Thursday, August 31, 2006

Meta tag optimization results in high search engine ranking

Meta tag optimization results in high search engine ranking was written by James Day and writes "I was compelled to publish this article after noticing several SEO specialists writing in reference to meta tags being dead or obsolite. Meta tags are not dead. I will be the first to say, meta tags are utilized by all major search engines and are very much in use and extremely important to search engine ranking. If you need proof of how important meta tags are, try removing your meta tags and watch what happens to your search engine positioning. Your site will plummet to the depths of the unvisited web. Meta tags are frequently an overlooked factor which can improve the ranking of most any website.

This is an example of how vital meta tags are to your webpage and to your search engine ranking. Our website ranks #6 and #7 consistantly on MSN for the keyword submit site. To test the dead meta tag theory, our source code editor changed one word in the meta description tag and we dropped to #15 in the search results. Our rankings on Google and several other search engines suffered even more so. Needless to say we made changes accordingly. All major search engines definitely utilize meta tags for a description of the webpage and for indexing within the search results..

The title tag is one of the most important on page factors to consider. This is because search engine spiders read this tag first and place a high level of importance on the keywords found there. The title tag is also used for the title of your listing in the search results. The contents of your title tag will also appear in the top left corner of the browser bar. Correct title tag optimization is essiential and will result in a dramatic increase in your search engine ranking. Title tag should contain at least one or more keywords to be of any relevance to the webpage.

Search engine spiders read the description meta tag next. This tag is often used as a website description in the search results. The description tag should also contain a few keywords. The keyword meta tag is also vital to search engine ranking giving search engine spiders a sample of relevant text and content within a webpage. Other meta tags include robots, resource, author, copyright etc. These tags are not as important as the title, description and keyword tag, however they should be included if possible. To acheive high search engine ranking optimize your meta data. Proper onpage optimization will greatly improve your search engine placement.

About the Author
Article written by the CEO of http://www.submit-site.org/


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 6:01 AM | | Comments

Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes

Top 5 Search Engine Optimization Mistakes was written by Robin Eldred and he writes "There are a lot of ways to promote your website and, unfortunately, a lot of these methods are mistakes. Here is a list of some of the more common mistakes (often referred to as Black Hat SEO) that you should steer well clear of.

1. Bad Neighbourhoods

These sites are also known as free for all (FFA) pages and link farms. They serve no other purpose other than to list tens of thousands of unrelated websites. Not only will these sites not provide your site with any traffic, certain search engines will ban sites who participate.

2. Over Optimization

Optimizing your web pages for a particular search engine can be a good thing. Over-optimizing can defeat the purpose, however. Search engines are catching on quickly to pages that appear 'over-optimized'. Stuffing keyphrases into your pages is the most common problem. Never use hidden (invisible) text to add keywords. You will get caught, and your site will get banned..

3. Doorway Pages

Doorway pages are orphaned web pages that are typically optimized for a particular keyphrase and a particular search engine. They are promoted to the search engine in an effort to achieve high rankings. They are not linked back to by any other page on the website and, as such, search engines are able to flush them out quite easily and penalize the entire site.

4. Traffic Generation Scams

Services that purport to drive lots and lots of traffic to your website are typically not very useful. The traffic tends to come from seedy places like domain names that have lapsed in payment or commonly misspelled domain entries. Most of the traffic that hits these pages is accidental and is therefore of no value to you. Other traffic may come from other participants in the program who are required to visit other websites to gain 'credits' for their own site. Again, this traffic is not targeted and therefore of no value. Some traffic may even be generated by automated software!

5. Shadow Domains

Shadow domains are small, optimized, supplementary websites designed to drive traffic to a different website. The way this works is that an SEO company will design and optimize a website on your behalf. The danger here is that the you do not own this new website; the SEO company does! This means that if the relationship sours, they may choose to redirect this site's traffic to whomever they choose (see #4 above), or even sell the site to one of your competitors! Be very, very careful of this technique, as some supposed search engine 'experts' even use this method (no naming of names here, however).

One final note: Any company that tells you that it can achieve 'guaranteed' rankings is either lying to you or using some of these Black Hat techniques. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee a number one result within (unpaid) search results. When choosing a search engine optimization company to work with, be sure you feel comfortable with them and trust them (e.g. money back guarantee). And if you decide to promote your website yourself, consider yourself a little better educated against these common mistakes.

About The Author
Robin Eldred is the president of Apis Design, a Calgary Web Design and Promotion company specializing in building, managing and promoting quality, results-oriented websites for small businesses (http://www.apis.ca/)
robin@apis.ca


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 4:18 AM | | Comments

Wednesday, August 30, 2006

The 3 Essential Components of a Search Engine Optimization Campaign

The 3 Essential Components of a Search Engine Optimization Campaign was written by Matt Hockin and he writes "Everyday, the Search Engines average 300 MILLION searches. In a recent Forrester Research report 81% of consumers on the Internet find products and services by using the Search Engines. Search Engine Optimization allows you to achieve top search engine placement and a tap into a new source of qualified visitors who are actively searching for products and services on the Internet.

Unfortunately, only 7% of all websites are visible by the search engines according to a recent StatMarket.com study. The reason for this phenomenon is because most web sites are not properly optimized and promoted to achieve high search engine rankings.

The Top 3 Components Of Optimizing Your Web Site for Top Search Engine Rankings:

To achieve the best overall, long-term search engine positioning, three components must be present on your web site:

1. Content component (Your web page text.)

2. Link component (How you link your pages together.)

3. Link Popularity component (The in-bound links to your site.)

1) The Content Component

The most important part of the content component (of a search engine algorithm) is keyword selection and where you place keywords on your web pages. In order for your target audience to find your site on the search engines, your web pages must contain keyword phrases that match the phrases your target audience is typing into search queries. Finding these keywords that your target audience uses to find your product is accomplished by conducting keyword research.

2) The Link Component - Internal Linking

The strategy of placing keyword-rich text on your web pages is useless if the search engine spiders have no way of finding that text. The way your web pages are linked to each other has huge impact on your site's search engine positioning. Be sure to link your pages together with your keywords within your links.

3) The Link Popularity Component - Acquiring In-Bound Links

The "Link Popularity" or Google "Page Rank" (PR) component of a search engine algorithm analyzes how many web sites link to your website.

95% of the battle of getting high rankings at the search engine is acquiring quality and relevant links pointing to your web site. Ever since Google entered the search engine market, all the major Search Engines have started using links as the primary way they rank web sites. This is known as your web site's "Link Popularity" or in Google's case it's called "PageRank" or "PR."

For example, the heart of Google's algorithm is PageRank, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. Here is what Google says about their "PageRank" web site ranking algorithm at their web site http://www.google.com/technology/...

"PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves "important" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages "important."

As Google explains, Links and PageRank are critical to ranking high in the search engines. In fact, inbound links and the text within those inbound links account for 95% of effective search engine optimization.

Relevant Links: But, attaining optimal link popularity is not as easy as simply obtaining as many links as possible to your website. The quality and relevancy of the sites linking to your site holds more "weight" than the quantity of sites linking to your site. Since Yahoo is the most frequently visited site on the web, a link from Yahoo to your website carries far more "weight" than a link from a smaller, less visited site.

Here's what Google Developer Matt Cutts has to say about links...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"Thematic incoming links from authority sites
carry more weight than on-page optimization."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Top 4 Strategies for Acquiring Links to Your Web Site:

Below are the four critical steps for achieving high rankings by acquiring text links to your web site...

1) Get a higher Google PageRank score than your competition For any given keyword, there is a minimum PageRank required to rank at Google. In order to see what this minimum PageRank number is, search Google for your keyword and look at the PageRank of your competition's web sites that are ranked in the top 10 of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). An easy way to view the PageRank scores of your competition is to use Google Toolbar http://toolbar.google.com or the SEOChat PageRank Search tool. http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/

2) Get more relevant links than your competition All links are not created equal. The best links are "relevant" links from web pages related to your keyword.

3) Get more links on more different web sites than your competition Getting links on a variety of different web sites on different networks is crucial for high rankings.

4) Use the keywords you want to high rankings in the search engines as the anchor text of your in-bound links. "Anchor text" is the visible text within a hyperlink. Text links and anchor text are the two most important criteria for how Google and other top Search Engines rank web sites.

