Article writing is the new link-building. Or Is It?

Author: Mark Wallace

This article starts at a time when if I offered any smart webmaster the choice of #1 spot in Alta Vista for just a single day or #1 spot in Google for the rest of the year he'd take the Alta Vista, thank you very much. Yes, a long time in internet years.

Who killed Link Building?

Google did. They created it. And then they killed it. Dead. In the beginning there was no Google. There were directories and other search engines that operated in a vastly different way to the current Google behemoth. When Google came along they established themselves largely on one unique selling point: Their way of establishing relevance for any given search phrase. For the first time ever a search engine used a citation based model where every link was considered a vote for the page it was linking to. They called it Page Rank and it was the mainstay of their algorithm. Simplistically put: pages with more incoming links ranked better. Of course, nobody could predict how large a market share of Search Google would control. For a small and insignificant search engine it didn't make sense for webmasters to spend time and money chasing links in an attempt to improve their ranking.

But, as Google got bigger and bigger, it became more and more worthwhile to hunt for links. And to exchange links, beg for links, pimp for links or plain steal them (drive-by blog spamming). A whole industry build up around links. From the simple web-rings you now had link exchange programs, automated links exchange programs, link clubs, links in forum signatures, buying and selling of links, buying and selling of sites for PR (links), link cooperatives and a whole new lexicon from ""link tarts"" to ""guest-book spamming"" to ""no-follow tags"".

The value at a rock concert is the sound. But when millions of other people are making their own unrelated sound and amplifying it with sophisticated tools then you can't hear the music anymore. And the link noise was disrupting Google's way of determining relevance. If they stuck with their links-determine-importance algorithms they were easy prey, their results could be manipulated by people with the most money/best technology, searchers would lose respect in Google to churn out relevant results. So, Google had to evolve and they had to drop links as the main and sole arbitrator of value. It wasn't in their interest to tell you or me about the change... so they didn't.

Why does content replace link building?

If they were not using citations as the sole determinant of rankings they had to find something else. And it had to relate to what the users wanted. If users were searching for content on how to improve their ranking in search engines they didn't want a page of links, they wanted an article like this one giving them information or a perspective on the subject of their current interest. Google figured this out a while ago and started making subtle changes to their algorithms to reward content.

Webmasters weren't far behind. They cottoned on that sites with a lot of content seemed to be well rewarded and that started the rush for content. They figured, in fact, that the content didn't even need to make sense. In a fashion similar to the earlier rush - innovation and money made a lot of difference. Whether Google predicted it or not they were under attack again. Programs that auto-generated thousands of pages of useless text started going mainstream. Tens (hundreds?) of thousands of webmasters were feeding in seed keywords for the autogenerators to pump out the trash. Then there were the scrapers: Take a small bit of text for each site but if you do that enough times you have a lot of content. And the translators: Take someone's 100,000 word English site, translate it to German via one of the free webtranslator services - which largely mangle the syntax and content to an unintelligible mush - and translate it back to English again (double-mangling, if you will) and you've got a non-copyrighted volume of content using your chosen keywords (together with semantic relatives).

If content doesn't work, what does?

So, to the bitter truth and something you don't want to hear: Churning out content is not blackhat or whitehat anymore, it's old hat. To succeed in the SEO game you need to be one step ahead of the search engine, one step ahead of what all the other SEOs are doing. Writing articles WAS the new link building. Things have moved on and you can read about what does still work at this Long Term SEO page:

experienced-people.co.uk/10 63-understanding-search-engine-rankings/long-haul-seo.htm . Yes, that's the purpose of this article: It isn't content for content sake, it's not even reproduced on our website to bulk out what we already have there. But it will drive traffic to the experienced-people.co.uk website.

Happy search engine results for all your sites.

About the author:

Mark writes for experienced-people.co .uk , a website catering to the more experienced webmaster. It also deals with the buying and selling of websites and

job and internet opportunities .

Do SEO's bring Targeted Web Traffic?

