The Hidden Rewards To Search Engine Optimization

One of the best ways to make money is through the use of the internet. It is not as easy as it sounds but it can be if you know what you are doing. The internet has grown so much in the past couple of years that it has become such a huge information source that very rarely will you not find what you are looking for. The internet also makes it easier for people to do their shopping for the holidays. And it also can help us find things we need to know in everyday life. The internet is also a great place to start a business and become very wealthy. You just have to hit the right markets and know how to run a business online using Google as a search engine.

Google has been the leader in all of the search engines and has been the role model for any other search engine to compare to. The reason is because some how they found a way to weed out all the garbage information and place the quality information to show first when someone does a search for certain keywords. Although you can never keep track of Google and their algorhythms there are ways to help your site look great for Google and your customers. You can improve your rankings on Google by making your website both an information site about your items you are selling and also a place that only sells the product you are offering. The main thing here is to make your website rise above all the other competition. You will have to do this in the eyes of Google and in your customers' eyes as well. It may take some time to find out which Florida SEO companies are right for you and which are in your price range.

One of the best SEO services that you can have is the art of onsite optimization. Some people have some knowledge of how this works but most people do not. This is a very touchy task because it involves the back end of the website. You first will want to do some keyword research and find the keywords that are going to bring you the most traffic and at the same time not impossible to rank for. Once you have the keywords you will then need to place some title tags on each page of the website. Use heavy keywords that are real popular in the title tags. This is one of the most important tool you can use to get you website SEO ready. Next you will need to add the keywords in the Meta tag details for each page. Once that is done you will then need to add a meta tag "description" of each page. Use a brief 2 sentence description using some keywords as well. These three steps will help your site get found by Google.

Once you make your site looking great and easy for Google to find then you can start the second phase of the SEO services and that will be the offsite optimization. Although it may take some time for your website to start seeing results don't get discouraged. The results will happen as long as you follow the rules and be ethical and don't try to cheat the system.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/the-hidden-rewards-to-search-engine-optimization-320116.html

About the Author:

Learn the advantages of hiring Ft Lauderdale SEO Companies to make your online marketing company more successful. Learn the ropes of Search Engine Optimization and how to implement it on your website to generate more revenue.

One Way Links Lead to Website Traffic

The name of the game on the internet is traffic and every webmaster realizes this. It does not matter what the niche of your site, if you do not have traffic they will never see what you have to offer them. If your site is an online business the simple reality is that you must get traffic to be successful.

Where can this traffic come from?

Email marketing is one source. You can generate a certain amount of traffic to your website by offering opt-in email newsletters and e-zines. Sending newsletters to your contacts will help keep your website in their mind and keep them returning.

Search engines are a major player in internet traffic and sent around 60% of overall traffic to those websites that are successful. The best thing about this method is that it is free and lasts, but you need to be indexed highly for relevant search terms by the search engine to get any traffic.

Links from other websites to yours can be a major contributor for traffic to your website. Traffic generated this way is typically more targeted to your niche and best of all it helps your site get indexed higher in search engine results to drive traffic in that way also.

The focus of the rest of this article will be on strategies for link building. How do you get those one way links to help you get indexed higher in the search engines?

The first and most effective way of building links is by submitting your site for review in the quality directories such as Yahoo!, Business.com and the Authority Directory. Submitting to quality web directories does not take that much time and will get you a high quality link to your website. You should be aware that there are many directories on the internet and they are not equal. A link from a quality directory can be the equivalent of links from hundreds others.

Another method of link generation is by writing articles that are rich in keywords related to you niche and them submit those to various article directories. Choose those articles directories of quality just like a web directory and Ezines is one of the best know. When you use this method make sure that you write a nice bio for the resource box that contains a link to your website with good keyword text.

Participation in online forums that relate to your niche is another good way to gain links that can bring traffic to your website. Make sure that you use the signature option with the forum to place a link back to your website. By being professional and making relevant and intelligent comments forums can be a powerful tool for your website. Do not make comments just for the sake of spamming them with your links. Comments in forums need to be relevant to the topic and offer something to the other readers. The same rules apply for blog post comments.

Always keep reading and searching out additional information as the internet can change quickly. Links will always be a stable source of gaining attention and traffic for your website.

Article Source: http://www.articlesbase.com/internet-articles/one-way-links-lead-to-website-traffic-315455.html

About the Author:
Increase your Websites online presence today by getting listed on The Authority Business Directory. Plus, don't forget to submit link for inclusion while you are visiting.

Keyword Density- How Much is Too Much?

A great article on the importance of keywords and how to use them.

Before indulging in a discussion of how much density of keywords should a webpage ideally contain, it is necessary to take a look at what a keyword is? A keyword is a word that the user searches for when using the search engine. Keywords are the function of the search engines. The ratio of the keyword to the total number of words appearing on the web page is known as the keyword density. One of the most critical aspects of search engine optimization, it can be used as a factor in determining whether a web page is relevant for a specified keyword or keyword phrase. Almost all the search engine algorithms give importance, in varying degrees, to the number of times a keyword appears on a web page. Each search engine is marked by a different calculation of keywords. While some allow a large keyword density on the webpage, others like Google place a limit on it. In order to avoid search spamming through keyword stuffing, search engines also implement measures other than keyword density.

