Archive for July 30th, 2006
You get a flash of inspiration and an interesting topic for an article comes into your head. Here we go then!
You write the article, and even come up with a ‘catchy’ title. You post the article on your web site, and even add a link to a product you might sell as an affiliate.
Then you wait for the search engines to bring people to that page… and you wait, and wait. So what’s wrong with this scenario?
(969 words, estimated reading time: 3:53 ) read the full post...
July 30th, 2006
If you’re like most other CEOs, the term "search engine optimization" will mean very little. Either that or it means expense! But it doesn’t have to be that way? If you feel like you’re standing in a dark room handing money to strangers to get you in the search engines, then this article is for you.
(1141 words, estimated reading time: 4:34 ) read the full post...
July 30th, 2006
10 Tips for Raising Your Search Engine Rankings
by: Anton Cheranev
Search engine rankings are an important factor to consider when you have a website that needs more traffic. If your website doesn’t have a good position in the rankings then no-one will find it, so you need to make sure that your website is ranked highly enough to be seen. The other important quality to getting high traffic to your site is having a nice arsenal of links. The more links that you have to your site the more traffic you will get, but also, the more links to your site the more search engines like your site. Keeping a nice supply of links pointing at your site requires similar precautions and practices as getting high search engine listings.
Although no SEO company can guarantee a high ranking for your site, here are some tips for raising your search engine ranking. Using these tips will not get you to the top unless your site is the best out there, but they will at least put you into the positioning that you truly deserve. After all, the internet is basically a free market. You will naturally flow into the place that you deserve and many search engines try to insure that you do not rise above or fall below this position. This is why they are so strict, and this is why you must keep yourself on good terms with them.
1) Content is an important factor in high search engine rankings. Make sure that you have plenty of content throughout your site with your target keywords in the articles. It’s also worth doing a search for websites similar to yours and taking a look at their articles for ideas. The more content you have the better. It is generally a good idea to have between three hundred and five hundred words per page, but more important than a quantity of content is the quality of the content that you are providing. You cannot just put out three hundred words of jargon and expect your visitors to find it interesting and stick around for the long haul.
2) Your website’s URL can help you rank higher with the search engines if it contains your keywords. However, don’t think that naming your site after your keywords will always help your rankings - you need to do more than just that.
3) Search terms should be written out in text, instead of graphics. If you do use pictures, be sure to give them alt tags. The alt tags in your pictures are almost as important as text. It’s also a good idea to put some of your key words in links to other pages. In the eyes of a search engine it is almost as good to have a link to a page full of the content that the visitor is looking for as it is to have the content that the visitor is looking for on your page. If a visitor is looking for something that you are linking to and he or she finds your page, they may look around your site on the way through.
4) The title of your page is very important, and making sure that you choose it wisely will make a big difference. Terms such ‘free article on safe children’s toys’, or ‘contact the children’s toy expert today’ are good to use as titles, for example - they would get you a high ranking. The title area is the most important place to include your keyword phrases, so make sure that you put them all in.
5) The navigation menu that appears on each page of your website should include your page’s title.
6) Don’t just use the most popular keyword phrases - the market is so competitive that you should be sure to include some niche keywords too.
7) Make sure that you don’t have a lot of irrelevant links on your site. The more closely related to your site your links are, the better your chances of being ranked in a higher position.
8) You need to periodically update the content of your website, even if it’s only a slight change, as websites like sites that are kept updated.
9) You need to consider the fact most search engines don’t like automatic submissions or multiple submissions - submit once, manually.
10) Always be on the look out for SEO news - staying up to date and using the latest techniques will help you stay one step ahead of your competition.
Copyright 2005 Anton Cheranev
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About The Author
Anton Cheranev
Not long ago, I didn’t know ANYTHING about Internet marketing… However, within just 2 weeks, I launched my own website AND learned how to profit from an opt-in list, pull in sales with ezines, make money with Google Adwords and setup my own BLOG!
Here’s how: http://www.PlugInProfitSite.com/main-10917
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Permanent link to this post (814 words, estimated 3:15 reading time)
July 30th, 2006
Increasing Your Search Engine Ranking
by: Karen Walker
The methods employed to increase your search engine rankings may seem like rocket science to you, so you have probably avoided dealing with this issue. I am here to tell you - the time has come to face your website! A high search engine ranking for your website is so essential that if you have the slightest desire to actually succeed in your business, there is no way you can continue to avoid this issue.
