Important SEO Strategies

First, for those of you who may not know, what does SEO mean? SEO stands for: Search Engine Optimizer.

If you would like your web page to be found more often in a search engine chances are you will do what everyone else is doing and shoot for some SEO strategies to help you out. If you are going to use SEO strategies for your web page you will need to focus on your keyword text. If your page is in the subject of “Reptile help” then throughout your text you should put “reptile help” in this. Putting reptile helps” is not the same as putting the actual key word either. When using SEO strategies you have to put the exact keyword in the exact spelling in order for the search engine to pick up what you want it to pick up.

How often should you use key word density when you are using SEO strategies?
If you have 250 words in your text you will want to include at least 5% of it as the keyword. There are plenty of engines out there that you will be able to check your keyword density in, you can search for them by going to a search engine and typing in “keyword density checker.” You should always place the most important writing around the top of your article.

A lot of people are making SEO’s so you should be doing the same as well if you have a web page and you follow the SEO strategies you are sure to have more hits than ever to your web page, you just have to find the time and patience to write your own SEO articles, be sure to mention that word that you are aiming for in there a lot though and you should have no problem with your SEO’s.

Author: Jo Scher

Opt for an SEO Firm to Get Flawless Publicity

Marketing is the air that gives flow to one’s business approach. It is the fact that every product needs proper publicity as no one will realize its fragrance till marketing is not there to give it a flow. Today approximately all businesses have stepped into online world as it is also an essential section but popularizing products and services is not as easy as it seems to be. It uses entirely different terminology and strategies thus marketing or publicity of online business is s bit difficult. Conversely, is a compulsion for businesses that they have to popularize their presence otherwise the profit they earn will be just half in comparison to their competitors. Online businesses are not sapling organizations but they are well established business that entered recently in to World Wide Web to fulfill the requirement for growth. As online publicity is tough, only an efficient SEO firm can fulfill the requirements of any business.

A SEO firm is such service provider that facilitates businesses the entire range of search engine optimization and marketing services so that the business may get a proper recognition on World Wide Web. Any business whether it is new or well established cannot flourish till it does not have online presence. Online presence is as important as owning an appropriate office as one will be able to visit your office only if you have well popularized its address. In the same way traffic to your website will increase only if people view it on search engine listing. Just having a place in search engine listing is not enough because visitors will never visit next page of listing as they find useful information at first page. That is how these search engine listings affects your online business and now see how a SEO firm can help you in getting a good place in search engine listing.

A SEO firm optimizes your website on major search engines so that a visitor may find you readily available whenever he requires. It optimizes the content of your website in such a manner that whenever an internet user types any keyword related to your service, link to your website appears among top ten sites. Listing among top sites gives your business an ample scope to make a stronger online position. A SEO firm also makes changes in the content of your website if required. A SEO firm understands the flaws and strengths of your website thus it highlights the positive points and fortifies you weak sections.

A SEO firm is the complete package of services that can accelerate your online growth pace and once you are popular among internet users you do not need to spend more on search engine optimization. If you are apprehensive about charges of any SEO firm then it is advisable to do a through comparison of quoted charges, it will give you an idea about cost cutting options. Obviously, hiring a SEO firm is a wise decision as an ordinary marketing expert cannot make your online presence noticeable.

Author: Steve Waganer

Finding the Perfect Web Design Agency for you

Have you been looking up information on finding the perfect web design agency for you? When it comes to looking for the perfect web design agency for yourself you will be searching through a lot of information because there are a lot of web design agencies that are out there on the World Wide Web today. With technology on the rise today web design agencies are not hard to find by any means. HTML script is so easy to learn which makes it easy to start a web design business.

Maybe you are looking for your own perfect web design agency because you have a lot of picture you would like posted on a web page along with some information on them, you could find the perfect web design agency by going to some type of search engine on the internet and typing in “Web Design Agency” after you do this you will see that there really are tons of web design agencies out there to choose from.

When you are looking for the perfect web design agency for you, you may want to see some examples of what they can created, you can do this by asking the web design agency if you can see some examples of their previous work. You will not only be looking for price but you will be looking at the quality as well. You will want to know if you have to pay before the job is done or if you can pay after the job is done. When you are looking for the perfect web design agency you may want to choose one that will show you the work then you pay the web design agency, this may save you from choosing the wrong web design agency and getting scammed.

Whatever your needs for finding the perfect web design agency for you, you are sure to find one. Rather it is a business you have been had, or a new business, or perhaps you are looking for the perfect web design agency just for your own personal web page.

Author: rossjohnson

Tips for Choosing a SEO Company

Even if you have a good knowledge of SEO & you try hard to get a good ranking, your site doesn’t do well. It is simply because your site needs to be optimized & maintained on a regular basis. It is a ongoing process which requires a lot of time. So, in this case, it is advisable to hire a Search Engine Optimization Company in UK for your website.

There are many search engine marketing company in uk but choosing a right internet marketing service in uk is the most important. Here are some of the main points that should be kept in mind while selecting SEO services.

Do they provide website analysis report – a good semcompany will provide you a complete analysis of your site regarding what all needs to be done. The hampering elements in reading & indexing of your pages can be in functionality, page design & its content.

Do they understand “traffic” and “qualified” traffic – if unqualified traffic is coming to your site due to irrelevant keywords, then it will not be productive for you. They need to work on relevant keywords.

Tools to determine keywords – what tools they use for searching keywords. What methodology they use for keyword analysis? There are suggestion tools provided by google adwords or they use basic tools.

Collecting back links – from where they get back links as back links are very important for good SEO working. They should have it from good sites only.

Cost structure – a good SEO company will give the costing after analyzing the work involved. High prices do not ensure high quality always. Prices should be consistent with the services provided by the company.

Timeline involved – If sheer hard work & proper planning is involved then only results can be achieved in time. Some SEO packages claim to get first page result in 10 days. No SEO company can guarantee you of no. 1 ranking in Google in just 10 days. This is the guideline published by even google. So, beware of false promises.

There could be some other factors too but the main thing is that if you’re looking for long term SEO partners for your site, you should get some knowledge about it. SEO services enable your site to get maximum exposure within search engines and it means more prospective traffic to your site. A Website marketing company will analyze the overall functionality of your site. Links are very important in website optimisation. A good SEO company can also give an off-page optimisation linking strategy. But a linking strategy is a long term process. So, now-a-days SEO packages do not include this.

Your SEO services should not be secretive of their services. If it does something deceptive on your behalf, your site could be out from Google’s indexing. And later you will be in trouble. So, getting familiar with some knowledge on search engine optimisation will help you to choose a right search engine company for your website.

Author: Pradeep Gupta

We Can Optimize Christmas With Google Claus

We all know that Santa Claus does his very best to make sure all of the "nice" children get toys at Christmas. He works all years making his toys and then spends Christmas Eve traveling the globe in his sleigh delivering the toys to all the good boys and girls around the world. But, what if Santa Claus worked for Google? Could he be doing things better?

Google Claus as the new improved Santa would now be known would make Christmas more fair. He would optimize his routes, his toy making and bring even more joy to the good , or should I say most popular, boys and girls of the world, but how.

The first step for Google Claus would be to figure out which kids are the most popular. We all know how school yard popularity works. The kids which are nicest, or coolest, or have the most friends are the most popular, but Google Claus can do better. Google Claus would not take the tried and true definition of popularity, it would use a new one. The kids who are known by the most kids would now become the most popular. The kids who other kids point at regularly would become the most popular kids of all and kids who talk a lot would also be extremely popular.