Ideal keyword density

There is much talk about the ideal keyword density of a web page. The bottomline here is that there is no thumb rule regarding the ideal keyword density in a website, mainly because the search engines change their algorithms frequently. Also, different search engines allow a different keyword density. So, while a more than 2% keyword density is considered spamming by Google, MSN and Yahoo allow a liberal 5% keyword density in a web page. While some search engines attach more importance to keywords in your title, meta tags and web copy, Google - the most important search engine, searches for keywords in your web page text.

Also the ideal keyword density changes with the type of keywords. When the keyword is highly competitive, the website owner should focus on not more than one word per page. Pages with low competitive keywords should ideally focus upon two or three keywords per page. More often than not, search terms comprise of moderately competitive keywords. Such keywords must be used on the home page, and must be linked with internal supporting pages.

Ideal keyword density is more of a range than a figure. A 1% - 7% keyword density is what any web page should aim for. A 1% keyword density is achieved by inserting a keyword once in every 100 words of text, and so on. But a keyword used once in every thousand words would mean a watered down keyword density, which, in turn, will mar the chances of your website figuring high in the search engine result pages.

Keyword optimization

For a search engine to rank your web site highly, focus on one or two keywords per page. This will allow the spiders to be convinced of the relevance of your page content to the keyword. Keeping a one-keyword-per-page policy is the best bet. Writing a minimum of 250 words creates enough content to naturally include a good keyword density.

All this stuff about keyword density is effective in search engine optimization only for keywords that are less than highly competitive. Fiercely competitive keyword terms such as ‘Search Engine Optimization’ cannot assure a good ranking with search engines, even with keyword density as high as 60%. This goes on to show that search engines place more importance on other elements such as inbound links or anchor texts. To improve search engine ranking, your keyword density must not be too high or too low.

Another view

While many search engine optimizers swear by this aspect of search engine optimization to improve rankings, many others are quick to refute this theory, pointing out the importance of writing for the visitors instead of search engines. Citing the rankings of web pages with a keyword density as high as 20% alongside the same of web pages with a keyword density of 2%, these experts prove their point. A good ranking, according to them, is the consequence of relevant content focusing on the theme of your website, which is anyways bound to include the keyword. Losing visitors can be attributed to forced write ups that are deliberately keyword stuffed. The use of similar words instead of the same keyword again and again will increase your article’s credibility. The search engines too, have started focusing more on semantic connection between words instead of simply relying on keyword density, in their endeavor to curb spamming.

Conclusion

While it cannot be denied that keyword density is one of the aspects of search engine optimization, it is definitely not the only factor. Losing your sleep over achieving the exact keyword density in your web pages won’t help your rankings much. Writing meaningful, relevant content, without bothering about the keyword density, is the key to good ranking.

Abut the Author:

Kavya Chakravarti, a search engine optimizer and web design and development expert, consults clients about various SEO techniques. A thorough follower of SEO trends, she devices plans to improve their page ranking in search engine indices through white hat SEO.

Marketing Online for Your Business

A good overview of online marketing.

The Internet, as well as being a fantastic source of information, is also a tremendous platform for business and commerce. With that comes the development of many different business mechanisms, which adapt as they cross from the real to the virtual trading environment. One of those functionalities, which have been well adapted to form an entirely new discipline for online business is online marketing. By combining a diverse range of different advertising and promotional channels, website owners have effectively created their own rules when it comes to online promotion, and to have any chance of online commercial success, these must be fully embraced.

One of the fastest growing sectors of online business is pay-per-action marketing, primarily in the form of pay-per-click. Pay-per-click works by displaying an advert with a link straight through to the advertiser's site. Rather than charging per impression, or for the duration of the ad, the advertiser pays only for every click through, which means theoretically, the advertiser is only paying for each interested sales lead. This may initially sound like an attractive and cost effective way to go, but there are a variety of problems with the medium which could eventually lead to its downfall.

One of the most critical problems faced by pay-per-click is what has been deemed 'click fraud'. Click fraud is where competitors deliberately click on adverts to run up the PPC budget, which can result in advertisers paying for advertising that hasn't even produce a single interested visitor to their site. However, many PPC suppliers are working tirelessly to try to remedy the situation, and they seem to be beginning to get a grasp on how best to avoid the problem in future.

Another evergreen online marketing method is that of search engine optimization. Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the process of making modifications to websites and combining off-site strategies to boost search engine rankings, which will ultimately result in more coverage for the website in question. In fact, SEO is such a powerful tool, that it is possible to move almost any website to one of the top few pages on major search engine results under specific keywords very quickly. For this reason, SEO is big business, and many websites of all sizes reap the benefits of SEO spend in their sales and profit margins every single year.

