Archive for July 16th, 2006
It seems I now do this rant every single year when traffic statistics are discussed in web industry news. Last week I posted to my Reality SEO blog that referred traffic numbers are the only statistic that webmasters should be concerned about when looking at their search engine rank. I wrote about this last year after ComScore Media Metrics statistics were relased discussing Search Engine Queries generated by each search property. http://searchengineoptimism.com/Google_refers_70_percent.html
(903 words, estimated reading time: 3:37 ) read the full post...
July 16th, 2006
Any time you use a URL in an Article, Web Page, Classified Ad, Pay Per Click ad or anyplace else you should always use Ad = Tracking Links. Not only will this Article show you how to build your own Ad-Tracker in 2 simple steps it will also tells you 7 reasons why you should always use Ad-Trackers
Building a Tracking Link is as Simple as using a Free Web Site Counter with a Meta Tag Refresh Link.
(497 words, estimated reading time: 1:59 ) read the full post...
July 16th, 2006
Blogging = The Latest Phenomena in Traffic Generation
by: Ryan Smith
In what was originally a form of online journal keeping by stay-at-home moms and college students, it has now become a national phenomenon with its presence felt as a legitimate business booster. For the novices, blogs are online journals that are periodically updated with articles in the form of posts. It can serve as an informative vehicle between business and consumer. The possibilities are endless when it comes to its ability to draw customers.
If your blog is full of valuable information, you will earn more traffic by retaining them. How?
1) Suppose your blog is based entirely on uncovering conspiracies from the JFK assassination. By creating a daily blog, you label yourself as an expert to the subject, which makes it easier to promote yourself all over the net. This builds more of a personal relationship between yourself and your site visitors, since it can come equipped with message boards and comment boxes where they can voice their opinion about anything you write. A sense of community is established, and people will want to visit again and again.
2) Search engines will give you a boost in the rankings if you have a blog added to your site. This is because blogs are frequently updated, and any fresh content will automatically trigger the search engine mechanisms to classify your site higher - generating more traffic. All it takes is 5 to 10 minutes of your daily time and search engine spide bots will keep reverting back to your site.
3) By adding a blog to your arsenal, you can submit it to the myriad of blog directories posted on the Internet. Some of them include Blog Catalog at blogcatalog.com, Blogarama (blogarama.com) and BlogsCanada.com which has a whopping selection of over 10,000 blogs.
Some of the better blog sites on the Internet include wordpress.com, blogger.com, and blogista.com. They have full HTML capabilities which allow you oto insert the page into your own website or direct to it if needed. I recommend using Blogger the most of all, since it costs absolutely nothing to get started with free hosting and you don’t have to learn any fancy HTML or FrontPage to publish content to your site. Just write, and publish it to the Web for all to see.
Blogging is an excellent traffic booster because 1) it keeps customers coming back again and again, 2) the search engines love updated content, and 3) it has a wide range of promotion tools, like blog directories. Watch traffic explode by using blogs today.
Permanent link to this post (461 words, estimated 1:51 reading time)
July 16th, 2006
Marketing through Keyword Articles
by: Jakob Jelling
In today’s digital world, we are becoming increasingly dependent on the internet for the fulfillment of our needs. Whether we are planning a holiday or buying a plasma television, we increasingly rush to the internet to gather product information and shopping discounts. While consumers are becoming dependent on search engines like Google, Yahoo etc., marketers have developed savvy methodologies to fully exploit their advertising capabilities.
One of the most effective tools of Internet marketing is the use of keyword articles. The word or phrases used in online searches are called keywords. Increasingly, any website that hopes to draw traffic and sales towards it, has come to employ the use of strategic placement of keywords or phrases on its pages. There are different types of keywords. Some are purely for academic use example, ‘Articles on Shakespeare’s Macbeth’. Others signify the preliminary research conducted by a consumer before undertaking a major purchase decision. For example: conducting research on the price-point and features of mp3 players. However for internet marketers, most important are those keywords which actually translate into a sale or money transaction.
When a user types in a keyword into a search engine, the engines employs an ‘algorithm’ to sort out the most relevant web pages from its database and rank them in an order dependent on utility (which the engine determines) and then displays them. Type in ‘motorized lawn mowers’ and the search engine will display literally thousands of sites for your perusal. It is here that strategic keyword placement really pays off. It optimizes the text of a website for any of the major search engines. This results in a much higher-ranked listing and increasing the likelihood of the page being viewed by the consumer.
