Sex, Drugs and 'Rock':

Author: Robert Bruce Baird

Driving That Train

“The area that is now known as Turkey played a major role in the Mystery Religions. The use of drugs to create “religious” experiences was developed to a fine art by various occult fraternal mystery religion groups in the Turkey area. The Assassins from where we get the word hashish controlled parts of Turkey and Lebanon in Medieval times. They used drugs to gain the allegiance of their recruits. Some of the most powerful figures for the Illuminati have been Turks. The Grand Orient has had some powerful figures in Turkey. For instance, at the Masonic Congress of all the Grand Orients’ (that’s European Freemasonry- although several American presidents have been members of European Freemasonry) Grand Lodges, Bou Achmed came from Turkey. The Grand Lodge of Asia was represented by Sebeyck-Kadir from Asia. Bou Achmed took a big role in the Grand Orient’s decisions. As an aside, let me explain one example of the power of the Grand Orient in America. The Grand Orient was originally strong in Louisiana but spread itself to many other US. locations. Garfield, a very powerful man in the Grand Orient, managed to become US. President because the political process got deadlocked at the convention and the Masons suggested him as a compromise candidate. Although Garfield was an extremely powerful Mason, had been perhaps the youngest general in the US. Army during the Civil War, the Illuminati ordered him shot after he had served about a year in office as President. Garfield was reported by an eye-witness to Satanic rituals to have participated in the cannibalistic rites of Satanism done to gain the spiritual power of the eaten person. The Grand Orient Freemasonry has been linked to other orders of Freemasonry that are also called Rosicrucians. Pope John XXIII joined a Rosicrucian group that had links to European Freemasonry when he was in Turkey. While the secret Grand Orient Freemasonry was very strong in Turkey in spite of its small numbers, the regular American Freemasonry granted a dispensation for a Masonic Lodge to operate in Smyrna, Turkey in May, 1863 but the charters were withdrawn on Aug. 27, 1880. However, it is interesting that of all the Turkish cities, Smyrna was definitely the best place for Freemasonry to gain recruits. Men like Achmed Pasha and many of the other Pasha family have been leaders within Freemasonry and the Illuminati. Achmed Pasha was a Satanist and had a large harem. Mehmet Talaat Pasha (1872-1921) was a Freemason and part of the Turkish revolution of 1908. He was the leader of the Young Turks, which was a joint project of the Sufis and the Frankist Satanists. (The type of Satanism led by the Frank family has had connections to Turkey for hundreds of years.) Mehmet Talaat Pasha was the Grand Master of the Grand Orient of Turkey. He was held the political position in Turkey of grand vizier of Turkey (1917-18). Another Turkish Pasha was part of the Turkish royalty running Egypt when Egypt was part of the Ottoman Empire. His name was Khedive Ismail Pasha and he was Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Egypt. It was this Turk, Khedive Ismail Pasha, who gave the famous Obelisk to the United States. This Obelisk was called Cleopatra’s Needle and was originally erected in the city of the sun, Heliopolis, about 1500 B.C. The Obelisk is a representation of a human penis, because sun worship, worship of regeneration (sex) and worship of the sun god Satan were all tied together. Masons helped with the moving of the obelisk, and its dedication when it arrived in New York City. Large obelisks have been erected by Masons in New York, Washington D.C., Paris, the Vatican, and London. (If my memory serves me correct Berlin received one too at one time.)

Every morning when the United States President wakes up he can look out the window and see the Masonic obelisk and be reminded of who controls America. If the President has any training in the Mystery religion of ancient Egypt, he will also know what body part is symbolically erected in the Washington Memorial.” (1)

Notice the importance of Smyrna as a source of Freemasonry here. That is where the Onassis family has operated potion-pushing or altered consciousness drugs for millennia. My friend who uses the name Eternum1 on a web community has this to say about the issue.

“Sometimes, when my tiny head is spinning with disinfotainment and other artifacts of the mediasphere, I try to think what archaeologists and social historians 2,000 years from now might make of our particular little epoch. How, for instance, would they parse the word ""drug""?

Is a ""drug dealer"" a pharmacist or a petty criminal? When we talk about ""reasonably priced drugs for seniors,"" are we discussing marijuana or Lipitor {or Levitra}? What would they make of the fact that the last four American administrations have declared a ""war on drugs"" while taking money from drug companies?

Why is it bad when residents of Colombia build mansions from profits on the sale of drugs, but it's good when residents of Newport, R.I., do the same thing? When one person cannot live without ""lifesaving drugs,"" we express great sympathy, unless that person is a ""drug addict,"" in which case we may even throw him in jail. When a mood-altering drug is sold in pill form in stores, it's called an antidepressant and hailed as a medical breakthrough. When a mood-altering drug is sold on the streets, it's called felony drug trafficking and subject to stiff criminal penalties.

Because we are native speakers of Americanadianese, we can wend our way through the contradictions. We know that the bad drugs are the ones the cause euphoria and impair judgment, unless the drug is alcohol, but that's not ever called a drug, so there's no confusion there. We know that the good drugs are the ones that cure diseases or relieve symptoms, except sometimes the good drugs are ineffective or even counterproductive in achieving those goals.

Street dealers do not finance experimental trials on the effectiveness of the drugs they sell. Drug companies do, but they fudge the results. Street dealers have a small feedback loop because customers can tell pretty quickly whether they're loaded or not. Drug companies have a long feedback loop because human beings can't instantly tell whether their cholesterol is being lowered or their blood thinned or their insulin production stimulated. A drug with a long feedback loop is clearly more profitable than one with a short feedback loop because the dealer can keep an ineffective drug on the shelves much longer.

Interestingly, the people who sell ineffective drugs are generally said to have made ""honest mistakes."" If a street dealer sold you an ineffective drug, you could take five of your friends and go back and have a brisk conversation with him. If a behind-the-counter dealer sold you an ineffective drug, you'd have to hire a lawyer and file a lawsuit and maybe, maybe, 10 years later you'd get some money, although probably you'd be dead by then.

Street dealers don't have patents on their drugs, which means that they'll always have plenty of competition. Drug companies do have patents, so they can set their prices without worrying about market economics. And when their patents run out, they can put out a drug with a slightly different formulation, promote it like mad and sell the new drug in a monopolistic setting {With government mandated market support in order to manage the ‘money-trees’ while building bureaucracy.}. You have to wonder when street dealers are going to come up with Cocaine XR or LSD Reditabs.

Since the street dealer works in a competitive atmosphere, he has to keep his prices relatively low. In order to increase his profitability, he can ""step on"" his product, that is, dilute it. It would be unwise for a drug company to adulterate its product, but since it owns a monopoly, it can set prices artificially high and achieve the same profitability levels. A street dealer who knowingly poisons his clientele is called ""the scum of the earth."" A drug corporation that knowingly poisons its clientele is called ""a tobacco company."" People who sell illegal drugs often rot in jail for 20 or 30 years. People who sell legal drugs are often forced to attend tedious daylong board meetings. People who take illegal drugs are called ""losers."" People who take legal drugs are called ""everyone in America.""

Glad I'm not an archaeologist in 4040; my brain would ache a whole lot.

One pill makes you larger, and one pill puts you in jail, and please do not operate heavy machinery with the ones that mother gives you. {My ex-roommate was being told to apply for his old job as a forklift truck operator while being given drugs for Schizophrenia which he did not have. He was no liar and could not expose a potential employer to the insurance risks or his fellow employees to the life threat this would entail. Many drugs people use are impairing their driving prowess and there are laws to take away their license that go unenforced.} Driving that train, high on ethyl 4-1-piperidinecarboxylate, just like Et and the ungreatful dead.”

Homeopathy:

It is a wonderful thing to have the Joy of Learning and to make a career that you find is related to your studies. There are so many ways to get a Doctor label and thus claim expertise in the many fields and disciplines which we have broken knowledge into. Some of this is counter to real expertise and much of it just sets people apart from knowledge and each other. But people are also being segmented into classes within the hierarchy of government backed by and for elites in all so many ways. Medicine has been one of their more dastardly tools alongside religion and the so-called education system. This next little factoid reminds me of how Edward Gibbon almost died because the British Medical system would not approve vaccinations through use of scabs as had been done by the likes of Paracelsus or others in antiquity and which was approved in the France of his era. Did Gibbon’s Jacobin Masons use this among their members since the time of Moses Maimonides or earlier alchemists?

