The best tool out there, Wordtracker is one of the most essential SEO tools. To use Wordtracker:
- Go to the Wordtracker website (http://www.wordtracker.com)and pay $7 for 24 hours' access
- Enter a keyword phrase you're thinking about targeting
- Wordtracker will suggest hundreds of related phrases - click on the ones you like
- Once you've clicked on all the phrases you like, run them through the program
- Wordtracker will compile a score for each phrase, based on the number of users searching for it and the number of websites targeting it.
- The higher the score, the better the keyword phrase!

Wordtracker also offers a free service which works in the same way but only uses results generated from MSN.

Overture
Also useful, Overture's search term suggestion tool (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/), is free and much quicker to use than Wordtracker. It works in much the same way as Wordtracker but doesn't tell you how many websites are targeting each keyword phrase.

Google
Google AdWords Keyword Suggestions (https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordSandbox) tell you which keyword phrases are being targeted by other websites.

Guidebeam
Guidebeam (http://www.guidebeam.com) is an interesting resource. Type in a phrase and it will suggest a large number of related searches. The numbers provided for each phrase are Guidebeam's estimation of how relevant that phrase is.

This article was written by Trenton Moss. He's crazy about web usability and accessibility - so crazy that he went and started his own web usability and accessibility consultancy ( Webcredible - http://www.webcredible.co.uk ) to help make the Internet a better place for everyone. They offer fantastic accessibility & CSS support packages, which you can read all about at http://www.webcredible.co.uk/support .


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Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Basic SEO Tactics

Basic SEO Tactics was written by Buddy Shearer and he writes "If your website is not getting the traffic you think you need then read on. There are some proven steps that you can take to improve your site. Now, get familiar with these terms because they will help your website.

Search engine optimization or SEO is part science and part voodoo, and how well it is done has a lot to do with the steps that you implement. Search engine optimization (SEO) is not about "fooling" search engines. But rather, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a long term and permanent answer to your traffic woes..

Remember, SEO is seen by many as a black magic art or some secret code that webmasters use in their everyday conversation. What you do not know is that search engine optimization is a relatively new science and requires both website interaction and monitoring to be successful. In fact, SEO is just one part of an online marketing strategy, but it is the fundamental part.

Search Engine Optimization is THE process of optimizing a website for high search engine rankings for a particular search term(s). The first step of SEO is to choose effective keywords or evaluate the ones currently in use.

First, analyze your competition. You know who they are. Rely on one of the most useful techniques in search engine optimization to focus your efforts and that is your Keyword Selection. This article will not show you or tell you how to select the best keyword(s) but rather enforce that keywords are integral to your site.

Second, rethink your linking strategy. Why? In the greater scheme of things within the Internet universe, adding a ton of helpful links on your site only helps those sites. In actuality, it could hurt your site in two ways. One – are those sites related to you? If they are not related then that is a potential strike against your site. Two – Have those site linked back to your site? If not, then having their sites linked on your web page brings no value to you.

A good linking strategy consists of having many one-way links. IndexGuy is service that provides hundreds if not thousands of one-way links back to your site. In addition, there are some free sites that offer free one-way links like “tagspage.com”. Regardless of who you choose, be smart about the links being setup.

There are strategies that work in the successful promotion of a website. It is these kinds of SEO promotions that go far beyond web page enhancement and search engine submission.

1. Blogging – Either start your own Blog or be frequent contributor of a popular one.
2. Forums – This is a special type of web site where users can ask questions or exchange ides.
3. Press Releases – These are special announcements that businesses have used in marketing campaigns.
4. Articles -- Submitting articles to these special websites can promote your site considerably if your articles are picked up by popular publishers.
5. Reciprocal Linking - This is the process of exchanging links with other similar or related websites.


There are no quick fixes where Search Engine Optimization is concerned. Search engine optimization must become a long term and permanent answer to your site’s traffic. Remember, SEO is basically the process of optimizing a site to obtain high rankings in the search engines for chosen keywords.

