Thursday, May 31, 2007

Meta Tag Variations

The placement of the keywords is also important. Including many of a web page's most-important keyword phrases in the page's META tag is one common tactic. A META tag is a piece of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language) code that describes the content of a web page. In our example, then, the HTML code for the Arizona real estate company might look, in part, something like this:Arizona real estate, real estate in Arizona, Arizona META>.Realtors

Another common practice is including a good, strategic description of the page in the TITLE tag, which is the piece of HTML code that displays the title of a web page at the top of a web browser's interface. Many websites also incorporate keywords at the beginning and ending of their marketing and sales copy as well as at the beginning and end of individual sentences.

Registering an e-commerce website with a search engine is another important aspect of getting products and services before potential customers. Registering a website is usually free or at least inexpensive. Google, for example, lets you register any web page at http://www.google.com/addurl.html, although they make no guarantees when or if the link will be added to its database. A similar free service is provided by Yahoo! http://docs.yahoo.com/info/suggest. MSN offers a range of submission services for a fee (http://www.submit-it.com).

If you want to ensure you have a high search-engine ranking on a particular search engine, you can pay for a piece of this prime search engine real estate. Google, again, is the leader in this type of search engine advertisement with its text-only “Sponsored Links” displayed alongside the free listings. Other major websites offer similar advertising services.

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Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Search Engine Kingpin

Search engines have long been a part of the World Wide Web, but if you took search engine kingpin Google will make it the most-popular and easiest way to find information on the Web.

It's so easy to find products and services with Google and other top search engines that much recent Internet marketing has focused on ways to get e-commerce sites to appear at or near the top of search results. When a simple keyword search on Google, Yahoo! or MSN can return literally millions of web pages, the difference between being the third listing on the page or the 33rd can mean the difference in tens of thousands of dollars in sales.

I E. a Google keyword search for “doors” turns up 31.7 million web pages. On the first page of 10 results, five are for door retailers. Imagine the advantage they have over the competition that might be 50th, 500th, or 5,000th on that list.

Theories vary on how to optimize a website's keywords to produce the highest position in search engines. Whole Internet marketing companies have spend countless resources trying to crack the mathematical algorithms Google uses to ensure their clients have top search engine placement. You can pay these companies to gain great search-engine ranking results, or you can do it yourself. There are even SEO software titles claiming to make SEO easy, and entire books have been dedicating to helping businesses achieve top search-engine rankings.

Much of the focus in SEO schemes involved the frequency and placement of keywords. Say, for example, you have a website promoting your Arizona-based real estate company. Ideally, you will want to place high in search-engine rankings every time someone does search-engine keyword search for “Arizona real estate” or “real estate in Arizona” or “Arizona Realtors”, just to mention three possible keyword combinations.

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Link Popularity Link Building

Google Ad words are a program that you can show your SEO to maximize your ROI. Keyword messages need to be structured properly

Google Ad words: Places text link ads on millions of relevant websites, and on the right of its search returns. Not easy to understand the language used on the web page. Offers an effective Ranking system based on keyword relevancy and clicks, you control your budget limits. If you’re starting a website and want Google exposure, then this is the way to go.

Search Engine Optimization Image will optimize your incoming links to increase link popularity. We offer aggressive Link Building campaigns the will help your rankings. Link Popularity is considered the most important service of search engine optimization, today's search engines place considerable emphasis on incoming links and their quality.

SEO Image LLC will get you quality links to your site to help increase the ranking of your site. This is the most time consuming element in the optimization process and we spend countless hours maintaining quality links for your site.

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Monday, May 28, 2007

Competing SEO

SEO or search engine optimization is about topping your competition. By looking first at web sites that rank high for your key word phrases you will have an understanding of the time and cost involved to have high rankings in the search engines. If you are going after a competitive keyword phrase the amount of time involved will dramatically increase.

When analyzing the competition, search for your keyword phrase or phrases in Google, Yahoo, and MSN. Look at the top sites and especially look at the sites that rank high in all three of the major search engines. You now have a list of competitor web sites; these are your targets to pick off one by one.

When evaluating your competitors’ links, keep in mind that this can be a link source for your web site. See if the web sites linking to your competitors accept web site link submissions. When submitting to other sites use your keyword phrase for your anchor text when ever possible.

Using the Google toolbar can be helpful too when evaluating links. Google assigns each page a page rank score based on a 1 to 10 scale with 10 being the highest. Do not solely look at a page’s page rank score; it is better that the page be on topic rather than an irrelevant topic and a high score.

Next look at the competitors’ title tags; are they using keywords in the tag? Be sure to check the keywords tag and description tag - I always find good keywords this way. There are some great free SEO tools on the internet that will automate these processes. Just do a search for free SEO tools and you will have a lot of tools with different and unique features for your needs.

