Search Engine Optimization For Google

Search Engine Optimization For Google

by: SEO Expert

A group of Google employees have recently filed a patent application (#20050071741) with the United States Patent and Trademark Office which gives insight into how to optimize one’s website to do well in the Google rankings. The filing of the patent gives verification that Google uses or intends to use historical data in its ranking algorithm. This patent also gives credence to the Google Sandbox Theory for new websites.

Under the Google Sandbox Theory, new websites are placed in a sort of holding tank for observation for a period of time (6 – 9 months at present) until the website has proved that it’s not a flybynight operation. Once the Sandbox period is over, then new websites will climb rapidly in the rankings. The Google Sandbox Theory is an unofficial theory based on observation and anecdotal evidence from those within the search engine optimization industry.

Based on the new Google patent here are the top 5 suggestions to better optimize a website for Google:

Build links slowly to your website. Websites that put up a bunch links quickly send up a red flag that links are being added in order to boost rankings. According to Google, natural links happen slowly over time, so one’s linkbuilding strategy also needs to include linkbuilding slowly over time.

The anchor text in the back links to a website also need to be natural as well. If a website has lots of great content of interest to visitors, other Webmasters will naturally link to the website. Content is still king when it comes to building natural links. In fact, having great content is the best natural linking strategy.

If content is king, then fresh content is prince. Google thrives on websites that are constantly adding fresh content. Websites with stale content erode in value over time.

When adding fresh content, make sure it is substantial. According to the patent, Google measures substantial versus insubstantial content that is being added to a website. Don’t try to trick the search engines with lots of minor content updates.

Outbound links to trusted, authority sites help in the rankings. As a reputable online business, it makes good business sense to refer customers to other reputable businesses as well. Referring customers to disreputable websites only hurt a business’s reputation and credibility and Google takes this into account when deciding how to rank websites.

There are more insights to be gained from the patent application, but these are the highlights that will help Webmasters and SEO’s focusing on Google to achieve higher rankings. Many of these ideas have been stated before as theory and now the patent application verifies these theories. Historical data has always been thought to play a significant role in the Google rankings. So now that it has been confirmed, taking action seems to be the next logical step.

About The Author

Copyright © 2005 SEO Expert

http://www.seoexpert.ws

SEO Expert is a search engine optimization company geared to achieve high rankings for customer websites.

This article was posted on April 09

by SEO Expert

Absolute Top Five Search Engine Marketing Myths Un

Absolute Top Five Search Engine Marketing Myths Uncovered!

by: Lee Traupel

It’s no secret that Search Engine marketing can drive significant amounts of very qualified traffic to a web site – as 85% of Internet users utilize search engines to find/research for goods and services. The problem for many companies is the difficulty they face sifting through conflicting information and hyperbole! Here is my top five list of myths that need to be run to ground.

Big Picture Myth One – Search engine ranking leads are not as good as those which originate from other forms of traditional marketing (print, direct mail, PR, etc.) – this is absolute hogwash, the truth is many agencies don’t have a clue about s/e ranking, so they push their clients to ignore this form of advertising. They simply don’t want to recommend anything they don’t understand and/or utilize an interactive marketing vehicle that requires a blend of very specialized technology and processes.

We’ve in fact found just the opposite when we’ve analyzed s/e traffic versus other types of leads for our clients; i.e. search engine traffic can be much better, as it is comprised of individuals who are actively seeking info, not just people whose curiosity has been piqued by an eyecatching publication ad or press release. And, when we’ve analyzed the data by tracking leads via a landing page (on a web site) we’ve discovered that CPL (cost per lead) numbers can be much lower for s/e ranking than other more traditional marketing methods.

Big Picture Myth Two – Effective s/e marketing can be done in house – this is rarely the case, the sheer complexity and online competition (digital warfare!) for rankings makes this extremely difficult for most companies. Based upon our analysis over 73% of corporate accounts don’t understand the basic fundamentals; i.e. how to properly use keywords, meta tags and titles and worse, don’t submit their web sites to top tier Directories (Yahoo, LookSmart, OPD) and the hundreds of second tier directories.

Most companies delegate the s/e submissions to the webmaster or web site development staff and they just don’t have the time to understand the daunting complexities required to generate page 13 rankings or to stay abreast of the shifting submissions and ranking criteria standards, as modified monthly by top tier search engines. And, in many companies the s/e ranking is added to the over worked webmaster’s tasks purely as an afterthought – as opposed to being addressed formally by the marketing department, with dedicated personnel and a budget.