But now a day's search engine optimization is getting more and more important not only for regular websites but for larger corporate websites as well to attain extra website exposure.

Copyright (c) 2006 Buddy Shearer

Buddy Shearer is not a sought-after Internet marketer but rather a regular guy trying to make a living. He can be found building up SEO Tactics and other useful information.


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Saturday, November 11, 2006

How To Choose The Right Keyword

How To Choose The Right Keyword was written by David Fishman and he writes "Choosing the right keyword is easy, you should ask yourself the following question: If I were to do a search what would I type in to find or search for a website. Getting a right keyword is very important to driving traffic to your website.

Choosing the right keyword is critical and writing keyword rich pages is called SEO keyword rich pages. A top 10 position for the right keyword is really like having pure gold in your pocket. Selecting the right keyword is very important for your site. Thus choosing the keywords is of the utmost importance. Putting the in the correct keyword is always an advantage even if it's in the content itself. As in natural search engine optimization, the optimized keyword is critical to the success of your business and your entire campaign. Finding the best keyword is the key to being able to sell boost your website to the next level..

If you are serious about driving traffic to your website, then you must be dedicated to finding the right keyword phrases. The Internet is a powerful tool, but try finding the keyword or keyword phrase. Finding the right keyword phrase is an extremely important part of search engine marketing. Why are visitors not finding your website? Finding the best keyword when writing your content is very important, you really need to think of what other people are looking for when searching. There are tools on the web which assist in finding the right keyword, such as Word Tracker and Keyword Elite. Finding the right types of keywords should probably be your first priority.

The most important part of search engine optimization is selecting the best keyword phrases or key phrases. With any powerful tool, there is a right way and a few wrong ways to use them. However, selecting the right keyword phrases can be a bit difficult and identifying popular keywords phrases is also a difficult feet. Selecting and implementing it correctly is very time consuming and selecting the right words and phrases is very important. However, what gives many site owners nightmares and great difficulties is figuring out what primary keyword to use. So you can see that proceeding and doing it correctly can help you define your market better and enjoy prominence in it.

The right keywords are the fastest path to the relevant information you are after. Do you have relevant content for prospects that are in the early research stages? This is because search engines match each query with the most relevant page and not the site. Experiments with LSI content will prove that lots of targeted content with the correct keyword densities improve rank dramatically. The more relevant the keyword phrase the more relevant your traffic is.

Choosing the correct keyword in the list of keywords, the conversions will start increasing. Choosing right keyword is essential. The best way select a right keyword is to imagine what 'exact' phrase the author/webmaster might have used to describe your required information. Tagging the right keyword is very important while posting any pictures with the correct tags also helps. When choosing the best keyword it is very important because to a webmaster if they are going to optimize their website and have there site successful on the search engines.

David Marc Fishman is the owner of linknetics.com. The Best affiliate program


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Wednesday, November 08, 2006

MSN SEO Techniques

MSN SEO Techniques was written by Matt Jackson and he writes "One of the most common preconceptions with SEO is that if you optimize a site for the benefit of Google then you will rank well with other search engines. However, the big three search engines (Google, Yahoo, and MSN) all use different algorithms that demand different things. Google has a mixed bag but certainly leans towards inbound links whereas Yahoo loves keyword dense content sites. This leaves us with MSN, whose primary consideration when determining their search results seems to be heavily based on internal linking structure and inbound links. But these are far from the only SEO techniques you need to consider.

MSN The Meta Search Engine

MSN Search is a meta search engine. Whereas Google openly ignores your meta tags in the majority of cases MSN blatantly uses them to index your pages and discover your keywords. At the very least you need to include the “keywords”, “description”, and “title” meta tags. Your main keywords should be included in all of these with your primary keyword appearing first in the “keywords” meta tag. All tags must include the keywords you consider the most important to your site..

