Internet marketing has been around for as long as there has been the internet. It really took off, though, once the World Wide Web caught fire in the late 1990’s.

What many people new to internet marketing lose site of, or perhaps didn’t know to begin with, is that internet marketing is based on the fundamental principles of marketing. It just so happens that internet marketers use those principles with a new medium, the web, to reach buyers.

The fundamental principle of marketing is - if you want to sell anything, you need prospective customers.

For many people, knowing how to generate massive amounts of traffic is the "missing link" to internet marketing.

Everyday there are lots of people who struggle to create websites and products, make them look pretty good and then… nothing. Everything was built and nobody showed up!

This is one of the biggest reasons people quit before they are successful.

It doesn’t have to be that way. There is no exact strategy that is guaranteed to bring you millions of visitors everyday. However, there are proven techniques for generating huge amounts of traffic, some very quickly and some for free.

Higher traffíc increases the potential for sales and referral commissions. The goal is to boost search engine traffic because this means a wider audience and long-term profit from various sources like ads. That is why there is such a lot of innovation in the field of search engine optimization (SEO).

Long Tails and How They Help

One of the most recent techniques, and a very effective one at that, is the use of LONG TAIL keywords to direct search engine traffic to your website.

The term may sound intimidating, but all it refers to is a new marketing trend. In the past, a few major keywords were identified to pull traffic through search engines. In the new model, websites will be drawing their business from a large variety of low-volume search queries or phrases. So, it’s goodbye to all those oft-used, clichéd keywords.

This brings about a paradigm shift in your strategy to identify keywords and phrases. Instead of opting for the most obvious keywords like ‘Makíng money online’, web marketers now have to identify several keyword phrases that attract streams of low volume traffic. The combined action of several streams of low-volume traffic will eventually add up to high revenue.

To identify Long Tails or multi-word search queries (for that is what they are), you have to pick out the actual phrases that visitors use to arrive at your website. These key phrases are more specific than general. They embody the specific information users are looking for. So, a phrase like "Top 5 SEO techniques to earn money online" will pull in more targeted traffíc than ‘makíng money online’. Ultimately, such a strategy leads to an overall jump in web traffíc.

For example, ‘Self-hypnosis’ is a general keyword. The keyword phrases within this niche would be ‘Self-hypnosis to lose weíght’ or ‘using self-hypnosis techniques to improve memory’ or ‘benefits of self-hypnosis for controlling anger’.

Methods to Identify Keyword Phrases

Use tracking programs: Certain automated programs generate a number of subject-specific keyword phrases. But you will still have to filter and select specific phrases from a long catalog of results. Further to this, you may have to run your selected phrases through a search volume analyzer, to zero in on the top phrases.

Keyword research tools: Tools like Google’s Keywords Tool can help determine the popularity of keywords, thus enabling you to develop a wide variety of secondary keywords to improve web traffíc to your site. Stringing together these words should enable you to identify keyword phrases.

Search boxes: Using on-site search boxes will enable you to monitor specific keyword phrases your visitors are looking for. This way, you get direct feedback from your visitors. This is an amazing method you can use to learn more about the general public’s search habits.

Check out your competition: Find out what phrases they are using. Search their meta tags, titles and headers. Here, all the work has been done for you. You only need to fine-tune the words and string them together to make phrases that will pull lots of search engine traffic. Keyword parsing tools help you analyze other websites.

Advantages

By using keyword phrases, you reap a number of benefits:

    * High search-engine rankings: Competition will be weaker for the phrases you have identified so you can easily climb to the top of search engine rankings for your particular choice of phrase.

    * Higher conversion rates: Since you are using the actual phrase your visitors are looking for, the website traffic you get is highly targeted. People who come to you in this manner are more likely to click the ‘Buy Now’ button than people who come in out of curiosity.

    * Increased inflow: Since you will be using many keyword phrases, you will build up several streams of low-volume customers. These streams will improve your search engine traffic.

    * Make more money: Your monetizing potential is high when you pull in search engine traffic because people who come to you are serious about your product, service or information. They are more likely to subscribe to your newsletter or RSS feeds.

Using Long Tails on your websites or Blogs will undoubtedly improve web traffíc to your site.

And of course, more traffíc is always good news!

source: SiteProNews.com

Most of the time when we pitch to a new client we are asked for SEO guarantees. "Your competition has guaranteed top results and submission to 100,000 Search Engines and Directories". We go all out educating clients that Search Engine Optimization is all about smart work and not just adding random keywords and submittíng to every directory possible. I’m writing this article to reach out to the SEO buyers and help them distinguish the crooks from the genuine SEO cos. I’ve compiled my Search marketing experience over the years in this article. I hope this helps you in selecting your Search Marketing initiative.

Commandment 1: There are No Rank Guarantees. (Period)

Search Engines alone control their indexing and ranking algorithm. Do not try to trick Search Engines. The only way to improve your search engine rank is by playing by the rules. And the rule is very simple: make it logical. Web content is primarily for the site visitor and not crawlers.

If your Search Engine Optimizer sold you magic "Top rank on Google in 10 days flat". Forget it. There are no short cuts. Top ranking in Search Engine Natural Results will take time. Hard work is imperative especially in developing the content on your website and the links to your site.

Commandment 2: Ranking is Not the End, It’s the Means.

Ask yourself what will a top search engine rank get you? Most businesses are interested in increasing sales on a website or at the least driving qualified traffic. Ranking for the right keywords (keywords used by your target audience) is important. There are SEOs who will try to show case results for keywords that occur only on your website. Beware such gimmicks.

Commandment 3: Know Your Competition.

"Rank" is relative position and more so in the Search Engines’ natural results. How well you do in the search engine results is a function of how much hard work you have done in relation to your competition. Analyze your competition’s keywords, links, keyword density and spread, but be sure not to copy your competition.

Commandment 4: Use Search Engine Friendly Design.

A search and visitor friendly design is a must for any successful website. Your website should be compelling enough for repeat visits by search engines and potential customers. Make sure you have search engine friendly URLs and avoid those long URLs with query strings.

Commandment 5: Select Keywords that are Worthy.