Big Picture Myth Three – off the shelf software that submits a site to thousands of web sites and presents snazzy reports can do it all. This is so inaccurate and nothing can be further from the truth – it takes a tremendous amount of labor and time to identify keyword sets (not just words), optimize the content for these keywords, submit the pages while obeying the rules of the road and then continually analyzing rankings and tweaking to maintain and drive rankings (web site visibility).

Software can certainly help to automate some facets of the process and be used for back end analysis – but you can’t expect any application to make the job easy, there is too much inherent complexity in the processes. And, competition for keyword sets is fierce – as there are an estimated 510M registered domains (the numbers vary widely) with 60K new domains being registered every day.

Big Picture Myths Four and Five – Any page listing will help to drive traffic to a web site – this is another misconception. If you are aren’t achieving page 13 rankings then your wasting a great deal of time and resources – most people never drill down below these pages. Another common mistake is trying to achieve s/e rankings for a specific URL or product – if people know the name of a company or product they will find your web site easily, it’s a waste of resources to optimize for these specialized terms in 80% of most cases.

About The Author

Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., http://www.intelective.com, a resultsdriven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. [email protected]

[email protected]

This article was posted on July 25, 2002

by Lee Traupel

Are You Down With OPP? Get High Rankings with Oth

Are You Down With OPP? Get High Rankings with Other Peoples Popularity

by: Jack Humphrey

There are many กoffsiteก promotion tactics that work well to get high rankings. But nothing works better in my experience than publishing and syndicating information pieces or articles.

Now before you run off thinking youกve read about the following tactic before, hang on!

This article assumes you have come cross one of my other articles on articles. And that you know what syndication is and why it is important at itกs most basic level for high rankings.

But now I want to show you a trick to get high rankings for search terms that you currently struggle with on your own site by optimizing SOMEONE ELSEกs site for that term.

Here we go!

There are other sites that have the traffic and rankings you WISH you had, right? Well, syndicating content can put YOU on those sites and if you are smart about it, you can optimize those popular sites pages with your search terms to get high rankings for that particular page.

Why on earth would you do that?

Well, for one, it is faster to get ranked higher on a site that already has a high ranking in the search engines. Your article could focus on a term like I am doing in this one.

Have you seen a repetitious, but hopefully not obnoxious, term in this article? I am using กhigh rankingsก on purpose. I don’t have a high ranking for that term on any of my sites and I want to use OPP to get a higher ranking for my link which LINKS BACK TO MY SITE at the bottom of this article!

Confused? Don’t be. Basically, all I am doing is using the popularity of very large sites that house my articles every time I write to get attention of surfers looking for content based on less competitive but desirable keywords.

Itกs a known fact that Google spiders more frequently on sites that are large, established, and that change frequently. I can have an article showing up on a Google search in the top ten for a key phrase in as little as 1 day at times.

On a new site the same article would take weeks sometimes to get into Google and even then, if my pagerank isn’t very high yet, I will STILL rank lower than the same page on an established site.

Higher rankings can be achieved in so MANY ways and this is just another angle for writers who have little patience for waiting on the engines to find THEM.

Syndicating keyword optimized articles is how I go out and find the search engines wherever they are spidering right now. This is also how I submit all my sites to the search engines. I just syndicate my articles.

This is basically like casting into a different, more active part of the pond you are fishing in. If the fish ain’t bitinก where you’re fishing (your own site) then go fish another part of the lake with OPP!

Copyright 2004 Jack Humphrey

About The Author

Jack Humphrey is the CEO of http://WebFoxMedia.com, a marketing consulting firm dedicated to small and large businesses looking for higher rankings and more traffic and exposure. We also write keyword optimized articles for you!

This article was posted on December 01, 2004

by Jack Humphrey

Competing with the Big Names

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 oneway 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/ezine 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.

About The Author

Derek Croote is a SEO, web design and usability enthusiast. Derek is the webmaster of http://www.saratogalakesideacresassociation.org, a small homeowners association. You can reach him at [email protected].

This article was posted on April 16

by Derek Croote

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website Step 10: T

Ten Steps To A Well Optimized Website Step 10: The Extras

by: Dave Davies

Welcome to part ten in this search engine positioning series. Over the past nine weeks we have covered the nine fundamental steps to a proper search engine positioning campaign. From choosing keywords and writing content to optimizing your pages and building quality links we have covered the required steps to attaining solid rankings that will last. In part ten we will cover the extras.

The extras consist of tips, tools and resources that you will want to use to keep you on the cutting edge of who’s who and what’s what in the search engine positioning arena.

