SEO Blunders - Four mistakes to Avoid.

There are lots of articles giving you top tips about SEO. I've actually written a few myself.

However, what about the SEO pitfalls you should avoid?

I'm not talking about the various underhanded so called black hat SEO techniques but rather an innocent web development mistake that results in your website not getting indexed properly by the search engines.

Tale a look at many of the SEO forums and you will see many posts from frustrated website owners who can't understand why their site isn't being indexed.

It's easy to feel victimized and believe that the search engines have something against you and your site. Of course the truth is usually less sinister. They really want to index your site but they can't. It's usually something you've done that is stopping the spiders getting around your site and picking up all your pages. Chances are you don't realize that you've causes this problem.

The good news is that it's fixable. Your problem is most likely one of the ones listed below. So take heart and get ready to fix those SEO blunders.

SEO Blunder One: Using Frames

Frames were very popular at one time and they allowed different parts of your web page to be independently scrollable

Unfortunately the spiders really struggle to find there way around a website that is using frames. There are ways you can fix a frame website to allow them to crawl but my personal advice is to redesign your site without frames.

SEO Blunder Two: Using Flash

This is a very common question. Should I use Flash or not. Flash is popular because it looks really good. It gives a good impression to your visitors. It can look quite professional and can certainly have a "wow" factor.

However the problem with Flash is that the search engine spiders don't see it so none of your Flash content will get indexed. If you are using Flash for your menus then you have a real problem because the spiders can't follow the menus to the other pages.

I would suggest the following approach to Flash. Use it sparingly across your site where you really want to impress your visitors but make sure the pages you use it on are also rich in text content if you want them to get indexed and NEVER use Flash to build your menus.

SEO Blunder Three: Java Script

Java Script cannot be seen by the spiders so you have the same issues as you have with Flash. I actually use Java on my own site for the horizontal menu across the top of the page. That's for you, the human visitor. However to help the search engines crawl my site, I have a menu down the left of the page that is just plain hyperlink text.

So use Java if you want to but make sure you have a good text link structure that the search engine spiders can follow.

SEO Blunder Four: Broken Links

You would be amazed at how many sites have broken links and parts of the site are completely cut off from the spiders. It's important to check your site regularly for broken links. I have a few ways to check my site. One of my favorites is Xenu Link Sleuth. The software is free and does a great job at checking your site.

About the author
Mike Seddon is the founder of KKSmarts. Their site contains many free guides for Website Promotion.

The Importance Of Search Engine Rankings.

If you are really serious about your online venture then you will really need to get your website to the top of the search engines. The reason for this is simple. When you site appears at the top of the search listings, you get targeted traffic for your specific product or service. Targeted traffic is the essence of your online business, without it you will starve.

You can get targeted traffic from multiple sources, but all traffic is not created equal. Actually conversions are relative to where the traffic comes from. You will find search engine traffic converts at a higher rate than any other traffic.

First, when people click on an ad, they know you are selling to them, so their defenses go up and they are less inclined to trust you. On the other hand, the internet is build around information. People go online to get information in one form or another.

When you site comes up on the fist page of the search results, people click on your link to learn more. In this example you are a more trusted source. As a consequence, they are more open to your message.

Additionally, people have typed into the search engine exactly what they are looking for and when your site pops up, it signals that you are a credible source relative to their query. To come up on the first page, your content also needs to be relevant. Relevancy is another key component that is necessary to boost conversions.

As you can see, all these components together inevitably lead to increased conversions. As we all know, we are in business to make money, so you want to focus your efforts where you can best build your business and make a profit.

Getting to the top of the search engines is where you will improve your bottom line. Furthermore, when people bring up the first page results on Google, more of them click on the free search results over the ads which appear down the right side.

To really boost your traffic, you should focus on getting your site into the top three results, this is where the majority of people click on the links. In actual fact, there have been many studies using heat maps to support this claim.

To conclude, the importance of search engine rankings cannot be stressed enough. To build a real business online, it simply has to be a part of your marketing efforts.

About the author
Dechen Lau is an Author, Speaker, and Consultant specializing in Internet Marketing and Web Solutions

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Keyword and meta description tags:

Keyword and description meta tags optimization tutorial for better search engine rankings. Have you ever wondered

why some web pages get higher search engine rankings than others? Of course you have, if you are a web developer. You may have read or heard of a hundred ways to improve your page ranking and tried them all. Only to see dismal results and wonder what the heck went wrong.

Been there and done that. So I thought I would let you in on the secrets I use to get my pages to rank high in the search engines. Once you read these tricks you might think that is so obvious I should have thought of it.

Here are the 10 rules I use to search engine optimize a page for keywords and description meta tags.

1. First let's assume that you already know what the page is about and have already created it. This is not a tutorial on how to write web pages. Rather guidelines for search engine optimization using your meta keywords and description tags.

Depending on the type of page you are creating determines how many keywords you should use. For instance a sales letter is typically 2000 or more words. In that type of page you need to describe all the advantages of your product and why it is the right solution. You will want to get testimonials and place them in appropiate places. You may even want to tell a story relating to how well the product has performed. Don't over do the page or you will lose your prospect to boredom.

The product page (different from the sales letter) should be between 500 and 750 words. All you are trying to do here is sell a product. Visitors that make it to these pages probably already know what they are looking for and are only looking for specific information. Your job is to convince them that your product is the right one. Beyond that and there is more opportunity for your visitors to disagree with your pitch and move on.

The article page should be at least 1000 words and not more than 5000 words. Okay some might say that 5000 is too long and others have said that isn't 1000 words aren't enough words to describe what they have to say. Too long - some say that 500 words is good for an article page. So lets look at this: a person who can read 10 words a second will be through your page in 50 seconds. Not enough time for them to soak up your message. A person reading 3 words a second will take about 2-1/2 minutes. Plenty of time for your message to sink in.

The average reader can read somewhere around 6 words per second. Which would take them 83 seconds to read your 500 word article. Barely enough time to get your visitors comfortable. At 1000 words the avearge reader will read your page in roughly 3 minutes. At 6 words a second your reader needs around 3 minutes to read a 1000 word article. This plenty of time for the reader to make a decision to click on your most wanted response.

At over 2000 words the average reader will need 5-1/2 minutes to get through it. This is stretching the limit of time most visitors will spend reading one web page. At 5000 words the average reader takes over 13 minutes to read your page. This is well past the amount of time a visitor will need to decide to click on your most wanted response. If your article is really good most people will read all the way through it. If not they are off to the next website in a flash. If you have more than 2000 words you may want to consider breaking the article into 2 pages.

Okay, back to rule #1 use the right amount of words for a particular type of page. Not too many and not too few.

2. Primary meta keyword (the first one) must be an exact match with the file name of your page. This lets the search engines match up your keyword with your page and give your page higher relevancy. Here is an example from: Ocular Defense Formula (Pr2 and #2 in Google). The first keyword for this page is "Ocular Defense Formula." This seemingly obsure product gets 33,000+ search engine results in Google alone. So it is not that obscure after all. And makes for a good example.

3. Use only 5 keywords in your meta keywords tag. More than that and the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and won't list your page. The search engines rank your keywords in the order that they appear. This makes the first one the primary keyword and the second one a secondary keyword and so on. You should line your keywords up in the order of relevance to the page. Here is the meta keyword tag I used in this example.

"Ocular Defense Formula, Lutein, Bilberry, eye health, vision"

4. Use all of your keywords in your meta description, with the primary keyword as close to the front as possible. Definitely within the first 5 words of your description. The search engines don't read your description verbatim, but can find and match them with your keyword list. So try to use them all but don't repeat them if at all possible. Again if your meta description repeats your keywords too often the search engines might think you are keyword spamming and not list your page, so don't do it.

5. Meta description should be between 100 and 200 characters. It is important to get a solid description of your page. Less that 100 characters and the search engine may not find it relevant enough to list. More than 200 characters and the search engines may truncate it. Which looks unprofessional on your part. Truncated meta descriptions may leave searchers with the impression that your content will be too wordy and full of you know what. Too short a description and your visitors may think there is not enough information on your page and move on to the next result. So try to get your description just right, not too long and not too short. Here is the meta description for ODF.

"Ocular Defense Formula with Lutein, Bilberry and herbs to support eye health and protect your vision from aging and oxidation. Learn how to improve your visual acuity."