At least 85% of people looking for goods and services on the Internet find websites through search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and MSN. The idea of optimizing your pages for high search engine rankings is to attract targeted customers to your site who will be more than likely to make a purchase. The higher your page comes up in search engine results, the greater the traffic that is directed to your website. That’s what search engine optimization is about.
You can immerse yourself in all the technical information available online to figure out how to optimize your web pages to achieve higher rankings. Or you can look at a few simple items on your pages, make some small adjustments, and most likely see improved rankings quite rapidly. The first item you should examine is the title bar on your homepage.
The title bar is the colored bar at the top of the page. Look at the words that appear there when you access your home page. To increase search engine rankings, the words on your homepage’s title bar should include the most important keywords or phrases, one of which would include your company name.
Then click on all your links and examine the title bars on the pages you access. Each title bar on every single page of your site should contain the most important keywords and phrases taken from the page itself. However, avoid very long strings of keywords, keeping them to six words or less. Avoid repeating keywords more than once in the title bars, and make sure that identical words are not next to each other.
The next item to put under your microscope is your website content. Search engines generally list sites that contain quality content rather than scintillating graphics. The text on your site must contain the most important keywords - the words that potential customers will be typing into search engines to find your site.
Aim to have around 250 words on each page, but if this is not desirable due to your design, aim for at least 100 carefully chosen words. If you want to achieve a high ranking on search engines, this text is essential. However, the search engines must be able to read the text, meaning that the text must be in HTML and not graphic format.
To find out if your text is in HTML format, take your cursor and try to highlight a word or two. If you are able to do this, the text is HTML. If the text will not highlight, it is probably in graphic form. In this case, ask your webmaster to change the text into HTML format in order to increase your search engine rankings.
Next we come to what is called meta tags. I know this sounds like something out of science fiction, but it is really just simple code. Many people believe that meta tags are the key to high search engine rankings, but in reality, they only have a limited effect. Still, it’s worth adding them in the event that a search engine will use meta tags in their ranking formula.
To find out if your page is set up with meta tags, you must access the code. To do this, click the “view” button on the browser menu bar, and select “source.” This will pull up a window revealing the underlying code that created the page. If there are meta tags, they usually appear near the top of the window. For example, a meta tag would read: meta name=”keywords” content=. If you do not find code that reads like this, ask your webmaster to put them in. This may not do much for your search engine rankings, but any little boost helps.
Lastly, we come to the issue of link popularity. This is a factor that is extremely important in terms of search engine rankings. Almost all search engines use link popularity to rank your website. Link popularity is based on the quality of the sites you have linked to from your links page.
If you type in “free link popularity check” in a popular search engine, the search engine will then show you what sites are linked to your site. In the case that there aren’t many sites linked up to yours, or that the sites that are linked up have low search engine rankings, consider launching a link popularity campaign. Essentially,this entails contacting quality sites and requesting that they exchange links with your site. Of course, this requires checking out the rankings of the websites you want to link up with. Linking to popular, quality sites not only boosts your search engine ranking, but it also directs more quality traffic to your website.
Search engine rankings are extremely important for a successful Internet marketing campaign. Before you go out and hire a search engine optimization company, try taking some of the simple steps listed above, and see if you can’t boost your rankings yourself. Don’t ever ignore this all-important factor in Internet marketing. Remember, the higher your search engine ranking, the more quality customers will be directed your way.
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About The Author
Karen Walker assists individuals, entrepreneurs, network marketers, and independent professionals generate substantial incomes within 5 years so that they may live the life they want, fulfill their passions, and achieve their dreams! Visit her informational web sites: http://www.cashflowquest.com | http://www.income-directory.com
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Permanent link to this post (979 words, estimated 3:55 reading time)
July 30th, 2006
Web Site Traffic - 5 Inexpensive Ways to Generate it!
by: Brian Hunter
It is quite obvious that even the best optimised site with the best copy written sales page will not make a dime without one very necessary addition. That ‘addition’ is Traffic.
Whilst there are many ways to generate traffic most of them cost money with no guarantees that a profit will be made once you have parted with your cash. However, there are also many ways to generate good targeted traffic which need not cost the earth and, in some cases, are even free. Here are five of the best ways to generate low cost traffic; they do involve some input but are well worth the effort.