Now that Google Claus has re-defined kid popularity it must feed this into his new super computer to come up with a list of naughty and nice kids. Nice kids are the ones who gain their popularity naturally or at the very least in ways that Google Claus has not noticed are not very nice. Buying popularity is very frowned upon by Google Claus and you may even end up on the naughty list this way. Also, if an unpopular kid likes you you may be penalized by good old Google Claus and heaven forbid that you should like somebody who is unpopular or point at them. That is sure to get you in hot water at the new, more efficient North Pole.

Google Claus is very smart and comes up with an algorithm for figuring out this popularity equation. He also feeds in how much each kid talks (remember, talking is good) and even goes as far as to measure how much a kid repeats him/herself. Now, a little repetition is good, but once you surpass what Google Claus refers to as Rudolph's ratio, then it's frowned upon. So the kids who are constantly saying "are we there yet?" are not going to do as well as the kids who only say it say 3-5% of the time.

Since kids are constantly changing who they are pointing at and also constantly changing what they are talking about, good old Google Claus has trouble keeping up. The most popular kid in school this week might not even show up on the Google nicety radar next week. Especially if he starts pointing at a naughty kid, or pays somebody to like him.

I think we can all agree that Christmas will be much better off if Santa Claus just looks over his list with his nice cup of hot chocolate as is traditional and Google sticks to search engines.

Author: Jon Murray

Yahoo! Search Engine Optimization

Jerry Yang and David Filo were graduate students at Stanford University in January of 1994 when they created a website that they called "Jerry's Guide to the World Wide Web," a directory that organized other web sites into a hierarchy. Four months later Yang and Filo renamed the search engine Yahoo! after a word used by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels. Swift's definition of Yahoo! was "rude, unsophisticated, uncouth."

At the end of 1994, approximately twelve months after its creation, Yang and Filo had over one million hits on their fledgling search engine. Understanding that they had designed something that could enjoy potential business success Filo and Yang incorporated Yahoo! early in March of 1995, fourteen months after its inception. Because the name Yahoo was already the brand name of other enterprises, human propelled watercraft, barbecue sauce, and knives, Yang and Filo were forced to add the exclamation point in order to trademark the name. Yahoo! had it first public offering on April 12, 1996. Two point six million shares of Yahoo! were sold at thirteen dollars a piece, earning a total of thirty-three point eight million dollars.

By the late 1990's Yahoo! and several other internet communications company's diversified into web portals.

In the late 1990's Yahoo! also started buying out other companies such as eGroups and GeoCities. Because Yahoo! had a reputation for changing terms of service when purchasing companies most of the buy outs were wrought with controversy.

Although it stocks fell to an all time lo, Yahoo! was able to survive the dot.com bubble burst. In order to help rebuild itself, Yahoo! started forming partnerships with telecommunication companies and internet providers, these alliances led to the creation of content rich broadband services that actively competed with AOL.

With their eye on the future, the powers in charge at Yahoo! are working on creating Yahoo!Next, a concept similar to Google Labs that contains forums that provide places for Yahoo! users to leave feedback that will hopefully assist in the development of future Yahoo! enterprises and technologies.

Like most successful companies Yahoo! is constantly working to improve and expand. Yahoo! currently provides its customers with a smorgasbord of internet services that cater o most online activities. These services include Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Maps and Driving Directions, and Yahoo! Messenger. While Google holds the top spot in search engines Yahoo! is standing strong in second place. Yahoo! competes against Yahoo! by offering its customers vertical search services such as, Yahoo! Image, Yahoo! Local, Yahoo! Shopping Search, Yahoo! Video, and Yahoo! News. Yahoo! is proud to boast the largest, most successful e-mail service in the world.

User generated content products such as Yahoo! Personals, Yahoo! Photos, Yahoo! 360, and Flicker offer Yahoo!'s customer's social networking services.

Yahoo! Shopping, Yahoo! Merchant Solutions, Yahoo! Store, Yahoo! Web Hosting, Yahoo! Domains, and Yahoo! Business Email are services Yahoo! provides to small business owners that allows them to develop their own online business using Yahoo!'s tools.

In March of 2004 Yahoo! launched a paid inclusion program that guaranteed commercial websites listings on Yahoo! search engines for a fee. While the paid inclusions were lucrative for Yahoo!, they where unpopular with the online marketing world. Business owners didn't want to pay the internet mogul for search engine optimization. Paid inclusion simply guaranteed that the businesses websites would be ranked; it didn't guarantee that it would be ranked in the first two pages.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Three Basic Steps to Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages appear attractive to the search engines. The better optimized a website is, the higher the ranking it will receive from a search engines web crawlers, the higher its ranking the more traffic your website will have, the more traffic your website has the more profit your website will generate. The key is good internet search engine optimization.

Why is having a receiving a high ranking so important to the future success of your online business? Studies have shown that consumers seldom look at websites that don't rank a spot on of the first two pages the search engines displays. Websites that receive a ranking that places them on the third page (or any other pages after that) see a significantly lower amount of traffic at their websites then one that is ranked on the second page. There is even a staggering difference between the first and second page. In the world of e-commerce ranking and strong search engine optimization is everything.

At first search engine optimization may feel like trying to rappel down the Grand Canyon, a huge scary world full of big words like web crawlers, PageRank, Meta tags, and algorithms. You've never heard of any of these things. A quick internet search of the world algorithm doesn't help; all you got was a printout of strange symbols and numbers arranged in complex algebraic equations.

Sit back, take a deep breath, and try to relax. Search engine optimization is a lot simpler then you might think. First things first.

Algorithms really are every bit as complex as they look. Simply defined they are a finite set of carefully defined instructions. Most, if not all, computer programs are designed with strict algorithms.

PageRank is simply the program Google designed to search, index, and rank it registered webpage's. PageRank operates on a link analysis algorithm. PageRank is credited for Google incredible success.

Web crawlers are tools search engines use to browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. When web crawlers are browsing websites they are looking for algorithms.

Meta tags are special HTML tags that provide information to about a web page. Meta tags are written directly into the title tag and are only visible to the search engine.

The reality of search engine optimization is that you can start to optimize your website without any knowledge at all of the technical stuff involved in search engine optimization. Simply stated the very first step in designing a website that is going to be well ranked by the search engines is to create a content rich site. What this means is that you must cram as much information about your product into your website as you possibly can.

The third step to search engine optimization is to fill your site with keywords that will attract the web crawler's attention. The final step in a wonderfully optimized website is to submit it to the search engine that will compliment it.

Author: Li Ming Wong

The History of Internet Search Engines

Just a little over ten years ago, if a person needed information they were forced to go to the local library and spend hours entombed amongst shelves of books. Now that the internet is available in almost every home finding information is easier then ever before. Now when someone needs information all they have to do is boot up their computer and type their needs into a search engine.

A search engine is an information retrieval system that is designed to help find information stored on a ca computer system.

In 1990 the very first search engine was created by students at McGill University in Montreal. The search engine was called Archie and it was invented to index FTP archives, allowing people to quickly access specific files. FTPs (short for File Transfer Protocol) are used to transfer data from one computer to another ocer the internet, or through a network that supports TCP/IP protocol. In its early days Archie contacted a list of FTP archives approximately once a month with a request for a listing. Once Archie received a listing it was stored in local files and could be searched using a UNIX grep command. In its early days Archie was a local tool but as the kinks got worked out and it became more efficient it became a network wide resource. Archie users could utilize Archie's services through a variety of methods including e-mail queries, teleneting directly to a server, and eventually through the World Wide Web interfaces. Archie only indexed computer files.

A student at the University of Minnesota created a search engine that indexed plain text files in 1991. They named the program Gopher after the University of Minnesota's mascot.

In 1993 a student at MIT created Wandx, the first Web search engine.