Author: Naveen Kapur

Learn - Weather SEO's attract or distract - targeted traffic to your site? Search engine optimizer (SEO), usually a good SEO firm provides useful services to its web customers. Services like site architecture, a good site design, find relevant directories to which a site can be submitted, site compatibility to its viewer and to search engines. How ever there are unethical practices as well followed by few unethical SEO's , giving a bad name to the industry by doing aggressive marketing efforts and their attempts to unfairly manipulate search engine results. There are though good SEO companies that will improve your site and also will improve your chances from being dropped from search engine results altogether.

Not only a good SEO will structure your site systematically but as well structure promotions and practices for better results and ethical practices. To know more about ethical practices, google provides ethical guidelines for webmaster to perform.

No SEO Company or individual can guarantee you a #1 ranking on google, yahoo, msn or any other Search Engine (SE), similarly MGT's whole purpose to this site is spreading awareness and information on best practices to be performed by any SEO or a fresh start-up Web Companies. A ethical SEO never sends spam mails guaranting you #1 position at any SE. If one does, ask for references who can tell you the facts, ask for more of their success stories, if still not satisfied find out more from any SE about the company by simply typing the name of the domain or a companies name, ask more people with common references about the company. Do the process over and over again till you are really satisfied by the companies profile, cause if you fail to choose a right company your domain and the companies name may be removed entirely from by major SE's directories.

Again as said earlier a good SEO will always provide valid reasoning for any optimization process before they begin. A ethical SEO never unethically submits your site to 100's of search engines promising you more web traffic. Believe us (casue we have done this ages ago as a mistake) they are useless practices and not worth a time. You may see the traffic results higher in the traffic analyzer for a day or so but you will also see it fall back very soon. There are no results from one or 2 day traffic rising in peak.

Web traffics are permanent traffics that you see in your control panel or any other web analyzer reports. They show you daily traffic but the accumulation is based on weeks and months. Web Advertising is another way for more web traffic, but not a SEO process. Advertising in Google Adwords and Yahoo Overture and others is simply getting sponsored for keywords you choose and pay per click process, nothing more.

A ethical SEO firm shall carry out process such as spam abuse alerts and report it to respective SE's complaint forum. An ethical SEO never spasm offline or online. To make sure what you pay is what you get always ask for a refund option at the start of the project. A good SEO company will always promise and obey the ethical norms for client's satisfaction. A full and unconditional money-back should be guaranteed.

A firm belie in an SEO company is a must and it only comes when you get desired results. But do not be faked at times by companies who perform un-ethical jobs like performing doorway pages. Usually doorway pages contain hidden keywords directing to other clients domains of the SEO Company. Keep a constant check on your keywords and links on each page. These pages can drain away the link popularity of a site and route it to the other clients, which may include sites with unsavory or illegal content. Always go for a Written Contract following the ethical SEO guidelines. For Ethical SEO guidelines please refer to : http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html

About the author: http://www.moregoogletraffic.com

Blog and Search Engine Optimization tips

Author: Johnny

Your favorite thing about having a blog may soon be this - they naturally attract search engine traffic . Blogs already have optimized site architecture. Most are set up with a clear navigation, where every page is set up to link back to the other main pages. They also have the inherent potential to be well-linked.

Blog and search engine optimization tip 1: Lucrative Keyword Choices

You have a choice. You can target a general high traffic keyword you have little chance of ranking well for and get barely any traffic. Or you can shoot for a keyword that gets a moderate level of targeted traffic resulting in more subscribers and sales. I like to call this a ""lucrative keyword"". Whatever you call them, here's the most important thing: They may not get you the most traffic, but they often bring the most profit.

High Traffic Equals High Sales? Maybe Not You may be surprised to learn that there isn't always a correlation between high traffic and high sales. Many of the most profitable sites in the world get moderate traffic because their lucrative keywords result in a much higher ratio of visitors to buyers.

Length of Query is a Factor: A recent article in Information Week stated that the highest conversion rates from search engine traffic comes from people who do four word queries. The great thing about your blog is that it can get so well-indexed that you have the potential to show up for any number of four word phrases that are relevant to your industry.

