Sub Domains vs. Root Domains

Author: Martin Espericueta

[ Question ] My site is currently structured as such: city.example.com/

To improve my Google rankings, should I restructure it as such:

www.example.com/city/

It believe it will eventually help for BL's...but are there any other advantages?

[ Answer ] It actually depends on what you're doing with your site. For example, if you host several different ""themes"" on your domain example.com, I'd create a sub domain, b/c as we know, SEs see them as a separate site. That way, city1.example.com can contain 1000's of sub folders/pages pertinent to city1:

EXAMPLE #1

city1.example.com/events

city1.example.com/dining

city1.example.com/recreation

But, for example, if you have:

EXAMPLE #2 www.example.com/city1

www.example.com/dog-grooming

www.example.com/classic-cars

You are now not capitalizing on the ability to create keyword-rich URLs, as you can do with creating your sub domain (IE: dog-grooming.example.com

You'd then consider each sub domain vs. domain.com/sub-folder as separate sites, and work on separate SEO strategies (IBLs, etc.) for them.

PS: Imagine your sitemap for EXAMPLE #2? It'll look like a link directory! As apposed to EXAMPLE #1 - which would show SEs the ""theme"" for your site.

With my own site on

search engine optimization tips , I've created the sub domain for just this exact reason.

About the author: Martin has been involved in the web design standards movement, as well as a semi-pro at

search engine optimization tips .

10 Sure Fire Tips for Choosing The Right SEO Company

Author: Joe Borges

10 Sure Fire Tips for Choosing The Right SEO Company

There is a lot of conflicting information out there when it comes to advice about choosing which SEO Company is right for you. After all, if you are like me, your Internet business is your livelihood; you can't afford to trust its success to just anyone! Additionally, as you may have already learned, time is not on your side. Every day that you struggle with optimizing your website is another day without sufficient income and another day that your competitors have a chance to get the jump on you.

To eliminate some of the confusion, below I have listed the top ten things that you should look for when choosing a SEO company. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to find an effective, efficient and affordable Search Engine Optimization Company!

1. Size. A good SEO company should include different price points for all business sizes. It should be able to effectively optimize websites with pages from 1 to 1000.

2. Page Rank. The company should specifically address ways of improving your website's Page Rank and Search Engine Positioning. Ideally, this will include a detailed site analysis.

3. Keyword Optimization. Your site's keyword optimization is an integral part of onpage optimization. The SEO Company that you are considering should be able to analyze and optimize your keywords, and suggest alternative ones, if necessary.

4. Linking Strategy. Any SEO company worth its salt will understand the importance placed on both one-way and reciprocal linking by the Search Engines. Therefore, they should offer and be able to perform an advanced analysis of your website's linking structure and offer to improve it.

5. Customer Care. You should have expert advice available to you within reasonable parameters. Do you want or like to wait for answers to your questions? I didn't think so! A company's philosophy on customer service is your indication as to how reliable they are as a company!

6. Time is of the Essence. If you can't save time using an SEO company, what is the point? They should be able to do their job professionally, without asking for continual guidance from you. You should be free to work on other, more pressing projects, such as developing another income stream!

7. Savings/Pricing. The company should be competitively priced. Always compare the value of their SEO services with price that you will be paying. The prices should be reasonable; this means not too cheap, but not too expensive either.

8. Communication. The company should ask for all of your contact information and offer all of theirs. You should be able to get regular updates as to your site's progress, at any time that you ask for it.

9. Value. Compare the price of the SEO service to that of traditional advertising (for example, PPC or classifieds). How does their price compare with other methods of advertising? Do they offer better results faster, with much less cost?

10. Reporting. A serious SEO company should provide detailed reports to you so you can see your website's performance. Do you like guesswork? I know I sure don't! It is much better to see results in print rather than ""accepting"" a verbal one. This way, you can be assured that the Search Engine Optimization Company is really doing what it said it would. Joe Borges is an experienced Internet Marketer and Software Consultant with experience in website development and implementation. He is also a professional SEO Consultant, helping internet businesses increase their web presence, website traffic and Search Engine Ranking. Get essential tips, tools and strategies that you can use right now to make your online business thrive by visiting our Search Engine Optimization website.

About the author: Joe Borges is an experienced professional SEO Consultant, helping internet businesses increase their web presence, website traffic and Search Engine Ranking. He is also an Internet Marketer and Software Consultant with experience in website development and implementation. Get tools and strategies that you can use right now to make your online business thrive by visiting: http://www.tekretail.com/seo-services.html

URL's, What's in a name?

Author: Todd Levi

Google? What kinda name is this? Of course it brings to mind googolplex but how could one branding mean so much to a company? We all know what it means though, it's the featured search engine used more than any other at this point.

When it comes to naming your URL it is important to be catchy, but is it more important to be relative? This is a question we all must face when we name our web site. Sometimes this is easy, for instance if you have a business names ""Flowers-a-Plenty"" then it's a no brainer what you will name your site. At this point if www.flowers-a-plenty.com is not taken then of course this is the optimal decision. However, if your looking to start a flower business online is it very important to come up with a name that is both catchy and relevant? YES! Many of us don't have the starting capital to make the brand name so we look for something that will be both specific for rankings, and catch the millions of web users attention. The name of your website will be something you have to live with, not just a page of hundreds that might end up on your site.

There are many names that just won't be accessible or worthwhile for your online campaign. These are names that have already been taken or have an obvious conflict with current businesses. For instance, to name your new car dealership ""Chevie"" instead of the currently wide used name Chevy just isn't gonna cut it if your truly want your name to stand out. While registering the name Chivie.com might be helpful in getting traffic off of misspellings during searching, its not a feasible name to use for your branding. There are many aspects that go into branding and naming your URL. We must look at advertisability, relevance and intractability. For instance to name your search engine marketing firm ""Search Engine Marketing Firm"" might be nice and relevant, what's going to make you stand out from the rest? While there are obvious barriers here, the fact that names like these are likely to be registered, you must also consider how you are going to distinguish yourself from the competition. If you have a company that specializes in this area, then getting this name and forwarding it to your business web site might be the ideal solution, but it still might not be an ideal name for your company.

Some important points to look at:

Domain Name: Your domain name will be the name of your web presence and is many times used for an effective online branding strategy. Choose a name that is unique, easy to remember and, if possible, highlights the type of products services you wish to portray. If however your budget allows, it is more important that your name be unique. If Google had gone with a name more relevant say, InternetCrawler.com would they be who they are today? If you have a selling point that out-smarts your competitors, you may add a word or two about it in the URL to take advantage of this unique portion of the branding strategy.

Logo: When we think of windows operating system, we are reminded of its logo before everything else. Sometimes the logo will be the lasting memory in the eye of the visitor that makes you memorable, if so, then this is your unique take on the market. Tips for branding your URL on the Web

Be Consistent: Branding on the web would requires making sure you know your audience. You should be consistent in terms of your approach, your message and your treatment given to the viewers through and through.

Be Innovative: Branding your URL is all about being innovative. Understand the likes and dislikes of your target audience before you begin to even think of ideas for branding yourself on the web.

Appeal to the Target Market: Let me restate: Entire branding efforts should be focused on a SECTION of the consumer segment you wish to appeal to. Your brand should appeal to your customer and instill confidence with your viewership in which you are trying to promote to.

The web is unlike any other communications or marketing medium, your web presence is the one place where the entire identity of your company (its products, image, reputation and quality) are viewed in a matter of seconds and a few mouse clicks. Either the entire experience comes together or it doesn't. For this reason alone it is important to make your brand worthwhile to the audience in which it is intended for.

In my particular instance, I have used the name Grapester.com to promote a web site about wine, offering knowledge, articles and insight on ""How to Drink Grapes"". While Grapester is a catchy name, the slogan also makes the site more relative as the tag ""How to Drink Grapes"" is all throughout the website and is something that the visitors that come there will remember. Remember: The brand of your presence online is a foundational building block that will stick with you throughout your online campaign and is not to be taken lightly!

About the author: Todd Levi is a current Web Design and Marketing contributor with over 5 years experience in the field of web design and promotion. His website http://www.LeviSolutions.com is his current business that helps all sorts of companies get online! He also conducts a blog entitled SEO-Marketing where useful information can be found about creating, maintaining and applying strategies for bettering your online presence at http://seo-marketing.levisolutions.com

The Importance of Link Popularity - The Basics

Author: Amye Saunders

Why is Link Popularity Important?

Link popularity is becoming one of the most significant factors in determining how well a site ranks. Search engines are continually motivated to provide relevant search results for each search query.

Traditionally, search engines based their rankings chiefly on what was found within a page or site. Search engine rankings for keyword queries were initially based on the metadata and title within a page. Due to the misuse of metadata principles search engines have started to give more credence to off page criteria - namely link popularity and link reputation.

What is Link Popularity?

