The 3 Essential Components of a Search Engine Optimization Campaign

Author: Matt Hockin

Everyday, the Search Engines average 300 MILLION searches. In a recent Forrester Research report 81% of consumers on the Internet find products and services by using the Search Engines. Search Engine Optimization allows you to achieve top search engine placement and a tap into a new source of qualified visitors who are actively searching for products and services on the Internet.

Unfortunately, only 7% of all websites are visible by the search engines according to a recent StatMarket.com study. The reason for this phenomenon is because most web sites are not properly optimized and promoted to achieve high search engine rankings.

The Top 3 Components Of Optimizing Your Web Site for Top Search Engine Rankings:

To achieve the best overall, long-term search engine positioning, three components must be present on your web site:

1. Content component (Your web page text.) 2. Link component (How you link your pages together.) 3. Link Popularity component (The in-bound links to your site.)

1) The Content Component

The most important part of the content component (of a search engine algorithm) is keyword selection and where you place keywords on your web pages. In order for your target audience to find your site on the search engines, your web pages must contain keyword phrases that match the phrases your target audience is typing into search queries. Finding these keywords that your target audience uses to find your product is accomplished by conducting keyword research.

2) The Link Component - Internal Linking

The strategy of placing keyword-rich text on your web pages is useless if the search engine spiders have no way of finding that text. The way your web pages are linked to each other has huge impact on your site's search engine positioning. Be sure to link your pages together with your keywords within your links.

3) The Link Popularity Component - Acquiring In-Bound Links

The ""Link Popularity"" or Google ""Page Rank"" (PR) component of a search engine algorithm analyzes how many web sites link to your website.

95% of the battle of getting high rankings at the search engine is acquiring quality and relevant links pointing to your web site. Ever since Google entered the search engine market, all the major Search Engines have started using links as the primary way they rank web sites. This is known as your web site's ""Link Popularity"" or in Google's case it's called ""PageRank"" or ""PR.""

For example, the heart of Google's algorithm is PageRank, a system for ranking web pages developed by Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin at Stanford University. Here is what Google says about their ""PageRank"" web site ranking algorithm at their web site http://www.google.com/technology/... ""PageRank relies on the uniquely democratic nature of the web by using its vast link structure as an indicator of an individual page's value. In essence, Google interprets a link from page A to page B as a vote, by page A, for page B. But, Google looks at more than the sheer volume of votes, or links a page receives; it also analyzes the page that casts the vote. Votes cast by pages that are themselves ""important"" weigh more heavily and help to make other pages ""important.""

As Google explains, Links and PageRank are critical to ranking high in the search engines. In fact, inbound links and the text within those inbound links account for 95% of effective search engine optimization.

Relevant Links: But, attaining optimal link popularity is not as easy as simply obtaining as many links as possible to your website. The quality and relevancy of the sites linking to your site holds more ""weight"" than the quantity of sites linking to your site. Since Yahoo is the most frequently visited site on the web, a link from Yahoo to your website carries far more ""weight"" than a link from a smaller, less visited site.

Here's what Google Developer Matt Cutts has to say about links...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ ""Thematic incoming links from authority sites carry more weight than on-page optimization."" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Top 4 Strategies for Acquiring Links to Your Web Site:

Below are the four critical steps for achieving high rankings by acquiring text links to your web site...

1) Get a higher Google PageRank score than your competition For any given keyword, there is a minimum PageRank required to rank at Google. In order to see what this minimum PageRank number is, search Google for your keyword and look at the PageRank of your competition's web sites that are ranked in the top 10 of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). An easy way to view the PageRank scores of your competition is to use Google Toolbar http://toolbar.google.com or the SEOChat PageRank Search tool. http://www.seochat.com/seo-tools/pagerank-search/

2) Get more relevant links than your competition All links are not created equal. The best links are ""relevant"" links from web pages related to your keyword.

3) Get more links on more different web sites than your competition Getting links on a variety of different web sites on different networks is crucial for high rankings.

4) Use the keywords you want to high rankings in the search engines as the anchor text of your in-bound links. ""Anchor text"" is the visible text within a hyperlink. Text links and anchor text are the two most important criteria for how Google and other top Search Engines rank web sites.

Here is an example of a link containing the keyword phrase ""ERP Software"" within the anchor text...

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ F*R*E*E [ERP Software] white paper shows how to increase profitability and reduce inventory. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Relevant Links and PageRank are critical to achieving high search engine rankings. Want proof? Do a search at Google for the highly competitive keyword ""computers"" and you'll find Apple and Dell computers rank numbers 1 and 2 in the Search Engine Results Page (SERP). Now, click through to the Apple and Dell web pages and look for the word ""computers"" in their web page text. What did you find? Neither www.apple.com or www.dell.com have the word ""computers"" in their text, yet they're ranking #1 and #2 at Google.

Relevant Links and PageRank Win! The sites with the most relevant links and highest Google PageRank win every time and rank the highest at the top search engines. There are many methods you can use to acquire text links including buying links from a broker, Internet directories, reciprocal linking, Internet publicity, and others.

About the author: Matt Hockin is President of Interactive Marketing, Inc., an Internet marketing consulting company providing web site optimization and search engine marketing services that ""tune up"" web sites for increased conversion rates, traffic, qualified leads, and profitability. For more information, visit http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com

Importance of Keywords - Wrong Keywords Means No Traffic!

