Monday 24 August 2009

How to do SEO Quickly and Effectively?

There are really loads of ways how to do SEO. The best way is the one that works for you. If you still haven’t got one, here are few very powerful SEO methods.

SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization, it’s an art of pushing your site to the top of the search engines. If done correctly, your website will literally appear in front of the “starving crowd of potential customers”. SEO is probably the best method to generate targeted traffic to your website.

Traffic comes from organic search engine listings and from my own experience, this traffic is the most targeted and hence convertible. It’s not a secret that conversion rates are far way better than from any paid advertisement service. Unfortunately nowadays internet is flooded with swindlers and scams, that’s why paid ads are becoming less and less trusted. (consider click fraud as well)

So if you are serious about your future online business you can’t rely on someone else to drive traffic to your website. It’s time for you to dive into the world of SEO. Don’t be scared of the term “SEO”, it’s not that complex as it sounds, trust me. It’s always a problem – where to start... Luckily you at the right place and I will give you a great kickstart by sharing one of my favourite methods how to do SEO quickly and effectively.

Of course the most important part of SEO is generating quality backlinks. All you need to do now is to find sfew forums which are relevant to your niche. The easiest way to find suitable forums is to search Google for ‘your niche + forums’.

Respected forum with the high Page Rank is a GOLD mine in terms of backlink building. I love this SEO method because you can generate loads of quality backlinks almost instantly. You don’t have to wait until your article or blog comment is approved or declined. In our case powerful backlink appears online right away.

Relevant forums rule the parade of backlink building. Most suitable place to put your backlink is forum signature. If you start to include too many links in your posts, chances are you will be warned about spamming or even banned. The link to your site in the forum signature doesn’t look importunate or spammy, it’s just something that everyone does and it’s not violating any forum policies.

Contribute naturally – earn quality backlinks in a blink of an eye!

Before starting to post on forums don’t forget to check whether the link in the signature is DO follow ( Do follow – boosts your Search Engine rankings, NO follow – almost useless in terms of SEO) use DO/NO follow tool. Find it on Google searching Google for ‘DO follow firefox addon’ .

My advice is to contribute naturally. Help people answering their questions, ask questions yourself and you’ll be fine. Generating backlinks form forums is very powerful way how to do SEO. Google and Yahoo consider as if someone is discussing your website. This adds a huge piece of importance to your website and dramatically boosts your website rankings.

#1 on Google and Yahoo in 36 hours – is it possible? Yes it is if you know how to do it the right way. My SEO experience is 2 years. I’ve achieved really decent success in this field. Most importantly I know what strategies work well and what works less or does not work at all. All this comes along with the experience.

If you are looking for the system how to do SEO quickly and effectively in the same time you might be interested in visiting my website. You will discover 12 simple, yet very powerful steps to blast your website to the #1 spot on Google and Yahoo in about 36 hours, yes it’s possible!

Author : www.seowithservices.com

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Monday 10 August 2009

How to beat competitors using SEO?

It is not what your company does not, it will competitors. If it is to sell clothing web design there will always be people trying to be less costly and better than you. If they are in line they are going to fight with you for the number a place in Google and be able to beat, you must know how to support competition. Search Engine Optimization is an extremely important in which you can enter into competition with your competitors online, but to be able to make these you need to know who you are against that, as you know your products and services.

You have to look at competitor s sites and come up with a list of all sites that may be selling the same thing or offer the same services. Look out for those of the page of search engine lists such as they are those who are obviously very well. While you are on the site be sure to take a look at the design, the keywords used and everything that could do this site the top of Google. You could also make a brazen verify their return links with a back link checker to see where they are linked, and perhaps that for your link to be on there too.

When you have done your research you should then begin to seek ways to increase the SEO value of your site in thinking of a better keywords that will be more effective, different contents, perhaps a new provision which is SEO friendly and something other than you can think you to highlight above your competitor. This can take some time and it is not a, you need to do this regularly to stay better than the rest. Thus in trying to look at other ideas you should try to come of the things that your competitors haven t thought yet.

Different and new ideas will increase your position and ranking but make sure that has been tested and lead before you too depend. Continue on your search conclusions and decide what is good and what is flawed and keep an eye on what your competitors are try. If you know your competitors you are at mid-to be a success.

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Meta Tagging?

During the first days of the Internet, much weight has been placed on meta tags as that they are vital information let users know the content of a web site. Today it seems meta tags are more and more deemed unnecessary. Many people have begun to implement questionable means in an effort to push their classification superior, often deceive the information in the tags. Meta Tags are so sensitive to spamming that it practically makes the tags unnecessary.

Therefore, the most of the major search engines such as Yahoo and Google don t really major factor to judge a site s relevance and had completely ceased to use as a criterion for determining site classification. There are also other hazards associated with meta marking. Given that the labels contain information on your web site, this may potentially be used against you by your competition. They become familiar with the keywords you laboriously chosen and use them to promote their own sites.

A poorly constructed meta tag can actually poor your ranking opportunities and eventually obtain your site prohibited even if you n t have the intention to break all rules in the first place. Some people argue that you are better attention to title tags as the search engine always give importance for them. Are meta tags really an unnecessary practice? While meta tags is no longer determine how well a site only search engine classification, there is nothing wrong to continue to use provided that they are built well and not to exceed the ethical boundaries.

A meta tag contains a description of what your site offers and if it is well written, may attract visitors click on your link. It cannot increase site classification but it is still a legitimate method of generating traffic. More if you do not write a meta tag to your web site, the search engine will construct a for you, and it could not be a wise decision that you are the one who knows about your site better. It is preferable to write a meta tag as described with precision what you offer rather than to stick with a generic description of your site.

If you choose to continue to use meta tags as a SEO method, there are some things that you must keep in mind. Do not make your labels too long and be sure that your description corresponds to the content found within your site. Put in relevant keywords and not be repetitive.

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Wednesday 5 August 2009

How To Rank Your Website on Top in Search Engines Results

Webmasters always want their website to appear on top of Search Engine Results. However, it is not as easy as it seems. Getting ahead of your competitors and achieving top ranks in Google, Yahoo or MSN required a lot of work. It is well known fact that top ranks in search engines results lot of organic traffic and in return more revenues. Therefore, website owners are always ready to do everything to attain their desired ranks.

In order to achieve top ranks in all major search engines you need to understand the search and indexing mechanism of all popular search engines. Always remember, that there are no defined criteria to make your website on top of any search engines. You need to follow the basic guidelines set by them for a search engine friendly website. However, search engines experts suggest several tricks and tweaks that may help you in easy indexing of your website by search engine robots/crawlers.

The contents of your websites, META tags (Description and Keywords appearing on all pages), inbound links (links appearing on other websites but pointing to your website), and alternate text given on your images play an important role in easy indexing of your website. You can expect better ranks only if your website is equipped with all the above described things.

One more thing that is very important for your website’s performance in search engines is selection of right keywords and contents based on those keywords. Remember, if you are not targeting proper keywords, you may not get desired results. Therefore, in order to fix this issue, you need to do a proper analysis of your business domain and niche market along with keywords research prior to making any plans for online promotion of your website.

Usually search engine tracks your website through two popular mechanisms:

Links based tracking
The success of your website in top rankings is determined by the number of links point to your website. If your website has lots of incoming links from other top rated website in your niche, the possibility of success is more. Search Engine Submission, Affiliate Marketing, Directory Submission, Article Submission, Press Releases Distribution, and Blogs help a lot in achieving such quality inbound links.

Contents based tracking
This is relatively a complex mechanism of tracking your website. It depends upon the relevance of META tags (keywords and description) with the contents of different web pages in your website. Freshness of contents on your website enhances your chances of getting indexed easily.

Apart from these two popular mechanisms, you can also adopt other modes of online advertising like banner ad placements, paid submission, contextual advertising and social media marketing. These strategies are of great help if you want a quick interaction with your potential customers.

Easy Submission simplifies the complex task of website submission to search engines, article submission, directory submission, and social bookmarking for optimizing websites. For more information visit us at: http://www.easysubmission.net

By : Jessy Rider

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Tweet Yourself to Success -- Why Twitter is Valuable to your Business Marketing Plan

Some people refer to it as a micro blogging platform and others refer it to a mass public instant messaging tool, regardless, while social networking has been expanding and becoming a popular business tool with the likes of Facebook and LinkedIn, Twitter has seemingly been looked upon as the distant not so admired sibling of the three popular sites. While many people question whether this social networking tool is a waste of valuable time and energy, the truth is that it is quite beneficial once businesses and professionals learn how to use it.