Over this series we have covered the ten key aspects to a solid search engine positioning campaign.

The Ten Steps We Have Gone Through Are:

Keyword Selection (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/keywords.htm)

Content Creation (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/content.htm)

Site Structure (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/structure.htm)

Optimization (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/optimization.htm)

Internal Linking (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/internallinking.htm)

Human Testing (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/humantesting.htm)

Submissions (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/submissions.htm)

Link Building (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/linkbuilding/linkbuilding.htm)

Monitoring (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/articles/searchenginepositioning/monitoring.htm)

The Extras

Step Ten – The Extras

The first nine steps in this series cover the true nutsandbolts of a solid SEO campaign. These are the crucial steps you need to take to attain top rankings that will stick. That said … there are ขthe extrasข, the icing on the SEOcake sotospeak. Those little things that will bump you up from number 4 to number 2, or help you hold your positioning through an algorithm change.

Some of these things have been touched on in previous articles while others are completely new. Either way, these are the things that will give you that little oneup over other ethical SEO’s who know their stuff.

Tools

One of the most important advantages you can gain over your competition comes from the tools you use and more importantly, how you use them. Some people blindly follow the advice given to them from socalled ขSEOsoftwareข. This is never the right decision. Taking the information these good tools can provide, and knowing how to turn that information into advantage is the key.

Here are the tools that many successful SEOs use to build solid rankings for their clients and why:

Top Optimizer Pro (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/resources/recommended/top.htm)

I’ve noted this one in the article on link building and it’s definitely worth mentioning again. Never before have I found a tool that can tear apart your competition so thoroughly for such an affordable price and in such an easytounderstand manner.

This tool with take a look at the top 10 for a search phrase, and give you:

their position

their PageRank

their Alexa rank

the total number of backlinks to their site as seen by Google

the number of their site pages indexed by Google

their keyword density for the targeted phrase

their title

their H1 tag

This is the overview it gives you. You can then select one of the sites and view more detail including:

the backlink URL

the backlink domain

the IP address of the backlink

the PageRank of the backlink from that page

the specific anchor text use for that backlink (or a note whether it was an image)

the title of the page linking back

the Alexa rating of the page linking back

the top three keyword focusก of the page linking back

the number of links pointing to that page

the number of outbound links from that page

Right below that there is access to a breakdown of the sites backlink’s that gives a summary of:

the specific anchor text, the number of times that anchor text was used, and the percentage this represents of the total backlinks counted

where these links come from. This will give you great information as to how many of these links are coming from the same domain, which is generally accepted in the SEO community as holding less weight than the same number of links from different domains

a PageRank breakdown of all the links

At $247 from TopNet Solutions it’s a bit pricey but worth every penny if you only use it on one campaign.

PR Prowler (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/resources/recommended/prprowler.htm)

A necessity for any search engine positioning campaign that requires link building. This tool, also developed by TopNet Solutions, doesn’t do all the fancy things that Top Optimizer Pro does however it does do one thing VERY well – it’s seeks out quality relevant link partners with high PageRanks.

If you’re not in a competitive industry and you just want to save time on link building (and I do mean a LOT of time) this tool will do it for you. You simply set it to find links based on specified search phrase(s) and with a minimum PageRank. You can search for up to 1000 links at a time. Simply start the tool and continue on with other work or go to bed while it’s working for you. Come back and you’ve got some great leads and the best part is, it’s weeded out all the duds so your efforts are focused only on the links that will most benefit your site.

This tool has taken campaigns that would have required many hundreds of links to a point where the same effect can often be realized with 50 and in a fraction of the time spent.

FireFox (http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/)

While this isn’t exactly an SEO tool perse it makes researching and optimizing much faster and more convenient. FireFox is a browser (read: Internet Explorer replacement) that has MANY features that make it more convenient.

I like the tabbed browsing (moving between multiple pages through the use of tabs on one browser screen), the username and password ability is far better and more advanced than Internet Explorer’s and it’s far more secure than the more popular Microsoft product. It blocks popups and spyware just isn’t written for it.

I will admit that for the first few hours I was trying it out I found it a bit more difficult to use but once you realize how much more powerful it can be and that the difficult arises from the instinct to make the task more difficult by doing it the way you would have with IE, you’ll never want to switch back. The next time you’ve got 5 IE windows open to various search engines, another for WordTracker and a couple more to various other pages think of FireFox and you’re world will be made easier. It’s a free download.

You can read more on the advantages of the FireFox browser in a search engine positioning article written by ISEDB Editor Jim Hedger at http://www.isedb.com/news/article/1062.