“When the Cholera epidemic reached England, it provided another opportunity to compare homeopathic treatment with the conventional methods of the day. Regular allopathic medicine yielded a mortality rate of 59 percent compared to only 16 percent for the Homeopaths. (2) When these statistics were collected, the information was so startling that a medical commission was sent to the London Homeopathic Hospital to check the records. Though the data were duly verified, it was decided not to make them public, and the facts were not released until a hundred years later.” (3)

The formation of a political machine such as the American Medical Association who helped bring the FDA into control is a major issue against alternative healing or real care for people. In the late 19th Century as these issues were becoming apparent there were many who knew that the allopaths or medical doctors selling laudanum and the like were actually the ‘Killing-trade’. There are signs that stress management (don’t fret – sweat or exercise) and the connectiveness to the ‘all’ around us are again making a play to be considered in health maintenance. Vitamins and supplements are able to prove to even the most duped person receiving medical care that they work and yet some doctor’s groups and the governments that back them still disqualify doctors who advise their usage.

The whole area of academics is subject to a ‘Knowledge Filter’ (Berkeley Law Professor – Johnson) or Literary Theory (UBC English Professor Graham Good) and the outright suppression of creative or thoughtful and meaningful potentials. (4) I think the concept of Bucky Fuller that he called 'the observer of the observed' and his more detailed 'creative realization' is part of what we operates as we ‘project’ upon reality. For example the things (!) we see are actually a mixture of fields of energy from the dross and less excited to the highly excited or vibrational energy inside the atomic structures. In one way of visualizing this we could SEE something including an aura which is the field of energy not usually visible but associated with the solar body and integrative centers called chakras. Perhaps we could contemplate a time when all people had the ability to see or sense auras and yet by our socially normed 'projections' that include telling our children certain things do not exist, we have lost the conscious integration or incorporation of these fields of reality.

About the author: World-Mysteries.com guest expert Author of Diverse Druids Regular column in The ES Press Magazine, soon I'll be featured on gardinerosborn.com

8 Easy Ways to Optimize Your Website

Author: Scott J. Patterson

Traffic from search engines is widely considered the best (and cheapest) way to generate traffic to your site. The increasing popularity of search engines has led to the development of a whole industry that revolves around ways to “optimize” websites.

The end result is that many people now think that only “professionals” can help their website rank high within search engines. But, the truth is that anyone can structure their site so they rank high for many keywords.

Below, I have listed 8 simple steps that you can take to optimize your web pages. By following these, you will improve your chances of increasing your rankings:

1) Target one word for each page: A huge mistake that many beginners make is cramming numerous keywords onto every page. Instead of doing this, you should focus on one specific keyword for each page. That way, you can make sure that the page is focusing on that one word without any distractions. If you want to target multiple keywords then it is necessary to create a separate page for each.

2) List your major keywords in the links back to your site: Many search engines, Google being the most famous, have started to take into account the words that are mentioned in the title tag of the links that point to your site. So, a great way to improve your rankings for your keywords is to place it in the title tag.

3) Make your first 100 words on the page keyword rich: Another mistake that most webmasters make is to have a menu on the left-hand side of a website. Since search engines primarily focus on the first 100 words of a website, a left side menu is a misuse of valuable space.

Instead of doing this, you should have your title, description and web copy within the first 100 words of your site. An easy way to do this is to have your menu on the right instead of the standard left-hand side.

But, since the left-handed menu is now commonplace, you can also choose to put your first 100 words above the left-handed menu, so this text will be the first thing read on your website.

4)Insert the keyword into your title tag: In the source code of most pages are “header tags” (also known as Meta tags), which help search engines understand the content of the page.

To fully optimize your website, you can tweak the source code of the page. The first step is to insert the keyword in the title tag. (This is what is shown in the results of a search engine when your site is listed)

5) Insert your keywords in the description tag: The description Meta tag is almost as valuable as the title tag. The information in this tag is listed directly below the title tag in search engine results. As a result, a good description can make your website stand out from other listings. To get the prospect to click on your site, it is important to write a snappy description while using your keyword.

6) Insert them into your keywords tag: Like the title and description tags, keyword tags are used to help search engines understand the content of your web page. Although this Meta tag has become less popular, it doesn’t hurt to put your keywords here.

7) Place your keyword in the header: When writing the actual text of your site, the first part should be the headline. Whenever a search engine scans your site, it rates all words in the headline as being more important then the rest of the web copy. To take advantage of this, you should have your keyword in the page headline. But, since the header tag (h1) is quite large, you should format it so that it is smaller.

8) Write your keyword enriched web copy: Now that you have set up the structure of your page, you can write your web copy. While creating the text, you want to include the majority of the keywords at the top and the bottom of the page. In addition, the keyword should be included a few times in the middle. Basically, the common saying is that the keyword density should resemble an hour glass shape.

The total web copy of your page should be about 300-500 words. Also, the keyword should be included about 5-12% of the total words of the page. The percentage varies according to each search engine, so you might want to play around till you find the best results.

If you follow all these steps, you will definitely see an improvement in the search engine rankings for your keywords. The best part is that you do not have to spend any money on the expensive search engine optimizers!

Good luck!

About the author: Scott J. Patterson brought his website to the top of many search engines for important keywords. To find out how he did this AND also how he created his online store with NO computer experience, be sure to check out a Fr** copy of his ebook:

http://www.buildingastore.com/8O.html

Increase Website Traffic by Giving Them What They Want

Author: Gallianno Cosme

Yes, it is true… to increase website traffic you need links pointing to your site. But not any old links. Sure, many internet marketers still believe that link building, both one way and reciprocal, are the way to go. I find this to be an outdated method that wastes time that could be otherwise spent implementing other far better ideas.

If link building were the most popular way of building quality traffic to a site, why is it that some (if not most) websites find it incredibly difficult to attract these links? I believe the answer lies in the value (or lack thereof) that these sites offer the Internet community.

I often read people comparing a website to a shopping mall – and indeed they are right. Shopping malls have mastered the skill of creating new and exciting ways of attracting new shoppers - and retaining those customers already frequenting the mall.

Ask yourself why most successful shops routinely rearrange their product displays. Why do they design or manufacture new products? Summer time sees swimsuits making their way closer to the entrance. Fruit salads and lettuce leaves are everywhere to be seen in the grocery section.

People are naturally curious creatures and as such get bored very easily. It’s all about satisfying the shopper (user). Give the customer what they want, when they want it and they’ll return. Better yet, they’ll recommend your store to their friends, colleagues and loved ones.

But what does fruit and sexy bikinis have to do with your website? You have to find out what your user wants and give it to them.

Would you link to your site?

So, what does generate return traffic to a site? Well, take a closer look at your site and determine whether you’d link to it yourself? Is there anything on your site that you can honestly say is of value?

I’m not talking about product prices or a profile on how you founded your company. I’m talking about something that is useful and convenient to your target market. A utility or tool of sorts. Perhaps a regularly updated dialogue with your visitors. An invaluable resource that teaches people something they don’t already know.

Ideas worth researching

An excellent way to increase website traffic is to ask a “how to” question and write about your solution. If you’ve got a motor-related site, writing an article on “how to sell a car” could be an excellent idea. In the landscaping business? “How to plant a tree?” would make for a good article too. What could you write if you have a conference facility? How about “what to remember when arranging a wedding or business function?”?

Not only will writing articles bulk up your website’s content, which search engines love, but will also add value to other websites that publish your writing on their websites.

The good thing about good articles is that they tend to circulate the Net pretty well. By adding an optimised link to the bottom of your article you could in turn generate more traffic to your site.

But articles aren’t the only way of generating traffic to your site. Something that is destined to become more popular is the inclusion of a business blog on a website. This lets you build a personal relationship with your customers. Naturally, the blog needs to be well thought of before being added. Will it be a regularly updated blog or one that is updated less frequently? Will there be one or more voices/writers for the blog? Everyone has their own preference to a style of writing. Letting your staff or departments publish their own blogs will create even more opportunities of attracting more than one type of reader or client.

Adding a tool that people are searching for is yet another excellent idea. It could be a currency converter, BMI calculator or a free online travel organiser – anything that is related to your website and that offers an invaluable benefit to those who find it.

As ludicrous as this may sound, being a hub for industry-related websites and information is another great idea. You could have a section devoted to your reviews of market-related products, services and websites – with links pointing to them. Your users will come to trust your knowledge and advice, and as such will refer your website to their contacts.

The bottom line

Regardless of what you write about or have to offer your visitor, the key is to keep it simple, fresh and non-salesy. Your website should already have a section that does all that sales pitching. Offering genuinely useful content and tools is what will differentiate your website from that of your abandoned peers.

Ideas are everywhere. It takes some time, effort, research and a bit of imagination to come up with soothing other than a good link request email. Your user’s word of mouth will reward your efforts.