1. Exchange Links
This is a proven way to generate traffic and a careful study of the top ranking sites on the search engines will show all of them with considerable numbers of links. It is to your advantage to ensure that all sites to which you link operate within a similar niche or theme as your own site. If you share a similar subject you will be more likely to get traffic as your site will be seen as a recommendation by the site they are on.
Another benefit to linking in this way is that your site will increase its chances of a higher ranking with the search engines. This, in turn, can help with eventually getting traffic from the search engines in addition to that from the linking site.
2. Writing Articles
There are many sites on the internet where you may submit articles (newsletters, directories, etc.) Many of these are free of cost so if cash is tight you can start submitting to these initially. If you want to save costs, you can write the articles yourself. There are many freelance writers who are willing to write for you for a small fee, but to save money, it is wise to do the articles yourself if you can.
You should write articles that closely match the theme of your site. Try to write about something you know well. Give tips and guidance learned from your own experiences. In this way you will come across as an ‘expert’ in your field and this, in turn, can encourage your readers to then visit your site. Always include a resource box at the end of your articles which should be a short bio about yourself and include the URL to your website.
3. Traffic Exchanges
This is a form of link exchange except that members of a traffic exchange view each others pages by surfing. Each time you view a page you gain a credit so the more pages you view the more credits you receive. Your own page is then shown to other members normally using one credit per show. Once you have exhausted your credits you may earn more by again surfing. You also have the option to purchase credits if you wish.
Traffic from exchanges is not generally well targeted and does not produce many sales but it can be used quite successfully to capture names for your subscriber list with the use of a ’squeeze’ page.
4. Your Own Newsletter
Once you have subscribers (via the traffic exchanges or other means) will need to send out your newsletter on a regular basis either weekly, monthly etc. This may sound a little daunting in view of the fact that you will need to write many articles on a consistent basis. However, this should present no problem as there a many writers and sites that are more than willing to provide you with free articles so long as their resource box remains at the end of the article. Any promotions you make in your newsletter will inevitably bring traffic to that promoted site and as your list of subscriber grows so, too, will your traffic.
5. Forums
Online forums and communities abound in just about any subject you can imagine. Find several forums that relate to whatever site you wish to promote and, after joining, you should carefully study the topics under discussion and then submit your own offerings by way of answers to published questions or even a question of your own. Make sure that the forum allows you to append your resource box at the end of your posting as this is where your traffic will come from. It is important to know that you are not permitted to blatantly advertise on these forums and to do so will usually mean you will be barred.
So it is important that you are allowed your bio at the foot of your posting. Do not bother with any forum where your resource box is not permitted.
Each of these methods can generate a great deal of traffic and, with the exception of the traffic exchanges, the traffic will be very targeted. The method of using articles can, over time, build traffic to really large numbers. However it is important to remember that there are no free lunches in this world. If you do not pay with money then you must substitute with time. The great thing about these five methods is that you will never waste your time - they all get results, proven time after time.
Copyright B. Hunter
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About The Author
Brian Hunter has been active on the internet since 2002 and works from home promoting one of the largest traffic building information centers on the net at: http://www.clicksilo.com.
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Permanent link to this post (915 words, estimated 3:40 reading time)
July 30th, 2006
Google’s AdSense program is one of the best, if not the best, revenue programs for web site managers. While the program has certainly created wealth for many site owners, there are opportunities for you to increase your wealth if you follow these important strategies.
(567 words, estimated reading time: 2:16 ) read the full post...
July 30th, 2006
In a fluke, I was able to notice something about the way Google indexes content from web directories. Excluding your template, the most important line of code is the first title you add to your main body.
Search through Google and see for yourself!
Try searching for “something” in “yourcity”,”province/state” and look for a web business directory that you recognize. Once you find a directory, take a good look at the description of that particular listing (not the title). It may be a good idea to write it down. Once complete, click on the “cache” of that page within Google to highlight the content and view the web directory page.
(377 words, estimated reading time: 1:30 ) read the full post...
July 30th, 2006
SEO consultants will tell you that you need to be in the Top 30 or you can pretty much give up any hope of getting a visitor to your web site.
Yes, there is truth in that Top 30 goal. Occasionally, a potential customer will make his or her way to the #30 position in search of a particular product or service. The odds just aren’t that high.
(373 words, estimated reading time: 1:30 ) read the full post...
