Web Promotion Articles

Search Engine Essentials

What are Search Engines?

There are numerous different search engines, and all are essentially huge databases containing information about web pages from the internet. A web-based user interface then allows the user to search the contents of this database. The user enters a search-term into the search engine and is presented with a list of web-pages that relate to the search-term. Note that search engine databases have separate records for each web-page, not each website.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

Generating Traffic - The Text Link Prevails

Generating Traffic - The Text Link Prevails

 by: Michael Medeiros

The Internet is growing at an exponential rate, resulting from greater masses attempting to earn an income from the Computer Revolution. It doesn’t take long for a developer to realize the magnitude of increasing competition, when attempting to obtain more visitors. How much competition exists? The fact is, when this article was written, “Whois,” reported 65,443,044 active Domains existed. Additionally, 446,308 Domains where, “on-hold,” and 1,184,180 Domains where created by 18:00 EST (1). While this information does not illustrate direct competition for a given niche, it’s apparent that any type of Website created will have modest rivalry.

The Business model of an Internet Website is relatively simple; increasing traffic means increasing revenue. However, with the growing number of Websites, it will become more difficult to obtain greater traffic. So how is traffic disbursed on the Internet? Traffic disbursement can be isolated to two primary sources: Search Engine Queries and Incoming links.

Search Engines have evolved greatly in the past few years. However, the principal is still the same. A Search Engine Spider travels through virtual space analyzing Webpages’ encountered and assessing their premise. Spiders can quickly route through deeply routed pages within any given Website and index them within a Database. In addition, they can assess which Websites change frequently, and retrieve new data on a scheduled basis. Because of their ability to quickly assess pages and their changes, they offer the internet community one of the most valuable resources, “The ability to accurately locate documents of interest”.

Based on the fundamentals of Search Engine’s, developer’s can increase Search Engine traffic by offering more content and resources. As relevant pages and resources are added to a Website, the premise of the Website becomes more apparent. In addition, expanded queries will match relevant pages displaying new content.

The other source of Internet Traffic, “incoming links,” can benefit a developer in several ways. First and most obvious, we can achieve greater traffic from the visitor of Websites displaying the incoming links. Also, if used properly, incoming links that are text based (Anchor Text) help Search Engine Spiders determine the premise of a Web-page. Finally, the total number of incoming links improves rapport with Search Engines (2).

Because some Search Engines poses the tools and resources to quickly archive numerous pages and their data, they have begun to utilize, “Anchor Text,” to leverage their Search Engine Results. The most famous example, of this technology being implemented, is the Apple QuickTime Download page showing as number one in Google for a search query of, “Click Here”. The term, “Click Here,” cannot be found anywhere on the visible page or Source Code. So why is it number one? Because the Developer linked the words, “Click Here,” to the download page from many pages with good rapport (High Google PR). Naturally, this is pure speculation, as only the Google Engineers could explain exactly why it is number one accurately. However, most are probably familiar with the famous Google Bomb of, “Miserable Failure”. A large number of people linked, “Miserable Failure,” to the Official White House Web-page of President George W. Bush. As a result, George ranks number one on Google for the search term.

Text links can be acquired through paying for placement or through exchanges with other Webmasters. For the most part, paid links will generate a lot more traffic then exchange links. This is due solely to placement. In a typical link exchange, the incoming links are placed on, “Weak,” pages that receive little traffic. In contrast, advertised links will be presented on prominent pages with a lot of visitors. Moreover, a lot of speculation exists regarding how the major three Search Engines treat reciprocal links. Some believe they cancel-out one another, as a vote. This speculation suggests that, “one-way,” incoming links provide the greatest benefit.

Bombing, as illustrated in the above examples, has created a large market for the purchase of Text Links. As a matter of fact, text link advertising is soaring right now. A number of people now offer broker services, connecting text link publishers with people wishing to advertise. It has gotten so big the Major search engines are beginning to demonstrate concern. Matt Cutts, a developer for Google, has offered some insight on the matter (3). Acknowledging that many Websites rely on the sale of ad space for income, he explains how this method of calculating the premise of a page has greatly improved Search Results for all the major Search Engines, and selling links hurts this technology. Matt suggests that sold links should include an additional tag, “rel=nofollow,” to tell Spiders not to count the vote. The Consequences of not including the tag means that Google may not pass PageRank with links coming from the site selling the links. Essentially, purchased links that do not include that tag will eventually become worthless for Search Engine recognition.

