Top Ten SEO Factors

These are what I believe to be the top 10 most important things (not necessarily in order) that you need, in order to get your website found in the search engines.

There are many other factors as well, but if you follow these guidelines, you'll stand a much better chance, and you'll be off to a good start.

1. Title Meta Tag

The title tag is what displays as the headline in the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages). It's also what displays in the top blue band of Internet Explorer when your site is displayed.

Your title tag of your website should be easy to read and designed to bring in traffic. By that, I mean that your main keyword phrase should be used toward the beginning of the tag. True there are websites being found now that do not use the phrase in the title, but the vast majority still do as of this writing.

Don't make the mistake of putting your company name first, unless you are already a household name, like Nascar or HBO. People are likely searching for what you have to offer, not your name.

Your title tag should be written with a capital letter starting the tag, and followed by all lowercase letters, unless you're using proper nouns. Some people prefer to capitalize every word, too.

2. Description Meta Tag

The description tag is the paragraph that people will see when your page comes up in the search results.

Your description tag should be captivating and designed to attract business. It should be easy to read, and compel the reader to act right now and follow your link. Without a description tag, search engines will frequently display the first text on your page. Is yours appropriate as a description of the page?

A proper description tag is what people will see below your title. You should make proper use of punctuation, and with readability, use your subject and geographical references.

3. Keywords Meta Tag

The importance of Meta keyword tags fluctuates from month to month among different search engines. There is a debate in the SEO community as to whether or not they help at all on certain search engines. In fact, in the summer of 2004 it appeared as if they were losing importance altogether.

However, you'll NEVER be penalized on any search engines for using relevant targeted keywords in moderation, and they can only help you with most, especially Yahoo.

Avoid stuffing your keyword metatags with too many keywords. Just use relevant tags that apply directly to the content of that particular page, and don't overdo it.

4. Alt Tags

The small yellow box that comes up when your mouse cursor is placed over an image is called the ALT tag. Every relevant image should have an alt tag with your key words or phrases mentioned in the tag.

A proper ALT tag goes after the file name, and before the Align indicator.
* - The ALT tag is no longer being considered for ranking purposes by some search engines. That said, it still cannot HURT you, and will still help you with some engines. My recommendation is to continue to use them, but be sure to avoid keyword stuffing. Besides, who nows when the pendulum will swing back the other way?

5. Header Tags

The text of each page is given more weight by the search engines if you make use of header tags and then use descriptive body text below those headers. Bullet points work well too. It is not enough to merely BOLD or enlarge your text headlines.

6. Link Text

Search engine spiders cannot follow image links. In addition to having image links or buttons on your web pages, you should have text links at the bottom or elsewhere. The text that the user sees when looking at the link is called the link text. A link that displays products does not carry as much weight to the search engines as a link called oregon widgets. Link text is very important, and is actually one of the most frequently overlooked aspects of web design that I've seen.

7. Site Map

Using a site map not only makes it easy for your users to see the entire structure of your website, but it also makes it easier for the search engines to spider your site. When the search engine spiders come to visit, they will follow all of the text links from your main index page. If one of those links is to a site map, then the spiders will go right to the sitemap, and consequently visit every page you have text linked to from that site map. On the site map page, try to have a sentence or two describing each page, and not just a page of links.

8. Relevant Inbound Links

By relevant, I mean similar industry or subject related sites. Right now, no single strategy can get your site ranked higher faster than being linked to by dozens of other relevant websites. It used to be that the quantity of incoming links mattered most, but today, it's much better to have three highly relevant links to you from other popular related websites than 30 links from unrelated low ranked sites. If there are other businesses in your industry that you can trade links with, it will help your site enormously. Link to others, and have them link to you. It's proven, and it works. To see who's linking to you, in Google type the following...
link: yourdomain.com

9. Your Content

Not to be forgotten of course, is the actual content of your webpage. It must be relevant helpful information that people want to read. These days, each webpage should be laser focused on one specific product or subject, in order to rank highly for that search phrase. The days of writing one webpage to appeal to dozens of search terms are long gone. Ideally, each page should have between 400 to 650 words on it. Too few, and the search engines won't consider it to be relevant enough. Too many words and the search engine spiders may have a hard time determining the actual subject or focus of the page.

Use your keywords or phrases often, and use them at the beginning of your paragraphs wherever possible. Don't overuse them and make the page sound phony, but don't write a page about a certain subject, and not mention that subject repeatedly either. Reading it out loud to yourself is a great way to judge how natural your text sounds.

Concentrate on writing quality pages that actually appeal to the human reader. Write pages that provide the reader with exactly what they are looking for; that is, information about the exact search phrase they've entered.

10. Avoid Cheating

With all of these tidbits of information, it's tempting to think that you can stuff 100 keywords into your title, or create a page with the phrase oregon widget company being used 100 times in headers, text links, ALT tags, bullet points etc. but that cannot help you. In fact, it can penalize you, and get your website banned from certain search engines.

About the Author:
Scott Hendison is an internet consultant that specializes in search engine optimization and internet marketing. He has written over 100 articles that are available on his website. He has also developed a tutorial area for beginning search engine optimization, at 'SEO101'
Submitted: 2006-10-23
Article Source: GoArticles

Writing SEO Copy – 8 Steps To Success

We all know that the lion’s share of web traffic comes through the search engines. We also know that keywords and links to your site are the two things that affect your ranking in the search engines. Your keywords tell the search engines what you do, and the inbound links tell them how important you are. This combination is what determines your relevance. And relevance is what the search engines are after.

There’s a lot of information around about how to incorporate keyword phrases into your HTML meta tags. But that’s only half the battle. You need to think of these tags as street-signs. That’s how the search engines view them. They look at your tags and then at your copy. If the keywords you use in your tags aren’t used in your copy, your site won’t be indexed for those keywords.

But the search engines don’t stop there. They also consider how often the keyword phrase is used on the page.

To put it simply, if you don’t pepper your site with your primary keywords, you won’t appear in the search results when a potential customer searches for those keywords.

But how do you write keyword-rich copy without compromising readability?

Readability is all-important to visitors. And after all, it’s the visitors that buy your product or service, not search engines.

By following these 8 simple guidelines, you’ll be able to overhaul the copy on your website ensuring it’s agreeable to both search engines and visitors.

1) Categorise your pages

Before writing, think about the structure of your site. If you haven’t built your site yet, try to create your pages around key offerings or benefits. For example, divide your Second Hand Computers site into separate pages for Macs, and PCs, and then segment again into Notebooks, Desktops, etc. This way, you’ll be able to incorporate very specific keyword phrases into your copy, thereby capturing a very targeted market. If you’re working on an existing site, print out each page and label it with its key point, offering, or benefit.

