SEO For CEOs – Search Engine Optimization Unmasked For CEOs

If you’re like most other CEOs, the term “search engine optimization” will mean very little. Either that or it means expense! But it doesn’t have to be that way… If you feel like you’re standing in a dark room handing money to strangers to get you in the search engines, then this article is for you.

This is an article written by a business owner for other business owners and CEOs. It explains Search Engine Optimization (or SEO) in layperson’s terms. It won’t make you an expert, but it will give you some insight into what you’re spending your money on, what you should be spending your money on, and just as importantly, what you shouldn’t.

But before launching straight into an explanation of SEO, let’s talk a bit about search engines. Approximately 75%-80% of website traffic comes through search engines. What’s more, research shows that most people don’t look beyond the first 2 pages of search results. This means if your website doesn’t rank in the first 2 pages of the major search engines, it’s only receiving 20% of its rightful traffic… and revenue. (And remember, being ranked number 1 when you search for your company name or web address doesn’t count. You need to rank highly for the words your customers use at search engines.)

The biggest concern for search engine companies like Google, Yahoo, etc., is finding content that will bring them more traffic (and thus more advertising revenue). They do this by using complex algorithms to determine whether a site is useful and should be included in their search results.

This is where SEO comes in.

SEO is the art of ranking in the search engines. Nothing more, nothing less.

SEO means creating your site such that the search engines consider it useful. The two main weapons in your arsenal are:

• Keywords
• Links to your site

KEYWORDS

Figure out what words your customers are looking for at search engines, and use those words at your site. By frequently using keywords that are important to your customers, you tell the search engines what you do. These keywords are used in your copy and in the code behind the page. Generally speaking, the more you use the keywords, the more relevant you are to searches in that field.

Keywords in Your Copy

The use of keywords in your copy is easy to understand. But it’s not easy to do. You can’t just pepper your site with a meaningless array of words. The trick is using the most important keywords a lot without compromising the readability of your copy. It’s a balance between writing for the search engines and writing for your reader.

TIP: If you find this too time consuming, a website copywriter can take care of it for you. And if you know your keywords already, it should cost you no more than normal web copy.

Keywords in Your HTML Code

The use of keywords in your HTML code is harder to understand, but it’s easier to do. There are four main places these keywords are used:

• Keywords
• Description
• Alt
• Title

TIP: When you hear people talking about meta tags, this is what they’re talking about. To see how meta tags are used in practice, go to Google and pretend you’re a customer. Search for something your customers would search for. e.g. If you’re in car audio, search for “car audio”. Click on the first couple of results to bring up their website. Right-click on the home page, and select “View Source”. You’ll see a whole lot of code. You can ignore most of it. What you’re looking for are the following…

meta name="KEYWORDS" CONTENT="keyword 1,keyword 2,keyword 3"

meta name="DESCRIPTION" CONTENT="Meaningful description of page using the main keywords"

img src="filename.gif" alt="Meaningful description of picture using the main keywords"

The title of the page using the main keywords

Take a look at the way the creators of the site have used keywords in these areas, and follow their lead. You already know they’re ranked highly, so chances are they’ve done a good job. Alternatively, take a look at my site, http://www.divinewrite.com to see how I’ve done mine.

LINKS TO YOUR SITE

Now that you know how to tell the search engines what you do, let’s talk about how to convince them you’re important.

Links to your site (or “inbound links”) are the most important factor in ranking. The more links you have to your site from other sites, the better your ranking (related sites generate better rankings).

TIP: Think of the Internet as a big election. All the websites in the world are candidates, and all the links to those websites are votes. The more votes (links) a candidate (website) has, the more important it is, and the higher its ranking.

There are many possible ways to generate links. Some are dubious (like auto-generation software). Others are legitimate, but offer limited results (like asking customers and suppliers to list you on their sites, and adding your site to various business directories). You can experiment with these methods, but I’ve always found the best way to generate inbound links is to write helpful articles and let publishers of newsletters and e-zines use them for free – on the proviso that they link back to your site.

People who publish e-Zines and newsletters are always hungry for quality content. And there are websites out there dedicated to giving them just that. If you submit a well written, relevant, helpful article to one of those sites, you can have thousands of newsletter publishers ready to snap it up. Then you just sit back and watch the links multiply!

TIP: This method is beneficial in other ways too. Readers of your article will see that you know what you’re talking about, and because you’re published, they’ll see you as an authority.

It’s impossible to say how much time you’ll need to spend generating links. You just have to keep at it until you have achieved a high ranking. Even then, you’ll still need to dedicate some ongoing time to the task, otherwise your ranking will drop.

Summary

So to cut a long story short, it comes down to this. If you have a lot of the right keyword phrases, used in real sentences, distributed realistically throughout your site, and a lot of links from other relevant sites, you stand a good chance of being ranked highly.

That’s what you’re paying your providers for. And that’s what SEO is all about.

About the Author:
* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details.
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Best SEO Firm: Your Guide To Online Success

These days, everyone seems to have an opinion or the other in the SEO field. Well, it will not serve any of your purpose if you keep on listening to everybody and implementing everything that you come across. If you are very serious about your online business venture, your best bet would be to hire the services of the best SEO firm in your city to do the work for you. No one needs to be told that SEO means search engine optimization, but what they need to be told is what are the proper methods of doing SEO.

Basically, SEO is nothing but publicity methods of a site on the web. Publicity rules and you must make sure that you have the best advertising methods in place for announcing your presence on the web. Competition is immense and you have to risen yourself in this competition to be successful in online business. Search engine marketing is one of the fastest growing industries. To be successful on the web, it is important to do search engine optimization.

For doing successful online business, it is important that your site must be available and accessible to all online visitors at all times of the day. If visitors come to visit your site and sees that your site is not functioning properly, then he will not come back again to the site. The net is a very good source for you to learn about the basics of SEO. However if you want to make use of SEO methods for popularizing your site, hiring SEO services from the best SEO firm is the perfect as well as the safest bet for you.

Sure you will let the Best SEO Firm handle the job for you, but it pays in the long run if you have a proper knowledge about this. The first and foremost thing that you should do is find out and determine who the target audience of your product is. It would be rather stupid on your part if you are targeting the wrong audience for advertising your product. All your money, time and other resources will simply go waste without yielding any visible results. Your business will just go to a downwards spiral. So take a hold of your online business before it is too late to amend the damage.

Work towards getting targeted traffic to your site. On any given day, your site can have thousands of visitors, but what purpose will this serve if their visit is not monitorized. Making commanding landing pages on your site is a great way of going about attracting the right kind of visitors to your site. Visitors on clicking the link of your site must be immediately transferred to the page that they want to see. This will ensure that visitors do not face any difficulty in finding out what they are looking for.

Hiring the services of the best SEO firm in your city is an excellent source for you to do successful online business. SEO firms are experienced and know what they need to do to make your site successful on the web. There are many aspects that need to be dealt with and taken care of popularizing for your site on the web. Just make sure that you find out the best SEO firm to do the work for your site.