Outside of paid advertising, it would require something really special to acquire incoming links. With practical reasoning, a developer would have to either create something very useful to the Internet community, or offer valuable information that will be referenced by others often. What ever method is conjured, it’s obvious in this point of time, the text link prevails for traffic generation.

(1) Whois Source: Detailed Domain Counts and Internet Statistic (http://www.whois.sc/internet-statistics/).

(2) Google: Google Technology (http://www.google.com/technology/).

(3) Matt Cutts: Gadgets, Google, and SEO: Text Links and PageRank (http://www.mattcutts.com/blog/text-links-and-pagerank/).

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

Five FAQ About Google PageRank

Five FAQ about Google PageRank

1. What is PageRank and why should I care about it?

PageRank is a formula that assigns a value to every page in the Google index. Google displays search results based on an algorithm which includes the value of PageRank. So the higher your site’s PageRank, the more likely it is that you will receive a top listing on the search result page when someone types in the keywords for your site.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

The Golden 5: Steps to Google Success

The Dream: You wake up one morning and notice your website appears on the #1 spot for your chosen keyword. The traffic is enormous, the business is huge and you are rolling in cash. How? Well…

This will never happen to you or your competitors (luckily) but over time, it is possible for your website to achive top google positions by following a few simple steps which are known as “The Golden 5″.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

Link Building Techniques

Link Building Techniques

 by: Henry James

Link building is a process of building inbound links with other websites. All the Internet marketers adopt a variety of link building techniques to raise their links’ popularity. Link popularity paces up their e-business by increasing the targeted traffic on their websites. You can find the quality links of useful websites in the search engines, web directories, ezines and newsletters as well.

The quality links are built by you to increase the link popularity of your website. A website with a greater number of links has good link popularity. Suppose a website has a 200 hundred quality links. The link popularity of the website is 200. The higher this number goes, the chances of a better ranking increase along.

Apart from the inbound links, other links like outgoing links and internal links are important as well. Inbound links are the links mentioned by the other websites that take a user to your website. And link building techniques primarily stress on building the quality inbound links.

Inbound links can be generated by having a reciprocal linking program. According to link building techniques, first you have to give the outbound link. It is the link of other websites on your website. Then you can send a link request to the other websites. The process takes a long time. You must be active enough to pace up the negotiations by you.

It is also suggested by the experts to link up with your competitors. The competitor’s websites offer the information on the same subject. You may be thinking about the fact that why should you advertise for your competitor. But it is not so. Building reciprocal linking with the competitors will only create healthy competition for you. It is profitable for both the rivals. Your rival will be doing the same job of advertisement for you.

Now focus on the fact that the search engines do not consider useless links. For, the useless links do not provide any information related to your site. So you must adopt the apt techniques for building the useful links.

One of the successful link building techniques is writing articles. You must be aware of the fact that a user logs in to your website for a particular set of information. So, the information provided by you must be relevant to welcome the visitor. Thus writing articles is the best way to increase your link popularity. In fact good content also attract other sites to link to your website.

Also, the content must be rich in keywords. You can search for the most popular keywords and then use them in your articles. This will increase your keyword density. Keyword density is also necessary for link building.

Submitting your links to a good web directory is also one of the common link building techniques. A web directory is the directory where you can find all the links of a number of websites around the world. The web directories are a good source of inbound links.

The sites looking for links search the web directory and add the suitable links. You can also get you self-registered to a popular web directory. But while adding the links to your website, keep one thing in mind that the links should be primarily of good quality. The quality of links is as important as the number of links.

Following these link popularity techniques can really fulfill your desire to be ranked among the top ten websites in one of the most popular search engines like Google.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

Is Reciprocal Link Exchange Dead?

The sun seems to be setting on the world of reciprocal link exchange. Sites that major on that may have to switch to a new paradigm, or go down like the titanic.

The major search engines seem to frown at reciprocal link exchanges, and gradually it is becoming obvious that chasing reciprocal links for the purpose of enhancing search engine rankings is becoming a dying art.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

Internet Advertising Options

Internet Advertising Options

 by: Nial Robbins

Your online business will likely require more advertising than a contemporary business downtown, yet some new to the world of online business do not spend the time and money to advertise their business appropriately and are, in turn, loosing money. Your online business is crammed into the world wide web along with thousands of others selling the same product or service as yourself. Consider this scenario: In your hometown you want to open an art supply store. In that same town there are thousands of art supply stores. In order for your business to be successful, it will have to stand out in some way from the others. This is exactly what is happening when a business is opened online. There is so much competition, that you must take drastic measures to ensure that you are getting noticed. Advertising can be done in so many ways online. These are some of the most successful ways that you can promote your online business.