Today, search engines match a user's keyword query with a list of potential websites that might have the information the users is looking for. The search engine does this by using a software code that is called a crawler to probe web pages that match the user's keyword. Once the crawler has identified web pages that may be what the user is looking for the search engine uses a variety of statistical techniques to establish each pages importance. Most search engines establish the importance of hits based on the frequency of word distribution. Once the search engine has finished searching web pages it provides a list of web sites to the user.

Today, when an internet user types a word into a search engine they are given a list of websites that might be able to provide them with the information they seek. The typical search engine provides ten potential hits per page. The average internet user never looks farther they the second page the search engine provides. Webmasters are constantly finding themselves forced to use new methods of search engine optimization to be highly ranked by the search engines.

In 2000, a study was done by Lawrence and Giles that suggested internet search engines were only able to index sixteen percent of all available webpage's.

Author: Li Ming Wong

The Definition of Search Engine Optimization

Too many webpage owners feel that once they submit their page a search engine they are guaranteed success. That's generally not the case. Simply submitting your web page to a search engine is not always enough to get any hits. Most web pages require search engine optimization to become truly successful.

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to the search engines. The goal of search engine optimization is to have your website ranked in the top ten internet search hits that appear on the first page. Why is it important to be on the first page? It's important because the average internet user doesn't click on any of the sites listed on the second or third page. Out of sight, out of mind. One website owner reported a two hundred and ten percent increase on her e-commerce sight when she had her webpage redesigned for optimal search engine optimization.

You would think that the prospect of a two hundred and ten percent increase in sales would be all the incentive a webmaster would need to redesign their site. That isn't always the case. There are a variety of reasons people avoid recreating their websites.

Some people believe that search engine optimization is too difficult to understand. The reality is that search engine optimization is fairly simple. All it takes is a little research and most people are ready to rock.

Other people feel that there are simply too many things to learn before they will be ready to optimize their website. Search engine optimization is just like anything else. When you first start out you know nothing. With some homework and a bit of trial and error and you will know exactly what it takes to make your webpage popular with the web crawlers.

Some people believe that search engine optimization will take up lots of their precious time. People with this particular fear should remember that old adage about time and money. If time spent optimizing your website leads to an increase in sales isn't it time well spent? Besides search engine optimization is easy, once you have the hang of it won't add much to the time you would already have to devote to updating your website.

You do not have to submit to gobs of search engines to reap the rewards of search engine optimization.

If you have a large site you shouldn't worry about spending lots of time optimizing it and running the risk of never finishing the process. If you have a large website just take things one step at a time. Focus on optimizing on page per day. Start with your most important pages and then concentrate on the irrelevant pages. By using this one page a day method you won't run the risk of sitting at your computer until your eyeballs fall out of your head.

It might take some time and some trial and error to optimize your website but you will consider it time well spent when you see an increase in the amount of traffic, the increase in traffic should lead to more sales.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Spamdexing-the Bane of Search Engine Optimization

Methods that manipulate the relevancy or prominence of resources indexed by a search engine, usually in a manner inconsistent with the purpose of the indexing system is called Spamdexing.

The sheer amount of information available on the internet is mind-boggling. In 2000 a study indicated that the internet's search engines where only capable of indexing approximately sixteen percent of available pages. That sixteen percent adds up to pages and pages of potential hits. There are typically ten hits per page. The average internet user never goes farther then the first set of ten. Webmasters use a variety of techniques to increase their ranking. The art and science of making web pages attractive to the search engines is called search engine optimization.

The importance of a high search engine ranking started driving webmasters to use a variety of tricks to improve their ranking the middle of the 1990's. On May 22, 1996 The Boston Herald printed an article written by Eric Convey titled "Porn Sneaks Way Back on Web." It is the first time the term spamdexing was used. The word spamdexing is the merging of the word spam, the internets term for unsolicited information, and indexing.

There are two types of spamdexing. The terms are content spam and link spam.

Content spam is the use of techniques that alter the search engines view of the pages content. Some methods of content spam include the use of hidden text, keyword stuffing, Meta tag stuffing, doorway pages, and scraper sites.

Taking advantage of link-based ranking algorithms which in turn gives a higher ranking to a website is called link spam. Link spam methods include link farms, hidden links, Sybil attack, wiki spam, spam blogs (also referred to as splogs), page hijacking, buying expired domains, and referrer log spamming.

Some people consider spamdexing a black hat method of internet search engine classification.

Key word stuffing is a favorite type of content spamdexing. Key word stuffing is including a key word hundred of times on a single webpage. Given the sheer volume of the word the search engine automatically gives that particular webpage a higher ranking then one that might use the word legitimately. Most websites that employ keyword stuffing place the words at the bottom of the page or write it with text that the person surfing the web can't see. Some search engines try to discourage key word stuffing by ranking websites with an excessive number of keywords at the bottom of the ranking.

Some web masters like to include the name of a famous person on their site as a keyword. The name attracts the attention of search engines and web surfers even though the web site has nothing to do with the person.

Some websites try to steal web surfers from their competitors by including their name as a keyword in the body text and meta tags. By doing this the webmaster has guaranteed that the search engines with index it accurately. Using the name of a competitor in the body of a website is normally a direct violation of the copyright law.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Social Media Optimization

A Popular New Trend that Breaks from Search Engine Optimization.

Social media optimization is similar to search engine media optimization. The goal of social media optimization is to drive huge amounts of people to a specific website. Social media optimization can also be used to determine whether or not a startup website will be successful or whether it will fall flat with the consumers. Social media optimization uses new to encourage traffic to a website.

Social media optimization was a name created by Rohit Bharagava, the vice president of Interactive marketing.

Social media optimization is online tools and platforms that can be used to share opinions, insights, and perspectives. It cant take many forms such as text, images, audio, and video. Popular forms of social media optimization are currently blogs, pod casts, message boards, vlogs, and wikis. Social media optimization is anything that builds a community where people can rendezvous. Social media optimization normally includes websites that can be used as a platform to send out a marketing message.

Social media optimization is not something that can be forced. It is considered a type of pull marketing; it only works if people are drawn to it. Search engine optimization has clear goals. Webmasters who use search engine optimization want to have a website that ranks well with the search engines.

The goals of webmasters who are trying to use social media optimization are; an increase in linkabilty, easy book marking, mash-up, inbound links, and helping content travel.

The rules webmasters who are using social media optimization need to live by are, rewarding valuable (helpful) users, and they need to make sure they are a user resource.

Webmasters who are using a social media optimization technique should make sure they participate with their users. You need to be a part of the blogs and the message boards.

Webmasters that are employing a social media optimization technique must know their target audience. You need to know what appeals to that particular group of people. It is important to remember that not everybody will love you.

Make sure you have created content. One of the words typically associated with social media optimization is mashup. The origins of the word, mashup, gets it start in the pop music world. Mashup is a website of application that works to combine content from more then one source into an integrated experience. A mashup is sometimes created as a way to gather feedback on an existing project or body of work. Most companies use a third party via public interface. Google, Amazon, Yahoos! APIs, eBay, AOL, and Windows Live are some of the companies currently experimenting with mashups.

Despite the fact that social media optimization is a relatively new concept, some people believe that social media optimization will be one of the top seven marketing trends of 20007 along with; sharing corporate personalities, widget marketing, auto tagging, human filtered searches, content casting, and online identity shifting.

Social media optimization is something that encourages a fun social environment. Enjoy it.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Search Engine Optimization-web Crawlers

The terms web crawler, automatic indexers, bots, worms, web spiders, and web robots are programs or automated scripts with browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. The term web crawler is the most commonly used term.

Web crawlers are a tool used for search engine optimization.

