Design A Spider Friendly Site

Author: Matt Colyer

To be successful in the search engines it's important to design your web site with the spiders in mind. Using the latest in web page design is not generally the best way to go. Spiders don't view web pages like humans do, they must read the HTML in the page to see what it's about. Below you will find tips on how to best design your web site with search engines in mind.

Do not use frames at all. Some search engines cannot spider web pages with frames at all. For the other search engines that can, they can have problems spidering it and sometimes they too can't index the web page. Do not only use image's to link out. You should always use text links to link out to important content on your web site. Spiders can follow image links, but like text links more though.

Use external JavaScript files instead of using Java Script code in the HTML document, using Java Script in the HTML document will make the page size much larger. Using an external Java Script file to do the job will reduce page size and make it easier for both spiders and browsers to download the page. Using Cascading Style Sheets can reduce page size and making the download time much faster in most cases. It will allow the spider to index your web page faster and can help your ranking.

Avoid using web page creators such as FrontPage, Dreamweaver or a WYSIWYG editor. Software such as that will often times add scripting code that is not needed, making the page larger than it needed to be and making it harder to crawl. It will also add code that can't be read by the search engines, causing the spider not to index the page or not index the whole web page. It is better to use standard HTML. Adding code that they can't read or have a hard time to read can lead to major problems with your ranking.

Try not to use Flash when possible. Flash cannot be read by the search engines to date and will cause download time to slow a bit. If you do decide to use Flash anyway, make sure you add text to the web page, so the search engines have something to read and find out what your web page is about. It will also allow your visitors to have something to read while the Flash file loads. Also don't use Flash as a way of navigation, as I said before spiders cannot read Flash.

It's important to add a site map to your web site. Not only will this make it easier for internet surfers to get around your web site, but it will also allow spiders to find your site's content easier and index your web page sooner. The site map should contain text links and not image links.

I highly suggest that you look at your web page with a Lynx browser because this is similar to how search engines will view your web page. There are other tools on the internet that will allow you to view your web page without a Lynx browser, but see a web page just like it, so you may want to check those out as well.

About the author: Matt Colyer is the owner of the Superior Webmaster in 2004 as a source of articles and tutorials for Web site owners looking to improve their Web site.

Designing a Website So the Search Engines Will Like You

Author: Leah West

Before you go and spend big money on a professional website designer, or start designing yourself, read through this article and make sure that you or your designer knows how to design a website that the search engines will like.

Being a web designer myself, I know firsthand what they teach you in college about being a good designer. While I learned all of the important design concepts like color theory, the importance of graphics and white space, ect ect, I came away knowing nothing about how to actually design a site to get ranked in the search engines.

Because of the lack of training in design schools, there are many, many web design companies out there today that know nothing about designing a web page properly.

It wasn’t until I started doing some research that I realized there was a whole world of search engine optimization (SEO) techniques that I didn’t know about. Most designers love to make your site aesthetically pleasing. Maybe they use newer technologies like Flash design or really graphic intensive pages. While these techniques make your site look pretty they are not practical if you ever want a visitor to find your site in a search engine.

Here are some basic concepts to learn before beginning your website design.

**Flash**

I know it’s tempting to have an all flash site because lets face it they look really awesome. The problem with having an all flash site though, is that it is basically nonexistent to the search engines.

A flash source file is embedded in the html and therefore offers no content to which the search engine spiders can look at to rank you. Unless you are already well known in your particular industry or have a very identifiable brand (think Pepsi or BMW) then you should not use an all flash site.

But what if you really, really want to have flash? Here are some ways around this problem.

First, you can create two websites for your visitors. An HTML version and a Flash version. You can let your visitor decide where to go. That way you won’t leave them frustrated if they have a dial up connection and are not surfing with broadband. There is nothing that will tick your potential customer off faster than having to wait ten minutes just to view your fancy flash intro. By having both versions available you also give the search engine spiders a content rich HTML site so they can rank you accordingly.

Secondly, you can add flash components in your main site to give off some cool effects without taking forever to download. For instance, I have seen a lot of websites lately where the top header portion of their site is made in flash or their buttons are done in flash to make them stand out more. These are two good ways to use flash without overdoing it. Just make sure that your body copy is keyword rich to offset the flash.

**Keyword Placement**

This next part assumes that you already have researched and gathered targeted keywords to work with. If you have not done keyword research for your services or products you are selling, then you have some work to do before this next step. You can check out http://www.westmarketing-design.com/articles.htm for more information on doing keyword research.

There is a phrase that you will hear in the SEO world and that is “keyword rich text”. This simply means that when you write your body copy for your website that you need to word it a certain way so that you include your keywords. Now that doesn’t mean that you insert a keyword every other word. The search engine spiders consider that to be spam. What it means is that you give your body copy a lot of thought, making sure you have keywords placed within your copy that make sense to the overall service or product that you are selling.

Here is an example of a keyword rich paragraph selling an information product on public speaking. The keywords are in quotes.

Are you interested in becoming a better ""public speaker"" or improving your ""public speaking skills""? You can become a ""paid public speaker"" and make lots of money for ""speaking in public"" to a wide variety of audiences. Learn all the latest ""public speaking tips"" and tricks, including learning how to ""overcome stage fright"" and ""add humor"" to your presentation.

All of those keywords were researched and found to be very targeted to the phrase “public speaking”. Now I went a little overboard in my keywords for the example, but you get the idea.

There is another phrase called “keyword density”. This refers to how many times a particular keyword or phrase is found in one website page for every 100 words.

You walk a fine line between having enough keyword density to having too much and having the search engines consider your site to be spam. Be aware though that not all search engines are created equal. Some might like a keyword density of 5 percent, while another one might favor 7 percent. I suggest testing your copy for a month or so and keeping tabs on your search engine ranking. If you get high ranks, keep your copy the way it is, but if it is lower than you want, try tweaking your copy and keyword density to see if you can get the desired ranking.

**More Places for Keywords**

There are other places that search engine spiders look for keywords besides your website copy. If at all possible try to get a domain name with one of your keywords in it. For instance if you sell dog collars, a name you might want for your website would be www.dogcollarsales.com or something like that. It might take some thinking and some time to come up with a related name that someone hasn’t already taken, but it can be done.

Another good place for keywords is in your page title. Instead of putting the name of your business which most people won’t know, instead place a keyword rich sentence or phrase. Using the dog collar business example again here is a title page you could use.

Dog Collars – We sell dog collars and other products for your beloved pet.

It clearly tells the search engines what the page is about. Remember that the title of your website is indexed by the search engines and is part of what is shown to someone who is searching on that keyword.

So if I typed in dog collars into my search engine, the title from above and my meta tag description would show in my search results. Make sure you put some thought into your title.

This rule also applies to your meta tag description which is also viewed when a search engine pulls up your site. Make it only one or two keyword rich sentences. The meta tag keyword has less impact today then it did a few years ago, but I still recommend adding a few keywords. Don’t go overboard and write out 50 keywords or your site will be considered spam to the search engines.

Most websites that are designed today rely heavily on graphical content and not much else. Another tip on keyword placement is to try to place a keyword rich sentence near the very top of your page. Some people have spots for banners and such at the top of their pages, this is the same kind of idea and can be made to look pretty and not out of place. This is important because the search engine robots start at the top of your page and work down. The closer to the top of the page you have keywords the more the search engines will think your page is relevant.

**A Frontpage Trick**

Search engine spiders will look at a block of text and if any words or phrases are typed in an H1 size then they consider that phrase to be of the utmost importance to the page. This is a great place to have a keyword look very important to the search engines.

Now for those of you who don’t know, an H1 size is pretty big and would definitely stand out on your page and can oftentimes look a little ugly. There are ways around this if you know CSS well, but if you are designing your site yourself and have no clue what CSS even is then I can help you.

*This tip is only for those of you who are using Frontpage as your web editor.*

You can show the search engines that the text is in an H1 size, but then change the size of the text back down to whatever size you want instead. Here’s how you do it.

In Frontpage select the text you want to use and set it to an H1 size. Then go over to the font size drop down and change it to whatever size you want to use. It’s that easy.

Now one drawback to using this technique is that there will be empty space around the phrase that is designated as an H1 size. Basically it is still taking up the same amount of room it normally would, it just doesn’t look so blatantly obvious. This technique is best used for titles of paragraphs or break points in paragraphs, so that it won’t look weird to your visitors.

**The ALT Tag**

This design tip is a pretty clever way to get an extra keyword or two into your site. The ALT tag is an HTML tag that is used when you want to give a written description for a graphic element on the page. It was designed initially so that if someone couldn’t download your pictures, they could see an alternative description in text describing the picture.

Instead of describing the picture you can place a keyword in the alt tag instead. Here’s an example of what the HTML code would look like.

img border=""0"" src=""myimage.jpg"" width=""640"" height=""150"" alt=""keyword phrase""

These are just a few proven techniques when designing your site to improve your search engine ranking.

About the author: Leah West

http://www.westmarketing-design.com Providing complete search engine optimized website design and internet marketing services for your small business success. Sign up for my Fr*ee ezine at http://www.westmarketing-design.com/ezinesubscribe.htm

Website Promotion: 10 Search Engine Optimization Blunders to Avoid

Author: Michael Murray, VP of Fathom SEO

If you want to develop a successful search engine optimization (SEO) strategy, go out of your way to avoid blunders that limit search engine rankings.