2) Find out what keywords your customers are searching for

Go to http://www.wordtracker.com and subscribe for a day (this will only cost you about AUD$10). Type in the key points, offerings, and benefits you identified for each page, and spend some time analysing what words customers use when they’re searching for these things. These are the words you’ll want to use to describe your product or service. (Make sure you read WordTracker’s explanation of their results.)

3) Use phrases, not single words

Although this advice isn’t specific to the web copy, it’s so important that it’s worth repeating here. Why? Well firstly, there’s too much competition for single keywords. If you’re in computer sales, don’t choose “computers” as your primary keyword. Go to Google and search for “computers” and you’ll see why… Secondly, research shows that customers are becoming more search-savvy – they’re searching for more and more specific strings. They’re learning that by being more specific, they find what they’re looking for much faster. Ask yourself what’s unique about your business? Perhaps you sell cheap second hand computers? Then why not use “cheap second hand computers” as your primary keyword phrase. This way, you’ll not only stand a chance in the rankings, you’ll also display in much more targeted searches. In other words, a higher percentage of your site’s visitors will be people after cheap second hand computers. (WordTracker’s results will help you choose the most appropriate phrases.)

4) Pick the important keyword phrases

Don’t include every keyword phrase on every page. Focus on one or two keyword phrases on each page. For your Macs page, focus on “cheap second hand macs”. For the PCs page, focus on “cheap second hand pcs”, etc.

5) Be specific

Don’t just say “our computers”. Wherever you would normally say “our computers”, ask yourself if you can get away with saying “our cheap second hand Macs” or “our cheap second hand PCs”. If this doesn’t affect your readability too badly, it’s worth doing. It’s a fine balance though. Remember, your site reflects the quality of your service. If your site is hard to read, people will infer a lot about your service…

6) Use keyword phrases in links

Although you shouldn’t focus on every keyword phrase on every page, it’s a good idea to link your pages together with text links. This way, when the search engines look at your site, they’ll see that the pages are related. Once again, the more text links the better, especially if the link text is a keyword phrase. So on your “Cheap Second Hand Macs” page, include a text link at the bottom to “Cheap Second Hand PCs”. If you can manage it without affecting readability, also include one within the copy of the page. For example, “As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality cheap second hand PCs”. TIP: If you don’t want your links to be underlined and blue, include the following in your CSS file:

Then format the HTML of each link as follows:

As well as providing cheap second hand Macs, we sell high quality cheap second hand pcs.

7) Use keyword phrases in headings

Just as customers rely on headings to scan your site, so to do search engines. This means headings play a big part in how the search engines will categorise your site. Try to include your primary keyword phrases in your headings. In fact, think about inserting extra headings just for this purpose. Generally this will also help the readability of the site because it will help customers scan read.

8) Test keyword phrase density

Once you’ve made a first pass at the copy, run it through a density checker to get some metrics. Visit http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php and type in the domain and keyword phrase you want to analyse. It’ll give you a percentage for all the important parts of your page, including copy, title, meta keywords, meta description, etc. The higher the density the better. Generally speaking, a density measurement of at least 3-5% is what you’re looking for. Any less, and you’ll probably need to take another pass.

Follow these guidelines, and you’ll be well on your way to effective SEO copy.

Just remember, don’t overdo it. It’s not easy to find the balance between copy written for search engines and copy written for customers. In many cases, this balance will be too difficult to achieve without professional help. Don’t worry, though. If you’ve already performed your keyword analysis, a professional website copywriter should be able to work your primary keyword phrases into your copy at no extra charge.

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

Essential SEO Tips To Boost Your Search Engine Positioning And Increase Your Online Profits

In very simple terms, search engine optimization (SEO), is the process of making your website site and its individual pages visible and relevant to search engines and search engine users. If you want to successfully earn money at home, it is very important that you understand the basics of SEO.

When you optimize your web site, your making it easier for search engines to find your site and index your content, such that when someone searches for keywords that relate to your website, your site is displayed on the search engines. A well-optimized site is one which people will find easily when they use search engines to look for information. For you to earn money at home online, you will need a high volume of traffic to your website.

If you arent satisfied with the volume of traffic you are getting on your website, its important that you follow these simple steps that will help you improve your search engine ranking and get high volumes of traffic. More traffic to your website means that you'll be able to earn money at home successfully with your online business.

The first step towards search-engine optimization for your site is to know your targeted market and have appropriate content on your website. Although this is a very obvious and simple fact, some people overlook it. In order to earn money at home successfully, your website will need traffic.

Keywords and phrases for your niche and website are important in SEO. Keywords determine the group your site will be listed under in search engines and directories. When web surfers type keywords on search engines, relevant sites will show up. If you have the right keywords, it means that you are increasing the chances of searchers finding your site when they do a search on search engines. You can use many tools to find all the relevant keywords for your website. Once you have these keywords, you increase the chances of your site being found on search engines. The page titles and subtitles for your website are also very important in SEO, and must contain your targeted keywords. If you want to succeed in your earn money at home business, a good understanding of your keywords and phrases is important.

You can improve your websites position on search engines by having content on your site that is fresh, unique and key-word-rich. Search engines crawl of sites with fresh and unique content, and such sites are ranked higher. In order to earn money at home with your website, you must ensure that you have unique and useful information.

Writing and submitting articles and Press Releases can also be very effective in improving your position on search engines. Your articles and PR will have your websites URL, thus you will have many links pointing back to your site. This is useful in improving your sites position on search engines, which will help you to succeed in your earn money at home business.

Participation in relevant forums for your niche is also effective because you can have your signature with your URL in all the posts you make. All these activities basically increase links to your website, which boosts your position on search engines. To earn money at home with your website, you must aim to have many links back to your website.

Blogging is also very useful in improving your SEO, which in turn will help you earn money at home online. The blog posts and articles that you have on your blog must be rich with your keywords. You can also add some links to other web pages on your blog. All this is effective in improving your position and visibility on search engines. The more visible you are on search engines, the more easily you will earn money at home through your website.

The steps outlined above can help you improve the position of your website on search engines and help you earn money at home online. The higher your site is ranked, the more traffic you get.

About the Author:
Jeff Casmer is an internet marketing consultant with career sales over $25,000,000. His "Top Ranked" Work at Home Directory gives you all the information you need to start and prosper with your own Internet Home Based Business.
Posted: 13-02-2007
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

The Basics of SEO - Some FAQs

Search engine optimization (SEO) is a foreign field to a lot of people. Rarely does a day go by when I don't get asked a few questions on the subject. So I've decided to post this FAQ article in the hopes that it will help people understand the basics, and make them a little more comfortable with the whole domain.