Search engines use web crawlers to provide up to date data and information. Web crawlers provide the requested information by creating copies of web pages that the search engine later processes. Once the information has been processed the search engines indexes the pages and are able to quickly download the pages during a search. The process of web crawling is a key factor in search engine optimization. Search engine optimization is the art and science of making web pages attractive to search engines. Computer people call the process of using a web crawler to rank a website spidering.

Some search engines use web crawlers for maintenance tasks. Web crawlers can also be used for harvesting e-mail addresses. The internet is a gaping ocean of information. In 2000, Lawrence and Giles manufactured a study that indicated the internet search engines have only indexed approximately sixteen percent of the Web. Web crawlers are designed to only download a tiny amount of the available pages. A miniscule sample of what the internet has to offer.

Search engines use web crawlers because they can fetch and sort data faster than a human could ever hope to. In an effort to maximize the download speed while decreasing the amount of times a webpage is repeated search engines use parallel web crawlers. Parallel web crawlers require a policy for reassigning new URLs. There are two ways to assign URLs. A dynamic assignment is what happens when a web crawler assigns a new URL dynamically. If there is a fixed rule stated from the beginning of the crawl that defines how to assign new URLs to the crawls it is called static assignment.

In order to operate at peak efficiency web crawlers have to have a highly optimized architecture.

URL nominalization is the process of modifying and standardizing a URL in a consistent manner. URL nomalization is sometimes called URL canonicalzation. Web crawlers usually use URL nomilization to avoid multiple crawling of a source.

In an attempt to attract the attention of web crawlers, and subsequently highly ranked, webmasters are constantly redesigning their websites. Many webmasters rely on key word searches. Web crawlers look for the location of keywords, the amount of keywords, and links.

If you are in the process of creating a website try to avoid frames. Some search engines have web crawlers that can not follow frames. Another thing some search engine are unable to read are pages via CGI or database -delivery, if possible try creating static pages and save the database for updates. Symbols in the URL can also confuse web crawlers. You can have the best website in the world and if a web crawler can't read it probably won't get the recognition and ranking it deserves.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Search Engine Optimization-budgeting

For arguments sake let's say that you own a successful bed and breakfast in the middle of Idaho. Currently you rely mainly on word of mouth and repeat customers. You can't help wandering if creating a website won't help attract more attention to your little business.

A quick internet search has you rethinking your plans. There are a lot of bed and breakfast's with web pages. You can't help but wonder what you could possibly do to get your webpage noticed.

The key to a successful webpage is search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization is the art and science of making your website attractive to the internets search engines. The more attractive your website is the search engines the higher they will rank your little bed and breakfast. The higher your website ranks the more people, hopefully, will check your website out.

The first step towards a successful website is getting it submitted to a search engine. Search engine submission is the act of getting your website listed with the search engines. Search engine submission can also be referred to as search engine registration.

One of the first things you want to consider is how much you are willing to spend to submit your website to a search engine. It is possible to have your site listed for free; paying for the service will generate more traffic to your website. The cost of submitting your website to Yahoo's search engine is about three hundred dollars a year. The three hundred dollars pays for Yahoo's human compiled directory. The humans help influence web crawlers to your website. If you can't afford the three hundred dollars for the human compiled directory try to list your website and see if any of the search engine crawlers locate it. You can go back in a few months time and pay for a human compiled search engine later.

There businesses that, for a fee, can help you design a website that will attract web crawlers to your website. Many of these businesses charge different prices for different search engine optimization packages. Types of search engine optimization services some of these companies offer include naming convention, keyword density/syntax, blog implementation, vertical affiliates, and third-party posting. When looking for a business or search engine consultant looks for reciprocal links, keyword strategies, knowledge of HTML, language skills, knowledge of search engine optimization boosters, submission strategies, and submission tracking,

If you decide to use a search engine optimization company take your time and shop around. Ask questions. Avoid any companies that guarantee instant success, if it sounds too good to be true it probably is. Try to find a search engine optimization company that will work to build the targeted content of your website. Look for a company that offers interactive features that create documents that will lead web crawlers to your website.

When it comes to the cost of search engine submission and search engine optimization spending less simply means it might take a little longer to realize your goals. The more you are able to spend the faster your website will gain attention.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Search Engine Optimization Simplified

Chances are good that at some point in your life you ran a search on an online search engine and instead of one hit you received pages and pages of possible hits. Have you ever wondered if the order the websites appear on search was just a random grouping or if they had been placed in a specific order that just appeared disorderly to you? The answer is that there is a very elaborate system used to determine where a website appears during an internet search. The process is something called search engine optimization.

Search engine optimization is the science and art of making web pages attractive to search engines.

Next time you run an internet search look at the bottom of the page. Chances are good that there will be a list of page numbers (normally written in blue) for you to click if you can't find exactly what you are looking for on the first page. If you actually look farther then the second page you will part of a minority. Studies and research have shown that the average internet user does not look farther then the second page of potential hits. As you can imagine it's very important to websites to be listed on the first two pages.

Webmasters use a variety of techniques to improve their search engine ranking.

The first thing most webmasters (or website designers) do is check their meta tags. Meta tags are special HTML tags that provide information about a web page. Search engines can easily read Meta tags but they are written with special type of text that is invisible to internet users. Search engines rely on meta tags to accurately index the web sites. Although meta tags are a critical step in search engine optimization they alone are not enough to have a web site receive top ranking.

Search engines rely on a little device called a web crawler to locate and then catalog websites. Web crawlers are computer programs that browse the World Wide Web in a methodical, automated manner. Web crawlers are also sometimes called automatic indexers, web spiders, bots, web robots, and/or worms. Web crawlers locate and go to a website and "crawl" all over it, reading the algorithms and storing the data. Once they have collected all the information from the website they bring it back to the search engine where it is indexed. In addition to collecting information about a web site some search engines use web crawlers to harvest e-mail addresses and for maintenance tasks. Each search engine has their own individual web crawlers and each search engine has variations on how they gather information.

Most webmasters feel that proper use and placement of keywords helps catch the attention of web crawlers and improve their websites ranking. Most webmaster like to design their websites for ultimate search engine optimization immediately but there aren't any rules that say you can't go back to your website at any time and make improvements that will make it more attractive to search engines.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Search Engine Optimization-hoaxes

Google believes in having a good time. They especially believe in having a good time on April Fools Day. How does a company who runs a search engine celebrate April Fool's Day? They set up search engine hoaxes. April Fool's Day hoaxes are fast becoming a Google tradition.

On April 1, 2000, Google announced its brand new form of search technology, a technology they cheerfully named MentalPlex. How did MentalPlex work? Brainwaves, all the searcher had to do was think about what they wanted to search for, this eliminated the need for typing, effectively eliminating the issue of spelling errors.

In 2002, Google openly discussed the genius behind its PageRank system. The secret? Pigeons or rather PigeonRank. Google was very proud of the way they had created a more efficient and cost effective way to rank pages. They were quick to explain that no pigeons were cruelly treated.

April 2004 offered Google employees the opportunity to work at the Google Lunar/Copernicus Center...on the moon. This April Fool's Day prank made several tongue-in-cheek references to WindowXP's visual style. They named the operating system Luna/X paying homage to Linux.

Google broke into the beverage industry in 2005 with their Google Gulp. People who drank Google Gulp would be able to get the most out of their Google search engines because they would be increasing their intelligence with every swallow. Google Gulp worked through a series of algorithms that used a real time analysis of the drinkers DNA and made precise adjustments to the brains neurotransmitters. Google Gulp came in a variety of flavors including Google Grape (glutamatic acid), Sero-Tonic Water (serotonin), Sugar-Free Radical (free radicals), and Beta Carroty (beta carotene).