Author: Leah West

If your new to the internet marketing world, you might not understand how vitally important choosing the right keywords for your website is. Most people who put up a website (designers included) don't realize that the right keywords on your website will improve your search engine rankability.

When a person goes to a search engine like Google or others, they type in a word or phrase that they want information on. This is what we call a keyword. For instance if the person was looking to buy a new golf club, he might type in 'golf clubs' or 'golf shop' or another variation. So if you were a golf store you would want to have those and other related keywords within your site.

So what if you understand the importance of keywords but don't do any keyword research? Instead you simply think about your product or service and come up with keywords that you think people will search for? At first this might sound like a good idea but in reality you risk losing many potential customers.

What do you think happens if you pick a bunch of words or phrases that people aren't actually searching for? Or you don't think of all the hundreds of other keywords that relate to your product or service and therefore lose potential clients?

You might have the best of intentions when thinking of your own keywords, but it's better to do a thorough keyword search before beginning any website project.

There are a few different places that you can perform these keyword searches.

1. Wordtracker is a great online tool found at www.wordtracker.com You can sign up for a free trial to test it out. This is the most thorough keyword research tool that I have found. You can easily find several thousand related keywords in one search. I created a free ebook that you can download that will help walk you through all the steps of doing an in depth keyword research with Wordtracker. You can download it at http://www.westmarketing-design.com/wordtracker.pdf

2. Overture is actually a paid per click advertising center, but they do offer a keyword search tool if you can find it.

They like to move it around a lot so it doesn't get too abused. As of this article you can find it by going to www.overture.com then clicking on 'advertiser center' in the top right corner. Then under the tools table on the right click on 'keyword selector tool'.

This tool is similar to the one at wordtracker but does not give you as in depth a search nor as many options. It is still good though to use different resources so that your making sure to get all the related keywords you possibly can.

3. Teoma is an often overlooked place to also gather keywords. It is actually a search engine of its own, but has a cool little feature that can help you choose more keywords.

When you type in a word or phrase to search it also gives you two sections on the right hand side that can help you out.

The first is 'refine' which shows related keywords to your search that you might also want to search on. These are extra keywords. You can keep clicking on the keywords in this section with each new page offering more related searches.

The second section is called 'resources' which provides websites that have gatheres links on your specific search topic. This is great to see what kind of competition you got going and check out what works and what doesn't.

So there you go, three ways to conduct a really thorough keyword research.

About the author: Leah West http://www.westmarketing-design.com

Providing complete search engine optimized website design and internet marketing services for your small business success. Sign up for Leah's fr*ee ezine by going to http://www.westmarketing-design.com/ezinesubscribe.htm

Link Popularity: Improve your Search Engine Rankings

Author: Talita Kindermann

What is link popularity?

Link Popularity is simply the total number of pages that link to your website. Most search engines, including Google, consider that when one page links to another page, it is effectively casting a vote of confidence for the other page. Therefore, the likelihood of you being the best source of information for their searchers is directly linked to the number of votes you have. It is therefore safe to assume that the higher the number of pages linking to your website, the higher you will be ranked on the search engines. Link popularity has become a critical success factor for search engine optimization within popular search engines.

How does link popularity work?

Good link popularity is important because it can boost your rankings within search engines, increasing the number of visitors to your website. There are 3 important factors to keep in mind:

Relevancy

An incoming link is considered to be relevant if it relates to your web page. For example, if you sell office furniture online, relevant incoming links could include: furniture manufacturers, interior designers, competitors in other states or countries, etc.

Keywords

Keywords make the relevancy of your site obvious to the search engines. Make sure that incoming links contain the keywords that best describe your site. For example: Brisbane Office Furniture Sales.

Quality

The quality of links is just as important as the number of links. Only high ranking websites can influence your visibility within search engines. You will be penalized for suspicious looking links from unrelated web pages or too many links from low ranking web pages.

How can I discover my link popularity?

Our Link Popularity Checker:

http://www.kintek.com.au/tools/link-popularity-checker.php will show a summary of your link popularity in the four most popular search engines. Alternatively, another easy way to find this out is to type link: followed by your full web address with no spaces, into a search engine and you will receive a list of web sites currently pointing to you.

How can I improve my link popularity?

A few quick tips:

Talk to your suppliers and other related industry partners and arrange to cross link.

Analyse the incoming links you already have and make sure they contain the keywords that best describe your site.

Examine the link popularity of your well ranked competition. Once you discover who's linking to them, find out if you can get a link to your website as well.

Don't forget - content is king. Link popularity is only useful if your website already provides relevant, keyword rich, information.

About the author: Talita operates a family web development firm based in sunny Brisbane, Australia. She enjoys sharing her knowledge and expertise in web design, ecommerce, email marketing and search engine optimisation. Visit her business website, Kintek: http://www.kintek.com.au/

Sales Without Search Engines

Author: Paul Bliss

Imagine one day you flip on your PC, log on to the Internet and go to google.com. The browser alerts you and says that there is no website found at that address. No problem you think, as you head on over to Yahoo.com. Same thing. No website found at that url. Now something seems fishy, go to MSN.com because you know Microsoft will never run out of money, and their search engine will be up. Nope, instead you get another alert box telling you that there is no website found at that url.

Imagine that!