Here are 10 to keep in mind:

1. Don't use frames. Why would you want to use frames if SEO is important? Don't risk confusing the search engine spiders, which happens often with frameset sites. Sure, you can write scripts or adjust the content to work within frames, but you probably have better things to do with that time and energy.

2. Don't use Flash. Everyone agrees--Flash looks awesome. But it also slows down the user experience and Flash makes it tough to get ranked. The Flash future looks bright for the ability of search engines to read some keywords, but what good will this serve if site pages lack visible, readable text?

3. Don't skimp on title tags. Why would you simply call a page About Us in the title tag when this meta data occupies prime SEO real estate? Always include effective search phrases that reflect the content within title tags.

4. Don't overstuff title tags. Limit titles to 70 characters, with commas between phrases in EVERY title tag; use fewer characters on pages with limited content.

5. Don't bury text. Design often gets in the way of Text. Make sure your visible text is located high on the page.

6. Don't use graphics as page headers. Graphic headers are a waste of space, and thus of time, when it comes to SEO. Use text as page headers and support them by utilizing strategic keywords - in the header, after the header or below the header.

7. Don't use the wrong words. Website owners love one-word search terms because they seem to get lots of traffic. The reality is that only a fraction of Internet users entering a broad search word want what you have to offer. Go for search terms using two, three or four words that will help visitors qualify their interests.

8. Don't ignore link building. Hunt down links from other websites that have content and categories that relate to what you offer. If you sell sweaters, find a specialty guide about sweaters or a portal about clothing.

9. Don't overwhelm your pages with keywords. You might not write the same keyword in succession 10 times, but you can make the mistake of too much repetition. Mention your strategic search term several times throughout the page, but promise yourself not to force its use too much.

10. Don't use long URLs. If you use a database to maintain the website, you may end up with long URLs with several session IDs and parameters that produce many question marks and equal signs. These lengthy URLs can hinder search engines from properly indexing the pages. Work with your developer so as to limit them or to remove them altogether as much as is possible.

About the author: Michael Murray is vice president of Fathom SEO, a Cleveland Ohio-based SEO firm. A member of Search Engine Marketing Professional Organization (SEMPO), he also authored the white paper, ""Search Engine Marketing: Get in the Game."" michael@fathomseo.com

How to Top Google with Article PR

Author: Glenn Murray

Search engines determine their rankings based on two things: Is your site relevant? (Optimized for certain keywords) Is your site important? (Many links back to your site from other sites)

Only when you address both of these considerations are you guaranteed of making an impact. Your degree of success depends on how hard you try and how many other people you're competing against (and how hard they're trying).

Optimizing your site for keywords is the easy part. (See

Writing SEO Copy for more information on SEO copy.) Generating links back to your site is much more challenging - and time consuming (especially considering Google's dampening link filter - see

Beat Google's Dampening Link Filter with SEO Articles ). But it can be done; and you don't need a huge budget.

The key to topping Google on a budget is article PR.

Here's how article PR works...

STEP 1) You're an expert in your field so you possess knowledge that other people want.

STEP 2) You write a helpful article - sharing your hard-earned knowledge and expertise.

STEP 3) You submit your article to recognized ""Article Submit"" sites on the Internet.

STEP 4) Publishers of online newsletters, ezines, etc. gather content from these sites for free.

STEP 5) Helpful, well written articles are snapped up by thousands of publishers from all around the world.

STEP 6) The only condition is that they must publish the article with a functioning link to your site.

STEP 7) 300 people publish your article - you get 300 links back to your site.

Below are some FAQs about article PR writing that will help you write your articles and manage your article PR campaign.

Q) What should I write about?

A) Write about what you know. Make sure it's related to your business (so you can use the keywords you want to rank with) and helpful (so it gets published). For example, if you're a manufacturer of industrial plastics, you might write an article - or series of articles - on how best to handle teflon tubing prior to installation. Once you get thinking about it, you'll probably find there are hundreds of articles you could write that are helpful. You may even have some of them partly written already in your instruction manuals or installation guides, etc. Another good idea is to think of all the questions you get asked by customers and potential customers. These questions show you what people are interested in. If you write an article answering every one of these questions, you'll get published, and you'll also show yourself to be a credible expert. (You may even cut down phone support time!)

Q) How long should my article be?

A) The best articles are only as long as they need to be. Keep it short and sweet - there's nothing wrong with a 400 word article. By the same token, if you need 1500 words to say all you need to say, that's fine as well.

Q) What kind of writing should I use?

A) Simply write in a style that your audience will be comfortable with. If they're from the old school, don't write like I am. Don't use contractions, don't end sentences with prepositions, and don't start sentences with ""and"" or ""but"". But if they're not old school, just use conversational English. In fact, the more of yourself you include in the article, the more engaging it will be. The key is to make it readable.

Q) Should I focus on keywords?

A) Yes! Yes! Yes! Any SEO website copywriter will tell you that just as you need to optimize your website for specific keywords, so too should you optimize your articles. If possible, turn keywords into links back to your site. And always try to include keywords in the headline and byline of your article. And don't worry about being seen as Spam; if your article provides good quality information and guidance, it won't be seen as spam by the search engines even when it's very keyword rich.

Q) Where should I submit my article?

A) There are hundreds, if not thousands, of submit sites on the Internet. Too many to include here. Do a search for ""article submit"" and just find the ones that are most applicable to your industry and offer the most subscribers. Alternatively, you can purchase a list.

Q) Who will publish my article?

A) Generally people publish pre-written articles because they want ""eyes on paper"". In other words, they want to generate traffic to their site. Helpful articles are one way of doing that. It also sets them up as credible authorities on a particular subject. And it develops customer loyalty. There are hundreds of thousands of companies (maybe even millions) publishing online newsletters, ezines, and article pages. No matter what your industry, you're bound to find quite a few who are interested in what you have to say. In fact, once a few publishers recognise you as a good source of content, they keep coming back looking for more (and even email you asking if you can send them directly).

Q) How will I know when my article has been published?

A) As one of the conditions of publications, you can request that the publisher notifies you when they use your article. Of course, most don't bother to do this, so it's a good idea to set up a Google Alert which notifies you when your URL has been published on a web page. Google doesn't pick them all up, but it picks up a lot. Whenever you receive an alert, you make sure the article in unchanged and the link back to your site is functioning.

Q) Will the publisher change my article?

A) No, generally not. Changing articles is just extra work. In fact, that's why publishers like good articles and consistent content providers - because that means they don't have to do any extra work. I've had many articles published, and don't recall a single instance of an article being changed without my permission. If you're worried about it, you can include an instruction not to change the article in your conditions of publication.

Q) Can I get an SEO copywriter to do my article PR?

A) Yes. Any SEO copywriter should be able to write keyword rich articles and submit them to a number of high traffic article submit sites.

Q) What kind of information would I need to supply an SEO copywriter to write my article?

A) You'd need to tell your SEO copywriter something like, ""We want to write an article which helps people install teflon tubing. The kinds of people who'd be doing it are... They'd be doing it because... The benefits of our tubing are... The difficulties they'd face are... Here are the key steps to successful installation..."" Using this information, your SEO copywriter should be able to put together a very readable article which would be bound to get published.

Q) Will my reputation suffer if my article appears on a dodgy site?

A) It shouldn't. Most dodgy sites will be either unrelated or have very low traffic. If the site is unrelated, the publisher won't go to the effort of publishing your article. If it's related but has very low traffic, very few people will see your article there anyway. And besides, even if your article appears on a dodgy site, it probably won't be changed because - dodgy or not - publishers don't create extra work for themselves. So your original presentation, content, and intent will be unaffected. Write a good article, and it always reflects well on you, no matter where it's published.

Q) How long will it take for my ranking to increase?

A) There are no guarantees in SEO. It all takes time. For a start, the search engines can take up to 2 months to update their index of pages. And a single inbound link generally won't have much impact. Depending on how much competition you're facing for keywords, and where the links are coming from, 100 inbound links may not make much of a difference. (Links from high PageRank sites are more beneficial to your ranking - see

SEO Trade Secrets for more information on PR.) So don't expect anything to happen too quickly. But if you're dedicated, and you're prepared to write quite a few articles, you'll definitely see results within a few months.

Happy writing!

About the author: * Glenn Murray is an SEO copywriter and article submission specialist . He is a director of article PR company Article PR and also of copywriting studio Divine Write .