Thus choosing the right keyword is of the utmost importance. It is imperative to conduct proper research for your keyword. Guided by your instinct you might commit the folly of selecting a wrong keyword. Think like your targeted consumer, what is their methodology in approaching a service or product offered by your website. It is not useful cram the first page your website with numerous keywords because search engines do not operate in that manner. A much better strategy is to separately optimize each page because search engines rank pages on the basis of a rich and relevant content coupled with an effective use of good key words.
Avoid extremely general keywords, for example, ‘big screen television’. It is important to realize that consumers are highly selective about their own searches. So a much better keyword would be ‘Sony big screen plasma television’. Similarly websites targeting local area traffic should use specific regional markers to reach their customers (like ‘realtors in salt lake city’).
The keyword should be placed in the page title, sub-titles and dispersed in the content of the web copy. The keyword can also function as a link to your site from some other relevant website. A search engine specially looks in these locations to determine display ranking. By the strategic employment of keywords, marketers can effectively optimize their sales potential.
Permanent link to this post (538 words, estimated 2:09 reading time)
July 16th, 2006
Earning more revenue from your website is the goal of most webmasters. However, this is time consuming and with so many things to do options are what you need.
There are so many great ways to increase your sites revenue. To name a few: Adsense, Adbrite and BlogAds. These sites all provide third party sponsored link programs. You run the ads, people click and you get paid. Seems simple right? Now it’s time to get creative and make even more money while offering a great service.
(327 words, estimated reading time: 1:18 ) read the full post...
July 16th, 2006
What’s the difference?
For those who aren’t quite clear what the term “natural” or “organic” search engine-listing means, they describe the “editorial” search results on any particular engine. These results are professed to be non-biased - meaning that the engine will not accept money to influence the rankings of any individual sites. This is quite different than the paid advertising (Pay Per Click) that appears in the “sponsored” or “featured” results, in which higher positions are awarded to the companies willing to pay the most per visitor or click.
(1367 words, estimated reading time: 5:28 ) read the full post...
July 16th, 2006
Part 2 Tips 4 tags
Meta tags are the descriptive tags used by website designers to explain to the search engines exactly what your website is all about. They look like this,
title Put title of your page here, include important keywords /title
meta name=”Description” content=”Put a short keyword rich description of your site here” /
meta name=”Keywords” content=”Put your keywords in here” /
meta name=”AUTHOR” content=”Your name or company name here” /
(736 words, estimated reading time: 2:57 ) read the full post...
July 16th, 2006
Once again I seem to be writing about Google. The reason Google keeps cropping up in these articles is that:
- Google is a innovative company always coming up with new ideas to keep one step ahead of the competition.
- Search Engines are the most important way that most webses generate new traffic.
- Google is the most important of the Search Engines.
(1296 words, estimated reading time: 5:11 ) read the full post...
July 16th, 2006
How To Manage Directory Submissions
by: Mike Paolieri
‘More than 80% of the traffic comes from the top ten search engines’.
You have probably read this statement many times and it’s true at least for the majority of websites.
So how about web directories? Is submitting your site to them a waste of time?
Even if directories usually don’t deliver a lot of traffic they contribute inbound links to your site increasing its link popularity a very important factor used by search engines to rank websites.
When someone queries a search engine using a keyword relevant to your site, higher is your site link popularity higher are its chances to come up near the top of the results.
Submitting your site to web directories will help you increase its visibility and attract more traffic from search engines.
However you need an overall strategy to successfully manage your directory submissions or you will only lose your time and energies.
Is your site ready?
You should never forget that directories don’t exist to give away free links. Their purpose is to provide their visitors with good quality sites.
If you want some chances to get listed you need a well designed web site containing useful and original content or offering useful services.
Your site must also be complete without broken links or links to ‘under construction’ pages.
Other things that can cause a rejection of your submission are: too many ads (especially pop-ups and pop-unders), automatic redirections to another domain, having the same exact content of other sites (example: the ’self replicated’ sites some companies provide to their affiliates).
Preparing your listing details
Open your favorite text editor and write down the following informations:
1) your web site URL.
2) your website Title. Some directories accept only the official site name as title, others allow some descriptive keywords, but in general stuffing a lot of keywords in your title is not acceptable. Write 2-3 different titles in compliance with these different rules.
3) your website description. Write what your site is about in a couple of sentences. Avoid superlatives, exclamation marks, excessive hype and generally everything that makes your description sound like an ad.
Description should be written in third person. Avoid expressions like ‘we offer’, ‘we are …’.
