Organic กNaturalก Search Engine Optimization versu

Organic กNaturalก Search Engine Optimization versus PayPerClick Search Engine Advertising

by: Matt Hockin

When you purchase visitors or ขclicksข from a search engine, this is called ขpayperclickข (PPC) search engine advertising (or PPCSE). PayPerClick Search Engine Advertising allows you to quickly get top search engine placement by ขbiddingข (paying) for keywords related to your product or service.

ขOrganicข or ขNaturalข search engine optimization (SEO) is accomplished by optimizing your web pages and by increasing your ขlink popularityข by acquiring or paying for links that point to your web site. This gives you high rankings at the Search Engines for your chosen search terms.

In this article, we will explore the strengths and weaknesses of both methods of search engine marketing.

ขNaturalข Search Engine Optimization

Today, there is a big myth that natural search engine optimization is inexpensive and easy. For example, if you wanted your web site to rank high for the keyword phrase ขlife insuranceข or ขdebt consolidationข you’re going to need to budget a minimum of $50,000100,000 a year!

Yet still, natural search engine optimization usually gives you a much higher return on investment than pay per click. This is true for two main reasons:

1. More searchers click the natural search engine results versus the pay per click ads, so you’ll get much more traffic for less.

2. One of the biggest factors to improving your rankings with natural search engine optimization is by boosting your ขLink Popularityข by acquiring or paying for links that point to your web site. These links give you lasting results by giving you top rankings and traffic from the search engines. Plus, the links themselves will provide a significant boost in long term traffic.

With that said, the biggest weakness of natural search engine optimization is the time required to generate links and ขtweakข your web pages and keywords to get those prized high rankings you so desire. It can literally take 3 months or more to finally enjoy the benefits of your search engine optimization campaign.

Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising

The biggest benefit of pay per click is the fact that it will provide you with an immediate boost of qualified visitors, lead and sales giving you fast results within just hours or days. In fact, a pay per click advertising program is your best option if you seek fast results and a good return on investment while you are waiting for your Search Engine Optimization (SEO) program to กramp up.ก

Depending on your traffic goals, you can budget $100 or $100,000. PPCSEs also give you the added benefits of being able to quickly test your web site and track your conversion rates (leads, optins, and sales) and turning keywords (visitors) on and off easily.

So, as a short term strategy pay per click gives you the clear advantage over SEO. But, the disadvantage is the cost involved. Depending on the market demand for your keywords and clicks, your PPCSE campaign can generate tons of traffic and can cost hundreds, even thousands per day. With various optimization strategies you can lower your costs, but over the long term natural search engine optimization will give you a higher return on your marketing dollar.

In Conclusion

The golden rule in marketing is that you should constantly strive for maximum results and ROI for your budget. In other words, if your marketing is making you a profit even if it’s a thin profit it’s worth it. By this model, pay per click is worth doing, but overall pay per click will leave you with thinner margins.

The reason for conducting a natural search engine optimization campaign is to significantly increase your margins over the long term.

By Matt Hockin

Interactive Marketing, Inc.

http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com

About The Author

Matt Hockin is President of Interactive Marketing, Inc., a small business marketing consulting company and the editor of the Interactive Marketing newsletter, one of the Internet’s leading free small business marketing newsletters. Subscribe now at http://www.interactivemarketinginc.com.

This article was posted on November 08, 2004

by Matt Hockin

Complete WebSite Optimization For Search Engines

Complete WebSite Optimization For Search Engines (Part 1)

by: Pavel Lenshin

SEO or search engine optimization strategy now becomes widely popular among online business operators. Nothing strange about it as it allows to substantially increase your gross income, as a result of growing traffic or visitors flow.

That is why one point should be stressed out your business return on SEO is directly proportional to the results your business have now. It means that SEO strategy, unlike marketing optimization, directed to boost quantity, not quality. If your business enjoys 1% response rate for any action you demand, whether it is sale, subscription, feedback or other it keeps on having similar response rate after SEO will be accomplished, although the response will grow in absolute numbers as a result of increasing traffic flow.

As you see SEO is not a panacea. The highest and the most efficient return on your SEO campaign as well as business investment may be reached upon one condition. Only when your current business model and marketing campaign has already been optimized and reached high level or response rate and efficiency, it is smart to grow your business กin quantityก.

The reason for such attitude lies within the next speculation as well. Having inefficient business model under conducting website SEO will force growing number of visitors to turn your online business down for good. The obvious reason is that too few people actually return to the site once they left it for any reason, so having low response rate will substantially decrease your SEO result!

Letกs draw an example. With previously mentioned 1% response rate from every 100 visitors you get, would mean that 1 visitor only takes desired action. Suppose SEO campaign increased the flow of targeted traffic to 1000. Using childrenกs math we can easily come up with 9 new people, who would start to express their interest in your offer every month.

Now what if your, as some marketers say, กconversionก rate is 10% (10 visitors from every 100) and the SEO helped to bring the same 1000 targeted traffic. You now have 100 ขdesired actionsข per month! In other words, your net SEO achievement is 90 new people. Compare this to 9 people with 1% conversion rate and it all becomes clear. That is why SEO is mainly about quantity, while response rate is mainly about quality.

I haven’t intentionally mentioned about high quality of traffic search engines generate. Many experts would probably be skeptical by now for my eveningout the quality of traffic and focusing on quantity only. The explanation is simple the quality of SE traffic is an Individual parameter.

Unlike many marketing and SE experts I cannot tell you how กqualityก visitors coming from SE will be for your particular business as I don’t know your present promotion methods. That is why the quality of traffic SEO campaign brings may be neutral, slightly positive or even negative. Yes, it may be negative.