About the Author:
Steve Waganer is expert in Search engine optimization, Affiliated Marketing,Affordable search engine marketing and Organic search engine optimization.To get services of Best SEO Firm for your website to get high rank and top position in major search engines visit www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com
Added: 06 Oct 2006
Article Source: http://articles.simplysearch4it.com/article/38625.html

Investing in SEO: Clients vs SEOs

The SEO's Blood, Sweat and Tears

Being in the business of search engine marketing I sometimes get overwhelmed with the sheer number of hours necessary to fully market a site online. Actually, I can't even say there is such a thing as "fully" marketing a site online as there are truly an endless number of marketing options. There are so many things that can be done while also maintaining a budget both for the client and for the time involved.

Ninety percent of the online marketing services we provide are based on time. There are a few expenditures (directory submissions, etc) but most of the cost associated with our SEO services is hourly time going into each project: writing, analyzing, tweaking, optimizing, communicating, reporting, etc. Largely, I think it's hard for any client to fully understand all of this, especially those looking for something "less expensive."

When it comes to purchasing an SEO package, it all comes down to how much are you willing to pay per hour, and how many hours do you want to invest in your website's promotion efforts? While many SEOs charge a package price, how much goes into that package is determined by how many hours of their time the SEO is willing to invest, and for how much. When you consider the SEO package as a matter of hours, $1000/month will buy you anywhere from 5-30 hours of work each month. Those willing to put in 30 hours for $1000 either have very low overhead or are not skilled enough to charge more per hour. Those putting in 5 hours per $1000 either have high overhead or are exceptionally skilled, or both.

But still, 5 hours, or even 10 hours per month spent on an optimization campaign isn't a whole lot once you break down everything that goes into it. Here is a simple breakdown of what I would consider the average high-quality SEO campaign:

• Keyword Research: Can take up to 10 hours initially, or more for extensive research, and perhaps another 30 minutes each month for additional research.
• Page Optimization: 3-6 hours (per page) for text and code development/optimization.
• Usability/Conversion Analysis & Reporting: 2-12 hours/month depending on depth of testing and reporting analysis.
• Link Building/Research: 10-40 hours per month depending on the size of the site.
• Miscellaneous Campaign Management: 2-10 hours per month depending on size of site.

Depending on how the SEO charges, the bulk of this can be an upfront payment for a predetermined number of pages with little ongoing maintenance, or it can be spread out into monthly payments and include ongoing research, optimization and link development. I grouped a lot of little things together above for brevity, but spending 20 hours a month (averaged over 12-months) isn't all that hard to achieve.

Assuming the average (quality) SEO firm charges $150/hour, you're looking at $3000/month or $36,000 for a year. That's no small chunk of change for the average small business. Not every SEO firm (including us) charges fees that high, but rarely is one person able to perform every aspect of an SEO campaign without hiring staff or sub-contracting out, and good specialized sub-contractors will charge anywhere from $35-$150 or more per hour. For the SEO to make any money they have to charge at least that much, if not more.

Undoubtedly, not every SEO will agree with all of my numbers above, but even looking at it conservatively, $10,000/year doesn't garner the client a lot of time put into their SEO campaign. As I said before, it all comes down to time. Every SEO must figure out how best to invest their allotted hours. Will more be spent on text development than link building? Does usability/conversion analysis take a higher priority over anything else?

For us SEOs, sometimes the hard part is convincing clients to invest in our time (package costs), but in reality we should be convincing them to invest in their website. It's not how much money the client is paying for SEO, it's how much time their money will allow the SEO to invest in their website.

The Spend-Cautious Client

I'm as cost conscious as the next guy, but there comes a point when pinching pennies is counter productive... especially in business. When I look at various on- and off-line marketing campaigns, I don't look at the cost so much as I look at the overall return. Sure, a big price tag makes me think long and hard before investing, but what I want to know is, will I get my return on that investment?

The bigger the price tag the harder it is to jump into an unknown investment. This is just as true with SEO as with any form of marketing, but perhaps even more true with SEO because the return is not instant. SEO requires a long-term investment and the money you pour into it today will not be returned for several months. This is even truer for new businesses just getting online.

The Internet has attracted many new business owners who thought (some rightfully and some not) that they could simply build a website and start making money in their spare time. Many people have become successful and probably a great deal more have not.

Any business, on- or off-line, requires investment. Investment of both time and money.

• If you have neither time nor money, there will be no success.
• If you have time and not money, success can come, but you may run out of time before it happens.
• If you have money but not time, success may come, but it will be fleeting without proper preparation and planning.
• If you have both time and money, success may come, but like any business, a proper business plan is required.

Obviously, the best position is to have both time and money. And if you want to optimize your site for search engines, you need both and you must be prepared to spend both as well. Look at your options, but don't consider pricing only. Price (high or low) is NOT an indicator of a more successful campaign.

Costly marketing will still fail, if the business plan is not solid. Cheap marketing will usually only produce cheap results.

It's not how much it costs, it’s the ROI (return on investment) that you get for your money. Look at the long-term goals. If you really want to succeed with optimization be prepared to invest, and like any good investment, allow it to fully mature. Only then will your search marketing campaign prove successful.

About The Author:
Read this article and more at the E-Marketing Performance Blog. Stoney deGeyter is president of Pole Position Marketing, a search optimization marketing firm providing SEO and website marketing services since 1998. Stoney is also a part-time instructor at Truckee Meadows Community College, as well as a moderator in the Small Business Ideas Forum. He is the author of his E-Marketing Performance eBook. (eza)
Article Submitted On: October 24, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Big Guide Through On Page SEO Factors - Part 4

Site navigation structure

Google suggests to use tree-like navigation structure. The most important pages should be one click from your home page. These pages should be optimized for more general (and more competitive) keywords. If you will comply with this suggestion your pages with more competitive keywords will get higher portion of pagerank. Pages containing less competitive keywords should be in tier 2 (2 clicks from homepage). These pages need not so big portion of pagerank to be ranked well in SERPs. It is possible that you will need more tiers if you run larger website. You should consider to provide users with links between lower-level pages. It helps to make your site navigation more clear and if you use keywords in the anchor text, you get some very important "points" from search engines.

Time from time check your site for broken links. There are some quality free programs or online services which will do it for you automatically. From the point of search engines, the broken links are sign that something is not ok. A lot of broken links can hurt your search engine positions.

Avoid pages with extremely long content. Google suggests keep the page size under 100 Kb. In fact, Google evidently prefers smaller pages. It seem be logical because sites with basic information and links to detailed info are more clear then one single page where the webmaster placed all available information.

Site updates

Search engines like fresh content. Keep your site up to date -- both, the visitors and search engines will like you.

Quality content

There are some ways how search engines determine if your content is useful for the visitors or not. If the visitor come to your website from Google and immediately click the back button, he probably didn't find what he was looking for. The average time spent on your website is very important factor to determine website quality.

Another factor used by search engines to determine website quality is the number of particular pages. If your website consists of many hundreds pages, you more likely offer higher value to your visitors then a website which consists of a single page.