Q: Why are search engines important to me?

A: 85% of all website traffic is driven by search engines. The only online activity more popular than search is email. 79.2% of US users don't go to page 2 of search results. 42% of users click on the no.1 result. For the under-40 age-group, the Internet will become the most used media in the next 2-3 years.

Q: How do search engines decide on their rankings?

A: IMPORTANT: You cannot pay a search engine in return for a high ranking in the natural results. You can only get a high ranking if your content is seen as relevant by the search engines.
Search engines identify relevant content for their search results by sending out “spiders” or “robots” which “crawl” (analyze) your site and “index” (record) its details. Complex algorithms are then employed to determine whether your site is useful and should be included in the search engine’s search results.

Q: Can't I just pay for a high ranking?

A: No. The biggest concern for search engine companies like Google and Yahoo is finding content that will bring them more traffic (and thus more advertising revenue). In other words, their results must be relevant. Relevant results makes for a good search engine; irrelevant results makes for a short-lived search engine.

Most search engines these days return two types of results whenever you click Search:

„X Natural/Organic ¡V The “real” search results. The results that most users are looking for and which take up most of the window. For most searches, the search engine displays a long list of links to sites with content which is related to the word you searched for. These results are ranked according to how relevant and important they are.
„X Paid ¡V Pure advertising. This is how the search engines make their money. Advertisers pay the search engines to display their ad whenever someone searches for a word which is related to their product or service. These ads look similar to the natural search results, but are normally labeled “Sponsored Links”, and normally take up a smaller portion of the window.

Q: How do I get a high ranking?

A: There are four main steps:
Step 1 - Use the right words on your website
Step 2 - Get lots of relevant sites to link to yours
Step 3 - Use the right words in those links
Step 4 - Have lots of content on your site & add more regularly

Q: What is search engine optimization (SEO)?

A: Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the art of creating a website which is search engine-friendly. This means:
„X using the right words in your copy
„X using the right words in your HTML code
„X structuring your site properly
„X designing your site properly

For more information on these 4 elements, download our free 'SEO Secrets' eBook from divinewrite.com/seosecrets.htm.

Many people use SEO to also describe the other ingredient in a high ranking, 'Link Popularity'.

Q: What is link popularity?

A: Think of the search engines as a big election. All the websites in the world are candidates. The links to your website are votes. The more votes (links) a candidate (website) has, the more important it is, and the higher it’s ranking. Link popularity is all about how many links you have, and how you can get more.
Links to your site tell the search engines how important your site is. They assume that if it’s important enough for a lot of other sites to link to, it’s important enough for them to display at the top of the rankings. Links are the single most important factor in ranking. Generally speaking, the more links you have to your site from other sites, the better your ranking.

Q: Are some links better than others?

A: Yes! The ideal kind of links are those that:
„X come from relevant sites (sites which use the same keywords);
„X come from important sites (have a high ranking);
„X include your keyword as part of the visible link text;
„X include varying link text (not the same link text each time); and
„X come from a page that links to few other sites.

When a search engine sees a link which satisfies most or all of these conditions, it says, “Hey, this site must be credible and important, because others in the same industry are pointing to it.”

Q: How do I get lots of links back to my site?

A: There are many possible ways to generate links. Some are dubious (like auto-generation software, and sites set up by webmasters simply to host links to their other sites) and I won’t be discussing them here. Others, like those discussed below, are legitimate.
„X Add your site to DMOZ & Yahoo Directories (and other free directories)
„X Check where your competitors¡¦ links are coming from
„X Article PR - Write and submit articles for Internet publication
„X Swap links
„X Partner websites
„X Pay for links

For more information on these methods, download our free 'SEO Secrets' eBook from divinewrite.com/seosecrets.htm.

Q: What do you think is the best way to get lots of links?

A: Article PR. Write helpful articles and let other webmasters publish them for free in exchange for a link in the byline. With article PR, you don't have to pay for the link, you determine the content of the page containing the link, you determine the link text, and the link is more or less permanent. A single article can be reprinted hundreds of times, and each time is another link back to your site!
For more information, read divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm or visit ArticlePR.com.

Q: How do I write a good article PR piece?

A: See divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm.

Q: How do I get a high ranking using free reprint content?

A: See divinewrite.com/Top_Ranking_Free.htm.

Q: How long does it take to get a high search engine ranking?

A: A long time! It’s impossible to say how much time you’ll need to spend generating links, but you can be sure it’ll be a while no matter which method of link generation you use. 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.

Q: What is the Google Sandbox, and is it real?

A: The Google Sandbox theory suggest that whenever Google detects a new website, it withholds its rightful ranking for a period while it determines whether your site is a genuine, credible, long term site. It does this to discourage the creation of SPAM websites (sites which serve no useful purpose other than to boost the ranking of some other site).

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence supporting the theory, but there is also a lot discounting it. No one has categorically proven its existence.

Q: What is the Google Dampening Link Filter, and is it real?

A: The Google Dampening Link Filter theory suggests that if Google detects a sudden increase (i.e. many hundreds or thousands) in the number of links back to your site, it may sandbox them for a period (or in fact penalize you by lowering your ranking or blacklisting your site altogether).

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence supporting the theory, but there is also a lot discounting it. No one has categorically proven its existence.

Q: What SEO companies should I be wary of?

A: Be wary of SEO companies that promise or guarantee results in a given timeframe, especially if they won't expand on their methods for generating links back to your site.

Q: What tools can you recommend?