Advertising in e-zines is a popular way to promote your online business. Ezines are the magazines of the internet; they written on a particular subject and read by those interested in that subject. Therefore, ezine readers are already potential customers and advertising your site in ezines that are related to your business is almost guaranteed to help drive traffic to your site and increase sales for your product. You should be sure when advertising in ezines that you are not advertising along side competitors. Ask the ezine producer if there is a policy concerning posting competing ads. It is also a good idea to subscribe to the ezine before making a decision about whether or not to advertise in it. An ezine that runs fewer ads is a better choice than one that runs many ads. You can look at the online Directory of Ezines to find publications that are relevant to your company.

Pay-per-click programs are an excellent way to advertise your business without taking a risk that you have advertised in the wrong place. With pay-per-click, you can advertise you site and only pay for those who click the link and go to your site. Another popular pay-per program is the pay-per-lead program that allows you to only pay for leads. Usually this means that you pay for only those who download a trail, fill out a form or enter a sweepstakes; whatever you choose. Lastly you can display pay-per-click banner ads in which your company would be allowed to place a banner on their site and you will be charged for every click that your banner receives.

Opt-In email is a great way to advertise your business, however it is expensive and it can be misused very easily. Using opt-in emails, you would submit your sales copy to the company that will in turn email it to those on their mailing list. You should be very careful since some of the companies that advertise their mailing lists as opt-in email service is sometimes really SPAM. It is essential that you have a perfect and effective sales letter when using opt-in mailing lists. Without and effective sales copy your money and time have been wasted.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

Making Effective Use of Traffic Exchanges

Making Effective Use of Traffic Exchanges

 by: Brian Holte

A look inside the guts of a traffic exchange.

• What are traffic exchanges?

Traffic exchanges are used by 100,000 + people who are interested in the same goals as you are, marketing your product and services.

• How do traffic exchanges work?

Simply put, a group of people (myself included) who agree to surf and view pages created by other people.

• What benefits do traffic exchanges bring you?

The first way is in Traffic Exchange Programs, brings people who are interested in what product or service you have to offer.

• What is a down line?

A down line is where you have the opportunity to increase traffic to you site by having others sign in under you and promote your service for you without any extra work on your part.

• How to build down lines?

There are no magical ways to increase your down lines except by uploading your article and waiting for it to be spidered by the search engines.

Your best bet is to pick 2 traffic generating articles, and you also need a spider to crawl your site. It’s always better to let the spiders find your pages on their own.

• How many levels do you get credit for?

Most Traffic Exchanges have a down line of 7 or so, needless to say the possibilities are there for continued growth

• What kind of traffic exchange programs works best?

Well, that all depends on your personal needs. There are 2 different types of ways you could go about it, continue to use the free version of the program you have picked until you have a big enough down line. Once you have a half decent down line under you, you might want to upgrade Pro so you receive more benefits than the guy who chooses the Free version (like money and freebies).

• What can you do to improve traffic to your site?

Pick two favorite programs that you’ve come to trust and work them (don’t get discouraged, keep plugging away), submit those articles to article announcement groups, send a notice out to your subscribers letting them know about your traffic exchange programs

Summary

Don’t be a Rabbit by jumping from one program to another, decide on which programs you’re interested in and stick with them, promote you business, continue to do what works for you. Traffic Exchanges can be a great resource if you put in just a few minutes extra a day.

• Traffic Swarm or

• Fly-in-Ads or

• BOTH (recommended)

Test Your Headlines Using Traffic Exchange Programs

Click on the link for more info.

http://click.websitegear.com/track.asp?id=2160

©-by Brian Holte

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

Offpage Optimization: Does Article Marketing Cut the Mustard?

For those who haven’t heard: article marketing is the new offpage optimization strategy that works like magic and won’t cost you a dime. What’s the strategy? You create an arsenal of short, well-written keyword articles aimed at your target customer and include your URL at the bottom.

Submit the articles to a site like EzineArticles.com where they’re indexed by category and picked up by other sites to use as content. Soon, your website URL is getting plastered all over the net, and you’re working it in new circles thanks to your newfound expertise in your specialized area.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006

How To Come Up With New Product Ideas

Have you ever wanted to add new products to your exsisting product line? Obviously one way to do that is to find a product that is already developed and start selling that. Affiliate programs are great for that.

Another thing you can do is develop your own new product. Below are 10 ways you can come up with new product ideas.

Add comment September 3rd, 2006