2006 was a time for romance. Google created Google Romance. Google's catch phrase, which appeared on the main search page was, "Dating is a search problem. Solve it with Google Romance." Google users were invited to use Soul mate Search which would send them on a Contextual Date. Google invited people to "post multiple profiles with a bulk upload."

Google has also taken advantage of April Fool's Day to announce very real changes in the company. The reason they make real offers to consumers on April Fool's Day is so that the consumers will think that it's a hoax, joke about it, and then be pleasantly surprised when they find out that its real. Google announced the launch of Gmail, e-mail that was free to the consumer and provided one entire gigabyte of storage (that amount of storage for free was unheard of at the time), on March 31, 2004 (most consumers found out about it on the morning of the first). Exactly one year later they announce that they were increasing the one gigabyte of storage to two gigabytes.

Google's map of the moon was added to Google maps on July 20, 2005. The map of the moon was semi-real, it did show NASA images of a very small section of the moon, but zooming in on the tiny section presented viewers with a photograph of Swiss cheese. There was also the location of all moon landings on the map. The map was Google's way of celebrating the thirty-sixth anniversary of the first man on the moon but many consumers assumed that it was an extension on the Google Copernicus hoax. Google claims, through something called Google Moon, that in the 2069, Google Local will support all lunar businesses and addresses.

Author: Li Ming Wong

Evaluating Web Site Performance

Setting up a website is the very first step of an Internet marketing campaign, and the success or failure of your site depends greatly on how specifically you have defined your website goals. If you don't know what you want your site to accomplish, it will most likely fail to accomplish anything. Without goals to guide you in developing and monitoring your website, all your site will be is an online announcement that you are in business.

If you expect your site to stimulate some form of action, whether it is visitors filling out a form so a representative can contact them, or purchasing a product, there are steps you can take to insure that your website is functioning at peak efficiency. One of the first indicators of how well your site is working for you is finding out the number of visitors in a given period of time. A good baseline measurement is a month in which you haven't been doing any unusual offline promotional activities.

However, just because hoards of people have passed through your gates does not mean your site is successful. Usually, you want those visitors to actually do something there. It is equally important to monitor the number of visitors to your site who made a purchase. This figure is called the site conversion rate, and it is an essential element of the efficacy of your website.

To find the site conversion rate, take the number of visitors per month and figure out the percentage of them that actually performed the action your site is set up for. For example, if you had 2,000 hits to your site, but only 25 of them purchased your product, your site conversion rate equals 1.25%. To get this figure, take your number of visitors and divide that figure by the number of visitors who made a purchase. Then divide that result by 100 (25 ?00 X 100).

If your website is set-up to get visitors to fill out a form, make sure to then figure out what the difference is between your site conversion rate and your sales conversion rate. This is because not everyone who fills out your form will actually become your customer. However, whether your site is set-up to sell a service or product, or to get the visitor to fill out a form, the site conversion rate will measure the success or failure of your website whenever you make changes to the site.

You may find that you need to implement some additional marketing strategies if you find that traffic to your site is extremely low. There are several effective methods to improve the flow of traffic to your website, particularly launching a search engine optimization campaign. This campaign is targeted at increasing your position in search engine results so that consumers can find your pages faster and easier. You can either research the steps you need to take to improve your search engine rankings, or employ a search engine optimization company to do the work for you. In either case, after your have improved your search engine positions, make sure you keep on top of them by regular monitoring and adjusting of your efforts to maintain high positions.

Another factor to examine is how easy it is for a visitor to your website to accomplish the action the site is set-up for. For example, if your goal is for the visitor to fill out a form, is this form easily accessible, or does the visitor have to go through four levels to get to it? If it's too difficult to get to, the customer may just throw in the towel and move on to another site. Make sure your buttons are highly visible, and the path to your form or ordering page quickly accessible.

Finally, have a professional evaluate the copy on your website. The goal is, of course, to get your visitor to make a purchase or fill out your form. Website copy must be specifically geared to your online campaign and not just a cut and paste job from your company brochure. The right copy can make the difference between profit and loss in your online campaign.

If you are looking for the fastest and easiest way to rank high quickly in search engines then Click Here!

About the Author

Cre8iv SEO enjoys writing about Search Engine Optimization. He currently lives in Southern California.

Increasing Link Popularity

Search engines are the gateway to the Internet; they are the first tool that potential customers use to find the products and services they need. This is why link popularity is so imperative. If the customers do not find your website, you have no possibilities of making any sales.

You're probably wondering what the blazes is popular about a link! Well, in a word - plenty! Link popularity refers to the ranking assigned to your website by the search engines, and it determines the ranking your page gets when keywords are entered into a search engine. So, you're probably wondering, how do I make my link popular?

Search engines are discretionary, giving status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. It's a simple formula, but a very important one. Google created the system, and now virtually all the most popular search engines employ it to rank your web pages in their indexes.

The more commonly used your keyword is, the harder it will be to achieve link popularity, but without achieving this step, it is almost certain your site will never rank highly on any search engine. But don't be discouraged; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.

There are a few things you should be aware of. The first is that just linking up with a large number of other websites will not achieve link popularity. In fact, it may have quite the opposite effect. This is particularly true when pertaining to websites that are nothing more than "link farms" - pages containing line after line of indiscriminate links. Search engines may aggressively discriminate against your website if you are associated with a link farm, so steer clear of them!

The next thing to bear in mind is the quality of the site you are linking to. Never link to a page you have reservations about your visitors seeing. The last thing you want your website to appear as is indiscriminate and cheap. Linking to sites of poor quality will only lessen your link popularity, if not completely destroy it.

So let's get to what you need to do to achieve supreme link popularity and improve your rankings to stellar status on all the popular search engines.

The first step, and the fastest way to get your foot in the door, is to get a listing in a popular directory, such as Open Directory Project and Yahoo. If your site is business-related, you will want to be listed on Yahoo, and despite the fact that it will cost you around $300 a year, it will be money well spent. If your site is non-commercial, the listing will be free, but it will take time and follow-up to actually get it listed. Open Directory is gives you a free listing whether you are business-related or non-commercial, but be prepared to make a lot of follow-up inquiries before you see your site listed.

You are aiming to get listed in the highest level of appropriate category, and this just takes some common sense. For example, if your company ships Alpaca wool from an Alpaca farm located in the middle of Nowhere, Tiny State, do NOT submit your listing to "Retailers from Nowhere, Tiny State." BIG MISTAKE! All you have to do is look a little deeper - and submit your listing to the "Fine Alpaca Wool" category. You will not only associate yourself with culture and quality, but you will be listed in a national category.

The next step after you have attained directory listings is to locate other quality sites that will increase your link popularity. Try to find sites that are in some way related to yours, so not only will your link popularity increase, but your customer base may also be expanded. You want to avoid your competitors and look for sites that are useful to your site's visitors. Let's look at the Alpaca Wool site example. Linking up to a site that sells knitting supplies would be helpful to your visitors, and the chances of the knitting supply site wanting to link up to your site are also greater. By linking to a related site that will be relevant to your website's traffic, you are increasing both of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites' link popularity.

Not all sites want to link to other sites, so you will have to do some research when you are looking for possible linking partners. Google is an excellent starting place for your search. Make sure you enter keywords that you think quality customers will also enter to find your own site. Remember, your criteria are quality, highly ranked, non-competing websites that have a links or resources page. Go to these sites and objectively assess them. Look at the quality of the product, the graphics, and the ease of use. Then check out the other sites they are linked to, and determine if your own site would fit in with the crowd.

When you decide you have found a good prospect, you must set out to woo them. The first thing to do is to add a link on your own links page to their site. This is an essential first step; it shows good faith, and ups your chances significantly of their reciprocity. After you have added their link, you must contact the webmaster of their site. Since this is almost always done by email, you want to make sure it is immediately clear that your message is not junk mail. This requires that you tell them right off the bat that you have added a link to their page on your site. A hook like this almost always insures the reader will read on.