A: There are many very useful tools to help with your SEO. The following are just selection. All tools are free unless otherwise indicated.
„X Backlink checker - http://www.webuildpages.com/neat-o/
„X Backlinks by IP address - http://www.webuildpages.com/cclass/index.php
„X Link Popularity Tool - http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
„X Number of links required to rank - http://www.iblcheck.com/
„X Google Alert - http://www.google.com/alerts?hl=en
„X Google Sitemaps - http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps
„X Google Sitemap Generator - http://johannesmueller.com/gs/
„X Google Toolbar - http://toolbar.google.com/
„X Indexed Pages - http://www.webuildpages.com/cache/cachetoolpublic.pl
„X Keyword Analysis (Nichebot) - http://www.nichebot.com/
„X Keyword Analysis (Overture) - http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
„X Keyword Analysis (WordTracker - Paid) - http://www.wordtracker.com/
„X Keyword Difficulty - http://www.seomoz.org/tools/keyword-difficulty-tool.php
„X Keyword Identifier - http://www.googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.php
„X Keyword Density Measurement (Simple) - http://www.live-keyword-analysis.com/
„X Keyword Density Measurement (Complex) - http://www.gorank.com/analyze.php
„X Plagiarized Copy Search - http://www.copyscape.com/
„X Traffic Rank - http://www.alexa.com/
„X Search Engine Rank - http://www.marketleap.com/publinkpop/
„X SEO Report - http://www.urltrends.com/
„X Top 10 sites for a keyword by no of backlinks and age - http://www.webuildpages.com/seo-tools/whoischeck-bykeys.pl
„X Top 10 sites for a keyword - http://www.webuildpages.com/cool-seo-tool/
„X Spider Simulator - http://tools.summitmedia.co.uk/spider/

Q: I'm confused about all the terms used in SEO, can you help?

A: See divinewrite.com/seo_glossary.htm.

Q: What is keyword analysis?

A: The first thing you need to do when you begin chasing a good search engine ranking is decide which words you want to rank well for. This is called performing a keyword analysis. Keyword analysis involves a bit of research and a good knowledge of your business and the benefits you offer your customers.
For more information, download our free 'SEO Secrets' eBook from divinewrite.com/seosecrets.htm.

Q: Do I need to submit my site to the search engines?

A: Theoretically, no. But I wouldn't risk not doing it - especially as it's free. As soon as you register your domain name, submit it to Google! Even if you haven’t built your site, or thought about your content, submit your domain name to Google. In fact, even if you haven’t fully articulated your business plan and marketing plan, submit your domain name to Google.

For more information, download our free 'SEO Secrets' eBook from divinewrite.com/seosecrets.htm.

Q: Should I submit my site to the search engines more than once?

A: No need. Although some of the search engines allow you to do this, there's really no need.

Q: What are directories and should I submit my site to them?

A: Directories are websites (or web pages) which simply list lots of website and give a quick description of the website. Some are free and some require you to pay for a listing. Free directories are useful because you get a free link. However, the links aren't worth that much. Paid directories can be good if they're relevant, but they can cost a lot in the long term, so choose wisely.

One essential directories for any website is the DMOZ Open Directory Project.

About the author:
* Glenn Murray is a website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He owns article submission service Article PR and 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, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.
Circulated by Article Emporium

Designing a Site Map for SEO

Search engine optimization involves many components including linking, keyword research, content development, page titles, and other methods used to improve your search engine rankings. All of these methods can increase your results piece by piece but there is a way to combine many of these elements into an SEO method that can improve your web ranking and drive targeted traffic to your web site. This method is designing a site map to be used with your other search engine optimization efforts. Knowing how a site map can help you improve your SEO results will help you to better design your site map and make it conform to the guidelines of ethical and successful SEO.

Site Maps Defined

A site map is a graphical or textual representation of each of the pages on your web site. Site maps can be very complex and include professional graphics and they can also be very simple and have only text. A site map helps people find the information they are looking for on your web site. You can use a site map to incorporate some of the major components of SEO and improve your search engine rankings in the long run.

Site Maps & Text

Text-based site maps are the most effective for search engine optimization purposes. This is because you can use your chosen keywords in both the content of the site map and in each link to other pages within your site. If you have carefully chosen your keywords, implementing them into your site map can benefit your search engine optimization efforts and help improve your search engine rankings.

Site Maps & Links

Links are a very important part of successful search engine optimization. When search engine crawlers visit your web site, they look for links that can be used to help determine the relevance of pages and assist with search engine indexing. If you build a web site and have a link to each one of your other pages, this can improve your web rankings and make it easier for search engines to find your site when people search for the keywords you use on your web site.

Site Maps and Content

You can also use site maps to your advantage by writing keyword-optimized descriptions of each page that you are linking to from the site map itself. Your descriptions can include several keywords that describe your products and services and make it easier for people visiting your web site to find what they need. In addition to helping you optimize your web site, site maps are a valuable resource for visitors to your site.

Professional SEO Consulting

If you’re not sure how using a site map fits in with your search engine optimization strategy, you should consider hiring a professional SEO consulting firm. The SEO Team offers a wide variety of web design, SEO, and internet marketing services for web sites of all levels. If you’d like to know more about our services, visit our web site and learn how we can improve your web site SEO.

About the Author:
Bryan Garcia and his team of Internet marketing experts have been delivering TOP search engine results by using their unique formula of search engine optimization, Web site development, professional copywriting, and conversion consulting for a combined total of 20 years. Visit http://www.theseoteam.com to learn how your site can get to the top of the rankings.
Article Submitted On: October 18, 2006
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/

Simple SEO Tips to Optimise Your Page for the Big 3

Search Engine Optimisation is a big scary topic for a lot of people, but it doesn't have to be. The principles behind it are all pretty simple, and these tips will take less than an hour to implement, but should boost your rankings significantly!

1-Don't shoot for the moon. By that I mean don't go out there and choose the most competitive keyword in your field. Chances are that the #1 ranked site for the most competitive term has been there for some years. Why should your site suddenly come along and oust them in short order? Instead, focus on longer, less competitive phrases. Use keyword selection tools to help you find them. You will find longtail phrases are more targeted also as it means the searchers have a more focused idea of what they are looking for.

2-Make sure you put your main keyword/phrase in the page title, and also in the footer. The title is the first thing the search engines will look at, so it's important to let them know exactly what we are about as early as possible, and it's also good to make the main phrase the last thing they see. A fundamental tip, but something 99% of webmasters do not do.

3-Switch your navigation. Most web pages have the navigation bars on the left or along the top. This is not good from an SEO point of view. Search engines read pages in vertical strips, starting on the left, then gradually moving across. The problem that the navigation presents is that 98% of web navigation menus are the same or very similar-this means that with the navigation in the same place as everyone else's, we are telling the engines that our web site is the same as everyone else's. They will see our super relevant page title, and then read our navigation links, which are not likely to be keyword relevant at all, and then conclude that this site is not all that relevant to their beloved searchers, and consign it to page 558 or something. This is NOT what we want! If we put the navigation on the right instead, we can then put lots of interesting content on the left, so it's the first thing they see after they read our page title.

4-Make sure your content is original, and READABLE. Who stays on a website after they realise the content is nothing but keyword stuffed garbage? I certainly don't, and neither will your customers. It's very important that your keywords are in your content, but make sure it's in a relevant fashion-I think the best term I have heard for it is "sprinkled." Sprinkle the keywords through the content of the page. It's also useful to embolden them occasionally and italicise them, as the search engines then assume they are important words regarding your site and content, which is exactly what we want them to think.