Keywords are for humans not search engines

Author: Ant Onaf

It seems keywords are making the top of SEO list time and time again. The problem is that some optimizers do not understand the rightful purpose of keywords. Keywords should not be solely embedded for the purpose of reaching the top of search engines. Search Engine Optimization should not be the primary focus of any website. The primary and number 1 focus should always be the visitors. If you create a website for your audience and for your visitors then you should rank fairly. I can't see why any legitimate website can not rank properly within search engines, after time and dedication. Search Engine Optimization main purpose is ranking faster within search engines. Instead of gaining a good balance of traffic within 1 or more years, it is possible to gain a good balance of traffic within 6-9 months with SEO.   Keywords play a major factor in SEO and search engines in general, but the question is are keywords for the search engines or the visitors? The visitors are the ones who are trying to find your site by typing in a keyword, but the search engine is the one locating your site and delivering your site to the visitor based on the searched keywords. Therefore I would have to say, keywords, visitors, and search engines all work hand in hand, but if you focus on the visitor and not the search engine, then you will reap greater rewards. A webmaster should have a plentiful of quality and researched keywords, which becomes the sites core. To receive a good balance of keywords you need to think like your visitors or know how your visitors think. It boils down to research and tracking your visitors. Tracking visitors on your site is business-wise and is not an unethical practice, it’s your website (business). In an offline business you are well aware when a visitor opens the door to your business and comes in the store, the same applies online. It becomes unethical when you continue to track visitors when they exit your site, when you invade visitors’ privacy, or when you intentionally collect personal information about a visitor without their consent or knowledge. Tracking a visitor within your site does not need to be intense, the common web log files are helpful enough. With the web log files you should be able to track the keyword used to find your website, track where a visitor came from to find your site (the referrer), track the total number of unique visitors, track the total number of all visitors, track how many pages were viewed, track the path visitors take within your site, and much more information is available through the web logs. There are many tools that can translate your raw web log files into graphical and legible text, such as: Nihuo or Web Log Expert which both offers a free log analyzer download as well as an inexpensive analyzer for more detailed stats and more features. There are other upscale web log analyzers which are mostly for enterprises or larger sites but are extremely detailed and rewarding, such as: Web Trends, Deep Matrix, or Urchin (which has recently been acquired by the search engine giant 'Google'). Knowing your visitors can only benefit your site. If you have a new website without any visits then you will not have the benefit of knowing your visitors and you will have to create your visitors habits, by using good judgment and research to determine which keywords best suits your site. Your best effort should provide you with at least 250 keywords and keyword phrases, depending on your site category.   Once you have tracked your visitors and/or have completed researching keywords, you are ready to make informed decisions and begin the process of elimination. Many argue to stay away from popular or general keywords because the market for popular and general keywords is flooded and over-crowded, you will never be able to compete. My sentiments exactly, but remember keywords are for humans not search engines...so yes, I recommend including popular and general keywords as long as the keyword(s) show room for opportunity. Meaning, it has been used by your visitors...as a solitaire keyword or within a keyword phrase. Creating keyword phrases is important because at least 95% of internet users search using keyword phrases, not many use one word. With that said, you should still include a few solitaire keywords. Use singular and plural expressions for keywords. Once you have gathered all your keywords make two lists, one list can be titled active keywords...keywords which you are currently using or plan to use in the near future. The second list can be titled inactive keywords...keywords which have been eliminated and may never be used. Eliminate keywords based on your research, visitor data, and site category. Regardless how general your site is try to have only one focus audience, this zooms in on your target, makes marketing the site easier, and more successful. When done eliminating you should have a plentiful of keywords and keyword phrases. Generally, the goal should be to have at least a combination of 100 keywords and keyword phrases. This number may be greater or lesser depending on your site category/niche market. Keyword research can be accomplished a number of ways. I would recommend using best judgment and sticking to your site topic. If your site is about “the rules of playing baseball” then anything pertaining to the rules of baseball should be included as keywords. Remember think like your visitors, if you were a visitor looking for 'the rules of baseball' how would you search...your search words would probably be something like ""rules of playing baseball""....""baseball playing rules""....""playing baseball rules""....rules of baseball""....""baseball rules""....""how to play baseball""....""baseball and the rules""...if your site contains the 'rules of baseball' then each of those keyword phrases will be sufficient for inclusion into your active keyword list. A few links that can help with keyword research are: NicheBot, Wordtracker, Google Keyword Tool, Digital Point Keyword Tool. Some of the main attributes which you want to research is how often the keyword/keyword phrase is searched for within search engines, how much competition there is for the keyword/keyword phrase, and if you are considering pay-per-click then you would probably like to know the average cost per click for each keyword/keyword phrase. You should not rely 100% on any of these reports or other reports from any third-party because there are many deterrence which may offset the reports, you should collect data from each of them and derive a census report which will allow you to make an informed decision.   Think about your visitors each step of the way when using keywords. Which keywords will catch their attention, directly or indirectly? Meaning, if a user searches for 'baseball rules' then when the search engine searches through billions of web pages...it should pull your web page into the results because you have a entire website dedicated to baseball rules and the entire site is centered around keywording. When the search engine crawls through the billions of web pages it should see that your web page title has ""baseball rules"" within the title, your meta-tag description has “baseball rules” within the description, your meta-tag keywords have “baseball rules” within the keywords, the link to the page is titled “baseball_rules.htm”, and the content on the web page itself has a proper amount of keyword density, basically, the keyword phrase ""baseball rules"" is plastered throughout the web page mostly leading towards the top of the page. I know most of what I have just mentioned is Search Engine Optimization practices and techniques, yes, that is true, but in actuality the entire process is for the visitors not the search engine. If you create your site easier for the search engine to find then the visitor will also find it easier and faster, but at all times it is important to keep the visitor in mind. Many SEO practicioners would include any keyword about baseball such as: ""baseball""...""major leagues""....""major league baseball""....""minor leagues""....""minor league baseball""....""atlanta braves""....""new york yankees""....""baseball players""….etc. Those keywords are for the search engines not the visitors. If a visitors enters ""atlanta braves"" as a search keyword and your link is displayed as an result the visitor will be disappointed when he clicks on your link and does not find any solid information pertaining to the ""atlanta braves""...instead he/she is greeted with ""baseball rules"". The visitor will immediately back out without referencing your site or indexing it for later retrieval because it does not pertain to their search quest. Once in a while you may become lucky and get someone who stays because it does mention baseball, but if you tracked conversions, it would surely sink, using this method. The better you target your visitors the more success you will have on the web. Properly using keywords to target your visitors and not the search engines will aid in more ways than one. It will create a healthy online circuit and greater chance for success. Imagine if each time you search the web...you had a perfect search! You only needed to search once, because exactly what you were looking for was found in the first results.

About the author: Ant Onaf is the owner and founder of www.JournalHome.com . He is an online internet marketer, web advertiser, and IT consultant. Ant Onaf has years of IT-related experience and Internet-related experience. His ingenuity, dedication, and passion for technology & internet marketing have made him a monumental icon in the World Wide Web. His blog can be visited at http://www.journalhome.com/AntOnaf

Estimation of Number of links for Each Keyword for Best Rankings

Author: Gagandeep Dhaliwal

Search Engine Optimization requires a systematic approach in which estimating the number of links for each keyword is not an easy task. Making a wrong estimate can burn big hole in your pocket and will not achieve the expected results in terms of Search Engine Placements as well.

There are various factors which one should consider to estimate this number.

1. The competition for the keyword. 2. Links pointing to the websites in Top 5 for Search Results for keyword. 3. Estimated Traffic numbers for keyword. 4. Quality of links you are planning to achieve.

I will now explain all this using an example.

Let us choose a keyword ""wedding favors""

1.)

If you make a Search on Google for this keyword, you will get the total number of results as 5,530,000.

2.)

At the time I am writing this article, the search results show http://www.favorsbyserendipity.com/ as # 1 result. For this website, there are 323 pages linking to their website as reported by Google, This can be found by making a search for word link:http://www.favorsbyserendipity.com/ on Google.

You can do a similar check for other websites that come in top 5 or top 10 results to get a firm idea.

3.)

To get estimated traffic for these keywords you can use a nice tool provided by digitalpoint. You can find it here http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion

4.)

Links are of two main types

a. one way links (considered more important these days) b. reciprocal links (considered less important these days)

Links Quality depends on various factors like relevance, page rank, number of outgoing links and frequency of caching of the web page on which your link is place. This will be discussed in details in next article.

I hope a new webmaster will get an overview about calculation on the number of links required for a specific keyword for Top Placements on Google and Yahoo.

About the author: About the Author: The author is a SEO professional with a website on SEO Concepts http://www.dncseo.com The company provides outsourcing services to many clients and SEO companies in UK and United States. You can learn more on his website http://www.gdtechindia.com

What to look for when shopping for a SEO specialist.

Author: Joe Balestrino

When, shopping for a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company/specialist you need to be aware of a few things.

If someone offers you fast results they may be pulling your leg. If you aren’t listed on search engines the average time to be index takes around 4 weeks. Someone offering submissions in less then that is coning you. Websites that are already listed and are just being updated will have a faster result.

A guarantee isn’t always reinsurance. Just because a site states they can get you in the #1 spot doesn’t mean they can deliver. Or, they may have you listed under an obscure keyword or phrase. Most legitimate SEO’s will tell you no one can guarantee a top spot on all keywords and phrases. Search Engine optimization is not an exact science. Trail and error along with constant tweaking will help bring your site closer to your goal.

Most SEO’s should give you some information on where your site stands currently. You links, keywords, where you rank on major search engines etc.. Or, do one yourself. My article “Google’s Helping hand” show you free tools that can help you evaluate where you are on search engines. Don’t go into any SEO work blindly. Know where you stand before and after.