I anticipate a small shock among online marketers, who were taught for their whole internet business career that search engine traffic is the most quality traffic they may have. It is not true under some conditions. If banner or classified ads were the only ways of generating traffic for you, then SEO will surely bring a quality improvement to your business response, on the other hand, imagine, that your present visitors are interested readers of your books, ebooks, reports, articles and other publications. Do you really think that ‘response qualityก of people coming from กDescription tagก of your search engine listing will be higher? Hardly, you can surely expect a slight decrease in response rate of SEO campaign, despite the unquestionable quantity growth in accordance with our previous example.

Next vital point is to understand that before anything we, firstly, should have those webpages, otherwise there would be nothing to optimize. That basic logic will lead to another obvious conclusion. The more themebased webpages you have the better SEO result you can achieve. If your online business represented by 3 webpages (main sales letter, about the author and contacts), your initial SEO ‘resourcesก are too weak to reach any substantial goal. SEs look for information, that is why, content rich websites may truly enjoy advantages of SEO.

Secondly, your pages should have already been listed in SEs. If you haven’t submitted your website to SEs yet, no point to optimize the SE listing position you don’t have.

An important dilemma every business operator faces is the extent s/he allows to reach in desire to get outstanding SEO results. Here is what I mean. As we all know the basic rule of successful website optimization is focusing on keywords with low or very low competition. In other words, the less supply of internet resources for some particular keyword or phrase is, the more chances are for your webpage of being กnoticedก and ranked high.

Here is the problem, if you want to get a maximum for your website SE position you should be prepared not just to rewrite or edit your webpages, but to completely change the theme structure and priority of informational content!

There would undoubtedly be website sections or pages with extremely high competition that would stress the popularity and importance of that topic, so if you decide to keep it กas isก, optimization will raise your listing, but somewhere from 796,021 place to 545,932. Does it help you?

The extent of your กflexibilityก and how far you can go to look กprettyก from SE viewpoint is what should be decided beforehand, because there are always 3 parts: you/your business, target market/consumers and search engines/directories, between which about 90% of informational preferences are common, but the rest 10% differ and it is up to you to decide what themes you should focus on. Whenever you are implementing any of the SEO tactics mentioned in this publication, keep in mind your business and consumersก needs.

Having understood these fundamental features of SEO, could we make a step further into a complete website search engine optimization, expanding your business to the new markets.

Note that SEO, despite all mentioned above, is all about กasking for high rankingก and there cannot be any results guarantee as no one except for SE developers themselves control ranking algorithm and determine กwho is whereก. More than that, SEO takes much time before effecting your listing positions and this timeframe may range somewhere from week to several months, so don’t panic if your optimization efforts haven’t resulted in Google #1 position by tomorrow morning.

Structure

Letกs start from drawing a scheme of your website link structure very similar to one every webdeveloper draws before designing a website. Under other equal conditions, we will speak about later, it is also clear that the more theme based webpages or even website sections you create, the more chances of being ranked high you have, no matter how optimized your competitorกs single webpage is.

Each webpage of website section should represent a particular theme or topic. This way you can diversify your กkeywords marketก, increasing chances of high rankings. Despite obvious visitors advantage your site is more likely to win market recognition.

For now try to have กhorizontalก as well as standard กverticalก link connections between pages. If one of your pages got a high ranking position (Google Page rank) it may help to improve the rankings of webpages connected to it as well.

Keyword analysis

Next step is to determine keywords, mainly, phrases that we would like to target. Talking about mentioned dilemma, I would like to point to the other approach you should know about, that is suggested by some experts. Letกs call it SEoriented approach.

According to this approach, before creating a website your first step implies searching for the best key phrases via competitive analysis on main SE and then starting to develop content around these keywords. It means that your website will get highest SE ranking, but the informational richness will be dictated by neither you nor your consumers. Under such conditions it is SE or, to be more specific, your compe tition will determine what kind of content you will have at your website. As you see, according to SEoriented approach, the more competitive some key phrase and based on it topic is, the less attention you should pay to developing that theme at your own site.

My attitude is slightly different. I offer at first to create and evaluate your current website content based on your business preferences and your nichemarket needs and then optimize those webpages according to keywords taken from your existed webpages, no matter how tough the competition may be. Of course, you are free to create new pages around keywords with low competition just for traffic building purposes, but the primary accent should be focused on your business development and marketing needs.

As for the keywords, the basic rule is to choose the most targeted phrases rather than single words for two reasons:

Phrases could describe your webpage theme usually more precisely than a word;

Phrases usually have substantially less competition in comparison with oneword.

Write down 35 the most targeted key phrases for each webpage or section we are going to optimize. Then by evaluating supply/demand ratio find the easiest keywords for SE positioning.

Standard procedure of determining your key phrase competition or, as i said กevaluating supply/demand ratioก is to look at their supply and demand at popular SEs. Supply is determined by results of searching them on SEs while demand can be found through query on PPC programs at Overture.com or Google.comกs AdWords that have tool for discovering how many time keywords or phrase have been searched on them.

By doing so we are searching for the most prospective and promising for optimization key phrases. Having them allow us to go further and start optimizing the webpages themselves.

(to be continued)

About The Author

Pavel Lenshin is a devoted Internet entrepreneur and founder of the entrepreneurship portal, where you can find discounted Internet services, FREE ebooks http://ASBONE.com/ebooks/, FREE reports http://ASBONE.com/reports/, and finally uncover innovative strategies through FREE กNET Business Magazineก

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 31, 2003

by Pavel Lenshin

Why Optimize Your Site For Search Engines?