July 30th, 2006
More and more search engines rank your web pages based on the number of links that point to your web site (link popularity). Google uses link popularity as its most important factor in ranking sites. HotBot, AltaVista, MSN, Inktomi, and others also use link popularity in their formulas.
In the near future every major search engine will use link popularity, so developing and maintaining good link exchange campaigns are essential to the success of your business. Also, finding the right partner to exchange links with is equally as important as becoming a member of a link farm can be devastating to your long term search goals.
(492 words, estimated reading time: 1:58 ) read the full post...
July 30th, 2006
Indexable Websites: search engine-ready, born to compete (and win)
by: Fernando Macia
Website owners often request the services of a web positioning firm after they realize that their websites are not achieving the desired results. It turns out that in many cases, inherent programming issues, or the website architecture itself may keep optimization efforts from ever becoming 100% effective. Therefore, the best way to improve the indexability of a website is by involving positioning experts during the initial design phases. That is when certain aspects of a web design must be properly considered and nailed down to avoid costly web positioning efforts later on, or worse yet, to not make positioning an almost impossible task once the site has been published.
Once a website has been completed and published, obtaining a good ranking from an Internet search engine -Google, MSN Search or Yahoo- usually becomes one of the highest priorities. Oddly enough, during the conception, design and programming phases of a website -in other words, during its creation- that same priority does not seem to be present in a developer’s mind, nor is requested by a client when ordering the site. And even though a web developer, with very good intentions, may use the most advanced programming techniques and the most refined graphic designs, and a webmaster may also host the site on the most modern and sophisticated web servers, the website may experience problems at a later time when it fails to appear within the top search engine results. The reason for this is typically tied to the fact that the designer never took into consideration the most basic indexing aspects of a website and also ignored the fundamentals for web usability, accessibility and compatibility throughout the design process.
Interestingly, our consultants often run into this type of situations when clients come to us asking to improve the positioning of their websites. Sometimes, clients may even be struggling with the easiest of all scenarios. In other words, their website is failing to appear on a first page of results when very specific search terms, intimately related to their line of business, are used. In such cases, the website should almost automatically appear on the top results returned by a search engine. A solution to this type of problems may be as simple as teaching a client how to properly include a title on each of their pages, or could involve a more complex and expensive approach, especially if a website has already been published. In extreme cases, we find discontented clients that after having invested significant resources and money implementing a website, they realize that their site has a difficult time competing and obtaining the expected results.
Building “search engine-ready” websites: born to compete
Are athletes born or made? It seems evident that the best athletes are those that have hereditarily received a privileged set of genes and after applying themselves through a rigorous and continuous training program are able to obtain the utmost from their natural physical abilities. Applying this concept to the implementation of websites, it has also become clear that by providing web positioning consulting services from the very beginning, that is, from the moment that the web design is conceived, we have the opportunity to ensure an end-result that is optimal and search engine-ready. By starting from a solid base, the design will not only guarantee a high level of indexability for our website, but it will make possible later on to apply more refined techniques that will improve the positioning for those search terms that can deliver the best returns in each case.
Therefore, if your company is considering implementing a website at this time, and you are convinced that one of your objectives is to achieve good rankings later on, make sure you order a “search engine-ready” implementation. To assist you in this endeavor, we offer the tips below as some guidelines that should be considered before embarking on a project to produce a “search engine-ready” website.
1. Flash: should only be used when absolutely necessary
Those websites developed exclusively with Macromedia Flash technology are at a definite disadvantage compared to the more traditional, HTML-based sites when it comes to web positioning. If animations are not essential for your website, consider using Flash only in certain areas of a page. In most cases, you will find that the end result is pretty much the same as if the entire page had been programmed in Flash. You may also develop specific micro-sites inside your main HTML-based website to capture those aspects that are best expressed using the interactive and animated capabilities of Flash. But always make sure that both the primary website structure and the structure of all individual pages are HTML-based. By following this approach, the search engines will know where and how to index your site. Finally, you should eliminate any animated corporate logos that get displayed before accessing your home page.