Price is never an indication of how good a service is. More isn’t always better.

Shop around try to get the most for your money, but be realistic. If it seems too good to be true then it may just be. Be prepared to shell out some cash. SEO is not cheap. You should think of SEO as advertising. It should be contestant as should all of your advertising efforts.

Ask questions! Do not be afraid to ask what will be done to increase your ranking. Most SEO’s will have no problem telling you what they will do. They may not want to reveal their whole SEO operation. But, they will give you some insight to what they will do. Talk to more then one SEO company. Compare what each has to say. Do some research on your own. Find out if these companies have been reported to the Better Business Bureau. If the company or persons have had any articles or reviews written about them. Ask around. Try to have some idea of the company or persons creditability.

A few additional things to keep in mind are:

Is SEO there main business or is it a sideline to other businesses. SEO is a full time job. Especially, keeping up with the constant changes. Do they have a specialist? Do they outsource? How much do they really know? What are there view points on link farms and doorway pages? Will they do anything to get you links and traffic? Even though search engines frown on those practices. Can they explain to you clearly how their plan of action? Are they looking to take small steps with you? Or, are they trying to sell you the biggest SEO package possible?

Follow this outline when you are searching for someone to optimize your site. In the end it will be worth it.

About the author: Joe Balestrino’s site is www.mr-seo.com he offers affordable SEO, submissions and other articles on SEO and marketing. His other site www.jnb-design.com offers affordable web design and free lifetime hosting.

Search Engine Optimization For Google

Author: SEO Expert

A group of Google employees have recently filed a patent application (#20050071741) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office which gives insight into how to optimize one’s website to do well in the Google rankings. The filing of the patent gives verification that Google uses or intends to use historical data in its ranking algorithm. This patent also gives credence to the Google Sandbox Theory for new websites.

Under the Google Sandbox Theory, new websites are placed in a sort of holding tank for observation for a period of time (6 – 9 months at present) until the website has proved that it’s not a fly-by-night operation. Once the Sandbox period is over, then new websites will climb rapidly in the rankings. The Google Sandbox Theory is an unofficial theory based on observation and anecdotal evidence from those within the search engine optimization industry.

Based on the new Google patent here are the top 5 suggestions to better optimize a website for Google:

1.Build links slowly to your website. Websites that put up a bunch links quickly send up a red flag that links are being added in order to boost rankings. According to Google, natural links happen slowly over time, so one’s link-building strategy also needs to include link-building slowly over time. 2.The anchor text in the back links to a website also need to be natural as well. If a website has lots of great content of interest to visitors, other Webmasters will naturally link to the website. Content is still king when it comes to building natural links. In fact, having great content is the best natural linking strategy. 3.If content is king, then fresh content is prince. Google thrives on websites that are constantly adding fresh content. Websites with stale content erode in value over time. 4.When adding fresh content, make sure it is substantial. According to the patent, Google measures substantial versus insubstantial content that is being added to a website. Don’t try to trick the search engines with lots of minor content updates. 5.Outbound links to trusted, authority sites help in the rankings. As a reputable online business, it makes good business sense to refer customers to other reputable businesses as well. Referring customers to disreputable websites only hurt a business’s reputation and credibility and Google takes this into account when deciding how to rank websites.

There are more insights to be gained from the patent application, but these are the highlights that will help Webmasters and SEO’s focusing on Google to achieve higher rankings. Many of these ideas have been stated before as theory and now the patent application verifies these theories. Historical data has always been thought to play a significant role in the Google rankings. So now that it has been confirmed, taking action seems to be the next logical step.

About the author: SEO Expert is a search engine optimization company geared to achieve high rankings for customer websites.

The Basics of Asking for a Reciprocal Link

Author: David Bell

Asking another webmaster for a reciprocal link is standard practice on the Internet. Webmasters have been asking other webmasters for reciprocal links since the beginnings of the Internet. The very nature of the web is linking websites to one another. It is of even higher importance, now that AltaVista and others have changed their ranking algorithms. If a webmaster considers your email spam, then he can report you. If your emails are unique, without commercials, and are personalized with unique personal information about the webmaster's web site that you are emailing, then it would be hard to call your email spam. All webmasters must be responsible in their asking for reciprocal links. This includes following simple rules and guidelines in choosing web sites to include in your link directory. Organizing a Tightly-Themed Vertical Link Directory Reciprocal links do increase your search engine positioning if used properly.Tightly-Themed Link Directories get high ratings from search engine robots, but only if they are true resources of organized knowledge. Search engines are getting very smart in their query result rankings. They include all kinds of advanced calculations pertaining to how the links point to you and away from you. They can include keywords in their algorithms, and now they know how tightly linked your Themes or subjects are. Don't try to fool them into better positioning by including a lot of web sites that are outside your web site's real Themes in your Link Directory. Your Link Directory's Themes must match the Themes of your web site. You must not let your zeal to email, and perhaps get a reciprocal link overpower your need to create a true web resource. You don't want to create a directory that includes all the knowledge of mankind and also sounds like a soft drink. You should be happy with organizing a tightly Themed Vertical Link Directory. Be the best in your area, linking only sites that relate to you. A smaller, tightly-themed Link Directory will grow much faster than a diluted, loosely-themed, large bulky one. Your web site's traffic will quickly increase, not only with visitors from your Reciprocal Link partners but will also increase from Search Engine visitors, once their robots quickly find your Link Directory pages through your Link Partners! Email General Guidelines If you are including web sites in your Link Directory just because you want to send an email and possibly get a link, then you are spamming in mind and spirit. The webmaster who receives this kind of email is not a happy camper. He or she is proud of his achievements in creating traffic to his site over the last few years, perhaps millions of hits every month, only to receive an email asking him to link to a web site that in no way can remotely match his web site or be useful for his visitors. This is spam. Remember the phrase reciprocal links? Please change it to Reciprocal Themed Links. This is important ! DO NOT commercialize your email in any way. It shouldn't look like spam or people will think it is. Do not include ANY links in your email signature area except links to your web site. Keep it short and to the point. Ask for a reciprocal link and that's it. This message should only be a few lines, and not a long narrative with rules and guidelines. Save that for your information on your link directory. Use a unique email reciprocal link message. It is possible for webmasters to receive the same basic message from another webmaster. Each reciprocal link request MUST look different by being fresh and original. Do not use Let's Trade Links as your subject. Let's trade Links is probably the most used email subject line on the Internet today, as there are thousands of webmasters using this phrase. If you keep this subject line, then you are sending the same one as everyone else. It will not be accepted or worse, it will look like spam. Personalize every email message Include a personal comment in the email message to each of your selected email addresses. You could include something like: ""I really like the animations you had on your home page."", "".. and loved your background image"" or ""I loved the content on ...... page"". This personal comment should prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that you personally visited their web site. Use logic when selecting those to receive an email. Before you can send a reciprocal link request, you need to explore their web site to decide if you want to include them in your link directory. You need to also use some thought in who you send a message to. A super large web site will probably not trade links with you in the beginning, perhaps you should save those for later. If you cannot find a links page, they are not going to trade links either. Think before sending email. I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.

About the author: David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at http://www.wspromotion.com/ , a leading Search Engine Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.

Award double-whammy for bigmouthmedia

Author: Heather Luscombe

Bigmouthmedia, the award-winning Search Engine Marketing Company, today scooped a second award in just two weeks when it picked up a ‘Best Performing Company’ award at the Business Excellence Awards run by the Edinburgh Evening News.

The agency beat off stiff competition from other Scottish companies to win the award which was announced at a lunchtime ceremony in the Scottish capital on Friday.

Steve Leach, bigmouthmedia’s MD said “We’re delighted to pick up our second Business Excellence Award, and our second award in under a fortnight. Edinburgh has a wealth of business talent so we’re very proud to have come out top. This has already been an amazing year for bigmouthmedia with a five-fold increase in turnover predicted this year. It’s fair to say that business is booming. I’d like to say a big a big ‘thank you’ to my excellent team. It’s all down to them really”

The award comes at an exciting time for bigmouthmedia, in a year which has already seen the company double the team based at their Edinburgh headquarters, and win the public and industry vote for ‘Best Use of Search’ at the prestigious digital marketing awards, the Netimperatives.Bigmouthmedia is based in Leith, Edinburgh, with offices in London and Madrid, and is headed up by Steve Leach and Lyndsay Menzies.

The company specialises in search engine marketing for big brands – boasting an impressive list of clients, including Sony PlayStation, the Bank of Scotland, Marks and Spencer, British Airways, Sony Ericsson, King Sturge, National Express, Laura Ashley and MTV.

Bigmouthmedia doubled its turnover in the year to October 2004 and is on course to see a five-fold increase in the current financial year.

Bigmouthmedia recently acquired established Search Marketing agency, optimiser.co.uk to operate under the bigmouthmedia umbrella, offering a cost-effective solution for smaller companies whilst using the same renowned bigmouthmedia ethical practices and benefiting from bigmouthmedia’s eight years at the forefront of the industry.

About the author: Bigmouthmedia are the leading provider of search engine and internet marketing in Europe.