Why Optimize Your Site For Search Engines?

by: John Metzler

Sometimes a search engine optimization company will miss that glaring question posed by potential clients and assume the benefits of search engine optimization are obvious to everyone. While shelling out a couple thousand on an SEO campaign is common sense to some, others may find it hard to part with the cash unless they know it is an investment in their business that is sure to bring a good return.

Search engines account for a huge portion of traffic to web sites. Data varies depending on what sources you read, but the bottom line is that search engines are used millions of times each day by consumers searching for goods and services. And having your business displayed at the top of search results is essential if you want to do any business from the major search engines. Nine in every ten users will find what they’re looking for in the top 10 results and won’t go to page 2.

Itกs obvious that people can make a lot of money from online sales, but how you advertise your products has a large bearing on what kind of profit you make. If you buy advertising space on Google AdWords or other services that charge per click, you may only shell out 10 cents for every visitor to your site But what if it takes 100 clicks to make one sale? If your products only sell for $10 a piece, then there is no profit being made. Payperclick (PPC) campaigns will also never stop costing you money. Search Engine Optimization, on the other hand, can be very affordable over months and years.

Many SEO and Internet Marketing companies will say that ongoing maintenance is needed to reach and keep top search engine rankings. While this is true, be careful how the company says they do it. There is an affordable way and then thereกs a way to pad the pockets of the กexperts.ก For more on this issue, read my other article entitled กWhat Constitutes a Complete and Effective SEO Campaign?ก In short, the affordable way will involve an intense content optimization followed by work to raise link popularity. This link popularity development should be the bulk of any ongoing maintenance. A couple times a year keyword research should be done again and the content should be looked at. Search trends can sometimes fluctuate so you want to make sure your content is still aimed at the right audience.

What is affordable and what isn’t varies greatly from company to company, industry to industry. In the bed and breakfast industry, $30 per month may be enough to keep a top 5 ranking on Google if the market is not very competitive. A web site competing for a top spot in a database administration field may be looking at several hundred a week if not more. The bottom line is, if you pick the right Search Engine Optimization company, your return on investment from an SEO campaign can be over 1000%.

While there are other ways to advertise a web site (No, search engine optimization is not the beall and endall of online advertising) very few can match the wide targeted audience and affordability that search engines provide.

About The Author

John Metzler is the cocreator of Abalone Designs, Inc. www.abalone.ca, a Search Engine Optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. He has been involved in web design and web marketing since 1999 and has helped turn Abalone Designs into one of the top SEO companies in the world.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 09

by John Metzler

From Marketing to Tea, Any Type Of Website Can Ben

From Marketing to Tea, Any Type Of Website Can Benefit From Paid Optimization

by: Lorraine Bevere

A Search Engine Optimization firm can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to highten your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for unwanted results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of effort, time, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.

However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.

When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engineกs index.

No matter what kind of website you run it is vital that you are not of the opinion that only certain topics would benefit from paid optimization. A website about Tea might benefit just as much as one about marketing or even loans.Why would tea being the subject matter? Well quite simply paid optimization could benefit any subject.

Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.

Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the companyกs track record of results. However, don’t take the companyกs word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.

Also, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. Itกs easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword กcat leashesก will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.

Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.

When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other companyกs results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.

Itกs important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.

Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.

Since search engine marketing is an ongoing process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don’t be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.

Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.

Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.

If you have to find a company and can’t wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record and that risk is your money! Don’t take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.

References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don’t use a company that won’t show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.

When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.

The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn’t matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.

Well now you are armed with the relevant facts take the bull by the horns and your website about Tea, marketing or absolutely any kind of subject could end up with a totally new lease of life and your stats counter could start to rise like a thermometer in a heatwave.

About The Author

Lorraine Bevere is the owner of Fog tea which is an excellent source of information about tea. For more information, go to: http://www.fogtea.com.

This article was posted on August 25, 2005

by Lorraine Bevere

How To Stay One Step Ahead of the Google Dance

How To Stay One Step Ahead of the Google Dance

by: Jeff Smith

Itกs taken you 6months of hard work, constant changes, reading every shred of information on search engine optimization strategy not to mention thousands of dollars trying out web optimization tools and services.
Finally, you have a page rank of 5, you are listed in the top 10 on your major keywords, and you are seeing the benefit some decent traffic from Google and other search engines.
Then, as quickly as your search engine optimization strategy begines working, it suddenly, and without notice, disappears!
You frantically look for evidence of dropped links, pages not working, it HAS to be something youกve done!
Well, the truth is, it may not have been anything you did turns out Google updates their algorithms every few months in an attempt to improve itกs search engine optimization strategy.
In fact, Google has shown that they are not afraid to make major changes impacting tens of thousands of sites, businesses and corresponding sales and profits.
Even more concerning, everything points to the fact they will continue to make changes.
So what can you do to protect your search engine optimization strategy and the resulting traffic critical to the success of your online marketing?
There are some things you can do.
1. BUILD CONTENT WITH REAL, RELEVANT VALUE
Do you develop content just for search engines or just for your visitors and customers?
The answer is both.
Truth is, your customers search for information based on keywords. Use tools like Wordtracker (http://www.highertrustmarketing.com/part/wordtracker) to find those keywords.
Plan your articles around answering questions associated with each keyword. Over time, you will build highly relevant content that will be irrisistable to the search engines no matter how they change them.
2. LINK FOR QUALITY, NOT QUANTITY
One single link with a Pagerank (Googleกs term for ranking sites) of 5 is worth 10 or more sites with a Pagerank of 3.
In addtion, as an important part of your search engine optimization strategy, make sure your links include a brief description (a URL only inbound link may be ignored), includes important keyword and appears on a relevant partner site.
Avoid FFAกs and most link farms, they may actually do you more harm than good.
3. AVOID KNOWN MISTAKES
Common mistakes people make with their search engine optimization strategy are:

Cross linking unrelated sites, recent discussion with master Affiliate Marketing pro James Martell recently brought this issue to light
Submitting to link farms, in many cases this will eventually get your site penalized or even banned from the SEกs
Duplicate content. Many people feel the need to duplicate their pages and make small changes for each search engine (also called doorway pages) however if this is not done properly, you will get penalized
Trying to load your content with too many keywords. Focus on 13 keywords only

4. USE GOOGLE ADS
While still unproven, it certainly has been found by many in the search engine watch community that sites who use Google Adwords or Google Adsense tend to appear higher in listings.
5. VARY YOUR TRAFFIC GENERATION TECHNIQUES
Too many people rely on Google traffic for 99% of their traffic. Itกs true, search engine traffic is the most economical way to advertise online, but there are many other ways to vary your traffic generation strategy.
Add these traffic generation techniques to your search engine optimization strategy:

Writing articles
Running affiliate program
Joint Ventures
Viral กstickyก tools
Press Releases

Yes you need to dance with Google. By following these techniques, you can actually lead your traffic generation strategy rather than follow the Google dance.

About The Author

Discover how to create your own bestselling eBooks, Special reports or books to sell online …AND keep 100% of the profits. Limited time complimentary access to 7Part Minicourse will get you started quickly and easily. Visit: http://www.highertrustmarketing.com/

This article was posted on June 28, 2004

by Jeff Smith

How To Write Effective And Unique Articles That Ar

How To Write Effective And Unique Articles That Are Optimized for the Search Engines

by: Karl Augustine

It is a well known fact that writing, distributing and posting articles to various location on the web is an extremely effective way to generate targeted traffic and establish yourself as an experienced marketer in your field. Unique articles that help solve the readerกs problems, assists the reader in advancing their marketing acumen, or otherwise generally inform tend to stay posted on many web sites throughout the Internet and usually generate targeted traffic for the writer.
In order to further maximize the benefits of writing and posting unique articles, it makes good business sense to optimize the articles so the search engines list the URLกs associated with those articles on search engine results pages (SERPกs). Ideally, youกd like to see your article URL on the 1st page of the SERPกs so you can capitalize on the free and targeted traffic from these listings.
So, what type of strategy can be utilized to optimize your articles for the search engines?
Thereกs quite a few different ways but here are some tactics that you may want to use:
Article optimization tactic 1: Choose keywords that complement your USP and name your article page accordingly. When choosing keywords that will be the central theme of your article, it is necessary to define what your article will be about, who the information in the article will benefit, and how it will tie into your USP before choosing your keywords. After youกve thought through this, then come up with a list of keywords that will be suitable as the central them of the article.
Next, decide which keywords you will center your article around based on the number of searches that keyword gets per day and by assessing how much competition there is for that keyword phrase. Once you have chosen your keyword phrase for the article, name your page.
Example: If กgreen widgetsก is the keyword you wish to base your article on, you may want to name your web page กgreenwdgets.htmก or กgreenwdgets.htmlก or กgreenwdgets.shtmlก.
Article optimization tactic 2: Utilize keyword in the title tag. Utilize your keywords that youกve chosen for your article in the title tag of the web page.
Example: Green Widgets | The best green widgets available
Article optimization tactic 3: Utilize keyword in headline tags. Using keywords in headline tags will increase rankings of your web pages.
Ideally you would use the keywords as the headline, but usually this doesn’t look natural.
Keep the h tags before and after the entire headline.
Example:Green widgets: We have the most affordable and powerful green widget available anywhere, guaranteed!
Article optimization tactic 4: Utilize keywords in the 1st sentence of the initial paragraph. This an easily be accomplished and still make the paragraph read well and in a natural sounding tone if read back. Remember that you want your reader to feel like they are being talked with not กatก and you want your reader to not realize that your placement of your keyword phrases might be planned.
Article optimization tactic 5: Utilize keywords in text with appropriate keyword density After you write your article, you can easily edit to try to obtain the best keyword density for the search engines youกd like to target.
Googleกs optimum keyword density is between 1.5% to 2.5% keyword density at the time of this writing.
Once you have the article written you can use GoRankกs keyword optimization tool (http://www.gorank.com/seotools/) to check what the keyword density is of the text of the article so you can edit accordingly.
Remember, you don’t want to กstuffก the page with your chosen and targeted keyword phrase but you do want to make sure that you utilize your keywords when you can up to the required amount for the desired keyword density.
Article optimization tactic 6: Bold or italicize keywords in text. When bolding and italicizing your keywords in your articles, it isn’t necessary to bold and/or italicize every keyword phrase. When the reader comes across bolded and italicized words they add emphasis to the text at the time they read those words. So you should use your best judgment as to what looks right and ‘readsก right when you edit your article.
One key item to remember to write naturally so you get your message across in a human manner.
You want the reader to click to your link at the end or in the body of the article and the more human and conversational your article comes across, the more likely that the reader will travel to the URL youกd like them to see. Some marketers write their articles without search engine optimization in mind and then go back and edit them for the search engines.
After your article is optimized, do all you can to get it posted to other web sites so the number of relevant links pointing to that article is heightened. If you get your article posted to some of the heavier web sites that post articles and have the correct categories where your article will fit, the faster your article URL will get indexed by the search engines.
Be humble, work hard, work smart.