Target Your Blog: It isn't just the four word phrases that get converting traffic - there are two and three word phrases that can bring you traffic and sales. Targeting your blog discussion to a two or three word phrase that has a high yield of traffic, and yet has little competition, is not a dream of past Internet days. Another recent study revealed that surprisingly high percentages of search engine queries debuted as late as 2004.As long as there are new developments, new products, services and trends, you'll never have a shortage of these terms if you learn how to discover them.

Blog and search engine optimization tip 2: Keyword Placement

Your blog can be set up to repeat the keywords that you want to target just enough times to establish a theme. You can take full advantage of this in your post titles, your category names, the pages URL names, or even a combination of Technorati tags and the text of your permanent links that appear after each post.

Blog and search engine optimization tip 3: Timely Posting

Instead of pinging at 15 minute intervals when your site hasn't been updated, or even pinging after every single post, you can actually get better results if you update or ping just once during one of three sweet spots in the day. Here's one that you can use today.

Keep Track of Your Stats Check your web site statistics.if you're getting spidered every two weeks or even monthly, you can increase your number of spider visits by blogging on the anniversary of the period that the spider comes to your site. It takes a bit of monitoring, but you can often predict when the date of your last spider visit was. An even faster way is to ping at a time when the spider is reading a page that carries your update.

Blog and search engine optimization tip 4: Get Linked

Turn on your site feed(s) and use them to promote your blog. Robin Good's guide can get you some great one way links.If you sparingly include the lucrative keyword you selected in tip two in your title and description, all those link backs will contain the keyword term you most want attention for, which is often noted by the spiders as they follow the link through to your site.

Once there, if you use these and other tips to skew your blog a little more to the search-engine-friendly side, the synergistic effect is better, more profitable traffic. Frequent blog updates is more important for better search engine optimization.

Blog and Search Engine optimization

For blogging tips for beginners visit :

Blogging tips for beginners

About the author: I have been on Internet quite some time and learnt how to use web for getting traffic to websites and earn money from blogs. You can more info about make money from blog Blog-Magic: Making money blogging . Use web effectively.

How to Get Links: A Comprehensive Strategy for Beginners

Author: Scott Smigler

If you've spent time researching ways to optimize your website to improve your search engine rankings, you've no doubt been introduced to the concept of link building. It's one of the most effective ways to improve your rankings. The challenge is that all links are not created equal. Here is your guide to success. First, a little background:

Search engines like Google assess the number, relevance, and the quality of websites that link to yours. When another site links to yours, they are essentially ""voting"" for you. They are telling Google that your site has quality content and that it is a good resource for ""something.""

What's something? Well, if a website that talks about computer memory links to your website, that website is telling Google that you're a relevant resource for people who are looking for computer memory. The more websites like this computer memory site that link to you, the more of an authority Google will perceive you as being on this subject matter.

Yes, Google will assess the content on the websites that link to you, and will even look at the sites that link to the sites that link to you, to determine the quality of the votes that you're getting. The more of these votes you get from websites that Google considers relevant and authoritative, the greater your opportunity to improve your rankings in the search engines.

The million dollar question: How do you get these relevant sites to link to you?

There are many ""approaches"" to get sites to link to you. Before you start, however, consider Google's motive:

They don't want to see how good you are at getting links; they want to find out how important and relevant of a resource your website really is.

As a result, your challenge is to either:

Make your website a really good resource, or Make Google think your website is a really good resource

If want optimal results, however, you'll do a combination of both.

Make your website a really good resource and over time you'll get good in-bound links to your website, and your rankings will climb. If you want to speed up the process, however, make your website a really good resource and then actively pursue links that appear to be ""natural"" rather than ""forced"" links. You'll still need to be patient; the goal is simply to push things along.

Active versus Passive link building

At the end of the day, and at a very high level, you get links one of two ways:

1) Passively - by having great tools on your site, and/or articles that give other sites a reason to link to you

2) Actively - by doing things like article syndication, link swaps, directory submissions, tagging, etc

To get the best of both worlds:

First - Takes steps towards making your website a real resource by doing things like:

- Building a valuable tool or collection of tools

- Building features that make it easier for customers to buy complex products from you rather than your competitors

- Creating a fun but useful blog oriented to the products or services you offer (employ a gimmick, but make sure there is steak behind the sizzle)

- Posting valuable articles and ""how-to"" guides

- Creating an ""award"" or offering comprehensive reviews (sometimes user-generated reviews)

- Etc, etc, etc (the point is to be creative)

The idea behind passive link building is that you're making your site such a valuable resource that other website owners start linking to it simply because it would be a good place to send their visitors. In other words, they link without you asking.