6. Line up your meta keywords up too resemble a sentence. Although search engines don't read your keywords as a sentence verbatim, it should reflect well what your page is all about. See the meta keyword tag above.

7. Proof read your content twice. You should always proof read your work before you post for a lot of good reasons like spelling, grammar, placement and paragraph distribution. Once your page looks great proof read it again with your focus on keyword placement and repitition. You want your keywords placed in your content sparingly. What? you say. Again over use of your keywords might result in the search engines thinking you are keyword spamming. That isn't to say you shouldn't have too few. My rule of thumb is 3 uses of a keyword for every 300 words. This lets the search engines know that there is a lot of supporting content for the keyword.

As you are proof reading you may discover that you have a much better keyword for your meta tag than what you originally thought. For instance in ODF I discovered that I had left out the keyword "vision". After proof reading my page I added that keyword to my list and used it a couple more times in the page.

8. Put your meta description all on one line in your html code. This will ensure that the search engines reads it all. I have noticed that some search engine results leave off the second line of a description. That may leave out some of your meta keywords if that happens.

9. Never use more than 3 words for your primary keyword (and file name). People rarely search for a keyword phrase over 3 words long. Too many words in a keyword phrase and the search engines may not find enough relevancy to list your page in the results. Two words in a keyword phrase (and file name) is ideal. For Ocular Defense Formula, I thought 2 words weren't enough to describe the page. "Ocular Defense" would have been too vague and misleading. I could have named the page something else and optimized for those keywords, but, ODF is a product page and optimizing for something like "Eye Health" would have been misleading and probably not get listed high in the search engines.

10. Use your primary keyword in the first and last paragraph of your page. The search engines will give more relevancy to your page if they find your keywords at the beginning and the end of your page. Also your primary keyword should appear in the first 90 characters of your content.

Bonus tip - Use your primary keyword as a text link in your page only once. Not twice but definitely once. If you don't want your visitors to leave your page make that link an "add to favorites" bookmark. On a product page this works great because you don't want to give your visitors the opportunity to go else where.

In summary use these tips to increase your search engine rankings. Optimizing your keyword and descriptions should improve the relevancy of your page and boost your search engine rankings. Notice how I used my primary keyword and description meta tags in this last paragraph

About the author
By Tim Koen - web developer http://www.best-website-tools.com | Tool Time blog. All the best website tools, tips and techniques to grow your online business.

The Search Engine Algorithms: It Has Always Been A Cat And Mouse Game

I remember ten years ago when we were designing websites for our clients that we used to play around with the keywords, descriptions and a variety of content related methods to help our customer get a high ranking on Yahoo. In some cases we were successful enough that not only were all the pages indexed, but they would come up consecutively.

Undoubtedly, everything has changed over the past 10 years, but the question still remains the same. Why would we spend so much time trying to beat the search engine algorithms? The answer is very simple, we are all trying to make a living, earn money, support our customers and insure their success. There is indeed one assumption in this writing. That is to say the website we are talking about are regular business websites. Not scams, not fraudulent services, not spam websites. Nothing of the sort, just everyday normal business websites.

The Internet by its very electronic nature has introduced the idea of lower cost marketing, more efficient marketing, measured marketing, and broader marketing. Naturally, a business would indeed seek these methods to get new and more business. Considering most businesses are small business, we run into the issue of not enough time in the day to do the work and certainly not enough money to outsource the work either. You can read "Internet Marketing and the Small Business" article at the URL provided at the end for reference.

Over the years the Big 3 - not automotive - but search engines Google, MSN and Yahoo have continually tried to provide better quality responses to visitors searching the web for information. A noble idea and certainly much faster than the early days of "Archie" and "Veronica" searching. They have introduced a variety of methods in this quest with the algorithms. As the algorithms change, well so do the tactics of Internet marketers and webmasters. The tactics follow some general rules - how do we circumvent the algorithms for the success of our clients and most notably, how do we make it easier, faster, more efficient.

This cat and mouse game can be best exemplified using "Links" that have become such a crucial part of ranking and popularity. In the early days it was simple, exchange links with other websites and the more websites with your link the more popular your site and therefore the higher your ranking. How tough can that be? Everyone is now chasing link exchanges; however, the process is time consuming. Not only to get the link exchange, but then to ultimately get more traffic to make money "now" (not tomorrow) is taking time too.

First request for the link exchange, then wait to get a confirmation, then add their link to your site, send a confirmation, wait for the response that your link is now on their site and finally confirm the link. Having done all that, let us not forget to check every 30 days that the link exchange still exists at the other website. Therefore, we need to know the exact url of our link on the other website and keep track of all this information using....well...something besides hard copy.

Along come services to make this process easier. This would include software and web based services. These services allow you to process the link exchange simpler and even go as far as creating the link web page for you and uploading the web page to your server. There was still one aspect that was not addressed with these services and that is the time to complete the link exchange. In some cases you're waiting 30 - 60 days. We certainly are not willing to wait this long to start making money.

Services now took the process even a step further and link farms are created. Register your site and put their code on your web page(s). Voila, you have instant link exchanges and the time for the process has been eliminated. Now it was strictly waiting for the search engines to index the information.

As you can imagine, this did not sit well with the search engines, especially Google. The next step is to modify the algorithms to identify link farms and other "un-naturally" occurring links. Yep, the issue of naturally occurring links was emphasized. You cannot have too many too quickly. You cannot use link farms. Your links have to be related to your industry. Inbound only links have a higher value than reciprocal link exchanges. More rules, regulations and policies being imposed upon the business, however, each of these rules bring about the next creativity, specifically about inbound only links.

The idea of selling text links on already high ranking websites emerges. Websites sell the text links directly or you can use brokers. Not only can you purchase the text links, but even within a single website you can have choices of how much to pay based the ranking of a particular page. You can spend a few dollars per month, pay mid-range between $25 - $50 or above $100.

Absolutely amazing how many sub-industries were created from the link exchange process. All the rules, regulations and policies in an effort to make for the search engines to provide more quality information to searchers and for website owners to make more money faster. What a circle-jerk!

The latest development, as you can imagine, is the purchase of text links is now going to be frowned upon and your site rankings will be down graded. Unfortunately, I cannot say that the search engines will do a good job of identifying purchased links versus legitimate advertising links. Nonetheless, whatever they do identify and however they decide to identify this it will hurt you.

So, the cat and mouse game continues. Link exchanges will probably not have a significant value in the long run. Inbound links will be scrutinized and these new sub-industries will refocus upon the next service they can provide to help website owners make money and do so faster.

Do you see where this is going? It will never end. The search engines will create impositions. The process will become more complicated. In the early days it was Meta Tags, then Link Exchanges. Now we're looking for content, authority websites, landing pages, comment tags, header tags, image ALT descriptions, Anchor Titles. It really does not make a difference. The search engines can throw out any rule, regulation or policy and there will always be a way around the "system". After all we are in the electronic medium and there is nothing that a computer cannot do that money and time cannot buy! I remember ten years ago when we were designing websites for our clients that we used to play around with the keywords, descriptions and a variety of content related methods to help our customer get a high ranking on Yahoo. In some cases we were successful enough that not only were all the pages indexed, but they would come up consecutively. Why would we spend so much time trying to beat the search engine algorithms?