Search Status (http://quirk.co.za/searchstatus/)

A tool developed for FireFox users giving them access to the Google Toolbar and Alexa Rankings. It can be downloaded and installed free of charge.

A big thanks to developer Craig Raw for a great tool, free of charge, for those of us who want to use something that isn’t powered by Microsoft and that has all the advantages of the FireFox browser.

WebAlerts (https://www.google.com/alerts/signin?hl=en)

You’re doing your linkbuilding, you’re writing articles, or you just want to see what others’ are saying about you. Do you really want to run searches for yourself and for your articles every few days?

Set up a Google WebAlert for a phrase from an article you’ve written, for your company name, for your competitors and/or for a phrase from the description you’re using in your link exchanges and let the most powerful servers in the world do the work for you.

Beanstalk On Tools …

There are definitely some very useful tools out there as noted above. What must be understood is that these tools alone won’t get you the top rankings any more than a map will guarantee you a good vacation if you don’t know how to read it and you don’t know where you want to go.

The single most important thing anyone hoping to attain (and maintain) top positioning on the search engines can do is to keep himself or herself educated. While we noted a few great resources in the last article on monitoring here are some of the key resources I uses to keep uptodate on what’s going on the in SEO world.

Search Engines

This is definitely the most obvious. Run periodic if not daily searches on your keyword phrases and a few others. Don’t just look for your rankings but look at who’s in the top positions and look at their sites and who’s linking to them. Watch for changes and look for what’s different in the sites that are now on top.

Don’t kill yourself trying to figure out every single engine. Google, Yahoo! and MSN are the three biggest and just following these three is more than enough work. Generally I’ve found that meeting the requirements of these three will generally result in solid rankings on most of the other ขsecondaryข engines.

Forums

I can’t speak highly enough about forums. When you’re looking for uptodate information this is where to go. The challenge on forums however is in deciding who knows what they’re talking about and who doesn’t. Further, you’ll need to be able to figure out which members follow your code of ethics when it comes to SEO. Business owners seeking longterm rankings with minimal maintenance should not be taking advice from Blackhat SEOs.

I mentioned a few forums on the last article. A few additional forums worth watching are:

Search Engine Watch Forums (http://forums.searchenginewatch.com/) – There’s not much to say about this one except that it’s a mustsee. Tons of great information, many members so a wide variety of opinions to draw from.

IHelpYou Forums (http://www.ihelpyouservices.com/forums/) – Managed by SEO Doug Heil this is an interesting one. While I can’t say I agree with everything Doug has to say I will give him credit for ethics. If you want to make sure your tactics are squeakyclean then here’s where to get advice. My recommendation: take the info with a grain of salt. Doug tends to occasionally make blanket rulings on tactics that have their place however if you go in knowing this he can be a great source of some solid information.

High Rankings Forums (http://www.highrankings.com/forum/) – Managed by SEO Jill Whalen, this one has some great discussions. Sticking with my belief in giving credit where it’s due I have to advise to pay attention to what Jill says. She knows her stuff and while she definitely falls into the category of whitehat SEOs, she’s willing to discuss a variety of tactics, their merits, and judge them based on their use and worth. Open and honest discussion – that’s what forums are about. Mentioned last week but worth mentioning twice.

The other forums mentioned last week were:

Web Pro World (http://www.webproworld.com/forum.php)

SEO Chat (http://forums.seochat.com/)

Search Guild (http://www.searchguild.com/)

Li’l Engine (http://forums.lilengine.com/)

Conclusion

So here we are, the end of it all. 17,000 words read (thank you) and, if you’ve been following the program, many MANY hours spent optimizing your website.

Will it be worth it? If you have followed these steps, keep yourself updated on changes, and keep working on building your links, creating quality content, and insuring that you’re always putting in 10% more than your competitors then it certainly should be.

I would like to take a moment to thank those of you who have worked through these past ten articles and to wish you the very best of luck in your online promotions. As always, you are welcome to contact me with any questions you might have. Our goal in this series has been to provide you with the information and the resources to do it. I hope we have done just that.

About The Author

Dave Davies and Beanstalk (http://www.beanstalkinc.com/) offer guaranteed search engine positioning. He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.

[email protected]

This article was posted on December 30, 2004

by Dave Davies

Why Articles Are Not The Route To High Search Engi

Why Articles Are Not The Route To High Search Engine Rankings

by: Priya Florence Shah

If you have any interest in getting high search engine rankings for your website (and who doesn’t) youกve probably been sold the idea that writing and publishing your own articles will do it for you.