About The Author

Karl Augustine Author, ก9 Deadly Mistakes To Avoid…ก. http://www.9mistakesonline.com ก65 Answers To SEO Questionsก http://www.seoexpertinterview.com

This article was posted on June 16, 2004

by Karl Augustine

Success on the Web: Detailed Case Study with ROI F

Success on the Web: Detailed Case Study with ROI Figures

by: Robert Swick

Top of the Hill

Mont Blanc Ski Resort is a relatively small operation and one of a handful of similar ski resorts that can be found on the road leading to Quebecกs largest and most famous resort Mont Tremblant (actually Mont Tremblant is an entire ski village).

The problem for Mont Blanc then was how to stand out online. The site itself was unremarkable (some would say thatกs a compliment). Searches for Mont Blanc often brought up Tremblant first; in searches for Trembland, Quebec skiing, and other central topics, Mont Blanc rarely showed at all.

Within two months, this all changed. Currently Mont Blancกs website receives over 700 visitors a day in peak season, and the site rivals Tremblant (and itกs millions of dollars in marketing power) for top search position in all of Quebec skiresortdom. In the first year, the changes we put in place brought a documented 30% increase in overall revenues and a 100% increase in new winter hotel guests coming through the website. These first year revenues alone paid for the search optimization as well as a rebranded website (several times over).

Powerful Branding and Positioning

While search engine optimization has little to do directly with brand appearance, it is not useful to drive large amounts of traffic to a website that does not represent the company, product, or service well. Fortunately, Mont Blanc was open to a redesign and new strategic position, and we had the opportunity to help develop a new site and branding position that would maximize the effectiveness of both the optimization, and the related marketing (and specifically the siteกs ability to convert the traffic we were about to develop into sales). Calling Mont Blanc ‘the Regionกs FamilyFriendly Ski Resortก we positioned it against the massive Tremblant, and other competitors, focusing also on the value that skiing at Mont Blanc represents (about 40% less than Mont Tremblant), and less crowded. In design, photography and content, we developed online and offline collateral that established a clear and consistent brand.

Copywriting for Optimization

The development of a new site also provided the opportunity for us to do the copywriting and to help create a site structure that was ideal for search optimization. The development of a new site is a กbest caseก situation for search optimizers because it allows us to stack many factors in our favour that may be off limits later (such as page structure, programming methods, and key content and content volume). Copywriting focused on language that would match the searches that our research told us that users were running to find ski resorts in Quebec. At the same time the site was structured to present these terms in patterns that were ideal for promotion to distinct audiences.

Search Engine Optimization

Our Search Engine research showed that certain terms and phrases were far more popular than others. Search Engine Optimization became a driving force behind the structure and content of the site. We targeted 5 key phrases and won high first page rankings for all of them on all major Search Engines. These included phrases that incorporated the word ‘tremblantก such as กSki Mont Tremblantก (first place on Google and other major search engines). (Note: since Tremblant is also the region name, this is permissible. It is not always appropriate to include your competitors name and other language in your search formula.) We also optimized the site for กski quebecก showing up immediately behind the official skiquebec.org site pages. There is an aspect of momentum in search: as Mont Blanc began winning certain key searches and the traffic grew, other opportunities quickly presented themselves and we developed a network around Mont Blanc that pushed the search results even higher.

Site Tools as Part of Search Strategy

The results of this complete make over of Mont Blancกs online and search position show the strength of online positioning. For several years Mont Blanc has (wisely) tracked where each new hotel guest comes from, which allowed them to document the specific affect of the new optimization on hotel occupancy. We also designed a survey tool so that Mont Blanc could capture email addresses (when the resort is not booked two weeks in advance, they send out an email special to this list and it fills). This tool also incorporates a survey which has provided another measure of the success of the SEO work.

Great Results

The optimization and improved positioning had a huge impact on Mont Blanc. As measured in the first year alone, results were:

New website achieve a high first page ranking on all major Search Engines for a wide variety of key terms

The new site drew up to 850 visitors per day; up from 200 on the old site.

Over 50% of site visitors came through search engines more than all other means (links, bookmarks, typeins from print ads, etc.) combined

Mont Blanc saw a documented 30% growth in total revenue

Hotel revenue from the website alone saw 100% growth from the previous year

While Mont Blanc ski resort is an ideal case in some ways, comparable results are possible with most businesses. Mont Blanc showed both interest and the will to make the changes required for success. The more complete the strategy, the better the results.

Ask about your site, and you may be our next case study.

About The Author

Robert Swick has been creating Internet marketing campaigns since 1995 when he developed HelpNet, a payperuse Webbased service that offered Internet users access advice from professional psychologists and psychiatrists from across North America. As an Account Manager with a leading healthcare multimedia company, Rob managed web accounts from blue chip clients including Novartis Pharmaceuticals, Merck Pharmaceuticals, and Merck Frosst Pharmaceuticals. Currently Rob focuses his expertise on the development of Internet marketing campaigns involving search engine optimization, site improvement, and profitoriented email (permission) marketing. Website: www.alphasearch.ca

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 17, 2004

by Robert Swick

The Smallest Is The Best!.. As Long As It Serves I

The Smallest Is The Best!.. As Long As It Serves Its Purpose.

by: Decebal Scraba

It is true! In graphics optimization, seen as a part of website optimization, the smallest is the best. Of course, the element in question should still serve its purpose of being the expression of an idea. Furthermore, it should be understandable, clear, suggestive and goodlooking. Letกs see together which could be the right choices (in terms of web graphics optimization) when we decide what type of graphics we’ll use on a website.