Online marketing comprises a range of alien marketing concepts, which traditional businesses must grasp if they are to succeed online. All in all, online marketing is a highly lucrative area, and the potential rewards are very high for those that successfully come to terms with these new marketing methods.

About the Author:

Jonathon Hardcastle writes articles on many topics including Employment, Computers, and Business

The Lowdown on Finding the Perfect Keywords

A good look at the use of keywords.

Whenever I teach a class on Internet marketing, it's inevitable that the term "keyword" comes up. Keywords tend to confuse people, mostly because there are numerous ways of figuring them out; not all of them are correct. Let me explain.

When we think of keywords related to our topic, we often go to "root" keywords or, in layman's terms: the first word that pops into our mind. For example, if someone were to say: "Give me a keyword for books" you might say: "publishing." That's a root keyword. It may seem like the right word to you, but it may not be a word that your reader or customer is searching on. Therein lies the key. You want to find relevant keywords in your market that people are actually searching for. Another example of this is the word: auto loan. If you've written a book on saving money you may think that drawing attention to your chapter on getting the best auto loan is a great idea. But what if your consumer searches on the term: car loan instead? Your keyword (auto loan) will go unnoticed.

There are some commonalities in keywords; for example, the best keywords have a strong relevance to your topic and a high search volume. What this means is that as you're trying to get away from 'root' words, you don't want to get uber-creative and use words no one is searching on. The other piece to remember is the age-old marketing term: supply and demand. Whatever your search term you want to make sure that there's a lot of demand, but very little supply.

If you're ready to start your search, here are a few sites that should help you. The first is the Google Adwords keyword search tool. What this tool will show you is a general overview of how popular a word is vs. how much supply there is for this word. While this site doesn't give you actual search numbers, it's a pretty thorough overview of search patters: adwords dot google dot com.

The second is a version of Overture (more on that in a minute) that will show you how many searches have happened across Yahoo and MSN for a particular search term in the last 30 days: yooter dot com/keyword/overture.php

Finally we have Overture. While this site will give you actual data, the numbers they give you aren't updated daily, in fact they're not even updated monthly. Some of the stats you see will be three or more months old. But data is data and unless you're sitting in a market that has heavy fluctuation, this should give you a good start: inventory dot overture dot com.

Now that you've zeroed in on your perfect keywords, where will you use them? Well, adding them to your web site copy is a great idea but the *ideal* place to use these is in your press release. Why? Because it's likely that you're sending your press release out online (if you're not, you should be) and with all the clutter on the 'Net you'll need these keywords to get noticed. Here's a quick rundown of where and how you should use them:

• Use these words in the headline and first 50 words of your release

• Keep your release to no more than 600 words

• Use keywords for hyperlinking: what I mean by this is that anytime you link to a page on your site or some other external reference, you'll want to use these keywords to help increase exposure to your press release.

In order to maximize what you're doing online, you've got to become very focused on your market and what your market wants. Figuring out the keywords and search terms your readers/consumers use will go a long way helping your message rise above the noise!

About the Author:


Penny C. Sansevieri, CEO and founder of Author Marketing Experts, Inc., is a book marketing and media relations expert whose company has developed some of the most cutting-edge book marketing campaigns. Visit AME

Choosing Your Keywords

Everyone wants their site to be found easily in the search engines. The use of keywords, therefore, is important when designing the content on your site. The following offers some good advice on this.

These days, our needs for knowledge, information, everyday
necessities and novelty materials can be found just with one
single click on an internet website. It’s no surprise that
people prefer to surf the WWW rather than go to a library or
shopping center to look for or buy what they want. More and more
people use search engines like google to help them go directly
to the website that contains what they need.

This trend sparked a revolution in internet marketing
strategies. Web masters of vendor sites compete with each other
to place their websites in the top 10 search results of a user’s
searches. Various software utilities were created to boost the
chances of high SE rankings. Some of these utilities even
manage to cheat a high ranking out of a search engine even when
the website itself contains nothing of interest to the user.

As more and more web masters arm themselves with rank boosting
software, the effectiveness of their efforts begins to plummet so
much so that they find themselves back to where they started. A
new avenue for increasing their rankings became necessary.
One of these ideas is the saturation of keywords on a single
article. The entire philosophy of keywords hinged on their
relevance. In searching for a Ford truck, what search strings
would the customer use? How many of those search strings will
match the keywords? The more a search string matches your site
or article’s keywords, the higher you place on a search engine
result page. Keywords have gotten to be such a major concern
that private enterprises which offer search engine optimization
(SEO) services are now making a killing in the internet economy.

The first result that comes out of a search engine is usually
the website that contains the most similar number of keywords in
the exact same order as the search. For instance, if I used “DIY
Wi-Fi antenna” for my search string, the search engine will look
for the exact same words and word placement. Now, if I type the
word “ask” and perform my search using google, the common result
would be ask.com. Notice how the search engine immediately went
for the website with the domain name (ask.com) that matched my
query. On the other hand, if I type “asked”, google still comes
out with the ask.com webpage as its top search result. It’s all
about relevance.