An Introduction to ROR (Resources of a Resource)

Author: The Add Me Team

An Introduction to ROR (Resources of a Resource)

*** What is ROR? ROR (Resources of a Resource) is an XML format for describing the content, objects, and structure of websites in a generic fashion so search engines and other web applications can find and understand information more easily.

For example if your website is selling products, ROR enables you to document your product names, descriptions, prices, images, availability, affiliate programs, etc. Or if your site or blog provides information on a given topic, it allows you to describe how this information is organized (sitemap, topics, categories, new information, archive, blogroll, etc). ROR also provides terms for documenting objects such as contacts, articles, newsletters, feeds, images, audio, links, reviews, privacy policy, copyrights, and more.

*** ROR File ROR information can be easily added to your website by adding a ROR File called ror.xml. ROR is actually quite simple. It is built on top of RDF, the W3 Resource Description Language ( http://www.w3.org/RDF ). If you are not familiar with RDF, don't worry, I won't go into any details here.

With ROR, all objects are represented by a <Resource> tag, and can optionally have a <type> property to determine the type (or class) of the object (e.g. Product , Article , Event , etc). The other properties are typically determined by the type you choose. Here is a simple example of a product described by ROR: <Resource> <type>Product</type> <title>My Product</title> <desc>My great new product</desc> <url>http://www.my-web-site.com/my-product.htm</url> <price>19.95</price> <currency>USD</currency> </Resource> Pretty simple, isn't it? And if you want to describe other objects, ROR provides other types like Contact, Article, Feed, Event, etc. You can find the current list of object and their properties in the ROR Specification at http://www.rorweb.com/spec. htm .

Now let's see how to assemble several objects together in a ROR file. In a ROR file the meaning of information is determined by both the objects and the relationship between them. Depending how an object is linked to another object, it will provide a different meaning. To link two objects together the property <resourceOf> is used. Here is an example: <Resource rdf:about="object-1"> <title>Object 1</title> ... </Resource>

<Resource> <title>Object 2</title> ... <resourceOf rdf:resource="object-1" /> </Resource>

<Resource> <title>Object 3</title> ... <resourceOf rdf:resource="object-1" /> </Resource> The first object uses the rdf:about attribute to identify itself so it can be referenced elsewhere. The <resourceOf> property is then used to attach the second and third objects to the first. Attaching the two objects to the first one is a way to say that they contain information that relates to or further describes that object.

That's pretty much it! Now that you know the essential about ROR, let's create a simple ROR file. Again I won't go into the details of RDF, but let's just say this; since ROR is built on top of RDF, it is enclosed in the <rdf:RDF> tag. Notice that the first object in this file has a type property set to Main . This designates it as the entry point into the data structure of the ROR file. <?xml version="1.0" ?> <rdf:RDF xmlns="http://rorweb.com/0.1/" xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#" >

<Resource rdf:about="mysite"> <type>Main</type> <title>My Website</title> <url>http://www.my-web-site.com</url> <desc>My great site with a ROR file to describe it</desc> </Resource>

<Resource> <type>Contact</type> <name>John Doe</name> <phone>555 1212</phone> <fax>555 1213</fax> <mobile>555 1214</mobile> <resourceOf rdf:resource="mysite" /> </Resource>

<Resource rdf:about="products"> <type>Product</type> <title>My Products</title> <url>http://www.my-web-site.com/myproducts.htm</url> <currency>USD</currency> <resourceOf rdf:resource="mysite" /> </Resource>

<Resource> <type>Product</type> <title>Product 1</title> <url>http://www.my-web-site.com/product1.htm</url> <image>http://www.my-web-site.com/product1.gif</image&gt ; <price>19.95</price> <resourceOf rdf:resource="products" /> </Resource>

<Resource> <type>Product</type> <title>Product 2</title> <url>http://www.my-web-site.com/product2.htm</url> <image>http://www.my-web-site.com/product2.gif</image&gt ; <price>29.95</price> <resourceOf rdf:resource="products" /> </Resource>

<Resource rdf:about="myfeeds"> <type>Feed</type> <title>My Feeds</title> <resourceOf rdf:resource="mysite" /> </Resource>

<Resource> <type>Feed</type> <title>Daily News</title> <url>http://www.my-web-site.com/dailynews</url> <updatePeriod>day</updatePeriod> <resourceOf rdf:resource="myfeeds" /> </Resource>

<Resource> <type>Feed</type> <title>Weekly News</title> <url>http://www.my-web-site.com/weeklynews</url> <updatePeriod>week</updatePeriod> <resourceOf rdf:resource="myfeeds" /> </Resource>

</rdf:RDF>

*** Extending ROR To make it easier to use, ROR provides a set of pre-defined objects. These are objects that are commonly used on websites ( Contact , Address , Webpage , Product , Feed , etc). But ROR is designed with simplicity and flexibility in mind, it can be easily combined with other vocabularies. As a simple example, let's say you want to describe a list of people. To do this you can combine ROR with the Friends of a Friend (FOAF at http://www.foaf-project.org ) vocabulary. Here is what you would get: http://www.rorw eb.com/examples/members.xml . And of course you can also add terms from the Dublin Core vocabulary ( http://www.dublincore.org ).

*** ROR Tools The ROR website ( http://www.rorweb.com ) offers several tools to help you create a ROR file. The ROR File Editor makes it easy to create and update a simple ROR file without any coding. The File Reader allows you to create a ROR file from a tab-delimited text file with your products, articles, links, or contacts information. This tools can also read a Froogle product feed or a Yahoo Shopping feed. Finally, the ROR Explorer allows you to drill down into the information of a ROR file.

Happy RORing!

About the author: The Add Me Team Search Engine Submission and Optimization http://www.addme.com . You may reprint this article on your website, blog, newsletter, or magazine.

Search Engines Without Hats

Author: Mike Katz

That there is really no good argument that all forms of SEO are not manipulation to some degree. And since it is this manipulation that is the general argument against gray or black-hat seo techniques, it seems that all forms of seo can be viewed as unacceptable depending on whom you ask.

When does page text density become stuffing? when does use of variations of your keyword become irrelevant page text that is off topic from what the site is about?

The fact that this is completely opinionated leaves me to wonder how it is a program is left to determine the color of every page it encounters. It seems that human interaction is truly the intelligent approach to relevance, though it is clearly inefficient for such a fast growing Internet.

Common defenses seemed to be WHITE: Working together with the search engines to maintain its integrity and relevance. Keeping the most minimal seo and using on page arrangements that fit the terms of each engine keep results accurate by not clouding the job of the spiders and ranking systems.]

The major issue with this I see is competition and commerce will create constant stepping over the lines and we arrive back at the shades of gray issue.

BLACK: Presents the view of search engines as the enemy and they it is their responsibility to adjust to the changes of the competing masses. I fond myself ""closer"" to this line of thinking. It is my belief that this relationship should be viewed as a shared responsibility. The search engines providing information about what they hold important and provide some solid consistency so as not to undermined our efforts as seo.

In return, and equally important is or sides view to keep important the lines which are to be crossed and the ones which are not. Referrer spam, redirects on irrelevant pages, and pages built for no other purpose but to clog the serps with affiliate advertising do not help this ""give and take"" survive.

I am not of the school that we owe the SE's anything, since they get far wealthier with the content of users pages, than we get with the content of their site. I do understand when optimization crosses into detrimental to all of our use of the engine. I do believe some joint efforts will benefit all of us for the longest stretch of time. It seems to me that longevity is the best goal for any webmaster.

Read and learn the obvious factors in that way web pro world is a good place to start on that front.

Submit your articles and remember that online word of mouth is written in text. Word of mouth is a huge effort in any marketing, and online the words of your mouth are typed. Charlotte homes and Lake Norman Real Estate are two current projects

I say pick your team, but we all come out gray in the wash.

About the author: Active On webproworld and SEO1.net, Mike Katz is three years full time online and enjoying the education of trial and error.

Recent project includes Articles and Search Keyhole

Search Engines: Tips and Strategies on Getting Listed and Ranking High for Newbies

Author: Theresa Carter

You’ve got a website. You’ve put countless hours into it, tweaking the look and feel and making sure all the links work. The bad news is there are a gazillion other websites out there. The good news is there are many things you can control to make sure your site isn’t lost in the morass of dot coms.

One of the most important is showing up in the search engines, and getting listed in the top 20 for your subject. This article covers the steps you can take within your site.

First things first: Just like there’s no “get rich quick”, there’s also no “get listed quick” (unless you pay for it).

Getting top listings in the search engines is an accomplishment. It gets you traffic and it gets you credibility. You can buy sponsored listings – you can’t buy credibility.

Always Remember: Search engines base their usefulness on the quality of the results they give. You want people who are searching for your product to find your site; they want people who are searching for your product to find relevant sites. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about making sure you both get what you want.

SEO requires many steps. They pay off, but not immediately. Once you’re “spidered” you’ll see the effects of changes you make pretty quickly, but getting “spidered” (sorry to all the arachnophobes) can take awhile.

Spidered: Search engines search sites throughout the entire World Wide Web (if that sounds a lot like Sally searching for seashells by the seashore, it’s intentional). But, to search for your site, they have to know you’re there. So, these benevolent spiders send their hairy arms searching through the Web and whatever sticks to their spindly legs they keep.