Next, be sure to be flattering and let them know how much you appreciate their website. Make sure you emphasize that you have actually visited their site, and that their site is not just a random pick. Give them the address of your links page, and ask them to check out the link for themselves. It's a good idea to mention that they will not only benefit from the increased traffic your website will direct their way, but you will also increase their link popularity. Briefly, explain why link popularity is so essential, but do this in a sentence or two so you don't sound like a professor! Finally, tell them you would greatly appreciate if they would reciprocally add a link on their own links page to your website.

Go through this process with as many appropriate sites as you can find, bearing in mind the criteria of quality and non-competitiveness. After you have emailed all relevant sites, be sure to check these website frequently to see if they have added a link to your page. Give it about a month, and if no link appears, try another charming email. Then give it another month, and if your site is still absent from their links page, it's time to remove their link from your own links page. The only time you want to pursue a link further than this is if you believe a site is crucial to your link popularity and your business needs. Just remember to keep all your communications complimentary and cordial.

Then set up a schedule to check your ranking in search engines frequently to see if your link popularity has improved. This is not achievable in the blink of an eye. It will take some time and a good deal of work. There is no way around the labor-intensive quality of improving your link popularity, which is why search engines regard it with such importance.

By the way - make sure you have a beautiful, streamlined site or you will never persuade anyone to link up to you. Be prepared to keep plugging away at this process, as long as it takes, until you achieve link popularity stardom!

If you are looking for the fastest and easiest way to rank high quickly in search engines then Click Here!

About the Author

Cre8iv SEO enjoys writing about Search Engine Optimization. He currently lives in Southern California.

Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company

A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's index.

A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, one of the largest and most important search engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this technique!

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company's track record of results. However, don't take the company's word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of search engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You can access this at http://www.searchenginewatch.com/article.php/2156451.

Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes" will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company's results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.

It's important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can't wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don't use a company that won't show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both search engines and site visitors without compromising either.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

If you are looking for the fastest and easiest way to rank high quickly in search engines on your own then Click Here!

About the Author

Cre8iv SEO enjoys writing about Search Engine Optimization. He currently lives in Southern California.

Search Engine Keywords Selection

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination - your website - you need to provide them with specific and effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site - or of seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive - decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the chance to find out about it. So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven't followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It's hard to be objective when you are right in the center of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that your understanding of your business and your customers' understanding is significantly different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you probably never would have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By "quality visitors" I mean those consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn't enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must move on to the next criteria, which is specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you.

Let's look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword "automobile companies." However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword "automobile body shops" would rank lower on the popularity scale than "automobile companies," but it would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders being directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let's look at another example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between "Seattle job listings" and "Seattle IT recruiters" which do you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have decided on their career, have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must continually evaluate performance across a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual search engines. There is now software available that analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better profits.

Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work - and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your business' rewards.

If you are looking for the fastest and easiest way to rank high quickly in search engines then Click Here!

About the Author

Cre8iv SEO enjoys writing about Search Engine Optimization. He currently lives in Southern California.

Website Analytics: Is Your Website Working Right?

The nature of online business has created a new opportunity for business owners and managers to truly understand how their processes, strategies, and offers are really affecting the success of their site and business. Website analytics or metrics have given us the means to make decisions based on clear, concise, and qualitative data.

Numbers are great little things that have the power to uplift or tear down. There's nothing like the warm fuzzy feeling that accompanies the numbers that progressively grow with each report. And there's nothing quite as gut-wrenching as as the sight of those numbers plummeting downward.

But website analytics and metrics is actually about more than just numbers. It's about understanding what numbers actually matter.

Some of the important aspects of the analytics process are objective standards. Others can be a little more subjective and very specific to your industry or business needs.

The subjective website analytics are based on your Key Performance Indicators (KPI). These are the numbers that show how well you are doing in a certain sector and against a certain standard. These are the metrics you can use to quantify objectives that you have identified as the effective goals or platforms that your company needs to achieve to be successful. They are a way to measure progress. Numbers alone are nice, but when they show you how close you've come to your goals or how much further you have to go in order to achieve your goals, they become oh-so-much more useful.

Objective website analytics can start with some obvious numbers. How many people are visiting your site? How did they find your site? What is the bounce rate? What keywords are working well for you?

These are good numbers to know, but it's not everything you need to know. Numbers and website analytics are great behavioral indicators, but they don't necessarily give a complete picture.

Consider the brand to non-brand ration of your site. Are your current customers finding you because they were searching for your brand name products or because they were searching for a general product or term? Finding and attracting new visitors who are interested in a generalized product is a great way to build your customer base. If someone has found you based on a name-brand search, chances are they're already “sold” on your product. You aren't growing near as much as you could if this is all your are achieving with your marketing strategy.

If someone searches for "Super Expensive Brand Shoes," it's safe to say they either already have the intention to buy, or they were already searching for some very specific information. On the other hand, if they searched for "black pumps with little strappies," now we're talking about a larger group of people, and a group of people who are open to the possibility of being sold on your shoes. If all you are doing is bringing in the name brand searches, your overall Internet marketing campaign is failing somewhere, and you're missing out on a very large number of potential sales.

This, then, is where you can apply analytics and metrics. The process is as follows: you learn if you're drawing in the "little strappies." If not, change your strategy accordingly. Next, once you've gotten them to your site, are they staying or bouncing out? If they're bouncing, change your plans accordingly. Are they not finding what they wanted? If not, change accordingly. The choice to change is a simple one if you have the right numbers behind you.

There are still a number of other things you need to learn from your website metrics, including keyword yield, visitors per keyword, index to crawl ratio, search engine yield, and page yields. All of these facets make your website analytics strong and more useful. Only then can you make the numbers into a foundation for real improvement.

About the Author

Andy Eliason is a writer at Main10, a Utah SEO and Internet marketing company. Visit their site If you'd like to know more about website analytics and how to employ them in your marketing campaign.

Search Engine Optimization or SEO Is Key to Web Design

SEO or Search Engine Optimization is the process of creating the proper structure and keyword alignment within your web design which will allow your site to move more readily upward in the search engine rankings. It is obvious that even the most well designed, appealing website with unique highly attractive layout, functional navigation and magnificent graphics will do no good for whatever business it represents, if no one sees it. SEO, done properly, allows for the best positioning of a site relative to the search terms utilized on the site. If the internet is the theatre and the website is the play, then SEO is the usher. If the net is one big traffic grid and websites are the cars traveling over the grid, then SEO is the traffic signal system. Thus SEO is a key factor in web design, especially if you want people to actually look at your site.

SEO is the guidance system for the space shuttle internet. Utilizing a very complicated set of algorithms to read and maneuver websites up and down in the search engine rankings based upon the keyword choices the sites have made and the use of these words within the site, among other factors, SEO positions millions of sites in elementary particles of seconds. In a colossal mechanism the size of, say, our justice system, where guilt and innocence are determined within a complex, incredibly detailed legal system by applying the letter of the law rather than almost anyone's definition of justice, casualties of the system abound. At least within the justice system the rules stay pretty much the same from month to month. On the net, the rules change rather radically from search engine to search engine and even within the various search engines from time to time.