Age of the site

Google does everything to protect quality of its search results. Spammers usually register domains for one year, try to quickly achieve good positions and because they get banned in a few months, they don't renew the domain name. Instead they register a new one and start the spamming procedure again. From this reason the older sites are more preferred by Google. If you have five years old web which is regularly updated you will have big advantage against new websites.

When you register a new domain name you should register it for more then one year. From my own experience when I registered 2 domain names for one year I didn't achieve top positions in the first year. A few days after domain renewal there was a big boost in SERPs. When I registered new domain for 10 years the site was out of sandbox after 3 months.

So this was the Guide Through On Page SEO Factors. I hope that these information will help you to rank better in search engines and get more visitors to your website. Good luck!

About the Author:
Bedrich Omacka
Author is marketing manager of Marble Host, a web host with 99.9% uptime guarantee. Check out some independent MarbleHost reviews to see what webmasters think about our services.
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

Big Guide Through On Page SEO Factors - Part 3

Keywords in meta tag keywords

Meta tag keywords should contain a few most important keywords related to particular page. Every keyword listed in this tag should appear in the page content. Don't try to repeat single keyword, it can be considered spam. Some search engines including Google no longer values this tag. Anyway you lose nothing if you use it. I will use again the example with web hosting website. The good keywords tag can be: web, hosting, company, php, mysql (if you offer PHP and MySQL support, of course).

Keywords in alt tags

What are alt tags? Try to move mouse pointer over any image on some website. If some text will appear near the mouse pointer, it is the alt tag content. The original purpose of alt tags was to describe the images for users which use browser which doesn't display images. In these days, alt tags can be useful for better images description and as an alternative text which is used in case that the images is not loaded.

If your site contains any images which display something what can be described by your keywords, always use these keywords in your alt tags. But never use keywords which have nothing to do with the image. That can be consider cheating and your site may be penalized.

Keywords in the website text

Use your keywords naturally in the text. Nobody can tell you the ideal keyword density but from my experience 3 - 10 % is fine. Most SEO consultants believe that there is no fixed ideal density. More likely the ideal density depends on the site topic. Anyway if you will write your website content naturally you will probably hit the mark.

If possible, use H1, H2 etc. tags. The most important keywords should appear in the H1 tag, H2 (H3, H4... if applicable) tags should contain more specific keywords related to the paragraph below these headings. Important keywords can be highlighted using STRONG or EM tags. STRONG tag makes bold the text and EM creates italic text. I suggest to use these tags instead B and I tags. The visual effect of these tags is the same but text in STRONG and EM tags are considered important by search engines.

Keywords in anchor text

Anchor text are the words in links. This is one of the most important on page factor. Every link in your menu usually consists of one, two or thee words. These words should exactly describe the content of the target page. In our example with web hosting company, there can be links in site navigation like "Web Hosting Plans", "Domain Names" etc.

Sometimes happen that you need more words to describe the target page content but the design of your website doesn't allow larger text. The solution can be the link title which is displayed when the visitor moves mouse pointer over the link. Here is an example: A HREF="domain.html" TITLE="Domain name registration or domain name transfer".

In the last part of this article, part 4, I will show you how to improve your website navigation structure and reveal some secrets about site age and its SEO effect.

About the Author:
Bedrich Omacka
For more webmaster articles visit www.marblehost.com/webmaster-articles.php . If you need quality hosting have a look at Marble Host - web hosting service offering Link Popularity Check, Search Engine Site Submission and more.
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

How To Select Keywords For Search Engine Optimization

Selecting the correct keywords can make or break your website. Potential customers search the web for desired sites, and if your website doesn't have the keywords they're looking for, they'll miss you.

Determining keywords is an art; it's best to work backwards. What would a customer search for if they were looking for your site? You literally have to put yourself in the consumer's place and let go of your preconceived notions about what you think your keywords are. You should remember when writing your site that you need to use words that are not only related to your content, but are popular search words as well. This is called keyword optimization, or choosing the most searched keywords related to your content.

Spend some time listing all of the words and phrases that are related to your website content. Get ideas from everyone you can think of and list them all. Visit competitors' sites and see what meta tags they use. After this research, you are ready to develop your own keyword phrases.

There are several sites designed to assist you in keyword optimization. Here are a few of the free ones:-

The Overture Keyword Tool (http://www.inventory.overture.com ) lists searches related to the keyword you provide. This took is great for expanding your list.

Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) helps identify keywords that will help your ranking on search engines. Wordtracker also gives you other keyword combinations that you may have overlooked.

The Keyword Tumbler (http://www.keywordtumbler.com) takes your existing keyword phrases and mixes it up to form new phrases and variations that you can include in your meta tags.

A great website is not so great if no one finds it. Remember to research your keywords carefully from the consumer's viewpoint and then sit back and watch the traffic roll in!

About the Author:
Evelyn Lim is a publisher of the popular newsletter "Mapping You to Success" aimed at the aspiring home based internet business owner. She also hopes to educate her readers on acquiring multiple sources of online income. Please visit her site at http://www.e-BizMap.com for more information.
Article Source: ArticleWarehouse

Big Guide Through On Page SEO Factors - Part 2

Keywords in the title

Try to include the main keywords in the title. Keywords in title are extremely important so never underestimate this step! Title of every page should be unique, depending on the page topic. Place the title as high as possible in the website source, ideally as the first tag in the "head" section.

Google shows about 60 first letters of the title in SERPs, Yahoo! and MSN a little more. So if you will write longer titles, the main information about the page should be included in the first 60 letters.

If possible, the main keywords should be in the beginning of the title. This will help you to achieve higher prominence. Example: "Web Hosting Company located in Seychelles | Company Name".

Keywords in the description

Meta tag description describes the content of the particular page. It means that every page of your web should have its own unique description. Many webmasters make the mistake that they use only one general description for the entire website. Yes, it can save their time but there are some disadvantages. First, the description probably will not fit good the page content. Keep in mind that content of the description tag is usually used by search engines as a part of website's listing. Your potential visitor will see this listing and if he will not find what is he looking for he will probably visit website of your competitor. Another problem can happen if some of your pages has too little content. There is a big risk that search engines will classify these sites like duplicate. Nobody knows exactly their algorithm but search engines like fresh, unique content and not duplicate sites.

Case study:
Some time ago I started a jokes site. The goal of this site was to be ranked good for the main keyword "jokes" and joke categories names (e.g. blonde jokes). So I used unique titles, description and keyword meta tags for the home page and joke categories. The particular jokes had one general title and description (each site included one joke and most jokes was about 15 - 25 words only). And what happened? When I typed into Google site:mysite.tld, I saw this: "Results 1 - 7 of about 43 from mysite.tld. In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 7 already displayed. If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included." So 36 sites was considered duplicate. I probably didn't get "points" for having a lot of unique content. Anyway when I realized this, I changed all titles and descriptions -- I made them all unique. When I tried site:mysite.tld one month later, Google said: "Results 1 - 43 of about 43 from mysite.tld".

Conclusion -- if you make your description tags unique, you provide better information for your visitor and search engines too. They will like you both.