Yes, imagine an Internet world where no search engines exist, and anyone trying to make a living online selling a product or service has to be found.

Where would you start? Where would you list your site(s)? How would you get your site found by your potential customers?

This is the mentality you should always take when promoting your website. Sure, it'd be great to have top rankings in the search engines, and get all of that free targeted traffic coming to your site. But just as easily as you achieve that ranking, you could lose it overnight - with a simple filter change in the algorithm.

I'm sure you've heard of the ""Florida"" update that caused many site owners panic attacks as their previously highly ranked sites fell off the face of the Internet. They lost sales, traffic and dreams of Internet riches.

Why?

As I heard someone famous once say: ""Don't place all your eggs in one basket"" - yet too many website owners do. They are obsessed with a top ranking in Google instead of building a brand name people will recognize and trust. Top rankings in the search engines should be part of your Internet marketing strategy, but dedicate only a portion of your efforts to that. You should equally spend your time pursuing partnerships with other non-competitive sectors of the Internet.

I'm sure you've seen a web-ring. To refresh, they are a group of related sites that link to each other. Internet marketing is the same concept, but on a much grander showcase. You can advertise your site in the costly Pay-Per-Click Arena, and if you have the budget to do so, by all means, that is the quickest way to get found. But keeping in mind that search engines don't exist, what would you do to get the word out?

1. Press Releases - While they should be reserved for newsworthy purposes (new product/service, acquisition, attending Trade Show or Convention, etc.), they are a great way to get people to visit your site when they are looking for information relating to your product or service. It's also a great way to build your brand name and to become known as an authority of information in your field.

2. Directory Listings - Quite simply, this is the easiest way to get your site indexed by search engines. There are many free directories that you can get your site listed in, and there are many fee-based directories that are worth the price of adding your site. The added value is that since your site is listed categorically, it helps to re-enforce what your site offers, since it will be found with similar sites.

3. Articles - Expose your expertise! While article writing is not easy, it is an extremely valuable asset to your site. By writing, you are creating unique content found nowhere else and we all know how much search engines love that! It also gives you another way of explaining a product or service without coming off as a sales pitch. Another added benefit of writing articles is that it's a great way to naturally grow the size of your site in an organic way, and will in turn, make your site become a ""hub"" of relevant information in regards to your industry.

4. Newlsetters - This should be your site's bread and butter. The people who have signed up for your newsletter already feel that your site was worth their time to give you their email address, so these people have already place some trust and value into what you have to say. The newsletter is where you can promote new products and services to interested users without risking any intrusiveness factors. This is the best place to make a sales pitch to your perspective readers!

5. Blogs/RSS Feeds - While to some people this is already old-hat, there are many users out there (think AOL users) who have no idea about how to customize the content they want to read. There are many areas to get your blog listed, and it gives an inside point-of-view into the inner workings of your company or personality, thus giving yet another way for a user to identify with you or your site.

I think it's safe to say that the search engines will always be around, but to focus entirely on them and ignoring the other resources could be a costly business mistake.

Just remember to keep your eye on the prize of online success, and customers coming from various outlets, not just the search engines.

-To your online success! Paul Bliss www.seoforgoogle.com

About the author: Paul has been optimizing sites for over 5 years and has placed over 60 clients in to top positions among all the major search engines.

SEO Basics - 8 Key Strategies For Online Business Success

Author: Leah West

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be a big scary place for newbies. Most SEO professional companies charge astronomical prices that may or may not guarantee success.

The search engines are forever changing the way they rank websites and what is important to achieve a higher ranking. Even with these everchanging factors, there are 8 important points that you must use with your website that are not likely to change any time soon.

1. Domain Name It is better to register a domain with a keyword in it, unless you are trying to brand yourself (think Coca Cola or Ebay). For instance, if your name is John Smith and you sell golf items you would be better off by registering a name like www.golfproducts.com instead of www.johnsmith.com.

Unfortunately with millions of website domain names being purchased all the time, finding a related domain name not already taken can be a daunting task. Still it is worth it in the end because it will carry more significance with the search engines.

2. Title Tag This is an often overlooked place to input keywords. Have you ever been to a website and the bar at the top of the page just said 'untitled' or 'homepage'? That reflects how little the site designer knew about SEO. Always put a descriptive title on EVERY page of your website. Put something like 'Find golf clubs, golf clothes and the latest pro golf tips', instead of 'John's golf shop'.

Make sure not to go overboard and just list 10 or more keywords or long sentences in a row or the search engines will think you are trying to spam them. Think quality over quantity. The title tag should contain one keyword rich descriptive sentence.

3. Meta Tags The importance of meta tags in today's SEO world is still being debated. It is still advisable to include a meta tag keywords and meta tag description in your code. A lot of times the search engines will pull your description tag to show in your websites search result. If nothing is there it may not show anything at all or it may pull the first sentence off of your page which might be completely irrelevent to your intended audience.

Do not, I repeat do not list 100 or more keywords in the keyword tag. This technique used to work years ago, but the search engines recognize this technique and will consider it spam. Place no more than 10 keywords in the meta keywords tag.

4. Link Strategies Another important tip is to include keywords when linking to other websites or pages within your own site. For example it is better to have a sentence like this 'Find out the latest professional golf tips.' then to say 'click here for the latest professional golf tips.' This also applies to any outbound links to other related websites. Include keywords on the part you want the visitors to click on.