If you create a web these spiders might want to visit, this process gets you a more desirable string on their web. You want to create a spa for spiders.

Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

Think about it: how do you search for something on the Internet? You put in a few words that say succinctly what you’re searching for, i.e. downtown Chicago restaurants.

So, when you design or revamp your site, consider the keywords anyone would use to find what you offer. The beauty of the Internet is the ability to target niche markets. You don’t need a gazillion hits a month. You need people who are searching for YOUR product to find YOUR site. To illustrate the above example: if you search for “downtown Chicago restaurants” in Google, TheLocalTourist.com is the first listing. If you look for “Chicago Restaurants” it’s aways down the list. But that’s perfect. Because The Local Tourist only lists restaurants in downtown Chicago. If The Local Tourist had a high listing for Chicago Restaurants, then someone looking for a place to eat in one of the outlying neighborhoods would be disappointed, and we don’t want that.

By focusing on your niche keywords, on your target market’s desires, you’re forced to evaluate what you have to offer and the best way to present it. When you designed your product or service, you (hopefully) had the end-user in mind. So you know what they want.

As you’re starting out, don’t use the most popular keywords; use ones that don’t get as many searches because there won’t be as much competition. You’re just trying to establish a presence. A good resource to find the popularity of keywords is http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. Type in the keywords you think people would use to find your work and this tool will show you how many people have searched for it in the previous month through Overture. Google searches are approximately 12x that number.

Scope Out Your Competition

Go to your favorite search engines and type in your chosen keywords. Now visit the top three for each set of keywords from each search engine. Try to figure out how they got such high listings.

An easy way to keep track of this reconnaissance work is to create a simple spreadsheet and use a different worksheet for each search term. You’ll want to have a row for each of the following:

1. Search term

2. Search engine

3. Your ranking: a. If I’m not in the top 50, I simply write that. b. Add a date next to the ranking so you can track your movement up the listings

4. Overture traffic (number of times term was searched for last month)

5. Repeat the following 3 times, for the top 3 listings: a. Listing URL b. Title c. Description d. Keywords

When you visit each of your competitor’s sites, you’re going to use a wonderful tool called Source Code. Copy and paste their URL into your spreadsheet, then in your browser click on View…Source. A new window opens with their HTML. (I always feel a little dirty when I do this, like I’m a voyeur or a spy, which I guess I am. That being said, it’s completely legit.)

Now that you’re seeing all their dirty laundry, you’re going to look for their Meta Tags, which will be at the top of the code.

Meta Tags are the code in the HTML that visitors don’t see but search engines do. They used to be the main way to get listed, but search engines have gotten smarter since abusers were loading up their tags with irrelevant keywords. They aren’t nearly as important as they used to be, but the Title and Description tags are still vital. Many search engines use the title for the listing and the description for, well, the description. If your tags are relevant to your content, they don’t hurt and do help with some.

Find the tags for Title, Description, and Keywords. Simply look for “title”, “description” and “keyword” at the top of the source code.

1. The title uses the main keywords potential customers use to find sites. For example, TheLocalTourist’s home page title is “Downtown Chicago Restaurants, Bars and Nightclubs, Shopping, Events, Things To Do”. This title highlights the areas of the site where I want to receive search engine rankings based on the number of searches on those terms.

2. The description is where sites give their metaphorical “sound-byte”. The trick is to pick keywords and write a compelling, succinct description without sounding like you’re trying to use all your keywords. Gee, it sounds so easy.

3. The keyword meta tag is simply a listing, separated by commas, of all the keywords people would use to find a site. They should be different for each page because the content is different. ONLY use keywords that represent your content. Don’t go crazy and don’t use the same ones too many times.

Copy their tags and place them in the appropriate rows in your spreadsheet.

Now go back to the page itself and read through it. Take note of how they use their keywords in their content. It’s a good idea to print each one.

Finally, gather your spreadsheets and your competitor’s site print-outs and pull the keywords and descriptions that reflect your site’s content. Analyze how they present their information.

This process is time consuming, but it forces you to take a look at your competition. It also, of course, makes sure your site is search engine friendly and therefore potential-visitor friendly.

Step By Step Optimization

Now it’s time to really get down to business.

Change your file names to include the most relevant keywords for each page. You can’t do that with the home page since it has to be something like “index”, but you can name the other pages on the site with the relevant keyword for each page. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. Pick one or two so the file name isn’t too long.

Write a title (not a meta tag, a real title) for each page as close to the top of the page as possible using the best keywords to describe the content. Format it as Header 1. (Most HTML editors have an easy way to format text without going into the code if you’re unfamiliar with HTML.) You’re putting it at the top of the page because search engines read like we do: left to right, top to bottom. This placement and the header formatting is a flag stating that “This is what the page is about”.

Within the content of each page, include a blurb that uses as many keywords as possible without being annoying or redundant. Make your keywords bold, but only once. A good, brief example is the Things to Do page http://www.thelocaltourist.com/ThingsToDo.htm. This is one of the most frequently visited pages on The Local Tourist from search engines.

Make sure every picture has an “alt tag” (alternate). That’s the text that shows up while the picture is loading. Search engines can’t “read” pictures, so the alt tags show them what the picture is about. On most HTML editors you add the alt tag in picture properties.

Use your hard-earned knowledge from spying to create your own meta tags. Tailor your competitors’ usage for your own site. (Learning how to implement meta tags is beyond the scope of this article, but you can do a web search for “meta tag tutorial” to find plenty of help.)

Ta da! You now have a website that’s ready to be submitted to the search engines. It's a good idea to check your rankings on a regular basis and track them with your spreadsheets. Remember, this is not an instant process. The absolute best way to get impressive rankings is to have a content-rich quality site that addresses your target market’s needs.

About the author: Theresa Carter is the creator, publisher, and search engine optimizer of The Local Tourist, a free online guide to downtown Chicago. Find restaurants, bars, spas, salons, events, attractions, shopping, media, transportation, articles about Chicago and more. ttp://www.thelocaltourist.com

Google Patent Application - SEO Highlights

Author: Halstatt Pires

The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:

“A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data.”

The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights that you should consider for your SEO efforts.

Update Your Site

Updating your site is important when it comes to maximizing your rankings on Google. In addition to the manipulation of keyword density and meta tags, the patent application reveals that Google places significant value on how often your content is updated. The more often you update, the timely and relevant your site will appear to Google. In turn, this leads to higher rankings.

To appease mighty Google, consider the following plan of action:

1. Update pages frequently, 2. Add new pages to your site, 3. Interlink the new pages with others on your site, and 4. Add new pages on a weekly basis instead of all at once.

When Google returns to the site, you want to make sure that there is new content. The high rankings of blog sites are evidence of this approach.

Google’s Looking at Your Domain

In a new twist, Google claims that it analyzes the number of years of domain registration as part of the ranking process. The application suggests that domains that are registered for longer periods of time are given more value because such a commitment shows the site is not a fly-by-night jump page. It is recommended that you extend all domain registrations for as long as possible as part of your search engine optimization efforts. It is difficult to tell how much the registration process impacts the ranking process, but every little bit helps.

Google claims that it also digs deeper into domain names to evaluate the legitimacy of the site. Factors in the evaluation include the web host and the “who is” information. According to the patent application, Google maintains a database of hosts that facilitate spamming of the Google search engine. While such hosts are not detailed in the application, pray to God that you are not using one. You should evaluate your host if your optimization efforts are not producing results.

If your search engine optimization efforts for Google are failing, the patent application may provide answers. Talk about a perfect E-book!

About the author: Halstatt Pires is with Halstatt Pires is with Marketing Titan - an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.

The Secret of Search Engine Optimization

Author: Peter Faber

How to do search engine optimization is one of the best kept secrets in the world. Even though you would think it is all out there in forums and other websites, when you try to figure it out, you will find you can’t find the forest for the trees.

Let me put it plain and simple. The secret of search engine optimization is not about keywords, or titles, or meta keyword tags, or meta descriptions, or heading tags, or keyword density, or alt attributes, or what ever other on-the-page factor you can find. Even links aren’t the secret.

The real secret of search engine optimization is Harmony!

Harmony between all the factors I just mentioned and many more other factors as well. And that is exactly why it is not easy to find a great SEO company for your website. Every SEO can talk about the importance of a title, or any of the other factors, but try finding one that talks about how it all works together.

Harmony is the real power of SEO and it needs to be supported by lots of hard work, especially focused on link building. But here too harmony comes into play.

Many SEO’s that I talk with about harmony tell me that of course I am right and that it is so obvious it isn’t worth mentioning. But the truth is that not that many people (SEO’s included) are able to bring real harmony to their pages and website.

Putting keywords in title, meta keywords, meta description and heading tags, that’s easy. But that’s just the most basic form of harmony in a web page. Just think of how keywords fit into text found in the title, description, heading tags and the copy. Should you just place the keywords in there somehow, or may it be better to be a bit more considerate when choosing what to write in all these places?

What about topical structure? Is your site completely structured according to a logical topical structure? There are so many indirect factors that are as powerful as link building. And it is hardly possible to put it into words as it is more an art than a science to get it right.