Then - Use active link building to get ""natural looking"" links to your site

Your attempts at getting ""natural looking"" links leading to your website probably won't appear ""perfectly natural,"" but if you can start improving your rankings gradually and getting more traffic, you'll be getting the word out about how useful your website is - and the natural links will start coming all by themselves.

Ideas for actively bringing links to your website:

-Article syndication: Write 1,000 word articles that are useful to your target audience (top 10 lists, etc), and syndicate them to article directories like EZineArticles.com. Other webmasters go to sites like EZineGuides.com to pick up useful articles for their site.

-Link swaps: Though I'm not a big fan of link swaps, you may want to contact 10 to 20 websites that you consider ""friendly"" and relevant to your site, and offer to exchange links. Note that Google can tell when you ""exchange"" links, versus ""earning"" one-way links from other sites, so don't abuse this.

-Create a blog: Yes, I mentioned this as a passive link building strategy because it is both passive and active. Build a blog and take advantage of ""trackbacks"" and ""pings"" to get links from other blogs and blog aggregators respectively.

-Directory submissions: Submit your site to relevant directories. Some will allow you to submit your site for free (without reciprocating) like DMOZ. Others will require that you pay a listing fee (like Business.com). Either way, if the directory is a good one, these links have value.

-Tagging: Submit your resource page to sites like Yahoo's MyWeb, Slashdot, Digg it, and Del.icio.us. If other members of the respective network like your link, it will gain more prominence, traffic, and links.

Summing it Up

The idea here is to offer something of real value on your website (something that would give other people a reason to link to you), and to speed the process along a little bit by putting some bait out there.

Another way of saying that is: Use active link building to speed up your passive link building.

While active link building may help you get short-term results, it's the passive link building that helps you get long-term results, and allows you to target more competitive search phrases.

GA-002

About the author: Scott Smigler founded Exclusive Concepts in 1997. Exclusive Concepts provides integrated online marketing strategies and search engine marketing solutions for hundreds of clients ( Yahoo Merchant Solutions ) to business to business service providers.

Search Engine Optimisation - a quick guide

Author: Christopher Ruane

Search engines have the main purpose to index thousands of millions of web pages. Once you look for a word or a phrase, the search engine scans automatically the entire database where it has the stored pages indexed and it returns to you as a result a list containing the most relevant results for that search.

The only criteria are the number of pages found and their relevance depend on are the capabilities of the used search engine.Google has become the largest search engine at present but there is a constant battle between companies to be at the forefront .

Search engines appeared somewhere in the early 90's when Alan Emtage, a student at the McGill University in Montreal created the first search engine tool. It was called Archie. Its purpose was to search through the information available on the FTP servers. The files on these servers were available for anyone, but one couldn't use them unless knowing the exact address of the server and of the file.

Archie looked through this database and gathered lists of files for each server. It was used by people to match phrases and characters in order to take them to the server address the file they were looking for was on.

Its creation was the first step in the search engine rally that is going on now. As the public grew more and more aware of the existence of the internet, the need for a search tool became visible.

So, first there were some software robots, using the concept of spidering to index the web, following links from one site to the other and saving the text from all visited websites in a database.

Between 1994 and 1995 three important search engines appeared: Lycos, WebCrawler and AltaVista. At about the same time Yahoo! appeared but Yahoo! is not a search engine. Yes, it has a search engine function, but yahoo is firstly a directory of data and articles, providing different services as email and hosting. Recently yahoo has signed contracts with other search engines as Google for both of them to provide more search results.

Today search engines are in a continuous competition. There are thousands of search engines, but just a few big ones. This small group of top search engines is responsible for more than 90% of online searches.

However, if search engines are free and they can be used by everyone what keeps them financially alive? The answer to the question is very simple: advertising and traffic. The more visits they have, the bigger the traffic then the more money they can make providing AD space.