Same goes for incoming links to your site. If someone wants to link to your site give them the code to paste in their website instead of leaving them to do it on their own. Have something like 'Check out John's Golf shop for the best golf clubs, golf info and golf tips."" This is much better than 'Click here for John's Golf Shop'. Search engines also like longer more descriptive links than just one or two words.

5. Relevant Content Make sure that you provide only relevant information to what your actually offering or selling. If you have a bunch of unrelated info on a wide range of topics than the search engines will have a harder time pinpointing exactly what it is your site is about. So if your selling golf stuff stick to golf content, don't throw in articles or links about scuba diving.

6. PageRank This is still a relatively new term and applies to an algorithm that google's search engine uses. Other search engines use similar strategies to google's PageRank also.

Basically PageRank is used to define how popular your website is. The more relevant inbound links you have coming into your website the higher your PageRank will be. Google also has a toolbar that you can download for free that will show you a site's PageRank. The best way to go about getting inbound links is to find related websites with a PageRank of 5 or higher. Then asking them to include a link to your site (giving them the proper code to paste in).

Another way you can receive a higher PageRank is to have a ton of content on many different pages and then linking all the pages together in a way that will raise your PageRank. With that said this type of strategy will not boost your PageRank tremendously, so if your site doesn't contain thousands of pages don't stress over it. It is important though to link strategically with keywords between the pages of your site.

You can download google's toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/

7. This is an HTML header tag used to define size of text within the tag. Search engines place more importance on text that is placed within the H1 tag. It's like telling the search engines that 'hey this text is important to my site'. The problem is that it can look unsightly. There are ways around this if you know about CSS styles, but for this basic intro article just know that in the end most people won't be bothered by how the heading looks, and it will make the search engines like you more.

8. Creating Credibility An often overlooked part of free publicity for your website is writing free articles like this one that relates to your intended audience. There are many websites on the internet where you can submit your articles for other people to place on their websites. I even employ this same strategy for my website. It's really a win win situation. They win because they get quality relevant content for their site and you win because your name and website info is included at the bottom of the article, driving traffic to your site.

You increase your inbound links (PageRank) and provide free publicity for your website. It gets your name out there branding you an expert in your field of expertise and provides free web traffic to your site.

About the author: Leah West

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

Steps To Successful Search Engine Optimization

Author: http://www.earthquakestudios.com

Like most marketing techniques that are worth the time & money invested, search engine optimization requires a strong commitment and a bit of patience. Well, actually, alot of patience! Fortunately, it's an investment that will reward you quite well if you follow the proper steps to accomplishing high-ranking "organic" search engine placement. By "organic" we mean not a pay-per-click listing that so many people waste tons of cash on with Google Adwords or Overture's pay-per-click marketing system.

The reason that you must have patience when trying to rank high in the organic listings is simply that there is no exact science to achieving this. Many companies claim that they can get your site listed in the top ten within weeks. In fact, they may be able to get one page ranked high for one obscure keyword on one obscure search engine that no one visits! There is no quick way to getting ranked in the top ten for your most desirable keyword, as most search engines only visit your site maybe once a month, and sometimes alot longer than that, after you submit. You must take the time to optimize each and every page for each search engine that you wish to rank highly. Read further if you want to find out about the basic steps to reaching your search engine optimization goals.

Simply submitting your site and then hoping for the best is not an effective strategy. Instead, you must understand the process to achieving top rankings in the major search engines, and then do something about it. To industry insiders, this process is known as search engine optimization or SEO.

1. Keyword Selection - Perhaps the most difficult step in search engine optimization, choosing the best keywords and keyphrases for which to optimize is extremely important. If you choose keywords that nobody is searching for, then you are wasting your time. Even worse, choosing keywords that are too competitive can become a potential deadend. Furthermore, if you choose keywords that are not related to the type of product or service that you offer, then your visitors will never make a purchase.

The solution? Make a list of relevant keywords that balance both popularity and competition. Using specialized software really helps in this difficult task. There are many software packages out there that will help you do this quickly and easily, but keep in mind that prices aren't typically cheap. However, the amount of time that you can save by utilizing one of these powerful tools can really pay off in no time at all.

2. Measure your rankings - Before trying to improve your page rankings, you must find out where your pages currently rank for the keywords and keyphrases that you are focusing on. If you worked through step 1, you should now have a solid list of relevant keywords and keyphrases that potential customers are typing into the search engines. Again, there are several pieces of software out there that can help you run these queries in a timely fashion.

3. Page Creation and Optimization - Get ready to roll up your sleeves and really get to work on your pages. This step makes all the difference in your ability to compete effectively with other search engine marketers. You may ask, "what is web page optimization?" Basically, it is the process of building a page that contains all of the content that a search engine needs to rank it highly in its index for a particular keyword or keyphrase. One of the easiest ways to determine what the search engine is looking for is to study the pages already ranking in the top 10 for your particular keyword. Then you will try to imitate the key aspects of those pages on your own site, including keyword counts, link popularity, word counts, prominence and several other criteria.

This may sound like rocket science, but fortunately there are software programs that can help you struggle your way through. By analyzing the keywords and content on your page and your competition's pages, the software can make specific recommendations for improvement. These recommendations vary for each search engine. The key to success here is to stay on top of the industry by reading everything you can get your hands on relating to SEO. Subscribe to SEO newsletters and attend seminars when they become available.