About the author: Peter Faber is the Implementation Director of http://www.i-brane.com; a search engine optimization company located in Brazil with a focus on Brazil, the USA and Europe. He also has his own SEO Blog in http://www.seo-works.com.

SEO Basics (Keyword Research)

Author: Dane Lyons

Definitions: SEO (Search engine optimization): The process of building a website to pull the maximum amount of relevant traffic from search engines such as Google, Yahoo, MSN, Ask Jeeves… Keyword Research: The process of researching terms to be used in SEO for a given website.

The first step to successful SEO is always keyword research. Without it you are shooting from the hip. If, for example, you would like to create a website about cooking you could optimize your site for the generic “cooking” term but how well is that going to perform? Well according to Overture there are 8,233.8 searches /day for “cooking” sounds good right? Not exactly…in order to rank high for this term you would have to compete with high end websites such as cooking.com and foodtv.com. Now that might be your ultimate goal but if you are just starting there is little to no chance you will be ranked high enough to receive any traffic for the term. If you were to do a little keyword research you might find more specific terms with much less competition like italian cooking 344.3 /day or crock pot cooking 253.5 /day. Now obviously the number of daily searches is much less with these terms but your chances or ranking will be much greater. Its always a good idea to start off with several low competition terms and as your site builds start optimizing for the larger terms.

Step 1: Create a list of related terms Open an excel spreadsheet and start making a list of all major industry terms and buzz words related to your site in one column. The list doesn’t need to be extremely detailed quite yet so don’t add part numbers, brand names or several variations of each term. For example if we want to remain on the cooking theme our list might look something like this. Cooking, chef, cutlery, foods, meat, dairy, wine, seasoning, poultry, fish, dining…(simple generic terms)

Step 2: Expand the list Now its time to start adding all those 2, 3 and 4 term combinations along with other very specific terms related to your site. For this we will employ a few web applications to speed up the process. http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion and http://nichebot.com are two of the best free tools at your disposal. Simply type in your first generic term and the tool will list several related terms. Add each new relevant term to your spreadsheet. Do this with each generic term and you should end up with a list of at very least 50 possible terms to optimize for.

Step 3: Find your primary and secondary keywords Now go to nichebot and type in each of your terms. Look for the “COUNT” and “RATIO”. (listed to the right of each term) Plug these into your database in the second and third column next to the corresponding terms. Once you have completed this step go through your list and seek out the terms with the highest count and the lowest ratio. Take the top 5-10 terms and place them into a separate list. These will be your primary keywords. You will use these in the optimization of the top pages of your site. Then take the remaining list and alphabetically order it from lowest to highest ratio. (there should be a tool in your spreadsheet to do this automatically for you) These will be your secondary keywords.

That’s it! You now know the basics of keyword research. I’m sure you are asking “what now?”. Well there is quite a bit more to learn. You are going to need to know on-site and off-site optimization and various methods and tools available to you for these tasks. You will need to learn the difference between “white hat” and “black hat” SEO which basically outlines what is acceptable and what is not acceptable in terms of SEO. So stay tuned for my next article. I will take you through the process step by step. By the end there will be no need to hire greedy SEO firms for something you can do for a fraction of the cost.

About the author: Dane Lyons is the creator and webmaster of Lucid Aura Web Design , 7Seeker The Article Archives and Lyons Craft

Search Engine Optimization for Affiliate Marketers

Author: Ian Mcintosh

There are no secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines because effective search engine optimizations are now immense. What is search engine optimization? Before we discuss that thing, you have to understand first how search engines work and a bit of know-how.

Search engines are into providing their users with the most relevant and up-to-date information to match the search term that was used. They are sophisticated pieces of technology which allow users to quickly find relevant websites by searching for a word or a phrase. Search engine results are useless to users if the information doesn't relate to the search term, or if the results are old. People expect the most up-to-date and fresh information that is useful to them.

Updating your website everyday and adding some materials will help you get noticed by the search engines. So, if you are going to sell any type of product or service online, you have to optimize your website for the search engines, in order to boost traffic and sales. It is because over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. And for that reason, it is absolutely important to optimize your site for search engines for you to have the greatest deals in the entire world.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process by which webmasters or online business owners utilize strategic copy to augment their website's status. It is certain that the internet has grown so fast over the years and the competition for the best search engine position has created an enormous market. Therefore, better understanding the fundamental elements of Search Engine Optimization is vital for an online business' success.

Making use of effective search engine optimization techniques will improve the page rank of your website. There are many tricks that can be used to increase page rank; the most effective method is to provide high quality content consistently. This seems like a simple concept but there are many websites that fails to provide content that visitors find interesting. Sites which provide content that are interesting, well-written and regularly updated create highly engaged visitors who are more likely to return to the website in the coming days. So, if you can set your website apart from those boring, lifeless sites then do it. You'll surely have a step closer to achieving high page rank through search engine optimization.

The next significant factor for an effective search engine optimization is to include keywords and phrases within your content. To make sure that you are properly targeting your market, you have to make sure that the keywords and phrases you have on your site are the keywords and phrase that your site is actually optimized for. The more keywords you use in your content, the more likely it is that online visitors will find your site when they do some research with those words. If you are unfailing with these techniques, then your overall search engine optimization will increase, boosting your page rank.

You should also have to develop a linking strategy as a part of your search engine optimization. Not only does this provide free advertising for your site, but it makes the impression that your site is imperative because of its affiliated links. For each link that you have pointing back to you, that is another chance for your potential customer to find you. The more inbound links that you have pointing to your site, the higher you will be ranked in the search engines.

Another is to develop a content stratagem. People who get to search from the internet are looking for information. The more information you provide for them and the more helpful it is, the more likely you will make the sale. Writing articles is the most effective way to build up content for your site. When writing articles to post on your site, make sure that you develop a clear means of arranging their content. You can do this by simply adding a new page to your site. This will allow room for extra articles to be added as you write them, and will allow you to build up an archive of articles which will maintain to draw online visitors. Make sure also that you have included your archived articles in a directory that is next to the root web of your site so that the search engines will catalog your online articles.

Always keep in mind that search engine optimization methods are important in developing your site's status. With that thing in mind, make sure that you write high-quality, keyword rich content and link your site to and from a deliberate family of other sites. These things will help improve your site's popularity and coerce increased business through your online business.

About the author: Ian Mcintosh is the proud owner of affiliatehq.co.uk which lists only the top affiliate programs

What you can expect from Search Engine

Author: David Bell

Search engines will be a way for you to generate from as little as 20% to as much as 60% of your business online (depending on what other marketing techniques you use). Since there are over 130,000,000 webpages in existence (yes that is 130 million!), it is extremely important to understand how they work and how to increase your chances of being placed in the top 20 of the search results. For example, if you were to type ""music"" and ""CD"" into the AltaVista search engine as a keyword the result would be over 1,000,000 related site URLs. Search engines are a very powerful tool if you are in the top 50 results (preferably the top 20), but are completely useless if you are listed further down. You can bet that if you are further down than the 50th result, the searchee will not even see your site listing, much less be able to visit it. As we all know, the beauty of search engines is that they can bring you a large amount of targeted traffic and it will not cost you a cent! It is crucial you understand the basics of how search engines work if you want to get traffic to your site from them. There are three main types of search engines/directories. The first is a directory (sometimes called a category database). This is not a true search engine, but a listing of webpages by category. Many directories allow you to enter in the description and keywords for your site exactly as you would like them to appear. You usually have to select the category you want it cited under, too. A directory will not list your URL and will never become aware of your site if you do not register with them. They do not make use of ""indexing software"" (robots that crawl the web looking for new sites and indexing them). An example of a directory is Yahoo. Search engines (also called crawlers, spiders, robots, and worms) vary to a large degree. They will automatically index your site using ""indexing software"" or ""indexing robots"". Depending on the complexity of the software, here is what different search engines might do: 1.Index the webpage (not the entire ""website"") you give them. 2.Index every word of every page at that site. 3.Visit external links to crawl through the web looking for any new sites 24 hours a day, 7 days a week going from URL to URL until they have visited every website that can be found on the Internet. By simply telling the search engine what your URL is, its software robot will go there automatically and index everything they need. Every search engine has different criteria for returning search results which makes a difference on how you want to submit your site as it can drastically effect your ranking in search engines (we discuss this quite extensively in the course, but it takes up over 30 pages, so we will skip it in this newsletter). It is important to realize that many search engines change their algorithms on a regular basis (i.e. weekly, monthly, etc.) - if you're listed prominently today, that may no be true tomorrow. There are also META search engines. These perform searches on multiple search engines simultaneously. In this instance, your ranking for the keywords inputted is calculated by the combined ranking of all the search engines simultaneously used. The key to getting ranked high is to make sure you're listed in all the search engines used by the META search engines (They use: OpenText, Lycos, WebCrawler, InfoSeek , Excite, AltaVista, Yahoo, HotBot, and Einet Galaxy). It is not necessary to submit your site to META search engines since they use the results of the major search engines (not their own). I hope this helps in your future marketing decisions.

About the author: David Bell is Manager, Online Marketing, at http://www.wspromotion.com/ , a leading Search Engine Optimization services firm and Advertising Agency.