To be able to fully utilize your website’s potential as a top
search result item, you need to orient your website towards the
product or idea you want to promote. If you cannot have the .com
name, you can rely on keyword optimization to help you with your
search engine rankings.

You do not need to consult a private enterprise to tell you
which keywords to use. All you have to do is think about your
product or idea and think of how you would look for it in the
internet using a search engine.

Keywords will not work for you if you keep them generic. Most
customers log onto the internet already knowing what they need
or want. Remember, these shoppers can’t hold or examine the
merchandise so they want to find out about them fist hand before
they actually buy. When they do decide to buy, they have a
specific idea in mind. They will use this idea as their search
string in search engines. Ergo, if you have multiple products,
you need to be able to generate a fair amount of literature
containing relevant keywords for each of your merchandise. If
you choose to limit your business to a certain area, be sure to
include the name of your chosen location into your keyword base.

You also need to take care of the literature or articles
you produce for your business. Make sure that they contain the
necessary keyword count. Do not sacrifice the quality of your
articles for the sake of keywords. Always present a detailed,
literate and informative article.

About the Author:

Len Hutton is an information publisher specializing in helping people start their own home based business. You can read up on how to create your own info products in one day without writing a single word by going to http://www.nicheresidualincomes.com/

How To Turn Other Peoples Hard Work Into A Part Time And Instant Internet Business

http://www.nicheresidualincomes.com/underground.htm

Reciprocal Links - Yes Or No?

A great article on the topic of link exchange and their relevance to search engine rankings.

Reciprocal Link Exchange is a very popular and valuable practice. This can be a valuable tool for information sharing and it helps establish communication among web developers and creates strong on line communities.

A reciprocal link simply means that two websites are linking to each other. Both sites generate traffic for each other simultaneously.

Building links is a very good way to improve how high you rank on a search engine index. Links consist of your hyperlink of your web site that is posted onto another web site. The more links of your web site that can be found throughout the internet on other sites, usually the higher you will rank in the search engines.

You can't just put your website on the net with right keywords and all the right touches and expect your traffic and ranking will remain constant. As the web is an ever changing landscape, you have to keep track of your own web results like what is happening with the competition and also the best and highest ranked sites.

Tips and recommendations for designing a Good Reciprocal Link Campaign

- Set a goal. Figure out how fast you can do it, then create a plan to increase and improve your Page Ranking. Start your own Marketing Linking Campaign;

- Choose your reciprocal links wisely. Connect only to websites that contain related information that readers will enjoy.

- Use your time collecting valuable information on your site, and then tell everyone you can! Offer a web site full of interesting details that similar sites' readers can't live without. The best way to gain readership is by offering a valuable resource! - If you want to improve your Page Ranking try to do not link to sites that are irrelevant to yours and avoid sites that have a "Links Page" that is hard to find.

- Write relevant articles and publish them for free. Make sure to include a Bio Box that includes a link to your site. Stipulate that the article may be reprinted for free as long as the Bio Box is included. This will instantaneously provide extra links to your page when people reprint your work.

- Email other webmasters and simply ask for a link and provide a pre-coded HTML link for them to cut and paste to their page.

- Do not link to sites with directories that are haphazardly arranged with no categorization and avoid sites that contain more than 40 - 50 links per page. Your link will be hard to find...

- The fastest and most powerful way to make your website known is to submit it to as many relevant web directories as you can. Directory submission is the BEST way to gain targeted traffic to your site. - Celebrate each small success and keep in mind every small step in the right direction is bringing you closer and closer to your main target.

Choose wisely! And be patient, be persistent, be creative! Even if you only acquire one third of the links you pursue, your efforts will be well-rewarded.

Copyright © Anne-Marie Ronsen You have permission to publish this article electronically, in print, in your ebook or on your web site, free of charge, as long as the author bylines are included.

About the Author:

Anne-Marie RONSEN is the author of many wealth and self development books. Download FREE eBooks from http://www.e-bestsellers.com, http://www.plrbestsellers.com or http://www.UniversalPublishingltd.com... You will learn about the best tips and recommendations to improve your health, weight and wealth.

How To Get Traffic Without Spending A Dime

A terrific article outlining many unique ways that you can generate traffic to your website.

Starting a brick and mortar business requires an enormous capital investment. Today, online businesses are able to compete with the old school way of doing things and win. Take a quick look at newspaper circulation and free classified advertising online, and you get an idea of what I am talking about. This is because of the versatility that the Internet offers and the many ways a single individual can compete on a truly global scale with large corporations, that only recently could not even be imagined.More...