In order to achieve success with Twitter, it is important to learn different ways this site can be used. After all, the site doesn't attract millions of successful business owners and celebrities for no reason. It is no doubt that this social networking tool's tweet is bigger than a lot of people may realize.

First of all, following someone's tweets is extremely easy. It is simple to find individuals or businesses that interest you and keep up to date on their day to day activities. When you follow someone, you will see their updates and the same goes for when someone chooses to follow you.

When you are allowed to post as many updates as you wish (in as much as 140 characters) to a large network of people, especially people you may not normally have contact with, the opportunities become endless. Effective communication achieves success and this site allows its users to communicate as often or not as often as they wish. Whether there is a new product or service to disclose, interesting news or insightful information, individuals and businesses are consistently keeping followers in the know. It is much like a mini blog feed.

Here are some interesting ways you can use Twitter to tweet yourself to success.

Follow People who Interest You

Search for people and businesses who not only interest you but who may provide some sort of benefit for you. Whether it is beneficial information or possible contacts, you should take calculating steps to follow those who aren't going to waste your time and who will provide you with something to take away and learn from.

Offer Valuable and Interesting Information

Of course some people will only tweet about what they ate for breakfast or what their plans are for the weekend, but Twitter can be so much more than just a juvenile social tool. The site can open up a land of opportunity for those who are willing to use it as such. Provide useful and interesting information to those who are following you and you will catch the eye of the very people you may have been intimidated to connect with previously. Post informative links and statements throughout the day to remain at the forefront of the very people you are hoping to connect with.

Use the Tools Available to You

Get the most out of Twitter by taking advantage of its many support applications.

Save yourself some valuable time by connecting your Facebook updates and Tweets with the Facebook for Twitter application. Using this tool will allow you to update your status on the two sites at once.

But what if you use several social networking sites? Ping.fm allows you to update your status on all major networking sites including LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter.

If you use FireFox, the TwitterFox will allow you to see updated Tweets straight from the web browser.

Are you going on vacation and won't have access to a computer for regular tweeting? Using the TweetLater tool will allow you to schedule your tweets for when you are away! TweetLater can also send you emails with any activity you may wish to read up on, allowing you to track conversations and join in when you have a moment.

Take it in Stride

Don't get caught up in every single tweet that crosses over your page. Don't waste your valuable time going through every single tweet. Scan, read and reply to information that interests you only.

By : Serena Carcasole

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How to do website for SEO?

1. More Text : Search engine spiders catalog words – not flash videos, images or other media. Therefore, make sure you have enough text in your web pages for search engines to index. If you’re going to use above-mentioned materials in your web pages, be sure to give them ALT tags (i.e. alternative text).

2. Relevant Keywords : The quantity of words is not enough; quality also matters. Thus, be sure to include relevant keywords in your web pages’ text. This way, your web pages will be indexed and filed under relevant keywords and people who are doing a search using such relevant keywords have a greater chance of finding your website. Be sure to use these keywords in the ALT tags mentioned above.

3. Internal Links or Site Map chag purim sameach ecards : The way your web pages are connected is important. Make sure that your pages are logically (and semantically) connected through your internal links. This makes it easier for search engines to index all of your web pages and using the right keywords. Moreover, be sure there are no broken links in your site.

4. Back Links : The links that point toward your site is also important – especially if they come from websites which are indexed under keywords which are relevant to yours (i.e. semantically related to the keywords you’ve used in your site). The higher the rank (importance) of the web pages linking to your web pages, moreover, the bigger weight your pages gain for SEO.

5. Anchor Texts zyrtec and breastfeeding : In relation to the above, it would be better if links pointing towards your site are actually anchor texts. An anchor text like “tank tops” that points towards your online apparel store is more important than a link that says “http://www.nameofyourstore.com.”


Source Article : www.freeseoarticle.com

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Monday 6 July 2009

Pay per click (PPC) better than Search engine optimization (SEO)

- SEO is basically when a webpage is created with the main idea of showing up far higher in search engine results whilst a specific keyword is searched up.

- A completely virtuoso SEO drive will permit an Internet user to uncover your site on the beginning page of the search engine results page, consequently enabling the user to reach your website for the typed in keywords with the least possible quantity of time consumption.

- Pay per click (PPC) on the other side is wherein cash has been charged by the certain search engine provider so as to obtain your advertisement to make an appearance on a search results page. This is where the main principle is to get your organization featured more prominently on the search engine results in order that potential customers when searching a search engine for some specific keyword will view your service advertisement and might even be persuaded to click on it.

- In Pay per click (PPC), the ranking of your advertisement, or where your advertisement can be featured depends on how much cash you are able to invest for your want ad. For instance, a greater amount spent on the classified ad will aid you in achieving so much greater and perchance on the #1 page of the search engine as compared to a lower paid service advertisement. Now, it depends on the amount of cash you are able to invest for each click. However if a rival is willing to spend $2 for each click of his want ad while you will be able to spend alot more, instead it is obvious that a search engine can give preference to your commercial.

- The parallelism between PPC and Search engine optimization (SEO) are numbered. But the chief parallelism between these two are basically in getting hold of the main group that you have to reach. Using both, you can achieve laser traffic. Laser targeting is where you can aim at a definite audience of clientele. For example, if you have a furniture site, then your targeted customers would be those engrossed in buying furniture and chairs.

- At the same time, you could also target international clients so much better. Basically whether you hold the #1 site or if you are in possession of the top service advertisement, the proportion of international traffic that you appeal to is the same. Both can facilitate you to acquire a universal group. Another way of putting it is that, the decency of traffic achieved is similar, as both facilitate you to reach a better possible group towards your website. The mere difference is that PPC permits you to get the #1 spot quicker However it is more pricey and does not get durable results, while SEO facilitates you to get the first location gradually. However it is alot inexpensive and produces lifelong results.

- The major differences between PPC and Search engine optimization (SEO) are that PPC involves you spending alot of your money as for all the numerous visitors. Another way of putting it is, the more you pay. Search engine optimisation (SEO) costs you just a onetime investment and will not depend on the variety of clicks. After a cycle of time, Pay per click (PPC) keeps on costing finance to keep traffic arriving in. Search engine optimization (SEO) overhead amounts turn out to be negligible after the onetime investment. As regards to the testing of conversion of keywords, it can be tried in Pay per click (PPC). However in SEO if your chosen ranking keywords don’t obtain your desired traffic, you are finished.

- The discussion of if to settle on Search engine optimisation (SEO) or PPC depends upon the wants and differs from one person to person and the preferred results.


About The Author:
Is pay per click management more suitable than SEO for your business or are PPC SEO together required? http://www.webseoppc.net provides you all the needed information to help you make your choice between SEO and PPC.

How To Get Targeted Traffic?

Now with the launch of your all new website and lots of effective search engine optimization, your website is flooding with traffic. Does this mean that your website is on the path of grand success? Well considering one factor “visitors” or “traffic” your website is really on the winners circle. However, considering the overall success, you still have to identify some parameters of your website. One of the key parameters that need to be identified is the “Targeted traffic”. If you are an expert online marketer you will be well aware of the differences between general traffic and targeted traffic. No matter if you are a pro marketer or a novice; there is no harm in explaining it. General traffic will come from any parts of the Globe looking for anything. They will not be sure whether they will find what they are looking for in your website. For example, they may be looking for some automobile accessories while your website may be of some cool wallpaper of automotives. Such traffic will not be of any use to the website. The targeted traffic on the other refers to the visitors to your site who already know what is there in your website and so are visiting your website to become loyal customers. Getting targeted traffic alone from the internet ocean is an impossible task. However, there are certain ways where you can boost the targeted traffic to your website.