Seven Red Hot Tips for Linking

Author: Gareth Davies

1. Vary the keywords in your link ‘anchor’ text

Unless you provide only one product or service the chances are you will want to rank for many key phrases. One way to help achieve this objective is to change the link text you want all new sites to use periodically. Vary the anchor text slightly each time and by doing so you can cover more of your targeted key phrases. This approach can help your site rank for many keywords rather than just one or two.

If you do only provide one product or service on your web site it is still important to vary anchor text. If you sell ‘blue widgets’ then you could also use link text like ‘cheap blue widgets’ or ‘blue widget store’. This means your links take on a more natural feel and are much less likely to be penalised or filtered out by search engines for being ‘fake links’.

2. Set up your link information differently - create a link in context

Typically people set up their link information in a very similar way, however you could offer your link information with the hyperlink inside the description instead of at the beginning.

Imagine this is a description about your web site on a partner’s link page. Instead of a typical hyperlink followed by a description you could write a sentence describing your web site and then place “your descriptive hyperlink” inside it.

One reason for doing this is that it reads more naturally and search engines may value the link higher as it reads more like a narrative. Many webmasters will be happy to accept this style even if some do not. To cover yourself offer the link in context as a second option along with your regular link information, that way if some sites can’t support the layout you still get your link.

3. Vary where your links point

Try to vary where link partners point to on your site. It’s fine to have the majority of links pointing into your home page, however it can be beneficial to have some links pointing to other key pages on your web site as well. Taking this approach balances out your linking and can help raise the profile of more pages on your web site.

4. How to find potential link partners from your competitors

If a web site links to your competitors it may also link to yours, and in order to find these potential link partners you can use search engines. Not so long ago Google was useful for getting a lot of back link information about a site. Recently Google’s back link data is a lot less forthcoming and it now tends to show only a tiny percentage of the sites that are linking combined with a lot of internal link data. Whether the few web sites Google shows us are the ones it finds important or whether they are in fact red herrings we cannot say for certain. I would assume the latter.

Currently Yahoo is a better portal to check for backlinks. To generate a list of linking web sites on Yahoo simply go to http://www.yahoo.com and type the following into the Yahoo search bar.

linkdomain:www.mycompetitorwebsite.com

This will deliver up to date link information as read by Yahoo. The only downside with the information is that one site may appear many times if it is giving multiple links.

5. Alternate your description text

This is often overlooked, but there is no real advantage to be had if the description text supporting your inbound links is always identical. To avoid the possibility of a description ever being seen as ‘duplicate content’ alternate it when you can. If you combine it with varied anchor text [as in tip 1] you’re heading in the right direction.

6. Link to good related content from your web site

It seems like an obvious thing to say, but with so many people caught up in link exchanging you sometimes wonder if we’re losing site of the basics. If you have something useful to say on your site and can back it up with a useful link to another web site then do so. Not every link has to be reciprocated. This resourceful linking will allow your visitors to read around the subject. Linking to informative related content is useful for visitors and search engines quite like it too.

7. Seek out directory links

Links from good web directories can be some of the best links you can get for your web site. Aaron Wall has a ‘directory of directories’ at http://www.directoryarchives.com where you will find a great selection of search engine friendly directories. Some of the directories are free to get listed in whilst others may charge a fee.

About the author: Gareth Davies is a web design consultant based in London, UK. For information on web design services please visit http://www.garethsketty.com or if you have any questions about this article or its contents please email Gareth at garethsketty at yahoo.co.uk

The Myth of Rankings - Beyond Search Engine Optimization

Author: Scott Buresh

What follows is a condensed version of a conversation that happens all too frequently when I am approached by a prospect interested in search engine optimization (SEO):

Prospect: We need our website optimized, because we aren’t showing up for any searches. Me: What searches have you tried? Prospect: We don’t show up for ANYTHING. Me: Why do you want to show up in searches? Prospect: Well, it seems like we should. Our competitors do, and our website is WAY better than theirs. Me: But, really, what would you stand to gain from showing up prominently in search engine results? Prospect: Well, we could get more people who are looking for our products or services to find out about us. Me: So, what you are saying is that increasing your search engine results could help you to increase sales and awareness? Prospect: Yes. Me: Now we’re on the right track. Since your goals are to increase sales and awareness, have you thought about not only improving your search engine rankings, but also getting more people to take an action on your site that leads to a sale, getting more people to read your press releases or whitepapers so that they can consistently associate your company with your offering, or sending your prospects a regular newsletter to reinforce your name and expertise? Prospect: Didn’t you hear me? Our website is great. We just don’t show up for searches.

And so it goes.

A consistent problem with the “ranking-centric” mindset demonstrated above is that it doesn’t reflect a powerful rationale for getting involved in SEO. Where is the true business case? What tangible results are desired? In general, if a prospect can’t explain what he or she hopes to achieve beyond “higher rankings” or “more traffic,” we’ll first try to educate, and, if that person can’t move beyond these base subjects, we’ll kindly refer them elsewhere.

More and more frequently, people are getting into SEO for the wrong reasons (and sometimes for no real reason at all). Achieving high rankings for targeted keyphrases, while an admirable and worthwhile goal, is really only a small piece of the entire online marketing puzzle. In this article, we’ll discuss a few additional, but equally vital, pieces.

Website Conversion

Website conversion is the art and science of getting more of the people who come to your website to take the action that you want them to take – fill out your contact form, read your whitepapers, sign up for your newsletter, or (in the case of e-commerce) buy something. For a company that is trying to build offline business, this action is typically something that gets prospects into the sales pipeline through some form of online registration. For a company or organization that is trying to build awareness, this action can be a number of things – getting visitors to a certain page of the site, getting them to stay longer at the site, or getting them to tell a friend about the site. The critical point that is commonly overlooked in a ranking-centric mindset is that no number of high search engine positions will address the real problem if your website is not serving as an effective marketing and sales tool. And, as I have said many times before, the overall net effect of raising your conversion rate from one to two percent is the same net effect as doubling your traffic, and it is almost always easier. Increasing the number of visitors to a site that does not convert them effectively is like pumping high performance gasoline into a car with engine trouble – it might help the car to run a little bit better, but if you’d done repairs before adding the premium fuel, it really would have hummed.

Online PR

Your website is only one potential online destination where people can find out about your company, and a typical user will regard your site as an advertisement since you have complete control over the content. With optimized press releases and expert articles, however, you can have your company name mentioned on popular news sites and industry portals, where credibility is more inherent.

Optimized Press Releases

Press releases that are optimized to appear when certain terms are typed into news search engines are an excellent way to build name recognition and credibility. If someone is taking the time to look for news related to your industry, he or she is probably either in your business, learning about your market, or writing a piece about your industry. The last category is especially significant since a recent study* indicates that 98% of journalists go online daily, 92% use the Internet for article research, and 73% use it to find press releases. Whatever motivation a person has when he or she searches for news related to your industry, you want your company represented in the results.

Expert Articles

Another great way to promote your expertise and business is to write expert articles and submit them to the leading online publications in your field. At least one person in your company is almost certainly an expert in your field – why not let everyone know that? A person that reads an expert article published on an industry portal, and who subsequently clicks through to the website (from the link in the expert’s bio) is extremely targeted and already has a favorable impression of your company. Moreover, the same study cited above found that 76% of journalists go online to seek news sources or experts. When your company has demonstrated that you have experts on staff by publishing articles in credible, non-biased forums, the phone invariably starts to ring. Your experts will be asked to provide their opinions, quotes, or experiences for feature articles, often in prestigious industry publications. The benefits of this, of course, do not need explanation. A side benefit to both of the strategies above is thatthey increase the number of inbound links to your website and, therefore, can help greatly enhance your search engine rankings – which might be the primary reason you looked into SEO in the first place.

Newsletters

Direct mail was once considered a marketer’s dream – but email newsletters can be much more effective. Imagine a direct mail list with a low delivery cost, where every single person on the list has shown an interest in receiving such mailings. Such is the nature of opt-in email newsletters. People have shown enough interest in your company, or, at least, in what your company has to say, to invite you to communicate with them on a regular basis. They are essentially giving you permission to keep yourself “first in mind” whenever they are considering your products or services. Such opportunities are rare in the marketing world. By combining the conversion principles you have applied to your website to your email newsletters, you can also get people to take an action that puts them into your sales pipeline without worrying about getting them to your website itself.

Conclusion

These are only a few of the additional ways to expand an online initiative beyond a misdirected ranking-centric approach. Weblogs (or blogs) are often considered another new frontier in online marketing, and we haven’t even touched on paid media opportunities such as banner ads or pay-per-click marketing. However, the three components mentioned above are important elements of a complete and successful online marketing initiative. An SEO campaign launched without considering them is like driving a four-cylinder car with only one cylinder firing – it will move, but you’d definitely reach your destination more quickly – and more smoothly – with all four.

About the author: Scott Buresh is managing partner of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing (www.mediumblue.com). His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ZDNet, WebProNews, MarketingProfs, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, and Search Engine Guide. He also contributed to Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue is an Atlanta search engine optimization company whose clients include DuPont and Boston Scientific.