4. Submission - Submitting your pages to the various search engines can be done by hand or through a software submission tool. Be careful not to over-submit as some search engines will consider you to be a spammer and your site will become blacklisted. Some sites, such as Google and Yahoo!, will "spider" your website on a periodic basis, and you may not have to resubmit to these indexes.

Regardless, SEO is a daunting task and is not recommended for the novice. If you feel that your business is in need of search engine marketing and currently does not have the resources to accomplish a successful go at it, feel free to contact EarthQuake Studios to begin a comprehensive SEO campaign.

About the author: EarthQuake Studios thrives on the leading edge of innovation, continually developing services that enable our clients to improve their business models. Our service offerings include web design & development, website hosting, domain name registrations, marketing communications, full-color print advertising & collateral, intranet / portal development, e-commerce, email solutions, search engine optimization, SSL certificates and digital photography.

Pay Per Click Optimisation: Pay Per Click Vs Natural Listings

Author: David Touri

So which is the better option, pay per click listings or working towards strong natural listings? This answer depends on you and what you want to achieve in the long run. From my point of view, I would look at using both methods of optimisation with a technique that changes as time progresses. Let me explain...

For those who are not quiet sure what pay per click listings are, they are the listings that appear before all the natural search results for a particular search. To appear in those positions, a set amount must be paid for each time a user clicks on your link. For the website owners who have just built a new website or have a very low search engine visibility, ppc is a great option to get your website indexed and to start receiving quality traffic, provided you have the necessary funds to cater for all the clicks. Daily budgets can be set so you do not overspend on your ppc account.

What about achieving a strong presence in the natural listings? This is a very important point not to overlook. The most obvious reason being is you do not have to pay for each time someone clicks on your link. Pay per click is the fast and easy option however, over a long period of time the amount of money spent can add up to a large sum. So it would be very wise to take on search engine optimisation for your website to achieve those strong natural listings.

As time progresses and your website starts to built a strong reputation within the search engines, pay per click optimisation spends can be cut for the keyword phrases where you are at the top of the competition. If you are satisfied with your incoming traffic from the natural listings, then pay per click optimisation can be stopped completely. In my opinion, I would recommend to continue running ppc listings for those keyword phrases where a strong presence has yet to be made in the natural listings.

To recap, until a strong search engine presence is made in the natural listings, pay per click optimisation is strongly recommended. As time progresses and your website gains more popularity within the search engines, ppc optimisation spends should be reduced or can be stopped. At this stage, your focus will be primarily on keeping your natural listings at the top of the competition and seeing that it has all paid off in the end.

About the author: David Touri is a search engine optimisation specialist working for SEO Sydney . He offers

pay per click optimisation & bid management services to companies in Australia. For further information, please visit http://www.seosydney.com.au

Blogging Is a Good Thing

Author: jim mack

In the 'good old days' - about three years ago - you used to keep in-touch with your customers using phone calls, email messages and face to face meetings. Nowadays the world has changed. People expect even more frequent updates, yet it's nearly impossible to meet with every business contact on a regular basis.

Thankfully, blogging has come to the rescue. Setting up a blog on your web site - and having an associated RSS feed - means you can keep in constant touch with your clients and potential customers. Plus you don't have to email them and they can get your latest news without having to visit your web site.

Whenever you add new content to your blog, the RSS Feed automatically gets updated in everyone's Reader program or web browser. That means you are guaranteed to be able to keep in touch with clients and prospects. You don't have to do anything other than produce the content. Equally, you don't face the problems of email filters and anti-spam programs blocking your email. Furthermore, people tend to read RSS Feeds because they have subscribed to them whereas they tend to ignore non urgent emails.

As you can see, there are several advantages to Blogs and RSS Feeds. But it doesn't stop there. Search engines love them. That's because blogs provide fresh and new content - precisely what searchers are looking for. Hence the search engines are actively pushing blogs higher up the search engine ranking. This means if you don't have a blog for your business, you are seriously reducing your chances of a high search engine ranking. You need a blog nowadays to get noticed by the search engines

So how does this all work? A blog is really a fancy name for a web page that gets updated regularly. It's nothing special. There are several methods of writing 'blogs', but they are nothing more than computer programs which allow you to easily update a web page. Far and away the easiest way to start a blog is with a website called blogger.com.

However, for keeping in touch with your customers, RSS is the key. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. What this means is that your blog can be automatically delivered to people who want to read it - you don't have to send it to them and neither do they have to come and collect it. All they need is the address of your RSS Feed and their RSS Newsreader can do the job for them. There are several RSS readers available and new web browsers incorporate the ability to read RSS feeds and keep them updated.

So, blogging is essential. Not only does it improve your web presence, it also means you can keep in touch with clients and prospects more easily. And all the marketing research you can find will tell you that keeping in regular touch with your customers is an important component in gaining new business. So get blogging!

About the author: Jim Mack is a success coach, mentor and business leader that walks the walk and talks the talk. He has built several successful businesses and now teaches others to do the same http://www.passivecashcow.com http://www.whoisjimmack.com http://www.probuilderpluspowerteam.com

Press Release - Bigmouthmedia gets a little brother

Author: Bigmouthmedia

Following months of negotiations, Search Engine Marketing leaders, bigmouthmedia today announced the acquisition of established UK-based SME search marketing company, Optimiser.co.uk –(http://www.optimiser.co.uk)

Bigmouthmedia specialises in SEO for big-name brands, including Sony Ericsson, MTV and British Airways and has been on the lookout for a smaller company to bring under the bigmouthmedia umbrella to focus on the growing SME search marketing marketplace and to take advantage of the numerous enquiries received by bigmouthmedia every week as a result of its own top search engine rankings.