SEO is the Old Sea Cap'n navigating the ship using only the night sky. SEO done properly may be the key element in stopping the bleeding from a business hopelessly mired in the red, cauterizing the wounds and redirecting the fates. SEO takes time, at least several months to see significant results but it need not be expensive. SEO is to web rank what CEO is to corporate decision making, but how indeed does the corporate decision maker decide who is both savvy enough and current enough to entrust with his very own website's SEO? If you remember the story where the traveling salesman asked the farmer how to get to the nearby town, the farmer thought for a long time before finally concluding, "You know, I don't think you can actually get there from here," you get some idea of how difficult it is to decide where or to whom you should entrust your SEO. SEO, by the very nature of the beast, is the quintessential moving target. For instance, the website "SEO King" has captured the glorious 186th spot on Google, for God's sake. There doesn't seem to be an "SEO Queen" and the website "SEO Pawn" is a place to hock your website in order to pay for high priced SEO so that your site begins to function. Even "Mr. SEO" has not been able to gain the "top fifty" site ranking on Google, coming in at a distant number 74, three behind SEO Logic, an apparent oxymoron.

So if you want the best SEO for your website, find someone current, knowledgeable and savvy. Remember, SEO does not need to be expensive to be effective. So go to Google, type in Inexpensive SEO and peruse that first page. At least they know enough about SEO to be on page one. Then look for a good deal with a guarantee of moving up. Then talk to the web designer to make sure his thinking on the subject of SEO is current and he knows how to properly decide and research your keywords. He should tell you about needing incoming links, submitting articles to generate more links and that SEO is neither instant nor magic. He should be talking about several months to get fairly good positioning on the search engines. Try to work out a monthly fee with no more than one month payment up front. Ask for a guaranteed increased rank each month or you don't have to pay. Unless you are having other significant work done, the SEO alone should not be more than plus or minus $200 per month. If it all seems to line up " Go For It! In a few months you will be basking in the glory of daily free clicks. More Power to you then because you have just beaten SEO and become a webmaster.

About the Author

Gene Schwerman is founder and head marketing consultant for Truly Unique Website Design. Truly Unique's provides a wide range of SEO and website design services.

Backlinks, what they are and why you need them

Search engine optimization is more than just meta tags and keyword density. It's about keyword relevancy, from the search engines point of view. This article will explain the importance of backlinks, or inbound links and their relationship to page rankings.

Backlinks are simply links from another site that point to yours. The number of quality backlinks that you have is considered an indication of popularity and relevance by the search engines. Relevance and popularity are the key factors that search engines consider when ranking a site.

Quality is much more important than numbers when it comes to back links. In order to qualify as a quality backlink the referring site should be relevant to your content. If the content on the referring site has nothing to do with the content that you provide, then the quality of the link will not help much in your SEO efforts.

If a health and fitness related site links to a site about a new diet and exercise program that you have developed, Google would likely consider this a relevant link. However, If your content is focused on digital photography, chances are they would not consider this relevant and the link would only be as useful as the number of people that actually click on it.

The major search engines (Google, Yahoo!, MSN) hire some of the best developers in the world to insure that they are getting relevant results and to keep the "cheaters" off of the list. Years ago "Link Farms" were a popular way to increase the number of backlinks to a website. It didn't take the search engines long to figure this out and now these sites are just really good places to get yourself blacklisted.

Reciprocal linking is another practice employed by webmasters to increase back link popularity. While it's not nearly as dangerous a practice as using link farms you should be careful about who you link to and the number of outbound links on their site and yours. This is another area that is being carefully eyed by the bright minds at the major search engines and if it's not already, will soon be scrutinized by the search programmers.

If you have more than one site be very careful about linking between them. Once again the "black hat" seo firms have made this look pretty sketchy to a search engine. If the sites are relevant to one another it's usually ok, just don't get carried away.

The bottom line is this, as with all search engine optimization practices, don't try to beat the system. Yes, it takes more time and effort to do it right, but the benefits are worth it. If you want to take the risks and try to outsmart those guys from MIT, go ahead, but first do a little research and see how hard it is to get off of a search engine's blacklist.

About the Author

Chip Simons is an internet marketer from Little Rock, Arkansas. He is the owner of http://www.AsgardMedia.net. Chip has been working on the web since 1996.

10 Steps to Improve Your Online Business

There are many setbacks that can cost you time and money if they are not taken care of. The best strategy is to try to avoid mistakes as much as possible and make sure to continually revise what you are doing and stick with what works. It is also very important to have an attitude to learn new skills and adapt to new technologies. Creativity even with small ideas can have a big impact and be the decisive factor in how well your business performs.

The following 10 steps are proven to work and will help you improve your online business.

1. Your Own Domain Name.

Make sure you have a legitimate domain name for your website. It is best to set up your own site then add links to any business you may have. Affiliate links are considered duplicates by search engines and your site will not be listed on their searches. Regular domains are also easier to remember and make your site appear more professional and authentic.

2. Your Own Website.

It is easy to set up a webpage these days even for the novice. Most website hosting packages come with website editing software, either at no cost or for a low price. You can add text, links and banners to give it a professional look. You will also want to make sure that your site is search engine friendly. The best way to establish that is to have useful content that will be of value to your visitors. Also make sure to have a webpage title that describes your site accurately and contains the major key words listed on you site. Meta tags are also very important, and will help make you site searchable. Most editing software will allow you to ad these components.

3. Advertising.

After building your website you will want to attract visitors. The fastest way is to place paid ads in news papers or online. Another method is by setting a pay-per-click campaign with Google, Yahoo or any major search engine. This will give you targeted traffic almost overnight. Make sure to study your budget and advertising goals carefully since it is very easy to overspend when it comes to advertising.

4. Establish Links.

To get free traffic from search engines, you will have to establish external links pointing to your site. The more links you have, the higher your Google Page Rank (PR) will become. Also make sure you link to websites with relatively high PR. The quality of these links will affect how your website gets ranked. Any page over PR 4 is considered good to most marketers even though the scale goes to PR10. The Google toolbar has a PR meter that will tell you the rank of any page you visit. It is recommended that you install it.

5. Blogging for Traffic.

There are several ways to establish links to you site, but it usually does take some time. An easy way is to setup blogs with some of the major blogging sites like Myspace, WordPress and Blogger. You can set a blog very easily and talk about your business and how it will benefit your customers. You can add weekly updates, new product info, or just keep everyone informed about how your business is progressing. Since search engines will pickup most major blogs these days, you should include your sigfile (signature file) at the end of your blog. Make sure it contains your website's URL to get traffic and improve your page rank.

6. More Ways to get Traffic.

In addition to blogs you can also write business articles like the one you are reading now and publish it to the many ezine article websites. You can also write press releases and have them published to the major distribution sites in the same manor. Business forums are also a great place to learn and get traffic to your website. It is advisable as well to use your sigfile when you contribute to these forums. Also make sure to read all the forum rules and contribute effectively without spamming.

7. Building the List.

Building a prospect list is a major part of growing your business. It is a known fact that most successful internet marketers maintain a list of people that signup to receive information and offers from them. There are many autoresponder subscription services that allow you to build and maintain your list online. AWeber and Response Magic are popular ones that allow you to install an email capture page on your website to have your customers fill out and request more information. Recurring newsletters and product offers will bring you long term business.

8. Personal Contact and Follow up.

Just like any business, the personal aspect is of great importance. You must seek to maintain contact with your business prospects and not rely on the automation part of the business to take over. You always need to gain their trust and let them know that there is an actual person or people doing the business. You can establish that by phone, email, your blog updates or any means that you choose as long as you maintain a personal trust aspect between yourself and your customers.

9. New Trends and Technologies.

Keep an eye out for new trends and technologies in the marketplace. There was a time when email and computers did not exist. Look how things are continuously changing and a lot of new products and improvements will always become available. Video marketing continues to grow as the number of people using the video hosting sites such as Youtube and Ifilm continue to increase. Podcasting is also relatively new on the market and more people are becoming users of the technology every day. Marketers that adapt and ride the new trends usually have leverage over the late adopters! So keep your eyes open.