Also, because MSN uses the meta tags, you should be careful not to spam them with numerous instances of your keyword or the use of incorrect or inaccurate keywords. At present, meta spamming doesn’t seem to be an issue with the MSNbot but it is only a matter of time and when the change occurs you won’t receive any warning before your site is penalized.

Page Layout And Code

The coding of a page is always an issue with search engines and, therefore, should be important to you as well. If a crawler can’t crawl your site then you are unlikely to be indexed and you certainly won’t receive the high ranking you want. Keep the amount of HTML or any other programming language on your page down to an absolute minimum and ensure that page sizes are below 150KB at the very most.

Another slightly contentious issue is the use of tables. Again, this leads us back to a crawling problem. MSN does not condemn the use of tables on the whole. However, the MSNbot does not like to see tables within tables within tables. This can be a problem if you don’t use CSS and rely on tables to keep your page neat. Including another table in the layout of your page begins to make things look messy from the point of view of the MSNbot.

Keyword Density

Keyword density is an area of SEO that always causes arguments. No search engine openly publishes their requirements in this area but it is widely accepted that while Google has stringent rules in place that require minimal use of keywords both Yahoo and MSN have a much greater tolerance for higher levels. Google prefers only a 2% to 3% density while MSN and Yahoo allow 5% to 6%, possibly even a little higher.

Of course this raises the problem that optimizing for MSN may have you flagged as spam with Google. Fortunately, MSN and Yahoo, both take keyword stemming and keyword variants into account when doing their calculations. Use keyword plurals and stems, and try to ensure that you don’t go above the Google ideal of 2% for each of these variants. Also, it is absolutely imperative that your SEO writing does not prevent you from writing copy that is appealing to human visitors.

Website Infrastructure And SEO

Your website infrastructure is important to MSN. Many sites, my own included, have shown excellent results in MSN based on the internal text links and associated anchor text. Try to use the primary keyword for a page as its title and ensure that you use this keyword in all of your navigation bars on your site. This will have a very positive influence on the MSNbot.

Also, as with all search engines, MSN wants to be able to reach every page of your site quickly and easily. Text links are best for navigation and all pages should be reached within three clicks from your home page. If you use graphical navigation bars then you should consider either changing them to text links or including a sitemap that is one click away from your homepage.

Inbound Link Importance

Inbound links count as votes for your website. The more votes you get from sites the better, but moreover the more influential the sites that provide a link to you the greater your search engine results. In all honesty, MSN currently appear to favor the quantity of links over the quality but search engine algorithms are renowned for evolving so try to plan ahead and get relevant links from popular pages. The most important aspect of any individual inbound link is the anchor text. You must get webmasters to use your primary keyword for the page that the link points to as the anchor text.

MSN SEO Conclusion

MSN Search is gaining a little ground on its major competitor, Google. Microsoft is unlikely to sit back and be happy with only taking a small share of the market so optimizing for MSN in order to ensure that you get beneficial results from their search engine is a very good idea. It is possible to optimize pages and content for all of the major search engines if done properly and carefully.

About The Author
WebWiseWords is a website copywriter service that specializes in providing well optimized content that remains appealing for human visitors. They also offer an ethical link building service to help further your SEO efforts.


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Monday, November 06, 2006

7 Simple Tips to Top Search Engine Rankings

7 Simple Tips to Top Search Engine Rankings was written by Earma Brown and she writes "Search Engine traffic is one of the best kinds of website traffic. Targeted traffic is pre-qualified traffic that’s already interested in your website content. In other words, they see your site on a list of results because they were searching for information about the subject of your website.

These are strategies and are not guarantees that I have used with my own websites with success. To increase your site visitors’ leads and sales; implement these simple search engine techniques to rise to the top:

1. Register Your Keyword Rich Domain Name – Use your keywords or a keyword phrases in your domain name. It creates brand awareness. Use these resources for your wholesale priced domain names..