About the author
NARESH
For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website:- www.the20seotools.com www.seo.reprintarticlesite.com

Source: http://seoarticles4u.com/The_Search_Engine_Algorithms_It_Has_Always_Been_A_Cat_And_Mouse_Game_a4292.html

About Search Engine Marketing And How It Can Help Your Business

When you have a home business there are a lot of ways that you are going to want to use to market your business. One of the most important ones you need to know is search engine marketing. It is not as hard as it seems to understand or use to market your business but if you don't know anything about it then it can seem very daunting and frustrating. So this article is going to tell you about search engine marketing so that you understand it better and can start using it yourself.
Search engine marketing is basically what it sounds like; it is when you can get the search engines to list your website in the search engine results that people find when they are searching for something specific. There are a couple of different ways that you can use search engine marketing to get your website listed.
One: Organic Listings
- This seems to be the hardest way to get your website listed in the search engines and it takes the longest. What organic listings are is when you use keywords to optimize your website and you have fresh content on your site because of articles that you have written. Also, the more links you have pointing to your website from other sites, the faster you will get listed in the organic listings. Organic listings are when you have worked at getting fresh content on your site, links pointing to your site and you have optimized it enough that the search engines start listing it on their own.
Two: Paid search engine marketing
-You may have already guessed at what this is. This is when you pay a company to list your website with the many different search engines. There are a lot of companies out there that you can hire to do this for you but it can get expensive so you want to make sure this is what you want to do before you do it.
These are the two best ways to get your website listed in the search engines. Obviously, more people use the first option because everything can be done for free. You use whatever way you want to, even both if you want, just make sure you learn as much as you can about search engine marketing. This is very important because search engine marketing is going to be one of the best ways for you to advertise your business.
About the Author
Cherie Ang is the owner of Simple Work From Home Opportunity website. Let see what opportunities are offered here: http://www.sgprofitsite.com/pips.html

How To Obtain Free Backward Links

Now I am sure that most people are aware of the importance of obtaining backward links. Some would say that the more backward links that you can get pointing to your website, the more traffic you will gain, increased traffic equals increased sales. So what are the best ways out obtaining these backward links and how can you attract them without spending any of your hard earned cash?
There is a very famous saying within the world of internet marketing content is king. This statement is as true today as it was ten years ago and therefore we can use this fact to our advantage in our quest to obtain backward links.
Certain webmasters crave new and unique content. They offer an article submission service which is on a review basis. I am not talking about your typical article directories but instead top notch, high value page rank websites. The majority of these webmasters do charge for this basically to cover their time in reviewing each article. The cost is usual quite minimal and if your article is accepted it could indeed be money well spent.
Not all of these article review and submission websites charge money for their service. They are just happy to receive well written and interesting content and it is certainly worth sending them your articles in the hope of having your work published.
Then there is the old favourite of article marketing itself where you submit your articles to the best article directories. This form of web marketing has worked for many years and even though you are now competing with a far greater number of authors it is still a great way to obtain backward links for free.
About the Author
Steve Hill is a webmaster from Birmingham, he has interests in a number of websites including: stuttering information stuttering stuttering treatment

Free Article Submission Software Gets You Tons Of Quality, 1-way Links

With the search engines evolving each and every day, it's absolutely critical to not fall into the trap of following the latest and greatest craze for ranking highly in the search engines. Things such as cloaking, keyword stuffing, blog spamming etc. are things that worked at one time, but are definitely not something that will last in the long run.

Your website will either get banned for doing something like that, or you simply won't get ranked anywhere and your effort will be for nothing.
With that said, now is the time to start taking your business seriously.

There are legitimate ways to increase search engine ranking that will always be effective at not only increasing your search engine ranking, but also at building your credibility in your chosen niche, generating quality leads to your business, and not to mention, getting your name and business in front of lots of people around the world.
The method I'm referring to is article submission. Article submission really isn't anything shockingly new, but the problem up until now has been the fact that although submitting your articles to article directories was an incredible way to increase your search engine rankings, it took one heck of a long time to actually find these directories, and then fill in all of the required information for submission.
There is a brand new, free software program created by Brad Callen and Bryxen Software, Inc. This software allows you to submit your articles to literally hundreds of popular article directories all over the world. A few clicks of the mouse and you're instantly able to submit your articles. It's taken the tedious process of finding and filling out these submission forms, incredibly easy and fast.
The software is constantly being updated and their is a large community of users established that all work together to make the software better.
The software currently contains around 700 article directories, all free to submit articles to.
To learn more about this free software visit: Article Submission
About the Author
Chad P. FlickAnythingInternetMarketing.blogspot.comRacine, WI Im a single father of 2 kids, 1 son 21, 1 daughter 16! I enjoy spending time with my family and friends. Hobbies are hunting, fishing, music, martial arts and anything that has to do with marketing.

How to Increase Your Website Traffic With Simple Strategies

Focus on Your Customer.
The first step to sales when customers visit your site is to see the products they were looking for. Of course, SEO and better SERP rankings can't keep your customer on your site or make them buy. If you happen to sell more than one product or service, provide all necessary information about this, may be by keeping the information at a different page. By providing suitable and easily visible links, the customer can navigate to these pages and get the details.
Understand About Your Target Customer.
This is definitely important. You can't sell a product to your consumer if you don't know what do they want? Some information like this will be useful. Why do they like your products? Do you offer coupons? Are your prices lower than your competitor's?
Do you responds faster to client questions? Are your product descriptions better? Do you have better return policies and guarantees than your competitor's?
Give enough contact information. When you sell your product using online website, your customer can buy your products 24 hours a day and also your customers may be from other states or even country which are ten thousands of miles away. You must always provide contact information, preferably on every page of your website, complete with your email address, telephone number and anything that will help your customer reaches you. People may need to contact you about sales, general information or question about the product they have bought on your website.
Those simple strategies will help you gain customer reliability which is very expensive money can't buy.
About the Author
Andrea Angelo is an internet marketer warrior, he want to help people with his guidance and his experience. He can be found on his blogsite http://www.hollywoodeleven.com

Mass Directory Submission

If you were to ask webmasters what the goals for their web site are, I expect that you would find that many of them would like to increase the number of visitors that their web site gets.
There is a simple reason for this
- generally speaking, the more visitors ("traffic") that a web site gets, the more money it makes. Of course, for simply putting up a web site and hoping for traffic is unlikely to produce results - if you want traffic you have to work for it, by actively promoting your web site.
There are many things that you can do to promote a web site, but I would suggest that a significant part of your promotion efforts should go into activites which will increasing the number of incoming links ("backlinks") to your web site.
This is for two reasons:
1. Links to your site can lead directly to traffic.
When a person see a link to your site, and clicks on it, you have a visitor.
2. More significantly, links to your web site can help contribute to higher search engine rankings. Search engines, (particularly Google with its famous "PageRank" system), take the number of links to a web site into account when ranking their search results. All other things being equal, a web site that has more incoming links will tend to rank more highly than one with fewer incoming links. But why is a higher ranking important? I expect you already know the answer to this - when people search, they click on higher ranked results much more frequently than lower ranked results.
One easy method to get many links to your site is to submit to directories.
There are over 1,000 Internet directories that list web sites, and many of them accept free submission. Thus a mass directory submissions is an easy way to quickly gain hundreds of incoming links. Of course, you may not have the time to manually submit to hundreds of directories (and to be honest, it's unlikely to be a good use of your time), so you might want to consider paying somebody to do the work for you, or investing in software to automate the process.
About the Author
By S. Tanna. Discover Directory Submitter software to submit to over 1,000 directories quickly at http://www.downloadfocus.com/download_directory_submitter.php

SEO Tips Professionals Charge For

In the first part of this series I gave a broad overview of some of the things you can do to enhance your On-Page and Off-Page SEO (often referred to as On-Site and Off-Site). I glossed over a number of items, but I will proceed to run through these different aspects of SEO in this and the subsequent articles.
The first thing to focus on is your page title.
I didn't do more than allude to this in Part 1, but to the search engines there is no such thing as 'Web Site Ranking' it is very specifically 'Web Page Ranking' Every webpage is an autonomous Internet location to the search engines and can be ranked well, or poorly depending on its content and linking. For this reason each page on your site must have a different title.
Reason #1
The search engines detest duplicate content.
Their goal is to prove their value to their users by driving them to unique, pertinent content on the Internet. If they find duplicate content they lower the value of that content as it can be found in other places.
Reason #2
After the domain name/URL the page title is the first thing that the search engines see, and they place a lot of their weighting on that. The words you use in your title should match terms that people are commonly searching, and in that order if possible.
It's also important to consider search term proximity. The closer your terms are to each other the more the search engines will consider them as a phrase and weight them together. Try to avoid adding a lot of words like the, and, or, it, etc...to your title.
A bad title: Bad Credit and how to get a low Auto Loan
With this title, the search engines will split up Bad Credit and Auto Loan into two separate phrases and be less likely to consider them together. This essentially puts the site into competition with all of the other sites using Bad Credit and Auto Loan separately - a very large group.
Combining the phrases below will target them much more and reduce competition
A good title: Bad Credit Auto Loans - How to get a low rate
Don't worry about the s on Loans, the search engines (the major ones at least) are very good and dealing with plurals.
Reason #3
It's very unfortunate, but this is the one aspect that many SEO professionals do not take into account as fully as they should. I put it as #3,
but I honestly believe it's the most important. It is how human readable is it. This is a fatal flaw of much of SEO. So much focus has been placed on driving traffic that the visitors themselves are often overlooked. Everything you do, everything on your site, is going to be viewed and judged by visitors (OK, probably not your privacy policy or terms of service - those probably get cursory glances at best). The title of the page is what shows up as the title on search results. It's first the make or break decision point that your content presents a potential visitor with. If they aren't snagged by your title, or feel it's totally irrelevant, then their eyes slip past and they are on to the next listing. There's no point in getting to page one of the Google results if your title makes no sense to humans and they never click it.
I honestly hope that this information has proven useful and informative to you. Please feel free to contact me for any advice or clarification on creating great titles.
About the Author
For more information on the top SEO tips, products, and software to make your work easier, visit http://seosoftware.topconsumerproductreviews.com