While there are ways to jumpstart your web site traffic, many sites don't have the resources required to generate web traffic instantly. Do not despair, as I will explain in this article, many ways you can generate huge amounts of traffic, and all of them are Free! All you need is the proper mind set and a the discipline to stick with your plan for at least 4 to 8 months to start seeing significant results. You also must have the ability to learn new things, as the online world is constantly evolving, you need to be inquisitive, and alert to these trends. The actual work is not hard work at all, it is easy and fun!

The truth is, that web traffic builds organically over time. By using free methods you can gradually build a huge traffic funnel directed at your website. Many article directories contain articles that offer tips and guidelines explaining free methods of traffic generation. Start looking for good free information and learn as much as you can. It will take time, to say honestly. Paid traffic and PPC advertising will by far, get better immediate results than free methods, But obviously over the lifetime of your site, the free traffic is where you will see the greatest benefit. It will take time, but with these free methods I'm about to disclose, before long you will generate a tremendous traffic flow to your website.

Search for and join online forums and online communities relevant to your business product or service. The great thing about forums and online communities is that you can easily find forums that provide community of people interested in your particular niche. You can discuss lots of things about the niche that are relevant to you business, without being overly commercial. Another great advantage is that you can learn an tremendous amount of consumer information about the business you are in, as well as about your competitors.

With online communities and forums over time you build a reputation for your company. Be confident, but not boastful, but showcase your range of expertise about the subject, with that you can build a reputation and trust with a key demographic of your business.

Make use of newsletters, and provide readers with interesting articles and advice, along with a catalog of your products. If you make it really interesting and entertaining, more people will sign up for your newsletter and recommend it to other people. The more people who signs up for your newsletter, the more people there will be that will go to your site increasing your traffic. Some marketers say all their money is in their list. Love an respect your subscribers, and they will reward you well.

Another great idea is reciprocal linking, i.e. trading links with other sites. This is accomplished by engaging in a partnership with another webmaster. By exchanging links, both parties will benefit. Every click that goes to the partner's site could potentially click on the link of your site and visit your site as well. Be sure to target and partner only with quality sites that are relevant or in the same niche as your site. Done incorrectly, link exchanging can actually damage your site's reputation in the search engines.

Article writing is a proven method for building web site back-links and authority status, as well as significant free targeted traffic. Try writing articles that will provide tips and guides to other aficionados. Writing articles that provide good service and knowledge to other people will reward you with new visitors, eager to learn more about your business.

Many sites offer free submission and posting of your articles. When people find interest in your articles they have a good chance of following the track by finding out where the article originated. Include a resource box at the bottom of each article, with a link and a brief description of your company with the article to build back links and laser targeted traffic.

Use well written, unique content for your site. Many search engines track down the keywords and keyword phrases your site uses and how they are used. It is not a requirement that a content should be done by a professional content writer. You could do your on but you have to make content for your site that is entertaining as well as informational. Copy writing is a skill that can be learned with study and practice.

Search engines are the primary means that Internet surfers use to find information by typing a keyword or phrase, which returns results relevant to their interest. Search engines in return use keyword searching to increase the relevance of their search results. With the right keywords, in well targeted context, you could get high rankings in search engine results without the costs.

All of these methods will drive traffic to your site for free. All it takes is a bit of effort and perseverance. Learn all you can about these methods, and start planting seeds and nurturing them, and don't give up! Before long, your Internet garden will provide you a bountiful harvest.

About the Author:

Christopher Andrew is a Internet Marketing and SEO Expert who has been doing online marketing for the last seven years. http://epicycledigital.com provides Internet marketers free and low cost MRR And PLR products, as well as support to build Internet businesses.

Build and Promote a Successful Web Site Without Spending a Dime

Build a killer Web site guaranteed to capture attention using free and low-cost tools found on the Internet--with help from this expert resource. Cheap Web Tricks! Build and Promote a Successful Web Site Without Spending a Dime will direct you to all sorts of handy programs and applications available online--including Internet access, Web site hosting, site promotion, and revenue generation. See how easy it is to create an online presence without spending a fortune!

Plan, build, and publish your own Web site for free!

Whether your goal is to publicize, sell, or share something online, you can build a terrific Web site for a fraction of what you might have expected to pay. So, pin down a purpose and delve into this cost-saving gem. Loaded with resources--available at little or no cost--Cheap Web Tricks! Build and Promote a Successful Web Site Without Spending a Dime will help you access the tools needed to design, construct, publish, and promote your own Web site. View plenty of real-world examples to help get you started, and follow step-by-step instructions for establishing a powerful Web presence virtually free.

• Learn to cost-effectively build and publish a successful Web site

• Organize your goals, determine what's feasible and well-suited to your Web site, and then devise an overall plan for design and execution

• Use HTML to execute your design

• Identify--and meet--the needs of your audience whether your goals are business or personal

• Make a profit more quickly by reducing your startup expenses

• Create and maintain a high quality Web presence

• Learn new skills and share your ideas with the world

• Promote your site through search engines, banners, and other proven performers

• Interpret traffic statistics and keep visitors coming to your Web site

• Discover and resolve compatibility and technical issues

Optimize Your Blog for Google

Here is a great video showing you how to optimize the keywords in your blog to increase your traffic. Although it focuses on Google, the ideas presented here can be used with any search engine. Google has a great keyword suggester here.