Here is an example of a link containing the keyword phrase "ERP Software" within the anchor text...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
F*R*E*E [ERP Software] white paper shows how
to increase profitability and reduce inventory.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Relevant Links and PageRank are critical to achieving high search engine rankings. Want proof? Do a search at Google for the highly competitive keyword "computers" and you'll find Apple and Dell computers rank numbers 1 and 2 in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Now, click through to the Apple and Dell web pages and look for the word "computers" in their web page text. What did you find? Neither www.apple.com or www.dell.com have the word "computers" in their text, yet they're ranking #1 and #2 at Google.

Relevant Links and PageRank Win!

The sites with the most relevant links and highest Google PageRank win every time and rank the highest at the top search engines. There are many methods you can use to acquire text links including buying links from a broker, Internet directories, reciprocal linking, Internet publicity, and others.

Matt Hockin is President of Interactive Marketing, Inc., an Internet marketing consulting company providing web site optimization and search engine marketing services that "tune up" web sites for increased conversion rates, traffic, qualified leads, and profitability. For more information, visit http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 5:34 AM | | Comments

5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program for Your Website

5 Qualities to Look for in a Search Engine Optimization Program for Your Website was written by Jim Lisi and he writes "These days with millions of websites out there, you need a way to get noticed. When your company website is ranked highly in the major search engines, customers from all over the world can find your front door. suddenly, your virtual storefront becomes prime business property and you are making sales 24/7.

What can a web site owner do to make sure your site appears in the top 2 pages in any given search engine? You could buy some submission software, read some books and try it yourself. But what if you miss something and find your site's not positioned, or worse, banned. The only other option is to hire a search engine specialist.

There are alot of self-proclaimed, "SEO specialists" and "search engine submission" companies, so you need to know what to look for in the positioning program they offer..

Here are my top five things to look for in a Search Engine position program:

1. SE Optimization (SEO) - The pages on your site are checked for the percentage of keywords you want to target, and the quality of the content on the page. Your SEO consultant should make recommendations regarding your site content to improve it in the eye of the Search Engines.

Key search engines like MSN and AOL Search still rely on metatags or html code that include keywords related to your site. A good SEO optimization of your metatags can mean the difference of a #40 ranking vs. a Top 20 ranking.

2. Pay per click (PPC) - PPC search engines like Overture (formerly Goto.com) and Findwhat can get you targeted, fast traffic while you are patiently watching the other search engines to rank your site. Recently, Overture's top 3 keywords results show up at the top of searches on Yahoo! above the Yahoo! paid sites. For some keywords, paying for a top 3 position can be very expensive, but with careful research you can find some keywords available for 5 cents per click.

3. Regular monitoring - You should get an initial report in 4-6 weeks and then preferably a monthly report. Your SEO consultant should provide ideas on achieving better rankings for keywords that are not doing as well as you'd like to see. While a Top 10 ranking is the ideal, some Top 20 rankings are realistic.

4. Inclusion in select pay for inclusion SE indexes and directories - Inclusions in fee based can be useful if you want to target specific search engines or directories like Looksmart and Yahoo! Depending on your budget, you may want to purchase inclusion right away or hold off until the other Search Engines pick you up first. Your SEO consultant should provide the option to help you get into fee-based inclusions, and be able to explain the benefits and differences of each one.

5. Submission to key SE directories - To rank well on Google and in turn, Yahoo! web pages, you need to be listed in the Open Directory Project directory. Directories like ODP are human edited and depending on the category, it can take from 3 weeks to 2 months to get accepted.

Yahoo! is another key directory, and you MIGHT be able to get your site in for free still, if it's non-commercial or a very localized business to a specific city or region. Your SEO consultant should submit your site to ODP and monitor it to make sure it's accepted, and depending on the extent of your program, offer to submit your site to the Yahoo! free submit, if it's appropriate.

By Jim Lisi
Website Consultant

About The Author
From 1996 - 1999 Jim Lisi worked in the web-hosting services industry at Concentric Network, which was bought out by XO Communications. In 1999, Jim was offered the position of Director of Sales at TopTenRanking Inc, a top web promotion company in LA, California. Starting in 2000, Jim Lisi formed his own web promotion company, EzRankings.com, utilizing some of the best website promotion specialists in the industry today.
www.EzRankings.com; jlisi@ezrankings.com;
info@ezrankings.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 5:32 AM | | Comments

Tuesday, August 29, 2006

How to Choose a Search Engine Optimization Company

Earl Juanico has written How to Choose a Search Engine Optimization Company and writes "Many businesses recognize that search engines can bring volumes of highly targeted prospects to their Website, typically at a fraction of the cost of traditional marketing. It is a well known fact that Internet marketing and advertising is booming these days. Studies have shown that 85% of those who are looking for information over the Internet do so by means of search engines. Furthermore, a hefty 90% of these people rarely browse beyond the first two pages of a search engine result, or beyond the top 20 ranked Websites.

Thus it is important to increase your business Website’s visibility amidst the overabundance of competitors out there who are seeking their own way among the top 20 ranked search engine result. Search engine optimization companies provide you with a professional solution to achieve an enhanced Website visibility. But there are a lot of search engine optimization companies these days, and choosing which one to hire could be a headache. This article discusses some tips on how to choose asearch engine optimization company suitable to your needs. The appropriate search engine optimization company to choose should be one that is highly skilled in keyword or key-phrase formulation. This is the crucial initial part when it comes to search engine optimization to increase visitor volume to a particular Website. Professional Websites usually pass this first criteria so it is still not enough to discriminate between the right choice from the poor choice search engine optimization company..

It's a common misconception that a Website should show up in the search engines right away. Actually, it may take months to rank well in Google, possibly longer depending on how competitive the key phrases are. This lag time is well known in search engine circles as the "Google sandbox" or the "Google aging delay".

Search engine success really takes patience, time, and persistence. So don’t choose a search engine optimization company that tells you otherwise. These search engine optimization companies are for one, lying to you and two, trying to sell something that will do more harm to your business than good. These search engine optimization companies who promise an overnight solution resort to " search engine spam" schemes as a shortcut to success, which could actually get your Website banned from a search engine—indeed a deathblow to your Website’s search engine visibility.

Recently, the major search engines such as Google have initiated a campaign of giving higher regard for original content on Websites as well as quality incoming links. Many business Websites these days utilize template contents provided by Website vendors. Thus, in order to rank well you should choose a search engine optimization company that is capable of providing original content that is attractive to the search engines, and to the site's visitors. In addition, you will be adding value to your Website visitors by employing search engine optimization companies who abide by such practice.

The important point with increasing your Website ranking is to stand out from the rest of the competition. The key is to be original! Whether buying or selling, people always have a need for a place to turn to for valuable information. If a search engine optimization company can provide it, high search traffic volume and volume of clients to your Website will be a natural consequence.

Earl Juanico
SEO Company
Earl Juanico SEO Company - http://jump2top.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 6:21 AM | | Comments

Search Engine Optimization for Beginners

Search Engine Optimization for Beginners was written by Jack Humphrey and he writes "If you are confused about terms like "search engine optimization" or having a "search engine friendly" site, then listen up! I am here to help.

Depending on how long you have had, or considered having, a website online, you have heard terms thrown around like the above or even worse, acronyms! SEO comes to mind.

Really there is not that much to fear even if you have no idea right now what is really meant by having a search engine friendly site.

Here is what search engines like to have in their results when people type in keywords:

1. A site with lots of content.

2. A site with UNIQUE content (Original - meaning you wrote it or you paid someone to write it for you.)

3. Sites that are well organized link-wise (meaning simple navigation from the main page of your site to every other page of your site.)

4. Sites that have links pointing to them from other popular, relevant sites. (sites that are similar in content to yours but that are not in direct competition with yours in content)

5. Sites that change regularly (not static but always growing with new content on a regular basis)

6. Sites they can read. (search engine robots cannot read javascript for instance and therefore you get no credit for whatever content is in that application on your site)

7. Tightly themed sites. It is easier for an engine to rank your site properly (where you want it to be) if you are not all over the map in content.

Exception: Portal sites or directories. But this is an item for another article all together

What About The Complicated Stuff?

There really isn't anything complicated about what the search engines want. But if you have stumbled into a search engine forum you were likely blown away with comments and tips that were completely over your head.

There is a difference between basic, standard optimization and the stuff they talk about in those forums. While visting SEO forums is good to keep up on new things as you go along, many people get confused and the forums are the breeding grounds for confusion when you are a beginner.

Try to learn advanced SEO from noted experts in the field rather than taking anything in chats or forums as gospel. A lot more people THINK they know what they are doing than actually do.