2. Learn Basic HTML – A lot of search engine optimization techniques involve editing the basic HTML code. At least you should be able to view the source code of any page and understand what it all means, and basically edit it as necessary.

3. Create a Top Notch Page Title: Title tags are key because all search engines give the tag a lot of weight. Put your keyword phrases into this tag. Avoid using extra words linking, non-descript company name or home page. Think of this tag as the “Title Keyword Tag”. It should reflect exactly what your page is about. Focus on using the keyword phrases people might be using in the search engine to find your company.

4. Description Meta Tag. Some search engines will include the description below your title. Carefully choose 20 of your most important keywords and write a 200-500 character sentence about your site. Don’t just repeat your title but write with different keywords. Some search engines prefer just the description Meta tag and some will use both title and description tags.

SEO TOOL TIP: Here are a few tools:
http://www.instantmarketingsecrets.com/keyword.htm
http://www.smtek.info/cgi-bin/keyword-tool.cgi
http://www.goodkeywords.com

5. Keyword Meta Tag. Since keywords you or I think might be great keywords for your site may not be what people are actually looking for. To find the best keywords for your site, look for the highly searched and target keywords/keyword phrases related to your site and put them in a list.

Power Marketing Tip: Leave out the commas between your keywords, so the search engine can group the words into any phrases someone is looking for. This way your words take up minimum space with maximum combinations.

6. Keyword Density. The ratio of keywords on your page to non-keywords is called Keyword Density. For example, you have 100 words on your page and three of those words are “piano” or “pianos”, then you will get a keyword density of your text for the word “piano”. Aim for a keyword density on your site from 3-20%. This will offer you a good range.

SEO TOOL TIP: You may analyze your page density by using this online tool: http://www.keyworddensity.com/

7. Header Tags. Search engines place emphasis on the header tags so make sure you have your H1 tag on your web page. Use CSS (cascading style sheets) to avoid the problem of your text appearing too large when using html for this tag. Use the other header tags (H2, H3, and H4) throughout your web page.

If you want long lasting traffic that will come back for more again and again, implement the above simple SEO tips. Aim for a simple clean look and design for your web site. Develop your site with premium and keyword rich copy, according to how it will benefit your visitor. Use these powerful but simple SEO tips and rise to the top to get the best traffic.

-----------------------------

© Earma Brown, 9 book author, web developer and small business owner EBK: eBook It! Ten Tips to Profit From Your Passion. Helps small business owners and writers who want to market effectively online! She also mentors other writers and business professionals through her bi-monthly ezine Passion to Profit With Ebooks & More. Send any email to passiontoprofit@clickeasyebooks.com and receive monthly free ebook or visit her on the web at http://www.clickeasyebooks.com for more online marketing tips.


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Friday, November 03, 2006

SEO Tips: The Most Important 5

SEO Tips: The Most Important 5 was written by Joanne King and she writes "Getting your website ranked highly in organic search engine listings can be a daunting task if you do not have the knowledge to achieve your goal. I looked through all my SEO tips and chose the most important to help you get started, read on to find my 5 top SEO tips.

SEO Tips

Number 1.

Your site should be optimized for the keyword phrase you want search engines to have your site listed for, this means researching the most commonly used search string or keyword phrase for your niche. You can use http://inventory.overture.com as a great research tool to find the keyword you wish to use..

Number 2.

Now you have your chosen keyword phrase you need to write the content you wish to have on your site. Within this content you need to include your keyword phrase with a density of between 1 and 7 percent, this means 1 to 7 times for every 100 words written.

Number 3.

Headings and Subheadings are very important as a great tool for reinforcing your chosen keywords; an example of this could be the keyword car insurance where you could use the following heading and subheading

Heading - Cheap car insurance
Subheading – Get a free car insurance quote today

Number 4.

Include your phrase in the title tag of your website, the title tag is a short sentence of html that sits in the head of your web page. The title tag is the written information that appears in the top bar of your web browser that shows a description of each site of each site you visit.