10. Be a Life-Long Learner.

I have noticed that top earners are the ones that spend the most on self improvement and education. It makes sense since they want to keep what they have already established and improve their business. It is not uncommon to hear marketers spend tens of thousands annually just for educating themselves. Reading books, attending seminars and taking courses are all great ways to gain more knowledge.

About the Author

Internet Marketer since 2003. Promotes several affiliate and home business programs. http://www.potential2u.com Luxury Resorts Business http://www.MyLuxuryStay.com

How to check is your site effective or not

Whether it is ecommerce site or cooperate entity. It is important to know the effectiveness of your web site. People often don't care about their web site if it is not generating any revenue but one should understand that revenue is not the only objective for any business. There are some long term objectives as well and among those objective reputation of the organization is the most important. Web site is the best tool to create reputation of your organization. Web site reflects the core identity of any organization and therefore it is important to know the effectiveness of your web site.

To know the effectiveness of your organization's web site here are few tips to do. These will help you calculate the number of visitors interested in your web site and what they think about your web site.

1. Feedback form 2. Signup for Newsletters 3. Signup for email ids (if you are running a kind of portal) 4. Blogs 5. Forums 6. Polls 7. Google Analytic 8. Adsense (It not only generate revenues but also help knowing visitors trend) 9. Analysis of Raw Log file


Analysis of raw log file is the most important thing and one should know how to analyze raw log files. There are different software available to read log files and many of these are free. These raw files help in knowing the demography of your visitors. Sites from which your site accessed. Keywords used to access your site and lot more including visitors trend.

This is important to keep your site updated and know the feed back of visitors through above mentioned mechanism and then again update the site accordingly so the people keep visiting your web site.

Note Web site is your organization's on-line personality.

Source:

Shahid H. Qadri is internet marketing consultant at PNT Global. More information can be viewed at www.PNTGlobal.com

10 Google Adsense Tips

Do you have a content site with lots of pages? You could easily earn some extra income by putting up some Google Ads. The following 10 Google Adsense Tips are a surefire way of leading you in the direction of setting up ads on your pages in the right way.

Tip #1: Your Ads Should Be Kept Above the Fold

You shouldn’t have to scroll down the page in order to see your ads. Many people do not have the time to bother to go below the fold.

Tip #2: Do Not Have More Than 4 Ads Per Page By this, I am not referring to the ad blocks but the individual ads. The better google ads are placed at the top so the fewer ads that are displayed the more money you will get per click.

Tip #3: Stick With the Medium Rectangles

The 250x250 rectangle that displays 3 ads is a good choice. You can split test with other ad blocks, but the medium rectangle looks and converts better. However, this may not always be the case.

Tip #4: Banners and Skyscrapers are Dead

Just ask the experts. Many people will simply ignore these types of ad formats. They are recognized by people as an advertisement and adverts are usually of little interest.

Tip #5: Blend, Blend, Blend You may have heard this one many times before, but the truth is, many of us have become ad blind. If it looks like an ad, we usually ignore it. That is why your ad needs to blend in with the look and feel of your site. To accomplish this you will need to use the same text size and color as well as background color. Blend the border into the background, but….


Tip #6: Keep the Links Blue

It doesn’t matter what color your text or background is, your adsense links should remain the same blue as all your other links. Here’s why, people see blue text, they think it is a link and will click on your ads if they are interested.

Tip # 7: Don’t Put Ads on Empty Pages

Without content on your web pages, how is Google supposed to know what your page is about? They will simply guess and display ads that are completely irrelevant.

Otherwise, you can update your page with content but then you will be required to wait up to 2-3 weeks for the ads to be change, because that is how long it may take before they re-crawl your pages again.

Tip # 8: Are Your Adsense Ads Relevant to Your Content?

You will need to check on this from time to time. You may occasionally find an ad that is not relevant to the content of your site. It might be that your meta tags need to be changed, or it could simply be a word in your content that is messing things up.

Tip #9: Set Up Channels

If each page has more than one ad unit, it is wise to set up a channel for each of those units. Or if there is only one ad unit on each page, then you can set up a channel for each page. Channels help to keep track of what ads are or are not working.

Tip #10: Keep a Close Eye on Your CTR

CTR stands for Click Through Ratio. This is the total number of clicks divided by the total number of page views multiplied by 100. A page with low CTR may require more relevant content. If you follow these 10 google adsense tips, you can expect a 5-10% CTR. If not, you might want to start changing things around some.

There is no guarantee that you will make as much money as you want, but I do know for sure that if you ignore these 10 Google Adsense Tips, you are leaving a lot of money on the table.
About the Author

Connie McKenzie is a proud work at home mom.

SEO For Google - Proven Google SEO Optimization By Submitelite

SEO for keywords and content is relatively easy. Choose your keyword. Write content around that keyword. Use an SEO optimizer program to make sure you have done it right.

Long gone are the days of writing unrelated content, and then typing "Britney Spears" 100 times at the end of the article. Today's search engine spiders can spot the "Black Hat" SEO techniques a mile away, and your site can be banned for life.

Here are a few tips for SEO optimization:

Be focussed in your meta keywords - 1 to 3 SEO optimized keywords is enough Put your keyword at the beginning of you page title tag. Make sure you title tag is the first tag in the head section Make sure your keyword appears in the alt tag for images and in link text, but no more than 3 times Put your keyword in bold Put your keyword in the H1 section of your page, and H2 if you can Have a keyword weigh in your article between 3-6% (higher is "keyword spamming") SEO for domain names Going back to the Nike.com example from my "SEO for Google" article. Since the keyword weight is 0%, how does nike.com get to billing when you search for them? Easy, Google gives a rank weight to domain names.

Make sure your primary domain name reflects the main purpose of your site (domain SEO). This site, for example, is all about my desire to "retire with millions". The site is subdivided in to many SEO optimized sub-domains each with a URL that denotes the sections. For example, all my SEO articles are in a sub-directory called ../seo.


Many articles have been written about Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for Google. Google is the largest search engine (for now) and getting your SEO right for the Googlebot can make your site top ten site getting millions of hits a day. On the other hand, poor SEO and your site may never be ranked and your campaigns for Adsence will never net you any real money. Even worse, bad SEO might mean that your cutting edge product is un-finable by your customers.

Google page rank is determined by a number of factors:

SEO keywords SEO content SEO domain name Originality of content Number of links from external sites SEO keywords and SEO content will be dealt with in another article, lets focus on the other 2 for now.

Original Content

Having original content on your site is a no-brainer. It is the "why" that escapes many SEO web content developers. We have all seen the ads promising "150000 Adsense and SEO optimized pages". If it were this easy, all of us would be multi-millionaires by now. The reality is, Googlebot applies a penalty for non-original content, no mater how SEO you might think the page is. Think about it - why does "Nike.com" come up number 1 when you type Nike into Google? You or I could probably write a better SEO page about Nike than Nike.com. In fact, Nike.com keyword density for "Nike" is 0%!!!

Links from External Sites

Google take into account the number of links you have from external sites. Each link is like a "vote" for your site. Before you go and sign up for a link exchange program, consider this, some links do not count, in fact, being a "link spammer" can kill your ranking, no matter how good your SEO.

There are ways to generate quality back links:

Create a blog on blogspot.com (a Google Site) and write about your web page - include properly formatted links Join blogs on respected sites and comment on articles, putting your URL in your signature

Write "press releases" when you update your site and post them on the free press release sites around the web Take out classified ads in respected on-line newspapers

Make small donations to charity sites that keep a "Thank You" page and include your web site with your name These are just some tips to compliment your SEO work to get a good Google ranking.