Remember that anything someone is willing to give away for free which, if it works, could be worth tens of thousands of dollars in high rankings resulting in high sales, is probably something that is old hat and not effective anymore.

But for now, you have a lot of work to do on the basics. The advanced stuff can come later. Relative to the advanced SEO, getting the basics right is the most powerful move you can make because you are going from zero to moving up in rankings by, many times, tens of thousands of spaces in a relatively short time.

Advanced SEO focuses on moving your site from high rankings slightly higher rankings.

Keywords
Your content is the most important thing about a website. It must be friendly to the search engines meaning no special java script or other stuff. Just good old fashioned HTML. You will do fine with PHP, SHTML, and other things, but for the purpose of this article, HTML is the way most people construct their sites.

You should use a good density of your main keyword phrase for each page of your site within the content. If you are going after a high ranking for the phrase "dog leashes" you need to have that phrase in the title of the page and throughout the content.

Programs that are great for analyzing your site and giving feedback on how to improve your rankings don't come any more highly recommended that Internet Business Promoter from Axandra.

More Info: http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/jdh358

Nice thing about the software above is that it teaches you search engine optimization while it works on your site. So having it is like having a course on optimization while your site is altered for the best placement in the search engines at the same time.

The main recommendation I have for people starting to deal with optimizing their sites for the engines is to take things one at a time and get the basics down before you start messing with advanced strategies.

And when you start down that road, information you pay for is usually more accurate and more valuable than hanging around in forums. High rankings are worth a LOT of money and people don't work hard to become experts just to give that information away.

Good luck and get to work!

Jack Humphrey is the CEO of http://WebFoxMedia.com, an online marketing consulting firm that focuses on publicity, traffic generation and website development for small to large companies.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 6:07 AM | | Comments

Five and a Half Ways to Amp Up Your Search Engine Optimizatio

Five and a Half Ways to Amp Up Your Search Engine Optimization was written by Dave Carlson and he writes "Statistics show that 85% of pages visited on the Internet come from people who have gotten there from a search engine. Statistically, people look first at the top of the first page of the regular search results, then the bottom, and then they go to the sponsored listings.

There is an art and science to being ranked highly on the search engines. The science is formatting the pages with the right meta tags and submitting them in the right way to the search engines. The art is to make the site look and read normal in spite of filling it with key words.

Here are five and a half ways to get a higher ranking and more visitors:

1. Pick the right Key Words and Phrases

These are the words and phrases that people will put into search engines to try to find your product, business or organization. Having good key words and phrases is foundational to have good optimization. This takes research using such tools at Wordtracker and Overture's Keyword Suggestion Tool. They give you a good idea of what people are searching for and what you should focus on..

2. Use Good Header Tags

Header tags are hidden in the code within your Web page. The most important one is the "title" tag, which isn't considered a META tag. It tells what's within your page and it's important to have your keyphrases in it. It is also good to have keyphrases in your "description" META tag, though it doesn't rank nearly as high as the "title" tag.

3. Use Keyphrases in Your Visible Page Title

Provide a unique title to each page on your site that is chock full of key words and phrases. Search engines like this because it means that there is a higher probability that your site is a good match for what people are looking for. This is should be placed within the H1 tag (top heading) of your page and is visible to the visitor. It also pays to have your keyphrases in subtitles on the page.

4. Provide Plenty of Content on Your Site

Shoot to have at least 450 characters on your page. Concentrate on putting key words and phrases in the first paragraph and last paragraphs.

5. Secure a Lot of Related Incoming Links

The more sites linked to your site, the higher you will be ranked by the search engines. These links can be from strategic partners, vendors, directories or other types of sites with whom you exchange links.

If you are a web site developer, put in your contract that you are going to put a developer's link at the bottom of the site, such as, "Web site design by Green Chair Marketing Group," with an active link to your site. This will help your site grow in its link popularity.

5.5 Keep Optimizing Your Site

The more content on your site, the better. I suggest adding a couple pages a month, whether it's case studies, more product information, testimonials, articles, press releases, etc. If you add just five new pages a month, you will have 60 new pages by the end of the year, and over 100 pages by the end of the second year.

You are bound to catch some people you would have missed because there is more content to choose from. And your site will be more highly ranked by Google, because they highly weigh sites that have more content.

While you're at it, continue to get relevant links coming into your site. Google loves incoming links. And you might have people click through to your site from these other places.

If you don't have time to work on the optimization or would feel more comfortable having someone else do it, consider strongly hiring a professional to do your search engine optimization. That way you can focus your energies on sales or creating more and better product.

One caveat, I would stay away from companies that initiate contact with you through emails or phone calls. They often use techniques that can get your severely penalized by the search engines. Ask people you know who have been successful in their search engine positioning who they use.

About The Author
Dave Carlson owns Green Chair Marketing Group, an Internet marketing firm specializing in driving visitors to web sites by search engine optimization, pay per click, and web design/redesign. 720-427-5660 Visit his site at http://www.GreenChair.net; links@greenchair.net




Search Engine Optimization for Beginners was written by Jack Humphrey and he writes "If you are confused about terms like "search engine optimization" or having a "search engine friendly" site, then listen up! I am here to help.

Depending on how long you have had, or considered having, a website online, you have heard terms thrown around like the above or even worse, acronyms! SEO comes to mind.

Really there is not that much to fear even if you have no idea right now what is really meant by having a search engine friendly site.

Here is what search engines like to have in their results when people type in keywords:

1. A site with lots of content.

2. A site with UNIQUE content (Original - meaning you wrote it or you paid someone to write it for you.)

3. Sites that are well organized link-wise (meaning simple navigation from the main page of your site to every other page of your site.)

4. Sites that have links pointing to them from other popular, relevant sites. (sites that are similar in content to yours but that are not in direct competition with yours in content)

5. Sites that change regularly (not static but always growing with new content on a regular basis)

6. Sites they can read. (search engine robots cannot read javascript for instance and therefore you get no credit for whatever content is in that application on your site)

7. Tightly themed sites. It is easier for an engine to rank your site properly (where you want it to be) if you are not all over the map in content.

Exception: Portal sites or directories. But this is an item for another article all together

What About The Complicated Stuff?

There really isn't anything complicated about what the search engines want. But if you have stumbled into a search engine forum you were likely blown away with comments and tips that were completely over your head.

There is a difference between basic, standard optimization and the stuff they talk about in those forums. While visting SEO forums is good to keep up on new things as you go along, many people get confused and the forums are the breeding grounds for confusion when you are a beginner.

Try to learn advanced SEO from noted experts in the field rather than taking anything in chats or forums as gospel. A lot more people THINK they know what they are doing than actually do.

Remember that anything someone is willing to give away for free which, if it works, could be worth tens of thousands of dollars in high rankings resulting in high sales, is probably something that is old hat and not effective anymore.

But for now, you have a lot of work to do on the basics. The advanced stuff can come later. Relative to the advanced SEO, getting the basics right is the most powerful move you can make because you are going from zero to moving up in rankings by, many times, tens of thousands of spaces in a relatively short time.

Advanced SEO focuses on moving your site from high rankings slightly higher rankings.

Keywords
Your content is the most important thing about a website. It must be friendly to the search engines meaning no special java script or other stuff. Just good old fashioned HTML. You will do fine with PHP, SHTML, and other things, but for the purpose of this article, HTML is the way most people construct their sites.

You should use a good density of your main keyword phrase for each page of your site within the content. If you are going after a high ranking for the phrase "dog leashes" you need to have that phrase in the title of the page and throughout the content.

Programs that are great for analyzing your site and giving feedback on how to improve your rankings don't come any more highly recommended that Internet Business Promoter from Axandra.

More Info: http://www.Axandra.com/go.to/jdh358

Nice thing about the software above is that it teaches you search engine optimization while it works on your site. So having it is like having a course on optimization while your site is altered for the best placement in the search engines at the same time.

The main recommendation I have for people starting to deal with optimizing their sites for the engines is to take things one at a time and get the basics down before you start messing with advanced strategies.

And when you start down that road, information you pay for is usually more accurate and more valuable than hanging around in forums. High rankings are worth a LOT of money and people don't work hard to become experts just to give that information away.

Good luck and get to work!

Jack Humphrey is the CEO of http://WebFoxMedia.com, an online marketing consulting firm that focuses on publicity, traffic generation and website development for small to large companies.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 5:53 AM | | Comments

Monday, August 28, 2006

Link Building For Effective Search Engine Optimization

Link Building For Effective Search Engine Optimization was written by James Day and he writes "When you begin the task of acquiring quality and relevant backlinks to your website there are many factors that can increase or decrease your search engine rankings. This article outlines the difference between good and bad backlinks.