Hereกs why thatกs not entirely true.

Imagine the following scenario…

You write an article around a keyword or keyphrase you want to rank well for.

You submit that article to all the article submission sites and directories and ezines you can find.

Your article gets published in hundreds of places.

You now have hundreds of links pointing back to your main site…

But your own site never shows up in the top ten results for that particular keyword or keyphrase.

Instead you find that there are lots of other sites carrying your article that rank better than yours.

Youกve completely missed out on an excellent opportunity to get high rankings for your keyword or keyphrase.

Even worse… you just handed your precious keywordrich content on a platter to possible competitors who happened to publish your article on their website, and may have lost some of your most targeted visitors and sales to them.

So where did you go wrong?

Your mistake lay in using your precious article the keywordrich content you toiled for hours to write for entirely the wrong purpose.

You failed to use the power of the medium of article publishing to give your site an unbeatable advantage over others.

Hereกs how to use your articles the right way to boost your search engine rankings.

1. Publish Unique Content On Your Website

When you make an article available for reprint, the article, by virtue of it being published on hundreds of other sites, now no longer qualifies as unique content.

In the eyes of search engines, those pages with higher Pagerank (and hence greater importance) than yours will now rank better than you for the keywords your article is optimized for.

Instead of making your article the main course, use it as an appetizer to direct search engines and readers to a UNIQUE, keywordrich, welloptimized report or white paper on your website, and youกll see dramatically different results.

2. Use Your Article As Spider Bait

Think of your articles as simply the conduit that leads search engines to your website.

Publishing your articles all over the web is like leaving scraps for a puppy (a.k.a. the search engines) that follows them all the way back to the kennel (a.k.a. your website) where it can feast on the main course your UNIQUE content.

3. Use KeywordRich Anchor Text In Your Resource Box

Use your main keyword or keyphrase in the anchor text of the article resource box that contains a link pointing back to your unique content.

This will create hundreds of keywordrich links pointing back to the welloptimized report on your website, and give your pages a powerful edge over other websites.

Often this factor alone is sufficient to take your website to the top of the search results, especially with search engines like Google and MSN.

The guidelines here include only a few of the steps you need to take to get high rankings for the keywords of your choice.

To learn how to use your articles and unique content to get an edge over your competitors and secure longterm, top rankings for your website, check out the search engine optimization ebook, Number One In Your Niche.

http://www.numberoneinyourniche.com

Copyright 2004 Priya Shah

http://www.PriyaShah.com

About The Author

Priya Shah is the author of Number One In Your Niche http://www.NumberOneInYourNiche.com and edits the newsletter Be a Whiz at eBiz! http://ebizwhizpublishing.com.