Search Engine Optimization (CD-ROM)

Search Engine Optimizationis a helpful CD-ROM which allows you to watch in action what is involved in optimizing your site online and achieving good placement in the top search engines.

If you're out of sight on the Web, says Search Engine Optimization specialist Richard John Jenkins, you're out of mind. Braving the wilds of search engine myths and facts, Richard offers essential tips on how to appear at the top of search results in Yahoo!, Google, and other popular search engines. From purchasing placement to optimizing keyword variations, from avoiding "black hat" SEO practices to setting up a search-friendly site, Richard covers it all. He also shares how to best submit your Web pages for indexing, how to monitor page rank, and how to build a solid base of links to your site. A must-watch video tutorial for experienced website publishers and for those just getting into the Web game.

Topics Include

* Search engine optimization (SEO) vs. search engine marketing (SEM)
* Getting to know your searchers
* Crawler-based search engines
* Keywording to rank high in searches
* Keyword combinations, variations, and stop words
* Setting up a site the wrong way: what to avoid
* Creating a search-friendly site
* Submitting websites for search engine indexing
* Building link relationships

About the Author

Richard John Jenkins, founder of Web Search Engineer, (www.WebSearchEngineer.com) is a search engine optimization and marketing specialist based in Santa Monica, California. Richard is a member of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professionals Organization). He uses Bruce Clay's SEOToolSet and abides by Bruce Clay's SEO Code of Ethics for all of his SEO clients. Richard brings years of experience and a wealth of multimedia and Web publishing knowledge to his SEO/SEM company and to the training he offers. For many years he was a top multimedia trainer at the American Film Institute in Hollywood. He was also a popular staff software evangelist for Macromedia Corporation and a successful business development manager for Corel Corporation.

Search Engine Optimization - Google

A short video that discusses some of the more important factors determining your placement within Google search.

Growing Your Business With Google

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Googleis a great read for anyone involved in online commerce. Google, the online search giant, can be a very valuable partner in your marketing and promotion plans.

Using the Internet to increase the visibility of a small business today is no easy task. It can take a lot of time, energy, and money—especially if you’re not a computer expert. Here, readers can get a valuable overview of how search engines, web sites, ad services, and web logs can all work together to build a business, as well as practical hands-on tips, tricks, and planning tools to help readers create and execute a plan that utilizes the Internet to its fullest.

Sections include:

• Part 1 - The Business Case for Google: Increasing Your Business Visibility; The Benefits of Increasing Your Visibility with Google; What Is Google Anyway?; Learning About Google Search; Disassembling the Google Search Engine

• Part 2 - Building Your Google Plan: What's Your Core Business?; Living in an Online World; Your Business Website; Assessing Your Competitors; Keeping Track of Customers

• Part 3 - Improving Your Online Business Site: The Basics of Building a Good Business Site; Developing Online and Offline Content; Stretching Your Marketing Dollars; Secrets of the Online Marketing Masters

• Part 4 - Promoting and Growing Your Online Business: Content, Content, Content!; Becoming a More Popular Site; Becoming an Online Expert; Advertising Your Business with Google AdWords; Making Money with Google AdSense; The Advantages of Affiliate Programs; Avoiding Dumb Online Promotional Mistakes

• Part 5 - What's Next on Your To-Do List?: Growing and Expanding Your Content; The Future of Findability

Whether you are just starting out or are actively marketing and selling online, The Complete Idiot's Guide to Growing Your Business with Google is a must have book for your business library.

Driving Traffic to Your Website

Simply having a great website and product line will not translate into success online. You must have good traffic for people to see your great site and products. I found this article which gives some great tips on how to increase your website traffic.

Take the Wheel - Drive Customers to your Website

So you own a small business and you have made the decision to build a simple website to gain internet exposure. Or maybe you already have a website that no one visits? You can be the proud owner of the slickest website you have ever seen, but if you aren’t getting any traffic because it’s not properly optimized you have wasted a good chunk of change and a lot of your valuable time. Weather you are building a site from scratch or tweaking one that already exists, consider these web hosting and marketing tips to help drive traffic to your website:

For Web Hosting:

1) Start with keywords - Think about terms potential customers would use to find you in a search engine. What would you type in if you were looking for your business?

2) Use a keyword selector tool - Type your keywords into a keyword selector tool to see how many people have searched on the term in the last 30 days. Look for terms in the 2k-10k range that are relevant to your site.

3) Use domain names which match your keywords – My client advertises products that are geared toward leadership skills development. In addition to leadingonedge.com he also has leadership-skills.info and a handful of others.

4) Use keywords throughout your web pages - Put your keywords in the title, description, keywords, graphics, and written text.