Meta tag description should contain keywords related to particular page. Always include the keywords used in title (the most important keywords) and add some more specific keywords. Google displays about 150 from description characters in its listings, msn and yahoo more (I have seen up to 300 characters in some yahoo listing descriptions). Anyway if you plan from some reason use longer description, always write the most important information in the beginning. It will be useful not only for your potential visitor when he finds your listing in search engine but also for your search engine ranking. You get a few "points" from search engines because you achieve higher prominence of your keywords you are targeting.

Some webmasters confuse meta tag description and keywords. I have seen many websites with description like "Keyword 1, keyword 2, keyword 3 etc.). This is called "keyword stuffing" and you can be sure that search engines don't like it. Here is an example of meta tag description for web hosting site: Web hosting service offering 25,000 MB web space, 400 GB bandwidth, PHP, MySQL and Perl, website builder and free domain name.

In the next part of this article I will show you how to use meta tag keywords, alt tags, how to integrate your keywords to the website content and I will say you something about anchor text.

About the Author:
Bedrich Omacka
For more webmaster articles visit www.marblehost.com/webmaster-articles.php . For reliable web hosting have a look at Marble Host - web hosting service offering Link Popularity Check, Search Engine Site Submission and more.
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

Big Guide Through On Page SEO Factors - Part 1

The goal of this guide is to describe as many On Page SEO Factors as possible. If you have ever look for SEO related information, you probably found a lot articles dealing with particular topics. I will try to put these particular topics together and write complete guide which will help you to achieve top positions in search engines like Google, Yahoo!, MSN and others.

What are On Page Factors and Off Page Factors?

On page optimization is the basic part of SEO. In a nutshell, on page factors include all improvements of your website which will lead to better search engine ranking. Off page factors include everything what is not present on your website - backlinks, their anchor texts, how quickly new links pointing to your website appear etc. Continue reading to discover how to improve your on page factors and move your website to the top of SERP.

Keywords in URL

If possible, your URL should contain your main keywords. Let's say that you are a web hosting company and you decided to optimize your website for phrase "Web Hosting Company". Then the best domain name will be "web-hosting-company.com". Maybe you ask now why not "webhostingcompany.com" or "web_hosting_company.com". That's because from the point of search engines the version with hyphens (web-hosting-company) are three words. If you will use the version without hyphens (webhostingcompany) or with underscore character (web_hosting_company), search engines will index this like one word. If you need to separate words, always use hyphens.

But don't forget that the goal of your website is not only to be #1 in Google, Yahoo! etc.! Always try to make your URLs not only SEO friendly but also user friendly. I highly recommend not to use too many hyphens in your domain name. Or do you like to write URLs like "web-hosting-php-mysql-perl-website-builder-free-domain.com"?

Keywords can be included in the names of directories and files too. The highest weight has keyword in domain name, than in the directory name and then in the file name. While domain name should contain the most general keywords, the directory name may be more specific and file name should be the same as the main keyword(s) of given page. I will use the example with web hosting company again -- this is the URL example of page which contain information about domain name transfer: web-hosting-company.com/domain-name/transfer.php.

Another solution how to operate with keywords in URLs are subdomains. Keyword in subdomain has higher weight then in file name. Creating subdomain(s) with keyword can be very good idea for companies which has domain name like "my-company-name.com".

This was the basic info regarding on page SEO factors. These information can be useful if you are in process of website building or if you plan to add some fresh content to your website. In the part 2 I will show you how to improve your current website using smart texts in title and meta tag description.

About the Author:
Bedrich Omacka
For more webmaster articles visit www.marblehost.com/webmaster-articles.php . For reliable web hosting have a look at Marble Host - web hosting service with 99.9% uptime guarantee.
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

Earn With Fun By Simple Seo (search Engine Optimization)

It all happened 3 months back, I have a blog & 1 fine day i saw my blog was ranking on top 10 position for a keyword which is less targeted, but was excited to see that & planned to promote it. Now watz the catch before promoting i placed Google Ads on my page.

I started promoting my blog by simply making submissions to blog directories, Search Engines & General Directories in related categories.

I was real amazed with the results, My position improved in search engines this resulted in good traffic & was able to see flow of $$$ in my Google Ads account. It took me 43 days to reach $99,

I have learnt lot & will be working more on that, if I have to suggest some 1 how can any individual earn $100 & more by simple seo my answer would be

#1 Create a blog (google blogs are not ranking good in google but has good ranking in yahoo.com) Make sure you create a blog in the topic where you have deep interest so that you can post more about the topic & share information.

#2 Start Submission for your blogs net presence. You can start submitting to blog directories & general directories in relevant categories.

#3 Keep posting regularly....

I bet by this simple task you make more than 100$ I understand its a small amount but its worth in proportion of the time you spent & fun you have posting something you would love to talk about.

Ravz..!
http://expertseo.rediffblogs.com

About the Author:
Ravz D is into research & analysis of online marketing. SEO India site http://expertseo.rediffblogs.com which offers Search Engine Optimization at affordable prices.
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

SEO Checklist for Web Designing

Domain Name - Your domain name should be brandable (example: Google, Amazon, Yahoo!, etc.), easy to say, and even easier to remember. Don't worry too much about stuffing keywords into your domain name. Keywords in domain names no longer have the punch they used to.

www or not www - The choice is yours, http://www.mysite.com/ or http://mysite.com/, pick one and stick with it. I recommend using the www because the basic Joe Schmoe Web server tends to type in www, anyway.

Simple Design - Don't reinvent the wheel. If your design is complex, chances are it will hinder your visitors' ability to navigate and view the site plus it will slow down development. The simpler the better.

Don't create directories further than three levels down from the root directory - The closer pages are to the home page in the directory structure the better. Keep things organized but don't overorganize. If you have one file or sub-directory in a directory there should be a VERY valid reason.

File/Directory Names Using Keywords - Your filenames and directory names should contain keywords. If your page is about Idaho potatoes then the filename should be idaho-potatoes.

Static URLs - Static URLs are URLs that are not dynamically generated. A static URL looks like http://www.mysite.com/directory/file-name.html and dynamic URLs look like http://www.mysite.com/index.html?page-name=. You can make dynamic URLs spiderable by search engines but it's a lot easier to get things indexed with static URLs.

Think Small - The smaller your Web pages are, the faster they load. A single page should be less than 15K (unless absolutely necessary) and the entire page including graphics should be less than 50K (unless absolutely necessary). Remember, not everyone is on a high-speed Internet connection; there are still people without a 56K modem.

Hyphens - Use hyphens ( - ) and not underscores ( _ ) to separate words in directory and file names. Most search engines parse a hyphen like a reader would parse a space. Using underscores makes what_would_you_do look like whatwouldyoudo to most search engines. You should definitely separate words in your URLs.

Navigation on Every Page - You should place consistent navigation on every page of your Web site. Your navigation should link to the major sections of your Web site. It would also make sense for every page on your Web site to link back to the home page.