A quality backlink pointing to your site should be in the same category and relevant in content to your website. The page where your link is located should be indexed by Google and the page should also have a Google page rank. The webpage where your link is located should also contain no more than 30 other out-going links to other websites. Link pages with more than 30 out-going links are less relevant to the search engines. Having your link posted on this type of webpage can affect your search engine rankings in a negative way. Other excellent techniques of acquiring backlinks are directory submissions, posting articles, blogs and forums..

For directory submissions select the proper directory category and take a look at how many other websites are contained in the category where your link would be posted, if you can manage to get on the first or second page of the listings, this is a quality backlink. Also look at the Google page rank of the landing page for your link. If the page has a Google page rank this is also a quality backlink.

Stay within your category, relevant content is very important to the search engines. Write an article preferably relevant in content to your website and submit the article to high quality article directories. Blogs are an excellent way to get quality one-way backlinks, Blog sites also receive tons of traffic, which in turn give your site more exposure. Posting your link on forum pages is also an efficient method of aquiring backlinks instantly.

Backlinks to avoid would be a 0 page ranked webpage, especially if the home page has a zero page rank. Links posted within framed webpages which will also steal your traffic. Especially avoid link farms, webpages which contain more than 100 unrelated outgoing links, This type of link page is frowned upon by many major search engines. Avoid Webpages with mirror sites containing the exact same content with a different URL, also pages that utilize redirects and URL cloaking. Never post your link on a webpage that contains a "no follow" or "no index" robots meta tag within the source code. Dynamic websites with question marks in the URL should be avoided because they are not always indexed by the search engines.

Also avoid posting your link on a page that opens very slow or contains mostly ads and flash banners. Try not to aquire or purchase great numbers of backlinks in a short period of time, backlinks should be accumulated gradually. Also avoid webpages and directories that list their results in alphabetical order, as their database increases your link could be moved to a less relevant page with less pagerank. Quality backlinks are one of the most important factors involved in the process of acheiving high search engine ranking.

About The Author
James Day
Article written by the CEO of: http://www.submit-site.org/


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 6:47 AM | | Comments

6 Simple Steps For A Search Engine Optimization Strategy

6 Simple Steps For A Search Engine Optimization Strategy was written by Donovan Baldwin and he writes "The professionals can do a lot with their take on search engine optimization strategy, but I'm not writing to them. This is for the person with limited website design expertise and who does the website design and internet marketing for their own home based internet business. There are many other ways to optimize you website for success, but here are some simple, basic things to think about.

1. Determine your key words and phrases. This is going to require a little research, and will be driven to some extent by the subject matter of your website and the products and services offered by your home business. In order to stand out from the crowd, you might want to think more in terms of key phrases rather than key words. Ask yourself the question: What would I type in if I were searching for a website related to MY website or home business?

You are trying to stand out. The words are distributed through billions of sites. The phrases are much less widely distributed, and your chance of success as a big fish in small pond is much better than trying to make it as a small fish in a monstrously large pond. One free research and search engine optimization tool I have found is called Good Keywords, and may be downloaded from http://www.goodkeywords.com/products/gkw/ for free.

2. Pick a URL in line with your search engine optimization strategy. One of the simplest yet most effective techniques is to have your key phrase right in your domain name. This is especially effective with people if it is short, to the point, and easy to remember. At the very least, having a domain name that incorporates your key phrase elevates the potential position of your website in search engine results.

3. Draft a title tag that addresses your topic and includes your main key phrase. In many instances, the title is the first thing a web surfer will see, and you know the attention span of web surfers! The title tag should not only address the needs of the person, but needs to include the key phrase to optimize your website's position in search engine results.

The title is just like the headline of an advertisement or newspaper article. It has to say enough very quickly to hook the reader and create a desire to read more. At the same time, it cannot say too much for two reasons. If "too much" just means the number of words, then the effect will not be noticed as most browsers and many search engines will only show a certain number of characters anyway, and you may wind up with a title like this: "You should pay the exorbitant price I ask for my product because..."! On the other hand if "too much" means too much information, the person may figure out what you're going to tell them and move on without taking the time to see what you do have to say.

4. Construct your Meta tags with your search engine optimization strategy in mind. Particular attention should be paid to the "description" tag. A short time ago, only a few search engines paid any real attention to the keywords any more and find their keywords within the body of the website itself. I have been hearing for some time that NONE of the search engines pay any attention to them, and recently attended a workshop on search engine optimization where this was stated as a fact by the internet marketing professionals who presented the workshop. But you never know! As long as they are still part of the Meta tags, make sure you include them.

The description, on the other hand, particularly for some search engines, is the text presented in the search engine results. For this reason, if you think of the title tag as the headline for your "advertisement", you should consider the description to be the ad itself while still retaining enough mystery to lure the surfer to the site itself.

5. Within the first few sentences of your web page, reinforce the promise of value hinted at in the title and description, and make sure you use your key phrase. In fact, the key phrase, or phrases, should show up throughout the page, but the first few lines of text are very important. Not only will humans key onto the presence of the key phrases, but so will many search engines, and this can raise the search engine ranking of the site. After all, that's what search engine optimization is all about.

Be careful not to overdo the use of key phrases, however. Search engines are continually changing their algorithms, or programs by which they assess and rank web pages, so it is difficult to give an exact percentage of use that is best. Additionally, one search engine may give your website a good rank for the way you have used keywords, while another may give it "demerits" for the same usage. This leads us to item #6.

6. One phrase you hear over and over when search engine optimization comes up is, "content is king!" In other words, the quality and inherent value of your webpage's presentation is paramount. A neat, simple page, or website, with lots of relevant info may trump the most beautifully designed and presented sales pitch.

When I began marketing online in 2000, I knew nothing about search engine optimization strategy (if it even truly existed back then), and probably less about website design. I started with free websites because I didn't know how to purchase domain names and hosting, and because many free web hosting sites provided templates where I simply filled in the blanks.

After a period where I tried everything I could think of to get an internet business started, I finally simply tried to make sure that most websites I constructed were small, neat, simple and full of information. Many of those websites still exist today and many are still driving traffic and helping me make sales.

Copyright 2006 Donovan Baldwin

About The Author
Donovan Baldwin is a Dallas area writer and entrepreneur. A graduate of the University of West Florida, a member of Mensa, and retired from the U. S. Army, he provides articles and other website content for webmasters. His personal internet business site is at http://www.donovanbaldwin.com/.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 5:37 AM | | Comments

Sunday, August 27, 2006

How To Avoid These Ten Costly Search Engine Mistakes

How To Avoid These Ten Costly Search Engine Mistakes was written by David A. Bailey and he writes "If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.

Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.

Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after all, isn't that what you want..

1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic.

2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page or site.

3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.

4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page (such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity, the hot search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is considered spam by the search engines and may cause the page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the search engine listing.

5. Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic or layer that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text does not really describe the graphic or layer it will be considered spam.

6. Relying on hidden text.
You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it, it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example, some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same color as the background of the web page; thereby, making it invisible.

7. Relying on tiny text.
This is another version of the item above (relying on hidden text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this.

8. Assuming all search engines are the same.
Many people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it a point to learn what each major search engine requires for high visibility.

9. Using free web hosting.
Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many times the search engines will eliminate content from these free hosts.

10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.
Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the web that will do this for free.

This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good for your website.

Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may have your site banned from the search engines forever. Invest a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility and your net traffic will increase.

David A. Bailey, Jr Invites You To Join The Money Making Mastermind
If you join the Money Making Mastermind and participate faithfully while allowing these powerful money making ideas to stimulate your brain...and you carry them out with persistence and intelligence, I guaratee it will revolutionize your financial life and your objective will have been half-way reached, even before you begin to recognize it.
http://www.richnich.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 6:17 AM | | Comments

Keys To Finding The Best Link Partners

Keys To Finding The Best Link Partners was written by Monica Corral-lorica and she writes "Links are vital factors in web marketing. The search engines are always looking for links to your website. The search engines put higher importance to incoming links. What are incoming links? These are outside links from other websites. The links point out to your website.

The search engines are after the quality of the links rather than its quantity. Quality links can dramatically boost your website’s rank and traffic. Aside from these, quality incoming links affect your website’s conversion rate, as well. One way of getting quality links – especially incoming links – is through link partners. How do you find the best link partners?