The Search Engines Is Relevant To You

I admit it; I search for my name a lot. First name Last name, click, send, wait, smile!
It's exciting to see what the search engines find most relevant about me.
If you haven't tried it yet, you should. Everybody likes to feel important or at the very least less obscure and more accessible online to friends, loved ones, fans, viewers, colleagues you name it.
What's interesting is the distinctly different types of websites and information that the top 3 (Google, MSN, and Yahoo) return in response to a first name last name search.
Now a lot of these differences are not specific to a name search and would fit in the categories of conational SEO, but the reasons why I think it's important to talk about this specific search separately from regular SEO are:

1. this search is one of the most important to an individual emotionally. Your first and last name appears on everything you create.
It can represent your reputation, your family heritage, your professional image, your expertise, and your experience, all at the same time.
Give me another two search words that cover all of that.

2. People use their first and last name in documents and websites in similar ways that differ extensively from other words Most of us, for example, don't have social networking accounts, blogs, press releases, work history, personal comments and video files all attached to a string of keywords like "buy movies now".
Recently, do to the pending release of the free movie Boy Who Never Slept and an aggressive marketing campaign, references to 'Solomon rothman' have increased dramatically and span many different sources. Considering this, I thought it would be a perfect time to do a search comparison on the different types of results to gain a fresh perspective on name searches and what each of the search engines prefer.
Initial things to note:

1. My myspace account is very new with almost to no outside links pointing at it.
2. I use my real name solomonrothman in my usernames for website profile pages. Examples of this are below. On MSN (results summarized in bullets)

* My website * My profile page on associated content * My profile page on Design Firms * My profile page on Blogs Flux * My user page on Wikipedia * Google Video listing * Contact page on top design firms
On Yahoo (results summarized in bullets)
* The other solomon rothman's website (not me) * My website * Specific associated content articles * Deep pages within my website * Archive.org * Press releases * Creative commons blog * Directories * Comments I made on some substantial blogs * Dig article * Google video
On Google (results summarized in bullets )
* My website * My user profile at Associated Content * Profile at blog Flux * WikiNews Article * Design Firms Profile * Internet Archive * Feedburner URL * LOTS OF PRESS RELEASES * Google Video listing * Wikipedia User Page * Myspace Profile
This is my no means scientific, but by comparing all three there are some interesting conclusions that could be drawn or at least hypothesized about. You would of course need a lot more test data, to make any concrete, but here are some interesting comparisons. Analysis on searching for a persons name or first name, last name searches
Commonalities among all 3:
* my personal website to be the most important / relevant (yahoo liked the personal website of the other solomon rothman more) * individual Google Video Listings were included in the top results
Individual Relevancy Preferences MSN
* Values both topic related and general Profile and user pages on large established websites and social networks over other results. * Wikipedia pages including user pages * Link Directories
It's interesting that it brings up my wikiusername page on the first page results, this is just a free user page used to let editors I may be working with know more about me.
Yahoo
* Specific Articles (as opposed to the profile pages at article submission or promotion sites) * Deep pages within personal website * Internet Archive Listings (put them above Google Video) * Listings and tag entries on technorati.com (blog search engine with listings and tags)
Google
* Highly values profile pages on topical sites like (designfirms.org) * Myspace * Wikinews items rank very high * Internet Archive Video Listings appear EXTRMELEY high * Individual Video Listing from other video distribution websites like bolt, and vivemo. * feed burner urls * press releases
Individual Dislikes or things that seen to rank substantially lower specifically on these engines MSN
* Doesn't rank press releases very high in results for a person's name, puts them after profile pages, and directories. * Listings and tag entires on technorati.com (blog search engine with listings and tags) none show up in the top 100.
Yahoo
* Wikipedia Items (not one listing in the top 100, as opposed to msn, (in top 10) and Google in top 30
Google # listings and tag entries on technorati.com
Remember that I use my real name as my username and repeat it specifically on the about me pages etc of each of these websites, that I'm sure obviously if you don't use your first name or last name on these sites, they won't come up.
Interesting things to note:
In the top 50 resutls of MSN was included my user page on the social bookmarking system delicious solomonrothman .
That's EXTREMELY intesting because in the meta tags on that page say no index, no follow and no archive:
It appears msn is not only indexing this page, but ranking it above other information rich sites for certain keywords.
YET ANOTHER REASON TO start SOCIAL BOOKMARKING.
Interesting trends applicable to all searches Video in regular search results
Video listings, especially on Google Video and the Internet Archive are showing up for regular keyword searches that don't use the word video, movie, etc. It appears all the search engines consider topic specific videos (at least the video listing pages) to be as relevant as regular information / text rich websites. A great example is search Google for Helicopter fire California. Thinking the "old way" I would guess this search to bring up news articles using those keywords, and it does for some of the results.
In the first 15 entires there are 3 separate references to a video file I uploaded showing a helicopter drop over a fire in California. 2 separate entries for various listing on archive.org and another listing for the Google video listing.
This is very powerful and although it may have been prominent in the past, I don't remember bringing up very many video listings on my normal searches, but things are changing, video is becoming the new sought-after relevant content in the online arena.
My space is a very powerfully free resource(other social networks are too) Even without any additional promotion (outside links for example) my myspace account ranked among the top sites in for my name in both MSN and Google. That's huge. If you want to put some information on the top spots for a name search and don't have a lot of time/budget/knowledge to undergo an SEO campaign, consider joining myspace and using your real first and last name.
You could have your personal page among the top spots in a matter of weeks. Of course if your name is extremely common, this tactic probably won't work. No luck for John Smith.
Wikipedia is a great place to contribute information As an extra bonus you may receive some Search Engine Recognition for it
Articles are still a great way to promote yourself and there are some great places that will even pay you for your published articles and still link to your site.
I admit it, I search for my name a lot.
First name Last name, click, send, wait, smile! It's exciting to see what the search engines find most relevant about me. If you haven't tried it yet, you should.
Everybody likes to feel important or at the very least less obscure and more accessible online to friends, loved ones, fans, viewers, colleagues you name it.

www.the20seotools.com www.seo.reprintarticlesite.com
About the Author
Gurpreet Sandhu Gurpreet Sandhu Gurpreet Sandhu

Search Engine Optimisation - Key Facts You Need To Know

For your online business to be a success, you need traffic. You need visitors actively searching for the product or service you’re selling. This is especially true if you're involved in search engine marketing (SEM). Search engine optimisation is ultimately about optimising your site so that it gets the maximum targeted traffic from the search engines but getting it right can difficult. So how does it work? In practical terms, SEO is of two basic types- on page and off page.

On page refers to how you organise your actual web pages in terms of your keywords. This involves matters of keyword density, the terms you put in the various html tags and headers, and the names you give to your pages and internal links.

Off page refers to your site's relationship with the rest of the internet, in other words, the links it has to websites and directories. These links, whether to other sites or to directories, are seen as a vote for your site. This evolved from Google being based on the academic writing model which judges the worth of a text by the number of citations it has from other texts.

So what does this mean for you in practical terms?

Firstly, you need to optimise your web content thematically around relevant keywords that people are actually searching for. Then the visitors to your site are more likely to be interested in your product or service. This requires keyword research expertise. This work is complex and best contracted to search engine optimisation companies and SEO agencies.

Then you need to to build your web content around these words and phrases while keeping the text natural and interesting. In this regard, the content of your site is probably the most important factor for a successful SEO strategy.