You must research your keywords before targeting. There are tools that give you a good idea of a keyword’s search potential for example. It is important to know the number of searches for a keyword in the last month, last 6 months and last year. You should also find out the number of web pages that are targeting the keyword. It is advisable to start a campaign with keywords with moderate competition and a high number of searches.

Commandment 6: Write Great Content.

Even if your website site is technically perfect for search engine robots, it won’t do you any good unless you also fill it with great content. Great means it has contextual and editorial value. Great content brings repeat visits and increases the chance of conversion. Great content is factual and appeals to your target audience. Your web page should have your desired action embedded in the content and you must ensure that the content is fresh. Keep adding and editing content regularly.

Commandment 7: Use Good Hyper Linking Strategy.

Hyperlinks make your content accessible and contextual. You must hyperlink in the right context within the website and to other websites. Good links are appreciated by the Search Engines and by visitors. No one likes to be taken to a mall selling "Macintosh" when shopping for "apples".

Commandment 8: Write Relevant and Original Meta Content.

Meta content is like a business card. Just as your business card tells who you are and what you do, Meta content tells the search engines the relevance and context of a web page. Resist the temptation to include everything in the Meta content, but make it detailed. Confused? The idea is to include only what is relevant to the page in the Meta Content but to include everything that is relevant.

Commandment 9: Acquire Relevant Links.

The links you acquire are the roads to your web page for search engine bots and visitors. Good links improve your webpage’s equity on the World Wide Web and bad links make a dent in your equity and credibility. Be selective in reciprocal linking. Both reciprocal and one way links work, if you are prudent in selecting the links. Submit your website to the relevant sections in relevant directories.

Commandment 10: Consult Experts, If You Need To.

If you have the competence, there are two ways to learn - learning from your mistakes and learning from others’ experience. You can choose either. If you have the time and can wait for the online dollars, do it yourself. If you want to get started now, it may be useful to consult the experts.

source: SiteProNews.com

SEO (Search Engine Optimization) both the bane and boon of many a person’s existence. It’s a known fact that the best way to get traffic to your website is by simply having your site show up in the first page or two of the major search engine’s results. Visitors that come in from those search engine results pages (referred to as SERP) have two main things going for them. They are more likely to buy, and they didn’t cost you any money to get there. Getting your site onto those first two pages can be a struggle, and people are always watching what you are doing and gunning for the top spot. You have to keep aware of all of the latest tactics and methods and measure yourself against your competitors.

Yes, competitors. Many people aren’t aware of the competitive nature of SERPs positioning, but it is. Keep in mind that you are ranked in comparison with the other sites in the results. If the search engine thinks that your content is more relevant, then you rank higher, if it is determined that your content is less relevant, then you fall in the results. If they know what they are doing, the other sites showing up for the searches you wish to rank high in are watching you, and the other sites on the first two pages to see what they are doing, and if they are rising or falling.

So how do you ensure that you can rank well against the other sites out there and rise in the SERPs? Well, for starters, let’s assume that there are only three search engines, because frankly, Google, Yahoo, and MSN (in that order) represent the majority, the vast majority of searches. And Google represents the vast majority amongst those three. For the purposes of this article we’ll focus only on Google. If you do right by them, what you do will be good for other search engines as well.

Before we go any further it’s important that you understand the nature of SEO. It is not an exact science. The exalted minds inside the Googleplex do not share their secret sauce with the unwashed masses. The reason for this is simple: if they revealed exactly how their logic works, it would be exploited–this has happened before. The methods for performing SEO are based upon the trial and error of many, many internet users as they worked out what works, what doesn’t and what will get your site unindexed - or worse: banned.

This is important. There are good and bad ways to optimize your site. The bad ways are called ‘Black Hat’. Sure, they may work for awhile, and some Google can’t (or doesn’t bother to) pick up automatically. However you can report a site to Google as using Black Hat SEO tactics and Google will remove that site from the index (meaning it won’t show up in search results). Removing a site from the index is usually only done for a certain amount of time and can be appealable. Banning is far more severe and banned sites are often gone for good with no way to get Google to add it back to their index. Beware of a lot of things that seem shady. If you think they are shady, chances are that the folks at Google will think so too and if one of those other sites in the SERPs wants to rise up and they visit your site and see your shady tactics, they won’t hesitate to report you.

Yeah, it’s a bit unfair, but it’s the world we live in. Google’s not alone in this–the other search engines will do it too.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s dive into the two ways to optimize your site.

On Page Optimization

This is what most people think of when they think of SEO. In reality it is the less effective of the two methods, though as Google improves its ability to determine real content from fluff it is getting more valuable. A bit of history first.

Back when people started realizing that they could make or break their business by where they came up in the SERPs, they started adding all sorts of content to their sites to improve their ranking. The most common of these was the meta keywords. These are words that are placed in the code on a website that tell the search engines what the site is about. Way back when the ‘net was young, the search engines believed these keywords. They don’t anymore. People abused the keywords system by putting their competitors names in them, or by even putting completely bogus words in. A site looking to sell more jeans would put Britney Spears in their keywords to get people to visit them inadvertently. Needless to say, keywords play very little importance anymore. I have gotten sites to the #1 position on Google without using keywords at all.

As the search engines got wise to the whole bogus keywords thing, they started looking at all of the content on a website. They can only read text, so images and animated graphics (like flash) were ignored. People learned tactics to place all sorts of text on their site that was invisible to users, but that the search engines (looking at the source code) would see. So search engines started to distrust the websites themselves.

You’re asking yourself how they can know what a site is about then. They asked themselves the same question and came up with an obvious answer: they can’t. But other humans can. This is called ‘Off Page Optimization’ and is covered in the second type of optimization.

They never really disregarded the webpage entirely, but they lowered its importance in their overall factoring of a page’s importance and relevancy. However, as their savvy increases and they have more computing power to analyse content, search engines are starting to consider the page’s content as being more and more important. They can often discern the difference between human generated and computer generated text, and can tell if the content on a page is relevant to a particular topic or not. As they do this more, the page itself will continue to get more important.