How to Find The Best Link Partners

How can you have the best link partners on the internet? It is significant that you link to quality websites only; otherwise, the linking won’t have any great positive effects on your website. Remember that the search engines look at the quality of the links not merely the quantity. Here are 5 tips to help you find the best link partners:

• Write something interesting – most probably an article or resource that tackles an interesting and relevant topic or perhaps a website review. Allow other websites to use these reviews and online resources in their own websites as long as they give your website a link in exchange. These make these websites good link partners.

• If you have a discussion board in your website, why not invite other websites that are closely related to your website’s theme or subject to participate in the discussion. You can opt to exchange links with these websites too.

• Write articles about your field of expertise or something about the subject or theme of your website. The articles should contain a resource box that reveals some useful information about you, as the author, and about your website or online business. And of course, it should carry a link back to your website. These articles must be submitted to quality and high ranking article directories.

• Aside from the article directories, you can also allow other websites and ezines to repost your articles as long as they include the resource box and a link back to your website. These websites and ezines are considered as part of your website’s link partners since they give your website a link back while you provide them with content.

• If your website is a members-only website, you can attract other website owners and webmaster to link back to your website by giving them a privilege of getting a free membership. Since the word “Free” has a large impact on people, many webmasters will grab the opportunity.

With these pointers in finding the best link partners, you can already start your link campaign now. These linking tips will help you arrive at only the best link partners. Waste no time…maximize the positive effects of the linking strategy; find the best link partners now.

This article is written by nPresence, an online web marketing agency that specializes in search engine optimization, pay per click advertising, content management systems, web design, tracking and analysis. For all your web marketing needs, please visit Web Marketing Ireland.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 6:11 AM | | Comments

How to Make Better Use of Web Site Page Titles and META Data

How to Make Better Use of Web Site Page Titles and META Data was written by Michael Murray and he writes "We got down to the basics with web site page titles and META data as part of a new study on how manufacturers use natural search engine optimization (SEO). Businesses of all types could benefit from the following case studies that show how poor titles and META data can be improved from an SEO perspective.

Case Studies: Ineffective Optimization

We selected 5 of the web sites (among 350 we studied) that scored the worst in terms of search engine optimization. Here's a closer look at what they may be doing wrong on their home pages (company names are removed).

Case Study No. 1
META Title: Business Name
META Description: missing
META Keywords: missing
ANALYSIS: Title lacks keywords, page doesn't include META data..

Case Study No. 2
META Title: Company name followed by corporate attribute
META Description: Features a 20-word description without keywords.
META Keywords: Includes 30 keywords and search terms with no real focus.
ANALYSIS: Title may have one keyword at the most after several non-keywords; META data poorly used. Used a Flash page with "skip intro" button that won't perform well because it lacks text.

Case Study No. 3
META Title: Welcome to Business Name
META Description: missing
META Keywords: missing
ANALYSIS: Title lacks keywords, page doesn't even attempt to include META data.

Case Study No. 4
META Title: Company name followed by one search phrase
META Description: corporate domain name www.xxxxxxxxx.com
META Keywords: empty
FRAMES: used on site
ANALYSIS: Title has potential keywords, but they're trapped inside a long phrase without comma separation, META description features corporate domain name and the META keywords weren't used. The Frames format may discourage spiders from indexing the web site, especially since this main page doesn't give them much guidance.

Case Study No. 5
META Title: Business Name
META Description: missing
META Keywords: missing
ANALYSIS: Title lacks keywords, page doesn't include META data.

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


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 5:24 AM | | Comments

Friday, August 25, 2006

10 Steps to Picking The Perfect Website Keywords

10 Steps to Picking The Perfect Website Keywords was written by Michael Clarke and he writes "10 steps to the perfect keywords.

The article is written as a quick guide for people new to search engine optimization and keyword selection. First to start, a keyword is a word of phrase searched by people on search engines. An example of a keyword for a dating website could be - "free dating website". Now I will go through the ten steps I use to get the right keywords to suit me website.

1.Look at your website content and break it down into one work. For a dating website this would be "dating".

2.Go to www.goodkeywords.com and download their free keyword selection tool..

3.Open good keywords and click on "keyword suggestions". When the new window open type in the word which best fits your website. A list of keyword will appear in the right hand section of the window. These are the possible keywords which we will be using for our website.

4.Copy the top keyword and search for it in Google search engine.

5.Click on the top link which appears for the search term. Look at the "PR" of the website. (PR is shorthand for page rank. This is a value given to websites for general popularity. You can see this with the "Google Tool bar". Note down the pr of the website.

6.Repeat this for the top 10 results. If the page rank is over 5 for two of the websites leave that keyword and go onto the next in "Good Keywords". We are leaving this keyword because the competition for the best rating on Google is too high.

7.Do the above steps until you find 3 different keywords which do not have too much competition. Once you have found 3 keywords move onto step 8.

8.Now it is time to analyze the websites at the top of the Google results. First look at the title of the website as it is displayed in Google and note down if it has the keyword within it, if not this is a good sign for us. Next click the website on top of the Google results for your first selected keyword then go to view at the top of your Internet browser and view page source. Search for "h1". If the search returns no results that is great news for us. If the search does return a result check the text within the h1 tags and take a note of whether the keyword is within it. The last step of analyzing the website is to check for alt image tags. Do another search while in page source for "alt". Keep searching through the alt tags on the page taking note of whether the keyword is in it. Take not of whether or not the keyword is within the tags.

9.Repeat step 9 for the top 5-10 results for each keyword. Taking notes as you go along.

10.If you find that the websites in the top 5 for a keyword are doing all of the tricks you looked for in step 8 leave the keyword and do the same steps for it until you find 3 keywords. These are the keywords you will be using for your website. Read up on how to optimize these keywords on your websites to gain the highest rankings on Google and other search engines. You can find ebooks and other SEO articles on my website for free webmaster resources. If you liked this article please sign up at the website.

Written by Michael Clarke - www.webmaster-files.com

About the Author
I offer other articles, advice, free turnkeys, templates and much more at my free webmaster resource site at: http://www.webmaster-files.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 2:46 PM | | Comments

How Directories Help Search Engines

How Directories Help Search Engines was written by Mario Sanchez and he writes "At the beginning of the web era, users would go to directories to find sites relevant to their interests. In fact, Yahoo!, the web's number one destination, started as a directory. Nowadays, most users rely on search engines, not directories, to find what they're looking for.

When search engines started to become popular, they relied on web pages' 'keyword metatags' to determine the topic and relevance of the page (the keyword metatag is a section within a web page's HTML code where webmasters can insert words that are relevant to the page's content). Webmasters discovered that by stuffing their meta tags with popular search terms repeated hundreds of times, they could propel their pages to the top of the search results..

Search engines caught up to the abuse and decided to ignore the meta tags and rely instead on web page copy. Webmasters then started to overstuff their page copy with popular search terms, often writing them in the same color as the web page's background, so that they could be detected by search engines while being invisible to users.

Again, search engines discovered the trick and decided that the best way to rank a web page's content and its topical relevance was to rely on inbound links from other pages. The rationale behind this is that it is much more difficult to influence other people to link to you than it is to manipulate your own web page elements. In fact, inbound links are the foundation of Google's Pagerank? algorithm.

There are several ways to get inbound links, among them writing articles that include your bylines with a link to your page, exchanging links, and listing your site in directories.

Listing your sites in good directories is probably the best way to get quality links that are highly valued by the search engines. Since directories rely on human editors who enforce strict criteria to list a site, and since directories organize the information in highly focused categories, they are an invaluable resource for search engines to measure the quality and the relevance of a web page.

In summary, directories are important not because they generate significant traffic (they don't), but because they are given great importance by the search engines to qualify and rank web pages, and to determine their topical relevance.

You should definitely list your site with quality directories if you want to increase your chances of success with the search engines.

About The Author
Mario Sanchez: http://www.theinternetdigest.net. For more search engine tips go to: http://www.accordmarketing.com/seotips/


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 2:31 PM | | Comments

How to Pick an SEO Firm

How to Pick an SEO Firm was written by Michael Murray and he writes "If you're looking for an SEO firm, we recommend that you weigh 10 factors that can save you trouble down the road.

1. Check out their experience.

You shouldn't have to try hard to find samples of their clients or their SEO performance on individual websites. How competitive are their search terms that are ranking well on Google? Are the search terms that are ranking well difficult terms to position--one, two and three word phrases, or are they easy terms to position because no one else is using them at all--six, seven and eight word terms?