The foundation of link popularity is the number of links a search engine detects pointing to a particular site. The more popular the site, the more likely the site is to have quality content. Quality sites are more likely to have content rich pages, allowing the search engine to provide quality results to the search engine results pages. Search engines give a higher ranking in their search results to pages that come from a site with high link popularity.

How does Link Popularity Affect Traffic?

Link popularity is a recognized way to boost targeted traffic. A web page is deemed more important when many other pages link to it. A link is a vote cast by one page for another. But votes are not equal. A vote from a page that benefits from high link popularity transmits a greater weighted value than a page with lower link popularity.

Link popularity is a building block of search engine ranking criteria that when incorporated with on-page optimization factors will influence ranking position in the search results. When links are reinforced with importance to the user and relevant relationship to the receiving page, they have a greater sway on search engine ranking potential.

Link popularity is measured by a complex set of calculations to determine weighted values of incoming links that are not only based upon ""page importance"" but link reputation as well which is the contextual relationship of the linked pages.

How Does Link Popularity Affect Site Rankings?

A link popularity score alone won't determine a page's rank, but search engines increasingly use it to score pages because it is considered a sign of a high quality site: one site won't link to another site for no reason, so a site with an immense amount of external links must contain meaningful content.

All search engines use different algorithms to rank sites, but most of the major ones consider link popularity in some form. Google uses link popularity almost exclusively to rank sites. Because Google provides content for other major players, a high ranking may help a site in other major search engines as well.

Many links to a site can also improve search engine ranking by keeping a site in the search engines. As more sites are linked, the odds increase that search engine spiders will encounter the site repeatedly and be less likely to leave it out of their databases.

Link Popularity Pitfalls

Because of the importance of link popularity there have been many cases of misuse. There are elements to be wary of when it comes to embarking on a linking campaign to boost a website's link popularity. The following is a list of some linking pitfalls:

FFA

Link Farms

Bad Neighbourhoods/Dirty IP's

Banned Sites

Penalized Sites

Accumulation of links too quickly/False Inflation

Independent Back Linking Network

About the author: Amye has spent 15 years in the IT industry and has been working in the Search Engine Optimization field for four years - enjoying every minute! For additional free SEO Tips for beginners visit SEO Fever - a work in progress.

Search Engine Optimization 101: The Very Basics - Make Money Online

Author: Holly Mann

Raising your website's position on the Search Engines is increasingly important as thousands of new websites are created each day and many may be in competition with yours. The more sites added to the World Wide Web, the more expensive advertising costs will be. Don't get trapped into spending hundreds of dollars per day, per week or per month for advertising.

The purpose of optimizing your website is so that Search Engines can easily search your site, navigate throughout and categorize it. As well as creating a graphically appealing informative site for your visitors, you need to concentrate on building a strong keyword-based theme throughout the site. Search Engines are large databases of Web sites that are automatically generated. These Internet search engines use a software robot or spider that seeks out and indexes Web sites. Yahoo, Google, MSN, Excite, AltaVista, AskJeeves are some of the popular Search Engines. To produce accurate search results, search engines must keep their ranking algorithms (formulas) secret. Search engine optimization begins with choosing keywords and key phrases. This is an important first-step and goes hand-in-hand with developing your website theme and choosing a domain name. Before choosing your key phrases, you should check out your competing websites. You cannot optimize your website to reach its highest position without understanding exactly how your competitor's websites reached theirs. Your website should have a clear theme. And your keywords must describe the theme of your site, as well as help your website reach the highest results when queried on the search engines. This is so important for two reasons. One, is because Pay-Per-Click Advertising can be extremely costly. Two, is because the majority of the people who are looking for a product or information on the search engines do NOT click on the sponsored ads. Instead, they click on the freely placed non sponsored websites. Your goal should be to reach the top 10-15 placements in the non sponsored websites. Before choosing a domain name for your website or company, think about the keywords you may be targeting. While you may think you have a great domain name now, it may not include your important keywords in the URL (http://www.KeywordDomain.com). Sites with the keyword in the domain tend to rank higher than domains without the keywords. The next step is to gather material for your website and put it all together so it is graphically appealing, not only for site visitors but for search engines as well. This step may take quite a lot of time, and is usually ongoing, as it is important to continually add, edit and update your site. Every piece of text you add to your website should be supporting the site's overall theme. Now it is of paramount importance to spread the word about your website and create high-quality optimized links to and from your website to help increase your website's page rank.

About the author: Holly Mann is a veteran of the U.S. Army and served as a Journalist and Photographer. She is now A Successful Entrepreneur and sells a Make Money Online Ebook that has helped thousands of people change the way they do business online. http://www.ThankYouRichJerk.com/cheaperbook.htm

Online Press Releases Tipped As Internet Marketing Strategy for 2006

Author: Sally Falkow

Combination of PR and SEO attracts marketers' attention With consumers taking charge of what they read and when they read it, online news has attracted the interest of marketers. The new report Search Marketing Benchmark Guide from Marketing Sherpa tips optimized online press releases and the combination of PR and SEO as one of the top three Internet marketing strategy trends in 2006. According to this report search optimization spending increased in 2005, but it is still a fraction of the money being spend on search advertising and pay per click. ""The one, undeniable truth of search marketing is that across all major engines organic results (those that show up in natural ""free"" listings) are better noticed, read, and clicked on than the paid listings,"" says the report.

77% of surfers get their news online today. Yahoo News has the largest online news audience and an

online optimized press release in Yahoo News and Google News can give a quick boost your search engine marketing. You'll be on page one in the news search for your keywords within twenty-four hours.

Eye track studies show that the pay per click and sponsored ads (e.g. down the right side of a Google search) get less than 50 percent of the searchers' attention and on average get only 30 percent of the clicks.

Makes sense - people buy a newspaper to read the news, not the ads. You don't turn on the TV to watch the ads.

The best Internet marketing strategy would be to have a strong presence in the news section of the search engines. ""PR plants the seed. Advertising harvests the crop,"" wrote Jack Trout and Al Ries, authors of best selling books on positioning.

Publicity in the form of news articles molds public opinion so that your target audiences are more susceptible to advertising or other promotions. The purpose of public relations is to gain awareness and acceptance of your brand -then advertising can be undertaken to forward the brand message.

Every company has a good story to tell. If it is well-written and optimized for the news search engines, an online press release will get more exposure and help improve the visibility of your web site

It seems that there is something magical about news coverage - the public accept it but pass ads right on by. With more and more people getting their news on the Internet, it's vital to also use online optimized press releases that include ""key words"" (the words that your prospects are using to find you or your competitors) links back to your site and a measurement system that can track the results not only on the press release, but also the clicks to your site and the visitor actions on your site.

One caveat: Be sure to find someone who really understands the combination of PR and SEO. Some so-called 'experts' in press release optimization may not be as skilled at optimizing and tracking results as others. Check their references and results carefully.

About the author: Ms. Falkow has created effective internal and external communication strategies for both large and medium sized enterprises for 25 years. Since 1999 Ms. Falkow has translated her extensive experience in communication to the Internet and is now one of the leading web site and Internet marketing strategists in the U.S. Her web reviews and internet marketing strategies using RSS feeds, blogs and optimized press releases have kept our clients on the

The Quality in Your Site's Content

Author: Todd Levi

Adding quality content helps to increase your site's traffic and gives people a reason to come back. There are numerous reason why adding content to your site is important and this article will discuss just why this is.

One of the most effective and most dependable ways to increase the amount of traffic to your website is to offer more quality content. I'm sure you have heard it said that on the Internet, content is king. Well, it's true! There are numerous reason why adding content to your site is important and this article will discuss just why this is.

Getting away from the ""business card website"": A lot of websites are simply avenues to allow a company to have a web presence and are essentially just a form of an online business card or brochure. This type of web site gives nothing to the viewer accept a short iformational about what the company does and how to contact them. To get new web viewers and to keep viewers coming back you need to give them a reason to, creating qaulity content frequently is just that reason.

The Benifits of Original Content: When creating your content remember that original is better! There are easy ways to add content that is specific to your site, but allready found on the web through numerous online article repositories. While these are still good resources to use, using these alone will not benifit the overall goal of having original content. Search engines look at the the number of sites that have the exact same content as less of a factor when deciding there overall rankings. However: submitting a selected number of articles to such directories will help you get your information published on relevant sites specific to your keywords and industry. A sample online article repository is found at: articlecity.com

Making sure to include qaulity links: One important aspect of your site that factors into search engine's view of your site is relevance. By containing links to relevant sites in your content, and your website overall, you will show the search engines exactly what your site is trying to accomplish and make your site more relevant for particular search queries. This is especially true when it comes to human edited directories you wish to be found in.

Ideas for Creating content for your site:

+ Industry specific news and relevant happenings makes great content ideas.

+ Product reviews make a great source of content and help introduce sellable items and services.

+ User forums are a great way to let the site viewers help you create related content for your website.

+ Company background information and company news are ways to generate more content and drive more traffic.

+ Create an article section on your website and include guest writers, articles from repositories, and always include your own unique articles as well.

