Sunday, July 29, 2007

Article Submitters - Are They Worth It?

There are both advantages and disadvantages to using article submitters.

Advantages:

- You can submit one article to hundreds or thousands of article directories with just one submission depending on what article submitter you are using. Submitting an article to this many directories, by hand, will take you a long time.

- With the extra time saved using an article submitter, you can develop your website and or write more articles.

Disadvantages:

- With article submitters, selecting the right category can be difficult, because not all article directories have the same categories. This can be a problem, because some directories will delete your article if it isn't submitted to the correct category.

- Another problem with article submitters is that some will not allow you to place hyperlinks in the article body. This is inconvenient, because not all article directories disallow hyperlinks within the article body and these links are often useful to the readers of the article.

I personally do not use an article submitter. I submit my web hosting articles and other articles by hand. The only reasons are as follows: I have not found one that can select the correct category every time for every directory and I like to place hyperlinks within the article body when allowed.

About the Author:
Brian Shoemaker is the owner of the web hosting directory Find-A-Web-Host.com. Find a cheap web hosting plan for your articles.
Article Source: Free Articles Directory

Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Seo – Best Linking Strategies

Linking is not such a simple process. While there are still many webmasters and SEO experts implying that the more links pointing to your site, the higher rankings in Google and other search engines, this is not entirely true. It doesn’t really matter how many links you have, if they are not valuable links.

What determines the value of a link? The value of a link to your site is given by the value of the website pointing at it. For example, if you have a link on an industry-related, PR 7 or higher, website that could bring your website a boost and a higher PR (page rank) as well. Note the “industry related” aspect. You don’t need to collect links and linking partners to improve search engine placements. This will come naturally after you create a network of related links that will bring valuable information for the users. A network of related links will bring you targeted traffic as well.

Stay away from link farms. Google doesn’t like bulk or automated linking. However, if a link farm is linking to you that will be OK, as long as you are not linking back. Solely linking back to bad neighbors (link farms and penalized websites) could really get your site banned. You should always check back to your link partners and see whether their websites were penalized or not. A simple way to see that is to look at the Google toolbar where the Page Rank of a website is usually displayed. If that element is completely gray, you should remove the back link to the affected website from your website immediately.

You should also avoid linking to sites that don’t link back to you. Unless these sites provide content that is really important for your visitors, let’s say for a better understanding of the nature of your business, you should not link to them. When you link to another site, you give this site a percentage of your Page Rank.

Another very important aspect in linking strategy is writing links. Never use “click here” for your onsite links. Your visitors will mentally answer, “make me” and move on. You should write links that are meaningful, explain what the link offers and make sense even when read out of context. When you transform entire paragraphs into a link your visitors will get confused.

When you submit your link to web directories and partner sites, don’t always use the same title and description. Try, as much as possible to write different titles and link descriptions for each directory and partner site. Both titles and descriptions should be keyword rich, but not stuffed with keywords. Keep the link title as short as possible – 30 to 60 characters, depending where you submit your link, and the description not more than 130 characters, including spaces. The shorter the description, the clearer your message will be. If each link that points to your site has unique content, the search engines will treat it as important and consider it for indexing. Search engines do have the tendency of excluding from their results links with similar content. You are probably familiar with the Google’s follow up phrase “repeat the search with the omitted results included”.

If you don’t want Google and the search engines to exclude some of your links from the results, give them a reason not to. Build up a good linking strategy as part of your SEO campaign.

About the Author:
Scott Lindsay is a web developer and entrepreneur. He is the founder of HighPowerSites and many other web projects. HighPowerSites is the easiest do-it-yourself website builder on the web. No programming or design skill required. Get your own website online in just 5 minutes with HighPowerSites.com at: www.highpowersites.com
Article Source: NewFREEArticles.com

Friday, July 20, 2007

What is the Google Dance?

As with any good web developer, the ability to time the changes Google will update your website and refresh the content for better SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is in your favor. Welcome to the world of “Google Dance”. The Google Dance is simply that the predetermination of when the actual update will commence.