Search engines are competing to develop the best formulas and algorithms to evaluate the web pages accordingly to the keywords provided.

If someone is looking for a top position in search engines, then he has to be sure that his site is projected in such a way that search engines would find it easily, being relevant for the keywords and phrases the owner wants it to be found by.

SEO tools

Search Engine optimization is of two kinds, Organic and Mechanical. Organic SEO depends on manual or natural ways of optimizing a website and takes more time resulting in long lasting results. Mechanical SEO use software i.e. seo tools to optimize a website. It takes less time but results have a shorter shelf life.

SEO tools are numerous. They are available for keyword verification checking and suggestions, link popularity checks, meta tag optimization, search saturation checking, back link building, search engine ranking etc.

The seo tools are being extensively used today to optimize websites. In the fiercely competitive industries it is very important to be on top of Google, Yahoo or any other search engine rankings to tap targeted audiences. This greatly helps to sustain, grow and expand your business through your website.

Each category of seo tools in turn has a number of software developed by different companies. It is relevant to know which are good before you embark upon using one. Almost all of them have demo versions available for free download. You can always try them out before narrowing your options and buying the best. Remember, SEO tools need to be used carefully or the search engines can black list you.

For our list of webmaster tools check out at http://www.DigitalMoneyMakers.com/webmaster-tools.htm

New to the world of ecommerce and don't know where to turn? Visit the beginners' guide to earning online at: http://www.DigitalMoneyMakers.com

About the author: None

Search engine optimization - Myths and Facts

Author: Purva Mewar

First, we will discuss the myths behind search engine optimization . The reasons are obvious. Many people or experts on search engine optimization techniques write many things about search engine optimization of websites. And this flood of information gives rise to confusion all the time.

Submitting your site to search engines will help you get more visitors is an absoluely false notion. Its' hardly so easy or automatic. If your web site is not properly optimized,traffic will not be generated, no matter what you do. Make sure your site is optimized with relevant keywords or key-phrases before it is submitted to search engines. It will save your time, money and energy.

Traditional advertising is better than search engine optimization Nothing is better than using search engine optimization techniques for your websites to rank high on search engines. No amount of money spent on advertising can be compared to or compete with a well optimized site that ranks well on search engines. The reasons again are abvious. People who find your web site through search engines are active, focussed and open to buy or try what ever you have to offer. Search engine traffic is worthy and qualified because the visitors perform searches with a purpose when they find your site.

Search engine leads (meaning visitors) are more potential than traditional media advertising methods. Optimizing your web site for high search engine rankings is the most cost-effective advertising method for your business. And it is necessary to make sure that your web site is optimized for search engines and that it has many incoming links. Incoming links from websites that rank high on search engines will help you move up the search engine that much faster. If your web site is good in these two areas, optimizing and incomeing links, you'll get many targeted visitors from search engines and other web sites without submitting your site to the search engines even once.

Hidden content technique or cloaking or doorway pages worked in the past or do work with some search engines but in time they won't work. These techniques will be considered as Spam by all the search engines in future. So it in our interest not to be tempted by these short cuts which will work temporarily. Imagine waking up one morning to find your position in search engines gone missing.

META tags alone will not improve your search engine ranking. Since people have abused the meta keyword or key-phrase tags a bit too often, most search engines don't consider it anymore towards search engine ranking. Inktomi is probably the last major crawler-based search engine that reads the META Keywords tag. The META Description tag is still worthwhile only because its description tag is what is displayed on the search results pages of a few search engines.

About the author:

The author is Purva Mewar works on two Work at Home Business websites, earning a living online. www.yesearnfromhome.com and www.work-at-home-earn-extra-income.com

Post Your Links Here...

Author: Ren Withnell

Oh Lordy! Google is no longer giving extra brownie points for reciprocal links! For some in the SEO business you would have thought the end of the world is upon us.

So, one way links are ""in"", particularly if they are relevant. Well, I cannot offer relevance but I am quite happy for people to post on my shiny new website. ""Now, why would he do that?"" you're asking yourself. It's not because I'm a nice boy who helps old ladies across the road is it?. No, it's because I want content.