2. Frames: perhaps no longer a very good idea
Frames were introduced years ago primarily to expedite the download of web pages and to facilitate the navigation. Today, their disadvantages far outweigh the original benefits. If your web is currently using frames, you will notice that the title is the same in all pages (corresponding to the frameset title), that the URL address is the same for the entire website, not allowing a user to add one of your pages to their list of favorites. Finally, you will notice that occasionally, your website registers visits to internal pages that a user may have seen outside their corresponding frame, possibly without navigation menus or company information. Frames, in general, pose a great challenge to the positioning of individual pages.
3. Beware of PHP programming elegance
A number of PHP-based websites have recently been emerging that unfortunately share most of the same disadvantages that were identified for frameset structures, making the positioning of their pages an impossible task. These websites are kept inside a single URL. Software in the only dynamic page loads the appropriate set of contents by evaluating the variables associated with each link. However, from a browser’s perspective, and unfortunately, from a search engine’s perspective as well, the entire website consists of a single home page. Therefore, all the dynamic content becomes invisible to both the browser and the search engine, seriously handicapping the possibilities to compete with other websites. Regardless of how elegant a programming style is, the marketability and usability of a web design should never be sacrificed.
4. Content Management Systems (CMS) must also generate search engine-ready results
Websites of medium complexity may offer CMS capabilities, thus allowing users with no programming knowledge to add, delete or modify web pages. CMS systems are very efficient and can help decentralize the efforts associated with updating and maintaining a website. However, some of these systems were created without taking into consideration the indexability of the pages that they generated. If you are planning to let users update pages on your website, either through a CMS system, or through dynamic pages, you must ensure that the system you are putting in place requires these users to specify individual page titles, descriptions, and a different set of keywords for each page. In addition, the system should allow pages to include ALT labels for all images (this is the text that appears in lieu of images when the browser does not download them, or when a browser for the blind is used) and TITLE labels for each of the defined links (this is the text that appears inside a small yellow box when the pointer is on a link). That is the minimum set of prerequisites that should be met. Although, it would be ideal if the CMS itself automatically generated the appropriate HTML code: correct use of header labels Hx, W3C validated code, accessibility-compliant code, etc.
5. Internal search engines: do not hide your web content
Websites that specialize in e-commerce, real estate, and others that may offer a fairly large number of products or items usually include a local, internal search engine. Typically, these engines consist of a small form where users can enter the criteria that they are interested in and the system returns all available items that meet those criteria. Even though this form of navigation is extremely efficient from a user’s perspective, it makes all web content that sits behind this local search engine practically invisible to the external search engines. The automated search engine crawlers are unable to fill the small forms and therefore can never reach the resulting content. Due to the fact that many potential clients will enter very concise search terms (“bungalow in Miami”, “golf balls”, “Bose speakers”), it will be necessary to optimize and position each individual page, or product spec sheet, in this case. An effective technique that will let a search engine reach the hidden content consists of including on the home page, links to various product category pages. For example, links such as “New bungalows available for immediate occupancy”, “Discounted golf balls”, or “Speakers on sale” could be included on the home page. All these links use pre-canned search criteria to reach the corresponding content. These product category pages will typically reflect the most commonly used search criteria and therefore will be very important for our website. External search engines will be able to reach these pages and subsequently, via links such as “More Information”, will also be able to reach each individual product page. The goal is to provide paths for search engine crawlers to reach the content of our entire website.
Conclusion
We only selected a few examples, among the huge number of potential scenarios out there, to illustrate how decisions that were made during the conception phase of a web design can seriously impact our ability to properly index the website later on, thus handicapping its ability to compete.
Avoiding the application of sound design principles in the early phases of a web design will always require the investment of additional time and money afterwards since the repairs will have to be done on an ill-prepared and less optimized base. A website’s indexability (a must for being properly indexed by a search engine and therefore have the potential of being highly ranked for predetermined search criteria), usability, accessibility and compatibility are all fundamental aspects that must be taken into account while implementing a web design. This task could be facilitated by bringing together web programmers and specialists in search engine positioning.
It is interesting to note that the best Internet rankings are achieved even before a website is formally published.
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About The Author
Fernando Maciá is the General Manager of Human Level Communications, a consulting firm specializing in web development and optimization, search engine positioning and digital marketing with sites in Alicante, Spain and Dallas, Texas. Mr. Macia is also a professor of Digital Marketing at the Fundesem Business School. http://www.humanlevel.com - http://www.inmostrategy.com.
fernando@humanlevel.com
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Permanent link to this post (1820 words, estimated 7:17 reading time)
July 30th, 2006
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