This article was posted on August 14, 2004

by Priya Florence Shah

Reciprocal Linking: A Disturbing Trend

Reciprocal Linking: A Disturbing Trend

by: Vishal P. Rao

In the world of Internet Marketing, and Web site promotion, nothing changes faster than the parameters that rule good Search Engine rankings and placement.
This has led to a developed new science in the last few years, SEM (Search Engine Marketing). This new science, SEM, has been a boon to both Web Masters and the merchants that maintain Web sites as a way to increase exposure and revenue for their products and/or services.
SEM has become a much sought after entity, with SEM specialists, who focus on optimization of a site, routinely adding linking campaign management to their overall repertoire of services. This has resulted in a large influx of Web sites focusing on linking campaigns and reciprocal linking as it has been established that good, solid reciprocal linking campaigns increased traffic and visitors to a site exponentially.
However, like with everything else online, the idea of SEM and linking campaigns has spread like กwildfireก, with sites seeking links seemingly endlessly. This has led to what can only be termed, กlinking explosionsก, with many sites posting links to everything and anything in an effort to increase their Search Engine rankings and placements.
The actual attainment of effective linking campaigns, is a work oriented, tedious undertaking, with literally months spent developing a good campaign. While a good linking campaign does increase rankings overall, with the Search Engines, the question remains, กdoes it increase salesก? After all, consumers are the ingredient that facilitates the sale of a product/service in the long run, not the rankings or placement of a site. Questions about whether linking campaigns increase revenue for a site are coming into play now.
Recent data (courtesy: WebSideStory) has shown that consumers, now more than ever, are arriving at Web sites via กsearch featuresก, not by direction to a Web site via another Web site link. The use of กsearch featuresก to arrive at a site has increased by almost six percent in the past year. In addition, direct navigation by visitors to a Web site, has also increased from a year ago, by almost ten percent. In direct contrast, Web link กarrivalsก of visitors has dropped in the past year, by a somewhat staggering, twenty percent!
The World Wide Web quite obviously has now become more utilitarian to consumers, and linking campaigns, as a result, may become more ineffective as time goes on. Linking campaigns, by their very nature, promote กbrowsingก and timeconsuming กvisitingก of many sites, before the product/item/service, is found by the consumer. As the Web progresses and consumers become increasingly discerning in their overall approach to the Web, they are now going right to the source, more often, via กsearch featuresก and direct navigation.
Accordingly, then, the กdigging aroundก on other sites, has diminished over the past twelve months, and in all likelihood, will continue as a trend well into the future, hampering the effectiveness of linking campaigns overall. This trend reflects an international shift towards this method of finding information on the Web, and is not localized whatsoever, crossing many demographic and geographic barriers.
Itกs really difficult to effectively pinpoint the cause in this shift for consumers. However, the sheer magnitude of the linking campaign craze that is so prominent now, may account, at least in part, for the shift in the attitudes of consumers. Because of the popularity of linking campaigns as a method of increasing rankings and placement, attaining กqualityก links (those with a Page Rank of 5 or higher) has become more difficult for Web masters. In addition, the sheer volume of linking requests to pages with a high ranking, has also increased, to the point where higher ranked Web sites are inundated daily with linking requests, interfering with their ability to attend to their own business.
Web masters have now oftentimes taken to using any links whatsoever, as long as the links added have the appropriate Page Rank. Little thought seems to be given at times, to the theme of a links page or the relevance of links that have been added, leaving visitors to some sites confused and frustrated. This will in all probability lead consumers to turn to the Search Engines and direct navigation even more in the future, not less.
This could have dire consequences for many Web sites down the road, as those at the bottom of search listings could conceivably be forced out of business.
There are methods however that can aid in the retention of top rankings and listings with the Search Engines, in and above linking campaigns. These methods would also hold greater appeal for consumers in general, as they would add quality to a Web site, as well as content, something that will add กlongevity of appealก to a Web site:
1. The writing of good, content oriented copy which imparts value to a Web site. Good copy has always been utilized to establish good overall traffic and conversion patterns. Even Search Engines seem to understand this and routinely rank Web sites with good pertinent content, higher than other Web sites.
2. The placement of ads on high traffic sites. Just one good ad, placed on another Web site with good overall traffic, will significantly increase rankings and placement by the Search Engines.
3. The submitting of a Web site to all possible, pertinent directories. Directories were always a good method of increasing rankings and placement, and they still, to this day, are a good choice.
4. The optimization of all other aspects of a Web site, from the metatags to the design. Metatag optimization, like directory listings, continues to be a good overall optimization technique. The design of a Web site can also enhance rankings and placement, as the site needs to be ‘readableก to the Search Engines, and some flash and other enhancements, can prevent ‘readabilityก, thus hampering rankings and placement.
5. The enhancement of traffic by offline marketing campaigns. This is one facet of Web site traffic management that many individuals neglect, but that can successfully increase rankings significantly.
6. The use of PPC (Pay Per Click) campaigns. While these can be expensive, if care is not given to the bidding, they can also enhance traffic to a Web site, as ‘traffic begets more trafficก, establishing a ranking pattern for the Search Engines.
7. The addition of keywords that are relevant to a site, throughout the copy, the title, and the metatags and any other text, such as articles and reports. Keywords are the กguidesก that the Search Engines use to find a site and rank it. The addition of good relevant keywords always enhances rankings and placement.
Linking campaigns, as you can see, while having their overall place in effective rankings and placement within the Search Engines, are not the กbe all and end allก of optimization or rankings. Many various fundamentally sound methods of optimization still exist, and should be utilized in any wellrounded Search Engine Marketing campaign.

About The Author

Vishal P. Rao is the editor of http://www.homebasedbusinessopportunities.com A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for starting a home based business. He is also the owner of the http://www.workathomeforum.com an online community of folks who work at home.

This article was posted on May 20, 2004

by Vishal P. Rao

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Is Critical To Th

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Is Critical To The Success Of Your Website

by: Sharifah Hardie

Search engine optimization (SEO) is critical to the success of your website, Drive Visitors To Your Website And Increase Your Market Share.

SEO is the key to unlocking your websiteกs full potential. Google handles over 200 million internet search requests each day, and people who search for information clearly express what they want. Imagine capturing a relevant stream of such web traffic. Itกs therefore important to optimize your web pages to improve search engine rankings using the most appropriate keywords describing the content of your site.