About the author: Gallianno Cosme is the SEM Captain at Quirk, a full-service eMarketing company offering tailor-made, innovative and cost-effective eMarketing solutions. Go to http://www.quirk.co.za for more information.

SEO with free advanced tools

Author: B.R.

First you'll need to download those free tool's, they will help you better understand what you see on the search results and to know your competition level

1) Google search bar download here . This tool will show you the page rank of the visited site (more into page rank later...). This tool will work only with internet explorer.

2)

Firefox internet explorer has

plug-in ""SEO links"" that will show you how many back links has a site. This is good for identifying the level of competition. Now when the Firefox can work with google toolbar, it will make your work a lot easier. It also have the tabs feature that will allow you to open multiple windows(sites) in one application window and with addition of another plug-in to save all sites as a group, this way you can categorize the site you need to work with and load all the category(group) with one click.

3) This one is actually a site that you can use to search google by keywords or check witch sites links to your competitors and sort the results by Page Rank or relevancy. This is a better way to identify your competition. I recommend combining to last tool (view this site in the Fire fox and have the plug in installed). This way you can quickly check the number of links within the results just by moving the mouse over the links in the results. The higher the Page Rank or the number of links, the sites in the results have higher level of competition.

Now you are ready to GO!! Keep reading and start climbing up in the search results.

About the author: None

Search Engine Submission Techniques on Google

Author: Ivana Giardi

The orientation guide for businesses getting started online Over the years of its existence Google gained a well-deserved reputation as the top choice for internet users. Providing a comprehensive coverage of the web and returning searched queries with great relevancy in less than a second, Google certainly is the internet’s front door.

Because of the popularity of this search engine, it is critical to get your website listed in Google and achieve a high ranking in search results. There are two types of listing you will find in Google search results: free listings and sponsored listings.

» Free listings

To have your website listed on Google search results for free you firstly need to submit your website to be indexed at http://www.google.com.au/addurl.html. Google is a spider-based search engine that automatically visits web pages to compile its database. After you submit your web site, your site will be first stored in a ""temporary"" database. Then Google will send a ""spider"" in a regular time to ""visit"" your web site to decide whether it should be indexed. This process is called Search Engine Submission.

However, successful submission does not mean your website will necessarily rank well for particular terms. Making your website Google friendly in order to achieve a good ranking can be done through Search Engine Optimization (which will be explained later on in this article).

» Sponsored Listings (Google AdWords)

Google also sells sponsored listings through its advertising program Google AdWords. Those sponsored listings appear on the top and on the right-hand side of regular search results.

Once you sing up for Google AdWords program at www.google.com/ads, your listing appears on Google almost instantly and the impact on your website traffic and sales is practically immediate.

Sponsored listings often represent a great alternative for new websites or websites having difficulties to get indexed by Google.

1. Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

The majority of internet users search information by using search engines. A query on Google often reveals thousands or even millions of matching web pages. Therefore, it is difficult for the user to find your website if it is not listed between the top 10, maximum 20 search results.

The purpose of search engine optimisation is to make a website’s content highly relevant in order to get listed on top of search engine results for free. This can be a quite daunting task so let’s take a look at some key optimisation guidelines:

1.1 Selecting and Positioning Target Keywords

People search for stuff on the internet by typing certain words in the search box. Words that are relevant to your website are your target keywords. Your job is to make sure those target keywords appear on the crucial locations on your website such as across your title, meta tags, and body of your web page.

There is a good source of optimisation tips at http://www.dynamicwebsubmission.com/tips.html.

Tip: Your target keywords should include at least two words. This is simply because lots of websites are relevant for a single word, for example “flower”.

1.2 Relevant Website Content

Imagine search engine as a library and your website as a book. The library only wants good quality books to be included in its collection. The content of your web site is therefore the most important element for search engines to terminate if your web site will be listed and ranked well.

If your web site contains only images, flash, javascript etc, it will be ignored by the search engines because they can’t read those graphics. Please remember to provide valuable information not just “good looking” image. Whenever possible, use HTML text on your web pages that will make your site more relevant.

1.3 Link Popularity – Google Page Rank

Every major search engine uses link popularity as a part of their ranking algorithms. Google’s algorithm -- Page Rank – is a quite complicated mathematical formula that determines a relevancy of web pages.

Very simply explained, it uses the structure of the links between web pages to assign a score of the page that reflects its importance. In effect, each link from one page to another is counted as a “vote” for the destination page, and each page’s score depends on the scores of the pages that link to it. But those pages’ scores, in turn, depend on the scores of the pages that link to them, and so on.

In conclusion, link popularity of a website is determined by:

The number of relevant web sites that are linking to your site The popularity of those web sites The higher the relevancy of the website the better is its listing in the Google results.

From what has been said, it is quite obvious that for brand new websites it may take about a month before they get listed and ranked well by Google. As mentioned earlier, paid listing can provide an excellent solution to cover this “waiting list” period. Google will set your website live within few hours and the impact on your site traffic is practically immediate.

2. Paid Search Advertising (Pay-Per-Click, PPC)

This unique form of search engine advertising gives your website an excellent opportunity to achieve guaranteed top position on the search results. Paid listings are used not only for websites that are not indexed or waiting to be indexed. They are (or should be) widely used by marketers in the overall internet marketing mix when launching new products, targeting a specific market segment or enhancing sales of a product that has not been doing well lately.

The introductory to Paid Search Advertising Basics is explained in details at http://www.apexpacific.com/newsletters/nl1004.html#2.

Since the launch of Google AdWords in February 2002, Google has clearly become the main provider of paid search advertising. Because Google is special in everything it does, let’s take a look at Google AdWords more closely.

2.1 How Google AdWords work

As mentioned earlier, Google’s sponsored listings appear on the top and on the right-hand side of regular search results.

The basic concept of PPC bidding is that advertisers bid for particular search terms (= keywords). The highest bidder gets his/her advertisement displayed at the top of the sponsored listings next to Google’s search results. The second highest bidder gets the next sponsored listing and so on.

However, Google Adwords work differently than most of the other Pay-Per-Click search engines such as Overture, FindWhat etc. Google does not simply put the highest bidder’s advertisement at the top of the list. It also ranks the advertisements according to their popularity. Therefore, if more people click on an advertisement it will get higher ranking and better position.

In conclusion, your ad's position is determined by following factors:

your daily budget maximum cost-per-click your ad's actual click through rate and your average ad’s position. From the above, you can not directly control your ad's actual click through rate and average position. Therefore managing your keywords on Google AdWords is a big challenge and usually consumes a great deal of time.

If you do not manage your keyword bids properly, you will waste your advertising money on Google Adwords. A good way to get around this is to use automated bid management software available on the market today. In general, those tools allow you to control your ads listing based on rules you specify.

When you shop around you will notice that there are very few tools that support Google AdWords. From those they do, there is one available for free trial at http://www.keywordbidmaximizer.com/bidmaximizer.

2.2 Pay-per-click copywriting tips on Google

The purpose of your advertising on Google is naturally to increase your sales. Since you are paying for each visitor landing on your website you obviously wish to convert them in paying customers. Please keep in mind that more important than number of impressions (=clicks) is the conversion rate. To drive your conversion rate to the maximum it is advised to pre-qualify the click with a well composed ad copy. Below are some tips to help you improve your ads:

» Specific and Relevant Keywords

Be specific and relevant to your business and offers. Avoid general keywords – they generate more ad impressions but tend to be less relevant. For example, rather than “flower” consider “birthday roses bouquet”. More targeted keywords attract more qualified buyers.

Also, your can increase your ad exposure – without sacrificing relevance – by adding alternate phrasings, spelling variations, plurals and singulars, and keywords similar or related to those on your master keyword list.

» Target geographical segments

Consider using geographic keywords to target a local or regional audience. If you sell roses in Tokio, replace “roses” with “roses Tokio”. This way you will avoid any irrelevant pitches to search users in New York and Sydney. You can also target your campaign by country and by language to help focus your message on the audience you wish to serve.

» Target ad delivery with keyword matching options

Google offers different keyword matching options to refine your targeting:

Broad match - displays your ad when all the words in your keyword appear in the search query. For example for the keywords “birthday cards” your ad will be shown if users search for keywords “birthday” and “cards” in any order, and even if the query includes other terms.

Phrase match - displays your ad when all the words in your keyword appear in the same order, for example “birthday cards”. Your ad will also be shown with other terms in the query like “birthday cards for girls” but will not be shown if users search for “cards for birthday”.

Exact match - displays your ad when all the words in your keyword appear in the same order, and without any other terms in the query.