Advertising For The Right Keywords In The Right Place

It is said that keywords are the key to success in Internet marketing. You will be well aware of the fact that only the right keys can unlock the right doors. The selection of the doors (ad publisher sites) and the keys (keywords) are all upto you. Poor selection of either of them will result in a complete failure of the strategy to get more targeted traffic. As a first step you have to find the right keys that will unlock the best doors. This is where the keyword analysis comes in handy. There is no scarcity for the keyword analysis tools. Once you find the popular keywords for your website, you are all set to start advertising in the publisher websites. There are several services out there where they will have the traffic data of the publisher websites. All you have to do is to choose the best site and bid for publishing the ads. Once the ads for the best keywords are published on the popular publisher sites, you can see an increase in the targeted traffic. The increase in targeted traffic can be tracked with the help of the real time traffic analysis tools provided by the traffic monetizing service providers.

Bottom Line

Getting targeted traffic plays the key role in monetizing the search engine traffic. According to experts targeted traffic matter more than anything else for a website.



About The Author:
The author of this article knows the importance of targeted traffic in monetizing a website. He knows how to increase the targeted traffic to a website by placing the right ads in the publisher websites. He is also an expert in keyword research for bidding on the right keywords. He has helped thousands of people to monetize the search engine traffic

Top Reasons Why Google Rankings Dropped

Getting high rankings for competitive keywords on Google Search Results is one of the main objectives of most online business when they start doing Search Engine Optimization on their websites. This is for the fact that Google is the most used search engine by internet users when they search for information, want to avail online services or buy online products. Basically, if a site appears on top rankings in Google SERP, this will make it more visible and accessible to its targeted visitors or customers. However, if its keywords have dropped their rankings, this will lessen its organic traffic from search results which may also lead to decreasing its online sales. So if your website is experiencing any keywords dropped and wondering to know why this happened, listed below are some of its top reasons:

1. Google might penalize or ban your website

One of the main reasons of keywords dropping is that the site might be penalized or banned by Google. To find out this, you need to search your website on Google by just typing your actual domain name in the search box. If it displays your website on the results, then it's not banned.

To know whether your site has been penalized or not, you need to evaluate its on-page optimization. Google doesn't like sites that implement keyword stuffing, cloaking, doorway page and other form of black hat techniques so better clean up your site and request for reconsideration.

2. Google has changed its Algorithm

When Google is updating its algorithm, sites may experience some drastic changes on their keyword rankings. It might be increased or dropped. To verify this, you have to check some Webmaster forums and see if other webmasters are also experiencing some keywords dropped. If yes, the best thing to do is do nothing and just wait until Google is finished on its updating. Changing quickly on the site might be the worst thing you can do if you are unsure of what exactly the issue is.

3. Site's Competitors are Doing Better on Link Building

If your website is experiencing some keywords dropped, then your online direct competitors might doing better on building more quality links. Google places more weight on fresh links as well as on those relevant links. So to make your site be more competitive and get better ranking over its competitors , it's necessary to continuously build for more quality backlinks.

4. Recent Change on Site's On-Page Factors

If a website has recently made some changes on its on-page factors specifically with its title tags, content or internal-linking structure, this may also affect its keyword rankings in Google SERP. Like for example, you have changed the title tags of your site's page with different keywords, the rankings of those keywords for that particular page might be dropped and will only bring back or increase its rankings after the page is indexed again by Google.


About The Author:
The author writes articles, tips and advice for WickedInnovations offer web design and affordable search engine optimization services.

Thursday 11 June 2009

10 Things to Expect from Your SEO Copywriter

From the perspective of a business owner, webmaster, or marketing manager, the change exhibited by the Internet is profoundly exciting, yet profoundly disturbing. The information (and misinformation and disinformation) it offers, the business benefits it promises, and the rules it is governed by change at such a rapid rate that it’s almost impossible to keep up.

These changes have led to a growing appreciation of the value of quality web copy. This appreciation has, in turn, led to an influx of opportunistic ‘copywriters’ promoting themselves as website copywriters or SEO copywriters. Don’t get me wrong, there are quite a few excellent SEO copywriters out there, and you should definitely shop around. The purpose of this article isn’t to scare you; it’s to help you find the SEO copywriter who’ll deliver honest service and excellent results.

So with that in mind, take a look at the following ten tips. These are the things you have a right to expect from anyone wearing a name badge that reads “website copywriter”, “SEO copywriter”, “internet copywriter”, or “web copywriter”… (See also www.divinewrite.com/websitecopywriter.htm and www.divinewrite.com/makethemost.htm.)

1) An understanding of SEO

Obviously, your SEO copywriter must have a solid understanding of the essentials of Search Engine Optimization. They must know that ranking is essentially the result of a website’s relevance (i.e. keywords) and importance (i.e. inbound links). There are a whole lot of other factors involved, but if your SEO copywriter doesn’t understand these two basics, you should look elsewhere. If you’d like to ensure your SEO copywriter knows a little more than just the basics, take a look at www.divinewrite.com/SEOCEO.htm, www.divinewrite.com/seocopy.htm, www.divinewrite.com/seotradesecrets.htm, www.divinewrite.com/webcopyenough.htm, and www.divinewrite.com/seoarticles.htm for some clues as to what you might like to ask in order to assess their knowledge.

2) Proven experience

The proof is, as they say, in the pudding. It’s not enough that your SEO copywriter can talk the talk; they must also be able to walk the walk. Ask to see some examples of websites for which they’ve obtained some good rankings. Note that it may be very difficult to find an SEO copywriter who has actually worked on both keywords and link generation (especially article PR), so if you find one who has, and they write well, snap ‘em up! They’ll have a very broad and useful working knowledge of search engines.

3) An understanding of how many keywords to use

You don’t want to fill every page up with every keyword you’re targeting. This simply dilutes your site’s relevance and reduces readability. Ask your SEO copywriter how many keywords they would recommend targeting on each page. Hopefully they’ll suggest no more than 3, preferably 2. By targeting 2 keyword phrases per page, you can use them a lot without impacting readability.

4) Clear agreement on who will provide keywords

Someone needs to perform a keyword analysis in order to figure out what words you should be trying to rank highly for. Your SEO copywriter should be able to do this for you, but it’s quite often more cost-effective if someone a little closer to the business does it. Either way, make sure your agreement with your SEO copywriter makes it very clear who is performing this task. Don’t assume the SEO copywriter is going to do it, because they may assume you’re going to do it, and then you’ll blow your budget.

5) Keywords or keyword phrases

Expect your SEO copywriter to offer some advice regarding how specific you should be with your keywords. In most industries, the competition for keywords is so fierce that you’ll be forced to target very specific keywords in order to rank – at least at the outset. For instance, if you’re in IT, you probably wouldn’t start out by targeting the keyword “IT”. The competition is immense (at the time of writing, there were approx 3,240,000,000 results for this search in Google.com) and the IT giants already dominate the search engines for this keyword. Instead, try using a more specific keyword phrase like “IT infrastructure consulting new york” (at the time of writing, there were only around 4,000,000 results for this search in Google.com). The other benefit to targeting more specific keyword phrases is that you’ll generate more relevant leads.

6) Agree on word count per page

Always make sure your SEO copywriter gives you an indication of the number of words they expect to write per web page. While it’s necessary to have a decent body of words on most of your web pages, you certainly shouldn’t have too many. What “too many” is all depends on your industry, the objective of the page, and the needs of your audience. It’s always a delicate balance, but it’s certainly possible to rank highly with only 100-200 words per page. So don’t be fooled into paying for copy you don’t need!

7) Density targets & measure

SEO of a web page is NOT guess-work. A good SEO copywriter will talk about density measures. This is a measure of the number of time the keyword phrase appears on the page. It’s expressed as a percentage of the total word count of the page. So if your page has 200 words, and your keyword phrase appears 10 times, its density is 5%. As a rule of thumb, your SEO copywriter should be aiming for a density of approximately 5% for your primary keyword phrase and 3-5% for your secondary keyword phrase. If your density measures are much higher than this, readability will be reduced, and you’ll risk being perceived as spam by the search engines. Make sure your SEO copywriter understands keyword density, is prepared to state the target density for each keyword phrase, and is also happy to be measured by that standard (should you decide to measure).

8) Where to place keywords

The question of keyword placement has been the subject of much debate amongst SEO copywriters. While it is still unclear how much impact placement has, there is a general consensus that it has SOME impact. Be sure that your copywriter is aware of this impact. Popular opinion has it that keywords are more effective if they appear in headings, bolded text, links, and generally toward the beginning of the page.