5-Use the heading tags, etc. That's what they are there for, and yes the search engines do pay attention to them. It's especially useful if you can use your main keywords as headings, or part of headings. For example, if your site is about extreme skydiving techniques, your heading may be "My favourite extreme skydiving techniques" or something like that. A good technique in certain cases is to combine two phrases, but you need to be careful as you don't want to damage the readability of the phrase- For example, you may have "Top Rated Extreme Skydiving Techniques" as a heading if your targeted phrases were "extreme skydiving techniques" and "top rated skydiving techniques," and you would likely get ranked for both these phrases from doing that. Be careful though, as it's easy to get carried away and reduce the quality of the content in this fashion.

6-Don't put all your eggs into one basket, or one keyword.phrase. As we said before, it's unlikely for a new website to choose the most popular phrase in a category and come straight in and take #1 on Google. The sites that rank #1 for such phrases are very established and will have thousands of backlinks built up over the years, and for that reason alone will be very difficult to oust. What we can do though, is choose ten less popular phrases, and make a different page for each one, or each pair. We can have the same items for sale etc on each page, but you can make the content custom written for each phrase. This is a great way to exponentially get more traffic, as you will have multiplied your market presence by ten. Obviously, the sky is the limit with this strategy; you could have 50 or 1000 subdomains all pulling in search engine visitors for different phrases. You only need 5 or 10 visitors to each page, and if you have a hundred pages that's 500 or 1000 visitors each day.

So there you have it-these techniques will take less than an hour to implement, and will guarantee an increase in your search engine rankings-What are you waiting for?

About the Author:
David Raybould has been an internet marketer for just over a year and in July this year was able to quit his day job through online earnings. He is eager to help others buck the trend of the dreaded day job and you can find useful info and resources at his site http://www.no-more9to5.com, and join his newsletter by sending a blank email to no-more9to5@getresponse.com
Submitted: 2006-10-28
Article Source: GoArticles

SEO Web Content: Good Writing, Good Business

There's a deadly myth about search engine optimization and writing for the web: that good SEO and good writing don't go together.

As a website copywriter, I hear this myth repeated back to me all the time by new clients and prospects. "Don't bother search-engine-optimizing the content," they say. "Just make sure it is well written and the keywords will flow naturally into the content." Or, they repeat the words of so many self-styled gurus: "don’t write for the search engines, write for the people who will be reading what you write."

If you're one of the people who believe there's a conflict of interest between search engines and humans, you're operating under two misconceptions:

* Misconception 1: you know more about what people want to read on the web than the search engines do.

* Misconception 2: you or your writer will just naturally write the content that people or search engines want, without consciously trying to meet their demands.

Why Search Engines Know More about Your Website Visitors than You

"I want a well-written web page, not a list of keywords." It frightens me a bit when I hear this, since it demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of what search engines do.

A search engine is not simply a massive find function, like the one in the "Edit" menu of Microsoft applications. It does not just pull up any page that has the keyword in it X number of times. If it did, all pages that show up on search engine results would simply contain a list of the keywords.

Ultimately, writing for the search engines means writing for web surfers. Think about it: services like Google thrive on giving people the pages they want to read. If they consistently failed to give people what they wanted, people would stop using them.

What Your Website's Visitors Want to Read

Most of the time, people don't want to read on the web. Reading on a screen hurts the eyes. It doesn't help that a lot of web pages make it harder with text that's too small, backgrounds that are colored rather than white, and lots of extraneous graphics.

Besides, when it comes to reading matter, there is an overabundance of choice on the web, more than any library on earth. Of that, an unfortunate amount isn’t worth reading. Time must be rationed.

In fact, people treat a web page much as a search engine does: they scan it. In particular, they scan it for the keywords they entered into the search engine. If they arrived via a link from another website, they are still looking for words and phrases related to their interest--which are generally the same as the keywords people enter into search engines.

In short, Nobel-prize-winning literature makes bad web content. You have to write specifically for the web. That's why the web hasn't fueled much of a resurgence in the short story or other literary writing, dashing many hopes. Ebook versions of paper books have also disappointed expectations.

Newspapers are the only paper publications that have made a smooth online transition, precisely because they are written in short, to-the-point paragraphs that are easy to scan.

Still Think Good SEO Web Content Makes for Bad Reading?

You've just read almost to the end of a piece of search-engine-optimized web content. This article was optimized for the keywords, "SEO," "search engine," "search engines," "keyword," "keywords," "search engine optimization," and "writing."

The keywords were present in headings and throughout the content. The content itself is easy to scan: paragraphs of one-three sentences, broken up by sub-headings every four paragraphs or so.

Naturally, those keywords are too broad for this page to have a chance of ranking high in search engines for them. But this page will get some of the atypical search keywords that account for as many as half of all searches. So, if someone types in a phrase like, "keyword writing search engine optimized content," this page would have a pretty good chance of showing up.

To be sure, this article is on the long side for a web page. Most people won’t even scan more than 600 words of text; 250-500 is ideal.

But this article is destined primarily to be shown in an email newsletter, where attention spans are longer since people are more confident the source of the content can be trusted to repay their investment of time. Besides, as a well-structured page, it can be split into two or three pages according to the subheadings.

In short, there’s much more to writing well for the web than just writing well. If you’ve had enough sense to have your web content written professionally, have enough sense to take the advice of most website copywriters: search-engine-optimization for keywords and good web writing are the same thing.

About the Author:
Joel Walsh is a professional content writer and founder of UpMarket Content, whose site offers information on getting great website content: http://upmarketcontent.com/website-content [When posting on the web, please hyperlink this text as the visible anchor text: "website content"]
Article Source: www.iSnare.com

Free Website Traffic in 90 Minutes

Here is a website traffic strategy that takes less than 90 minutes to implement, but generates free website traffic on an ongoing basis - potentially for years.

It operates on the principle that "long tail" keywords have very low competition, so your ability to rank on the first page of the search results on Google, Yahoo and MSN is not only easy, but fast as well.

Here is how you do it:

Use a keyword research tool like Wordtracker.com to research keywords related to the topic of your website. Use their "competition search" function in order to find out the number of competing websites on Google. (For more details on how to do this, click the link at the end of this article for a free resource guide.)

Browse through the keyword results and look for keywords with a predicted 24-hour search volume greater than 10, but with a "google" competing pages count of less than 1000.

