Archive for August 7th, 2006
Welcome to part three in this search engine positioning series. Last week we discussed the importance and considerations that much be made while creating the content that will provide the highest ROI for your optimization efforts. In part three we will discuss the importance of site structure.
While there are numerous factors involved with the search engine algorithms, site structure is certainly of constant importance. Cleaner structure that removes lines of code between your key content and the search engine spiders cna mean the difference detween second page and first page rankings.
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August 7th, 2006
Types of Links
by: Vikas Malhotra
Internal Linking - An introduction
The web as they call it is a mesh of links. The wired world is now being counted for what it is. A Network. The more your pages are wired or integrated into the overall web linking architecture, the better it is from search engine ranking point of view. Google specially thrives on crawling on links. Its pagerank is a measure of this.
We will, in this article, measure the importance of good internal linking architecture on googles pagerank .
When setting up the linking architecture of your site keep in mind that links are of two kinds:
-Internal links
-External links
Internal links are the constituent elements of the way your web site is organized. They are the bridges by which one page of your site connects to the other & more importantly outlines, which page of your site will connect to which other page/s.
External links on the other hand are the community tools by which the online community votes for you by linking to you. The more popular you get is a function of more incoming links into your website. This in turn is interpreted by search engines as a measure of your online value creation.
In essence, if your pages are orphaned (no one links to them) or lying isolated within your web site thats not good news from a pagerank point of view. To enjoy a good pagerank for the pages it is imperative to have proper linking amongst various pages within the website as well as having good quality external links coming into the page.
A factor to be cognizant of while linking is that one should focus on quality links & not always quantity. Consider that, there is a huge difference from a link, to your page from another page with a good pagerank than a page from a low pagerank
Internal Linking: A Primer
Proper internal linking ensures that the web pages are accessible to search engines & that they are indexed properly.(This is not to discount the navigational ease of the end user) A good internal linking structure should be intuitive as well as functionality driven. That will benefit everyone.
Internal linking on the other level decides the pagerank flow within the website. The pages that are linking to that page get a pagerank benefit from that page. Then it stands to reason that if the maximum number of pages linking are internal pages they will retain the maximum pagerank emanating from that page. This will boost their ratings as well.
Hence one rule of thumb says that have as many incoming links to your web page as possible(this will boost the PR of that page) from outside resources or may be good PR pages of your site. Try & pass on the benefit of that page to the other pages of your site by proper interlinking. Inward looking as it might sound, this makes lot of good online marketing sense.
External linking
External linking on the other hand is more difficult to control & hence more valued by search engines. This is what really builds up the PR of the webpage. Good quality (High PR) incoming links are craved by the online promotion experts all over .
Linking Attribute
It is always preferable to have a text link rather then a Graphic/Image link, because in a text link you can use Keywords as the text on which hyperlink is given(anchor text). In effect you can make your anchor tag keyword rich. Anchor tags’ text is a very important criterion in search engine ranking matrix.
Search engines look at not only how many people are linking to you, how important they themselves are but also what they are saying while linking to you. In fact search engines like google have gone a step ahead. They not only look at the anchor tag but also the text surrounding it. Essentially they are trying to establish the relevance of that link to your pages content.
If anchor tag is so important & more often that not, one cannot control what the world says while linking to you then it is very useful to have internal links speak the language of keywords. This means that it is a good practice to use keywords as the internal linking text.
However if you are using Graphics/Image linking then you should not do it using image map because many of the search engine does not follow image map. To overcome this problem make use of the ALT attribute. ALT attribute give the information about the image and where it is going to provide the link.
Another important aspect of the internal linking of your site is the sitemap. A sitemap is a page that contains links to every page on the site. There should be a link to the sitemap on every page, or at least on the homepage. A sitemap helps you to have an overview of your site linking architecture as well as it helps SE crawl the entire web site.
Internal linking architecture
There are three forms that can be assumed while planning the sites internal linking pattern.
Hierarchal
In this kind of Internal linking all the pages of the website are connected to the home page and home page is individually connected to all the pages of the website, but there is no linking between the pages of the website.
Looping
In this kind of Internal linking the home page is connected to the primary page and the primary page is connected to the secondary page and this process goes on till the last page and the last page is connected to the home page in this way a loop is formed.
Extensive inter linking
In this kind of Internal linking each page is connected to each other in the website.
What kind of internal linking is preferable in a certain case, is dependent on the objectives you are trying to achieve in terms of Pagerank optimisation, user navigation ease & site theme.One tip to bear in mind is that internal linking should reinforce the theme. One should not crosslink between the pages on the site which are unrelated by themes. This will dilute the theme intensity & affect the page rankings on SERPs.
Redundant Internal links:
Two category of internal links that should be guarded against are: broken links & dead links.
Broken links
Broken links are the links that are in the website and when they are clicked they don’t open a webpage rather they show some error.
Dead links
Dead links are the links that are in the website and when they are clicked they don’t open a webpage and they don’t even show some error.
To summarize pagerank of a site apart from other factors, can be guided by the way information is organised within a site & the way it is presented. Careful planning with setting up the information flow will go a long way in helping optimise the pagerank of the site.
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August 7th, 2006
Ways To Promote Yourself
by: Matt Bacak
It’s amazing how many new businesses fail. The owners always seem surprised because they felt they had a great idea or product. One of the main reasons they failed is that they didn’t apply the rule ‘promote yourself’.