Site Map - You should create a site map that links to the major sections and sub-sections of your Web site. The site map should be linked to from your Web site's home page at the very least. Preferably the site map should be linked to from every page. Recommend file names for your site map are "sitemap.html" or "site-map.html."

Title - The title of the page should be used in the TITLE tag and at the top of every page. The title should be keyword rich (containing a max of 7 to 10 words) and descriptive.

Description META Tag - Some people say META tags are dead but some search engines will actually use them underneath a pages title on search engine result pages (SERPs). Use no more than 150 characters including spaces and punctuation. Your description should be a keyword rich, complete sentence.

Keyword META Tag - A listing of keywords that appear in the page. Use a space to separate keywords (not a comma). Arrange keywords how they would be searched for or as close to a complete sentence as possible. This tag is basically dead but by creating it when you create the page it allows you to come back eons later and realize what keywords you were specifically targetting. If the keyword doesn't appear at least twice in the page then it shouldn't go in the Keyword META Tag. Also, try to limit the number of total keywords to under twenty.

Robots META Tag - Some search engine crawlers abide by the Robots META Tag. This gives you some control over what appears in a search engine and what doesn't. This isn't an essential aspect of search engine optimization but it doesn't hurt to add it in.

Heading Tags - Heading tags should be used wherever possible and should be structured appropriately (H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6). You shouldn't start a page with an H2 tag. If H1 by default is too big then use CSS to style it effectively. Remember that most search engines like to see a heading tag then text or graphics; not H1 followed immediately by H2.

TITLE Attribute - Use the A HREF TITLE attribute (example: < href = "page.html" title= "This page contains links to other pages.">). The TITLE attribute improves usability/accessibility. Be sure to include keywords as you see fit but remember it should tell your visitors where they will go when they click the link.

ALT Tags - Every image should have an ALT tag. Use a keyword rich description of what the image is. If the image contains text use the text in the image. This is also a usability/accessibility tool.

More text than HTML - A page should have more text content than markup language.

Anchor Text - Anchor text is the text used to link to a page. Using keywords in anchor text is a very good idea and will improve a page's performance in SERPs.

Use Text Links, Not Images - If you're going to link to something use text. Text in images can't be read by search engines. The only time this rule doesn't apply is when you're linking to something with a well known logo. Even then it's still better to use a text link. If you must use an image as a link then make sure you give it a good ALT tag.

Gobs of Content - The more content, the better. Having pages upon pages of original, relevant content is the best form of search engine optimization.

Add New Content Often - If you can add a new page of content every day then your site will stay fresh and give search engine crawlers a reason to keep coming back day in and day out.

Keyword Density - This is a touchy topic among Web developers and search engine optimizers. Some say 5% is more than enough. Chris Short says your main keywords shouldn't have a density of more than 30% and should be higher than the densities of other phrases and words.

Build It, Put It Online - Your site should be built and in "update mode" once it's uploaded to your Web server. Don't add a page at a time to your Web server when you're first building your Web site. Build your Web site first then upload it. Add new content as needed.

Use a robots.txt File - Every good crawler looks for a robots.txt file in your root directory. I would highly recommend creating a valid robots.txt just to appease these search engines and at the very least eliminate 404 errors from building up in your log files.

Validation - Every page on your Web site should adhere to W3C standards as closely as possible. Some say page validation can help your ranking in SERPs (the jury is still out on that one). But, standards compliant Web pages do help with cross browser compatibility.

Link Popularity - Once your Web site has been well established, it's time to build up your link popularity. The more relevant inbound links a Web site has, the better its rankings will be.

Analyze Traffic - Read your log files often. Make sure you're not getting traffic you don't want and getting traffic you do want. Keeping a pulse on your traffic allows you to better optimize your pages.

NO TRICKS - If it doesn't seem ethical, then it isn't a good idea. If it doesn't help your visitors, then don't do it.

NO FRAMES - Don't use frames, ever.

NO BROKEN LINKS - Linking to pages that don't exist is a very bad thing. Search engines and people alike hate that.

SEO Pakistan - Search Engine Optimization Services and SEM Solution in Pakistan at Boundless Services.

About the Author:
Komail A. Noori
SEO Pakistan - Search Engine Optimization Services and SEM Solution in Pakistan at Boundless Services.
Added: 24 Oct 2006
Article Source: http://articles.simplysearch4it.com/article/40291.html

Help! My Keywords are Too Common

What can you do if your keywords are too common? Is there anything that can help you optimise your keywords to gain more traffic to your website?

To start with try including misspellings in your meta tag keywords as this can help you to get visitors who don’t know how to spell or those, like me, who type too fast. This type of traffic is just as good as any other. How many people do you know that use a dictionary when they don’t know how to spell a word? I know I don’t and I certainly can’t think of many people I know who would do. Whilst including misspellings will help you to some extent, it probably will not provide you with a massive increase in traffic especially now that many search engines have built in spell checkers so that if a user spells a word incorrectly they are presented with the probable correct spelling. If you want to try this then you can take advantage of tools like WordTracker to find out which misspellings are the most popular, and target those.

You should try to think on the same level as your visitors and not always like a webmaster. Thinking like the average person will make you more successful. You really should constantly remind yourself to think like the average person when you’re trying to pick the words or phrases which people will use to find you. If you can get into the mind set of a lay person and think “What would I type into the search box if I was looking for the content on this web page?” You will then probably come up with the keywords that are most important. Think of each group within your niche or audience and try to come up with realistic search queries. Entering each word from these queries into your meta tags should help you substantially in terms of increasing your search engine traffic.

If the niche you operate in has a “trade” language then one of the things that will set you apart from the rest of the world is learning the special language of your niche. When you learn about your chosen niche, you start using acronyms and other words that would be foreign to most people, but mean something to the people who would be searching for you. Words that people outside your niche would search for are not the same as those that people inside it would search for. By targeting these jargon words you will be helping yourself to get much more highly-targeted traffic and with the added advantage of potentially little competition.

Another thing that will set you apart is using words that someone unfamiliar with your niche would use in an attempt to find content regarding niche trade. You should not aim to target your site only at those who already know a good deal about the subject matter that you offer. Your content probably won’t be fresh to people who are experienced in your field so you are much more dependent on your products at that point. If, however, you are able to target people who know little or nothing about your particular niche, you will be able to generate a good deal of traffic and probably sell more of your product.

XA final, but very important, method of providing good key word is to discuss the subject of your site with others and observe their reactions to your language. If they seem to suddenly understand what you are saying, that phrase may be a good one for your key words. Talk to your friends, your family, and other web masters about your subject and see what language is generally associated with your subject. This language is generally the correct language to use when generating your key words.

The most important thing to bear in mind when attempting to come up with unique key words is that there are huge groups of people out there who are interested in your niche who have not been targeted by other sites. These niche markets are potentially ripe for the picking. If you can come up with a group that would be interested in what you have to offer but has not been targeted thoroughly by your competition, you will be able to drastically increase your traffic and/or sales. The ability to identify and target niche markets is an art form. However it is one that can be developed by any truly dedicated marketer, but you have to be observant and patient in order to come up with valuable niche markets. After all don’t forget , you are attempting to do what nobody has done before!