Number 5.

Building links to your site from other sites is important, although I do warn you that any old site linking to your own will not do. All sites linking to your site should preferably be related in subject and be valued highly by the search engines, DO NOT get links from link farms (sites who have a whole page linking to lots of sites that are different in topic) as this could affect your ranking.

Try implementing these five SEO tips and you could soon be on your way to getting a higher search engine listing.

Website Traffic Get 100 FREE Visitors to Your Website Everyday Easily & Quickly with “My MSN SEO Secrets”. Go directly to: http://www.msnseosecrets.com


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Thursday, November 02, 2006

The Mystery of the Magical Keyword Density Formula

The Mystery of the Magical Keyword Density Formula was written by Karon Thackston and writes "Keyword density. When it comes to SEO copywriting, this has to be one of the most talked about subjects. Why? Because keywords are the very foundation of search engine copywriting. Without keywords we wouldn't even have SEO copywriting. Because keywords (or more accurately, keyphrases) play such an important role in search engine copywriting, it might make sense that there are certain rules and regulations - certain formulas - that should be followed. It might make sense, but, I'm sorry to say, the mystery? the magic? is more like a myth.

I have a guess as to where these magic formulas come from. Someone brags to their friend that they got #1 ranking for a particular keyphrase. The friend studiously looks over the site and starts taking notes. "He used this phrase eight times in a 500-word piece of copy. He put the keywords in here and there and over here, too. That means you have to put keyphrases in these places and reach a keyword density of 1.6% in order to get a #1 ranking." Not so! Let me explain why keyword density formulas don't fly.

Copywriting Is One Piece of the Search Engine Optimization Formula
Copywriting, in my opinion and the opinions of respected search engine optimizers, is 1/3 of the puzzle; but there are other pieces to the puzzle, too. What about coding and linking? Those are two extremely important factors that also come into play..

*IF* copywriting were the sole factor, then maybe - just maybe - keyword density formulas might be a reality instead of a fable. But alas? it isn't.

Keyword Density Formulas Are Unproven
Go to any search engine. Type in your primary keyphrase. Look at the results that fall into the number one through five slots. Do they all have the same keyword density? No. Some have higher levels, some have lower levels.

If keyword density formulas were carved in stone, every single site in the top 10 would have the same keyword saturation levels. But alas? they don't.

All Keyphrases Aren't Created Equal
Think about the competitiveness of the various keyphrases on the Internet. You have some like "search engine marketing" that are exceptionally competitive. Then there are others like "sushi restaurant in Charlotte, NC" that aren't. You have to account for how many other sites you'll be battling with when you write search engine copy.

Positioning of Keyphrases
In addition to the number of times a keyphrase is used, you need to pay attention to *where* your keyphrases are used. While it has not been proven to my knowledge, it is strongly suspected that keyphrases that have special formatting carry additional weight. By special formatting I mean bold, italics, in bulleted lists, in tags, etc. As I said, this has not been proven. Again, go to your favorite search engine and type in a keyphrase. If formatting and positioning were a carved-in-stone rule, all the sites in the top 10 would be using these tactics. But alas? they aren't.

Why the Myths?
I understand why people want formulas. Having hard and fast rules to follow means, if you apply the formula, you know you've done the job right and you can't fail. The problem is there isn't just one right way to create search engine copy. There are as many ways to write SEO copy as there are sites on the Web.

Am I holding back? Am I trying to protect my highly classified industry copywriting secrets? Not at all. In fact, go to my site at http://www.marketingwords.com. Visit the portfolio section. If I had a fiercely protected secret that I was holding out on, all the sites with SEO copy in my portfolio would have the same keyword density. But alas? they don't.

What DOES Work?
So after I've dashed your dreams, the least I can do is give you some insight into how *I* write SEO copy. I don't do any or all of these in any particular order. I don't do them all every time I write. I am NOT saying that you should do all of these things every time you write.