Negative keywords – excludes searches for which your ad would be irrelevant. For example, if your keyword is “birthday cards” and your negative keyword is “-girls”, your ad will not be shown if users search for “birthday cards for girls”.

» Choose carefully landing pages

If users are interested in your offer they click on your ad. It is your job to send them to a relevant destination page to find out more about your product or service. When tailoring your ads to a specific audience, be sure that the destination page on your site fits the goal of the campaign.

3. Optimization Versus Paid Advertising

Paid search advertising offers companies an excellent solution to drive traffic to their websites almost immediately. From the short term approach, pay per click presents a smart way to cover a gap between campaign launch and achieving desired rankings results. The long term approach suggests pay per click as an alternative in situations when a website shows a poor performance in the search results in general. However, once you stop paying for the positions, the traffic stops.

Search engine optimization is a fundamental part of internet marketing mix. It requires constant updating and continuous attention of the website content for solid, long-term effective results.

Therefore, if you use paid search advertising and search engine optimisation together as an integrated strategy, you have an excellent chance to reach the greatest number of online users.

About the author: Ivana Giardi is Marketing Director at Apex Pacific, developer of smart internet marketing solutions to help companies increase sales and profitability online. If you would like to learn more about Paid Search Advertising, visit Apex Pacific at www.apexpacific.com or email Ivana at marketing@apexpacific.com.

Why is SEO so expensive?

Author: Chris Genge

Why is SEO so expensive? By Chris Genge

One of the questions our firm often gets asked is, ""Why is search engine optimization (SEO) so expensive?"" The simple answer -it isn't.

SEO is the most cost effective form of advertising with a low cost-per-acquisition (CPA) and high return on investment (ROI). Studies have shown that dollar for dollar, SEO is the best form of advertising... online and offline!

SEO is proactive... the customer is actively looking for the products and services you provide. Traditional advertising is passive... you are hoping to spark someone's interest and get them thinking about buying your products and services.

Compared with other forms of advertising, Internet marketing via SEO is very inexpensive. Think about how much your business spends on television, radio, newspaper, magazine, and even yellow pages ads. If you were to break these costs down on a monthly basis, SEO would probably cost the least and still deliver better results.

To test this, we looked into advertising in a couple of national US magazines as well as newspapers, yellow pages, and radio spots in some major Canadian cities. The following table represents the average cost per month for each.

Advertising Medium---- Audience Reach---- Size, Type, Frequency---- *Cost Per Month Bus. Magazines (US)--- United States----- 1/3 column, B/W, 1/mth--- $12000 Radio (CAN)----------- Local------------- 30-second, 60-spots/mth-- $6000 Newspapers (CAN)------ Local------------- bus-card size, B/W, 4/mth-$2000-$2500 Yellow Pages (CAN)---- Local------------- bus-card size, B/W------- $180-$365 SEO------------------- World Wide-------- 10-20 Keywords----------- $249-$499 * Guidelines only as actual costs will vary depending on market conditions, geographical location, and your own preferences.

It is difficult to provide precise numbers because there are so many different variables that can come into play. What we tried to do was keep the variables as consistent as possible from one medium to the next. The ads in the business magazines were the most expensive but they provided the greatest audience reach (next to SEO) and because the size of the ad was larger than the newspaper and yellow pages ad. Radio came in as the next most expensive. We asked to run a 30-second commercial that would be aired 60-times in a month (the recommended number of airings was 100). Newspapers came in third only because the frequency option we selected was one ad appearing once per-week (Saturday issue) and because the size of the ad was fairly small. The yellow pages came in around the same cost as SEO, but what good is a yellow pages ad to an online business? SEO on the other hand, had one of the lowest costs, provided the greatest audience coverage, and with a 24x7 frequency.

Which of these forms are you currently using? How effective have they been? Do your own research and see what you come up with. Because of the variables, your numbers will be different than ours, but when you break them down to measure the overall costs (CPA, ROI)... the majority of you will see that hands down, SEO is the best option.

It doesn't matter what form of advertising you are using... for online success, SEO really is the most cost effective and efficient way to promote your business. That's why SEO is gaining in popularity with everyone from small one-person operations to large, multi-national Fortune 500 companies.

SEO lets you target your message to the right people at exactly the right time... when they are looking to buy... at a fraction of the cost of other advertising media and a better ROI.

About the author: Chris Genge is the President of 1st on the List Promotion Inc, a website promotion firm that specializes in search engine optimization and pay per click management. Chris writes on current and emerging search engine marketing theories and has been involved in the SEO industry since 1997. He and his team focus on researching and implementing the most effective search engine optimization techniques. To learn more visit http://www.1stonthelist.ca/

Search Engine Optimization For Blogs

Author: Priya Shah

Copyright © 2004 Priya Shah http://www.priyashah.com

Blogging software is really a simple Content Management System (CMS) that easily adds new pages and integrates them into your site's navigational structure and linkage.

Blogs and blog posts are naturally search engine friendly because they are text-rich, link-rich, frequently-updated webpages that use stylesheets or CSS, and have very little extraneous HTML.

Optimizing a blog is very similar to optimizing a website, and optimizing a blog post similar to optimizing a web page. But depending on the blogging service or software you use, the results may look somewhat different.

If you follow some simple rules for search engine optimization, your blog can rank much higher than static website pages in the search engine results pages.

Here are the most important rules to follow to get your posts listed for keywords of your choice.

1. Use your primary keyword in your blog domain

Whether you purchase a separate domain (recommended) for your blog, or host it on a blogging service or a subdomain of your own site, try to ensure that your URL contains the primary keyword you want to optimize for.

For example, if you want your blog to get found for the keyword ""rss"" get a domain with the keyword ""rss"", or use the keyword in a subdomain as in http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com/rssnews/

Getting a domain name with your own name might make for good branding, especially if yours is a personal blog.

But if you're doing it for business and want the targeted traffic to flow your way, keywords in the domain or subdomain are a move in the right direction.

2. Use your primary key phrase in your blog header tags and the title of your posts

If your primary key phrase is ""business blogging"" make sure that the word business, or blogging, or both, appear in your blog headers (the H1 or H2 tags) as well as the title of each of your posts.

Most blogging software will take the keywords in your post title and put them into the file name of the permalink posts it creates.

For example, if you have a blog on Blogger and title your post ""Search Engine Optimization For Blogs"", Blogger will automatically create a page with your post and name the file ""search-engine-optimization-for-blogs.html"" or something similar.

With other server-side software like Wordpress and Movable Type, you may require the mod_rewrite command to save the title of your entries as a permalink.

3. Use your secondary keywords in the body of your post

If you want to get listed for secondary keywords use them infrequently in the body of your post and pepper your blog titles or links with them appropriately.

Don't overdo this or your posts will end up sounding unnatural and spammy to readers.

4. Use your keywords in the anchor text of links

Keyword in links have more importance than simple text.

Use your primary and secondary keywords in the anchor text of links when linking to other blog posts or to other pages on your main site.

Link keywords where they naturally appear in the body text, but again, don't overdo it, or you'll end up with spammy looking pages.

5. Make sure search engines can spider your blog easily

Set up your blog so that the side navigation bar is present on all pages.

Make sure your archives and previous posts are accessible from all pages of your blog so they get spidered easily.

6. Get backlinks from other blogs or websites

Links pointing to your blog or posts are essential to build pagerank and make your blog rank higher in the search engine listings.

I've seen many people recommend Blogrolling as one method of building links to your blog.

BlogRolling is a one-stop linklist manager for your blog or journal. http://www.blogrolling.com

But all this service actually does is give you a bit of javascript code that ""calls"" the links.

As far as search engine rankings go, this method of linking is of little use, because spiders can't read external javascript code.

Instead I recommend that you focus your linking efforts on the methods here.

* Submitting to Blog Search Engines and Directories:

Submitting your blog and RSS feed to blog search engines and directories is essential for getting high-quality links back to your blog. Here is the best list I've found of places to submit your feed or blog.

Best Blog Directory And RSS Submission Sites http://www.masternewmedia.org/rss/top55/

* Link Exchanges:

Many similarly-themed blogs are often willing to exchange links with other blogs and form richly interlinked networks or communities. Link exchanges with other blogs are easy to implement with most blogging software.

* Trackbacks:

You can also get links back to your blog using trackbacks. One of the disadvantages of using Blogger is that it does not automatically create trackback urls that others can use to link back to your posts.

Haloscan is a free service that will automatically add comments and trackbacks to your Blogger blog. http://www.haloscan.com

But if trackbacks are an important component of your linking strategy, I would advise using another software or system that adds this feature automatically.

* Comments:

You can also get back links to your blog by posting legitimate comments in response to posts on other blogs.