Why a competition rate of 1000? Isn't that a lot? Well surprisingly enough, the number of supposedly-competing pages is not really representative of the true number of pages actively trying to rank high for any given term.

The number simply represents how many web pages happen to contain the particular keyword phrase we're looking at. In fact, taking any given competition number, probably as few as 1% of those web pages are actively trying to rank high for that keyword. That means that if there are 1,000 web pages bearing a particular keyword, only perhaps 10 of them are actively competing for it.

Thus with fewer than 10 active competitors, the prospect of ranking on the first page (i.e. the top 10) of search results is very good.

Let's look at an example.

Suppose we do some keyword research for the keyword phrase "dog food." Wordtracker shows that there will be a predicted 1358 searches every day for that term. However, there are 1.6 million competing web pages. For sure, ranking on the first page for that term could be a "home run" in terms of traffic, but there would be an enormous amount of competition for that first page. Even 1% of 1.6 million is still 16,000 active competitors.

The chances of outranking 15,990 of them are slim to none. This is a polite way of saying that shooting for that particular term is a gigantic waste of time. The predicted search volume of 1358 searches per day is a red herring. It's distracting. It's irrelevant. It only matters to the top 10 web pages, and that isn't going to be you. So don't let it sway you into wasting time targeting that keyword.

Instead, consider some of the "long tail" keyword phrases, their predicted daily search volume, and their competing web pages:

"top ten dog foods", 88 searches/day, 1040 competing web pages
"hypoallergenic dog food", 86 searches/day, 539 competing web pages
"best dog foods ranked", 86 searches/day, 1010 competing web pages
"best dry dog food", 70 searches/day, 511 competing web pages
"dog raw food diet", 68 searches/day, 333 competing web pages
"recipes for homemade dog foods", 67 searches/day, 110 competing web pages

And the list goes on. And on.

So, just for these 6 terms alone, there are an estimated 465 searches per day. If you could rank on the first page of the search results, how much traffic do you think you'd get? Well clearly it would depend on whether you were in the first one or two spots, or lower down the page. But assuming just 10% of the searchers visited your website, that's still 46 visitors per day just by targeting 6 achievable keywords.

Think how much traffic you'd get if you targeted 60. Or 600.

But before we get too carried away, we have to talk about two more steps. Knowing what keywords to target is crucial, but actually doing the work to compete for them is what makes everything work.

First, you need to create a web page on your website that caters to the desired term. Your best results will come if you "theme" your website, so that all the web pages that talk about dog food, for example, link only to other pages that talk about dog food, and not to any other topics or websites.

Then on the specific page in question, you need to create some content. Not necessarily a huge amount - but some. You need to include the keyword phrase you are targeting in the Title tag of your web page, and again a number of times in the text on your web page. Don't over-do it, but just write naturally using your keyword whenever it makes sense to do so.

Don't over-think your web content. It's important, but not critical. The really important bit comes next.

Write an article. Make it 400-600 words and write it "about" whatever keyword phrase you want to target. At the end of the article, you have a "resource box" in which you can place a link back to your website. Instead of merely linking to your domain name, link directly to the keyword-specific page you just created. And when forming the link, ensure that the keyword phrase appears in the text of the link (called the "anchor text").

Then distribute your article to article sites around the Internet. You can submit it to sites like ezinearticles.com and isnare.com for good exposure. You can also sign up for a service such as articlemarketer.com for maximum exposure.

Over the coming weeks, your article will be picked up by dozens - perhaps hundreds - of websites, all linking back to your new web page. It won't be long before your new web page rockets to the top of the search engines.

So, how much of your time does this whole operation take? It depends. Probably less than 90 minutes. Keyword research takes about 10 minutes, writing web page content about 20 minutes, and writing and distributing a short article about an hour.

Of course, it won't be long before you'll want to hire out the task of article and content writing. This way you'll get far more web pages done because you'll have other people doing the work. Elance.com or rentacoder.com are excellent venues to find writers who will create content and articles for you for between $5 and $10 per article.

This strategy is tremendously scaleable and can bring you an enormous amount of free website traffic. It has brought success to many an Internet marketer, and it will for you too if you simply follow it. There are new keywords and phrases being used every day as new products are invented and new ideas become popular. This means that the supply of achievable "long tail" keywords will never be exhausted and you can have as much free website traffic as you want.

About the Author:
Jason Jantzi has used SEO to promote over 50 digital products online. Download his free blueprint showing 130 key tools from how to create digital products in under an hour to search engine optimization reviews.
Posted: 27-02-2007
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

SEO - General Guidelines

SEO is an acronym for Search Engine Optimizing and refers to a set of good practices that teach you how to improve your website so that it would be easily tracked, indexed and ranked by search engines. Getting your site indexed by Google and other major search engines will help you attract visitors and increase traffic.

SEO is an exciting and ongoing process that involves not only an initial optimized website, but also permanent maintenance and evaluating search results on a regular basis. With the ever-changing Internet technology, SEO experts sometimes have contrasting opinions on what makes a good website. However, there are some general guidelines most of them agree on.

Design & Content

• You should build your web pages for human beings and not for search engines. A clean design and a strong content will ultimately drive search engine spiders to your site.
• Make a clear hierarchy and provide text links to each page.
• Don't put to many links on a single page (maximum 100).
• You should include a site map to help users navigate easily through your website.
• Make sure you have clear TITLE tags, no HTML errors and all the links work.
• You should use text instead of images to display important elements, as search engine crawlers may not recognize a text inside an image.
• While keeping your content useful and clear, do use keywords that you know users would type to get to your page.

Technical Issues
• Most search engine crawlers see your website similar to the way a text browser sees it. Consequently, you should use a text browser, such as Lynx, to check your website. If you can't see the whole page because of JavaScript, session IDs, DHTML or Flash features, search engine spiders will probably have trouble with crawling your website.
• Check with your web host to see if the server supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. This header tells Google whether the website content has changed since its last visit.
• While it is advised session IDs to track visitors' path through the website, you shouldn't do this for search bots.
• The robots.txt file on your web server tells spiders which directories can be crawled and which cannot. Make sure it's updated and it doesn't somehow block search engine crawlers.

Website Promotion

• After you've built your website and put it online, try to get high PageRank sites link to it.
• Submit your website to major search engines (Google, Yahoo/Altavista, MSN) to get it indexed, along with a site map that will tell them the site structure.
• Submit your website to relevant directories, such as Yahoo and Open Directory Project.
• Get involved in community based websites, blogs and forums and build a strong reputation.