What? Now you're thinking ""Cheeky swine! He's gonna ask for 10,000 word essays in return for one shoddy link back to my site."" Nope. It's up to you how much you write, but as anyone who understands the tiniest bit about SEO, a bit of text is like honey to search engines.

It works like this. You get a page to fill out your ""posting"". You type your name, page title, link URL, and your text, then post it to me. I look at it, I check the link works, I check your site is not offensive or illegal and if I approve, it goes in the listing. The search engines come and visit my site, pick up on YOUR text which is hopefully full of keywords and informative information, spot your link and record a one way link back to you.

Me, I get a website full of your links and lots of juicy copy for the search engines to lap up.

Have a look, what have you got to loose? Show And Tell

About the author: Errrrrm...what am I doing here...HELP Show And Tell

Affordable Search Engine Optimization Within Reach

Author: Charles Preston

Affordable Search Engine Optimization Within Reach

A few years back businesses were throwing 20-30k a month on search engine optimization; at least the bigger businesses were. The small business was hard pressed to find search engine optimization for much less that actually worked.

As of today the landscape of search engine optimization has changed. Many of the once coveted secrets of seo are now common knowledge. More and more people know how to do search engine optimization and since supply increased the prices have dropped.

Another factor is that alot of the grunt work of seo that would have increased costs has been diminished via outsourcing to India and other countries who can now do this mind numbing work for much less thereby allowing seo firms to lower their costs even more.

As an seo with around 7 years of experience I find that most of my time these days is spent in research. Google is pretty good at keeping us all on our toes with each update they make to their search engine algorithm. Scouring forums, chatting with colleagues and investing time in experimentation seems to fill many of my days lately.

Having relegated much of my own firm's grunt work to freelancers I am able to provide more and more value to my own clients for less dollars. In fact I find that my clients keep getting smarter and smarter and more confident about doing their own seo that I many times simply play the role of a consultant or seo coach.

As a consumer though I advise that people still be very careful about what they purchase even if it is cheap. Money is money and after all you still want results. The old rules apply here when searching for affordable search engine optimization and are as follows...

Get case studies from any prospective seo you might hire Get testimonials Check references Look for a proven track record and at least 3 years of online history in the industry Always make sure they have a money back guarantee Try dealing with a local firm based in the U.S. whether or not they use outsourcing is no matter as long as the actual company itself has a U.S. base. The reason being is that if something goes wrong it's very difficult legally if you were dealing with a company based somewhere like Bulgaria.

Honestly a lot of seo really isn't that hard but it does require an attentive eye and a lot of patience. There are tried and true strategies to achieve top rankings but they don't happen over night.

We actually just created a mentoring package for folks who just want to do it themselves and save money and do it the right way. It seems to be working well and I encourage those who are not happy with their current website traffic or search engine rankings to consider such a program as a viable alternative.

About the author: NoneArticle is submitted on behalf of Charles Preston, who is President of Click Response, a website marketing and design firm where you can get affordable search engine optimization that works.

Sub Domains vs. Root Domains

Author: Martin Espericueta

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

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

www.example.com/city/

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

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

EXAMPLE #1

city1.example.com/events

city1.example.com/dining

city1.example.com/recreation

But, for example, if you have:

EXAMPLE #2 www.example.com/city1

www.example.com/dog-grooming

www.example.com/classic-cars

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

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

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

With my own site on

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

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

search engine optimization tips .

10 Sure Fire Tips for Choosing The Right SEO Company

Author: Joe Borges

10 Sure Fire Tips for Choosing The Right SEO Company

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

URL's, What's in a name?

Author: Todd Levi

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

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

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

Some important points to look at:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Importance of Link Popularity - The Basics

Author: Amye Saunders

Why is Link Popularity Important?

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

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

What is Link Popularity?

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

How does Link Popularity Affect Traffic?

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

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

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

How Does Link Popularity Affect Site Rankings?