9) Some comment on structure & links

Websites are generally better indexed by search engines if their spiders can traverse the entire site using text links. This means your SEO copywriter should be linking each page to every other page using text links. If your site is complex, this may be impractical, so your SEO copywriter will need to create a hierarchical structure for your site. First, they should break your subject material down into categories. Then for each category, they should write a summary page. These summary pages should be accessible from higher level pages via text links. They should also be accessible from each other. Each summary page should link – using text links – to a number of pages discussing the finer details of the category. And each detail page in a particular category should link to every other detail page in that category (once again, using text links). This way the spiders are able to travel from the top of your hierarchy to the bottom, and from left to right across any level.

10) Don’t believe grand promises

SEO copywriters can play a significant role in increasing your search engine ranking. But they can’t do it overnight. By optimizing your site for your target keyword phrases, an SEO copywriter is simply declaring the relevance of your site. If you engage an SEO copywriter to write helpful articles containing a byline with a link back to your site, you can then submit these articles for publication on the Internet, and this will steadily increase your ranking. But if an SEO copywriter tells you they can dramatically increase your ranking in a matter of hours or days, be wary. NOTE: Your SEO copywriter should be able to submit your articles to various submit sites on the Internet. These sites are closely watched by hundreds of thousands of publishers of e-newsletters and article pages from all around the world. High quality articles are quickly snapped up and published prolifically. And each time your article is published, you’ve got another link back to your site, thus increasing the importance of your site (to the search engines).

Conclusion

An SEO copywriter is a valuable addition to your marketing function. But you need to make sure you choose wisely. When you know what questions to ask, the battle is half won.

Happy hunting!

* Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission and article PR specialist. He is a director of article PR company, Article PR, and also of copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com. Visit http://www.DivineWrite.com or http://www.ArticlePR.com for further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.

Professional SEO: Hand Off to Bob or Outsource the Job

We are often asked if professional SEO (search engine optimization) can be done effectively utilizing in-house talent. Despite our obvious self-interests on the subject, our answer is always a qualified "yes"– you can achieve professional SEO results using existing talent. However, for every company we have known that has met with great in-house SEO success, we know of many more that have seen their in-house efforts fail. We have also discovered the companies that have succeeded share some common traits.

If your company is considering doing SEO in-house, there are some critical questions that you should address before you proceed.

  1. Do I have the proper resources at my disposal to achieve professional SEO results? Search engine optimization takes time, and your internal SEO expert will need to have a great deal of it at his or her disposal – especially at the project’s outset when target audiences, keyphrases, and optimization schemes are first being established. Even after the initial optimization effort, the nature of SEO will require this person to spend ample time keeping up with industry trends, monitoring campaign progress, performing A/B testing, and expanding the campaign as new product and service areas are added. Perhaps even more important than time, achieving professional SEO results requires a unique set of aptitudes. The person responsible for your internal SEO initiative must possess the ability to learn quickly and to look at your website from a macro-perspective, marrying together the needs of sales, marketing, and IT. He or she can not be an aggressive risk taker, as this is often a surefire way to get your website penalized and potentially removed from the major search engines. These gifted people exist in many companies, but given the unique attributes that these individuals possess, their time is often already spent in other crucial areas of the business. Without enough time to invest in the project or the right type of person to execute it, an internal SEO initiative is likely doomed to fail.
  2. Do I know which departments of my company should be involved, and will they work with an insider?As mentioned above, professional SEO, by necessity, involves marketing, sales, and IT. The SEO expert must work with marketing to find out what types of offers and initiatives are working offline to help translate them effectively online. He or she must work with sales to identify the types of leads that are most valuable so that you can target the right people in the keyphrase selection process. And, finally, your SEO expert will need to work with IT to determine any technical limitations to the SEO recommendations, learn of any past initiatives based on a technical approach, and get the final optimization schemes implemented on the website. Sadly, in many businesses, these departments have a somewhat adversarial relationship. However, it is the duty of the SEO expert to act as a project manager and coordinate the efforts of all three departments if you are going to get the most out of your campaign. No professional SEO project can be completed in a vacuum. For whatever reason, it is often easier for an outsider to get adversarial departments on the same page, in the same way that a marriage counselor might convince a woman of her undying love for her husband while the husband is still grimacing from a well-placed knee in the parking lot.
  3. Will someone be held accountable for the results?This may seem like a small consideration, but it can have a tremendous impact on the success of the campaign. If you have added this responsibility to some poor soul’s job description with the direction that he or she should "do the best you can," you’ll be lucky to make any headway at all (especially if the person is not enthusiastic about SEO). Whether SEO is done in-house or outsourced, someone will have to take responsibility for showing progress, explaining setbacks, and continually improving results. Without this accountability, it is very common to see an initiative fade as the buck is passed.
  4. Can I afford delayed results based on a learning curve?It’s a reality – professional SEO expertise has a steep learning curve. While the information on how to perform the basics of optimization are freely available on the web, much of the information out there is also contradictory, and some of it is actually dangerous. It takes time for someone unfamiliar with the discipline to sort the SEO wheat from the SEO chaff (on a side note, a "quoted" search of Google reveals that this may actually mark the first occasion in human history that the phrase "SEO chaff" has been used – we’re betting it’s also the last). Simply put, if the person you are putting on the job has no experience, it will take longer to get results. This may not be a consideration if you aren’t counting on new business from SEO any time soon. However, if you are losing business to your competition due to their professional SEO initiatives, time might be a larger factor.
  5. Will it cost me less to do it in house than it would to choose a professional SEO firm?Often, companies will attempt this specialized discipline in-house in order to save money, and sometimes this works out as intended. However, accurate calculations of the cost of in-house labor that would be involved versus the price of the firm you would otherwise hire should be performed to make an accurate comparison. When making this calculation, also factor in the opportunity cost of the resource – the tasks that your in-house people are not able to perform because they are involved in SEO. In addition, if worse comes to worst and your in-house SEO expert is led astray by some of the more dangerous "how-to" guides available, it can cost even more to repair the damage than it would have to hire a professional SEO firm to perform the optimization from the outset. And an internal SEO campaign gone wrong can cost even more than the stated fee – websites that violate the terms of service of the major search engines (whether intentional or not) can be severely penalized or even removed, costing you a lot of lost revenue when potential customers can not find your website for a period of time.
  6. Do I believe that the end result I’ll get in-house will be equal to or greater than the results I would have gotten from a professional SEO firm? Search engine optimization can create huge sales opportunities, and slight increases in overall exposure can have not-so-slight increases in your bottom-line revenue. If you believe that your talented in-house resource will, given enough time, achieve results equal to or greater than those that could have been achieved by the professional SEO firm you might have chosen, it may make sense to do it internally. However, in addition to a better knowledge of industry trends, one clear advantage that search engine optimization firms have is the benefit of the experience and macro-perspective that comes from managing many different websites over time. Professional SEO firms can watch a wide range of sites on a continual basis to see what trends are working, what trends aren’t, and what formerly recommended tactics are now actually hurting results. This macro-perspective allows professional SEO firms to test new tactics as they appear on a case-by-case basis and apply those results across a wide range of clients to determine what the benefit is. It is harder for an individual with access to only one site to perform enough testing and research to achieve optimum results all the time, something that should also factor into the equation.
  7. Do I have at least a slight tolerance for risk?Neophytes to SEO can make mistakes that can lead to search engine penalization or removal. This happens most commonly when they have an IT background and treat SEO as a strictly technical exercise. We are often called in to assist companies who have had an internal initiative backfire, leaving them in a worse position than the one they were in before they started. The simple truth is that you cannot perform effective SEO without marrying your efforts to the visitor experience, but this is not something that is intuitively understood when people approach SEO for the first time. However, professional SEO firms are not perfect either. Some firms use those same optimization methods that violate the search engines’ terms of service and can get your site penalized. So, if you do decide to outsource, educate yourself on SEO and do some research on the firm. Know the basics of the business, find out who the firm’s clients are and how long they’ve been in business, and ask for professional references – just like you would do with any major business purchase.

If you have considered all of the above questions, and your answers to all seven are "yes," your company may be uniquely equipped to achieve professional SEO results in-house. If you answered "no" to any of the first three questions but "yes" to the rest, it does not necessarily mean that you can’t perform SEO in-house – just that you may not be in a position to do so at this time. Taking the actions required to get you in the right position to answer in the affirmative might be worth your while. However, if you answered "no" to any of the last four questions, you may want to consider outsourcing the project to a professional SEO firm.