+ RSS feeds are a great way to add constanly updating content to your website through every changing, industry specific news and events brought in by other sources. We will get into this method at a later date, in another posting.

Just remember one thing, the more content the better becasue Content Is King!

-Todd Levi

About the author: Todd Levi is one of the internet's premier web design and search engine specialists. He currently run's his web design business at http://www.LeviSolutions.com and also conducts an informitive blog at http://SEO-Marketing.LeviSolutions.com

What is Favicon.ico?

Author: Mostafa Soleimanzadeh

A favicon (short for ""Favorites icon""), also known as a page icon , is a small icon that is used by some browsers to identify a bookmarked Web site.

If you're trying to entice people return to your site from the Explorer's Favorites menu, it helps to prompt them with a special logo of some kind.

The display size of a favicon in the Favorites list is 16x16. Files are recognized by the "" .ico "" extension. It works in Explorer 5 and above, and new other browsers also have the ability to use the favicon.ico file.

Creating favicon.ico can save your site some bandwidth if you have created a custom ""404 File Not Found error"" file - that file will be sent by your web server everytime there is a request for a nonexistent ""favicon.ico"" file.

How create a Favicon.ico file?

Go to this website: http://www.chami.com/html-kit/services/favicon/ and Simply select a picture, logo or other graphic (of any size/resolution) for the ""Source Image"" and click ""Generate FavIcon.ico "" button.

Then upload the file to the Root directory of your site.

About the author: Mostafa Soleimanzadeh is the owner of http://www.netmarketingway .com/ where you'll find articles, tips and advice on Website Marketing . You can learn effective Search Engine Optimization strategies and Website Promotion ways in his site.

Webpositionexpert - SEO - Website Optimization Service, Search Engine Positioning

Author: Simon Skinner

Increased targeted online traffic to your website is essential for the success of your company's presence online, and its not just about editing your website's HTML tags. Webpositionexpert (www.webpositionexpert.com) is a company that simplifies your SEO project whilst allowing you to concentrate on your core business!

Simon Skinner (simon@webpositionexpert.com) , founder and CEO of Webpositionexpert discusses web marketing and search engine optimization and the battle to gain increased online traffic to your website. Webpositionexpert are an SEO firm based in Antigua, Caribbean and in Niagara On The Lake Ontario.

Simon started off by saying ""Search engine optimization services are thriving on the web today with many companies marketing their products and services online, to increase traffic and to boost online profits to their website from the search engines.""

""However, many web marketing projects are being rolled out by companies without the proper knowledge to support the company's needs on today's thriving web economy. These companies, through naivety and lack of training are simply not attaining their desired success because of a lack of understanding of how to market themselves online.""

He went on to say ""many companies, large and small think that all they have to do is to build a website and to upload it onto the internet and their business will increase dramatically - it is not that easy!"" He smiles and continues ""Generally, most companies need an SEO specialist like webpositionexpert, but choose to try and complete the project themselves with no prior knowledge. This is a huge mistake that will, more often than not mean that a company's website optimization project is doomed before they have even added text to a webpage that they are trying to market online.""

""Increased online traffic to your website will boost your online profits as long as the potential customers that find you using search engines on the internet are looking for the products or services that you are trying to market.""

""Your web site sells services or products on the internet. You want to drive potential customers to your web site (known as 'Targeted Traffic'), when potential customers arrive you want to persuade them to buy your goods and services, and not those of your competitors. ""

He concluded ""how can you make your web site more visible? That is where using a professional search engine optimization firm comes in. Your web site is optimized to improve your rankings on the major search engines and to drive targeted traffic to your company's website and to increase your profits"".

A managed web site optimization service by a professional search engine optimization firm such as Webpositionexpert.com removes the stress and hassle of dealing with the optimization of your web site when really you want to be concentrating on your core business.

Some people achieve a top 10 placement in major search engines with their web site and yet fail to get genuine results. Others who achieve a top 10 placement with their web site experience high quality traffic that results in major success.

What is the difference? Our process is unmatched in ""knowing"" not guessing about the online behavior of your ideal target audience and how they are going to find your web site. Contact www.webpositionexpert.com today for a free website analysis to increase your online traffic. You can see more of Webpositionexperts services here - www.webpositionexpert.com or mail Simon at simon@webpositionexpert.com

About the author: Webpositionexpert - A website optimization firm (SEO) providing website optimization services, search engine positioning and website marketing services to increase and boost rankings and increase target traffic to your website.

Powerful and Effective Link Building - Catapult Your Search Engine Rankings

Author: SEO Image

One of the most powerful aspects of Search Engine Optimization is link building. Proper link building for the purpose of rankings uses Targeting Links. Targeting Links are one of the most effective approaches, as the links pass PageRank , and are already proven to rank your competitors. The ""Old School"" terminology for this approach is called ""Stealing your competitors rankings"".

Top SEO Companies use this method when developing top-tier marketing strategies for their clients and even their own websites. It is also the most time consuming approach to link building, but it is one of the most powerful methods of producing results.

Define your keyword targets : Each and every link you build needs to have a keyword target when using this approach. Target a single keyword first. See who's ranking in the top ten on your favorite Search Engine (SE) for this keyword or keyword phrase. All of those sites contain your link targets. The sites that link to them, their backlinks, are more powerful than any link that is built for the sole purpose of link popularity. These are targeted links and have much more power to rank websites. Now the keyword that these sites rank for is the Anchor Text that you want to use on your link on these targeted websites.

Now that we have your keyword target, we need to consider whether the link is really a quality link, or a spam site. Determining this is harder for the layman than the experienced marketer as some sites that show in the backlinks are obvious spammers or websites that are trying to make a buck from Pay Per Click advertising. As a general rule these have low or no PageRank (PageRank 0/10), and always have a ton of ads first. Ignore these links, as they will be temporary or detrimental to this process. Finding the quality websites in your competitors backlinks is very important. You need to weed out the garbage.

Choose the websites that have some PageRank and appear to be quality sites, if you find some sites in common when checking backlinks on multiple competitors, then those are the important links, and you should do whatever you have to do to get a link from it. Consider a reciprocal if all else fails.

Now the hard part, how do you get your link on their page next to your competitor? How can you get the link to you without returning it? Since everyone is so link popularity aware, you need to present a quality proposal to the webmaster to gain a link. You need to be a quality addition for the webmaster to want to add the link. Nowadays, it's rare that any site will give a link without returning one. In 1999 before the Link Popularity Search Engines, this was not the case, webmasters linked to whoever they wanted to and paid no attention to reciprocal link exchanges. So how can we get a link without returning one?

Here's a smart approach. For any link that you are targeting, you really need to try and attempt to offer the webmaster a real reason on why he should add the link. Proving that your website is a valuable resource and one-of-a-kind, is a possible way to still get a free link, and a free targeted link is a powerful link. One-way links are important for any site as it is the model of the

Authority Domains . These sites have hundreds to thousands of one-way links, and very few if any reciprocal links. So you should try through whatever methods of one-way link building that you want to use, to get these targeted links without reciprocating. But a reciprocal link is better than no link.

Combine this method with blind link building (random reciprocals links), press releases and even article writing (like this one) and your site will achieve better rankings, better traffic and if your site is truly effective...it will prosper.

About the author: Alan Rabinowitz is the CEO of a prominent NYC SEO Company , SEO Image. Visit SEO Image for more information on Se arch Engine Optimization , Internet Marketing and Link Building.

Introduction to SEO: What is SEO?

Author: Otilia Otlacan

Tough question, ""What is SEO?"". As with pretty much all internet-related terms, concepts and notions, that of ""SEO"" does not have a unique definition and it is a blurry concept in most people's mind. Still, what is SEO? Since there is no ultimate, fully comprehensible definition for ""SEO"", the only way to go is to take a look at several definitions and try to merge them in order to have the right perspective.

Wikipedia : ""Search engine optimization (SEO) is a set of methodologies aimed at improving the visibility of a website in search engine listings. The term also refers to an industry of consultants that carry out optimization projects on behalf of client sites.""

Fakezilla : ""The changes that are made to the content and code of a web site in order to increase its rankings in the results pages of search engines and directories. These changes may involve rewriting body copy, altering Title or Meta tags, removal of Frames or Flash content, and the seeking of incoming links.""

The Web Search Workshop : ""The term used to describe the marketing technique of preparing a website to enhance its chances of being ranked in the top results of a search engine once a relevant search is undertaken. A number of factors are important when optimizing a website, including the content and structure of the website's copy and page layout, the HTML meta-tags and the submission process.""

6am Media : ""The process of improving web pages so that it ranks higher in search engine for targeted keywords with the ultimate goal of generating more revenue from the web site. There are many SEO techniques. In general, these techniques can be categorized as On-Page Optimization, On-Site Optimization, and Off-Site Optimization. There are also two schools of SEO: white hat SEO and black hat SEO. White hat SEOs are those that play by the rule (actually guidelines provided by search engines). Black hat SEOs are those that push the limit of SEOs and employ some questionable or prohibited techniques (according to the guidelines). These black hat SEO techniques are also commonly known as spam.""