Links are very important but if you are smart you will not need as many to beat out the competition. Build your inbound links slow and steady, and from a variety of sources. Make sure to use your keyword phases in your anchor text and vary the text for some of the links. This will appear natural to the search engines and should help you to avoid over optimization or spam penalties. If you are trying to acquire one hundred inbound links to your web site, space your acquisitions out over a three month period or longer.

One hundred back links appearing all at once looks very unnatural especially if you do not keep building back Links at that rate. Make sure you have well written relevant content. When optimizing your web site stay with in all search engine guidelines.

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Increasingly Link Popularity

Utilization of the search engines is a very important aspect of marketing; they are usually the first means by which prospects can find your site. That's why link popularity is so essential. If the customers can't find your web site, you will not see any sales.

You may be wondering what is so "popular" about links. Well, to be short... a lot! The term "Link popularity" refers to the ranking assigned to your web site by the search engines. It determines the position your page gets displayed on when people search for certain keywords in a search engine. I can already hear you screaming... "Cool, tell me how to get my link popular!"

So, here I go. Search engines are discretionary. They give status and ranking to sites that have links to their pages from related, quality sites. It's a simple, but a very important formula. 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 dispirited; there are tried and true ways of achieving link popularity using the most competitive keywords.

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

The next important thing to take into consideration is the quality of the sites 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.

OK, now let's get to what you must do to achieve top 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 web site's traffic, you are increasing both of your site's business prospects - and both of your sites' link popularity.

Unfortunately 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 you should 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.

After you've done everything discussed, 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.

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Friday, May 25, 2007

Graphics On Site

Graphics placed in webpage’s are frowned upon because search engine spiders cannot “read” graphics, therefore the thought being – graphics have no SEO value. To an extent that can be true but there are several ways in which a graphic can be represented with good keywords and keyword phrases. In addition, there are several techniques that can be utilized that will somewhat offset the negative effects of having graphics on your website.

1. Make sure to provide alternate text representations for every single graphic on your website including horizontal lines, bullets and background images. You can do this by manipulating the ALT tags. Make sure you use short descriptions for the graphics on your web page. Many people abuse ALT tags and actually “stuff” 10 – 20 keywords and keyword phrases behind graphics. This is not only bad SEO technique, but it may get your website banned when it comes time to submit it to the search engines!

2. You can insert a small 8pt or so keyword rich description just below your main graphics. For example, if you have a picture of an e Book on your website, you can put a small sentence below the picture saying “Internet Marketing Guide – Get Years of Internet Marketing Experience in One E Book!” As you can see you get the keywords; Internet, Marketing x2 and E Book.

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Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Search Engine Traffic

With the increasingly heavy competition even among niche markets, it is important to do everything that you can to increase your search engine rankings.

While implementing a linking strategy is the top priority of most internet marketers, the fact of the matter is that you need to do everything you can to increase your edge over the competition, and one of those ways is to effectively use on page optimization.

First of all, let's do a little research on the competition and see what they are doing.

If you have a list of keywords that you are targeting to promote your website, grab them and head over to Google. If you don't have a list of keywords or key phrases, you should sit down and do a little research and see what keywords you should target.

Now, select the keywords that you want to target - the more specific and niche oriented the better.

Just make sure that people actually search for those keywords.

If you aren't sure how often those keywords searched for, go to the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool or Wordtracker to find out just how often, and in the case of Wordtracker, just how competitive your keywords are.

Type in your keyword and see what comes up. Then go to the first two or three sites that are listed under that keyword.

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SEO Based Article

There is a trick to writing a proper SEO based article. Although it may seem as though you can simply write a regular article and plug in your keyword, there are actually some other things that you need to consider. For example, if you use the keyword too frequently, many search engines will not recognize it as SEO, but will instead see it as SPAM. Similarly, if you use the word too infrequently, the search engine will not recognize the keyword as being relevant at all.

This is where experts seem to disagree. While some believe that the keyword should be used once within the title of the article, and up to ten times throughout the rest of the text, others believe that it should only be used three more times, and a subheading is required.

In fact, there are many different techniques that work very well for proper SEO, but it is a matter of knowing what you’re doing, and being consistent about it. For this reason, it’s not a bad idea to hire a freelance SEO writer, an SEO company, or a firm. This will ensure that you have the best odds at achieving those coveted top search engine ranks.

Whatever you choose to do, make sure that SEO is a part of your website…unless, that is, and you don’t want to encourage any visitors at all!

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Common SEO Services

The most common SEO services are articles. These are articles written with interesting or informative content, but which have been structured specifically around a specific keyword.

To come up with your keywords, try to think about the different ways that you’d search for your own website. Think about your services, your products, the information that you provide, and the type of customer you’ll want to attract. You can either make your own list, or use a computer program that is designed for coming up with the different words that will work the best for you. If you hire an SEO company, they will likely have that sort of program available. It allows you to simply give an idea, such as “widgets”, and it will come up with all of the relevant search words that people use, and will tell you how many other sites already come up in search engines when that word or group of words is used.

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