4) a set of search keywords related to your site. Separate the keywords with commas, then write down the same set of keywords this time separated by spaces. Some directories require the first format, others the second one.
5) your full name and email address.
Once you have done save the document. By copying and pasting these informations into the submissions forms you will save time and avoid errors.
Or you can utilize Clipboard Magic. This free software allows you to save multiple rows of data and load them into the Windows Clipboard simply with a click of the mouse. It’s really useful when you need to fill in many online forms with the same informations.
Finding web directories
The next step is finding directories where you can submit your site.
You can use top directories to find minor and specialized directories
DMOZ: Top:Computers:Internet:Searching:Directories
Yahoo: Computers and Internet > Internet > World Wide Web > Searching the Web > Search Engines and Directories
Spend some time to determine how each directory is organized and find the most appropriate category for your site.
Submitting to the wrong category usually causes a rejection of your submission.
Compile a list of all directories where you have submitted your site indicating the date of your submission.
Verifying the results
Not all directories send you an email when your site is listed.
You should periodically visit your list of directories and make a search for your site title or url. Flag all directories where you find your site.
If your site has not been listed after about 2 months from the date of your first submission you can try to submit it again. My advice is to not resubmit more frequently.
You can also contact the directory owner and ask about the status of your submission, but if you don’t receive a reply, don’t insist. There may be many reasons why a directory doesn’t list your site, simply accept the fact that not all submissions are successful.
Submitting your site to web directories is an essential part of your website promotion strategy. It’s a time consuming task, but with the right planning you will be able to manage it successfully.
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About The Author
Mike Paolieri is webmaster and co-owner of WebmasterGate ( http://www.webmastergate.com ), a directory of articles, tools and resources of interest to webmasters and web developers.
This article can be freely republished on websites and email newsletters (opt-in only, no spam) provided no modifications are made and the resource box above is included.
If published on the web all the links within the article and the resource box must be made ‘clickable’.
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Permanent link to this post (817 words, estimated 3:16 reading time)
July 16th, 2006
Article Writing - The New SEO Master Tool - Part 1
by: Alan Chestnutt
Since search engines were invented, there has been a constant head to head between the search engine algorithm writers and webmasters. Every time the algorithms changed the webmasters tried to outwit them. The internet is full if conflicting SEO advice on how to achieve top rankings. This article hopes to clear up some of the confusion.
In the beginning it was sufficient to have an adequate amount of keywords on your website in order to rank highly in the search engines. This led to keyword spamming, a practice which still continues today amongst inexperienced webmasters.
Then along came Google and the goal posts shifted. Google put more emphasis on webpage linking, Their thought was simple - if one website had a link to another website, then it was as if the first website was placing a vote of confidence for the second website’s content and therefore the second website must be useful and relevant to the readers of the first website. Thus the Google Page Rank was invented.
Soon the webmasters and internet marketers got to work. This saw the emergence of link forms and reciprocal linking sites. Internet marketers declared that the more links that appeared on your site, the higher it would rank in Google. Suddenly link pages from websites started to run into multiple pages as the race was on to exchange links with whoever would agree. Some sites started to have thousands of links point to their sites and began rising in the search engine rankings.
Of course the game of cat and mouse with Google continued as the search engine giant once again changed its algorithms.
It is now widely accepted that previous linking strategies are failing because of what Google now expects from links.
RELEVANCY
Google expects links on a site to be relevant to the readers of the original site.
ONE WAY LINKS
Google gives a much higher priority to one-way links without a reciprocal link in return.
ANCHOR TEXT
It is better for the anchor text (the actual text that contains the link) to be keyword relevant to the content and also to vary as numerous instances of the same anchor text without variance can be interpreted as keyword spamming.
The importance placed on the above factors has all but eliminated the effectiveness of previous linking strategies. Most links on link page directories were exchanged with any site who would reciprocate. Therefore most of these sites were not relevant to the original site.
The reciprocal linking strategy also negates the one-way linking preferred by Google. Most link directories contain the same anchor text in all links, as this anchor text was advertised on the “link to us” page.
Therefore Google now looks upon these reciprocal link directories as having no value. They do not distribute page rank and therefore do not help the ranking of your website.
That is why I now describe article writing as the new SEO Master Tool - please see Part II of this article for the reasoning.
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About The Author
Alan Chestnutt is webmaster of www.articles-keyword-rich.com, an article submission site where webmasters and ezine publishers can pick up FREE keyword rich content for their websites.
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Permanent link to this post (543 words, estimated 2:10 reading time)
July 16th, 2006
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