A professional SEO firm has the resources, the time, the expertise, and, most importantly, the experience, to launch an SEO initiative for your website that will have a positive effect on your bottom line. Whichever option you choose, it is important that you fully embrace the channel. A half-hearted initiative, whether done internally or outsourced, can be as ineffective as taking no action at all.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing. He has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SEO Today, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue, an Atlanta search engine optimization company, serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DuPont, and Georgia-Pacific. To receive internet marketing articles and search engine news in your email box each month, register for Medium Blue’s newsletter, Out of the Blue.

Ethics, Best Practices, and SEO - A Crisis in the Profession?

There has been much debate recently on the practice of ethical Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The recent removal of a high profile SEO company from the Google results has plunged the industry into yet another debate on what is ethical and what is not in our profession.

I have been involved in the SEO industry for a few years now and the mention of the word ethics and best practices in what is still an unregulated industry creates a level of confusion the likes of which I have not observed in any other industry. Why does this reluctance to discuss ethics and best practices exist? After all, we call ourselves professionals and as professionals we should strive to be part of an industry which stands for best practices and quality of service.

The confusion seems to come from the way that search engines rank sites. Each search engine has an algorithm which is a complex method of giving a value to a site which will ensure that it is returned in the search results when a relevant keyword is typed into a search engine. These algorithms are kept secret by the search engines for obvious reasons. The SEO industry is highly focused on analyzing these algorithms and using any knowledge gained to modify and rank websites. Ask any two SEO’s what they consider to be ethical in their pursuit of top results and you will most likely get two very different answers. Hence, the lack of agreement on what is ethical and what is not.

So where do we start? Our commitment must always start with the client and our responsibilities to them. An ethical company will always demonstrate loyalty and respect to their client. This is true whether they are an SEO, a doctor or an accountant.

Having sound business practices and a professional approach to all that you do then we can move onto the ‘search engine guidelines.’ All the major search engines and directories publish their own guidelines of use for webmasters. This should be the minimum that any SEO practitioner complies with when working on a client’s site. Search engines have a right to protect the integrity of their results and the SEO practitioners should respect those guidelines.

The confusion seems to arrive with the interpretation of the guidelines. One SEO will interpret the rules to mean one thing and another SEO will see it as completely different. The stakes are high and a top ranking in Google for your site is powerful branding and can lead to a major upswing in your business.

SEO practitioners have been classified as ‘whitehat,’ and ‘blackhat.’ Whitehat practitioners are the ones that try to stick to search engine guidelines while blackhat operate using more questionable techniques and view the search engines as the ‘enemy.’ Unfortunately blackhat techniques can sometimes adversely affect the sites ranking and worse, get their client’s sites banned.

Blackhats traditionally play to the emotional needs of their clients and often convince them to part with their money without giving clear and specific information on the changes they will make to their sites. If a client is fully aware of the risks and is prepared to buy into short term gain then that is their choice. However, many Blackhat SEO’s do not disclose their tactics. Would you hire a CPA who submits your tax return including questionable practices and breaking all the IRS rules? You are the one who will get audited, prosecuted and have to pay huge fines.

Blackhat techniques are just plain bad business practice. They also do the search engines and the search users a huge disservice by contributing to poor quality of results. This adds nothing to the end user experience.

The search engines say that any type of manipulation to get a site ranked is a threat against them and the relevancy of their results. Whitehat practitioners will say that they are not manipulating sites but rather fixing search engine obstacles within a web site. The need for their services is great as many web site designers do not know how to integrate search engine friendly designs.

Last year a prospective customer contacted me after being burned by a “rogue" SEO company who got their site (and others) banned from Google for spam tactics. A few weeks later they were contacted by the same “rogue” SEO company under a new name. Perhaps naively she almost fell for it again. She reasoned that if they had been banned once they would not do anything wrong again! This demonstrates the lack of knowledge that consumers have regarding our industry. They don’t know the difference between good and bad SEO. People are being taken advantage of because of their lack of knowledge.

No matter what techniques your SEO uses; ‘ethical’ , ‘whitehat’ ,‘blackhat’ none at all it all boils down to one thing. Doing right by the client? Ethics is often viewed by many in the industry as hype.

I think the focus should be on serving users as opposed to manipulating the search engines. SEO’s who concentrate of making the sites the best that they can be for the end user will create a much better longer term affect. The SEOs who chase algorithms and try to game the search engines get burned when there is an algorithm change. Following search engine updates involving an algorithm shift, the industry message boards abound with posts along the lines of “I hate Google, they have killed my site” If these posters had spent more time improving their site for their clients, and the search users, the algorithm updates would be much less stressful for them.

At this time there is no initiative within the industry to create a trade body which sets a code of best practices. It is down to the consumer to practice “buyer beware” and ensure that they practice due diligence in selecting an SEO. They need to use even more caution than they would use to select any other vendor. I also believe the industry has a responsibility to provide education and resources for consumers and help de-mystify the profession.

Great SEO companies share their knowledge willingly. They hide nothing to either clients or search engines. They know that they have a specialized skill and are proud of what they do. They get their results through hard work and perseverance. They also know that to do the job properly takes a lot of time. This is something which most business owners feel they do not have. They are confident that when it comes to hiring a professional, their honest and open approach to their trade will be acknowledged by organizations who only want to work with the best.

The following are some golden rules I have written on choosing an SEO. If the consumer sticks to these rules then they should avoid the practitioners in our industry who give the rest of us a bad name.

• Only work with a company that follows search engine guidelines. (If I could only make one recommendation this would be it). The three main search engines are Google, MSN, and Yahoo. Look on their sites for their webmaster guidelines.

• Only work with a company that documents the SEO process they will use to rank your site

• Only work with a company that provides a written contract outlining their process and their costs

• Get at least four proposals for your site and compare services before you make a decision

• Do not work with a company that offers guarantees of top rankings. Nobody can offer these types of guarantees.

• Do not lock yourself into a contract you cannot get out of if you are not getting results

• Ask for references and follow up with them. If you still have any doubts ask for more. Ensure that references check out. Check that the suggested site is real and that the contact details given check out against the contact details on the site.

• Do not allow any work to be carried out on your site without your approval.

• Do not give the SEO carte blanche to do as they will with your site. It is your site not theirs. It is your responsibility to ensure that the SEO does not apply any techniques that would result in getting your site banned.

• Check the companies BBB (Better Business Bureau) report. Check for membership of any other established trade bodies such as the AMA (American Marketing Association) Many companies claim that they are more reputable because they are part of SEMPO (Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization.) However this is not the case. All that is required to be a member of SEMPO is a $299 annual subscription.

• Do not work with a company that engages in site wide link exchanges. Question their linking methods. Ensure that they only have a policy of linking with on-topic sites. Remember, your site is built for users not for search engines. If your site is about computers and your link to a site that sells children’s toys how useful do you think that link will be for your visitors.

• Ask other companies doing well on the Internet who they use for SEO. Always ask about the quality of customer service that is offered. It is not much use having a great SEO if you can never get hold of them.

• If it sounds too good to be true. IT IS!!!

In conclusion the SEO industry is a dynamic growing industry. This rapid growth has created some challenges for the industry. One of these challenges is the perception that outsiders have of SEO practitioners being unethical. To counteract this many SEOs are now promoting themselves as ‘ethical SEO.’ However, as the industry is unregulated it is up to the consumer of the service to become informed and exercise caution when selecting a SEO vendor. As the demand for SEO continues to grow the number of unethical practitioners calling themselves SEOs will also grow. To protect yourself, take the vendor selection process seriously. Look for vendors who are willing to share knowledge and partner with you to provide the best possible outcome for you business.

James Peggie is the Director of Marketing for Elixir Systems – a search marketing agency located in Scottsdale, Arizona. http://www.elixirsystems.com

How To Be An Ideal SEO Client

If your company has selected or will select an SEO vendor to optimize your corporate website for natural search, I offer you kudos for embarking on a process that can generate tremendous revenue for your business. Now, the fun part begins. You'll need to oversee and evaluate a process that is hard to comprehend, has somewhat intangible deliverables, and where the "timing of results" can't be precisely defined. Given this scenario, how can you best work with an SEO to achieve the best outcome for your website?