If you don’t promote yourself or your business, how can you expect people to buy your product or service? These business failures are especially tragic because there are many simple and cost effective ways to promote yourself.
10 Low Cost Ways to Promote Yourself
Apply these quick and easy ways to promote yourself and you will be rewarded with more customers and of course, more revenue!
1. Write articles and offer them for free publication. Publishers are looking for content for websites, newsletters etc. Make a stipulation that your bio (a subtle technique to promote yourself) and contact information is maintained at the end.
2. Create and giveaway a free e-book. In the e-book include an ‘About the Author’ section which is where you will promote yourself or your business.
3. Use your email mailing list. One of the best ways to promote yourself is to provide your list subscribers with interesting information that occasionally promote yourself or your business.
4. Get into directory listings! There are tons of industry and product specific hard cover and online directories that will let you have a free listing. Take advantage of these free chances to promote yourself!
5. Become an ‘expert’ speaker. Take every opportunity you can to get speaking engagements. Every opportunity, no matter how large or small is a great chance to promote yourself.
6. Send media releases. One of the easiest ways to promote yourself is through media releases. Write a media release announcing a new product or interesting industry event.
7. Establish a training class. Your class could be live, online or even over the phone. Make sure to promote yourself through your ‘teacher bio’ which includes information about yourself and your business.
8. Create case studies. Case studies can promote yourself because they are a well-crafted stories about another of your client’s successes. Post these case studies online or even consider them for a press release.
9. Add a business card/bio to the end of every email. Every email is another chance to promote yourself. Keep it short and simple.
10. Use the ‘About Us’ section of your website. People like to know more about who they are doing business with. The ‘about us’ section is an ideal opportunity to promote yourself and your expertise!
Start applying these ten easy ways to promote yourself and before you know it, you will have many new customers knocking at your door!
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About The Author
Matt Bacak became “#1 Best Selling Author” in just a few short hours. Recent Entrepreneur Magazine’s e-Biz radio show host is turning Authors, Speakers, and Experts into Overnight Success Stories. Discover The Secrets http://promotingtips.com
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Permanent link to this post (485 words, estimated 1:56 reading time)
August 7th, 2006
Yes, it has been ten successful years of online marketing in the E-world. Many small companies have made it real big in this online world, by applying different marketing strategies and techniques.
However, what I have seen in these ten years of time is that originality and simplicity survives, just like the Mona Lisa’s smile.
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August 7th, 2006
Database Marketing is the gathering and storing of specific information about your prospects or customers. This information is usually stored in a database program on your computer. You would then use the information to market and advertise to them. It can save you time and money because you can target your promotional efforts to your best prospects or customers.
The Types Of Information To Collect
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August 7th, 2006
When it comes to search engine optimization strategy, there are basically two camps ? those who view search engines as adversaries to be conquered at any cost and those who regard search engines as partners in their online marketing efforts. Long-time readers of my articles probably already have a good idea of which camp I fall into; however, I believe both approaches can be effective optimization methods.
Adversarial Optimization Methods
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August 7th, 2006
Shopping and the Web. They go together like Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Well, maybe not quite, but Internet shopping is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world.
It’s fairly easy to set up shop and sell almost anything from bananas to banana boats on the Internet. Browse through the shopping section of Google (Froogle) or Yahoo and you can see the amazing variety of products that are available.
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August 7th, 2006
Competing with the Big Names
by: Derek Croote
If you have ever been in an industry with long established, big name companies then you know it is hard to beat them in the search engine rankings. So you go to their pages to see how they are ranking so high, but they are not using the techniques you were told to use. Furthermore, they only have the word you searched for displayed once in their body text, not in their title tag, heading or meta tags. This can’t be right! However, it is. The only possible way to compete with the big names is with links, frequently updated content and name recognition.
The long established sites have received so many links over the years they don’t have to plaster their pages with certain keywords for high rankings.
Links can be hard to come by, especially if your site is new. There are countless ways to get them, but here are a few that will get you high quality links:
- Writing articles
- Reciprocal linking to relevant sites
- Participating in forums
- Frequently updating content
- Creating free tools
- Submitting to directories
- Buying text links
Frequently updated content will generate a large number of one-way links, if people know about it. For people to find your compelling content, you have to get your site name out there. If no one knows about your content, how will you get links? To get you name out there you have to:
- Become the leader in your industry
- Write press releases, articles and free ebooks
- Use paid advertising
- Start a newsletter/e-zine and a blog.
- Target the right keywords
Beating the leading names may be difficult, but it is achievable. Gaining links and getting your name out there will be key in competing with these powerful sites. You will get to the top of the rankings in the search engines with time and hard work.
Permanent link to this post (346 words, estimated 1:23 reading time)
August 7th, 2006
No doubt email is still the best way to get a quick response from your prospect. Big companies on the web have realized this that they have implemented free email address service on their web site. This free email awareness has even reached Yahoo, AltaVista, Lycos, and InfoSeek. They knew that being a search engine is not enough that they’ve even turned into a hotmail web site. We’ll recruit your people under you.
Get Your Free Web-Based Email
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August 7th, 2006
As savvy stock market investors know, chasing after the one “hot stock” with the possibility of bringing instant riches is not a wise idea. You know the old saying, “Don’t put your eggs in one basket”. This type of thinking carries a high risk. If your stock goes up and you are smart enough to sell, then you’ve made money. However, if your stock falls, you just don’t know when (or if) it will ever make a comeback.
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August 7th, 2006
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