Another thing to do is regularly update your website with fresh content. The aim is to provide a valuable user experience. The search engines reward sites that continually update their content by giving them higher rankings. Plus, the internal linking of your site can influence your SEO status. So make sure your links have meaningful, keyword-based anchor text.

As for off site optimisation, you should work on steadily building up links. If your content is valuable you'll probably get other webmasters linking to you. Or you can actively seek out sites with similar themes to your own and contact the webmaster to request reciprocal links. As for submitting link requests to directories, it' better to outsource this task. There are thousands of directories with varying requirements. Doing the job yourself would be very time consuming.

Stay away from black hat techniques such as tricks like cloaking, hidden text, and keyword packing. They might give you a quick burst of traffic but soon lead to your site being de-indexed. At the end of the day, the websites that achieve a lasting SEO success are ones that give the searcher what he wants, in other words, relevant content.

The ever shifting landscape of SEO needs a professional's touch. Not only is the initial optimisation a complex affair but you need a pro on hand to deal with the frequent changes to search engine policies and algorithms. The use of SEO Specialists and SEO consultants can give you that edge you need to compete in the crowded online world. And if you're involved in SEM, then search engine optimisation companies with access to SEM consulants are a must.

Article Source: http://www.articlecache.com -- Article Directory | Web Site Promotion

Andy Lomax owns and runs Kudos Web Design one of the Leading Web Design companies in Manchester. He has been working within the internet industry for over 10 years and has advised hundreds of companies about their websites. Kudos Web Design provides high quality Search engine optimisation

How To Avoid SEO Nightmares

SEO nightmares for webmasters is when they go to bed after happily analyzing the latest traffic figures and resulting sales and revenue generated by their web sites, only to wake up the next morning to find that everything has been wiped out. If this has ever happened to you, then you know how devastating this can be to find your self in this position.

Their sites literally disappear from a major search engine and the result can be devastating, to say the least.

Yet there are a number of ways to avoid such situations;

a) Do Not Try To Trick Search Engines
Many webmasters feel very clever tricking search engine robots with all sorts of tricks and getting away with it. Many times the so-called brilliant ideas come from a SEO service consultant eager to show you as client some quick results. The reality is that if you do anything unscrupulous or that is not above board, your days are really numbered. Sooner or later you will be caught up with. If you are serious about search engine
marketing you need to start by Building Links to your website. Doing it the honest way.

b) You Must Diversify
Diversification does not mean going into all sorts of different lines of business. It just means making every effort not to rely on one source of anything. Whether it is traffic or revenue. For instance if you use your high traffic to build up your opt-in email lists, you will be doing yourself a great favor. You can even use your current profits to purchase opt-in email lists and thus build up our list much quicker. In this way you will be cushioning yourself against any future developments that could affect the major way through which you are currently receiving your traffic.

c) Build a Quality Web Site
If you can use the opportunity to build a quality web site and with it a favorable image and large loyal following, then the effects of changes in search engines rankings for your web site will be greatly limited. Word of mouth alone can keep huge numbers flowing in the direction of your site and can be much more effective than traffic flowing from search engines. Sometimes this word of mouth mainly culminates in links pointing at your site which can also generate lots of traffic on their own.

d) Get Your Web Site Exposed
There are plenty available resources such as web site directory submission services and article submission services, that will assist you in keeping your website ranked in the search engines. Through these web site promotion techniques, your site will gain link popularity and more exposure, leading to future potential clients and higher rankings in the search engines. Articles Submissions are a powerful method of getting quality one-way incoming links to your site, the way the search engines like. In submitting to directories, the amount of inbound one way links to your site are highly valuable to the search engines and will boost your site rankings.


Terry Detty, 42 years old, finds internet marketing his passion. In addition to marketing he enjoys reading, and occasionaly gets out for a short walk.
The key to successful Internet Marketing is with Web Directory Submissions and a professional SEO Software
Article Source: http://www.articlecache.com -- Article Directory | Free Articles

Do-It-Yourself SEO - A Beginner's Checklist

There have always been do-it-yourselfers succeeding at web promotion and search engine optimization. In fact, many of the established businesses offering web services today came from humble beginnings, perhaps nothing more than a college student with a laptop, an internet connection, and too much free time. The Web evolves as the result of the innovation and experimentation of individuals. The sharing of knowledge. The do-it-yourself attitude.

As text link brokers and mass link networking decrease in value and use in social media increases, it becomes more important for companies to have an internal approach and awareness of search engine marketing. Don't get me wrong; outsourcing to SEO firms is still a smart option. That said, making the most out of Web 2.0 usually requires some level of cooperation between SEO firm and site owner. You don't need to be an expert to know the basics of good SEO practices, and that added knowledge will be a great advantage whether you're working along side an SEO team, or promoting your own site in your spare time.

So if you're on a "need to know" basis with SEO, the following points should illustrate what an overall plan should include:

1. Create Search Engine-Friendly Content

Unique web content is your most valuable asset, and ensuring search engines can read it is crucial. Text embedded in images or Flash cannot be read, so make sure you use important keywords, headings, and hyperlinks in plain text form. Instead of using images as navigation links, CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) makes it easy to format those links to look more like 'buttons', thus creating powerful anchor text as well as making it visually appealing. Use heading tags properly and don't try to hide keywords or text by making it the same color as the page background or shrinking it so it can't be seen. Make sure the keywords you wish to rank high for are used frequently in the page copy but within reason.

Now that you've created good content, is it actually being crawled? Copy and paste a page's URL into a search engine to see if it has been indexed. If you've just created the page, it may take a few days to show up. Aside from age, many factors can lead to web pages not being indexed by search engines, such as duplicate content (ie. a printer-friendly version of a page might be indexed and the normal version not, or vice versa); links generated by JavaScript instead of HTML; poor site architecture (ie. using too many sub-directories); lengthy, dynamically generated URLs using special characters; and orphaned pages.

2. Choose Your Keywords Wisely

One of the first steps of SEO, this one needs to be done properly the first time or all your future efforts and promotion could end up being wasted. Start by writing down general terms that describe your products, services or web content. Use keyword research services to investigate word and phrase variations. Wordtracker, KeywordDiscovery, and the Google AdWords suggestion tool are good starting points. The goal is to find those niche phrases that your target market uses to find sites just like yours and optimize your site for them. If the phrases do not get enough use by searchers, your profits from ranking for them will be low. At the same time, stay away from general terms that are tougher to rank for (ie. like "art", "computers", "business", etc.) as a great portion of the traffic will be irrelevant and you'll break the bank attaining such competitive phrases.

3. Get Others to Link to Your Site

In theory there are countless ways, some traditional and some quite innovative, to get other web sites to link to yours. In practice, it can be easier said than done. Google defines a link as it pertains to rankings and SEO as a "vote" from one site to another. The more quality votes your site receives, the greater chance you have of rankings well. If a well established site links to yours, that link carries more weight than one would from a mom & pop shop or less reputable page.

If your site has useful content and is doing something unique, you're already ahead of much of the competition. People need a reason to link to your site, as very few will do it out of the goodness of their heart. Trading links can work, but link exchange networks have decreased in value and won't be of much use in competitive fields. Buying links, if you haven't heard, is a big Google no-no. While entire articles could be written on this topic, here are a few popular methods of acquiring incoming links:

- issuing company press releases with a link back to your site
- submitting to reputable business directories such as Yahoo! and Business.com
- be active on related blogs by commenting and exchanging ideas
- if you have clients with web sites, ask if they would mind adding your link in a "partners" section
- participate in relevant forums and discussion boards with a link in your signature
- write and submit original articles to web publications in your field with a link in your bio
- get involved in social media and bookmarking

4. Join the Social Media Revolution

The collaboration between Internet users and the development of online communities is at an all-time high. Social bookmarking sites such as Del.icio.us, StumbleUpon, Furl, Reddit, and Technorati offer users a way to store their favorite pages and media online, and share it with others. These services also provide a way to promote your own content or create a buzz over a product or service. Creating a Myspace page or Squidoo "lens" is also a way to network and share information.

However, if your goal is to generate sales then you must offer something without the promotional hype. The reality of social media is that popularity is based almost entirely on public interest. If your information or media isn't unique or of interest to anyone, you cannot force success using social media communities.