Bigmouthmedia's MD Steve Leach says "The SME markets has had a raw deal from search marketing; it's this end of the market that is most rife with dodgy SEO services and bedroom bandits. Bigmouthmedia plans to use its 8 years of industry leading SEO experience working with some of the biggest brands to provide the first real cost effective SME SEO service".

Optimiser will initially be rolled out in the UK with plans thereafter to follow bigmouthmedia's example and roll out to the 18 languages & 41 countries. The service will be offered through ISP and Enterprise partnerships as well as direct sales. Fabio Torlini, Marketing Director of leading Managed hosting provider, Rackspace Managed Hosting said "The Optimiser service is a welcome relief for the SME market. At long last they have a well known, ethical big brand to trust with their search marketing needs with the knowledge that Optimiser won't outgrow them at the first whiff of larger clients"

Optimiser will be headed up by new media veteran Scott Howard who joins from leading the New Media team at Union Advertising. Speaking about the launch, Howard said "Together, SME's represent the largest overall spend in the SEO market so there's a lot of potential for growth. It's vital to remember that although each SME's budget is relatively small it is usually a larger proportion of their budget than blue-chips invest in SEO. They need to be able to fully trust the service. Campaign management and managing client expectations will be a major focus of the company" Howard adds "Optimiser clients can expect to get the same great service that Bigmouthmedia has earned its reputation on. That means ethical, ground-breaking techniques, no-bull, transparent results, no nasty contracts and no Swiss Tony sales people, all at a very reasonable cost.

About the author: Bigmouthmedia is based in Leith, Edinburgh, with offices in London and Madrid, and is headed up by Steve Leach and Lyndsay Menzies.

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

Link popularity improvement tutorial

Author: Maarten Van Ruitenburg

Introduction:

Improving your link popularity is a big part of optimizing your website for search engines. Many webmasters ignore this very rewarding process. The most common reason for this is the time it takes. Many webmasters just don't have the time. There are services out there that will do this for you, but if you have the time to do this yourself, I highly recommend you to do this! Please take some time to read through this article and learn how you can get the most out of improving your link popularity in a short amount of time.

What not to do:

One thing that is very important is the quality of the links that link to your website. Links pointing to your from a low ranking, low traffic and unrelated website are very close to pointless. Before we go through he few steps to building a quality link directory, there are a few things you need to know not to do:

- Do not add your link to a large link list that many webmasters upload to their website and consist of links only. This is considered a link farm. Important search engines like Google recognize these links pages as link farms and will not count these as incoming links. In fact it could hurt your rankings. Some other search engines are know for banning your websites if you participate in one of these link farms.

- Do not create a link directory and use this directory for multiple websites. Not only does this get close to being a link farm, it also creates a "links nest". It is very easy for search engine spiders to recignize that all these pages are the same.

- Do not use Zeus for creating your links pages. Google does not spider links pages created by this program which makes it pointless.

- Do not decide whether you will link to a website just because of its Google Page Rank. If it is a nice professional website, and it is a good resource for your visitors, you should definatley link to it!

8 Steps to improving your link popularity successfully:

1. To make the process of searching for links and building your link directory easier and time saving, we recommend using Arelis (Axandras Reciprocal Link Solution) . This award winning program will search for potential link partners and also create your link directories however you like them. The link directory pages are fully customizable to match the looks of your website. It will also help you sending out emails to webmasters to ask them to trade links.

2. To evaluate each potential link partner website we recommend using the Google toolbar as well as the Alexa toolbar. These toolbars will help you evaluate each website you visit. The Google toolbar will tell you the page rank of the website you are visiting (although you should not entirely base your results on this!) and the Alexa toolbar will tell you what kind of traffic rankings the potential link partner has. There is no sense requesting a link exchange with a low traffic website. If it hardly gets any visitors itself, how many will you receive from it? By finding out the page rank you will know how much value Google will put into that link. A page rank over 4/10 will affect your rankings. But also keep in mind that a page with a Page Rank of 1 can be a PR4 next month!

3. As you visit each website, you will also visit many search directories. As you visit these directories don't forget to leave your link. You don't have to link back to these sites. Many of these directories will not just help increasing your link popularity, you can also receive some substantially good traffic from these! 4. Make sure each potential link partner already has a link directory on their website, or even better displays links on the sides or bottom of its website.

5. When you have found about 25-30 potential link partners, create your link directory. If you are using Arelis, there is plenty information on how you can create your links pages matching your website. Make sure you have a link from your main page pointing to your link directory. This will help search engine spiders spider your links pages.