1) If possible, I try to include keyphrase(s) in the headline and sub-headlines. If it doesn't make sense, if it sounds odd, I don't include them.

2) When it flows, I include keyphrases roughly once or twice per paragraph. Do I count words? Do I run keyword density ratios? Never! I just eyeball the page to see if it looks right.

3) This I do EVERY time I write? I focus on natural language. If the copy sounds forced or stiff after including keyphrases, I scrap it and start over. Read your copy out loud. If it sounds stupid or redundant to you, it will sound stupid and redundant to your site visitor. Don't compromise the flow of natural language for the sake of search engines. What good will number one rankings do if - as soon as visitors get to your home page - they click away because the copy is so awful? All the number one spots in the world won't pay your grocery bill. You ultimately have to have sales and that means winning over your human visitors.

4) If possible, I try to include keyphrase(s) in bold, italic, bulleted lists, or in other text that is specially formatted. If it doesn't make sense, if it looks funny or sounds odd, I don't include them.

So that's it. Are those feelings you had when you learned there wasn't a Santa Claus or Easter Bunny coming back? Sorry. I truly am. But it's for your own good. If you're going to be an effective search engine copywriter, you have to learn the truth. Relying on myths will only hold you back. Now pick yourself up, dust yourself off, and get moving on that next number-one-ranking page.

Karon Thackston © 2004
About The Author
Copy not getting results? Learn to write SEO copy that impresses the engines and your visitors at http://www.copywritingcourse.com. Be sure to check out Karon's latest e-report "How To Increase Keyword Saturation (Without Destroying the Flow of Your Copy)" at http://www.copywritingcourse.com/keyword.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 10:47 PM | | Comments

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Link Building And Its Use In SEO

Link Building And Its Use In SEO was written by Matt Jackson Platinum and he writes "Link building has long been heralded as one of the most important aspects of any effective SEO campaign, and with good reason. The major search engines certainly give some weight to the number and quality of inbound links that a website receives. It’s also true that with good links from high traffic websites you can generate a very good amount of direct traffic from your links. However, the evolution of SEO and search engine algorithms means that gaining links from your site has become a different challenge when compared to link building of old.

Reciprocal Link Campaigns – Dead?

Originally, the most commonly used and potentially advantageous method of building links was using a reciprocal link program. The concept is a simple one. By including a link to another website on your resource or links page, they would reciprocate with a link to your own site. However, numerous algorithm changes have made this a less attractive way of gaining links. Too many links on your resource page and you will be flagged as a lank farm or spam site and search engines now tend to give a reciprocal link much less weight than a one way inbound link..

Buying Text Links – Ineffective?

Buying text links from websites also became a popular method to build a strong base of links. Again, though, this is now frowned upon by many of the search engines. They want to see links that have been gained because your site, or you personally, create and publish high quality information and content and provide a top quality service. In an ideal world these links would be gained organically. Webmasters would visit your site through the search engine listings or any other marketing methods and see top quality content, subsequently posting a link to one or more pages on your site. In reality, though, there are several problems with this.

Organic Links – Unobtainable?

Organic links are well and good but you have to have a popular site before you can begin to expect this kind of accolade. If you have no visitors then how can you hope to attract Webmsaters to post links to your site on the pages of their own site? The answer is, you have to drive customers to your site. Another problem is that even the best content in the world will struggle to gain organic links because Webmasters won’t offer something for nothing. You need to be able to provide some benefit, apart from quality information, to persuade Webmasters of popular sites to link to you.

Article Directories – Effective?

This is where article directories come in. Article directories are large directories filled with articles written by people looking to promote products, gain links for their site, and generally promote themselves and their services. Every article is allowed an About The Author section at the foot of the article (just like this article has) that can contain one or two links to a website. Some directories allow the use of HTML hyperlinks and in terms of SEO it is vital that you choose these sites to assist with linking. Don’t forget that you need to be able to add keywords to your anchor text in order to help promote your site with search engines.