The key to using social media and bookmarking sites to your advantage is to not be shy. Getting your entries and content to the popular pages on these sites requires some hard work. Network with other users, bookmark and share useful content, create eye-catching titles for your entries, and tell your friends and co-workers about the content you have on these sites. However, don't force your employees to vote your entries up - this is social media fraud. If you have great content and simply share it with as many people as you can, it will see success naturally.

These four points are a general guideline to follow for SEO. Search engine optimization experts and firms are a good outsourcing option in competitive markets, while the DIY attitude can yield great results for web site owners with smaller marketing budgets. If you're in the latter group, hopefully this helps get you started.

About the author
John Metzler has held executive positions in the search engine marketing industry since 2001. He is the Founder of FreshPromo, a Canadian-based search marketing firm and updates his blog regularly.

Source : http://seoarticles4u.com/Do-It-Yourself_SEO_-_A_Beginners_Checklist_a4000.html

Ten Great SEO Tips

Are you afraid of competition that you see everywhere in the World Wide Web? Don't be. The following ten simple proven tips will guide you through to get ranked in search engines. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars like many companies do in order to get a high ranking. By consistently applying these simple tips you will have every advantage when it comes to Search Engine Optimization.

Become An Expert

People are looking for information. That's what they come to web sites for. If they see you as an expert on a certain subject you have a better chance of getting a high ranking in search engines. Over time you ranking will increase because people will come looking for you.

Plan Your Site Well

Don't take for granted the layout of your site. User-friendly site and the right layout of your site make it easier for search engines to crawl. Putting a site map, for example, is definitely a plus factor and the search engine will love you for it.

Do Your Research

If you don't do research to see what others are doing and check out the competition then you will be left behind. Always see to it that you know what your competition is up to so you can act on it and do something about it. Doing this will keep you in the loop and thus make you competitive.

Use Combination of Keywords

Keyword research is perhaps one of the toughest things to do and the most understood part of SEO. When researching for keywords, don't just grab the most common keywords but give attention to combinations of keywords. Think about the things you would search for about your site then come up with your own keyword combinations.

Be Search Engine Friendly

Take time to learn about the process as to what search engine like and dislike especially when it comes to use of keywords. Be search engine friendly. If you follow their rules the better off you will be.

Focus On The Topic

Search engines do not like to have more than one topic per page. So if you want to have a much higher ranking you should focus on one subject per page. The reason for this is that when you are focused on one topic you give more relevant information to your visitors. Join Directories

Do not overlook the importance of giving your site a link back. One way to do this is by joining as many directories as possible. Remember, each directory that you join gives your site another link back. And the search engines come down to links in these directories - especially the bigger ones that have great SEO power.

Keep Adding Content

Search engines love to crawl for fresh and new content. Sites that don't have fresh content on a regular basis remain stagnant and will not be crawled by search engines. Article directories are one great source for new content for your site.

Keep Promoting

If you consistently promote your site, overtime you site will get a higher ranking in the search engines. Just follow the simple tips suggested here and you will be on your way to a profitable and traffic pulling site.

Keep Learning About SEO

Again, as long as you use these tips, there's no need to be afraid of the competition. Do not allow the rankings of your competitors stop you from doing what you should be doing. It takes time to learn and really understand about SEO. Keep learning as much as you can and you will be fine.

About the author
Edwin V. Tan is an Internet Marketer, publisher and educator. For a limited time, you can claim
the "The Yellow Big Book of Turbo Marketing Secrets" e-book absolutely free at InfoTurbo.com

Source : http://seoarticles4u.com/Ten_Great_SEO_Tips_a3964.html

17 Top Strategies to SEO

1. Picking strategic keywords.

2. Making sure these strategic keywords appear in the crucial locations on web pages.

3. Including lots of relevant text content in the body of the HTML page.

4. Avoiding image map links - some search engines can't follow these - use HTML hyperlinks instead.

5. Avoiding frames - some search engines can't follow framed links.

6. Avoiding dynamically generated pages - if pages are generated via CGI or database-delivery, it is expected that some of the search engines will not be able to index them. Consider creating static pages whenever possible, perhaps using the database to update the pages, not to generate them on the fly. Also, avoiding symbols in URLs, especially the symbol, as most search engines will not be able to read past these, and will not be able to index that page.

7. Using Meta Tags (including tags on images).

8. Including a reciprocal links page.

9. Including a site index / map page in plain HTML.

10. Submitting site to search engines via manual submissions and paid inclusion services, but avoiding unwittingly submitting to the same search engine database, and getting site banned from its index.

11. Remembering to submit the site to the major directories such as Yahoo and relevant minor directories.

12. Not relying on automated technology, it may get pages banned (e.g. Cloaked pages, IP redirects, meta-refresh, auto submissions etc).

13. It is not better to expect overnight success, the longer it takes time for optimization, the better the results.

14. It may seem easy to do in-house, but it will work out cheaper and much more effective using a specialist search engine marketing firm, who are constantly researching the market.

15. Use headings as h1, h2 because search engines interpret headline text as more important.

16. Bolded text is also considered more important by the search engines. Bolding the primary keyword phrase 1-3 times on the page is a good way to alert the engines to the phrases prominence and importance.

17. Image alt tags should contain a brief text description of the photo/image.

About the author
Do You Want to Learn How to Make Money Online? Wealthy Affiliate Teach You How to Start a Successful Affiliate Marketing Career! Click Here to Learn About The Wealthy Affiliate University

Source : http://seoarticles4u.com/17_Top_Strategies_to_SEO_a3968.html

Top 20 Contributing Factors For Google SEO

Websites are quickly becoming one of the most popular ways of advertising. Whether it be a business, its product or service or something completely different, everyone of all ages are turning to the web as a method of getting their message out there. With the popularity of this marketing medium increasing and the number of websites always growing, it is obvious that everyone wants to appear at the top of Google's search engine rankings. Achieving such a task is never an easy feat, however with a bit of perseverance, one can definitely increase their chances of reaching that glorious first page result.

Given that there are a heap of websites out there who are on the first page, what is their secret? It is a little industry term called "SEO" and it stands for Search Engine Optimisation. SEO basically consists of the customisation of your website, its content and its internal and external links to assist in the overall indexing and ranking of your website in popular search engines. There are many contributing factors that are used in determining a website's ranking and every search engine is different. This makes trying to optimise your site for Google, Yahoo, Live and the many others quite a pain staking task.

As most of us are aware, Google is currently the most popular search engine for the majority of Internet users. As such, it is only normal that we'd want to focus our sights on achieving a higher ranking within Google first with a hope that the rest will follow. To do this, we must start a journey that could potentially take months before we start seeing any real change, however we have to start somewhere.

Our journey begins by defining some of the key contributing factors that Google uses to determine a website and webpage's ranking within its results. These factors range from keyword use to manipulating internal and external links and the list goes on. To get you started, we have listed the top twenty factors that you should focus on in order to help get your website that little bit closer to the top of the search engine results listing.

Keyword Use Factors The following components relate to the use of the user's search query terms in determining the rank of a particular page.

1. Keyword Use in Title Tag - Placing the targeted search term or phrase in the title tag of the web page's HTML header

2. Keyword Use in Body Text - Using the targeted search term in the visible, HTML text of the page

3. Relationship of Body Text Content to Keywords - Topical relevance of text on the page compared to targeted keywords

4. Keyword Use in H1 Tag - Creating an H1 tag with the targeted search term/phrase

5. Keyword Use in Domain Name & Page URL - Including the targeted term/phrase in the registered domain name, i.e. keyword.com plus target terms in the webpage URL, i.e. seomoz.org/keyword-phrase.

Page Attributes The following elements comprise how the Google interprets specific data about a webpage independent of keywords.

6. Link Popularity within the Site's Internal Link Structure - Refers to the number and importance of internal links pointing to the target page

7. Quality/Relevance of Links to External Sites/Pages - Do links on the page point to high quality, topically-related pages?

8. Age of Document - Older pages may be perceived as more authoritative while newer pages may be more temporally relevant

9. Amount of Indexable Text Content - Refers to the literal quantity of visible HTML text on a page

10. Quality of the Document Content (as measured algorithmically) - Assuming search engines can use text, visual or other analysis methods to determine the validity and value of content, this metric would provide some level of rating

Site/Domain Attributes The factors below contribute to Google's rankings based on the site/domain on which a page resides.