6. You have created a nice looking link directory. Now it is time to start contacting webmasters to request a link exchange. You can use templates to do this. But this is not reccomended. You want to make sure that you personalize each and every single link request you send out. These days, webmasters get too many junk emails. Personalizing your link request will give you a bigger chance to get response from the webmaster you are contacting. Don't forget to add something nice to your email. Also, include your linking information to your website for them to add to theirs. Make it as easy for them as possible. Give them a reason to add your link to their site. Don't start off your request by telling this webmaster telling him how important link popularity is. They should know. And if they don't, they probably don't have a link directory. 7. It might take some webmasters some time to respond to your request. Don't make them angry by keep sending them emails. Send one, if you don't get an answer for a month or so you can send another request. Not all webmasters will respond at all. But if you keep your email requests personalized, professional and friendly, your should be getting about an 70%-80% response.

8. As time goes by, keep working on your link directory. A few hours per week will get you a long way. You will be seeing result after about 1-2 months. The traffic to your site will increase. Your search engine rankings will get higher. Follow each of these steps carefully. Link popularity is so important. But don't think that you will get high rankings just by increasing your link popularity. You also want to make sure your web pages are search engine friendly. You can get someone to optimize your website for you, or you can use a program such as IBP (Internet Business Promotor) and WebCEO

About the author: Maarten Van Ruitenburg has been designing, developing and marketing websites since 1998. Visit his website at www.visualdevelopments.com

The Search Engine Optimization Game Is Getting Tricky

Author: Tom Worsley

For more than 4 years now I have been modifying my work from home based web sites trying to optimize for the major search engines, Especially Goggle. Today with much disappointment I have come to the realization that search engine traffic alone will not make me rich. Yes my search engine rankings are now worse today than when I started 4 years ago.

Google is constantly changing their algorithms which may or may not benefit your web site. In my case it appears it does not. And then there is Yahoo and MSN search on the horizon. It appears these 2 are beginning to take away valuable customers from Google. Although this is not necassarily a bad thing we now need to optimize for 3 search engines instead of 1. Back in the good old days if you had a number 1 ranking on Google for work from home (the holly grail of search terms) you also had a number 1 on Yahoo and MSN for work from home. Today that is not the case.

I have always been reading other people saying not to place all your chips on Google and expect to make it big time. Today I realize how correct they were. I still optimize for search engines this will never change. But in addition to search engine optimization other advertising methods must be used if you want to make it on the internet big time.

If you have the money paying for placement is not a bad idea. Google has its very popular ad words program which for a price will place your website link in an ad box down the right hand side of the search results. And Yahoo has Overture search results which are placed above the natural search results. But you will need to be in the top 3 for your link to show up because Yahoo only shows 3 sponsored listings on top of the natural listings. You can also use several smaller pay per click engines such as Findwhat, 7Search and Kanoodle to name just a few.

Gaining in popularity and very effective is writing and submitting press releases. If you write a good press release with your target URL in it you could potentially get 1,000's of visitors from just 1 press release. Press releases are also showing up in the news search results of Yahoo and Google. This can't hurt your search engine optimization efforts either. The most popular place for information on press releases and getting your release published is http://www.prweb.com . For a small fee of $30 you can guarantee a next day listing and submission of your press release to Yahoo, Google and many other engines.

People have been raving about writing articles for a long time now. Do they work? Of coarse they do. Why do you think I take the time to write articles? It's difficult at first if you are not into writing, but writing articles can help your search engine rankings if you can incorporate your website URL into the article you are writing and then submit it to as many article directories as you can find. Also make sure you add all your articles to your own web site. This adds content to your site that hopefully you visitors will want to read.

There are literally hundreds more options for you to advertise your website both online and offline that I am not going to get into in this article. The main point is don't put all your eggs into one basket like I did (GOOGLE) Spread them out advertise everywhere and don't count on a good search engine ranking. If you do everything else right the search engines will look after your sit for you.

About the author: Tom Worsley is a successful work from home Internet marketer and independent representative for

Strong Future International (SFI) , Owner and Webmaster for http://kawarthapublishing.com .

Beat Google's Dampening Link Filter with Article PR

Author: Glenn Murray

Most Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts agree that links back to your site have a great impact on your ranking in the major search engines. Think of it like an election; your site is a candidate and every link to your site is a vote. Of course, it was never quite that simple (high ranking, relevant sites have more voting power) but now it may have gotten even more complicated.

The Dampening Link Filter

It seems that Google may have introduced something called a ""Dampening Link Filter"" into its indexing algorithm. I'll give you a layperson's overview of this filter, but for more intimate details, check out

WebProNews .

More and more people are realising the importance of links back to your site (or ""backlinks""). For some time, companies have been engaging in all sorts of link campaigns designed to generate thousands of backlinks. Many of these campaigns haven't really paid too much attention to the context or lifespan of these links. And Google knows it. Because these campaigns are designed to artificially generate the perception of a site's importance - to trick the search engines into thinking they're important - it's been suggested that Google has decided to put an end to it. Apparently, there's evidence to suggest that Google has introduced a new link filter to dampen the effect of new backlinks. So if your link generation campaign has just created 500 links in a day from seemingly irrelevant sites, Google will suspect it of being artificial, and refuse to pass on the full effect of those links - at least for a while. Well, that's how the theory goes, anyway.

It has been argued that you can avoid being penalized by this filter by generating links: more slowly; from relevant sites; and which have a long lifespan.

The wisdom of relevance and lifespan is already well established; the dampening filter is simply one more reason why people should start to heed it. Article PR (writing and submitting SEO articles for online publication) is one way to do so.

This article explains how article PR satisfiesd each of these three conditions. (For the basics of article PR writing, take a look at How to Top Google with Article PR .)