Website NOVA : ""acronym for search engine optimization. This is the process of making a website 'search-engine-friendly. Search engine optimization is primarily used to increase rankings in SERPs, and effective SEO can increase the potential of your website and bring in more traffic.""

Thousands more definitions are available, almost as many ""SEO guru's"" you will find online (""The Guru Problem"" is actually the title of another article to be published soon). As you can see, no definition is like another, but they all tend to converge to a certain common understanding.

There are numerous techniques and tools used to achieve SEO goals, and they should NOT be included within a definition.

Since it is not correct to define a concept through its tools, here is a definition I have come up with after long deliberations. The suggestion is to define SEO as follows:

SEO = abbreviation for ""Search Engine Optimization"", the process of optimizing and tuning a web site and gaining online awareness for it, in order to deliver targeted visitors and ensure high conversion rates.

When done correctly, SEO activities must: - make search engines crawl the site; - make search engines index the site; - ensure a high ranking among SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for given keywords; - achieve a high page rank; - drive targeted traffic; - achieve high conversion rates among the site's visitors.

Since nothing is definitive and ultimate in the world of SEO, I'd like to receive your feedback and comments: www.TeaWithEdge.com is a way to contact me and speak up about your Marketing concerns.

About the author: Otilia is an e-Marketing expert. She owns Marketing Links Directory - MarketingWHO , and her current SEO clients are Marketing & e-Marketing Articles and Resources - TeaWithEdge and Colorado Homes | Denver Real Estate .

SEO: SEOelite software a best tool for SEO

Author: prabhjot

SEO is the process of optimizing the site. There are many criteria for optimizing the site. It is very important to use the ethical ways to optimize the site for its promotion. We all are very well aware that in SEO the Link Exchange and the Page Rank has the important role. So we all take the necessary actions and precautions for exchanging links by checking the PR of the site, whether the site has used the ethical way to optimize the site or not. But it is very difficult to check that whether the site is using the spamming techniques or not. In a recent incident a well known internet marketer that his site was penalized by the search engines, apparently because some of his link partners had been penalized (and PR zeroed). To overcome from all these problems new software has been launched for the SEO. SEOelite software has solved all these problems and will save the precious time. Simply enter your link page URL and SEOelite will spider the websites of all your link partners to search for your link. It then tells you if the link to your website is still active, the URL of the page where your link was found, the PR of that page! , the title of that page, number of outbound links on that page! and the anchor text of your link. So we can see that SEOelite can be the right hand for the SEO.

About the author: Prabhjot kaur, working in A-1 as a seo analyst. A-1 internetdesign blog is a place to learn search engine optimization techniques for Free. Our SEO Blog is a collection of search engine optimization news, tips, articles and commentaries As a professional services firm, A-1 internetdesign, will increase your online market reach to help you achieve greater business results.

How to Increase Your Search Engine Rankings

Author: Trent Brownrigg

When talking about search engine rankings many people ask themselves questions like; how many keywords should I put in my anchor text? What is the keyword density that I should have on the page? Should I use short copy or should I use long copy? Can I use flash or not? How many keywords should I put in my ""alt"" text? Etc...

A general statement to answer the above questions is that ""magic numbers do not exist."" The most important thing you can understand as a search engine optimization expert is that algorithms change. Just when you think you understand what is going to make you number one for a keyphrase in a search engine, something could easily change, and you might have to spend months or even years trying to figure the new algorithm.

It is better not to try to reverse engineer the algorithm, do something much easier instead... observe your top competitors. All you need to do is to understand what elements your competitors are using to make them rank in the top positions.

The main elements to getting top search engines rankings are:

- Number, quality, and relevance of inbound links pointing to your site - Fresh, relevant, quality content (needs to be added frequently) - Keyword density of your home page or any page you want to rank highly

LINKS, LINKS, LINKS

The first thing to observe from your competitor's sites is their inbound links. This means the number of sites that have a link pointing to their website. You can easily measure it by going to Google and typing: ""link://www.yourcompetitorssite.com"". However do not only do this on Google because they don't show all actual links pointing to a site. Yahoo and MSN tend to show a lot more of the back links to any given website.

Part of the observation should be not only what the links say, but where the links come from. Think about what the category is that those links come from. If you start to see a recurring pattern, you should start actively searching for links coming from that category.

Some marketers use special software for robotic content creation. They generate thousands of pages with links pointing to their sites. This practice can be very dangerous, as Google will penalize unnatural linking or violations of their terms of service. And what happens is that those links do not look natural. One day one site may have 50 links and the following day have 2000 links, which all say the same thing and come from the same IP address.

If you understand how to observe, this will never happen to you. You will learn how to look at your competitors, and observe how they are getting linked to. Then, just do what they do.

FRESH QUALITY CONTENT

The second thing to observe is how much fresh content the top sites have. Search engines love quality relevant content that is added and updated frequently. You will probably notice that the top sites in your niche have many articles and other quality content, and are continuously adding new content to their sites.

People that surf the web are usually searching for information, so content is the ""fuel"" of internet traffic. If you want to attract many potential customers to your site, then you need to make sure that you provide enough content which is relevant to their interests. Updating it frequently with more quality content will keep visitors coming back to your website over and over again.

KEYWORD DENSITY

The third thing you need to observe is the keyword density of your competitors. How many times should you repeat your main keywords? In which part of the web page should your main keywords be mentioned? Again, there is no magic number, it's all about observing and measuring against the top websites in your market. But what should you measure?

- Meta tags - Alt tags - Titles - Names of the images on the page - Heading tags: h1, h2, h3... - Frequency and position of the keywords in the body text

Each one of these items should be measured independently. There are tools to run keyword density against your competitors. If you run them against the top 3 or 5 sites, you may start to understand the secrets of top rankings.

Again, your keyword density needs to look natural; otherwise you may fail in overall optimization. This is when you use keywords too often or too little. If you look unnatural, your rankings will suffer as a result.

So, what did we learn here? Basically that the key to ranking highly in the search engines is to understand what the top 5 websites in your niche are doing and to apply this to your own website optimization.

What do you do now? Get out there and start getting inbound links for your site. Add quality content to your site daily. And be sure that your on-site optimization, such as keyword density, is similar to that of your top competitors. Continue to do this every day and you will be ranking a the top of the search engines before you know it.

About the author: Trent Brownrigg is a successful internet marketer. Learn more about all aspects of online business by reading his

free business tips at http://www.work-at-home-jobs-iowa.com/home-business-blog.html

Get your FREE biz tips newsletter! Just send a blank email to: workathomebiz@aweber.com

The top ways to increase your traffic

Author: David Hennebery

Traffic is the key to all website, sales and profits. Below are the top ways to get much need traffic to your website 1. Search Engines Optimize your website to be search-engine friendly. Submit it to various search engines and directories. In addition to major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN, it's worth submitting to lesser known web directories. If your website is listed in as many places as possible, it can boost your rankings in major search engines as well. 2. Affiliate Program Set up an affiliate program where you pay people a percentage of each sale for referring customers to you. Spread the word about your affiliate program by submitting it to affiliate program directories and contacting the owners of related websites. 3. Link Exchanges Create a links page that will contain the links to other non-competing websites in the same industry. Contact the owners of other websites with your proposal to exchange links. You will add their link to your links page, and they will link to your website in return. 4. Post In Forums Visit the online discussion forums where people in your target market like to gather. Post useful responses to people's questions, and include a link to your website at the end of your post next to your name. 5. Comment On Blogs Visit other people's blogs on the topic related to your website. Most blogs allow you to add comments about the issues being discussed. Add insightful comments about the blog topics, and leave your website link. Your comment and your link will permanently remain on the blog website. 6. E-Mail Signatures Create an e-mail ""signature"" - your name, your website address and a short tagline describing the main benefit of your site. Set your e-mail program to automatically add your signature to every e-mail that you send. 7. Traffic Exchanges There are many times of traffic exchanges but the idea is the same - you team up with other webmasters, and they send you traffic in exchange for you sending them traffic. Search the web for ""traffic exchange"" to find those services.

8. ""Pass-Around"" Strategy Create something of value that people will pass around. It can be a report with useful information that you allow people to give away. It can also be some kind of cool and unusual webpage that people will want to e-mail to all their friends. Of course, the pass-around item will include your advertisement and your link, spreading the word about your website. 9. Writing Articles Write articles on the topic related to your website, and include a link to your site in your author bio. Submit your articles to article directories, and allow people to publish your article in their newsletters and websites. Your articles will spread around the web like wildfire. People will read them and visit your website. The best part is that people who read your articles will regard you as an expert, and they will be much more likely to buy from you when they go to your website. How's that for a free publicity?