When you start to optimise your website keywords you will find yourself trying to come up with ever more interesting or unique key words, and you will be trying to implement them more smoothly into your web page. As I have found the reality is that this takes both time and practice. You need to get yourself thoroughly engrossed in the community surrounding your niche market. Check out some forums relating to your market, look at the common forms of media coverage such as magazines and books. There are possible key words everywhere just waiting to be exploited for the sake of increases in your traffic and sales.

About the Author:
Paul Duxbury is a UK based successful online entrepreneur. Invaluable advice on creating successful websites can be found at http://www.web-success.co.uk
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Will SEO Work for You?

You've heard all the success stories and case studies from search engine optimization (SEO) companies' websites: get search engine rankings, fame and fortune follow. But does it always work that way? As an insider in the SEO field, I can assure you that it doesn't. I've seen too many companies lose money on a successful SEO campaign--SEO that is Pointless. How can you avoid their fate?

First, understand what SEO is and what it isn't. Legitimate search engine optimization doesn't involve shady tactics to "trick" search engines into giving you rankings. Search engines do not take kindly to being tricked. When search engines find out you've manipulated them, your site could be demoted or blacklisted.

Second, define expectations. When dealing with an SEO company, be sure to define what success is. Do write out which search engines you expect to see results on--you probably won't be happy with a #1 ranking on www.theultimatesearchenginethatnooneuses.com if you're nowhere to be found on Google. Remember that you don't have to be #1 to get traffic, either (although it certainly helps). There are no guarantees in SEO, even if your SEO's cousin's grandma's neighbor's dog walker's wife works at Google.

Beware SEO companies that promise instant #1 rankings. Some legitimate SEO companies may offer a pay-for-performance contract where you pay more or pay only if you achieve top rankings. This model can be quite efficient at motivating your SEO company to get more work done.

Third, know what SEO should deliver. SEO is designed to bring you more "qualified" traffic. SEO isn't just about engineering your website for search engines, it's about engineering, designing, and writing for human visitors as well.

What makes traffic "qualified"? Qualified traffic means that the people visiting your site are already interested in what you sell. Targeting unqualified traffic is like approaching everyone on the street--no matter how cool your business, service or product, not everyone will be interested. Targeting qualified traffic is selling to the people who actively looked for your store.

Fourth, know that SEO has its limitations. Some SEO companies can do all those things--ethically define and meet expectations, bringing you lots of qualified traffic--and still be a waste of your time and money. That doesn't mean that SEO will never work for your site--but it does mean that you need to be very careful when choosing an SEO firm.

How can you be sure that SEO won't be a total loss? Read SEO is Pointless to learn how to ensure that your SEO will never be pointless.

About the Author:
Jordan McCollum wants to make sure that you don't have to suffer from SEO that is Pointless
Submitted: 2006-10-25
Article Source: GoArticles

How I Got My Site Into Google

Google calls Sitemaps “an experiment in web crawling”. In general, you place a sitemap on to your web server. This helps the crawlers identify the pages you have and add it to the search index. And when you update your site map (after changing a page or adding new content), it also marks the pages you’ve changed and makes a note of what order to review it.

It’s a lot more systematic and efficient than random crawling, where there are no guarantees that the web crawlers will pick up on the most important pages. So even if it requires an additional step for web developers, it’s greater assurance that all the hard work you put into your content actually shows up in the searches.

Google Sitemaps was developed partly to resolve the problem encountered by big websites, wherein web crawlers would skip over some pages and fail to index some of the content. Considering the effect this can have on your search engine optimization efforts, that glitch can have a big impact on your ranking. And for websites that regularly change content (like product sites), you’d want your new stock to actually register—especially when you’re promoting a hot, trendy item.

So in short, to get your site into Google, you’ve got to make it easier for Google to find you—via their map. It’s not as complicated as it sounds. You just need to use a software tool to create a sitemap in Google’s chosen XML format, upload that to your site, and then send a URL notification to Google. And since you’re doing that anyway, make an HTML sitemap for the other search engines (Yahoo, MSN, etc.) and then include a link to it in an unobtrusive corner of your website. Many of those software tools can do that for you.

Is it expensive? Not really. For smaller sites (less than 500 pages) you can find several free Google Sitemap Generators. Look for those that allow you to restrict the directories that are being searched, and give instructions as to which files to index and which to avoid. This can be programmed through the filters and settings. For your convenience, you’ll also want one that lets you include PDF, .doc, .xls, and .zip documents.

Larger sites may require a trained webmaster, who can install a program on the site to help you index it and generate a sitemap. Of course, you can do it on your own (and again, you’ll find many XML sitemap tutorials and software on the Internet), but with 800 pages to handle you probably have other web administration worries to think about. It’s just easier to pass it on to a professional. Or at least, invest in a very efficient XML software that will take care of most of the details and has several tools and functions at its disposal.

Once you’ve chosen a program (or hired someone to set it up for you), you’ll have to create a Google account. They don’t charge for the service, and you’ll want to get features like tracking the status of your Sitemaps and reviewing the diagnostic information for your sites.

Now, you’re ready to conquer Google.

XML-Sitemaps.com provides a free online Google Sitemaps generator which will also help you find and fix broken links.
visit me at http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/

About the Author:
Philip Nicosia
Article Source: ArticleWarehouse

SEO; It Is Time To Automate The Process

It is time to start optimizing your website for search engines. You have to learn from the start that all you have to do is build massive amounts of links and build good content in your website. How can you do this without having to use strategies that take a long time and that will drain all of your money out of the bank with a service?

This is one of the hardest questions to answer but it is an important one. You know that you are reaching success when you have to start outsourcing the work you used to do by your self. Having others do the work for your business that you can not do because you are working on more important things is a very good sign that your business in prospering.

All you have to do is a little research. Find the little golden nugget in the sea of junk offers and software that can help you search engine optimize your website. You do not have to be a search engine optimization specialist to know what it take to optimize a website for search engines but you do need to know a little bit if you are going to outsource. The reason for this is so you know how much it should cost.

For example, if you want someone to write a blog for you, will you be paying them $500 dollars when it takes you 15 minutes a day? It is simple logic that says that you do not pay any writer $20 an hour to write a blog for you every day. These little things that can assist you improve your business and increase profit will lead to a higher level of success.

Are you looking for a partial or full time SEO expert to cater to your website? You can save yourself thousands of dollars a year if you use software that does everything SEO experts do. If you really want to get your web pages indexed, there is software at farfastertraffic.com that can automate the process for all of your websites.

To make sure that you get the most out of your hard earned money, take my advice and do a little bit of research. Weigh all the different services and software that exist and see what works best for you for the price. Always look for reviews and never buy unless you contact and the service or software provider for more information.