The search engine optimization process begins before you start building your website, when you decide on the domain name to register. The process then continues on as long as your website remains online.

Please note that optimizing your web pages to get high rankings takes time. Your rankings may start out low and slowly improve. Link popularity, i.e. the quantity and quality of external links to your web pages, greatly influences your rankings, and it takes time for your website to become popular in its niche.

Every time you improve your site, you need to allow time for the full effect to show in search engine results. Don’t tweak your web pages too frequently. The time and effort is better spent on adding highquality contents to your site and building inbound links.

Search Engines have computers and programs called กSpidersก that collect information about your web pages in an attempt to กfigure outก what your pages are about. These spiders gather information from your pages and use these in factoring which sites get ranked higher than others. Search Engines analyze over 100 OnPage Factors when analyzing your web pages.

About The Author

Sharifah Hardie is the founder of http://www.marketingonlinecrashcourse.com website focusing on the Marketing Online, resources and articles. This site provides detailed information on SEO. For more info on SEO visit: http://www.marketingonlinecrashcourse.com.

This article was posted on September 12

by Sharifah Hardie

Is Google Gunning For Directories?

Is Google Gunning For Directories?

by: Roy Thomsitt

Why is it that webmasters are so quick to blame Google if their website falls down the search rankings, or out of the rankings altogether? Can it never be their own fault?

I read an amusing forum post headed ขWhat’s up with Google?ข. The writer had a website just 2 months old, which had only had 2 visits from Googlebot, a Google robot. The poster was a bit grieved, and was blaming Google.

It seems they had extrapolated their own situation into one they had witnessed with other webmasters on another forum. They were also upset, this time by Google’s latest update, as their websites had been badly hit. Of course, the drop way down the rankings had seriously affected their income

About The Author

Roy Thomsitt is the owner and author of http://www.changedirection.com.

[email protected]

This article was posted on August 17

by Roy Thomsitt

Why You Need a SEO Maintenance Plan

Why You Need a SEO Maintenance Plan

by: Herman Drost

A search engine optimization maintenance service plan will ensure that your site will continue to increase in its rankings, attract more visitors and make more sales. Itกs not enough to simply design your web site, have it optimized for the search engines and expect it to continually rank well. If left alone, you may soon lose the business your web site initially generated.

What should be included in a SEO maintenance service plan?

1. Monitor search engine rankings there will be many fluctuations in your search engine rankings. This may be due to search engines changing their ranking formulas, or competitors trying to get ahead of you. More sites are added to the web each day so you need to monitor your search engine rankings to be competitive. I create monthly ranking reports on where your site is currently ranked for each of the major search engines.

2. Traffic Tracking itกs essential to know where most of your traffic is coming from so you can make adjustments to your marketing strategies. For example if most of your traffic is coming from one particular page, you may want to place your best products on that page to get more sales. I analyze your site statistics (if they are available form your web host) to check how much traffic you are receiving, where is it coming from and what keywords are being used to find your site.

3. Keyword research web sites are being added to the web every day, therefore keywords that once got high rankings may no longer work. You may have high search engine positions for your most important keyword phrases but if you are not receiving any traffic from those phrases, you will need to evaluate the keywords that you have used. Attaining a number 1 ranking for keywords that no one will search for, will not increase your traffic.

Researching new keywords is essential to maintain good rankings. I analyze the current keywords used on your site and research and add new ones. Once the keywords have been chosen, the content should be updated to reflect them. This may include subtle changes to the meta tags, page titles and text headings; or it could involve adding additional sections to the site, rewriting content and reorganizing the web siteกs structure. It all depends on the specific requirements of the site and market.

4. Competitive analysis an integral part of search engine optimization is determining what keywords your competitors are using. I analyze where your competitors are currently ranked for the same keywords you are using for your web pages. I also check how many competitors you have for each of the major search engines. If there are too many competitors for a particular keyword it may be better to use less competitive keywords for your web pages or use them in conjunction with the most popular ones.

I will also analyze the link popularity of your competitors to determine how many incoming links they have and what the quality of those links are. You should not link to unrelated sites and ideally link to sites that already attract a lot of traffic.

5. Adding fresh content web sites that continuously update and/or expand their content, usually experience higher rankings than stagnant web sites. New keywords should first be researched before adding new content. This will help boost your traffic and rankings because visitors will have more ways to land on your site based on the keywords they entered in the search engines. One great way to achieve this is to add new articles to your site on a regular basis.