There used to be a lot of tactics and tricks to get the search engines to pay more attention to your page, but the number one tip is now this: Write human readable content (don’t try to write it to load it with terms and keywords) that has value and real relevancy. Make sure that you do use the words and phrases you think people will search for, and do use them more than once, but don’t go overboard. Bolding and using larger fonts (and H1 tags) will help as well, but don’t overdo it. If you make your page look too wonky it will not work for the second type of optimization.

Here’s a quick rundown of things to make sure you do.

Make sure the page title is descriptive - make it different with each page if you can:

Use the meta description tag and make it good - this is what most search engines show as the blurb about your site on the results page.

Don’t worry alot about your HTML formatting. Search engines are used to reading crappy HTML and they don’t care too much.

Make sure you use your keywords in your copy more than once.

Do bold them if it works in your content

If you can make it work, use an H1 or H2 tag. If you are comfortable with CSS you can make the text in them smaller (this is becoming less and less important).

Make sure to use alt and title tags on images. It lets the search engines know what the image is about and can cause your images to show up on the Google image search. Use title tags on your links. It will help the search engines know more about the page you are linking to and improve relevancy. Don’t put too many links to other sites. Links out lower your page’s importance.

Off Page Optimization

This is also called ‘Off Site Optimization’ which is a misnomer. Search engines care little about ‘websites’ and care more about ‘web pages’. The reason for this is that they don’t link to a site, they link to a page. So what is this mysterious type of SEO you ask? Well, if you read the on page part above you will have learned that Google and the other search engines decided that they couldn’t trust the page itself too much as too many people put fake content on a page to generate traffic. So they decided that the best way to know if a page was relevant was to let people do it for them.

How do they make this work? Well, they simply look at who links to you and what their page is about. If your page is about sewing, and another page that Google knows people like is also about sewing and it links to you, then your page is probably not misrepresenting itself. This is the driving force behind what is called ‘Page Rank’. Page rank is essentially a calculation of the importance of the pages linking to you vs the relevancy of your content to those pages. If a page about banking links to a page about peanut butter, then chances are that the search engines won’t assign any importance to that link, but links between pages of similar content have high importance.

There is also a nebulous thing that we know exists, but don’t know how to quantify. It is the matter of how much a search engine trusts a site. Sites with high trust have their outbound links given more importance than sites the search engine does not trust. An easy way to determine if a site is trustworthy or not is to think about it yourself. The folks at the search engines are humans, they will trust the same sites you do and distrust the same sites you do (give or take a bit).

Untrustworthy Sites

Link/Banner farms - sites with nothing but links to various other sites. These used to work, but the search engines wised up and now having a link farm link to you will hurt, not help.

Sites with a lot of advertising on them - The search engines know that these sites are mostly computer generated and have no valuable content, and so don’t pay any heed to what they link to.

Black Hat Sites - sites that use questionable SEO tactics aren’t ones that you want linking to you. Google is suspicious of them, no reason to make it suspicious of you.

Trustworthy Sites

Directories - There are two types of directories. Automatic and Human verified. Google knows which are which and if your site is listed on a human verified directory (meaning that someone looked at your site and verified that your description and content match the category you chose to have it listed in) then it knows that your content is relevant to the description you gave. Find the directories for your market (just google things like sewing boston directory or whatever your niche/market is and you’ll find some to list in.

News Sites - Many news sites allow you to post comments on them. Don’t spam, but find some relevant articles to your site and post a few comments. Its not advised that you place your link right in the article (unless you think it applies) but rather have your link in your profile.

Sites with high page rank - This is key. There is little point having sites with no page rank link to your site with no page rank. You want sites with high page rank linking to you. Install the Google toolbar and select yes when it asks if you want to view pagerank. This will let you know how other sites rank and help you determine where to try to get links.

There are a lot of other tips and helpful bits of information out there and I’ll be posting a few more specialized articles about them. While there is a lot of bogus software and ebooks out there that will literally tell you no more than what you have read above, there are some that will help you carry out the suggestions above. They’ll suggest directories, give you reports on how well you rank against your competitors and many other things. Most you can do on your own, but they take time. Good SEO software should mainly remove the tedious, manual tasks involved in SEO and help you focus on more important things like niche research and adding actual, valuable content to your site.

source: Entireweb.com

In Part 1 and Part 2 of How to Optimize for Google I discussed general website optimization, links, and Google webmaster tools. In Part 3 we will look at a number of other considerations which play a role in successful rankings in Google, and also touch on some tactics which are best avoided.

Completing Optimization: Other Considerations

Redirects
If you need to use redirects on your site, it is very important to use the correct one. If a page is moving to a new location, or being removed all together, it is very important to have this page redirected to either the new location or the next closest page using a Permanent 301 Redirect.

While rare, if a page is being moved to a new location for a short term, with the intent of it returning to the original location, then and only then, will you want to use a Temporary 302 redirect. For more information please see Redirects: Permanent 301 vs. Temporary 302.

Non WWW Redirects
To help eliminate page rank split, and provide your site with a little extra value, implement a non-www redirect. What this redirect will do is change the URL to include the "www" whenever a URL is accessed that does not include it. This can help to consolidate links to the correct page and give your site some additional strength. For more help on Non WWW redirects please see: How to 301 Redirect Non-WWW to WWW URL’s

HTTP Headers
Check your page headers! If you have implemented any form of redirect on your site including mod rewrites, check your HTTP headers. You may be surprised at what you find. Some forms of redirects may use a 302 code where you really want a 301. By checking your headers you can ensure all is well, and troubleshoot problems. On our website we have added our own HTTP Header Checker for your convenience.

Home Page URL
Never have more than one URL for your home page. If your home page is available and displays on more than one URL, then utilize 301 redirects on all but the main URL you want to focus on - in most cases "http://www.domain.com/". All your links pointing to the home page should direct to the exact same URL otherwise you will split the value of your home page into multiple duplicate URL’s.

Google sees "http://www.domain.com" and "http://www.domain.com/index.html" as different pages, but displaying the same content. This splits the overall value of your home page, and can decrease the chances of rankings. By keeping it consistent with a single URL, you remove this split and retain more of the strength.