About the author: David Hennebery is the owner and creator of a very successful ebook called ebookprofitmaker. He is regarded as an expert in eBook marketing and selling. To contact him email support@ebookprofitmaker.com or http://www.ebookprofitmaker.com/articleoffer.html

You can start with a few dollars and a good idea to make lots of money online writing and selling your own ebook! I did and I'll show you how. To find out more and receive a 35% discount o

The latest SEO myth debunked

Author: Jeremy L. Knauff

As more people come into the search engine optimization industry, more unqualified people are in the market making uneducated claims that they declare to be facts. The latest claim being made by a few people in the industry is that your competitors can knock your web site from Google's search engine results pages by simply directing links to it (called "" Google Bowling ""). Fortunately, this is not true. Unfortunately, many people relying on the ""professional"" advice of the SEO firms making this ridiculous claim could be put in a bad situation because of it.

The information that they have tried to use to substantiate this claim is the word ""almost"" in one line in

Google's information for webmasters .

"" There's almost nothing a competitor can do to harm your ranking or have your site removed from our index. ""

The fact of the matter is that the word ""almost"" does not make prove anything. To say that it proves the validity of the claim makes no more sense than saying it proves that wearing blue socks on Tuesday will hurt my competitors web site. In reality, SEO firms making claims like this are usually trying to create excuses for their own web site not ranking. Perhaps they should spend some of the time they've been using to create intricate fairy tales and spend it to get up to date on search engine optimization facts.

About the author: Jeremy L. Knauff is the founder of Wildfire Marketing Group, a marketing firm that offers

search engine optimization and many other marke ting services

Keyword Research: An Easy 7 Step Process

Author: on-host.com

Keyword Research: An Easy 7 Step Process

Targeted traffic. All web site owners that submit their site's pages to search engines want targeted traffic in return. Search engines are looking for relevant content that are rich in searched keyword or keyword phrases. The trick is finding keywords that will drive targeted traffic to your site and creating content around these keywords. Keyword research is often an overlooked part of search engine optimization. The research will pay dividends in saved time and effort by targeting the correct keywords or keyword phrases. Use these 7 simple steps to create the targeted traffic you deserve. Keyword Research Step 1: Think Customer

Sounds simple enough, but how will the customer find you. What keywords or keyword phrases will they use to find you're site? Brainstorm and write down all keywords and keyword phrases you're target market may use. Create a new spreadsheet document, either in Excel or Open Office, select column A and begin listing your keywords and keyword phrases, using only one keyword or phrase per cell. The next Keyword Research Step is to determine the number of searches and results for each of these keywords. Keyword Research Step 2: Determine Search Values

To find a value for how many times a keyword or keyword phrase are searched we need to go to Digital Point and use their keyword suggestion tool. This tool is a combination of the Overture keyword tool and the Wordtracker's keyword tool, each present results of how many times a keyword is search daily from the last month. Enter the keyword or keyword phrase and submit the form. In your spreadsheet, name the column Searches, place the monthly search value beside your keywords. Keyword Research Step 3: Determine Result Values

Now go to Google and search each keyword. This is how you find how many web pages indexed by Google include the searched keyword. Near the upper right of the results page you will see something that says 1 - 10 of 1,000,000 . The number we need is 1,000,000 . Create a third column with the heading Results and place the value beside the searched keyword. Keyword Research Step 4: Determine R/S Ratio

Within your spreadsheet create a fourth column with the heading R/S Ratio. It basically is the ratio of the number of page that contain the keyword to the number of times that it is searched. The lower the number the better the results. Keyword Research Step 5: Determine KEI

What is KEI (Keyword Effectiveness Index)? KEI is simply measures the effectiveness of the keyword or keyword phrase more accurately than the R/S Ratio. KEI can measure the growth of increasing search values and result values. To find the keyword or keyword phrase's KEI go to Wordtracker. The higher the KEI the better the keyword or keyword phrase. Wordtracker rate KEI as poor (under 10, too much competition), good (10-100, less competition so good chance of reaching top), outstanding (100-400, best chance of reaching the top), and gift (400+).

Create a fourth column in your spreadsheet and label it KEI. Enter the KEI value for the corresponding keyword or keyword phrase. Keyword Research Step 6: Sort Data

With your spreadsheet sort the data (go to Data -> Sort). The first item we are going to sort is the KEI, use a descending sort to rank KEI from best keyword to worst keyword (high KEI to low KEI). Now sort the R/S column using an ascending sort. This sort can be skipped if there are no keywords with the same KEI. Keyword Research Step 7: Analyze the Data

Obviously we want to choose the keywords or keyword phrases that have the highest KEI and the lowest possible R/S ratio. If we find a keyword with a high KEI and a low R/S lets look at the Search column. What's the number of searches this keyword receives per month.? Is it high enough to focus your marketing efforts on that keyword? Another obvious point is if the keyword has lower KEI and high R/S it is best to avoid marketing to that keyword. Find the keyword or keyword phrases that have a 10+ KEI and a low R/S and enough searches per month to make your efforts worth while.

Keyword research will help you find the keyword niche that will market you site both effectively and efficiently. With out proper keyword research you may not be reaching your fullest potential in search engine traffic generation. Don't waste time and energy by not targeting you market first. Get the traffic you deserve, do your research, your keyword research.

Free Tools Resource: Digital Point - http://www.digitalpoint.com/tools/suggestion/

Wordtracker - http://www,worktracker.com/

Google - http://google.com/

The Dowser http://dowser.sourceforge.net/ - a free keyword analysis tool.

About the author: http://www.on-host.com

Web Hosting Directory and Search Engine Optimization Resources, Website Promotion Resources, and Coding Resources

Googlelicious! The new GoogleBase - an Introduction

Author: Todd Levi

It's not an article directory, it's not a search engine and it's not a bird, a plane or even superman. Then what exactly is this new ""content home"" from the Google team and what does it mean for web site marketing? Let's get it straight from the horse's mouth: ""Google Base is a place where you can easily submit all types of online and offline content that we'll host and make searchable online. You can describe any item you post with attributes, which will help people find it when they search Google Base. In fact, based on the relevance of your items, they may also be included in the main Google search index and other Google products like Froogle, Google Base and Google Local.""

The new GoogleBase is a database to help people get all kinds of information about anything. It's a throwback of sorts that allows people to publish anything they want and then have it be found, not by relevant search engine rankings and optimization of webpages as we know it, but by attributes. Say for instance you have class information you want posted for a basket weaving, simply change the attributes searched for to ""Basketweaving 101 with instructor Baskethead"", tell folks in the class what these attribute are and when they go to GoogleBase.com and search for it, BLAMO - they have found your information! This is the theory behind the giant's new website anyhow.

One major difference between this form of publishing and standard web page publishing is that you give Google your information and they host it as opposed to you hosting it on your server. This means everything in the base is self contained. This isn't all together true though, websites can be posted to the base through direct link postings to the site. A simple search for SEO in the base will show that some of the results still go to hosted websites outside of the base.

A picture is worth a thousand words! With GoogleBase you can add a picture that will be displayed in the search result pages making this type of searching more attractive that normal text based searching.

What does this mean for SEO Experts? Since its launch in November 2005, we are not sure what effects this will have on SEO, yet. Google does say that based on a postings relevancy your submissions to the base might also get included in Google's search engine, Google Local and Froogle however this is still yet to be seen.

My first impressions of GoogleBase are good. This type of ""information at your fingertips"" will certainly help in a lot of ways. Look out though; the porn industry is already on the GoogleBase prowl using it as a medium for mischievous purposes. David Berkowitz from SearchInsider insightfully says that GoogleBase could potentially cause problems for AdWords marketing at Google as products can now have a free medium of advertising: ""This could conceivably cause problems for its AdWords business. If a small business can market its products and services through Base for free, why would it use AdWords? There are obviously some kinks to work out.""

Remember: As Google changes its face, so does the rest of the internet. Let's watch this beta database program over the next few months and see what happens.

About the author: Todd Levi is a search engine optimization specialist and web designer found at http://www.LeviSolutions.com. He also supports an internet marketing and SEO blog found at http://SEO-Marketing.LeviSolutions.com

Wanna Promote Your Website to China Region Via Search Engines?

Author: Jimsun Lui

Value of Internet

According to China Internet Network Information Centre (CNNIC), number of Internet users in China is more than 103,000,000 in 2005.

More than half of Chinese Internet users were below 25 years of age. Out of the total, 32 per cent are students, 12 per cent are professionals and nine per cent are from business and service sectors.

People use Internet mostly for email, reading news and searching for information via search engines. Online shopping spending in China in 2005 was around RMB 9 billions, and will rise to RMB 30 billions in 2007. You can expect there will be a doubled growth in the subsequent years.

With the above figures, business persons must understand the value of using Internet to explore China market. Search engine marketing should be the most cost-effective method to reach Chinese Internet users.