Whether you choose to implement these techniques yourself or go to a SEO expert, no one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google and other search engines. Search engines change their crawling algorithms often and competitor websites appear all the time. However, following these basic SEO guidelines will improve your chances of increasing your website traffic and is a better practice than looking for a way to cheat on search engines in order to get your pages indexed.

Copyright © 2006 Andreas Obermueller

About the Author:
Andreas Obermueller is webmaster of Hit4Biz.com - Marketing Related Information and recommends Marble Host as reliable Web Host
Article Source: http://www.articles411.com

Highly Effective Web Techniques for Free Traffic Array Generation

If you have a Web site with SEO there is no useful for that site, If you do SEO for that site then only you will get benifits from that site. Why you pay more amounts for PPC or Adwords. If we your site was optimized then no need of PPC and Adwords, many big companies are taking more amount for SEO, But Inspire IT India is one taking few amount for SEO and giving quality SEO for the customers with in time. Many people are benifited by this company and they are getting more business. Why don't you try one time for your site. Inspire IT India people also avalable maxtime to chat with you and giving suggestion online. If you want SEO for your site then ask.

We all know that traffic is the most essential thing for a successful Internet business company. There are a lot of reliable ways to jumpstart your traffic flows, though most of them would cost some money.

1) Free Pay Per Click (PPC) Advertising

The Adwords by Google, Yahoo's Overture and many other PPC search engines provide great sources of targeted Internet. They are very truly popular among web marketers.

Here are the good news, there are dozens of PPC search engines who will give you up to $100 in free credits to prove that pay per click advertising will work for you. To claim your credits all you need do is visit the various engines and web directories and sign-up. There are no catches and it won't cost you anything except your time.

2) Use Profitable Keywords Or Keyword For Your Site's Content

Generally, internet users use search engines to find what they are looking for. Search engines in return use keyword rankings to give away relevant search results. Try to employ the most profitable (higher demand) keywords at your site content. You could write your own content. If you're writing content on yourself you have to make it more entertaining as well as informative.

In doing so, you can get high rankings in search engine results and strong incoming traffic without any costs.

3) Exchange Links With Partner Sites

Another good idea is trading links with partner sites. Exchanging or trading links with other sites, both of them could benefit. When one site features another sites link, they will provide one another with the traffic they both generate.

The efforts are doubly beneficial because it seems like both sides are working to generate doubly enhanced traffic. The more links exchanged with more sites the more traffic could be expected.

4) Write Articles and Publish, Join Forums, Blogs Them Across The Internet

There are a lot of sites that offer free submission and posting of your articles. You'd better to submit articles to sites containing the same subject that your site deals in. If you sell computers write press releases and articles about computers and computer parts.

When people find in your article something of interest, you have good chances of following the track by finding out where the article originated. It lasts for you just to a attach a brief description of your site or service at the end of the article and to include a link.

You can take advantage of online forums, blogs and web communities. The great thing about forums and online communities is that you can target a certain group that fits the certain demographic that you are looking for. You can discuss about lots of things about the goods or services that you represent or offer.

To Contact: info@inspireitindia.com.

About the Author:
Inspire
Are you looking for Seo Company? The Inspire IT India is one of the best SEO company in India provides SEO services, web site designing, online promotions, internet marketing, web promotion services with reasonable price in Hyderabad, India.
http://www.inspireitindia.com
Posted: 05-03-2007
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com

Get a top 10 ranking without paying a cent

If there's one thing that Google loves, it's content. Done right, a content rich website is almost guaranteed to rank highly. But how to get that content? You can write it yourself, but that takes a lot of time. You can pay an SEO copywriter to write it for you, but that takes a lot of money. If only there was another option...

What if you could get your content for free? And not just a little bit of content; a lot! What if you could get an almost unlimited supply of keyword rich, expertly written content, specific to your subject matter, absolutely free of charge? Would you snap it up and upload to your site in an instant? Of course you would! Well here's the good news: you can! Read on to find out how you can get a top ten ranking in the search engines without paying a single cent...

Yes, content gives you a great ranking

Content is king. This is widely acknowledged as fact, but if you need further convincing, consider the following two points:

Point 1 - In Google's own words, one of the keys to a high ranking is to "create a useful, information-rich site" (from “Google Information for Webmasters” - http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html).

Point 2 - Google insider, codenamed 'Google Guy', advocates a list 26 steps to building a high ranking site. Step 5 of the list says, "build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words" (from Brett Tabke's "26 steps to 15k a Day" - http://www.searchengineworld.com/misc/guide.htm, advocated by Google Guy in a WebMasterWorld QA session - http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/29727-6-10.htm).

But why does content give you a great ranking?

I won't go into any further detail about IF Google loves content. I will, however, briefly explain WHY. Google's love affair with content is based on two key attractions:

1) Google loves sites with a lot of content because it assumes they provide a lot of useful information. And remember, that's the whole reason Google exists - to help people find useful information. The more helpful Google's results, the more traffic (and revenue) it gets.

2) Google loves sites that have a lot of links pointing to them because this means other webmasters hold your site in high regard, and Google assumes this means the content is useful. And naturally, if you create a useful site, other webmasters will link to it because this makes them useful to their visitors (thereby developing site loyalty), and they gain credibility and authority because they're associated with you.

So how can you get free content for your website?

Three words: 'free reprint articles'. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there writing high quality, helpful, informative articles on virtually every topic imaginable, then giving these article away to any webmaster who wants to publish them on a website. In exchange for the article, the author asks only that you retain the author bio at the end, complete with all links (e.g. "Glenn Murray is an SEO Copywriter and Article Submission Specialist...).

To find free content for your website, simply visit any one of hundreds of 'article banks' on the Internet such as http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.goarticles.com, or http://www.articleblast.com. Browse or search for the subject you're interested in, then take the article(s) for free. There is absolutely no charge. Some of these sites will even send a regular stream of articles direct to your website (using RSS).

Alternatively, you can sign up to any number of article distribution lists and get articles delivered direct to your email inbox. Again, it's absolutely free! Some of the better known distribution lists include http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce, http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content, and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles.

TIP: The article banks and distribution lists mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds more - just do a search for "free reprint articles", "article submission", "article submission site", "submit article", "article submit site", "free articles", or "free content". You may even find a site or list which only deals in articles relating to your particular subject matter.

Why is it free?

Why are these authors giving their articles away? Because it helps the author's own search engine ranking. It's a promotional activity known as 'article PR'. As explained above, Google loves sites with lots of links pointing to them. Every time their article submission is published, the author gets another link to their website. In fact, if the article is really good, it may be published hundreds of times. And each time, it's another link to the author's website. Put simply, article submission is a writer's free pass to the top of the search engines. (In this sense, the "PR" in article PR stands for PageRank.)