What really happens is Google sends out spiders to crawl the Internet, usually done to DNS (Domain Name Servers), upon spidering all of the available tables it begins to go through each individual site and updates the content on to Google.com. Thus if you watch your rank on the Google Toolbar, you can tell when your overall page rank has changed.

Understanding SEO and what is necessary to improve your overall ranking. Webmasters have been looking for ways to increase the odds of guessing when the next spidering would commence. There are various versions and servers that go out and crawl thousands of servers at a time, it takes time to relay and decipher this information back to the web server that Google.com pulls its information from.

Some vendors have created programs that actually go out to the data centers themselves to find out approximately when the last index was kicked off. Depending on the information returned from the trace the exact time and date are pinpointed. Is there really that much of an advantage to doing it this way? It depends, if you have a vital update that you want to optimize your site, you may want to know when the last time Google visited your site for content to keep information fresh and relevant.

There are many data centers that Google uses to spider across the world. Each center has a specific region it covers and all the information is gathered in aggregate and returned back to populate Google.com. With this many data centers the chances for continuous indexing is good, but not guaranteed.

www.sitetube.com

About the author:
Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.
Circulated by Article Emporium

Tuesday, July 17, 2007

SEO or PPC: Which One is Right for You?

There are two major search engine marketing strategies in use today: Search Engine Optimization and PPC (pay-per-click). Both strategies are entirely different and it is tough to decide which one or which combination is right for you.

To decide which strategy is best for you, consider the basics. It is easier to judge the pros and cons when taking the big picture into account. People will continue to battle for the top search engine positions. Search engine marketing is undoubtedly one of the best sources of targeted traffic.

As people continuously try to find new and unique ways to get additional traffic to their web sites, the Search Engine Optimization industry continues to grow. PPC refers to advertising on a search engine that charges on a per click basis whenever a visitor clicks on one of your ads. The order of ads is usually based on bidding prices, meaning that the advertiser who bids the highest price per click will be listed first. These sponsored listings are known as PPC listings.

SEO tries to change your search engine ranking by looking at a number of factors including link popularity, Page Rank and so on. If your web site is search engine optimized then obviously you are more likely to have a good ranking in the search engines. A well-optimized and marketed site will be listed in the top results whenever a person searches for related keywords. One of the best benefits of SEO marketing is you don't have to pay for any clicks! So, how can we decide which method is better? Both methods actually serve different purposes. However, one is likely to be a better fit for your business than the other one.

PPC

PPC traffic, rankings and results tend to be more stable and predictable than Search Engine Optimization, and, combined with its low cost, this makes PPC one of the more popular ways of advertising. Most companies try PPC before they try SEO, because it's seen as more stable. In many cases PPC lets you rank well on the search engines, without having to do the tedious work involved in SEO - no finding link partners, posting links, creating content and so on. As long as you have the budget for it, the ranking is yours. Another advantage is that the listing will get posted when you want it and not when the search engine gets around to it. With PPC's popularity growing day by day, the market is also getting competitive. You will find that CPC's (costs per clicks) are steadily rising, and for a common man it is getting tough to invest much. As with most auctions, the more people bidding on PPC, the higher the prices get.

SEO The main benefit of SEO is that it does not cost per click. The disadvantages are that the traffic to your website is more unpredictable and requires a lot of work. With SEO, you have to adapt and constantly change strategies as search engines change their algorithms. Search Engine Optimization is also slower than PPC, as many search engines don't list new sites. So what should you choose? Well, it depends on how much money you are willing to spend, what your time line is, and what your return on investment is. If you have cash then PPC should be your first choice, as it produces fast results. PPC can also be used for testing the effectiveness of web sites. If you have time and money to invest in long-term results, SEO is an excellent option as well.

All and all, the best marketing strategy is typically to go with PPC in the short term to get immediate traffic and analyze conversions. SEO should then be taken with a long term view in mind, so you can reap the benefits of free traffic later on.

About the Author:
Johnsmith
The author is a Writer working with A-1 internet design, which is a professional Search Engine Optimization Company providing effective Search Engine Optimization services, SEM services, and business to business email marketing, online marketing services to promote your business over the web. Get more valuable information at A-1 internetdesign
Submitted: 2006-10-20
Article Source: GoArticles