What kinds of web graphics are present on the Internet?

When it comes to their origin, there are two types of graphic digital files: vector graphics (created with software tools like Corel DrawTM , FreehandTM etc.) and raster graphics (photographs, 3D renders and any other type of bitmap files). Most of the web sites on the World Wide Web hold as graphic elements bitmaptype graphics in three different formats: GIF (standing for Graphics Interchange Format), JPEG (Joint Photographic Experts Group) and PNG (Portable Network Graphics). All these 3 types use different compression algoritms to considerably reduce the size of the graphic file. Because PNG is not so popular, I hope that you will forgive me if I stick to GIF and JEG in my article. Probably you already know a lot about these (or you can browse the web and find plenty of information) so I’ll get directly to the choices we must make when it comes to design our web site.

How many colors should we use for our web graphics?

What type of bitmap files will hold our web graphics?

Some specialists say that we should always go with JPEG, because it supports 16 milion colors and produces quite small files. Well, this is not entirely true, I think. I can only tell you for sure that we don’t have to go with the same type all over our website. How’s that? Let’s see!

When should we go with GIF?

for graphics with fewer colors: web logos, cartoonlike drawings and lineart (pure black and white) drawings; whenever it is OK to use for our graphics the 256 colors pallette (or even the 216 “safe” colors pallette)

for grayscale pictures with less halftones (with big contrast)

for graphics with smaller screen size (even if with many colors) which rely on details; GIF format compression is lossless and keeps sharp contours and clear definition between areas filled with different colors;

when we need the “Transparency” option of GIF Format, e.g. when a graphic should have a nonrectangular shape and/or we want to discard its background

whenever an image saved in GIF format is smaller than one saved as JPEG, both images being at a comparable level of quality when displayed

generally, for vectorgenerated graphics (unless they have blending and/or gradient fills)

When to use JPEG format?

for color images with 16 milion colors and many halftones (photographs, 3D render output files, any other images with continuoustones)

for grayscale images which rely on subtle halftones

for graphics/images with big screen size where colors and shades are more important than contours, outlines and boundaries

whenever an image saved in JPEG format is smaller than one saved as GIF, both images being at a comparable level of quality when displayed

generally, for photographs and similar images

Which are the inconveniences of each format?

From my point of view, these are the main limitations for GIF and for JPEG formats:

For GIF: limited number of colors (it can show 16 milion colors, but only in dithered mode, which I do not recommend)

For JPEG: compression is done by reducing quality of the graphics (loss of sharpness, “hair filaments”, “pixelate” areas etc.)

Whatever format you choose, when it comes to graphics optimization as a part of website optimization, the SMALLEST is the BEST! Beside the format choice, keep in mind some tips when you create and optimize your web graphics:

Minimize the screen size of your graphics to the point where it is still clear and suggestive.

Try and try again saving a graphic in one of the two formats, at different quality levels (for JPEG) and different number of colors (for GIF). Do this until you find the best size / quality ratio that fits your needs.

Use vector graphics software and limit the number of colors when you create the nonphotographic graphics for your website.

Put emphasis on shape, contour, silhouette and contrast when creating / processing your graphics.

Choose carefully the resizing method in your image processor when you change the size / resolution of your graphics “antialias” is not always the best choice.

I hope that this article will help you in your work and always keep in mind that, when it comes to graphics optimization and website optimization, the smallest is the best as long as it serves its purpose.

Decebal (Dudi) Scraba

http://ewolwe.com/

About The Author

Copyright 2005 Decebal (Dudi) Scraba

Graphic Designer since 1994, Web Designer and Website Optimization Specialist

http://www.ewolwe.com/

[email protected]

This article was posted on January 09

by Decebal Scraba

How To Get Higher Ranking Through Website Promotio

How To Get Higher Ranking Through Website Promotion And Website Optimization?

by: Thomson Joseph

Recent studies suggest that more than 85% of website visitors to any website come from searches done with search engines. If this is to be believed the study suggests getting top placement on search engines is the key to bring quality traffic to your website.

I have few tips how to optimize your website for a better search engine placement .

Search engine friendly website optimization : There are thousands of search engines out there on the web 90 percent of the web traffic comes through these three search engines, Google, Yahoo, and MSN so your website promotion should be focusing on these three search engines. Top search engine placement allows you to target and attract potential buyers and sellers through the Internet and generate qualified leads

Website promotion should targeting you business audience: Do research and figure out what are the closest keywords and phrases your prospective customers would be searching for. This keyword optimization should be related to your business, local area and most common keywords.

Optimize your Meta Tags for Internet Marketing : Most of the Expert in the industry says Meta tags are dead and all search engines doesn’t give priority to Meta tags. But I believe it is still the key to higher placement on search engines. The most important are Title, Description and keyword. All these three should have your targeted keywords.

Title tag for website promotion : is very important because search engines gives weight age to that so place your most specific keyword over there.

Page Heading for search engine placement: As heading in newspapers or any media give importance to media it also gives importance to search engines as well. It is so important to website promotion so place your most important keywords in these Headings tags.

Keyword research and Web site optimization: keyword research and optimization is an important for keyword placement and selection it involves lot of keyword research. I have the expertise in web page keyword placement and optimization to my clients since 1999 successfully.

Highlighted text for website optimization: Search Engines consider Highlighted text like bold and italics tags, so place your targeted keywords here too.