About The Author:
George Christodoulou
If you are looking for an affordable a SEO And Blogging Service SEO And Blogging Service, please speak with a search engine optimization specialist search engine optimization specialist Today!
Article Submitted On: October 25, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Search Engine Marketing Can Make You Really Popular On the Web

Is your site successful on the web? Not so sure? Well the best thing that you can do for finding out if your site is successful or not is to check out the search engine marketing strategy that you are using for promoting your site. Yes, it is the search engine marketing strategy that determines if your site will be a success or fade to oblivion on the web. Everything is in your hand, success or failure. You have to choose where you want to see your online business site on the web.

The first thing needed for a successful search engine marketing strategy is to conduct proper research and find out the present status of the market in which you want to sell your goods and services. Yes, you can have the most amazing ideas, but it will be of no use if you do not have a prior and proper knowledge about the market where you want to do business. After you have had a proper idea about the present market standings, you can actually decide what to do.

Decide what your target audience is. If you do not identify your target audience you can encounter lots of problem. Suppose you are selling clothes and other stuff for teenage kids and you end up using publicity methods for your product that have very remote chances of ever reaching the teenage kids. Your whole effort will go waste resulting in the losses of money, manpower, time and other resources. So be specific about which your target audience is and design all the publicity methods revolving in and around that.

The online site is the face of your business that you are putting up for your audience. Undoubtedly you will have to put up your best face to attract customer's attention and also the attention of search engines. You will have to go out and tell everyone that you have arrived at the scene with a big bang. So what better way to do this then search engine marketing? The main idea behind search engine marketing is to promote your site on the web in all the major search engines.

Most people use internet to find any information. Search engine is the source that is used as a tool for finding out the information on the web. Each and every search engine marketing strategy must basically aim at reaching out to maximum number of people at a time without too much of an effort. Make sure that the online site that you have in place is up and running at all times. You site must also be easily accessible to all online visitors.

The look and the content of your site is one of the crucial factors in determining if customers will, buy wares from your business site or not. Try to include all the product details and make the information as attractive as possible. Customers will simply love to come back to your site again and gain if they find what they are looking for. They just do not need to look anywhere if they find their requirements in your online business site.

About the Author:
Steve Waganer has specialization in Web Marketing. He is expert in Search engine optimization, Affiliated Marketing,search engine marketing and Website Marketing.To get his expert advice for your website to get high rank and top position in major search engines visit http://www.cometsearchenginemarketing.com
Added: 29 Sep 2006
Article Source: http://articles.simplysearch4it.com/article/38075.html

SEO Deadly Sins - Mistakes That Hurt Web Page Ranking

The following are a list of mistakes can ensure that your site maintains a low ranking with the search engines. Avoid at all costs.

* Specifying no title for your page *

I cannot stress how important the title of a web page is. Failing to specify a descriptive, keyword optimized title will do untold damage to your ranking with the search engines. It is the equivalent to owning a shop and boarding up its windows. Ideally each page on your site should have a unique, content-specific title.

* Excessive use of images or Flash animation on a page *

If your web page has plenty of nice-looking graphics and eye-popping Flash animation and not a lot of textual content it may indeed look nice but have you ever considered what how the search engines might see it. Search engines thrive on textual content, scavenging as much text as they can but unfortunately they cannot understand images or Flash animations like we can and so will find nothing of real value on your page. Try to balance your page so that the textual content is given priority and that any images or animations are used only when needed. Also it is a good idea to attach some text to an image by using its ALT tag as search engines use this text when determining rank.

* Complicated menu systems *

Search engines spiders that crawl through our pages are a relatively primitive bunch. They find in hard to navigate complicated menu systems implemented for example in JavaScript or as a Java applet. Just because it is easy for a human to navigate through the site never assume it will be as easy for a search engine spider. A menu system using simple textual links will be easier for a spider to understand and it will be able to successfully navigate your site. A lot of the time complicated menu systems can be replicated using textual links and CSS.

If you must use a complicated menu system be sure to provide a site map that is clearly accessible from the homepage of your site and contains only textual links to your pages. This ensures that even if the spider cannot understand your menu system that it will be able to find the pages on your site.

About the Author:
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.
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Flash and Search Engine Optimisation Best Practise

The world of search engines has evolved over the recent months and still we can’t be 100% sure about flash design. It is still hard to get flash web sites spidered and ranked how we would like using the traditional search engine optimisation techniques. The main problem is that the search engines can’t index the content in the flash code so they have no way of ranking the website accordingly. The reason for this is that they see the flash as a graphic and cannot always read what is inside it. Your online flash designer should consider the following:

Flash pages and movies

The benefits of flash are:

• Great special effects
• Easy for designers to create impressive animations using images and sound
• Interactive applications which are easy to use for visitors
• Flash works across platforms and browsers
• Flash has excellent accuracy for web designers

The main disadvantages of flash design are:

• Initially there is a massive learning curve involved
• It can have long load time (which is not so much an issue as in the past due to popularity in broadband continuously improving)
• Some firewalls block flash
• Some stats show that more people would prefer not to use flash (although if everyone had used well designed and developed flash as well as running it on broadband I feel this stat would be different)

When it comes to search engine optimising a flash designed web site you are limited to the following:

• Meta tags – keyword, description, title and research
• Link building – link exchanges, directory submissions, article submissions and press releases

It is best to consider your keywords and see how competitive the market is. If it is not too competitive then you many rank a full flash web site on your chosen keywords but the more competitive the phase the nearer to impossible it gets, although the search engines are improving and may soon be able to read the flash content.

Consider your options?

Consider using flash design for different movies on multiple html pages to give you more pages for visitors to come into your site. This will make it easier for the search engines to pick up content and internal links. This will also give you more pages to concentrate different keywords on helping you to rank in more areas. The downside to doing this is that for every page you create the visitor has to re-download a sometimes large flash file.

The alternative is to give your visitors the option of viewing a flash or html version so the search engines can read the html version and you can still impress your visitors with the flash version.

To help the search engines index you it is worth considering a half way house and imbedding flash into your html. This gives you a search engine optimised site plus enhanced menus and usability. Obviously you have to consider your internal linking strategy along side this option and try to make navigation which the search engines can read so they can search through your site. Use the flash in places to impress the user but do not hide away your content from the search engines. If you use flash as part of your navigation make sure you add additional text links to allow the search engines to crawl your web site.

Conclusion

If you want to pursue the full flash option then ensure you research your keywords and make your meta data clear and concise for the search engines. Ensure you have an html home page which is keyword optimised with plenty of readable content for the search engines. Offer a text version of your site that search engines can crawl and put all your efforts into your link building strategy.

About the Author:
Jon Harrison
infaweb provides a range flash design, development, search engine optimisation and internet marketing services. For assistance please visit http://www.infaweb.com/
Content Provider: http://www.my-articles.com

Black Hat SEO – What Never To Do Or Get Banned

While there are many legitimate skills in SEO there are also those that can work but if you get caught using them the results can be disastrous. When search engine optimization became an issue many techniques were employed because at that point the search engines used a much simpler algorithm. As these tricks were used to exploit the simpler algorithms they were also served to make them more advanced. Let’s look at a few tricks.