Build Backlinks Slowly

Writing quality articles takes time. It's as simple as that. Even an SEO copywriter can't just bang an article together in a morning - it has to be well considered. It must be accurate, informative, interesting, well written, and topical. And once you've written the article, the real work begins. You then have to submit it to your favourite article submit sites. And as they all have different requirements and idiosyncrasies, submitting your article to 50 submit sites can take you all day!

Once submitted, even the best articles will only be published gradually. A good article can be published 2 or 3 times a day for a week or two, then interest tapers off. But still, over the course of 6 months a single good article can be published hundreds of times! And remember, each time is a link.

Build Backlinks From Relevant Sites

As soon as you choose the topic of your article, you define the type of site that will publish it. All online publishers have an agenda; they want to generate traffic. Whether for commercial or benevolent reasons, they want particular kinds of articles for very specific audiences. Your article won't be published on irrelevant sites simply because the publishers of those sites get nothing out of it.

Of course, your article may be published on sites that are only marginally relevant. For instance, this article may be published on general copywriting websites, advertising websites, web design websites, home business websites, etc. But the beauty of a well written SEO article is that you get to optimize it for the keywords that you want to rank for. So even if the keywords on the publishing site don't quite match your own target keywords, the page containing your link (i.e. your article) does.

What's more, you even have the power to optimize the links themselves. For instance, as an SEO copywriter, I can distribute backlinks throughout my article that use my target keywords as the link text (e.g. copywriter , SEO copywriter , advertising copywriter , and website copywriter ;-). Some submit sites don't let you do this, but most will - at least in the byline.

And one other thing - other people link to good articles. This can increase the Page Rank of the site containing your article, which, in turn, can increase the page rank of your own site. It's a win-win situation!

Build Backlinks With a Long Lifespan

The quality of your SEO article determines the lifespan of your backlink. Write a very helpful article, make it easy to read, and choose a topic which isn't going to go away in a hurry, and your article will stay online for years.

In any event, most publishers tend not to clear out their article libraries simply because it's better for them to have lots of content available to both readers and search engines.

Conclusion

While it's no new phenomenon to SEO veterans and SEO copywriters, the use of article PR to generate backlinks is a tactic which offers much in the way of ranking. The possibility of a Google dampening link filter simply increases the value of that offering.

Happy writing!

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

An Easy Way Not to Get Banned by Google

Author: Michael Murray, VP of Fathom SEO

Strategic search engine optimization involves far more than keyword research, META tags and content.

If you want to mange an SEO program, you need to be aware of any issue that can affect your success.

Domain name management is one of the big factors. Effective domain name management is critical because you could end up getting banned from Google and other search engines if you take the wrong approach.

Why would Google ban you?

In the spirit of fair play and providing depth in its results, Google frowns on duplicate content. Some web site owners purchase multiple domains and copy their content for both domains. They figure they may land the #1 and #2 positions that way. That may be the company's goal, but it's not very valuable for the Internet searcher.

Even if you don't maintain your identical content with two or more domains, you can still run into problems. It's possible to update just one set of web pages, but have them look like duplicates because of how the domain names are administered. You may be risking everything if someone enters www.yoursite2005.com/about.html and www.oursite2005.com/about.html and they see the same content – even if they pages reside in only one location. Many web site owners redirect one domain to the next rather than configure the server to associate the core content with a second domain name. In many cases, a 301 redirect is your best bet. It's a server-side redirect most administrators can handle in a few minutes. In effect, it's a proper way of telling search engines to ignore one domain and favor another. You may have many good reasons for owning multiple domains, including brand protection. Some companies get extra domains on the off-chance that someone may simply try a domain name and see what comes up. A classic example is 1-800-FLOWERS.COM. One of their domains is

www.1800flowers.com , but you can get there with www.flowers.com as well.

The Bottom Line

If you secure more than one domain, redirect the extras to your main web site (on the server) or use the extra domains for unique content (showcasing a line of products of services).

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

Design A Spider Friendly Site

Author: Matt Colyer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Designing a Website So the Search Engines Will Like You

Author: Leah West

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

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

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

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

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

**Flash**

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

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

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

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

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

**Keyword Placement**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**More Places for Keywords**

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

**A Frontpage Trick**

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

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

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

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

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

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

**The ALT Tag**

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

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

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

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

About the author: Leah West

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

Website Promotion: 10 Search Engine Optimization Blunders to Avoid

Author: Michael Murray, VP of Fathom SEO

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

Here are 10 to keep in mind:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

How to Top Google with Article PR

Author: Glenn Murray

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here's how article PR works...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Q) What should I write about?

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

Q) How long should my article be?

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

Q) What kind of writing should I use?

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

Q) Should I focus on keywords?

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

Q) Where should I submit my article?

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

Q) Who will publish my article?

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

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

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

Q) Will the publisher change my article?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy writing!

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

Keywords are for humans not search engines

Author: Ant Onaf

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

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

Estimation of Number of links for Each Keyword for Best Rankings

Author: Gagandeep Dhaliwal

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

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

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

I will now explain all this using an example.

Let us choose a keyword ""wedding favors""

1.)

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

2.)

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

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

3.)

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

4.)

Links are of two main types

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

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

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

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

What to look for when shopping for a SEO specialist.

Author: Joe Balestrino

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A few additional things to keep in mind are:

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

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

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