In theory having your home page split like this could bring with it duplicate content penalties, however, I have yet to see this actually happen - that said, it is best to avoid the risk all together.

XML Sitemap
XML Sitemaps are great for ensuring that Google and the other engines are able to spider your entire site. While an XML sitemap will not directly impact your search rankings it can help as Google is more likely to see any SEO based changes more quickly, which in turn can have an impact.

Robots.txt
This is the first file all search engines look for every time they visit your site. While placing a blank robots.txt file in your root folder will not help with search rankings, it will help reduce 404 errors appearing in your log files.

It is also highly recommended that if your site utilizes an XML sitemap, to include a call to this sitemap within the Robots.txt file. Simply add the following line to ensure that the major engines (including Google) can find your sitemap:

      Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

Potential Blockages
If you are finding that your site is simply not being indexed it is possible that you are blocking the spiders in one way or another.

Start with checking your main site navigation, if you are using Flash or some other fancy form of navigation that could be your problem right there. Next check your HTTP headers to ensure that your home page is returning a 2xx code which indicates that the clients’ request was successfully received. Finally take a look at your Google Webmaster Tools for any noted errors. If you are blocking Google, chances are you will be able to uncover the issue with these steps.

Duplicate Content
Duplicate content can be quite damaging to your rankings. Ensure that all content on your site is unique. Never steal or "borrow" content from another site, and never cut and paste large portions of text from one page of your site to the next. By keeping all pages of your site entirely original you stand the best chances of getting a thumbs up from Google.

Fresh Content / Regular Updates
Update your content. In highly competitive markets, sites with old static content can often slip away. Keep your content fresh and updated to keep bringing Google back to your site. If they find new pages and updated pages with every visit, they will come back more often.

Site Age
The age of your site can also have an effect on search engine rankings. While there is little you can do (short of keeping the same domain) to help on this matter, remember that the longer your site is online, the better its chances for success. It pays to select the perfect domain right from the start and not to change domains mid-stream. Older sites that stand the test of time add a level of authority in Google’s eyes. New sites seldom see rankings for competitive terms in their first year.

Note: Site Age is determined not by the date the domain was originally registered by rather by the date Google first discovered content on your site.

Load Time
Load time can have an impact in your Google AdWords Quality Score but it is unknown for sure if it can also impact your organic search rankings. It is best to keep your load time to as little as possible. If it is not already a part of the Google Algorithm, it likely will be soon. Besides, it is also best in order to give your site visitors the best experience possible.

Server Up Time
This can be a rather significant issue. If you find that your web hosting company has a history of down time, change hosts. If Google comes to visit your site once and it is down, not to worry, they will come back, but if Google visits your site often only to find that it is unavailable, you can find yourself with drastically depleted rankings.

Google Local
If you have a traditional brick and mortar store, consider submitting to Google Local. While this will not directly impact your regular organic rankings, you may find your site ranking above the organic results with a "local business results" map listing. This tends to be most common when your business is near the geographic center of a city, and when the search phrase uses a geographic modifier.

W3C Compliant Code
There is much speculation as to if W3C compliant code can have a positive impact on search rankings, and the majority believe "maybe" with some saying "yes". Regardless, it is definitely a good idea to have your site be W3C Compliant if at all possible. Not only may it help you in terms of search rankings, but having compliant code can decrease load times, and help to ensure cross-browser compatibility, all of which are good things. If at all possible, it is recommended that sites be made to be compliant.

Many experts who took part in the SEOMoz "Google Search Engine Ranking Factors" lean towards it not being a big contributor, however, it may be an issue if Google has difficulties indexing a page properly.

A code validation service is available at validator.w3.org.

DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME
I want to stress that this section is about things you should NOT do. These issues could be damaging to your rankings. If your site is implementing any of these, it may be best to remove it.

Hidden Text
This includes any text that you can simply not see when viewing the page. It may be text hidden in invisible div layers, text located below the fold with vertical scrolling disabled or even text on the same colored back ground (white text on a white background for instance). Whatever the case, hidden text can get your site into hot water and it is not recommended.

Excessive Keywords
Don’t go over board in placing target phrases within your body text. Stuffing keywords everywhere possible just because you can, is not only unlikely to help you achieve rankings, it could very well have the opposite effect.

Duplicate content
Large amounts of duplicated content or pages, as well as stealing or scraping content from other sites is one good way to get your site banned.

Doorway pages
Creating multiple websites or pages with nearly identical, yet slightly different content for the purposes of trying to grab some Google rankings is a good way to get your site into trouble.

If you have created pages of this nature for PPC campaigns, make sure that they are blocked from the search engines as to not get you into any hot water.

Cloaking
Simple - Don’t Cloak. In a nutshell cloaking is when you display different information to the search engines than you do to your human visitors. Google frowns on this, and if they catch you, watch out!

All Flash
Websites that are entirely flash based will not get you into trouble. The reason I have included it here however, is that they won’t do you many favors either. Sites that are all Flash, have little to no content for Google to digest and thus, drastically reduce your chance of rankings. If you must keep your “All Flash” site, it is recommended that you also create a secondary HTML version for the search engines and for those visitors who simply prefer it.

Frames (including iFrames)
Frames are also one of those things that won’t get you into trouble, but do significantly reduce your chances of rankings. If you want any chance of ranking in Google using a Frames site, be sure to copy your relevant content from each page into your ‘noframes’ tag. While this is far from ideal it may help you salvage some listings.

When it comes to including content through the use of an iFrame, remember, Google can not see any of this content located within the frame. It will be of no use to your rankings. If you rely on this content to help your listings, find another method such as a server side include.

TOOLS
In this article I mention a few items which can be made much easier with the help of available online tools. Here are some to help you on your way:

HTTP Header Checker
The StepForth HTTP Header Checker

Spider Simulators
XML Sitemaps, Search Engine Bot Simulator

Page Size and Load Time
1-Hit Load Time Analyzer

Google’s Cached Text Version
Click on “cached” next to your listing in Google, then click “Cached Text Version” at the top of the page. This is Google’s Cached Text version of your page. Substituting www.domain.com with your website will also bring up the cached version:

http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:WWW.DOMAIN.COM/&hl=en&strip=1

source: SiteProNews, By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth (c) 2008

Want Free Search Engine Traffic? Choose the Correct Keywords!