7. Update frequently

There's no better food for search engine spiders than fresh content.

Post and update your blog frequently using all the rules outlined above and there's no reason why your blog will not get you top rankings in a short period of time.

8. Stay put

Once you create your blog, try to stick to the same domain and blog host or system for as long as you continue to publish.

You could end up losing a lot of your traffic, your readers and all your search engine listings if you decide to move.

For more ways of building traffic to your blog, read the article ""How To Build Traffic To Your Blog."" http://www.blog-maniac.com/build-blog-traffic.htm

About the author: Priya Shah publishes an internet marketing ezine at http://ebizwhiz-publishing.com by day and doubles as a Blog Maniac by night http://www.blog-maniac.com Blog Brandz http://www.blogbrandz.com is the legitimate offspring of her affair with the blogosphere.

MSN Beta Search Phenomenon

Author: mark white

I don't fully understand the algorithm's involved with the new

Beta search from MSN but I have to say as a site owner I love it.

After releasing my new site to the World Wide Web I am already

Really impressed with the speed that I got indexed and even more

Impressed with the ranking I have been given.

I let my newest site ( www.buy-dvds-online.com ) out of its box

Less than 2 weeks ago and I have already attained a position of

3 out of 1,589,310 for the keyword search ""buy dvd's online"".

How is this happening?

Well I have looked at all sorts of forums relating to MSN Beta

and it seems that it genuinely searches for the most keyword

relevant site it can find.

The name of the site in relation to the keyword or words searched

for has proved as important as ever, when I searched for the

keywords ""free traffic tips"" on msn I got www.freetraffictip.com as

number 1 result.

When I searched for the same keywords on google the same

site came in at number 41.

Further searching for some more obscure phrases seem to show that

MSN beta places a high priority on the keyword density, this will

reward all of us who have keywords relevant to our sites and do

not rely on heavy backlinks (although I believe this is vital to

get a decent rank with other engines).

The fact that I am ranked at all means that I have escaped the

Google ""sandbox"", I don't expect to receive a PR for at least 2

months and a decent listing for the same period from google.

Lets hope that MSN Beta search is used quickly as a replacement

for MSN search, My opinion is that we should all be allowed to

get a placement we deserve rather than one we have effectively

bought or traded, it kind of gives us little guys a chance.

I still love google, it provides us with a challenge and is still

the number one search engine but I still want the traffic I get from

The smaller engines.

About the author: Mark white has built and run 3 sites for the last 4 years, has worked in I.T. for 15 years and is actively involved in traffic/search engine related sites. His sites are $10 dollar downloads.com sunspeks.com and Buy-dvds-online.com

Search Engine Optimization Is For Fools?

Author: Kevin Emswiler

Do you know how to get your website on the first page of google’s search results? If you don’t, you soon will.

Regardless of how you market your website, you should take the time to learn search engine optimization. Theres no other marketing method that I know of where you can get a constant flow of free quality traffic to your website everyday.

Before I show you how to optimize your web pages, I like to make a quick point. You don’t need a large site to get great rankings on google. You could have a one page website and optimize it for one keyword, and be on the first page of googles search results for that keyword. This would be hard to achieve because google’s search engine values link popularity. Most websites will not link to yours if its only one page. Your site wouldn’t be providing any value to their readers, but a website that’s just 5 pages can be of value as long as it provides good quality information.

Now lets optimize your web pages. Optimize each of your web pages for one keyword. Put they keyword in your title, description, and keyword tags. Heres an example. Lets say your creating a website about ebay and one of your web pages is about ebay auctions. This is how the tags will look.

Ebay Auctions: How to properly setup your auctions

Next write an article about ebay auctions and use the keyword throughout the article. I like to use my keywords once per paragraph. The longer your article the more times you can use your keyword without sounding corny or abusing google’s search engine.

Then ask other websites in your industry to place a link on their website to yours. This will help google index your site faster and get you higher results in their search engine.

About the author: Kevin Emswiler's goal is to help beginning internet marketers establish their own home based business. For more marketing advice, vist http://www.chit-chat-cash.net

Google's Suggestion Beta Search - New SEO & Webmaster Wonder Tool or Over Rated Popularity Meter.

Author: James R. Sanders

With Google’s release of their new Beta Google Suggest site, many SEO’s are jumping on the bandwagon to preach praises about Google Lab’s latest breakthrough. However, in a recent article published by Site Pro News by Mike Banks Valentine, noted SEO of SEOptimism.com, entitled “A is for Amazon, B is for Best Buy Google Suggest Feature”, Mr. Valentine would have us believe that the “results” shown in Google Suggest are for the number of SEARCHES conducted at Google for a given search term. I would have to disagree with him given the research I’ve done behind the ground breaking new tool. However, before I put the cart before the horse, maybe I should explain this new “tool” just in case you haven’t heard of it yet.

Google Suggestion Beta – Salvation for SEO’s & Webmasters or a Marginal Tool to Gauge Search Populatiry.

Google has finally rolled out a new tool touted as their latest breakthrough in logical search suggestion. In a nutshell, this tool follows your typing, letter by letter, and as you continue to formulate you search query, Google Suggest opens a drop down box of suggestions based on what it thinks you might be searching for. As you type each letter in your query window, Google Suggest continues to update the list based on the information you type. The Beta site is located at http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&complete=1. After reading Mr. Valentine’s article, I was quick to drop by the Beta Site to check this new tool out. I thought to myself, “If this actually reports the number of searches being done at Google for a particular search term or phrase, then boy is it going to be easy to evaluate the best search terms to use when optimizing a page for Google.” I felt like a kid on Christmas morning running downstairs to see what Santa brought me.

The Investigation Begins – My Hopes Become Fears.

My first idea was to type web site design into the search box query area. No sooner than I finished typing “web si”, up pops the box listing “web site design” as the top suggested pick, and the results showing “22,600.000 results”. My first thought was “Holy crap, there’s THAT many searches being done at Google on web site design?” My next question was “Now I wonder if that is a month, to date since Google has been in operation, or what?” Soon after additional thought, my mind began to clear and the horror struck me. The next question was “What if these are just the number of matching results in the Google database for the search term web site design?” My hopes and dreams of a new tool to demystify Google search popularity began to disintegrate as my mind started to rationalize the situation and ponder the question further.

Comparing Suggestion Beta “Results” with Google SERP “Results”.

I decided to click the top suggestion “web site design” and see what happened. As I looked at the SERP, the top line stated “Results 1 - 10 of about 32,700,000 for web site design. (0.22 seconds)”. At first, my hopes began to soar again as I pondered the wonderful SEO opportunities. 32,700,000 does not match the results of 22,600,000 reported in the suggestion tool. There seemed to be hope, but then my mind started to wonder again. The next question I asked was “What if the beta tool is using an older database than the present database used to distribute Google’s main site results”. The horror sat in again as I sat there pondering my thoughts and possibilities. Logical reasoning sat in, and my hopes and dreams were dashed as a ship tossed into a rocky coast during a hurricane. 22,600,000 results a month would be an extremely odd amount of searches for the term web site design even given the number of webmasters and SEO’s that normally check that search term to see competition rankings. In addition, given the closeness to the regular SERP results for the same search term, it just stands to reason that the results are from an older database snap shot of the web the lab is using for testing the beta release.

Further Investigation – My Hopes Continue to Diminish.

To investigate my thoughts as thoroughly as possible, I spent some time reading the FAQ located at http://labs.google.com/suggest/faq.html. Nowhere in this FAQ does it say anything as to what the “results” indicate other than that the ranking of suggested terms are based on the popularity of searches done at Google. That does NOT come right out and say that the number reported for “results’ in any way indicates the actual number of searches for the particular search term, but yes, one could infer that meaning, especially SEO’s and webmasters so desperately looking for another way to help “properly” optimize their pages for Google. I can understand this thought process, and would have fallen prey to it had I not thought about it in a little more detail, but the facts speak for themselves, and common sense rules out.

Comparing Google’s Usage of the Term “Results” Throughout Their Site.

The other proof I offer to substantiate my claims stems from the context Google uses everywhere else the word “results” appears on their site. They tend to use that word EXCLUSIVELY with the results being returned for the number of matches for a particular search term from their database. Add to the facts that Google has never been one to openly give webmasters or SEO’s ANYTHING that can be used to manipulate their SERPs and it just goes to further prove that the experts are wrong in the assumption that the “results” are an indication of the search term’s search popularity at Google. The way the terms are ranked to provide the best possible suggestion IS based on search popularity at Google, but the number has nothing to do with the actual number of searches conducted. That synched it. I have no choice but to believe that the article written by Mr. Valentine is misleading, and that many other SEO’s are jumping the gun to tout the “new salvation tool” to help us demystify Google search term popularity, or help us improve our page optimization. This “tool” isn’t going to give SEO’s and webmasters anything but a preview of the number of SERP results they will have to wade through to find their information.