5) Use a keyword density analyzer - Check your website against a keyword density analyzer to see how frequently a specific keyword is used. Shoot for 3-15% density.

6) Slick and sexy doesn't get you traffic - Don't waste your money on slick graphics or things that fly across your screen. Most visitors find them annoying and search engines don't care for them.

7) Use Google AdSense on your website - Whenever someone clicks on a Google ad in your website, you get revenue. And the ads are relevant to your content. My websites now pay for themselves with ad revenue alone.

8) Advertise Amazon books and products on your website - Set up an Amazon Associates account and put relevant books and products on your website. When someone buys a product you get referral revenue.

9) Consider using a website starter package - If going it on your own, think about using a website starter package which can have you up and running quickly.

10) Decide where you want to spend your time - In any business, time is money! Small business web hosting is very doable, but it does take time. Decide if you want to do it yourself or have a professional help you.

For Marketing:

1) Get an automated eCommerce system - These can be really good, very comprehensive and very inexpensive. The good ones can do everything from customer base management to product management to shopping cart to newsletter broadcasts.

2) Get a cheap and reliable merchant account provider - You can get merchant account providers that do both the merchant account and internet gateway for you.

3) Put a link back to your website in your email autosignature - This doesn't need to be obnoxious, just a simple link that email recipients can click on to reference your website.

4) Do selective link trading - Link trade, but make sure the content on the other websites is similar to your own. Don't touch "link farms" with a ten-foot pole; search engines hate them.

5) Write articles and include your website address – Every business owner has something to say that someone would love to read about! There are a number of article databases out there that are researched for website content. Find some article databases which house content similar to yours and write a few articles. You'd be amazed at where your articles show up!

6) Write newsletters - Allow for customers and visitors to subscribe to a newsletter to get regular visibility to you and your company. This is also a great way to compile a customer email data base for your business.

7) Consider using a search engine submission services - These services submit your site to multiple search engines & directories. This can be helpful particularly if your website is new.

8) Set up an affiliates program - Allow for others to promote your products on a commission basis. Again a good eCommerce system should already have this built in.

9) Download the Google Toolbar – I am a Google toolbar fanatic! The Google Toolbar has a nifty feature which shows you the page rank (0-10 scale) of every site you visit; the higher your page ranking the higher your placement in search engines.

10) Set up multiple websites - Got three services you perform? Set up three different websites with domain names that match your keywords. Super cheap to do and can be very effective.


Lori Quaranta
http://www.consetta.com
http://www.consettapr.com

Search Engine Optimization

No traffic- No sales. It is really as simple as that. As with any business, online or brick and mortar, if you do not have potential customers looking at your purchases, you will not survive. Reading through the following article will shed some light on exactly what is involved in trying to improve your search engine ranking.

Search Engine Optimization And The Magic Fairy Dust

There is only one thing that all webmasters agree upon... They all want to be at the top of the search engine results for search terms that will drive traffic and consumers to their website.

The truth is that the search engines are like our childhood game of King Of The Hill. Only one person can be at the top of the hill and the top of the search results. Only ten websites can be on page one of the search results. When a new website moves into the top ten, another must be removed.

For any given search term at any given time, there are only ten web pages on page one of the search results, and there are millions of web pages that did not make page one, who may or may not catch a few stragglers from the search engines.

How Can A Website Break Into The Top Ten?

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is an industry that has sprung up around the concept of helping their clients improve their rankings in the search engine results.

When you talk to SEO professionals, they generally point to a two-pronged approach to search ranking optimization. A website owner needs to optimize their on-site real estate for the search engines, and they need to build inbound links to their website.

On-Site Search Optimization Challenges

The trick with on-site search optimization is that you must cater to multiple audiences on your website.

* You must provide simple navigation and an attractive interface to the human visitor;

* You must provide good sales copy to your human visitors, for the purpose of converting them from shoppers to buyers;

* You must provide text copy for the search engines to read; and

* You must optimize your content to help the search engines know what topics and keywords they should pay attention, so that they can give their users the right web page for the right search terms.

A web page that draws good search rankings is useless if the web page cannot convert the human visitor to a buyer. Many website owners get caught up in the process of optimizing a web page to get it to the top of the search results, and they forget that the human visitor knows where the Back Button is in his or her browser. Once your visitor has hit the Back Button, they will go to someone else's website and buy from them, instead of you.

Most website owners have the alternate problem. They consistently convert a significant number of visitors to buyers, but they have to rely on various forms of paid advertising to get visitors to their websites, since they do not rank in the search engines.

I recently spoke with an individual who spends ,000 per month on pay-per-click advertising to get targeted traffic to his website. He said he consistently earns back his money, but he was still looking for a better way to get ranked in the search engines, so he joined my client list.

On-Site Search Engine Optimization Basics

According to the search engine companies, there are more than one thousand calculations that determine how well a website will rank in their search engine result pages (SERPs).