Make SEO a Marketing Priority. On some engagements, the SEO is almost entirely self-sufficient. On others, he or she might depend on the director of marketing, the president, the web designer or IT support to help facilitate the SEO effort. Some of these folks might not see the value of the optimization and don't view SEO related efforts as a priority. If you can let your team know the critical nature of the work (and your SEO should be willing to help in this effort), the expected results should be achieved that much faster.

Learn enough about SEO in order to ask good questions. Over time, the talented stable of Search Engine Marketing writers at Search Engine Guide have produced a large number of articles covering almost every aspect of the SEO process. Read up. Become familiar with the terminology and concepts. At minimum, you need to be conversant enough to evaluate the metrics of the campaign.

But don't tell your SEO how to do the work. Too much knowledge can be a dangerous thing for some clients because they lack the experience to place their knowledge within the context of the whole SEO process. Such clients may even feel empowered enough to tell their SEO vendor to take a course of action that will damage their efforts to obtain targeted natural search traffic. But if you have done proper due diligence in choosing a knowledgeable and ethical SEO expert, you shouldn't have any trouble staying on the right track. Your chosen professional will probably be appreciative that you've educated yourself about the process and will be glad to answer your "tough" questions. All reputable SEO vendors should be open and transparent about their methods and work process...don't work with any that aren't. And if you are comfortable with your SEO expert, the value of his or her experience should be easily discernible.

Good SEO advice can smell funny. Bad SEO advice stinks. Sometimes it has been a challenge explaining the merits of link-exchange or RSS feeds to SEO novices. Many marketing professionals have cringed when I've recommended having at least 250 words on the website home page. Fortunately, I've been able to rely upon my own SEO experiences to demonstrate the value of my advice and, if necessary, I can seek out the authority of other experts in the field to support my views. But, "rogue SEO's" have damaged many websites by convincing site owners to allow them to engage in practices such as link farms, hidden text, and cloaking that violate search engine guidelines. If you have educated yourself enough about SEO to be conversant in the terminology and techniques, you should be able to smell the odor before you step in the poop.

Well-run SEO campaigns still have hiccups. Search engines periodically change their algorithms which can be a boon or a bust for clients. Most recently, Google's "Jagger" update hurt many websites that followed SEO best practices. I have a client who had an 18-month-old domain that lost excellent Google rankings that I helped achieve in a very competitive field. I explained that based upon my research (and reported by many other SEO's through articles and forums) that Google has algorithmically implemented the following precepts: 1) It is very difficult for new domains to rank well for competitive terms and 2) Many inbound links must age for 6-12 months before they become effective. Now, it is incumbent upon me to chart a new course to help the client regain what was lost. Conversely, Jagger gave some of my clients excellent results far more quickly than I could have expected.

Measure results. A high-level web analytics solution like Clicktracks 6 (which I use and highly recommend) is essential to measure the success of your campaign. If you are spending thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on SEO, don't rely on a $10 per month web stats package. Your SEO vendor should offer advanced web analytics as part of the service...shy away from an SEO who doesn't use advanced analytics because the optimization decisions on your website will be made based upon incomplete information.

As a client, you need to view SEO as a long-term strategy that has peaks and valleys. Educating yourself about the SEO process will eliminate the "surprises" that are inherent in the process and will make for a far more efficient and productive vendor/client relationship.

Todd Mintz is the Director of Internet Marketing & Information Systems for S.R. Clarke Inc., a Real Estate Development and Residential / Commercial Construction Executive Search / Recruiting Firm headquartered in Fairfax, VA with offices nationwide. He is also a Director & Founding Member of SEMpdx: Portland, Oregon's Search Engine Marketing Association.

SEO Software: Trying To Catch The Spiders...

SEO software does what exactly?

SEO software frequently starts from the following assumption:

- look at the page that ranks number 1 in Google,

- do exactly the same + a bit better,

- and you will be number 1

SEO software will then examine "all" the SEO parameters that it finds out about the number 1 site in Google. Then this SE software will automate the process in mimicking this for your site.

SEO is more than a software-approach!

SEO is the art of ranking number 1 in any search engine for any keyword.

Spiders rank a web site number one because spiders "think" that this site deserves to be number one. Of course the spider cannot think: there needs to be a programmer who programs the spider to find out which site is best.

Now if you are smart enough to feed the spider exactly what the programmer thinks is important, you will have the knowledge to rank number 1.

This is exactly what SEO software does: it claims to know and tackle "all" the parameters that make a web site ranking number 1.

Pitfalls of a software-approach to SEO

Suppose you find all the parameters needed to rank a web site number 1. You manage to get all this parameters onto your site and you even manage to be rank number 1.

Now if your site is really deserving to be ranked number 1, all is fine. But if surfers start complaining that you are not, the search engine will be blamed!

It won't take long until Google finds out that "somebody broke the code" of the spiders. The spiders will be updated to give quality results to the visitors!

This means you need to get an upgrade of your SEO software approach... : you are running after the facts in stead of above the facts.

How to be ranked number 1?

You rank number 1 because you deserve it.

In spider logic this still means:

- your page talks about the keyword you are optimizing for

- you page has lots of incoming links about the keyword you are optimizing for.

This is what ranking number 1 should be about.

But my SEO software is really up to date, or is it not?

Your software can only be up to date AFTER the spiders' software is updated. Unless you write the spiders yourself, you will always be a bit later.

You cannot know all the parameters the spider takes into account, unless again you are writing the spider software yourself.

Some of the parameters you cannot influence: age of the web site is one of them. Suppose the spider needs to choose between 2 websites: the oldest one and the SEO mimic: which one to choose? The oldest one would be the easiest bet, and you cannot change the age of your web site can you?

A close look at SEO software

SEO software advertisements could say that you can get a top 5 Google Ranking in under 30 Days... If that is true, then check out to see:

- is the web site of this SEO software ranking number 1 in Google for SEO or SEO software?

- are the example web sites the SEO software mentions to be ranked number 1, really number 1: number 1 in Google that is?

It's very easy to type in the keyword phrase of the SEO software example web site and see if they are number 1 or not.

And don't be fooled by SEO software that gives numerous examples of number 1 rankings in MSN or Yahoo: if you want to have a long lasting number 1 ranking in any of the search engines, you better start having a number 1 ranking in Google.

I didn't say that it is a guarantee to rank number 1 in Yahoo and MSN once you rank number 1 in Google, but you will surely be high up there as well. On the other hand, a number 1 ranking in MSN can mean that you are no where to be found in Yahoo nor Google.

So you say: well, then I just try to rank number 1 in MSN since it seems to be easier. Well, it is easier, but then it is easier for your competition as well, so it won't take then too much effort to out-play you again. Therefor do the job good once and for all: thrive to be number 1 in Google and then fine-tune if needed for MSN or Yahoo.

Why do you do SEO in the first place?

SEO is 1 of the ways to get more traffic to your web site. But there is more in getting a lot of traffic to your site, than "blindly ranking 1 in Google":

--- Always make sure you rank number 1 for a word a lot of people are looking for! ---

If you buy any SEO software or out-source your SEO to the SEO specialists: always check their SEO examples:

- are they ranking number 1

- are the keywords they rank for popular search keywords (bigger than 10.000 searches a month in the Keyword Selector Tool from Yahoo's search-marketing is considered not too low)

- how long did it take them to be number 1

- how big is the competition for the keyword-phrase (smaller or bigger than 5 million? As a general rule : above 5 million keyword-phrase results in Google, things become though)

- how big is the competition for the quoted "keyword-phrase" (smaller or bigger than 33.000? As a general rule : above 33.000 quoted "keyword-phrase" results in Google, things become though)

If for all these items the SEO software or SEO specialist can answer YES, then you can start taking them very seriously!

Try it out for each example web site any SEO software claims to have ranked number 1 for a certain keyword-phrase. And of course, always start with checking if they are ranking number 1 in the first place! If they are not, then you are going to buy SEO software that doesn't do the job! Ranking number 2 is ALMOST number 1, and even worse, ranking number 9 is nowhere near to ranking number 1.

SEO software web sites

Whenever you are interested in something to buy on the Internet, check out the overall web site of the product you want to buy!

Some SEO software web sites are 1 page web sites: just 1 page with the product, no links, no extra pages...

Again back to basics. What was the first idea to set up the Internet? To give people information, lots of information.