Taking the Final Plunge – Getting the Information Straight from the Horse’s Mouth.

Nevertheless, being I’d rather hold on to some shred of hope that I am wrong, I have taken the liberty to question Google and am still awaiting their reply. Although the order can give some insight into search term popularity for the particular search terms, there is still no way to know just how much of a difference exists between the first and second terms suggested. In all reality, there could be thousands more searches for the first term over the second, or their could be just a few more for the first over the second, but either way it really doesn’t give us the useful information that I’d like to see for SEO work like Overture’s suggestion tool does. When Google responds to my question, I’ll be more than happy to try to edit this article or post the results to the forum. Until then, hopefully I am wrong, but I just can’t hold out hope that Google would make things that much easier for SEO’s and webmasters looking for ways to “optimize” their pages for the Great Google Bot.

About the author: James R. Sanders is the owner of Sanders Consultation Group Plus. He has been a webmaster and web site designer since 1997, and involved in self-employment ventures since 1992. He is presently a contributing author of NewbieHangout, and has been published through WebProNews. You can email him at webmaster@sanders-consultation-group-plus.com.

How Web Design Can Affect Search Engine Rankings

Author: John Metzler

Uniquely built web sites can create unique issues when being promoted on the search engines. From a basic 3 page brochure site to a corporate site with hundreds of dynamically generated pages, every web site needs to have certain design aspects in order to achieve the full effects of an SEO campaign. Below are a few points to take into consideration when building or updating your web site.

1. Size Matters. The size of a web site can have a huge impact on search engine rankings. Search engines love content, so if you have only a few pages to your site and your competitors have dozens, it's difficult to see a top page ranking for your site. In some cases it may be difficult to present several pages of information about your business or products, so you may need to think about adding free resources for visitors. It will help in broadening the scope of your web site (which search engines like) as well as keep visitors on your site longer, possibly resulting in more sales.

2. Graphics-Based Web Sites. While web sites that offer the visitor a more esthetically-pleasing experience may seem like the best choice for someone searching for your product, they are the most difficult to optimize. Since search engine robots cannot read text within graphics or animation, what they see may be just a small amount of text. And if we learned anything from point #1, small amounts of content will not result in top rankings. If you really must offer the visitor a graphics-heavy or Flash web site, consider creating an html-based side of your site that is also available to visitors. This site will be much easier to promote on the search engines and your new found visitors will also have the option to jump over to the nicer looking part of your site.

3. Dynamic Web Pages. If most of your web site is generated by a large database (such as a large book dealer with stock that is changing by the minute) you may find that some of your pages do not get indexed by major search engines. If you look at the URL of these pages they can be extremely long and have characters such as ?, #, &, %, or = along with huge amounts of seemingly random numbers or letters. Since these pages are automatically generated by the database as needed, the search engines have a tough time keeping them up to date and relevant for search engine users.

One way to combat this problem is to offer a search engine friendly site map listing all your static pages just to let them know that you do have permanent content on your site. If search engines see links going to and from these dynamic pages within a good internal linking system, this may also lead to the pages getting indexed. The link popularity of your site may carry more weight in this case as well, so if you can't offer as much static content as your competition, make sure you have an aggressive link campaign on the go.

4. Proper Use of HTML. There is quite a bit of sub-par web design software out there. Word processors usually have a way to create HTML documents which can be easily uploaded to a site via ftp. However, in many cases the code that the search engine robots see is mostly lines and lines of font and position formatting, not relevant content. The more efficiently written web sites usually achieve higher rankings. Our choice for web design software is Macromedia Dreamweaver, as it is an industry standard. It also makes using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) a breeze, which can drastically cut down on the amount of text formatting in HTML code. Hand-coding HTML to design sites is also a good method if you are proficient enough.

There are some no brainers too: Web sites with abnormal amounts of hyperlinks, bold or italicized text, improper use of heading, alt, or comment tags can also expect to see low rankings.

5. Choosing a Domain Name. The golden rule to web development of any kind is to keep your visitors in mind above all else - even search engine optimization. When choosing a domain name, one should pick either your business name (if you have a high-profile business name such as Chapters or Coca-Cola) or a brief description of your products. Domain names can always help with search engine optimization, as it is another area of your web site that important keywords can appear. Forget about long-winded domains such as www.number-one-best-books-on-earth.com as no one will ever remember it and it will be hard to print on business cards or in ads.

If you need to change your domain name for any reason you obviously don't want to lose existing rankings. An easy way to do this, and one that is currently supported by most search engines, is the 301 redirect. It allows you to keep your existing rankings for your old domain name, while forwarding visitors to your new web site instantly.

6. Using Frames. Don't use frames. Frames are a thing of the 90's (and in the Internet world that is eons ago) and are not even supported by some search engines. The search engines that are able to index your site through frames will most likely frown upon them. Whatever you are trying to accomplish by using frames can usually be done with the help of PHP includes or CSS (Cascading Style Sheets). Some browsers are not frames-compatible, so there is the danger of some visitors not being able to see your site at all. Bookmarking of individual pages within a frame becomes difficult without lengthly scripts being written.

7. Update Your Information. Not only does information printed two or three years ago look badly on your organization when it is read by a visitor, it is also looked down upon by search engines. Web sites that continuously update and grow their web sites usually experience higher rankings than stagnant sites. When the trick to SEO is offering visitors the most relevant information, you can bet that the age of web pages is taken into consideration by search engines. Consider creating a section of your site devoted to news within your organization, or have a constantly updated resources area.

Many shortfalls of web sites can easily be attributed to designers who just don't keep the user or search engines in mind. Search engine algorithms are quickly improving to try and list the most user-friendly sites higher, given that the content and link popularity are there to back it up. So first and foremost, know your target market and make your web site work for them before focusing on search engine optimization. If you build it (properly), they will come.

About the author: Copyright John Metzler of Abalone Designs, November 2004. This article may be freely distributed if credit is given to the author. Abalone Designs is a family-run Search Engine Optimization firm in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Visit www.abalone.ca for a free personalized analysis of your web site.

The Resubmission Myth

Author: Bobby Heard

So the thinking goes, the more times you resubmit your site to the search engines, the better chance that you have of getting to the top for your keywords. I can’t tell you how much it aggravates me when I hear about another searach engine optimization company who is selling resubmission packages to struggling small-business owners who just want to find one “professional” in this industry who isn’t charging them ridiculous prices for NO results. Unfortunately, not only do their clients not understand that they are totally wasting their money and not improving their site’s rankings at all, they are actually paying a company to potentially crush their rankings.

The search engines are a touchy group. As you can imagine, they get hassled constantly, as they hold the key to most business’ success. They have systems in place to handle the incredible amount of information that they must organize and database. The submission process is simply one of those systems they have, used to inform them of your web site’s presence if they were previously unaware of its existence. That’s all that it is. Once they are aware of the URL of your web site, they will continue to go to it, update it, and most importantly, keep it in their database. So what’s the harm in resubmission you ask? Well, it’s like sitting in class when your teacher is taking attendance. She calls out your name and you say that you are present. Then, EVERY 5 minutes for the rest of the day, you put up your hand and remind her that you are still present. This may sound ridiculously stupid, but in essence, that is what you are doing to the search engines when you resubmit to them, and search engines can sometimes react by throwing your listing out of their database, just like your teacher is likely to react by throwing you out of her class.

By continually submitting your site, you are creating more work for a major company that is trying (as every company surely is) to create a cost-efficient operation. Your continual submission means that they have more information to process and thus, more money to spend employing someone to deal with that information. The search engines, just like all of us and any successful business, hate wasting money where they don’t need to. So if you continually resubmit your site, they get progressively irritated, and will sometimes take drastic measures such as banning your site from their database.

These search engine optimization companies that tell their consumers that resubmissions work also present other ridiculous claims:

- “We will submit you to 1000’s of search engines” - This list always ends up including Google, Google Canada, Google Germany and Google for every country they have a site for as well as Yahoo, Yahoo Canada, Yahoo Australia, etc. The problem here is that every Google site uses the same Google database and every Yahoo sites uses the same Yahoo database. Don’t believe me? Go to google.com and look at the very bottom of the page beside their copyright. It says searching 8 billion + pages. Now go to google.de, google.ca, google.com.au, google.co.uk and look in the same place, do you notice something? It’s the same number! It’s the same database!