China Region

In fact, China region does not only refer to the Mainland of China. You may also be aware of Hong Kong and Taiwan. Interestingly, Chinese in these 3 different areas have very different cultures due to their historical backgrounds. Even in the Mainland, people from different provinces speak totally different accents of Chinese languages and also differ in their daily life practices. For example, people in GuangDong and Hong Kong usually speak Cantonese. They speak Mandarin only when they talk with people from other provinces. Moreover, people in Mainland and Taiwan are usually not that good in English. Yet in Hong Kong, many people can speak and read English well. Therefore, you must notice the differences in order to write effective website copies to cater for different China Region readers.

Another important thing to note is that people from Hong Kong, Taiwan, GuangDong, Shanghai and Beijing usually have a higher spending power.

Search Engines in China

Major search engines in China include Baidu, Google, Sina and Yahoo. According to a study by CNNIC, Baidu has 51.5% market share, Google has 32.9%, Sina has 4% and Yahoo has 3.7%. Just based on the above figures, you may think that it should be most appropriate to spend most of your effort in Baidu and Google, right? The answer is ""Yes or No. It depends!"" Why?

This is because China Region is large and with complicated cultural differences. It is difficult for you to target the whole China Region unless you have millions of budget. If you are small to medium sized companies, decide your target region and focus on it first. For example, if you choose Hong Kong as your target market, I can tell you Yahoo Hong Kong is the most frequently used search engine and no almost one uses Baidu in Hong Kong!

Another point worthwhile to mention is that Google is rated the best search engine in China and the rating means a highly probable translation to its future growth in market share, according to a study made by Keynote Systems.

Paid Search Engine Marketing

Popularity in paid search engine marketing (pay-per-click) in China is increasing. Baidu, Yahoo and Google have their own programs. In order to succeed in a complicated region, search engines mainly rely on agents to sell their pay-per-click marketing. Pay-per-click is a new concept in China, and people there think it is too far too complicated. Therefore, agents usually sell paid search engine marketing by monthly flat rate according to the different schemes. It is somewhat different with the western world.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search engine optimization is quite a new concept in China but acceptance of this concept is increasing. Currently, there are many black-hat spammers and white-hat optimizers in the country. In China, people usually optimize for Google and Yahoo only, and use paid search engine marketing for Baidu.

The link building process in China region is somewhat different with the western world. Link exchange is uncommon in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It is far more popular in the Mainland. However, the link format is quite different. First, high quality links are usually obtained from personal/ business relationships. Second, reciprocal link format in the western world is usually composed of a Title with hyperlink and description of site but in Mainland, it is only composed of Title with hyperlink. Seems like a link farm? However, it is a common practice in China. Therefore, obtaining meaningful links in China region is no easy task.

Key Factor in Chinese Search Engine Marketing

Many people make a common mistake. Their websites do not have a Chinese version but they want to promote their website in the Mainland and in Taiwan. English may be their mother language but it is not a mother language for Chinese. To succeed, you must have a Chinese version. In addition, you need to notice that traditional Chinese is used in Hong Kong and Taiwan while simplified Chinese is used in Mainland. Sometimes, wordings used in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Mainland are also different from each other.

If you are serious in getting online sales from Chinese but are not familiar with their languages and cultures, you had better use an Internet marketing company located in the China Region to help you.

About the author: Author: Jimsun Lui of Agog Digital Marketing Strategy Ltd, an Internet marketing company offering SEO services , including Chinese SEO service .

Understanding Search Marketing in 2006 / 2007.

Author: Sharad Saxena

Understanding Search Marketing in 2006 / 2007. By Iwebresources.com (Sharad Saxena)

Visitors find related information by using a search engine. You may have the most incredible website on the Internet, but it will receive little or no traffic without search engine visibility and ranking.

The goal for your website is to appear on the first or second page of the search engines' results when your target users searches keywords or keyword phrases. Because most people who use search engines only look at the first page or two of the search results. Search engines like Google, AltaVista, MSN etc currently indexing over 10 billion pages; hence it becomes more and more difficult to get listed in top rank.

The creation of original and high quality contents provides the highest returns. It's extremely important to set aside time to research on your content as content plays a vital role, if you want to get listed in top rank of search engines. Content is extremely important because it 's the content which is indexed in search engines and on this indexing position of a website depends in search engines. Also do some research to find good keywords, which you think will be used by visitors to find your website. Use good keywords with low competition. Content also play a role to get inbound one-way links for your website as if content is good then other web sites wants to link with your website.

Link popularity in simply terms is the total number of web pages that link to your web page or website. Search engines rank web pages and websites by checking link popularity of your website. Link popularity increase the visitor's traffic and getting good web page rank given by search engines. Always try to increase incoming links on your website, as incoming links are relevant links which is relevant to your website services and products. Incoming links helps to get targeted visitors who are looking for similar type of services or products over web. Another type of link exchange is reciprocal link in this type of link webmasters exchange links with other in order to boost their link popularity. Adding links in your website is a very effective way to get direct traffic to your website.

At this time Google is at number one along with Yahoo! And MSN Search at second and third place respectively. These three search engines holds / represent between 85% and 95% of all traffic that arrives at a website directed by a search engine or directory service.

Try to add your website in all search engines and directories, if you website get listed in Google it doesn't means that your work is over. Try to promote and add your website in other search engines also like MSN, AltaVista etc. And above all try to list your website in Open Directory (Dmoz) as it is the most important directory that exists on the web today.

MSN Search currently holds a smaller share of the search engine market than Google or Yahoo! But MSN has the constant attention of consumers, because of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, as long as MSN has such a strong majority of the browser market they are able to be in market for a long-long time. That's why try to list your website in MSN Search also.

Outsourcing Articles Directory: http://www.iwebresources.com/Outsourcing_Articles/outsourcing_art icles.html http://www.iwebresources.com/index1.html http://www.iwebresources.com/index2.html http://www.iwebresources.com/index3.html http://www.iwebresources.com/index4.html http://www.iwebresources.com/index5.html http://www.iwebresources.com/index6.html

About the author: Iwebresources - Leading IT service provider --- We serve you better

SEO = The Ultimate Marketing Strategy for Small Businesses

Author: Carmen Jackson

As a small business owner or manager, you have one principal goal: increase your profitability. Whether you are a sole proprietor looking to increase your own income, or a corporate manager looking to increase shareholder equity, your bottom line is the bottom line. Whether you need to move more IPOD's or provide more services, ultimately you need to increase your income by expanding your revenue while decreasing your expenses. You need to reach new customers, and keep your current customers coming back for more.

If you want people to purchase your goods and services, they need to know that you exist, and what you can do for them. You need to communicate information about your products and services to as many potential customers as possible. This requires more than just broadcasting your message. To be truly efficient, you need to tell your story to those who will actually want to do business with you. You need to focus your efforts.

There are several media available to you for getting your message across. The most basic is simple word-of-mouth. This costs you nothing, but you also have very little control over how your message is communicated. For a small, local business, this may work fine, but in the Internet age, where your customers probably don't come from a small neighborhood, this is not enough.

Traditional electronic media are available to you. Local radio and television spots can reach a great number of people in your community. The question here, however, is just who your message is reaching. These ads are focused on a rather broad demographic: kid's cereals on Saturday mornings, beer and luxurious cars on sports shows, and so on. If this is sufficiently focused for you, you may be in good shape, except that these spots can be fairly costly. A 30-second radio spot can cost $250 or more, depending on the market; a television ad can cost over $5000 for the same spot, with network spots going for much more. In addition, there are production costs, with professional actors, editing, and so forth. They are also pretty ethereal--when the ad is finished, it goes away.

Print advertising has the advantage that it doesn't disappear when the reader has finished looking at your ad. They can go back and look at it again. For local coverage, print advertising can be pretty inexpensive. A four-line classified ad in the local newspaper costs practically nothing. Even display ads can be fairly inexpensive, given that you will reach a large number of people. For national coverage, print can become quite expensive. The rate sheet for a respected national new magazine charges over $300,000 for a one-page color ad in their national edition!

In all these cases, you have to look at who is being targeted. In print ad, you are looking at everybody who reads the magazine or newspaper. Does everybody who reads that publication want to buy your product? If not, then this is probably not the most efficient use of your marketing dollar. Even with focused traditional electronic media, you may be reaching a broader segment of the population than you want to--you may not be interested in all women in the 18-49 group, for example.

What about the World Wide Web? We've all seen banner ads on websites. These may get your message to a more focused group, but there are problems that come with banner ads. Banner ads have become so ubiquitous that many people simply ignore them. Or worse, they have software that will actually remove them from web pages as they view the pages. Your message doesn't get to anybody that way.

Pop-up ads and their newer incarnation, the pop-under ad, are often not appreciated by users on the Web. Having several browsers opened on a user's desktop can be quite disconcerting for them.

You probably already have a website; otherwise you are probably looking seriously at creating a presence on the Web. Your website works for you 24/7; people can always come to your site to see what you have to offer. You reach people who want what you have, because they come looking for you. They want what you have, and they want to hear your story.