And we are talking about a "NET" in Inter"NET": "net" means links here, links there, links everywhere... (that's why links are so important in SEO)

If you don't see lots of links nor lots of content on a web site about SEO, then the SEO web site is not serious about its own subject: SEO!

Back to Basics: web-traffic

Your purpose is getting as much people to your site as possible, isn't it?

SEO software has the purpose of ranking 1 in Google.

Now it is very easy to rank 1 in Google for the keyword-phrase "jhdkghgkbdcds",
but who is looking for "jhdkghgkbdcds"??? Nobody!

So if nobody looks for "jhdkghgkbdcds", then why bother to rank number 1 with it?

What is a nice number when it comes to "popular keyword searches"? If you use the Overture Keyword tool, anything above 10.000 searches a month means quite popular, but: also know that above 10.000 "the big boys' are competing
with you, below 1.000 you have the field for yourself. So a good SEO advice is work yourself from the bottom up: start with keywords that are not so popular, and once you are ranked high for those, then tackle the next more popular keyword on the list.

SEO software Conclusion

SEO is the art to feed the spiders what they like.
SEO software is running after the spiders trying to catch their attention.

Always check the numbers and the facts about any SEO software and (this) SEO article!

Then make a decision yourself. If you see that the SEO software

- is ranking well for it's own product

- is ranking web sites for popular keyword well,

only then you can consider buying it.

Making money on the Internet is something that has always intrigued Stef Glassee, a Sun Certified Java Developer. Being into programming and software development he has a first eyes view how software can help people, but it cannot yet replace people. Same goes for SEO software.

...It's quick and easy to throw an apple pit in the soil. But be prepared: it takes a long time before the apple pit becomes a tree loaded with apples!...

You can read more about starting to make some money online, SEO and web-site marketing at : Quick and easy ways to make money

Easy Adsense

Adsense from Google is most certainly the ticket for many website owners, whether you have a small website or a large one, Google Adsense could earn money for you while you sleep! I have been using Adsense at my website which simply explains all about Google Page Rank for just a short time and have earned money daily since using Google Adsense.

It is Free to sign up with Google Adsense and although Google will never tell you exactly what you could earn because each click or search has to yield them something in return first, you will start earning money more or less straight away after signing up and adding the code to your website. I can assure you that Google Adsense is certainly worth the bother of adding some small amount of code to your webpage. You do not have to be an expert website creator to earn money from Google Adsense but obviously if you have a large website then Google Adsense could earn you a great deal.


Google Adsense can earn you money in three different ways:

Firstly Google Adsense can display targeted adverts to your webpage. These Adsense adverts link directly back to Google Adsense and look for keywords in your webpage. It then links the correct advert to that page, using relevant good Adsense adverts.

Secondly Google Adsense can earn you money from website searches which can earn a good amount of money if you place the Google Adsense search box in the best place for your website visitors. You will not earn every time someone searches from you Google Adsense search box however, it really depends on whether they have also moved on to maybe purchase a product or signed up for something via the Google Adsense search box.

Thirdly you can also earn money from Google Adsense referrals, which potentially could earn you quite a lot of money. By simply referring your website to Google Adsense to make money will not in itself earn you money, but if they sign up to Google Adsense and then go on to make $100 within their first 6 months then believe it or not Google Adsense will pay you $100.

So if you can get your website to sign up with Google Adsense you will never know when the big one will drop in your bank account. It is fairly easy for a new Google Adsense member to earn $100 in six months, especially when your visitor already has a website with perhaps as little as 50 unique visitors a day. With Google Adsense and it's ability to know what to show your website visitor as regard to targeted adverts, you will soon gain back your time in earnings as long as you follow some basic guidelines.

Adsense works best with content rich websites and there is absolutely no point in adding Google Adsense to anything but websites that are content rich. So target your Google Adsense campaign toward the current scheme of your webpage’s. Therefore if you have a website, on let's say cars, then write your content about cars and write lots of it too. You will not only earn a living from Goggle Adsense but also from your original services or products. Google Adsense requires a great deal of content for it to decide the best adverts to display so be very aware of this. Remember also that Google Adsense allows people from around the world including many poorer countries to make money from their website using Goggle Adsense. As long as you can read and write, also have a computer with internet connection then you can certainly earn a great wage from writing about what you know.

James Jenkins
Software Developer
Tamar Solutions

How To Skyrocket Your Adsense Revenue

Adsense is an advertising model created by Google which utilizes pay-per-click and pay-per-impression advertising which is beneficial to both advertisers and webmasters alike. For the advertiser Adsense is a very efficient way to get access to high volume targeted traffic by having their ads displayed on topically relevant sites. For the webmaster Adsense can be an extremely lucrative alternative-income source, or as many Adsense gurus have discovered, Google Adsense can well be your primary super-income source.

It's free to join Adsense and you'd be well advised to read Google's Adsense rules and policies. Google supplies excellent resources on The Dos and The Don'ts of Adsense as well as very comprehensive tutorials on how to set up and use Adsense. So for that reason this article will not go into the basics of Adsense but rather will give you tips on how to become an Adsense Expert and join the growing number of Adsense Gurus who are making mind-boggling amounts from Adsense!




Dress Your Ads For Success

1. Don't leave your ads looking like...well ads! Many Adsense users simply follow Google's default format settings to setup their ads. Big Mistake! If your ad looks like an ad people are generally going to ignore it. As for those banners... please! Nearly everybody online hates banners and avoids them like the plague. So don't make the mistake of thinking that visitors to your website will behave any differently to those Adsense banner ads you may have set up. Simply put...do without the Adsense banners if you want to cash in.


2. Optimal Placement of Your Ads. In the real world it's said that location...location...location is everything. Same thing goes for the web, at least as far as Adsense is concerned. If your ads are tucked away where no one can see them basically you aren't going to get any clicks. Think about it--when people go to a website the first thing they do is absorb as much information before ever scrolling. That part of the page they see without scrolling is called above the fold. That is where you want to put your ads. Remember easier seen means more clicks...which means more ka-ching!

More Is Less. The number of ads you've got above the fold will influence your visitors clicking habits. Google puts the top-paying ads topmost with the lower paying ones at the bottom. If you have a stack of ads all located above the fold those cheaper ads might steal attention away from the more profitable ones. So keep this in mind...more is not necessarily better as far as your Adsense revenue is concerned.

3. Wave Goodbye To That Border. So you've spent a lot of time putting up intelligent and useful content on a beautifully designed site...shame that you've got to tarnish such wondrous aesthetics with Adsense. But guess what...you don't have to! You can easily blend your ads in to compliment the overall layout of your site. First thing--Get rid of that border delineating your ads. Next, make your Adsense text the same colour as that of the rest of your site. People are more likely to click on it thinking it's part of that useful content on your site.

4. Text Ads versus Image Ads. And the winner by unanimous decision is (drum roll)...Text Ads! With the right formatting your text ads will blend in with your content. Text ads are also more flexible with respect to tweaking and positioning. Another thing about text ads, is that you can squeeze more of them in the space taken up by an image ad (banner). Text ads don't appear like clutter whereas banners do!

5. Keywords. The content on your web pages determines the Adsense ads that appear there. If your site does not have a specific theme then Google will gladly supply you with non-profit general service ads. So as you can see Content is Still King! Even so you can quite easily (and legitimately) influence the Adsense ads supplied to your site by strategically placing keywords in specific locations on your site without diluting your site's copy (text tailored towards a specific goal and written for your visitors).

These are just a few of the simple optimizer tweaks that Adsense Experts utilize to cash in big from Google Adsense. Remember that people generally need to be exposed to something at least seven times before they're comfortable enough to purchase it. So if you're an affiliate marketer or any kind of online seller (or for that matter as long as you have a site) why not put up Adsense on your site and make some easy revenue while your visitors familiarize themselves with what your site has to offer.

Finally if you really want to become an Adsense Guru who rakes in five-figure amounts every month, you need to understand what it takes to correctly design a site from scratch with the sole purpose of cashing in big from Adsense!

More On How To Dramatically Increase Adsense Revenue

Ba Kiwanuka
http://www.internetbusinessmart.com

Adsense Blindness - How To Beat It!