The Google engineers are fond of saying that if you build your website for human beings instead of search engines, then your website should rank well in their algorithms. To a certain degree, this is a good strategy.

Think about how magazines are constructed:

The Table Of Contents shows story titles, brief descriptions, and page numbers telling you where you can find a story.

On the story page, the title will be in big, bold font. Sometimes, the magazine will include a brief blurb about the story, in italics or font that is a bit bigger than the story font.

Pictures support the story with captions that further develop the story, by describing the picture.

Major subsections of the story have their own subheadings. And, the primary body of the story is in regular plain text, with only an occasional bolded or italicized word or phrase.

By analyzing the title and other large text on the page, a person who is flipping through the pages of a magazine can quickly assess the story content and make the decision as to whether they want to read the full story.

In the most simplistic way, this is how the search engines analyze a websites' content to decide which web page will best serve their users' needs.

Off-Site Search Engine Marketing (SEM) Basics

Since the inception of Google, and with Yahoo and MSN recently, the number and quality of links pointing to a website play a significant role in determining how well a web page will rank in the search results.

I have heard people suggest that as much as 75% of the value given to a web page in the search results is based solely on the number and quality of links pointing to a web page. I tend to believe a more conservative number (50.1%) will apply.

Inbound Links Are More Important Than Page Content

To prove this point, type "click here" without the quotes into Google, Yahoo and MSN and check the Adobe pages that come up in the search results: #1 in Google, #2 in Yahoo, and #1 in MSN. When you pull up those pages, search the page to find the individual words "click" or "here" in the text of those pages. They are not there. This has happened because millions of people have linked to these Adobe pages with the embedded anchor text, "click here".

Next, let's analyze those specific web pages from the perspective of each of the search engines:

* Google's #1 result - Google PageRank 8. (www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html) Links to this web page: according to Google (31); according to Yahoo (nearly 12 million); according to MSN (6,400).

* Yahoo's #2 result - Google PageRank 10. (www.adobe.com/products/flashplayer) Links to this web page: Google (15,200); Yahoo (700 thousand); MSN (32).

* MSN's #1 result - Google PageRank 8. (www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash) Links to this web page: Google (0); Yahoo (2.9 million); MSN (778).

On Google's top result, they show 31 inbound links total for that web page. But, Yahoo claims that there are more than 12 million links to this page. That is a huge difference.

On Yahoo's #2 result, MSN gives 32 links, Google gives 15,000 links, and Yahoo claims it has 700 thousand links! That is another huge difference between the link counts from the search engines.

On MSN's #1 result, MSN shows a strong link count, but still nowhere near Yahoo's 2.9 million links. But, how does a web page with zero links in Google get a PageRank 8?

What Do These Numbers Mean?

Google has always said that they will never show us all of the links that we have pointing to our websites, because anything we can see in the public search results, our competitors can see also. So, for me it really is no surprise that we cannot see all of the links that point to Adobe pages, or to the links we have created that point to our clients and ourselves, by querying the search engines.

Also, the sheer numbers of inbound links do not rule the roost. Google's #1 result (PR8) is actually shown in Google, before Yahoo's #2 (PR10) result.

The Proof For Link Building Is In The Search Engine Rankings

Recently, a fellow who works as a SEO "professional" told me that be believed my link building system was a sham.

I showed him that on the top 51 keyword phrases we use to market our original commercial website, we had 11 number one results, 31 top five results, 34 top ten results, 47 top thirty results, and 51 top 100 results within the Google search results. Additionally, it was shown that only three of those results competed with fewer than one million search results according to Google, with the remaining 48 pages competing with one million to 533 million pages.

Ole boy tore up Google trying to track how it was possible for me to have accomplished what I claimed. He finally concluded that since Google would not show HIM how I was able to rank so well in their search engine results, then I must have been lying.

According to Yahoo, we have over 12,000 links from third-party websites. According to our site statistics, we received traffic from more than 16,000 unique web pages during 2006. And Google still swears that we only have 42 inbound links to our website!

Magic Fairy Dust

My nemesis concluded that since HE could not prove through Google how I was successful in getting good search rankings, then I could not have accomplished such results by the methods I claimed.

Okay, I admit it.

I used the exact same method that Adobe used to get to the top of Google's search engine rankings. I have a pocket full of magic fairy dust. Whenever, I do not like how my websites rank in the search engines, I sprinkle my magic fairy dust on my modem.

If you don't like where you are ranked in the search engines, then I suggest you forego the search engine optimization companies altogether and instead run over to the corner store to get your own magic fairy dust. You might have to shop around a bit, but it is out there.

About the Author:

Bill Platt has been involved with link building (http://www.linksandtraffic.com/seo-services/link-building.html) since 1999 for his own promotion and for search engine marketing purposes, and he has been doing it professionally for clients since 2001. Visit http://www.LinksAndTraffic.com to learn more. If you would like to talk to Bill in person, he can be reached at (405) 780-7745 between 9am and 6pm CST, Monday through Friday.