- “Search Engines only index the pages that you submit to them” - What they’re saying here is that any other pages of your site won’t be indexed unless you submit each of them individually. Wrong again! Don’t believe me? Go to yahoo.com and type in “www.abalone.ca” We only submitted our index page when we first started our business. Just one page (index.html), once. Look how many pages they have put in their database.

About the author: Bobby Heard is the VP at Abalone Designs and is an active writer of SEO articles. More articles he has written are available at www.abalone.ca/resources/

Improving the ROI of Web Directory Submissions

Author: Will Spencer

Submitting your web site to web directories is a great way to build high-quality inbound links, increase your

PageRank , and improve your SER PS .

The Internet now features a large number of both general purpose and specialized directories. The specialized directories focus on a specific topic or region.

Unfortunately, submitting your web site to the plethora of available directories requires a significant investment of time and effort. The key to achieving a positive ROI (Return On Investment) from directory submissions is to focus on those directories which will provide you with high-quality inbound links.

It is important to note that many web directories have issues which prevent them from providing useful links. Taking the time understand these issues and submit only to the directories which will provide value will provide significant time savings in promoting your site.

A Taxonomy of Web Directory Issues

Web Directories Which Are No Longer Managed

A survey of 79 general-purpose web directories revealed that 62% of those web directories do not appear to be processing submissions.

In many cases, this is because the operators of the web directory launched their site with great enthusiasm, became overwhelmed by the amount of effort required to maintain a web directory, and stopped maintaining their directory. These operators leave their directories online to take advantage of the residual advertising revenue, but no longer invest the time required to process directory submissions.

Web Directories which Block Search Engine Robots

Some SEO's believe that they can preserve Google PageRank by not giving outbound links from their web sites.

Web directories which operate in this manner will sometimes block Googlebot and other search engine robots from their directory pages using

robots.txt or meta tags.

Before submitting to a web directory, check the PageRank of the directory page upon which you expect your listing to appear. If that page has a PageRank of zero, it could mean that the site operator is blocking Googlebot.

However, this same symptom can also mean that the site or the page is new, and has not been assigned Google PageRank yet. To research this further, examine the sites robots.txt file and the source code to the directory page upon which you expect your listing to appear.

Web Directories which use Scripted Links

Many web directories use scripted links to avoid leaking PageRank. Scripted links use PHP or

JavaScript links to redirect the user to the target page. Although these links work correctly for most site visitors, they do not work for most search engine robots.

To determine if scripted links are in use, place your mouse cursor over an outbound link on the directory page upon which you expect to appear. Examine the link text which appears in the lower left corner of your browser.

A JavaScript link will look something like this:

javascript:var handle=window.open('http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com')

A proper HTML link will look something like this:

http://www.internet-search-engines-faq.com

Free Directory Scammers

Several web directories pretend to accept free submissions, but in reality these free submissions are never processed.

These directories claim to accept free submissions as part of a bait-and-switch tactic to upsell webmasters into paid submissions.

Often these web directories will claim to provide free service for web sites which meet certain defined criteria. It just happens that no web site ever manages to meet those criteria!

Web Directories which Require Reciprocal Links

Some web directories require you to link back to them in order to be listed. This helps build the PageRank of the directory, which benefits all web sites in the directory.

Some people view these sites as link-farms.

If your web site is unable to provide a link back to these directories, do not invest your time submitting your web site to these directories.

Reciprocal linking is not an appropriate strategy for all web sites.

Paid Directories

Some web directories charge for submissions. These web directories charge either a subscription fee, a one-time fee, or a Cost-Per-Click (CPC) fee.

Some of these web directories charge exorbitant fees -- and a few of these web directories charge this fee whether your site is accepted or not!

Although there are exceptions, the general rule is that paid directories do not provide a positive ROI.

Better Directories

A few web directories stand out by offering good user interfaces, speedy inclusion, and plain HTML links which pass PageRank:

All The Web Sites Ezilon

illumirate Jayde JoeAnt Massive Links Mavica Sea rch City The Super Ultra Mega Web Directory Tygo World Site Index Wow Directory

Summary

Submitting your web sites to web directories is an excellent method of building quality inbound links.

Submitting your web site to only the best web directories can net you 90% of the results with 20% of the effort.

About the author:

Will Spencer is the webmaster of The Internet Search Engines FAQ .

SEO Promises from GMR

Author: Pradeep

What are the GMR Promises for developing Search Engine Optimized website?

* We are not going to have any throwaway web pages; we shall link all the WebPages in a logical sequence. * We shall not link your webpage with any harmful websites or websites which are considered as spam, but we shall have the links of your webpage in certain businesses which we feel shall be value adding to your business. * We shall not have any hidden text\links written anywhere in the webpage, but we do say that we will embed the text and keywords so that your webpage is recognized by Search engines in a fast way. * We use our own algorithms to find the best keyword match once you give the phrases with which you want to appear in the search engines. We are not using any ready made tools to employ this, the tools and techniques we use vary with the latest news items posted by Yahoo, Google and MSN on search engine optimization. * We do not promise you the first rank in any search engine, but we do promise that by having some home made SEO algorithms; we increase the visibility in the search engines to a very great extent. * We will give you a flow map of your website that will show all the WebPages and their navigation in the website. * We promise that any confidential matter you would be sharing with us will not be revealed to any third party apart from the members of GMR web team. * We do a lot of research in order to show you on top, we shall require your cooperation and seek continuous maintenance with GMR web team so that latest trends of SEO shall be implemented. We also want to say at this point that SEO frameworks would be changing time and again. Big giants like Yahoo, Google and MSN continuously work on their algorithms to find the best website. So there will be no constant top position in any search engine if you stop having maintenance. * Search Engine Optimization is a science of logic and no body can own any rights saying their algorithm is right or say others algorithm is wrong. It depends only on the perceiving capabilities of the search engine.

About the author: I am a postgraduate in Enterprise Managment from University of Dundee, U.K. I love to understand the new trends happenning in ever changing web world. GMRwebteam is the web company with which i am associated with in implementing my new ideas.

The SEO Journey:

Author: Christine Stander

Working in the fast-paced search engine marketing industry, I have often been faced with the question: “Where exactly does SEO fit into web site development?”

The relevance of SEO cannot be overestimated. Increasingly, webmasters and site owners alike are beginning to realize the importance of optimizing a site to increase rankings on search engine results pages (SERPs). However, they are not always sure how to go about this.

The Growing Importance of SEO:

A few years ago, web sites were created with the goal in mind of bringing companies closer to their clients, i.e. their target market. As the popularity of search engines grew, the number of web sites being created increased alongside. During this process, webmasters and site owners began to realize how important it was to get that all-important competitive edge by reaching the ideal top 20 positions on SERPs. Thus the battle for the top 10 positions ensued.

With this was born the need for people to find and understand a method of constantly reaching those positions. In the case of SEO, the techniques which evolved can be divided into “good guys” and “bad guys” (the proverbial “white hat” SEO and “black hat SEO”, respectively.) Of course, some SEOs evolved into more shades of black than others, finding techniques to “outsmart” the spiders, while others remained true to developing content-relevant sites aimed at users rather than the spiders, while still attaining those sought-after top positions. (But that is a topic for another day.)

Although the black-hats may differ from my opinion here, SEO is no quick fix to propel a site into high-ranking top positions. SEO and usability go hand in hand. Target search engines and searchers at the same time by writing good, relevant, converting content. Map your site well with internal links to related sections. In so doing, you will provide your browsers with easy-to-follow navigation and simultaneously help spiders to index your site. Achieving a well-balanced site is a tedious journey, but when implemented correctly, may produce long-term stable results that will drive your site to top positions and increase your conversions.

Know your territory.

If you want to experience something fully, you have to be prepared for it. You have to research what you need, from the most basic needs through to the finest details. I have been privileged enough to experience the wonders of an African safari. Before the journey, one knows to pack comfortable bush clothes. One also knows that you’re not going to need high heels or suits in the bush. It’s the basics that count: jeans, sneakers and t-shirts.

When you go out on a game drive, what keeps you at ease amongst lion, leopard, elephant and buffalo is the fact that firstly, you know you’re in a Land Rover, driven by an experienced safari guide, and secondly, that if it comes to it, there’s a trusty rifle in the back seat.

The lessons illustrated by this analogy are: research your territory, be prepared, dispense with what is unnecessary and remember that the basics count most of all.

To take the analogy further, launching a web site is not unlike going on safari. Before sending it on its journey to the World Wide Web, you need to pack it full of the things you know it’s going to need. Start with the basics.