2. Ask for testimonial letters.

Insist on letterheads from the clients that feature real names, not Fred from Cleveland or J.T. from New York. Call these references and ask them questions about the SEO performance of the company you are considering..

3. Ask them to document their process.

What policies and procedures do they follow? Are they consistent? Do they stay away from unethical procedures that could put your site in jeopardy with the search engines?

4. Get staff credentials.

Find out who is doing the work. You really need a team of people - no one person can be proficient in every area of server administration, programming, marketing, writing, link building and more. Get to know the team a bit.

5. Be suspicious of money back guarantees.

Unless it's super-clear, you have to wonder about the details of the guarantee. If a firm offers one, including Top 10 placement, ask them to elaborate. Which key words are included? Just one Top 10? Do they plan to achieve Top 10 rankings among natural results or pay-per-click? Are the Top 10 listings associated with your web site or a supplemental web site the SEO firm controls?

6. Get pricing information.

Is the SEO contract for hourly, monthly or annual services? Get prices from a few other firms as well, but be aware that the scope of services may vary greatly from firm to firm. Insist that the firm you're interested in explain why it charges more for services, if that's the case.

7. Ask about reporting. How many keywords will the firm handle? How many pages?

Find out whether you'll be able to access the latest data about your project. How often is it provided? What's included? Some firms just send a ranking report. What other details can you expect in terms of the overall strategy, next steps, web site traffic and conversions?

8. Determine the firm's ethical standards.

What are the firm's practices when it comes to ethical standards and practices? How far will they go? How do they view doorway pages, cloaking and keyword stuffing?

9. Know your objectives.

You need to have some idea of what you want to accomplish when selecting an SEO firm. Do you simply want to promote your brand? Do you want to increase visitors and push traffic to retailers? Do you want to improve online sales? Which categories of products will matter the most in your campaign?

10. Come up with a budget.

You can submit your web site pages (not optimized) for free or through services that cost well below $100. Optimizing is another matter--It's going to cost money. Have some flexibility--the level of service and the firm's expertise will determine whether you pay hundreds of dollars or well over a $1,000 a month.

Michael Murray is vice president of (Fathom SEO)http://www.fathomseo.com/, a Cleveland, Ohio-based search engine marketing (SEM) firm. A member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), he also authored the white paper, "Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game."
mmurray@fathomseo.com


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 2:20 PM | | Comments

How To Avoid The 3 Biggest Title Tag Mistakes With Search Engines

How To Avoid The 3 Biggest Title Tag Mistakes With Search Engines was written by Craige Stacey and writes "Your title tag is the most important 3 to 12 words on your Web page. It accounts for up to 80% of your rankings on search engines.

Here's why:

Search Engines look for "searched for" words first in title tags.

The title tag is one of the main places search engines look to get a description of your site when posting the results of a keyword search.

Most people destroy any chance of success by making one or more of the following 3 mistakes in their title tags..

Before we start let's describe what a TITLE TAG is and where it goes. Your TITLE TAG goes at the top of the page right after your HEAD TAG. Use HTML code and do it exactly as shown below:

Your title with a description using important Keyword Phrases

Now let's get started.

Mistake #1. If your keywords or keyword phrases are not in your title tag, your Web page will NOT be found anywhere near the top of the search engines when these keywords and keyword phrases are search for.

Your keyword phrases absolutely MUST be in your title tag.

Mistake #2. Trying to put too many words and phrases in the title tag. Your title tag must be less than about 80 characters (including spaces) for Google and most other search engines. That's why you can't optimize a page for more than three to five keywords or keyword phrases. Two or three are better.

Mistake #3. I think this is the most repeated mistake of all and it is so easy to avoid. Be sure to START your title tag with a keyword or keyword phrase. And even more important . . . start your title tag with your most important keyword phrase.

Here are some other important notes about title tags. Don't repeat words over and over in your title tag. You can use some words two times such as "golf clubs" and "golf shoes," but don't over do it.

Have a different title tag for each page of your Web site.

Don't put your company name in your title tag.

Killer Title Tags are your key to high rankings on search engines Most people spend days or weeks on their Web site pages and then spend less than five minutes (some people have admitted to spending less than one minute) writing their title tags.

Remember: Your title tag is responsible for 80% of your success for high ranking on the search engines. AND it is responsible for getting traffic after you get the high ranking (because it is likely to be used for the description of your site when search engines list your page in the results for a keyword search.)

In summary: The time you spend designing and writing your title tags will be well rewarded.

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 website software


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 2:03 PM | | Comments

Thursday, August 24, 2006

Root Keywords Are Key To SEO Efforts

Root Keywords Are Key To SEO Efforts was written by Halstatt Pires and he writes "Whether you are just starting out with search engine optimization or an old pro, keyword research is the foundation upon which top rankings are built and root keywords are the most important.

Root Keywords Are Key To SEO Efforts

Keywords, keywords, keywords - the term used so often in search engine optimization that it can get a bit overwhelming at times. What exactly are keywords? How do I find them? How do I use them? Why is the term spelled keywords instead of key words? Ah, there are so many questions we can go into. Of course, we should talk about something far more important..

The key to keyword research is focusing on the key word. How is that for a sentence? Okay, now for something understandable. When identifying terms you wish to use in the optimization effort for your site, you must look to the base word of the area you are researching. That probably is not much better, so here is an example.

Assume I am researching the keywords for an online internet marketing company, to wit, the site promoted with this article. Should I type in "online internet marketing" into my favorite research tool? No! By doing so, I limit myself to finding only those keywords that contain these three words. Taking this approach, I would even miss the basic term "internet marketing." Obviously, I have not focused on the root word of my research.

Returning to my research tool, I should go ahead and find all the words for "internet marketing", right? No! Doing so will return more keyword phrases, but I am still limiting myself to only those phrases that contain the two words. In this case, I will miss out on phrases related to "internet advertising" or "online marketing" and so on. By taking this approach, I have followed the seo herd and missed out on some juicy opportunities.

The best approach to the above scenario is to research two words first - "internet" and "marketing". Do them separately and then work your way into the various combination of words that will appear. These are your root words. Bow before them. Treat them nicely. Research them and you might just find some massive traffic with low competition, the stuff of dreams!

There is a tendency in seo to by into the hype of going niche. Yes, certain situations definitely call for focusing on a very defined niche. When doing your keyword research, however, always start with the root words. They will lead you to the niche you can make money in.

About the Author
Halstatt Pires is with Marketing Titan - providing internet marketing services.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 11:53 AM | | Comments

META Tags Explained and How To Use Them For Ranking

META Tags Explained and How To Use Them For Ranking was written by Frank Kilkelly and he writes "The META tags are used to provide extra information about a web page. There was once a time where a good search engine ranking could be achieved by simply changing the value of the META tags. However these days are long gone. Nowadays the META Tags are decreasing in importance in the eyes of the search engines who are using more sophisticated methods of ranking pages (namely link popularity, optimized anchor text).

There are many different types of META tags but the one that can affect ranking are the Keywords META tag and the Description META tag.

Keywords META tag:

This tag contains keywords relevant to a page. In the past search engines referenced this to determine how to rank a particular page. However many people started to abuse this and stuffed the tag with keywords that were not relevant to the content of the page. This confused search engines and subsequently returned weaker search results. To combat this less and less emphasis has been placed on the Keywords META tag. However this does not mean that it is entirely useless. Here are some reasons to still include it:

* Some search engines still use it

Although most search engines do not use the tag there are undoubtedly still some that do. For this reason place around 15-20 keywords relevant to your site or page into the tag. Do not attempt to cheat the search engines by repeating keywords as this is considered spamming and they may look unfavourably on this.

* Account for misspellings of keyphrases

People can misspell certain keyphrases that you may be optimizing for so it is common to place these misspellings into the Keywords META tag. This allows you to rank in search engine results for misspellings without having to represent them on the actual content of your page.

Description META tag:

In the past this tag was used to specify the text that would appear in search engine results alongside the link to your site. Keywords could be placed into this text to influence ranking. However it was abused similar to the Keywords META tag and has befallen the same fate, meaning it is not as useful as it once was. Some search engines do not display it in their results (most notably Google, which retrieves the text from content on your page) and do not use it to rank a site. Having said that some search engines do still use it so again it is a mistake to ignore it completely.