Image optimization for website promotion: Most of the search engines started indexing websites by images found on the website, this is achieve by looking at the ALT description of the image found on the site. The important keywords should be included into this ALT tags.

Title tag on your links for search engine placement: Text link plays an important role on the anchor links of the website. Search engines spiders on these text links. Most of sites still don’t use the link title tag, so when you do, you gain an advantage. The link title should be a short keyword or phrase.

Link popularity for optimization : When we talk about website optimization and search engine placement the important aspect is Link popularity. There are different types of link of link building reciprocal links and nonreciprocal links

Check for broken links and errors: Before submitting to search engines and website promotion run your website pages through a HTML checker and a spell check. Search Engines penalize for these errors

This article was written by Thomson Joseph of http://www.websitepromoitonexpert.com

Article source http://www.digitallabz.com

About The Author

This article was written by Thomson Joseph of http://www.websitepromoitonexpert.com

Article source http://www.digitallabz.com

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 21

by Thomson Joseph

Website Optimization Tool for Beginners has No Kno

Website Optimization Tool for Beginners has No Knowledge of HTML

by: David Wang

Offpage optimization and onpage optimization is the two types to improve your search engine ranking position.

Offpage website optimization need you get more links. The links that with top pagerank and related to your website is better. For more off page optimization articles please access http://www.1websitesearchengineoptimization.com

Onpage website optimization need you optimize all important ranking factors of your web page to include the appropriate keywords.

You should do.

Optimize Page Title

Optimize Meta Keywords

Optimize Meta Description

Optimize Heading

Optimize Link Urls and Text

Optimize Image Alt

Optimize Comment

Optimize Body Text

Optimize Keyword Frequency, Weight, Size, Prominence and Proximity of every ranking factor.

SEO Optimization Requirements

In order to update there factors, often you need know sufficient knowledge of HTML and SEO.

If you say, I am a beginner that only has little or no knowledge of HTML, and then you can not do any SEO optimization in the past.

If you want to improve your web site search engine ranking, you should hire a company or a SEO expert to do it for you. That mean you should spend more money. If you have not enough budgets, you only can give up your SEO optimization strategy. But from now, everything is changing.

Even you are a beginner that has little or no knowledge of HTML, you can optimize your web site yourself now.

The solution is a new easy website optimization tool: Web Optimization Angel

Minimum efforts for beginners. Even if you are a beginner, you can optimize your web pages on your own without any knowledge of HTML.

Don’t need switching between many windows or programs again now. Often in the old optimizing tool, you should switch between analyze, edit and see the optimization effect windows. Now with Web Optimization Angel, you can do all these work in one place.

Optimization focused interface design. You can gain access and edit any web page element instantly from the program without having to strive through complicated HTML code.

Once the element editing is over, you can estimate its ranking factor score of all your keywords. If you are satisfied with it, you can save editing; otherwise you can keep on optimizing until you get the score you need.

Saves money. You can optimize web pages without the need to fork out money to SEO engineers whose service is costly and often ineffective.

The important feature is easy, easy, still easy.

For this website optimization tool more features in detailed please access http://www.weboptimizationangel.com.

Product link: http://www.weboptimizationangel.com

Download link: http://www.weboptimizationangel.com/download.html (960 Kb)

About The Author

David Wang is a SEO Expert and Article Writer. You can find throusands of SEO articles from http://www.1websitesearchengineoptimization.com.

This article was posted on August 31

by David Wang

Search Engine Optimization A Must

Search Engine Optimization A Must

by: Alec Duncan

As you surf the web take a look around at many of the sites you see. Do you notice anything that seems strange? Well, let me point it out to you. There are hundreds of thousands of web sites that just don’t get much traffic. Some of these sites house hundreds of articles, reviews, tutorials, tools, products, forums to mention a few things, yet still they do not receive large amounts of traffic. What is their problem? They have the content. What is left?

The problem is these sites aren’t optimized for the search engines. SEO, Search Engine Optimization, SE Friendliness, however you refer to it doesn’t matter, the fact is it works and Iกm going to tell you whatกs involved.

Before we continue let me familiarize you with some relevant terminology in my own words.

**Search Engine Optimization**

Search engine optimization can be referred to as the addition and modification of all variables and extended variables of a web site in hopes of achieving a better position in the search engines. By variables I mean components of a website such as META tags and content. By extended variable I mean things such as links from other sites.

Different SEOs, search engine optimizers, may have different opinions on this but alas this is only my own.

**What is a Search Engine Optimization Company? **

A search engine optimization company is a company that offers the service of creating and adjusting all the variables involved in search engine optimization in order to get your web site the best ranking they can achieve, during the designated project period, for all the major search engines.

**Search Engine Optimization Hurdles**

Back to the question of why these sites rich with content aren’t bringing in the numbers. There are several reasons why sites small and large aren’t optimized for the search engines, fortunately these can be remedied.

1. Many webmasters/site owners believe in กIf You Build It They Will Comeก. This attitude will get your web site no where fast. Sure if you build it you will get users maybe even a decent amount of users but you will not be unleashing the real potential of your web site.

2. Not feeling that your site can do better than it is. Websites can always be further optimized. Search engines change their algorithms all the time so what worked 2 months ago may not work as well or at all in present times. For any of you that fee you can get your site optimized better, think of the story of the Little Engine and don’t think you can, KNOW YOU CAN.

3. Laziness is also a major contributing factor. Many webmasters feel it is just too hard or too time consuming to do search engine optimization.