11. Global Link Popularity of Site - The overall link weight/authority as measured by links from any and all sites across the web (both link quality and quantity)

12. Age of Site - Not the date of original registration of the domain, but rather the launch of indexable content seen by the search engines (note that this can change if a domain switches ownership)

13. Topical Relevance of Inbound Links to Site - The subject-specific relationship between the sites/pages linking to the target page and the target keyword

14. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world

15. Rate of New Inbound Links to Site - The frequency and timing of external sites linking in to the given domain

Inbound Link Attribute These pieces affect Google's weighting of links from external websites pointing to a page and ultimately will assist in the ranking of that page.

16. Anchor Text of Inbound Link

17. Global Link Popularity of Linking Site

18. Topical Relationship of Linking Page

19. Link Popularity of Site in Topical Community - The link weight/authority of the target website amongst its topical peers in the online world

20. Age of Link

Negative Crawling/Ranking Attributes There are also some points we should make before you start getting your hands dirty. With any type of SEO marketing, there are some things that can actually have a negative impact on your ranking. These following components may negatively affect a spider's ability to crawl a page or its rankings at Google.

* Server is Often Inaccessible to Bots
* Content Very Similar or Duplicate of Existing Content in the Index
* External Links to Low Quality/Spam Sites
* Duplicate Title/Meta Tags on Many Pages
* Overuse of Targeted Keywords (Stuffing/Spamming)

It's now time to get busy! Start prioritising your tasks, modifying your content and building your internal and external links to meet some of the above guidelines. Keep in mind that improving indexing is mostly a technical task, improving ranking is mostly a business/marketing strategy, what might work now may not work in the future and finally, it takes time. Loads of time. Still, with a bit of trial and error and a good dose of persistence, you can achieve the search engine ranking you're after.

About the author
Jon is the owner of Bergan Blue, an Australian based creative design firm focused on bridging the gap between the online world of the Internet with the offline world of Marketing. Please visit http://www.berganblue.com.au/ for more information.

Source : http://seoarticles4u.com/Top_20_Contributing_Factors_For_Google_SEO_a4015.html

12 Ways to Monetize your Blog - The Blogpreneur 3

12 Ways to Monetize your Blog - The Blogpreneur 3

A little planning. Some basic preparation, and good old fashioned hard work can turn a blog into a money maker. How much? That is really up to you and your determination.

Some ways are easier than others; some will earn you more money than others. But in the long run, it’s all about building a solid brand and a good base of readers before you will see much return.

1. Advertising Networks
Advertising networks such as AdSense, Adready, etc. is the most common way of monetizing.
It’s Important to realize that most ad networks don’t work very well until you have search engine traffic. People who arrive from other sources don’t click as much as you’d think. However, a few cents can always be made on page impressions alone. Never a bad idea, but not the goldmine its painted out to be.

It’s easy to sign up, it’s easy to implement, and in most cases, it’s problem free. It is however not a great way to make a lot of money unless you have serious amounts of good search engine traffic.

2. Direct Selling Ads
You can sell Ad-Space to companies direct. This is not that hard to do, but it does require you to do a little more work on your own. You also need to monitor the ads, adding and removing as contracts expire. Your price and revenue will depend on both your traffic, and your negotiating skills.

3. E-Books
If you have quality material to sell, then you can write an e-book and sell it through your website. You can also upload e-books for sale to Amazon. The E-book is the most common gateway to serious diversified monetization. It is also a powerful traffic builder if used right.

4. Print Books
If you are a blogger, you might have it in your to write a full book for print.
Print on demand, Google, Amazon and other services have great ways to market print books alongside your own blog. A book has the additional benefit of being a perpetual money earner. Once it’s out there, you can reap the benefits for a very long time.

5. Merchandise
You have a blog? Maybe there is a market for some t-shirts, posters, Coffee Mugs or other ideas. Cafepress has made it very easy to make merchandize with zero cost.
You can of course do it the traditional way too. Which gives you better profit per item, but has the problem of finding a manufacturer of your products, stock and shipping.

If you are already producing something, you can of course add a web shop to the blog. But that’s really not about blogging. That’s more a traditional e-business approach.

6. Affiliate Marketing
Some businesses will make you their sales person.
Either by just advertising, or by actually doing the sales work for them and earning a commission (see point 7.) This is one of the most popular ways of monetizing, but it has also become a bit of a scourge of the blogging world. Be careful since this can damage your brand.

7. Build your own Amazon (or other) shop
Amazon allows you to advertize a specific product.
You can choose the exact ad you want to show.
This can allow you to make a product review, and advertise the sale through Amazon. Doing this tastefully can actually be a very good way to earn a living, I’ve seen some very sophisticated applications of this approach.

8. Member Services
Provide a subscription based part of the website that gives access to VIP information, services etc. If you are trying this one, make sure that the value given is worth the investment. Or you will get plenty of bad reviews written about you and your service.

9. Consulting / Coaching
If you are a specialist, or have a business where you can give advice, you can leverage that by giving either online advice or channeling customers to your real world business. This works especially well for Consultants and Personal Coaches, but designers, programmers, and other computer oriented blogs can make good money this way too.

10. Paid Posts
There are plenty of companies out there that will pay you to make a post on your blog. You’ll need some traffic and basic notoriety before this becomes an option. Be careful! You might lose credibility if you do not disclose that you are making a paid post. There are enough bloggers out there that get the same offers as you do.
Your readers will know what’s real and whats been paid for sooner or later.

11. Links
Another common offer is to get paid for links from your page. This only becomes viable once you have a decent pagerank, and since this is frowned upon by Google, you might get that pagerank taken away. Not something I’d advice on doing.

12. Sell it
Blogs are being sold all the time, once you have designed your blog and brought it up to speed, there might be a market to sell it. However, building a blog and traffic etc just to sell it rarely is a very effective way to spend your time. If you are a great blogger, that has all the tricks of Traffic building down. Then you might be the person to have this as a goal. Otherwise, time/value is just not there.

Blogging for a living is not as easy as many advertisers out there might want you to believe. But it is possible for those with drive, determination and a firm grasp on the difference between leveraging, and selling their brand name down the tube.

Good Luck!

By Erik Johnels

55 Quick SEO Tips Even Your Mother Would Love

Everyone loves a good tip, right? Here are 55 quick tips for search engine optimization that even your mother could use to get cooking. Well, not my mother, but you get my point. Most folks with some web design and beginner SEO knowledge should be able to take these to the bank without any problem.

1. If you absolutely MUST use Java script drop down menus, image maps or image links, be sure to put text links somewhere on the page for the spiders to follow.

2. Content is king, so be sure to have good, well-written and unique content that will focus on your primary keyword or keyword phrase.

3. If content is king, then links are queen. Build a network of quality backlinks using your keyword phrase as the link. Remember, if there is no good, logical reason for that site to link to you, you don’t want the link.

4. Don’t be obsessed with PageRank. It is just one isty bitsy part of the ranking algorithm. A site with lower PR can actually outrank one with a higher PR.

5. Be sure you have a unique, keyword focused Title tag on every page of your site. And, if you MUST have the name of your company in it, put it at the end. Unless you are a major brand name that is a household name, your business name will probably get few searches.

6. Fresh content can help improve your rankings. Add new, useful content to your pages on a regular basis. Content freshness adds relevancy to your site in the eyes of the search engines.

7. Be sure links to your site and within your site use your keyword phrase. In other words, if your target is “blue widgets” then link to “blue widgets” instead of a “Click here” link.

8. Focus on search phrases, not single keywords, and put your location in your text (“our Palm Springs store” not “our store”) to help you get found in local searches.

9. Don’t design your web site without considering SEO. Make sure your web designer understands your expectations for organic SEO. Doing a retrofit on your shiny new Flash-based site after it is built won’t cut it. Spiders can crawl text, not Flash or images.

10. Use keywords and keyword phrases appropriately in text links, image ALT attributes and even your domain name.

11. Check for canonicalization issues - www and non-www domains. Decide which you want to use and 301 redirect the other to it. In other words, if http://www.domain.com is your preference, then http://domain.com should redirect to it.

12. Check the link to your home page throughout your site. Is index.html appended to your domain name? If so, you’re splitting your links. Outside links go to http://www.domain.com and internal links go to http://www.domain.com/index.html.

Ditch the index.html or default.php or whatever the page is and always link back to your domain.