If you have a famous brand, people will have an easy time reaching your website. If, however, you aren't a Fortune 500 company, it may be a bit tougher. Search Engine Marketing may be just the thing for you. You want your website to have high visibility, with the goal of leading qualified traffic to you. How much more qualified could your prospects be than to have them actually looking for you?

Marketing via Search Engines may be the most cost-effective techniques available to you. Many Search Engines will list your site for free; others for a relatively small fee. Just because your site is listed on the popular Search Engines, however, doesn't mean you're home free. Have you ever done a search and seen that there were a million matches for your search terms? Have you ever tried to look at the one-millionth match? Usually people are interested in only the first page or two of results--typically the first thirty matches or so. If you happen to be number 31, you are out of luck.

About the Author

Carmen is the VP Client Relations of Ms. SEO Inc., a Calgary based Search Engine Marketing & Internet Marketing Company. Ms. Seo Inc. works with their sister company Ms. Hype Inc.,

a Calgary Website Design Company, and their parent company Cre8 Hype Solutions Inc.,

a Calgary based Internet Marketing Company, to offer their clients a powerful online presence.

About the author: None

The Advantages of SEO Training

Author: Jay Moncliff

It is estimated that at least 340 million people use search engines to find products and services every day. That's a lot of people. The top search engines use link popularity to decide which sights come up first when you do a search. Wouldn't it be nice if your website came up at the top of the list? It is a possibility with search engine optimization, or SEO. With the right SEO training, you can be on your way to a more successful business and much higher web traffic.

Before you start SEO training, you should first understand what SEO is. SEO basically means optimizing the results of a persons search on the web to lead to your website. When someone does a search, say on google.com, they type in a keyword and start the search. The search results then list several websites that fit the category of the search. The top websites are always listed first. Hence, the person doing the search is more likely to use the websites listed first. With the proper SEO training, you can learn how to make your website be listed at the top of the search engine lists.

SEO training can be provided through many different means. A great deal of people receive their SEO training at special seminars. These seminars can last several days and vary in price. Some are as low as $300 and some are as high as $1500. These seminars usually have limited seating available so sign up as soon as you can. There is also SEO training courses offered online with downloadable SEO training material. Most online SEO Training courses are self paced, so you can learn it at your own pace for a set price. There are even some free courses offered online as well.

Most of these courses teach the basics of SEO. This includes: learning how to use link popularity, keyword usage, and marketing techniques that can work best with SEO. Some courses even teach you how to start your very own SEO business, which has become quite popular in the recent years. Many of these SEO training courses offer certification in SEO so that you may officially start an SEO business.

All SEO training courses guarantee that with completion of the course, you will have a dramatic increase in your website traffic. Some say as much as a 500% increase. For business owners, this means a lot more money. If you are interested in SEO training, get on a search engine and see what results you get. The top websites listed are sure to be the ones that used search engine optimization. If it works for them, maybe you should give it a try.

About the author: Jay Moncliff is the founder of

http://www.altaenbuscadoresonline.com a website specialized on Alta En Buscadores , resources and articles. This site provides updated information on Alta En Buscadores. For more info visit his site: Alta En Buscadores

Making Web Pages for Visitors, Not Search Engine Bots

Author: H. Balsagnia

SEO is like wine-making: There's not one exact way to do it, some are better at it than others, similar techniques can deliver widely differing results, and most of you idiots shouldn't be messing around with it because you're going to screw something up and blow up your basement for god's sake.

Every person who is new to the SEO game (usually someone who fires up their very first site and finally realizes after 9 months that you don't just magically appear on Google's first page) has the misconception that SEO is a practice of trickery and tomfoolery, to foil the search engines to list your site at the top because you've manipulated your site to be just what they're looking for. For the most part, this is wrong......it's not completely wrong in every facet of the idea....but it is the wrong way of looking at things.

So you use some program like Web Position and try to manipulate every word of every sentence of every paragraph on your site, and adjust your paragraphs to fall into certain table cells, and tweak your meta description a zillion times until the software says that your site is exactly what the search engine bots are looking for. Well you've probably just wasted a lot of time. True, certain engines can be manipulated more than others. Chock the top and middle of your home page with the keyword you're targeting, and chances are you'll get into MSN's top 50 within a short amount of time. But Yahoo and, to an exponentially grander extent, Google will not give a flying fig about your site. Here's why: Because Google's web bot is smarter than you (and naturally, to a lesser extent, so is Yahoo's). A few years ago, you could tweak and bump and fiddle with your web page's content and do fairly well getting high up in search results. Well this is a problem, because nobody wants to see your worthless web page that serves no useful purpose.

Why is it worthless? Because you've spent all your time tweaking and fiddling, and you haven't written any actual, real content!!! Google, and the others are following, realize that any pointless, spammy, viagra-selling, penis-enlarging, naked-teen-having site could get near the top just by optimizing their page to seem ""important"" to the crawlers. Luckily for us, Google got smart, and Google is getting smarter. If you've read my other articles, then you've already heard me say that you can NOT figure out Google's algorithm. Google employs a squadron of nerds that you couldn't even imagine. If you took your high school's chess team, an entire Star Trek convention, AND a genetically-mutated strand of Dustin Diamond's DNA and combined them.........you still wouldn't have something that could outsmart Google. They're even hiring people away from Microsoft.....read up on it! You should just come to grips with the fact that you will not figure out Google's master plan on selecting websites for search results. Their algorithm is ever-changing, ever-evolving, and ever-becoming-more-and-more-impossible-to-deciher-by-us-common-id iots.

So if we can't figure out what Google wants from us, how are we supposed to make a site that will rank well? This is what you're asking now, right? Well, Google's webmaster sections on their website will tell you this (but since you still haven't read it, I guess I'll tell you....again) to make a QUALITY website with USEFUL content that somebody would ACTUALLY want to VISIT. The only thing that I can say with confidence regarding Google's method of choosing search results is that they are looking for useful content that real people can find useful. ""But how can they tell what is useful to a person, unless they are using hundreds of real people to surf the web and hand-pick useful sites?"" That's what you're asking me right now in a ""retarded-lispy-slurred-william-huangish"" voice. Well the answer........ I already told you........ Google is smarter than you! They are seriously advanced in this silly world of websites and computers and easily-attainable wang-growing pills.

If I can suggest anything about Google's algorithm, it would be that the Google nerds have made it their life's goal to make the Google web bot ""smart"" enough to be able to tell the difference between manipulated, worthless, ""optimized"" content, and real, useful, thoughtful, ACTUAL content. In this day and age, if people can think it, then people can program some computer software to think it too.

So what am I trying to say with all of this? I'm saying that if you want your website to rank well in any engine (especially Google), you need to spend time making a site that serves a useful purpose. Your site full of adsense ads, or keywords ranging from aardvarks to nipple rings to zeppelins when all you sell is schlong-strengthening tablets is not useful to anybody.

Don't get me wrong, you don't have to just offer free advice and articles and information to the hippie dirtbags who might visit your site. You can have a successful business site which sells your product or service, but it needs to be useful to those hippies on TOP of a business promotion for your company. You better have some interesting facts about carpet shampooing or whatever the hell your company does. You're a real estate agent? Well slap up a few dozen pages on your site about homeowner issues (let me help you, I know you real estate agents are kind of slow...... an article about preparing your house to sell quickly....an article about simple home improvements you can do yourself....an article about what to look for when buying a new house....an article about financing and credit concerns.........see, its not so hard....these things would be found useful to a person looking to buy or sell a house).

To conclude, Google's web crawler is quickly becoming intelligent enough to determine automatically what is and is not useful content. Reciprocal linking will help to an extent, but since everyone on earth has traded links with four thousand other worthless sites, that's not going to contribute much to how Google positions you. Make your web pages visually attractive and easy to navigate for PEOPLE. And for Pete's sake, put useful text and other media on there, and not just paragraph upon paragraph of keyword-laced phrases that end up looking like they were written by the aforementioned cockeyed, tone-deaf retard.

About the author: H. Balsagnia is a writer and contributor for several sites, including the music site http://www.roamingbovine.com , and web hosting site http://www.paradigmwebh osting.com . He writes mostly about his several and widely unique personal interests including computers & the web, music, food, money, his pets, security, and more.

Search Engine Marketing

Author: Phillipe Wu

As part of your overall Internet marketing strategy, it is important to devote resources to search engine marketing. This component of your marketing mix has become increasingly critical due to the importance that search engines and directories play in how prospects access information. Search engines have the advantage of driving highly qualified traffic due to the self-selection process initiated by the searcher in choosing their search query.

Research shows that there are more than 8 hundred million people in the world have the habit to access Internet. 86% of them tend to locate information via search engines. In addition, research shows that most people will only look at 2 to 3 pages of search results, so your ranking among the results is becoming increasingly important.

When developing your search engine strategy you need to understand how search engines work, how they are different from directories, and how to maximize their effectiveness in making sure that your business gets as much exposure as your budget allows.