Cloaking and redirects are methods whereby you show one page to the search engine but a different one to the visitor. A redirect merely brings visitors to one page and then sends them to another page by refreshing the page with one on their site. Cloaking involves fooling a search engine’s indexer into thinking that it is something else and getting the indexer to send false information back to its boss.

Other techniques involve overloading metatags with keywords or even hiding keywords in plain site on the webpage. A variation on this technique is to shrink the keywords so that are too small to be seen by the naked eye.

Using unrelated keywords is another trick especially when combined with the above mentioned tricks. By using unrelated keywords in this manner you can drive traffic to your site from multiple sources.

Using an overly optimized landing page can also work. This is not the same thing as a legitimate landing page. In this case you use any and all methods to overly optimize a single and use that to lead people to your site. This would involve using all of the above methods for this one page.

The ultimate penalty for using the unscrupulous methods is banishment from the search engines themselves. Be careful when you employ these dark methods for fear of this punishment. Being penalized is one thing but to not even be on a search engine in the first place is your worst case scenario.

About the Author:
AllianceLeads SEO is a Search Engine Optimization solutions provider. With over 10 years experience dealing with high end clients, Allianceleads SEO has a thorough understanding of helping businesses compete successfully in the online world. Visit www.AllianceLeads.com for more information
Article Source: http://www.articles2k.com

Google Page Rank

Page Rank is Googles way of showing the user a basic ranking of a webpage. The ranking is from 0 to 10 with 10 being the highest. To calculate page rank there are numerous variables involved but the most important in link popularity. So the more incoming links you have to that webpage the higher Page Rank you will have.

Page Rank is updated all the time but not visible to users. The visible Page Rank on the Google toolbar is only updated a few times a year. Normally every 3 months. There are a few ways that you can get a general idea of your Page Rank at all times. One way requires the site to be listed in the Google directory. It has become known that the directory lists in order of Page Rank. The directory uses current Page Rank data and not the visible one that only updates every 3 months. So if you have a site in the Google directory you can always get a general idea on what your current Page Rank is.

There are also Page Rank predictor tools out there. Now these tools used to be somewhat accurate but they have been shutdown with Google changing the PK parameters to all 0s. This may change again in the future but as of right now it simply does not work.

One thing that gets me is how Page Rank consumes people that are new to the SEO world. To get a few things straight here is what Page Rank does for your. NOTHING! You do not rank higher in the SERPs, make more money, get more traffic, or look cooler. This number is just a basic guideline of how many incoming links you have to your site.

But Page Rank is good for a few things at the same time. Most webmasters base link exchanges primarily based off of Page Rank. So the higher Page Rank you have the better chance of getting a good link exchange. Also it is good for selling links on your site. The price pretty much always reflects what the Page Rank is on the page.

About the Author:
Written by Aaron Nimocks, SEO Professional at the SEO Company http://www.iseocompany.com
Article Source: ArticleWarehouse

Going Google-Eyed: The SEO Disease

I'm beginning to get the feeling that I've been spending too much time online. Just the other day I was leafing through the TV listings only to find myself analysing the keyword density of the film reviews.

I have noticed other strange things going on as well.

Next door to where I live is a church which has a row of small square windows on one side of the building. Every time I see those windows I think they are thumbnail images which I can click to open up larger images.

What on earth is wrong with me?

When I'm driving down the road and I see company adverts on the side of vans and trucks I think to myself: "Well that's not very well optimised for search engine rankings!"

Have I gone mad? Or could there be another explanation?

Every profession has what is commonly referred to as an occupational hazard. Tennis players get tennis elbow, writers get writer's cramp and politicians get liar's teeth.

For web designers and SEO professionals the problem seems to be one of not being able to tell the difference between the Internet and the Outernet (formerly known as the 'real world').

A visit to my local optician confirmed that I had indeed gone Google-eyed. I was advised to seek help and enrol on a 12-step SEO rehabilitation program. Of course initially I denied that I had a problem and tried to claim that I just needed a few more incoming links and all would be fine.

But when the hallway from your bedroom to your bathroom becomes a hypertext link, you know you've got problems. And when you return home one day to find the door to your apartment is locked and a message pops up in your head asking you to enter your username and password, you know it's time to stand up and say: "My name is Rob, I'm an SEO addict and I've been online for too long."

So what are the symptoms of going Google-eyed?

There are a number of tell-tale signs, one of which is an obsession with the length of your little green bar. I am of course referring to your Google Page Rank.

Luckily treatment is available for this condition and it involves a large dose or perspective and reality. So let's get this ailment cleared up straight away: Having a high Google Page Rank does not necessarily mean your site will show up in the top ten search results for your chosen keywords. Page Rank is like your ego: it's great if you want to show off to your mates but it has little value beyond that.

If people can find your site and those people become customers or clients, then it really doesn't matter how big your Page Rank is and you can stop making those secret nocturnal visits to websites offering you backstreet Page Rank enlargement services!

Now that we've cleared that up, let's continue with our treatment.

The second set of symptoms of Google-Eyedness has to do with a phenomenon that I have already discussed, namely, that of confusing the inner and outer worlds.

If you spend so much time online that your food cupboards have become as bare as a newborn baby's behind and when you eventually do venture out for groceries you find yourself wondering why your local supermarket doesn't have a search engine so you can find what you want and leave...

TURN OFF YOUR COMPUTER and repeat the following mantra:

There is more to life than Google. There is more to life than Google. There is more to life than Google.

You can have self-esteem without Google Page Rank and if your website is not in Google's top ten, it's not the end of the world!

You see there seems to be this misconception that Google is all-powerful. We all know how much of the market share it controls and we all know how much difference it can make to the income of an online business. But Google is only as important as you think it is and only as powerful as we allow it to be.

It's easy to fall into the trap of believing that you need a higher Page Rank or a higher position in Google's search results when what you may be in need of is a better sales conversion rate. I know people who obsess about Page Rank and getting their website into Google's top ten and yet when I look at their webstats I find that they are getting loads of visitors to their site - but they're not turning those visitors into paying customers.

If your store looks dull and uninspiring and your products are poorly displayed you won't make more money by moving the store to a better location or by herding more people in through the door: you need to address the issue at hand and not get distracted into believing that the problem has anything to do with Google.

So why am I saying all this and why haven't I written one of those 'Top Ten SEO Tips' articles instead? (I know you love reading them just as much as I do.)

Because, as much as we may think it important to gain the approval of Google, if we place too much importance on this and become Google-eyed, we run the risk of losing sight of all the other opportunities available to us on the Internet and of becoming blind to the all the other online marketing strategies at our disposal.

Explaining what those opportunities and strategies are will have to wait for another day. For now I have to continue my rehabilitation by taking a holiday.

The only decision I need to make now is whether to head for the sea and take a vacation in one of those alluring Cancun hotels or whether to chill out completely and opt for a holiday in an Ice Hotel.

Maybe I'll ask Google. Then again, maybe I won't.

About the Author:
Rob Butler runs Wiltshire Web Design company matrix23 which specialises in web design, e-commerce and search engine optimisation.
Submitted: 2006-10-27
Article Source: GoArticles