Furthermore, like traditional public relations, article PR also conveys a sense of authority because your articles are widely published. And because you're proving your expertise and freely dispensing knowledge, your readers will trust you and will be more likely to remain loyal to you. (In this sense, the "PR" in article PR stands for Public Relations.)

How do I know if the quality is good?

It's a process of natural selection. The better the article submission, the more often it will be published, so it's in the author's interest to write and submit articles of the highest quality. Of course, this doesn't always happen, but in most cases, you'll be reviewing the articles before you post them anyway, so if you discover one that's not up to scratch, don't use it.

In time, you'll become familiar with the authors who consistently put out good quality content - you may even find enough of them that you don't need to go looking for content from anyone else...

Where do I put the free content?

Most people put the articles in an 'Articles' or 'Resources' section on their website, but you can put them anywhere you like.

How much free content should I use?

As much as you want or as little as you want. It all depends on your needs and the needs of your audience. If your audience expects that at least some of your site is original content, then give it to them.

But what about the duplicate content issue?

It's not an issue!

There's a lot of a talk about how Google penalizes duplicate content. The theory is that when the majority of the content on two separate webpages (on different sites) is the same, the one with the higher PR will be shown and the other one will not.

Whether or not this theory is true is still a hot topic in search engine circles, but regardless, it doesn't affect people publishing free-reprint articles. When you publish the article, just make sure you have unique content around it. Generally, it's enough to have your own unique introduction to the page (which may be common to all pages), and your own navigation elements, headers, footers, sidebars, logos, images, etc.

Conclusion

Free reprint articles are a great way for you to achieve a high ranking. And you don't have to pay a cent! So what are you waiting for?

Happy reprinting!

About the author:
* Glenn Murray is a website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He owns article submission service Article PR and 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, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.
Circulated by Article Emporium

12 Things You Really Should Know About SEO

From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and "buy" traffic, by various means.

As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.

The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.

The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.

Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.

Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.

The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.

1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.

2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.

3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.

4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.

5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.

6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.

7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.

8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.

9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.

10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.

11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.

12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.

About the author:
James 'Doc' Lewis spends much of his professional time as SEO for http://www.emeraldcoastentrepreneur.com/ Emerald Coast Entrepreneur. Doc started practicing his magic long before the term SEO was even coined and continues to study and perfect methods of workable and cost effective SEO and SEM, devising unique solutions to diverse marketing challenges.
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Seo India: Tips & Techniques By Ravz

SEO is all about "Individualism"

According to me SEO is not only getting rank for keywords (Of course that is the primary objective) but apart from ranking your objective should be "Conversion" getting "Sales" (No matter if its personal site or clients site)

SEO Steps:

1. Understanding Business.
# What is your business all about
# How is it going to Operate.
# Target audience (Global/Local)
# Opportunity
# Competitor study operating in same business.
# "Core competence"

2. Target Keywords.
# Getting a good list of keywords. (More keywords maximum number of ppl can be targeted)
# This is something that will directly reflect your efforts (targeting wrong keyword will get all your efforts in vain)

3. WEB Designing.
# Navigation
# Page size
# looks n feel
# inter linking
# HTML Code validation*

4. Meta tags & Content
# Title
# Description
# Keywords
# Content

*This is something all seo do in their style, some do not emphasis more on 1st point (according to me which is very important) & shoot up with 3rd step then 2nd & 4th.

5. Directories
# They are the boss (More the submission to directories more the chance to rank top for targeted keyword)

6. Link Building
# I am very bad at this (This is something which can do wonders for you)

I am still in process to transferring my skills & knowledge to a Brand "SEO Expert" or "SEO Specialist"

Ravz..!

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

Duplicate Pages and Search Engines

Most of us been there when it comes to duplicate pages. You may have news, articles from news companies that provide you with the news feed. Or you might have your website designed by third party that uses same tools on all their clients' websites.

But did you know that this duplicate content can lower your search engine ranking? It today SEO driven website world it is important to avoid duplicate content as much as possible.

What are duplicate pages for search engines?

It is obvious that duplicate means same as something else. For search engines it means same exact page, same exact title, keywords etc. Search Engines send their spiders, for example Google's spider is called googlebot, Yahoo has yahoo slurp, to crawl your website for content or information. These spiders look for certain information: What is this page about? Is it relevant to your website at all? etc.

If any of these search engines find same content on a different website, it starts to compare the content. First is looks when this content was indexed and from website it was submitted first to search engines. Than it starts to look for links. Are there any links on these pages that point to same source? This way search engine can determine who is the priority website and assigned a higher rank to that site.

But what about rest of the web-sites? What will happen to them? If you have an articles, news that are duplicate content you website will go lower in search engines. It may take some time until search engine actually visits your website and assigns a duplicate content filter. Search engines will simple filter your website out of their search.

What if you pay a licensing fee for these articles!

The only way for search engines such as Google to understand this, is when you e-mail them and explain about your content. You will need to do a re-inclusion request.

What if you like free articles published on different article sites!

No matter what you do, search engine will hit you with duplicate content, however you can teach search engine about your content.

First, reduce number of articles that you have copied. Get some new fresh well written articles. Make sure that majority of your content is your own and rest is articles.

Second, articles must be related to your field. If you write about real estate, make sure you stick with real estate, finance articles only. Show search engines that you have categories and your readers benefit from these articles.

Third, do a re-inclusion request and wait. In few weeks you should see some movement in your site ranking. If it is not improving, reduce the number of articles again.

With free articles is cat and mouse game all over. It is hard to figure out as how algorithm is set in Google for duplicate content as well as how Google deals with re-produced articles that you can freely post anywhere.

What if you have a website that was designed by third company?

Most website companies use same templates or similar templates. That is they give you and rest of their clients same and exact FAQ pages, About Us pages, etc.

You want to avoid this as soon as possible. Always rewrite these articles by yourself. This way you will create unique pages for your website.

Duplicate content is one of the biggest mistakes many webmasters do when it comes to creating websites. Always try to create your own posts and if you really want to expand your article base, make sure you provide a valuable content to your users, not just another article website.

About the Author:
Martin Lukac, represents EnginePromoter.com, http://www.EnginePromoter.com search engine marketing web-site for search engine optimization and website submission. Promote your website and get top rotating positions on over 250+ search engines, including a niche website submission. EnginePromoter.com also operates http://www.1AmericanFinancial.com and real estate portal http://www.RateEmpire.com
Posted: 27-02-2007
Article Source: ArticlesBase.com