If content is king, make your keywords your servants! It’s pretty simple; good keywords bring lots of traffic, bad ones don’t. If you want that free search engine traffic, the first thing you need to do is to find out what exactly it is that people are searching for in the area that you are interested in. Then you pick key words that relate to your topic of interest, and that people are really searching for. You can have the best content in the world, but if you optimize for the wrong keywords you still won’t get that sought after traffic.

For example, let’s assume I am going to build a site about water heaters, and I want people to come to my site. I need to find out what kind of information about water heaters that people are looking for so I can build pages optimized for the keywords that people are really using.

The first thing I do is go to a keyword tool to do my keyword research. There are a number of keyword tools online, my favorite is Wordtracker. Others include KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool There is simply no substitute for doing your keyword research. With these tools you can put in a seed word or phrase, and the tools will provide you with lists of related keywords and keyword phrases that are searched for, and how many times per month they are searched for. Using these tools there are ways to estimate the size of the market for products and services, ways to optimize you web pages, find new niche markets, and much more.

With Wordtracker I find quickly that many more people search for "tankless water heater" than search for water heater…which surprises me. Nearly as many people search for "hot water heater" as search for "water heater". Wordtracker also informs me that there are far fewer websites trying to be ranked high for "hot water heater" than for "water heater". Ah-Ha! I’ll be sure to optimize a few pages for "hot water heater". In fact, I find that the terms "tankless water heater", "tankless hot water heater", "tankless water heaters", "electric tankless water heaters", and "tankless heaters" all have more people searching for them than "water heater".

Single word keywords are very difficult to get high rankings for, so it’s wise to shoot for longer keyword phrases. Three and four word phrases are what I use most often.

After finding out what information people are looking for, and what keywords they are using to find that information, you can build the appropriate pages and optimize them for those keywords that have significant traffic searching for them.

Now that we have our keyword list and we are ready to build our pages, where do we put the keywords?

The first and probably one of the most important places to have your keywords are in the title tag. This is one of the tags in the head section of the html code of your web page and lists the title that is displayed in the web browser. Internet Explorer displays this tag in the top bar of the browser window. It’s very important that you always write for humans. The search engines are getting smarter and smarter, and they are looking for sites optimized for humans, not search engines.

Get some of your keywords into the keyword meta tag, not crucial but it won’t hurt.

Make sure you have some keywords in your Alt tags for your images…don’t overdo it though. Write it for humans, but try to work a few keywords in if you can. Alt tags are displayed as a popup when you pass your mouse over an image.

The Description Meta Tag is still a valuable place to use your keywords. Many search engines will look at the description Meta tag for keywords to compare against your body copy. Yahoo uses your description tag as the description of your site in their listings. Consider the description tag just like it is named, a concise description of your site. Keep under 50 words.

Your body copy is obviously a very important place for placement of your keywords. Remember, write for humans. If your keywords don’t appear in your body copy, you won’t place high in the search engine results for those keywords. Work your keyword into the text appropriately. Select one or two keywords and make the page specifically about those keywords.

Use your keywords appropriately for humans on your site where you can. This will increase your search engine effectiveness.

source: Entireweb

Optimizing for top Google rankings includes a number of factors. In Part 1 of 3 we discussed onsite optimization. In Part 2 we will touch on incoming links as well as using Google Webmaster Tools.

LINKS
Links are very important in today’s Google rankings, but just how many links you need will depend on both the competitiveness of your target phrases, and the quality of the incoming links themselves.

Essentially the number one rule of links is to keep it relevant! Topical relevance is very important in order for inbound links to give your site the most value. If the page that links to you is relevant that is good, if the entire site linking to you is relevant, that is better.

First to get an idea of how many links you may need, take a look at the top 10 ranking sites in Google and record how many links Yahoo is noting for each site. (This is because Google does not display anywhere near all the links they have noted). The average of this count is often a good indication of how many links your site may need.

There are many different ways to get links to your site including the age old reciprocal link trade, directory links, article based links, and links from press releases.

Reciprocal Links
Reciprocal linking has seen its value drop considerably over the past few years, however, if the site you are trading with is relevant you can still receive value from these links.

Paid Links
Google frowns on paid links, however that is not to say that they don’t work. Often you can find highly reputable and relevant websites which are offering paid advertising spots. If these links are coded to link directly to your website without passing through any tracking redirects, you will in many cases see value in the form of both direct traffic and increased link densities and rankings.

Articles
Writing and distributing industry specific articles is a great way to help boost both your link counts and site traffic; for examples of such content see StepForth’s SEO Blog News articles. Consider writing articles on a regular basis and submitting them to some of the more popular services such as EzineArticles. Be sure to include a link to your site from somewhere within the article, or at the very least within your bio. Try to use a target phrase as part of the anchor text for additional value.

Press Releases
If something of importance has happened to your company such as a new product launch, or other notable achievement - essentially anything news worthy, put out a press release. Submit this press release through services such as PRWeb or PRNewsWire. Again, be sure to include a target phrase as part of the anchor text.

There are also a number of places you can get links that have basically turned south, and are not generally recommended. These include signatures in form posts, guest books, and other typically free links.

Forum Posts
Forum posts can help to marginally raise your link counts; however, with this one you must be careful. Only add a link to your site in your signature if both the forum allows it, and you are a respected member of the forum. If you are a solid contributor and your posts have depth and meaning, and the forum is highly relevant to your site, then having a link in your signature may give your site some juice. Posting wildly to random forums will in most cases get yourself banned, and will be both a waste of time and potentially make you and your site look bad.

Guest Books
In nearly all cases, do not post your link to guest books. If you happen to stumble upon a guestbook that is highly relevant to your site, the other comments are relevant to your site, and you have something useful (and again relevant) to say, then perhaps consider it, but typically focusing on links from guest books is considered SPAM and is best avoided all together.