The Importance Of Link Anchor Text And Some Common Mistakes

A common mistake in linking is the poor use of anchor text. Many people mask their URL behind text like “Click Here” or even their domain name. While the latter provides a little more value it is still unlikely to really help with any link-building program. When a search engine sees a valid link that they follow they use the anchor text to determine the subject of that page. They will then include this page in results for searches that are based on or very close to those keywords. Therefore, using anchor text of “Click Here” means you will be increasing your search engine visibility for anyone searching for the term “Click Here”. On Google the term “Click Here” currently 391 million results. Even if you genuinely wanted to compete in this area you would have no chance.

Using your domain name as anchor text poses similar problems. It is helpful with brand recognition and also ensures that should a surfer explicitly search for the name of your service they will be shown your site first. But how many people do you think find your site by searching for your domain name? The answer, unfortunately, is very few indeed. Always use keywords as your anchor text and make sure that this keyword is included on the page of your site that the link points to.

Using an irrelevant but popular keyword may seem like a good idea but it is a very dangerous game. Adult and online business keywords are among the most popular but when conducting any link building you MUST use keywords in anchor text that directly relate to that page of your site. I might notice that the term “blue widget” (a surprisingly popular choice of keyword for these purposes) receives a lot of searches and use that as the anchor text to point to this article. If I hadn’t included the search term above then Google and other engines would give the link no weight at best. At worst, and if I were to do this regularly, they would flag me, my page, my site, and my IP address as spam. A much better choice of keyword, and therefore anchor text for this article would be “link building”.

Ideal Article Length For Submitting To Directories

Articles submitted to directories can range in length from blog post sized 200 word articles to much more substantial articles of 1,000 to 2,000 words. Anything larger is unlikely to attract any substantial attention but these longer articles less than 2000 words in length are good ammunition for e-zines and electronic newsletters. Even these can gain good links if each issue is archived. They will also usually gain a very good amount of direct traffic.

Choosing Beneficial Article Directories For Your Article Submission

So, the article directories you choose should allow the use of anchor text. They should also offer either a high PageRank or a lot of traffic. PageRank can be viewed using the Google toolbar and anything below PageRank 3 is virtually useless unless the site receives a lot of traffic or is brand new and looks set to become popular in the near future. Alexa is a very good site to help determine the amount of incoming traffic that a site receives. Use as many directories as you can possibly find and submit your article to each one. Try to alter the About The Author section for each directory that you submit to.

Why You Should Consider Altering The Text Around Your Link

Google quickly recognizes that a lot of your links are from identical pages. You will still receive the benefit of your link building and you don’t get penalized for this but you won’t receive as much weight as you can. When you use the Google search engine you will usually notice that when you come to the end of the list you receive notification that a certain amount of results that are very similar to those you have already seen have been excluded from the results. Google does something very similar when compiling the list of inbound links to your site. By changing the text that is found around your link when you submit to each directory you will increase your link popularity.

Conclusion, Summary, And General Notes

There are hundreds of article directories and while you should post to all the ones that offer anchor text and have either a high PageRank or a lot of traffic you shouldn’t bog yourself down too much. Certainly include niche sites because these give you a targeted section of readers. There are also some major general directories that cater to all tastes and are certainly worth adding to your article directory database.

Links are said to be the currency of the Internet and are certainly worth investing some time and/or money into. They will help to boost your search engine rankings and will usually drive direct traffic to your site. By building a database of directories you can ensure that your articles and therefore your sites receive the kind of exposure they rightly deserve.

About The Author

WebWiseWords offers unique link building packages that include article writing and submission. Packages range from basic one off submission to the pro+ package that includes four submissions per month to over 70 directories. Because WebWiseWords is a Platinum or Expert copywriter with many of these directories your article receives even more exposure.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 7:46 AM | | Comments

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