•Know the territory. oWhat is the industry which you are entering? •Know the climate. oHow competitive are your competitors? oDoes it call for additional optimization methods such as PPC? •Know the predators. oResearch your competition. Who’s going to be out there with you? oAre they well prepared? Scrutinize the optimization fluctuation of their web sites. •Choose a suitcase. oEnsure the SEO strategy is developed around the technology you choose to develop the site. Flash, Javascript and dynamic sites’ strategies may vary from conventional “straightforward” html web sites. •Pack accordingly. oThe site’s clothes are the copy and design elements. Ensure both are enticing, convincing and relevant, and that they flow with the general theme of the site. oEnsure your key-phrase fluctuation is relevant to the page content and does not deter from the natural flow of the copy. •Be vigilant. oRegularly check your site’s key-phrase ranking and follow-up on your competitors to see if they have made any changes to their strategy. •Adapt. oIn an ever-changing, fast-paced environment, it is crucial that SEOs are able to adapt their style to the most relevant optimization requirement for the intended market.

SEO is a crucial element throughout the life cycle of a web site. Its roots are firmly planted from the site conception to the launch, and tenderly keep it stable throughout its life.

The only question remaining is: “If you choose to call in the experts, should you do this before or after the fact?”

Choose your guide:

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consultants can be called upon at any time during the production of a site. It is preferable, however, to include them in the process as early as possible to ensure that your site is as prepared as possible for the journey ahead.

When you go out on a game drive, you have one of two options – either you drive yourself, or you choose to drive with a guide. You may end up driving along the same path, but the guide knows the territory best. They know where to look for the footprints and may often find the leopard hidden in the tree that you may not have found.

SEO is much the same. You may choose to self-optimize your site or to consult a professional. You may achieve a similar result, but the expert will know which potholes to look out for.

The journey ahead:

Whether you choose to self-optimize your web site or call on an expert, the sooner you begin planning your SEO strategy, the better. Whichever option you choose, send your site to the World Wide Web prepared. By keeping the basics in mind and commencing your SEO strategy early, you’ll ensure that the end result is a web site that is easy to find by clients and search engine spiders alike. It will not only speak to your target market, but be loved by search engine spiders. Enjoy your journey. Preparation will only improve the ride.

About the author: Christine Stander is a professional search engine optimisation and online marketing strategist with experience in many facets of search marketing, user behaviour analysis and brand management. For more information please refer to: http://www.altersage.com

The Meta Tag Myth

Author: Bobby Heard

The more the better right? Wrong. At least when it comes to meta tags. The history of the meta tag started off as a nice tool that web sites could use to show the search engines what the site was about without the words showing up on the actual page. It seemed like a great idea until people started to abuse the meta tag. They would add highly searched for keywords that were unrelated to their site in their meta tags in hopes of attracting additional traffic. The search engines caught on and lowered the importance of meta tags - they figured out that if they put more emphasis on the visible content of a site, people would have a much more difficult time ""cheating"". Turns out that they were right.

Now, don’t get me wrong, meta tags still do carry some significance. They need to be consistent with the content of your site, but most importantly they’re somewhat of a measure of the legitimacy of your site. The most common myth when it comes to search engine optimization is that the best meta tag is the one packed with the most information. This couldn't be further from the truth.

The keyword meta tag has been abused more than any other meta tag and does not carry as much importance as most of the others because of this reason. Most search engines only read the first few characters of the tag, if they read it at all, because they know that most keyword meta tags are filled with spam - Just the same words repeated over and over. That is why it’s important to get your most important keywords to the front of your keyword meta tag.

The meta tag that still carries the most importance is the description meta tag. This is because it serves as a description for the particular page of your site that it is included in. Description meta tags should be unique to each page of your site, as search engines frequently use it as the description under your page title that appears in the search results. Obviously, you want your description to be representative of the page being displayed.

So in conclusion, don’t use meta tags the way we all have a compulsive urge to - by packing it with everything that we can think of. It seems like a good idea, but it will only help you to fail in your goal of the holy grail: higher rankings.

About the author: Bobby Heard is the VP at Abalone Designs and is an active writer of SEO articles. More articles he has written are available at www.abalone.ca/resources/

All About Google

Author: Courtney Heard

If you read The Search Engine Showdown at www.abalone.ca/resources/searchenginetest.html, you know Google is my favourite search engine. Why? Google always offers the most results for any given search (they currently have over 8 billion pages indexed), it's faster than the Audi Quattro we test drove this morning, and 9 times out of ten, in my experience, all the front page results are relevant to my search. In fact, I usually find what I'm looking for within the first few sites listed. I also really respect the fact that two college kids started it (kinda like Abalone!) and that those two college kids seem not to have forgotten where they came from. If you check out the images at Google's press center (http://www.google.com/press/images.html) and scroll down to the Everyday Life Inside Google section, you'll get a feeling that life at Google is fun.

Google is the most used search engine on the web. In May, 2004, 36.8% of all searches on the web were done using Google. Also during that month, Google powered 54% of all searches done on the web.

Google owes their success to their mind-boggling algorithm. This intricate formula sucks in a web page, considers its keyword density, its link popularity, domain name, how often it is updated, the amount of content in the site, and a myriad of other things that few know and spits out a number called PageRank. There is absolutely no way to be sure how to get your site to number one on Google, but there are a few things that we know can help:

1. Make sure your site is well organized, visitor friendly and useful. Google seems to like sites that are listed in the Open Directory Project, and my theory is that it's because the Open Directory Project is human edited. This means real human eyes have looked at each site that is included in the directory and deemed it useful in some way or another. If your site has a link on The Open Directory Project, you're on the right track.

2. Avoid ""spamming"". Spamming refers to many different things. If you add keywords to your site that are out of context or hidden from plain view, it's considered spamming. Resubmitting your site to Google can be looked upon as spamming. The basic principal is to make sure every page on your site is professional looking, clean, organized and has its own unique information to offer.

3. Try to trade links with good quality sites that you like, 'cause if you like them, chances are they have something to offer and Google will recognize that. The more good quality sites around the web that have links pointing to your site, the higher your link popularity will be.

4. Stay away from hi-tech sites unless you offer an alternative. ie. If your site has been designed in Flash, try to offer a plain HTML version of the site. Google can index flash but it's not likely that it will be indexed well, and your ranking will suffer. Frames are also a no-no. Although Google can index framed sites as well, again, the ranking can suffer and more importantly, frames are universally recognized in our industry as hideous!

5. Keep the content on each page to a decent level. You don't want too much content, but you definitely do not want too little. A good way to judge what a good content level is, is to search for the #1 ranking site for the keywords you wish to target, and see how much content they have. Make your content keyword-rich, but don't make it so full of keywords that it sounds ridiculous to visitors. You want to keep the visitors you get from Google, right?

Google almost always offers you the best resource for your query due to the fact that all of these things matter to them. They are also always trying to find ways to improve on the Google Algorithm so they can continue to offer us the best service. Every once in a while we hear about this new search engine and that new search engine, but no one seems to have been able to catch up. As long as this remains true, these simple tips will be applicable.

About the author: Courtney Heard is the founder of Abalone Designs, an Internet Marketing and SEO company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of Courtney's articles are available at www.abalone.ca/resources/

Lead Them On - Getting the Spiders to Notice Your Site

Author: John Calder

© 2004, John Calder http://www.TheEzine.net

You've found your market, developed a marketing and business strategy, identified or created your products, and finally finished your site. Everything else is in place, and you're ready to get listed in the search engines. In order to get indexed, you will need to let the search engine spiders know about your site in the first place.

Are there ways to lure the spiders to your site without manual submission? Thankfully yes, and in fact, many professional SEOs recommend that you follow these methods rather than submit your pages directly.

The very best way, if possible, is to get a link to your site from another site that is already indexed, spidered frequently, and is related to your site. This may include mentions in blogs, news releases, and so on. This technique can get you spidered very quickly, sometimes within a few days or less!

You can also stick to tried and true methods such as posting on forums and writing articles for any of the various article directories. If you do this, don't spam. Follow their rules, offer helpful answers, and don't overdo your ""sig file"". Private membership forums may not be indexed, so be sure that the forums where you post are listed in search results, and that relatively recent posts are displayed.

Whatever method you use to get the spiders to visit, you'll need to provide them with a good site map. Whether created manually or with software, a site map is a listing of and a link to all the pages on your site. If you have more than about 100 pages, consider having a multi-page site map, and make sure each site map page links to every other site map page. Put a link to your site map on your home page at the very least, and preferably on every page. Try to make your site map pages as simple and clutter-free as possible.

About the author: John Calder is the owner/editor of The Ezine Dot Net. Subscribe Today and get real information YOU can use to help build your online business today! http://www.TheEzine.Net

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