Search Engines populate their databases for search results through robotic software programs that crawl the web looking for content to index. This crawling requires that the software find text-based machine-readable content to index and categorize a site. The content accessed is from the meta tags (title, description, keywords, alt image tags), filenames and content on pages throughout your site. Spiders tend to look at the root directory, 1st level files and occasionally will spider your site to 2nd level content. To determine a site's meta tags, right click your mouse and select View Source.

If your site has not been developed with search engines in mind, you could have difficulty in having your content properly indexed. Search engines also determine relative rankings of results based on certain algorithms that include factors like link popularity, site traffic, site content, etc.

When search engines first evolved, they were based on a ""free"" business model, where conceptually all sites had an equal chance of being indexed and displayed in search results if their developers optimized with some basic steps. While the basic steps are still an important part of your search engine marketing strategy, they no longer are enough. This is due to the fact that many search engines (and dot bombs) found that it wasn't just about capturing eyeballs, but was also about making money. This has led search engines to modify their business models to capitalize on all possible sources of revenue generated by their traffic and/or technology. Traffic was seen as a logical source for advertising revenues and technology was felt to be transferable for use at other sites requiring robust search engines. To date, most search engines have not elected to go towards a subscription-based model where searchers get charged for accessing information. These new business models require that site developers work even more closely with marketing strategists to ensure that the most effective business decisions are made.

About the author: Phillipe Wu is the marketing manager of B2BChinaSources.com , the B2B manufacturers & suppliers marketplace, listing with comprehensive trade and product information of China manufacturers and suppliers.

Article Bot, Search Engines and Affiliate Promotions

Author: John R. Barker

When my Adsense earnings hit near $2000 last January, I knew two things: First, I liked making money that way and I really wanted to make more. And second, it wasn't going to last using the methods I was using.

The majority of my Adsense earnings were coming from six web sites I built using Traffic Equalizer . Four of those sites are still in Google's index and receiving traffic, though nowhere near what they were at the peak of it all.

I believe page generator sites get removed from the search indexes for just one reason: competition reports them. And for that reason alone, the two sites that were removed were also the two sites that were making the most money - in some of the most competitive markets.

Learning lessons along the way, I've developed my own system for building page generator sites that don't suck. It's a combination of utilizing the page generator for creating a moderate number of pages that are highly optimized for phrases that others are not taking the time to optimize for. And providing useful content that will please most visitors, even if the page isn't an exact match for the search phrase.

Although I still use Traffic Equalizer on occassion, my primary tool of choice is Article Bot . There are many misconceptions about what this program is and what it does. I can up it up with one word: Article Bot is brilliant.

It's far more than an aricle re-writer and text scraper. And because of that it requires greater thought and planning than the page generators you might be accustomed to. Traffic Equalizer is to Article Bot what learning to ride a bike is to learning fly a jet.

Article Bot can also take a relational database and create unique pages utilizing related sets of data. I'm simple terms, it allows regular guys like me to create a database driven site without knowing anything about databases.

You can use Article Bot to write pages about anything that would have similar traits. I'm experimenting with creating affiliate sites using merchant data feeds. Although other software allows you to create pages using data feeds, they all read identical to each other which means little to no chance with the search engines. Not so with Article Bot.

Here's a data feed example using 'shoes':

Brand Name | Type of Shoe | Discount Price | Retail Price Clark's ...| dress shoes .| $89 ...........| $119 Sperry ....| boat shoes ..| $69 ...........| $89

And produce something that reads like this (I'll capitalize the data feed variable - but actually EVERYTHING is variable)

----------------------

No wardrobe is complete without a good pair of DRESS SHOES. When I was twenty-two I put on my first pair of CLARK'S and I have had a pair in my closet since.

Right now, you can get a pair of CLARK'S finest at shoes.com for just $89 - that's a big savings off the retail price of $119.

----------------------- Using AB, you could 'spin' a new page and come up with the next product promotion reading . . . -----------------------

A complete wardrobe includes a classic pair of BOAT SHOES. One of the most trusted names in the business is SPERRY and I know a lot of guys who love them.

Last I checked, this pair of SPERRY BOAT SHOES at shoes.com are priced for just $69 - a nice discount off the retail price of $89.

------------------------

You can create some very nice, customized pages that don't look - or read - like all of the other data feed sites out there. And, given that no scraping is being done on these pages, they offer fresh, valuable content that should not get you penalized by the search engines - or reported and de-indexed by competitors. And besides that, you aren't reliant on Adsense Income - you now stand a chance to actually sell something!

I encourage you to take a closer look at Article Bot by reading the good - and the bad - of the program. You should know the downsides too.

Article Bot is not for everyone, and I'll tell you why . . .

About the author: Get the inside scoop on Article Bot, how to Search Engine Optimize with it, make money and more at http://dotcomcoaching.com/article-bot.html

The Google Sandbox and How To Get Out

Author: Doug Williams

The Google Sandbox is a filter that was put in place in about March of 2004. New websites with new domain names can take 6 to 12 months to get decent rankings on Google. Some are reporting stays of up to 18 months. The Sandbox seems to affect nearly all new websites placing them on probation. Similarly, websites that have made comprehensive redesigns have been caught up in this Sandbox.

Does this Sandbox Really Exist, or is it just part of the Google algorithm? This has been a big controversy with many different opinions. Most now believe that this is an algorithm. In either case, the Sandbox functions to keep new sites from shooting to the top of Google in just a few weeks and overtaking quality sites that have been around for many years. This appears to be an initiation period for new websites.

Yahoo and MSN do not seem to have anything similar to the Sandbox. Many websites rank on the first page for their targeted phrases on these two search engines, yet are nowhere to be found on Google.

The more competitive the keywords used, the stronger and longer the website's stay in the Sandbox. If your website focuses on very competitive keywords, you are likely to remain in the Sandbox for a longer period of time than if you use on keywords that are relatively low traffic. It doesn't seem to matter how much original, well optimized content and regardless of how many quality inbound links the site may have.

Which sites go in? All sites are likely given a term in the Sandbox, but those websites seeking rankings in highly competitive searches, are probably in for a much longer duration.

Sites can avoid the Sandbox for several reasons.

Sites which were launched before the March 2004

Sites targeting non-competitive keywords and phrases

Sites targeting less competitive search terms have a much shorter stay.

Domains owned prior to the Sandbox implementation would likely be spared.

Many believe that Google is performing analysis with an eye towards ""Sandboxing"" non-natural text. Low quality text could pre-dispose a site to penalties or make it more difficult to ""escape"" the Sandbox. Sites with unnatural linking that may indicate purchased links and other spam methods that Google deems unnatural manipulation may be Sandboxed.

How can I tell if my website is in the Sandbox or is banned? A Sandboxed site many times will have a good PageRank and a high amount of incoming links. There may be good results for secondary phrases but cannot be found on the primary, more competitive phrases. Sandboxed sites will be visited regularly by Google. Sandboxed sites will frequently have good rankings on MSN and Yahoo.

Banned websites typically do not see the Googlebot visit their websites, regardless of who is linking to them or how good their content is.

How do you get your website out of the Sandbox? The only real escape is time but there are some folks reporting success by publishing articles. They are writing articles on their site topic and either placing the full article on their home page, or placing a summary on their home page with a link to the article page. Then they are then submitting the article to as many free article directories as they can find. These articles provide valuable links back and some are reporting that their sites are being released in as little as one month.

It might also help if your web site has its own IP address and it also seems to help if you have a link from the Yahoo directory. However, these theories haven't been confirmed yet.

Use your time in the Sandbox wisely. You have an excellent opportunity to build all the elements that cause websites to perform well in the search engines. Build traffic by writing articles, building a strong community of visitors, and partnering with websites that offer some service to your visitors. Establish a low-intensity, long-term link building plan and follow it religiously. Start promoting your website the moment you create your website, not when your website is fully ready.

Add content and make improvements to your web site regularly.

There appears to be penalties for re-designing sites. Websites undergoing major renovation in content and layout appear to also be caught up in the Sandbox. This appears to be aimed at spammers who are buying older websites and converting them for their use.

It's important to avoid over-analysis of the Sandbox and to be aware of the filter's qualities to make recognition easier. If you are caught up in the Sandbox, it is best to push forward and continuously make improvements and updating your website. This is best for your visitors and moves you out of the Sandbox sooner.

This article may be reprinted in its entirety for use in newsletters, websites, article archives and newspapers provided that this resource box is left intact and all links are left active.

Copyright November 2005

Doug Williams is the founder and president of Doug Williams and Associates, LLC. DWA is an Internet marketing and search engine optimization firm. DWA also operates a managed linking service ""Don't Worry About Links"" at www.dwalink.com . Visit

www.dougwilliams.com

About the author: Doug Williams is the founder of Doug Williams and Associates (DWA). Doug, a results oriented business consultant, is experienced in designing and implementing strategic plans and business systems. His key strength is the ability to originate and implement change. Doug has expertise in financial, operations and general management in companies experiencing rapid change in both high growth and start-up situations.