Blog Comments
Having a link from your blog comments is not necessarily a bad thing. If you find a relevant blog post of use, and have something relevant and constructive to say, don’t be afraid to enter your link into the "URL" field of the form, but don’t try stuffing links into the comment itself.

Link Farms & Bad Neighborhoods
These are sites that allow you to simply post your link no stríngs attached. They are mostly long scrolling pages with countless links. Stay away from them. If you see one, run in the other direction. These links are bad, will not help with your rankings, and in some cases can actually damage your rankings.

Stay away from sites that cross link with obvious spammers. These networks of SPAM sites are not ones you would want your site associated with, and if you achieve links from enough of these sites it can adversely impact your rankings. Even more important, NEVER link to any of these sites - as that will certainly tie in your connection to them and give Google reason to discount your rankings.

DMOZ, Yahoo and Other Directories
Directory based links can be of significant help, especially if they are from highly reputable directories, the two biggest being DMOZ.org and the Yahoo Directory.

Getting a site into DMOZ is like Gold. Google loves links from DMOZ and your site will reap the benefits. The big catch however is actually getting your site into the directory in the first place. Find the perfect category for your site and check to see if it has an editor. If you see a link "Volunteer to edit this category" try and find another relevant location. Pages without active editors take much longer to get listed into. Once you find the perfect directory submit your site every 4-6 months until listed. If you are lucky you will get in eventually.

Yahoo Directory is seen as an authority in the eyes of Google, and getting your site in will help your link reputation. This link does come at a price of $299 per year, but will play a role in helping your website achieve top rankings.

There are a number of other valuable directories out there that can help you with your search rankings. Before submittíng to any directory the key is a combination of relevance and authority. If the directory is relevant and active, it may be worth considering.

GOOGLE WEBMASTER TOOLS
Google Webmaster Tools can be very useful for your optimization efforts. It may not directly help you obtain higher rankings, but can help you trouble shoot if you are experiencing problems. It will also allow you to remove URL’s that you don’t want indexed and set various preferences such as your domain, crawl rate, and geographic target.

XML Sitemaps
This is the most common reason people use Google Webmaster Tools - the submission of their XML sitemap. While you can use your robots.txt to have Google find your XML sitemap, by submitting it directly to Google you can check up on the spidering status.

Error checking
Webmaster Tools is also quite useful for checking on various error URL’s that Google may know about. Under the Diagnostics > Web Crawl you can view any errors that Google has to report on your site. By cleaning up any errors you can help boost your chances of rankings.

Links
From inside Google Webmaster Tools you can get a much clearer look at what sites Google is noting as having links to you, and give you a better indication of the need, if any, to raise your link counts.

WWW Preference
Be sure to select your domain preference under Tools > Set Preferred Domain. In nearly all cases you will want to select the version including the "www" .

SUMMARY
Inbound links play a significant role in successful Google rankings. By focusing on relevant links, as well as by diversifying where you get those links from, you can build a solid foundation for your search rankings today and into the future.

Stay tuned for Part 3 (of 3) where I will discuss other considerations including redirects, HTTP headers, and a number of other factors which play a role in successfully conquering Google.

source: SiteProNews, By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth (c) 2008

In today’s online world search engine rankings can make your business succeed, and while rankings in Yahoo and MSN are very valuable, their combined market value is still less than that of Google. This makes achieving top rankings in Google that much more important.

In this three-part series on How to Optimize for Google we will touch on a number of important aspects for top Google rankings including website optimization, links, Google Webmaster tools, and a number of other considerations.

The focus of Part 1 will be with on page website optimization.

THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
This article is not about keyword research so I will not spend too much time on this topic, however, I felt it was important to at least brush on this slightly. If you are interested in reading more, please see Keyword Research for Organic SEO.

Make sure that your targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords, it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still provide a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Your phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified traffic to your site.

Using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word "hotel" would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to "Victoria BC hotel" you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep your targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
There are many on-site factors that play a role in your search engine rankings. Here are a number of those factors and what you can do to increase your chances of success.

Title Tag
The title tag plays one of the most important roles in search results at Google, and is almost always the heading Google chooses for each of its listings. Placement of your target phrase is best used near the start of the tag and repeated again in the middle or near the end. Three uses of your target phrase may be helpful in some instances, as long as it is not too overwhelming. For best results each page on your site should have a totally unique title tag.

It is also important to remember that because Google will use this title as the main heading for your listing, you will want to keep it attractive to potential searchers. Try to also add a call to action, or other wording to help make your listing appear attractive to searchers.

To help illustrate the fact Google takes this tag into consideration, simply do a search for your target phrase and take a look at the titles of the top 10. I tried a search for a rather broad term "hotel" and saw that all 10/10 listings had it in the title tag, and 6/10 had it as the very first word. A quick scan showed that the entire top 30 either had the word hotel, or hotels in their title tags.

If you do only one thing to your website, make sure that all your title tags are relevant, unique, and contain your target phrase for each page.

Meta Description Tag
The Meta Description tag is still occasionally used by Google as the description which appears in the search results themselves. While this used to be a more common practice Google tends to use it most often on sites with very limited content, or those which are flash based. I have seen it still used for content rich sites, however this is less common.

The Meta Description tag still has an impact on search rankings. Your best bet when using this tag is to keep it short and sweet with your target phrase close to the start and not repeated more than 3 times. Like the title tag, each page on your site should have its own unique description tag.

Meta Keyword Tag
When it comes to Google this tag is useless, and won’t influence your rankings. There is some speculation as to whether a spammy keyword tag can however, have a negative effect on Google rankings. As a result, if you do utilize a keyword Meta tag for the smaller engines, it is best to keep it clean and play it safe.

Density
Keyword density plays a role in overall rankings; however, it is not as cut and dry as it once was. Once upon a time there was a magic number that when used could almost guarantee top rankings.

This is no longer the case. Today the ideal density varies from industry to industry, phrase to phrase. To find out what density you should aim for, take the top 10 or 20 search results and see what percentage those sites are using. In most cases you will find that the majority of these sites have a very similar density to one another, and this average density is a good estimation of what you should aim for.