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

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

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

Link Popularity Pitfalls

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

FFA

Link Farms

Bad Neighbourhoods/Dirty IP's

Banned Sites

Penalized Sites

Accumulation of links too quickly/False Inflation

Independent Back Linking Network

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

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

Author: Holly Mann

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

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

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

Online Press Releases Tipped As Internet Marketing Strategy for 2006

Author: Sally Falkow

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Quality in Your Site's Content

Author: Todd Levi

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

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

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

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

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

Ideas for Creating content for your site:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-Todd Levi

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

What is Favicon.ico?

Author: Mostafa Soleimanzadeh

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

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

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

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

How create a Favicon.ico file?

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

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

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

Webpositionexpert - SEO - Website Optimization Service, Search Engine Positioning

Author: Simon Skinner

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Powerful and Effective Link Building - Catapult Your Search Engine Rankings

Author: SEO Image

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Introduction to SEO: What is SEO?

Author: Otilia Otlacan

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Search Engine Optimization Tips

Author: Webmaster Corner

When we talk about site optimization, we are talking about making the site more search engine friendly, that is allowing it to rank better in search engines. When you optimize your site, you mainly optimize it for some keywords you are targeting. Keywords are the words people search for when using search engines, so for example, if your site is about natural disasters, you might be targeting the following keywords: earthquakes, volcano, tsunamis, nature disaster.

In this article, I shall concentrate on some few important tips to optimize your site and make it more search engine friendly. Be very careful when optimizing your site, there are some techniques used out there that might get your site banned from search engines and we don't want that to happen. These techniques are considered illegal since they are used mostly to trick search engines and show them something different that what is shown to normal visitor.

Ready? Let us start:

Content

There is a very popular saying: 'Content is King'. Search engines (SEs) like to see content, they like to read text. SEs are not friendly with images and animations! I know that those flash animations and presentations might look great for visitors, but for SEs they are seen as empty space! The richer content and text you have the better. Try to fill your site with valuable and important information. In addition, your content should contain your keywords for better targeting.

In-page Structure and Optimization

When you write your page, be careful to optimize it, the following are some general tips to follow:

- Write a good title containing your most important keywords. Don't make it too long and write it so that users can understand what the page is about.

- Generate your meta tags (keywords and description). Make sure you include your keywords in the description.

- Use and tags! Enclose your main titles with H1 and H2 tags. Be sure to include your keywords in it.

- Use alts in images (especially if an image is used as a link).

- Make sure that you have no borken links.

- Try to write your most important content (and keywords) at the top of the page and not at the bottom.

- Focus to target only one or two keywords per page.

Backlinks

Backlinks are all external links (external to your site) that point to your site. I should state here that this is one of the most important factors to consider when optimizing your site. From here on, it is your duty to find places where you can put your link. Here are my tips to get links:

- Don't ever spam.

- Find free directories and submit your site to them.

- Exchange links with relevant sites.

- Write important articles and content so that will want to link to you.

Tools of the trade:

Here are some tools that can be used to see your progress:

- Webmaster Corner Forum: http://www.webmater-corner .com/

Forum dealing with all aspects of site optimization and marketing

- Search engine rankings:

http://www.webmaster-corner.com/services/search-engine- rankings.php

Use this tool to find out your rankings on major search engines

- Google Page rank: http ://www.webmaster-corner.com/services/pagerank.php

Use this tool to discover your Google Page Rank (PR).

About the author: Webmaster corner forum is the place for webmasters and programmers to gather and discuss IT related topics such as search engine optimization, general business and marketing techniques, and web design and programming issues

SEO: SEOelite software a best tool for SEO

Author: prabhjot

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

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

How to Increase Your Search Engine Rankings

Author: Trent Brownrigg

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

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

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

The main elements to getting top search engines rankings are:

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

LINKS, LINKS, LINKS

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

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

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

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

FRESH QUALITY CONTENT

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

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

KEYWORD DENSITY

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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The top ways to increase your traffic

Author: David Hennebery

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

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

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

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

The latest SEO myth debunked

Author: Jeremy L. Knauff

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

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

Google's information for webmasters .

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

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

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

search engine optimization and many other marke ting services

Keyword Research: An Easy 7 Step Process

Author: on-host.com

Keyword Research: An Easy 7 Step Process

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Google - http://google.com/

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

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

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

Googlelicious! The new GoogleBase - an Introduction

Author: Todd Levi

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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