Descriptions placed into this tag should, strangely enough, be very descriptive of the page or site they reside in. Include a few relevant keywords/keyphrases that you are optimizing for in the description and try to limit its length to 25-30 words. Also try to use no more than two sentences.

Summary:

Although not as important as they once where, the META tags can still influence a search engine when it comes to deciding whether your web page is relevant or not.

Keywords META tag:

15-20 keywords, include misspellings of keywords/keyphrases

Description META tag:

Include keywords/keyphrases, 25-30 words, no more than two sentences.

Frank Kilkelly is a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Expert and Webmaster at http://www.seo-ireland.com/, a complete search engine optimization resource. The highlight of the site is an SEO forum http://www.seo-ireland.com/forum/ for discussion of the latest techniques and tips to improve the ranking of your web site.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 11:39 AM | | Comments

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

Critical On-Page SEO Techniques

Critical On-Page SEO Techniques was written by Christopher Shireman and he writes "I can not tell you how many times people have come to me asking why they are not getting listed highly in the search engines, or even listed at all. They actually think that just by putting a website on the internet that everyone in the world will be able to find their site and buy all their stuff. If things were that simple, you wouldn't be reading this.

In order to rank highly in search engines, there are several things that you need to do. The first is on-page optimization, which is what is being discussed here. This is the way that search engines view your website, and rank it against all the other websites that are out there based on the content of the website. There is also off-page optimization, which is a huge factor in determining how your website is ranked in the search engines..

You can think of on-page optimization like the tie breaker for websites. If there are two websites that cover the same topic with the same amount of off-page optimization, the one with the better on-page optimization will get a higher ranking than the one with poor on-page optimization. With thousands of websites out there try to get the number one spot for their keywords, you need to make sure that you have as big of an advantage as possible.

What goes into on-page SEO? You will first have to decide which keywords you are targeting. This can be done in many different ways depending on what kind of site you are running. Let's say that you are building an Adsense website, just to keep things simple. You have chosen the most profitable keywords that you can find and you are ready to start building your site.

The first thing you need to do is put your keywords in the title of your webpage. If you are targeting two or three keywords for a page, you will need to put all of them in the title. You still need to be careful, if you do this the wrong way the search engines can penalize you. Here is an example of some of the keywords that I used for one of my sites where Real Estate was my primary keyword.

Real Estate Investment Real Estate Course Realtor Guide

Here is the wrong way to put these keywords in the title

Real Estate Investment and Real Estate Course and Realtor Guide.

This is too long, repeats the words "Real Estate", and uses the very un-useful word "and", at least where titles are concerned. Here is a better way to build a title for a page with these target keywords

Real Estate Investment Course | Realtor Guide

Notice what I have done here. I have combined two of the keywords together into one, which is fine because search engines will actually read both of these words separately and categorize them as "almost" the same words. I also got rid of the word "and" as a way of joining the words together. This saves space and still allows you to include multiple keywords in the title. Search engines do not like long titles that just have keywords in them. It is a big problem that a lot of people think will help them climb the search engine ranking, but what actually happens is their site gets banned from the search engine all together, so don't try it.

The next thing that you need to consider for on-page SEO purposes is the use of H1 and H2 tags in the code. You can think of H1 (header 1) tags as the titles of the webpages and the H2 tags as the subtitles. Whenever possible the H1 tags contain the keywords you are optimizing for. Your secondary keywords should be in the H2 tags. Search engines will give more importance to the keywords that it finds in these tags, and I highly recommend their use. Don't go crazy and try to put 100 keywords in the H1 tags, it will only get you in trouble.

When you are writing your article for your website, or if you have downloaded an article, try to make sure that the keywords you are optimizing for are repeated in the main body of the article several times. Don't go overboard here, just make it sound like the words should be there naturally. You should also be using the bold and italic options on a few of the keywords in the article. Again, don't format every instance of these words, just a few times will make the search engines very happy.

Another trick that I like to use for on-page optimization is image alt tags. You should definitely have images in your website, and these images should have alt tags, or alternate text for text based browsers. The content of these alt tags should be your keywords, but you should only be using one keyword per image. Trying to include too many keywords in an image alt tag is just asking for trouble. If you are really clever you can name your images things like "real_estate_investment_img1.jpg". This gets your keyword onto the page in a way that search engines will not find suspisous, but that they will still count for your benefit.

For more information about search engine optimization and other ways to improve website income, check out http://beattherichjerk.com.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:58 PM | | Comments

The Top 10 Rules In Link Popularity Building

The Top 10 Rules In Link Popularity Building was written Joel Katona and he writes "The term "link popularity" refers to a websites online visibility and the number of links the search engines can find pointing to a website. The introduction of link popularity metrics helped the search engines to control spam by shifting their ranking algorithm from purely on-page factors to off-page factors such as counting inbound links.

By combining the ranking scores of on-page, and off-page factors, the search engines can deliver more relevant search results for the web searchers. While it is still possible to achieve high search engine ranking for non-competitive terms without a great deal of link popularity, it is unlikely your site will rank well for very popular terms without it.

The benefits of link popularity

Link popularity building is one of the most important and critical aspects of any effective search engine optimization campaign today and it will be most likely the main ranking criteria in the foreseeable future on the three major search engines, Google, Yahoo and MSN. A website's link popularity score, Google's PageRank and "anchor text" in the incoming text links plays a major role in how well it will rank in the search engine result pages. However there are a few rules that you should keep in mind to maximize your link popularity building efforts.

What are the top 10 rules to gain the most from inbound links?.

1. Inbound links from domains with relevant topics should be your first and foremost aim and this requires the development of great content and a desire to contribute something useful to the world wide web. If you have something useful to offer, other websites will link to you naturally.
2. Inbound links from search engine friendly crawlable web pages. This rule is very simple, if the search engines can't reach the web pages where your links are located, your website will not gain any link popularity. It's not always possible to dictate how and where your links are placed, but in most cases you can request a link from a static, indexable web page.
3. Inbound links from older domains with high search engine ranking are classified as authority websites by the search engines and obtaining links from these website is a great way to increase your website's link popularity. You can find out how old a website is by using the archive.org tool.
4. Inbound links form unique domains with their own class C IP address have a greater weight than multiple links from the same domain. Acquiring inbound links from different C class IP address blocks tells the search engines the domains are hosted on the different web servers.
5. Inbound links should be permanent and static. The search engines can detect when inbound links appear first and by removing and adding links at a great rate can send signals of low quality to the search engines. The search engines love static hyperlinks, but they have trouble following links redirected through server side scripts. Also keep in mind, the use of rel="nofollow" links in the code will not pass the link popularity benefits to the target website.
6. Inbound links nestled in the content of a web page are more effective especially when surrounded by text related to your website's topic. When links naturally occur in a body of text, the search engines assign a higher link popularity score to those links compared to links on pages with hundreds of other outbound links per page.
7. Inbound links from .edu, .gov domains are trusted by the search engines over .com, .net or other top level domains. The argument in favor of search engines giving a higher weight to .edu and .gov domain links is that the inbound links are much harder to attain and there is supporting evidence in patent documents filed by Google pointing to a document scoring system that takes TLD information into consideration.
8. Inbound links from authority sites directories like dmoz.org, dir.yahoo.com have long been regarded as important building blocks of link popularity for any website. Since both of these directories employ human editors to review individual websites, the search engines place a greater trust factor on websites listed in these directories. Some of the other well established human edited directories include botw.org, goguides.org and joant.com.
9. Inbound links with a wide variety of anchor text. Most new website owners make the mistake of requesting links to their website using the same anchor text, which is very unnatural and sends a clear signal to the search engines about someone trying to manipulate link popularity and ultimately the site's search engine ranking. Make your website "link worthy" and people will naturally link to your website using varying link text.
10. Inbound links from local websites can help better target keywords specific to a city, region, state or country. Obtaining links from local businesses, chamber of commerce site or local charities will help your ranking for regionally targeted keyword phrases.

By gaining more inbound links to your website, you can help to improve your website's link popularity score and the overall ranking on the search engines. The key concept to understand is that, link popularity is not merely about the sheer number of inbound links. In other words, it's not just about getting lots of links from anywhere. Instead, you want links from established websites that are related to your website's topics with a high degree of reputation on the search engines.