Body Text and Keyword Placement
The location of relevant text on your site will help establish the overall importance of your target phrase. While you do not want to overwhelm the engines and site visitors with a bombardment of target phrases at the top of the page, try to sprinkle in some instances as close to the top of the page as possible.

Synonyms
Be sure to include various synonyms for your target phrases within your body text on your site. Google will use these synonyms to tie in the overall relevance of the page for your main target phrases, which in turn can improve your odds.

To find possible synonyms you can use a thesaurus, but the best way is to search Google itself and see exactly what they consider to be similar. Simply search in Google for your target phrase preceded with a tilde, such as "~hotels". Next scan through the search results for any text Google has bolded. These are all words that Google considers to be related. Using the "~hotels" example Google brings up phrases such as ‘travel’, ‘tourism’, ‘accommodation’, as well as various hotel chain names such as ‘Hilton Hotels’.

Keywords in Domain
There is still some speculation if having a target phrase as part of your top level domain (TLD) is of use to search rankings. From my experience, yes, there is value here, although, nothing like it was several years ago.

If you are starting off in the online world and are contemplating which domain to go for, consider one that uses your target phrase, assuming that it is both relevant to your business name, and uses no more than a single hyphen. While multiple hyphens in a domain can be successful, they are very common with highly spammy websites, so it is best to not take that route if possible.

While having a keyword located within your domain can provide some ranking juice, I would not suggest heading out and doing a domain swap. In most cases you would be better off working on your existing site than starting from scratch with a new domain.

Keywords in page specific URL
Using keywords for specific page URL’s can also help add a little bit of value to your site, providing you use them responsibly. Consider using a keyword as a directory name and as part of a file name where it naturally makes sense to do so. If you have a website that focuses on tourism and includes local hotel listings, you may want to consider the following structure for your page on the Hilton:

MyTourismSite.com/Victoria/Accommodations/Hotels/Hilton.html

Heading Tags
Placement of target phrases within heading tags helps to establish the importance of those given phrases. That said do not over do it, or abuse it. Only place target phrases within a heading tag if it makes sense to do so, and don’t flood a page with numerous tags. Heading tags are not as critical as they once were, but still a good contribution to a well optimized page.

Link Anchor text
This is the actual text you clíck on as part of a link. When full or partial target phrases are used within your text links they help pass on some value to the linked page for those phrases. This is also true when considering surrounding text. When the content around the link is also relevant, the link holds slightly more value.

While a link that simply states "clíck here" or "www.domainname.com" does have its place, they provide considerably less value than a link that would use "discount hotels" as its anchor.

Image Alt Text
While image alt text still plays a minor role, its biggest part is within the use of image based navigation. If you have an image linked to another page, the alt text will be attributed much the same way as standard link anchor text is.

Image Alt text should always be short and to the point and should accurately describe either the image itself, or the page the image is linking to. Do not use alt tags as a place to stuff keywords.

Inline Links
These are links that are found mid sentence or mid paragraph as opposed to a simple listing of links as found in a menu or possibly on a sitemap. Links found mid paragraph tend to pass on a little more value from the surrounding text and can provide more relevance to the linked page.

Site Navigation
It is absolutely imperative that your website be fully spiderable by the search engines. This may seem obvious, but often webmasters overlook Google’s ability to crawl a website. Google has become very advanced in what links it can follow and how it can spider a website, but there are still some things that can cause significant roadblocks.

- Flash: One of the most commonly made mistakes is the use of flash. If flash is used as a sole means of site navigation then you can count on Google not viewing your internal pages, and having a significant disadvantage in terms of site rankings.

- Java Script / DHTML: These days most Java Script and even DHTML menus can be spidered by Google, however, this is not always the case. If your site utilizes any kind of fancy navigation and you are wondering why Google has not indexed your internal pages, check out Google’s Cached Text version of your page. If you do not see any text links, then your navigation may be invisible to Google.

- Images: Image based navigation has been safe for many years now, but if your site uses this form of navigation it is essential to have brief, relevant alt text on all your buttons. This alt text will act much like standard anchor text for text based links. This is not only for the purpose of search ranking value, but take a look at Google’s cached text version of your page. If you have image based links that do not have alt text, those links do not appear. This doesn’t mean Google won’t follow them, but for anyone viewing your site on a text based browser, your links will be invisible to them.

URL Structure
Avoid long elaborate URL’s with extraneous characters. While Google has reached a point where they can index massive URL strings, it is best to avoid them if at all possible. For dynamic sites consider utilizing mod rewrites to significantly clean up the URL to not only make it more search engine friendly, but more user friendly as well.

MyTourismSite.com/?locid="victoria"&catid="accommodations"&type="hotel"&comp="hilton"

stands a better chance if cleaned up to read:

MyTourismSite.com/victoria/accommodations/hotels/hilton.htm

SUMMARY
Basic website optimization is a critical component for successful placement in Google but is only part of the overall picture. Stay tuned for "How to Optimize for Google - Part 2 of 3" where we will discuss Links and Google Webmaster Tools.

source: SiteProNews, By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO, StepForth (c) 2008

You’ve decided to build a website. Great! Your first step is to determine its structure - the pages you want to include and the information you want provide to visitors. But how to begin?

Your first instinct may be to make your site different from everyone else’s. After all, trying to differentiate your business is what you’ve been doing throughout your branding process.
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Building a Website is Like Building a Custom Home

When you create a custom house, you can arrange your floor plan however you want, paint the walls as you please and fill the house with furniture you love. Your goal is to create a unique space that stands out from everyone else’s.

In the same vein, there are elements of your website where standing out makes sense. For example, the overall look of your site and your copy should be different from other sites - especially those of your competitors.

Differentiating your website is good for your small business - to a point. What you don’t want to do is reengineer its basic structure.

Standing Out Isn’t Always the Stable Way to Build

Underneath it all, even the most unique custom home has the same foundation and spacing between studs in the wall as every other house on the block.