This is partially true. Search engine optimization is not easy but then again, anyone can do it. It does take time though and time is a precious commodity. In situations where you just can’t devote the time to search engine optimize your site I would recommend seeking the services of a professional search engine optimization company. You can choose one here http://www.lilengine.com/seocompanies.php

4. Time + cost = a deterrent. For a situation like this I would recommend optimizing little by little on your own. Eventually you will become better and better at it and be able to accomplish more in less time.

5. Another problem is many people think กWell my site is only a small site, there is no way I will be able to compete with the larger sites that have top spots in the search enginesก. If you think like this I’d like to say this to you. It is possible that that if you optimize your web site you may not be able to compete with the larger sites and may not be able to get a page 1 or 2 ranking in any of the search engines, BUT, what if you did. Always shoot for the stars so if you fall short you will at least hit the sky.

Now for those of you who plan to better your websites via Search Engine Optimization here are the stages you need to follow in order to have an efficient and effective SEO campaign.

**Planning Your Search Engine Optimization Campaign**

Planning is an essential factor in your SEO campaign. Knowing exactly what steps you are going to make and in what order and how you are going to go about achieving each of those steps will save you not only time but it will save you frustration as well. Planning is essential.

**Researching the Most Effective SEO Strategies**

What works and what does not. You will need to learn as many optimization strategies as you can that are currently effective with the search engines. This will be one of the most time consuming steps in your SEO campaign as you will have to sift through information as well as participate in SEO related forums to get additional information from professional. You can take this process in stages and apply your newly gained knowledge as you get it. There is also some useful software available both free and paid that will greatly help with this effort. WebPosition Gold is one of the more popular ones.

**Search Engine Optimize Your Site**

This should be done in stages so you can see the effectiveness of the applied strategies you are using. Don’t change your entire site all at once, instead, change a few areas at a time and see what results they produce. If you are satisfied with this then move on and optimize another section.

Search engine optimization does not only deal with your site it also deals with the relationship other sites have with yours and yours with theirs. Keep this in mind when utilizing your link building strategies.

**Monitor Your SEO Progress**

There are many ways to do this you will have to find the best method for you. You will need to monitor your search engine ranking for the keywords you are targeting after each update. Changes should be recorded and used as references to monitor progress and for strategy adjustments. There are many tools for this process as well. I recommend SEOCount.com for monitoring your progress on the Google search engine as it is very easy to use and you can monitor several domains and keywords all from within the same account. It also gives you the option of viewing the number of backlinks.

These steps follow the Plan Do Review methodology which is a proven strategy for engaging in any task. It is again unfortunate that there are so many webmasters who overlook this entire process; hopefully this article will stop you from making this same mistake. For more information on search engine optimization visit http://www.lilengine.com.

Copyright © LilEngine.com 2003

About The Author

Alec Duncan is the founder of Liกl Engine a search engine optimization site. Get more great SEO tips at http://www.lilengine.com and visit their new Web Hosting Resource at http://webhosting.lilengine.com as well as http://www.grindinggears.com for Open Source Development information.

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 17, 2003

by Alec Duncan

Has Google Lost the Plot?

Has Google Lost the Plot?

by: Courtney Heard

With the help of MSN, recently I’ve been reminiscing about the Google of old. Remember those days? When you could take a good quality site, add a few keywords, get a few incoming links and badabing, badaboom, it’d be #1 on Google? Remember the old days, preFlorida, presandbox? The days when we, as search engine optimization specialists, didn’t feel like a private schoolgirl smoking in the bathroom? When we didn’t feel like the iron fist would come crashing down at any moment? Yes, those were the good old days. And MSN has finally brought them back, though on a much smaller scale.

Google hit it right on the nose back then. Search results were almost never irrelevant venturing to the second page of results was an event that drew gasps. There was never, ever any reason to leave Google and search for the same query on another search engine. Satisfied users the world over, it was the search engine of choice almost everywhere searches were conducted. I myself never strayed from Google, I was loyal and I was rewarded for my loyalty with consistently relevant results.

But has Google taken their quest for perfection a few steps too far? Case in point: http://www.jimmylerner.com this web site is the official site of an author. Search on MSN for his name, ขjimmy lernerข and his web site is the top result. Now, try the same search on Google. The top results are pages devoted to reviewing his book, book stores selling his book, a press release I sent out to announce his new site and a few times I’ve even seen sites show up in the top ten that simply have a link to his site from theirs and are completely unrelated. His site has been jumping from the second page to the first and back again.

This begs the question, optimization or no optimization, what, exactly, is the problem with a quality, informative web site reaching number one for a search query that is probably conducted specifically to find that exact site? Has the focus and aim of Google changed from offering relevancy to satisfied searchers to simply impeding the progress of SEOs? Is Google’s main concern now, to stop individuals from helping a site reach number one? It can seem that way, can’t it? And I can only say one thing about it. Bad move, Google.

I’ve heard a few people say that it’s just a transition period. That all web sites are in the same boat, everyone’s waiting to see the fruits of their optimization labour. Perhaps this is true, and perhaps over the next little while we will see changes at Google that make our jaws drop, impressed at the level of perfection we never thought possible. But I think maybe Google needs to refocus their energies. Take the focus back to the user, not the SEOs. Get back to the nearimpeccable relevancy level before I start using MSN to learn about all my favorite authors.

About The Author

Courtney Heard is the founder of Abalone Designs, a search engine optimization company in Vancouver, Canada. She has been involved in web development and marketing since 1995 and has helped start several businesses since then in the Vancouver area. More of Courtneyกs articles are available at http://www.abalone.ca/resources/.

[email protected]

This article was posted on February 06

by Courtney Heard