13. Frames, Flash and AJAX all share a common problem - you can’t link to a single page. It’s either all or nothing. Don’t use Frames at all and use Flash and AJAX sparingly for best SEO results.

14. Your URL file extension doesn’t matter. You can use .html, .htm, .asp, .php, etc. and it won’t make a difference as far as your SEO is concerned.

15. Got a new web site you want spidered? Submitting through Google’s regular submission form can take weeks. The quickest way to get your site spidered is by getting a link to it through another quality site.

16. If your site content doesn’t change often, your site needs a blog because search spiders like fresh text. Blog at least three time a week with good, fresh content to feed those little crawlers.

17. When link building, think quality, not quantity. One single, good, authoritative link can do a lot more for you than a dozen poor quality links, which can actually hurt you.

18. Search engines want natural language content. Don’t try to stuff your text with keywords. It won’t work. Search engines look at how many times a term is in your content and if it is abnormally high, will count this against you rather than for you.

19. Not only should your links use keyword anchor text, but the text around the links should also be related to your keywords. In other words, surround the link with descriptive text.

20. If you are on a shared server, do a blacklist check to be sure you’re not on a proxy with a spammer or banned site. Their negative notoriety could affect your own rankings.

21. Be aware that by using services that block domain ownership information when you register a domain, Google might see you as a potential spammer.

22. When optimizing your blog posts, optimize your post title tag independently from your blog title.

23. The bottom line in SEO is Text, Links, Popularity and Reputation.

24. Make sure your site is easy to use. This can influence your link building ability and popularity and, thus, your ranking.

25. Give link love, Get link love. Don’t be stingy with linking out. That will encourage others to link to you.

26. Search engines like unique content that is also quality content. There can be a difference between unique content and quality content. Make sure your content is both.

27. If you absolutely MUST have your main page as a splash page that is all Flash or one big image, place text and navigation links below the fold.

28. Some of your most valuable links might not appear in web sites at all but be in the form of e-mail communications such as newletters and zines.

29. You get NOTHING from paid links except a few clicks unless the links are embedded in body text and NOT obvious sponsored links.

30. Links from .edu domains are given nice weight by the search engines. Run a search for possible non-profit .edu sites that are looking for sponsors.

31. Give them something to talk about. Linkbaiting is simply good content.

32. Give each page a focus on a single keyword phrase. Don’t try to optimize the page for several keywords at once.

33. SEO is useless if you have a weak or non-existent call to action. Make sure your call to action is clear and present.

34. SEO is not a one-shot process. The search landscape changes daily, so expect to work on your optimization daily.

35. Cater to influential bloggers and authority sites who might link to you, your images, videos, podcasts, etc. or ask to reprint your content.

36. Get the owner or CEO blogging. It’s priceless! CEO influence on a blog is incredible as this is the VOICE of the company. Response from the owner to reader comments will cause your credibility to skyrocket!

37. Optimize the text in your RSS feed just like you should with your posts and web pages. Use descriptive, keyword rich text in your title and description.

38. Use captions with your images. As with newspaper photos, place keyword rich captions with your images.

39. Pay attention to the context surrounding your images. Images can rank based on text that surrounds them on the page. Pay attention to keyword text, headings, etc.

40. You’re better off letting your site pages be found naturally by the crawler. Good global navigation and linking will serve you much better than relying only on an XML Sitemap.

41. There are two ways to NOT see Google’s Personalized Search results:

(1) Log out of Google

(2) Append &pws=0 to the end of your search URL in the search bar

42. Links (especially deep links) from a high PageRank site are golden. High PR indicates high trust, so the back links will carry more weight.

43. Use absolute links. Not only will it make your on-site link navigation less prone to problems (like links to and from https pages), but if someone scrapes your content, you’ll get backlink juice out of it.

44. See if your hosting company offers “Sticky” forwarding when moving to a new domain. This allows temporary forwarding to the new domain from the old, retaining the new URL in the address bar so that users can gradually get used to the new URL.

45. Understand social marketing. It IS part of SEO. The more you understand about sites like Digg, Yelp, del.icio.us, Facebook, etc., the better you will be able to compete in search.

46. To get the best chance for your videos to be found by the crawlers, create a video sitemap and list it in your Google Webmaster Central account.

47. Videos that show up in Google blended search results don’t just come from YouTube. Be sure to submit your videos to other quality video sites like Metacafe, AOL, MSN and Yahoo to name a few.

48. Surround video content on your pages with keyword rich text. The search engines look at surrounding content to define the usefulness of the video for the query.

49. Use the words “image” or “picture” in your photo ALT descriptions and captions. A lot of searches are for a keyword plus one of those words.

50. Enable “Enhanced image search” in your Google Webmaster Central account. Images are a big part of the new blended search results, so allowing Google to find your photos will help your SEO efforts.

51. Add viral components to your web site or blog - reviews, sharing functions, ratings, visitor comments, etc.

52. Broaden your range of services to include video, podcasts, news, social content and so forth. SEO is not about 10 blue links anymore.

53. When considering a link purchase or exchange, check the cache date of the page where your link will be located in Google. Search for “cache:URL” where you substitute “URL” for the actual page. The newer the cache date the better. If the page isn’t there or the cache date is more than an month old, the page isn’t worth much.

54. If you have pages on your site that are very similar (you are concerned about duplicate content issues) and you want to be sure the correct one is included in the search engines, place the URL of your preferred page in your sitemaps.

55. Check your server headers. Search for “check server header” to find free online tools for this. You want to be sure your URLs report a “200 OK” status or “301 Moved Permanently ” for redirects. If the status shows anything else, check to be sure your URLs are set up properly and used consistently throughout your site.

Richard V. Burckhardt, also known as The Web Optimist, is an SEO trainer based in Palm Springs, CA with over 10 years experience in search engine optimization, web development and marketing.

Source: http://www.searchenginejournal.com/55-quick-seo-tips-even-your-mother-would-love/6760/

How I Got My Page Indexed in Google

Hi there.!
Today I've found some old article from http://www.goarticles.com/
Yes! it's quite old but in my opinion I think that it's very useful for me or someone who have never know about this.
Frankly, I just start to blog and know nothing about Bot or Spider maybe just a bit from some kind of e-books. Sure, I know what SEO stand for but in term of technique and deep details I can say NO without any thinking.
I just come to blog world and start to blog with post post and post, I just get free articles and Products review from Amazon.com, Amazon aStore and others websites that around me to get their contents for Products to post and try to make money.
Now I have realized that without Technique and knowledge like this article I will get nothing.

Thank you so much Brady Lewis for your good article.
Sps.

How I Got My Page Indexed in Google in 2 1/2 Hours By Brady Lewis

How do you go about getting your site indexed by Google (so it shows up when someone searches your keywords)? Make your page, then sit and wait for a week or two until the Google spiders stumble across it? That's what I used to do too, but that is soooo old school.

As noted in my earlier article, I just launched I'm A Broke College Kid, and I got it indexed in Google in just a couple of hours. Now I'm going to show you how I did it.

First off, it's important to know a few things about how search engines (Google especially) work. Search engines have programs called spiders or bots that are constantly combing the web and taking note of all the different content available. They go to a site, record the text on a site to get a feel for what it's about, follow all the links, and index it for the search results. The search spiders visit "important" pages a lot more frequently than normal pages. "Important" pages are pages that are very popular, add new content often and have many links pointing to them.

These highly spidered pages are the keys to getting your site indexed quickly. Because spiders follow the links on the pages they visit, we can use these important pages to get the spiders to our site.

So here's the pages I used...Go to Squidoo and write a quick article about your subject. It doesn't have to be anything fancy, but make sure it contains some links back to your site. If you don't have a Squidoo accout, get one because it's free.

Next go to clipmarks (again, free account). After you download and install the simple clipmarks software, go back to your Squidoo page you created. Clipmarks your Squidoo article and give it a title and description and everything, and you're good to go.

That alone should get you indexed in Google in just a few hours. Right now, clipmarks is getting spidered like crazy and you can use that to your benefit.

You can go further and use social bookmarking sites, other article submission sites and we forums to quickly build up your number of pages indexed in Google.

I hope you found this helpful. Now you won't have to wait around to get spidered in a week or two.

About the Author

Brady Lewis owns and operates Greed Between The Lines, a blog about affiliate marketing,
seo and more.