By following underlying principles of construction, builders help ensure that the house is structurally sound. Why not use the same approach when it comes to your website? That way, your site is far more likely to work well for you.

To use site building rules, of course, you need to know what they are.

Rule 1: Do Competitive Research

Before someone sets out to build a custom house, they’ll probably do quite a lot of research—looking at other houses, determining the architectural styles that appeal to them, and perhaps even checking out homes in the neighborhood where they want to build.

The same goes for your website. You need find out what you’re up against. Once you’re familiar with competitors’ sites, you can make sure that your site will not only be different in the right places, such as look and feel and content, but that it will also be comparable in the right places.

Most likely, your competitors have been building their sites for some time - and probably updating them to answer customer questions and market their businesses more strongly. You don’t want prospects to pass you by because your site doesn’t answer an important question that a competitor has addressed.

Visiting other sites and making notes of basic structure, business information presented, customer questions answered and even relevant tools and articles gives you a jump start on creating a site that facilitates apples-to-apples comparisons.

Rule 2: Plan Your Site Architecture

As you may suspect, planning your site architecture is like drawing up architectural plans for a custom house, where you plan just what you’ll include and what will go in each space. For example, do you want a library? A formal dining room? And where will you put the piano?

Similarly, for your website, you must decide the pages you’ll include and the information on each page.

When planning your site architecture, think about what you’d like your website to do for your business. Do you want it to bring in clients and close sales? If so, pricing information and even a shopping cart can help do that. Do you need your site to get media attention? Then a Media Room might be the key. Make sure to include the pages and content required to get the job done.

In addition, think about how you plan to expand your website in the future. At the beginning, designing a website of more than 10 pages can overwhelm a small business - both in terms of budget and time required to write the content.

But, if you create an expanded site map at the beginning - a website wish list if you will - then you and your website strategist can determine which pages will be most important in helping you reach your goals. You’ll also have a clear roadmap you can use to add on to your website as your budget and schedule allow. For more about the pages to include on your website, see this article: Pages To Include On Your Website.

Rule 3: Name Your Pages in a Way That Makes Sense

Have you ever walked into an unfamiliar house and been unable to find your way around? You probably asked the hostess where the kitchen was so you could drop off your pot luck dish or the way to the bathroom.

On a website, though, visitors don’t have the luxury of asking where things are. So you want to make it as easy as possible for them to find the information that they need.

Some small businesses want navigation button names to be clever or interesting. But, it’s important to think about the website visit from your customers’ or prospects’ point of view. They often come to your site looking for specific information. Even if they’re just browsing, they want an organized way to look around - where clicking a link takes them to the page they expect. Remember that visitors don’t have a lot of time or the patience to bumble around your site.

You see the same navigation buttons on every site you visit for a good reason. Established usage conventions have trained visitors to look for names like "Services," "About" and "Contact" when they’re out browsing around. Capitalize on this and your visitors will be able to find what they’re looking for quickly - keeping your site and your business in their good graces.

Following these three simple rules makes it much more likely that your website is structurally sound and that your visitors will have a great experience there instead of a frustrating one.

Article Provided by: SiteProNews

My nephew can build me a web site can’t he?

Yes, I won’t deny it your nephew or distant relative can likely create a "functional" web site but let me ask you, will it be positioned for success? Will it be bloated with useless markup or worse yet lack the essentials for organic search results? I don’t know about you but having a web site should be considered with marketing in mind before you just say, "…heck with it let’s just throw something online and see what happens". I can almost hear the crickets chirping from lack of activity and visibility online.

What you see is what you get!

Are you looking for your next web site builder tool to do-it-yourself a real all-in-one service that will meet and exceed your every need? Sadly to say most web site builders out there leave little to be desired in the way of features, flexibility let alone search engine readiness. Most tools like that of WYSIWYG editors are quite similar as you will be able to add content but have little control of the overall display or general structure which can be challenging for global changes.

All we need is some relevance and a little patience.

So you want to embark on a new web site venture and want to know which avenues are the best online to sell your product or service yet in the most cost effective manner? Let me indulge you a bit on a few things that will save you a lot of money and hassle trying to get free organic rankings on Google and other top tier engines.

1. Know your competition - Research your target market, analyze your competition and see what they are doing for search engine rankings.
2. Refine the focus - Define avenues to reach your customers through marketing and demographics but also see what it is they are searching for online to find you. Consider all the variations and misspellings or keyword combinations that will help make your web site more relevant.
3. Deploy the terms - Now it’s time to deploy these new keyword sets and phrases throughout the web site from our findings and research. Be sure to keep in mind the top ranking terms as you will want to spread them throughout your Meta tags, headlines, anchors and more.
4. Patience is a virtue - I never said this was going to be instantaneous did I? Ok this is the hardest fact to swallow but when all this effort is said and done and the web site is launched in all it’s search engine optimized glory now begins the submission process! Submissions can take weeks to show up depending on the engine or directory you are submitting to, it is common to see web sites being indexed on Google within 4-6 weeks but can be longer.

Now it’s time to Pull some Rank!

One thing you must do continually is put yourself out there just like in the business realm how important networking is to thriving startups is how important continual online marketing is to a successful dot com based business. A few was to achieve higher rankings and link back to your site would be to trade links with other sites or list your site for free on a high ranking directories. You will see how amazing traffic will continue to flow through these outlets and how a few hours a week can really help maximize these efforts into profitable results.

Monitor and Adjust

The key thing to knowing what your customers want is to constantly ask them and monitor their activities online. One sure way to do this is using Google Analytics and by signing up with a Google Account you can be on your way to getting the code snippet you will need to inject to your web site ( preferably before the </body> tag). Now you can begin to track your visitors behaviors online and which pages they are entering and leaving from and how long they are staying on your web site. There is a TON more of valuable data you will gain from this and the best way to filter it all is to set recurring reports to be emailed directly to you based on the data you are looking to review. PDF reports are a fantastic way to review quickly the data and see how the web site is progressing.

Helpful Links:

• Axandra
• Overture- Keyword Selector Tool
• Meta Tag Analyzer
• ODP - Open Directory Project

source: Entireweb.com