Adsense blindness is a topic that is becoming more relevant with each passing day
based on the enormous success of Google’s Adsense program. The amazing
success of the Adsense program has led to what seems like universal adoption of
Google’s ad serving technology. The problem is that the ubiquity of Adsense is
causing more and more people to unconciously filter Adsense ads as they view
websites. The question that this article seeks to answer is what can be done to
recapture the revenue that is being lost?

In a word - experiment. Gone are the days when you could throw up some great
content and cash in by throwing some Adsense panels above the fold integrated
into your text. The mantra of the past couple of years has been blend - blend your
Adsense panels into your content. Common wisdom and experience dictated that
the closer your Adsense panels resembled your content, the better your click-
through ratio. Trick the user and all that…


This strategy will suffer from lower and lower conversion rates on high-value
content sites with a high returning visitor rate. You see, the more familiar a reader is
with your site and its layout, the easier it is for her to identify your Adsense panels
and filter them in favor of your content. This is not a new trend; it is simply the
culmination of several factors.

First, Adsense has achieved world domination or something close to it. Adsense is
everywhere and its format is static and unchanging. There are only so many panel
sizes and each of them is branded plainly with Google’s label. Sure, you can vary
colors, borders, and link colors but that darn Google name is still tacked on to the
corner of every panel. Second, Internet adoption rates in the English speaking
countries is slowing. With less new users coming online each day the pool of
Adsense neophytes is shrinking. Every day a larger percentage of users become
desensitized to the presence of Adsense and that Google tag on the corner of each
panel. Finally, as I previously mentioned, if you provide high-value content your
readers will return and the more familiar a user is with your site, the easier it is for
her to filter your Adsense ads.

What can be done to turn the tide back in the favor of the humble website owner?
Don’t be afraid to experiment with Adsense. While the panels remain relatively static
you can vary colors and borders. The key with experimentation is to make subtle
changes. Your Adsense panels should continue to blend with your content overall.
Well blended content captures new readers every time. What you want to do is
create a situation where the user, especially returning readers, stop and process
your changes. You want her mind to note that the Adsense panel is different but
only slightly. Those borders that everyone matches with the page’s background
color can be made to be slightly darker or lighter than the page background color.
Nothing too garish mind you - just a slight difference that makes the reader pause
and consider what she is being presented with.

The same approach can be applied to text color and link color. Subtle changes can
work wonders for improving click-throughs. The idea here is that we have trained
the reader’s mind to expect Adsense panels to be blended very deeply into our
content. Now, their mind is presented with panels that are standing out just a little
more than usual and once they notice this, they will process the Adsense text and
hopefully click-through.

Varying the panel type and size you are using can also help to improve your click-
through ratio. Every change you make to your site layout causes readers to work at
processing the changes this requires attention. This simple act draws the reader’s
attention to the panels and hopefully creates a click event. The key to sucessful
testing is to make only one change per day so that you can effectively assess what
effect the change has. If you make two or more changes you will have no clue which
change caused your reader’s behavior to differ from the past. My Adsense resources
page listed below has some great pointers concerning how to effectively test
changes to your Adsense panels.

My next suggestion will shock and anger many - heresy some will claim but I stand
by it nonetheless. There are other options! Adsense isn’t the only game in town. In
fact, there are thousands of other fine affiliate programs that you can join and
integrate into your content right along with Adsense. Granted, you will have to work
a little harder and this is the true evil that Google has perpetrated upon us. Adsense
is so easy that we have become lazy in matters of monetization. Break the Google
chains that bind you! Do some research. Yes, work and find an affiliate program that
matches your niche and promote the hell out of it. I suppose if you are happy with
your Adsense earnings you can stick with Google solely but consider the money you
are leaving on the table.

Almost any piece of great content can be matched with a suitable affiliate offering.
There are literally thousands, perhaps even tens of thousands of affiliate programs
available. Find one or two that match your niche and give them the same billing you
give Adsense on your website. You might just be surprised. A quarter-per-click is
nice when coupled with a conversion rate of 1.5% and some decent traffic but
consider a $5 or $10 affiliate commission that only converts ten percent as often.
You will quickly discover that adding a program or two has no effect on your
Adsense earnings but does provide a welcome new revenue stream!

BW Griggs consults and develops but rarely sleeps. He is the author of Affiliate Success: eBay, a nifty piece of software that has nothing to do with teaching people how to become eBay super-sellers but rather, enables people to create a new, powerful income stream by displaying eBay auctions on their websites in much the same spirit as Google's Adsense program but with suprisingly better results!

http://www.shrubsoft.com/ase-details.php

For additional resources concerning how you can defeat Adsense blindness, visit: http://www.shrubsoft.com/blog/affiliate/adsense-blindness-resources/

Google Adsense Tips - What, How, Who, Why, When and Where!

The Amazing Google Adsense Program is today towering like a Colossus in the Internet. It has helped some smart Internet Marketers to make huge amounts of money, while at the same time it is interesting to note that many new Internet Marketers and Internet Home-Based Business Entrepreneurs are receiving their first pay check from Google Adsense rather than the main affiliate program.
Given below are the Asense Tips, What, How, Who, Why, When and Where of Google Adsense in a nut shell.

Adsense Tip: What is is Google Adsense:

Google Adsense is a program designed by Google that can generate advertising revenue for your website. Relevant Text and Image ads. targeted to your website content are delivered by Google. Additionally if you place a Google Search Box in your website, relevant text ads. are displayed when a search request is made by a website visitor. Google will pay you for all valid clicks. made by your website visitors on the ads. or search results pages. Another new addition is the Google Adsense Referrals Feature , whereby you can generate additional income by displaying Google’s Referral Buttons on your web pages.


Adsense Tip: How to get started with Google Adsense:

You have to apply to Google Adsense by completing an online application form at https://www.google.com/adsense. Once the application is approved, you will be able to participate. You then have to copy and paste a HTML code that is provided by Google Adsense into your web pages. The code creates relevant ads. to the content of the page. When a visitor clicks on it Google pays you.

Adsense Tip: Who can participate in Google Adsense:

Anyone who has a website can join the Adsense program but not adult and hate sites. You have to comply with Google's program policies. It is Free to join. Google has a massive advertiser base and they have ads. on the ready for all categories of businesses. They also have ads. ready to match different types of content sites, from a pet store site to that of a highly sophisticated technological site.
Google Adsense can be used in many languages. It is also targeted geographically and hence Global business can take advantage of this and webmasters living in any part of the world can participate.

Adsense Tip: Why Participate in Google Adsense:

The obvious answer is to make money from home. It does not cost you anything if you have a website, so why miss the opportunity to make money from home. Google pays you monthly if your earnings reach $100.The Google Adsense checks are a blessing to a large number of newbies with low budgets eager to make money from home. Some webmasters feel that Adsense ads. can lead their visitors away from their site. This possibility is there but if you have a website with good content they will always come back.

Adsense Tip: When to Participate in Google Adsense:

The Adsense program is Web related and hence you must have a website to participate. Once your website is ready and the contents optimized, you can submit your application. The Adsense program is not restricted only to high page rank sites as some seem to think.
Google approves most of the sites but ensures that they are of acceptable standard. Normally they are approved within 2-3 days. Once approved you can immediately participate in the Adsense program by logging into your account.

Adsense Tip: Where to place Google Adsense ads. in your Website.

The Adsense ads. can be placed anywhere in your web pages, but there are specific areas in your web pages that are recommended by Google which have been found to generate more clicks.
According to Google and our own experience: Ads placed above the fold tend to perform better than those below the fold.
Ads placed near rich content and navigational aids usually do well because users are focused on those areas of a page.
Ads placed at the top of the page and at the left generally perform better than others.
Ads at the bottom of long articles and those that are integrated or merge with the content too perform very well.
Of course there are other strategies, such as creating high paying keyword content pages to suit individual sites and also generating more traffic to your site. These have to be implemented too, to ensure success.

The Google Adsense Program has come to stay. It is a great way to earn an additional income for most webmasters and a big income for some who have made the Adsense Program as the main source of income. Which ever way you look at it the Adsense Program is a happy hunting ground for all and these Adsense Tips can help you get started.

Copyright © 2006 Kanaga Siva About Kanaga: Kanaga Siva has a wealth of experience in Marketing and also running a successful Home-Based Business. He now operates his Internet Marketing Business. For Articles, Resources, Ideas and Advise to start a Home Based Business and for other recommended Programs, visit his Home-Based Business From Home website.