Joel Katona is the founder of Trendmetrix Software a full service SEO Company and the architect behind SEO Studio a leading SEO Software. Don't forget to check out his free step-by-step SEO Training guide. For more timely website promotion tips and search engine optimization advice please sign up for his free SEO Newsletter.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:48 PM | | Comments

5 Extremely Valuable Search Engine Optimization Tips

5 Extremely Valuable Search Engine Optimization Tips was written by Carmen and writes "Search engine optimization is THE most cost effective way for a company to market their products and services. Below are 5 extremely valuable search engine optimization tips:

1. Content is Key

Webmasters are extremely concerned with optimizing their code and as a result, they often forget about optimizing the content. As optimization tips go, this is one you should pay close attention to. The first 200 words of your home page should be loaded with keywords, this includes your headline. Some search engines, particularly those that ignore meta tags, will actually use the first few lines of text (including the headline) as your site description..

2. Utilize Static HTML

You don't need a "dynamic" website unless you have dynamic content, such as airline seat availability and pricing which needs to be dynamically published from a database because it constantly changes. You may store your website in a database but you're better off publishing it as a static HTML website. It's cheaper, the pages will download faster, and search engines will find it easier to comprehensively index your website.

The less HTML code you have, the better, as it makes it easier and faster for the search engine to index your page. Aim for a total page weight of 50 KB for any page (that's including graphics). Certainly, anything over 100 KB is going to be slow, and some search engines don't like pages that are over 100 KB.

3. The Title Tag is Critical

The title tag is the single most important piece of content for people who search. Keep it short: Don't have more than 60 characters (with spaces), which is roughly 8-10 words. Lead with the most important careword for that particular page. Always start off with what is specific about the page and move to what is general. Many websites begin their title with their brand or organization name, and then follow with what is unique about the page. (This is a very common mistake, so check out your website.)

4. Optimize Your Images

This is another optimization tip that many people forget about. However, through use of your "alt" image attribute tag, you can slip in an extra keyword phrase or two that describes the picture users are about to see. The text only shows up when the user has turned off the 'view images' option in their browser or the image fails to load. But some search engine robots will pick it up too and the extra keywords could help your ranking. So take a few seconds to implement this optimization tip on your site and you could see improved results soon.

5. Why You Shouldn't Optimize Your Own Site

While we have given you some basic optimization tips to help you quickly boost your search engine ranking, we still recommend that you hire a Search Engine Optimization professional for the best results. Search engines change their guidelines regularly, making it impossible for any one or two people to stay on top of all the changes while still running their business. What was a great optimization tip yesterday, could get your site blacklisted today. Your SEO professional will watch over your site as if it was our own, ensuring your site is always running in peak form. For example, we predicted many of the guideline changes Google made in November of 2003, saving many of our customers from the massive fall in rankings most experienced.

About the Author
Carmen is the VP Client Relations of Ms. SEO Inc., a Calgary based Search Engine Optimization & Internet Marketing Company.

Ms. Seo Inc. works with their sister company Ms. Hype Inc., a Calgary Web Design Company, to offer their clients a powerful online presence.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:34 PM | | Comments

How To Weather Google Algorithm Changes

How To Weather Google Algorithm Changes was written by Rick Rouse and he writes "If you spend much time reading the various webmaster forums, you're no doubt well aware of the grief that many webmasters experience after seeing a Google algorithm change send their web pages sinking like a stone in the search results. But there are always other webmasters who do well with the changes, and many whose rankings are pretty much unaffected.

What allows some websites to weather frequent algo changes and even prosper while others are banished to the nether regions of the SERPS or banned altogether? In a word, moderation.

Search Engine Optimization is a lucrative business, and many SEOs routinely "push the limits" of what's allowed by the search engines in an attempt to maximize a client site's rankings and draw more business. The problem with this approach is Google is constantly moving the goal post. If you play the game too aggressively you'll find your site being penalized when Google changes the algorithm..

So what can you do to safely optimize your site for the search engines? There are several things to remember:

1 - Make your SEO efforts an asset to Google, not a nemesis. Use ethical optimization practices that help ensure that your pages rank well and pass the "relevance" test. Google loathes spammers because they skew the search results making them less relevant for the searchers, and less relevant results drive searchers to other search engines. Understandably, Google doesn't like that a bit! Bottom line: Make your pages search engine friendly, but don't spam. That way when your page makes it into the top 10 it will really deserve to be there.

2 - Corollary to #1: Provide content that is truly relevant to the search queries that the page ranks well for. In fact, strive to make your page the most relevant (and most useful) page on the Internet for those search terms. Google loves lots of high quality content that is actually useful to your visitors, and their ranking algorithm will reward you handsomely for it, often with little or no SEO techniques in use at all. Lots of quality content draws lots of quality inbound links to your pages, which in turn helps boost their rankings even more!

3 - Use moderation in everything you do in regards to SEO. If you don't edge right up to the line, you'll be a lot less likely to cross it when Google moves it on you. This applies to linking, keyword density, header tags...all of the typical SEO techniques that are in use by webmasters today.

Conclusion

The webmasters who are happy after each and every Google update make their SEO efforts actually benefit the Google index. Their pages are full of relevant, useful content and they refrain from using "gray area" SEO techniques. Remember, today's "gray area" techniques are often tomorrow's "black hat" techniques.

Rick Rouse is the owner of RLROUSE Directory & Informational Resources http://www.rlrouse.com, your one-stop source for information on a wide variety of topics.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:28 PM | | Comments

How To Get Listed In Google For Free

How To Get Listed In Google For Free was written by Nikki Pilkington and writes "Google does not accept payment for inclusion in their main index - so anyone that's at the top is there through hard work and perseverance, or through paying a company such as NikkiPilkington.com to do the hard work for you. Below I show you 7 great ways to increase your chances of a Google ranking.

The Basics

Ensure that your website has a clear navigation system - and by that I man that the reader of your website can get to every main page of your website, from every other page. There's nothing more annoying as a user of a website than finding yourself lost in the middle of a site with no way to find other information other than using the back button. A search engine spider (the program that the search engine uses to index your site) doesn't have a back button so will just give up..

Check the links in your site - broken links will also stop a spider in its tracks.

Try not to use text contained in graphics or images - spiders can't read these either.

Don't use the front page of your website to automatically redirect the viewer to another page. The spider sees this as spam, and in Google this can get your site banned!

Content Is King

It's said all the time, but it's true. Think of the phrases you would like people to type into the search engines to find your site and include them in the copy of the site. At heart, a search engine is just a database and works quite logically - make it easy for the spider to know what your site is about. (However, beware of repeating phrases too often on your page - this is seen as spam and will be detrimental to your listing. Aim for no more than 3 times on a 100 word page)

Headlines

Once you have a list of phrases you would like to use to promote your site, use them as titles on each page of your site. Inside Business Northampton might have pages titled in ways such as 'Business Promotion Northampton - Inside Business' and 'Advertising Northants - Inside Business'.

Choose two or more word phrases to increase your chances of good listings - the less people you're competing against, the more chance you have in a short amount of time.

The Links Effect

Google is quite unique in that it sees sites with lots of links back to them as quite important. The more links you have from well-trafficked sites, the higher 'PR' level it gives you. Although this isn't the be all and end all of getting high listings, it is helpful.

If you're a printing company, approach other related businesses (such as companies offering corporate gifts) with websites and ask them to link to you, making the text for your link one of your key phrases (e.g. printers in Northampton)

If you can get links to your site from sites that are already in Google listings, then you have more chance of being indexed quickly.

Directories

Submit your website to the Yahoo Directory and the Open Directory Project - both of these sites directly filter their results into Google and increase your chances of getting into Google listings. For an article on submitting to the Open Directory Project, please click here.

Submission

Don't forget to submit your site to Google directly! It's amazing how many people forget this simple thing.

It's true that Google is great at picking up sites without them being submitted, by following links from other sites, trawling the web, etc, but the sure fire way of making sure that they know about your site is by visiting the Add URL page on Google Itself.

Patience is a Virtue

Results don't happen overnight. Google can take between 6 and 18 weeks to even LIST your site, and then longer to move it up the listings for the phrases you want.

It's time consuming and can be hit and miss when you're learning - but ANYONE can learn to get a site to the top of Google - don't listen to those that tell you it's impossible.

I hope that's helped some of you to make the most of your website and Google - as always, if anyone has any questions please feel free to call me on 07782 543182 or email me at nikki@nikkipilkington.com

Nikki Pilkington is owner of Milton Keynes based Internet Marketing company NikkiPilkington.com, and writes articles, hints and tips to help people looking to promote their website for free. For more of her articles visit http://www.nikkipilkington.com and sign up to the newsletter.


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Posted by Jack Dukun at 12:05 PM | | Comments

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