6. Web copy analysis getting a lot of traffic to your site does not guarantee sales. It primarily depends on how effective your web copy is. (Read my article: ก How to Write Effective Web Copy ก www.isitebuild.com/webcopy). You want to convert visitors into sales. I analyze how your web copy is structured on the page, what words you use, if it is written for your visitors plus check it for spelling and grammatical errors.

7. Boost link popularity this refers to the amount of other quality web sites that have links pointing back to yours. The more quality links there are, the better you will rank on the major search engines. I extensively research other sites related to yours and add or exchange links with them. This may require a links/resources page to be added to your site.

8. Tweaking web site structure and navigation if visitors are having a difficult time navigating your site, reading the content or experience broken links, then I will repair or tweak the site to make it more suitable for your visitors.

Conclusion your web site should be an integral part of your business plan. It may be the first view your visitors have of your business. You therefore should update and maintain it regularly so your visitors will want to revisit and keep doing business with you.

About The Author

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW)

owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com.

Choose a Search Engine Optimization Plan or SEO Maintenance Plan that fits your web site.

Visit: http://www.isitebuild.com/sitepromotion

[email protected]

This article was posted on April 15

by Herman Drost

The Benefits of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimiz

The Benefits of Organic SEO (Search Engine Optimization): What Organic SEO Entails and WHY It Is Preferred by Some

by: Vishal P. Rao

If you’re going to sell any type of product or service online, you’re eventually going to have to optimize your Web site for the Search Engines, in order to boost traffic and sales.
Many years ago, it was quite easy to draw effective traffic, as a good contentdriven site, with good products, was enough to get a Web site ranked highly in the Search Engines. The competition has increased one thousand times over since then, with billions of Web sites existing online now, making for some very stiff competition in the area of Search Engine placement and rankings.
This increase in competition has given rise to many different styles, and many different methods of Web site optimization. Optimization is simply the method of making a Web site กSearch Engine friendlyก, by using methods of enhancement that will increase rankings and placement by placing the Web site higher in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages).
Everything from software to increase rankings and placement, to Search Engine Management and Marketing Firms exist, with many online merchants becoming confused about what or กwhomก to use and how to effectively use the various services to increase rankings and placement.
The real battle seems to exist between those that favor กOrganic SEOก as opposed to those that prefer กNonOrganic SEOก. The term กorganicก itself is defined by Websterกs Dictionary as: instrumental; acting as instruments of nature or of art to a certain destined function or end (Websterกs: 1913: 3).
กOrganic SEOก, also called กNatural SEOก, is the most time consuming, and the most tedious method of optimization for placement and rankings. However, it is prone to longevity of results, as it has a focus on content, metatag enhancement using proper descriptions, keyword enhanced copy within the appropriate specified densities of the Search Engines, and link exchanges. In addition, keyword dense reports, articles, and other content materials are usually added in a routine fashion to a site to maintain the densities necessary and increase rankings and placement.
กOrganic SEOก, if done properly in a stepbystep approach, can literally promote increased traffic and rankings for years. It can also contain overall marketing costs, as the use of PPC (Pay Per Click), is not needed as much with this method. The main drawbacks with this type of SEO, however, are the length of time it takes to properly implement all the steps necessary, and the length of time it takes the Search Engines to thoroughly spider and index a site that has implemented กOrganic SEOก.
กNonOrganic SEOก, also called กArtificial SEOก, can take many forms, and can use some กOrganic SEOก coupled with other techniques. These techniques can include software generated keyword enhanced pages, some methods of redirects, whereby traffic is shunted off from other sites, with their permissions, and software generated doorway pages and metatag descriptions. There are many different techniques that can be employed including rather controversial ones such as hidden text loaded with keywords, and tiny text.
Overall, กNonOrganicก SEO methods are quite popular, as it is a much quicker means to rankings and placement. Links might be purchased from กlink farmsก which are simply services that specialize in the promotion of links to others.
Although กNonOrganic SEOก can speed up rankings and placement initially, care needs to be given when using any of these methods. If keyword dense pages are automatically generated en masse, the Search Engines might view large sites, with large numbers of such pages as กSearch Engine Spammersก and a risk of being banned does exist. In addition, pages may initially place very high, only to drop lower rather quickly, as the Search Engines still place a great emphasis on good content, which is not usually the focus of the กNonOrganicก type of SEO.
All in all, it really depends upon the overall purpose of a site, and the longevity of results desired by a Web master/site owner. It also depends upon how quickly results and sales are needed. For some seasonal sites, such as holidaytheme sites that only remain up for a few weeks or months, then the quicker method of กNonOrganic SEOก can be quite effective. On the other hand, if a Web master/site owner promotes a product or service to which they are committed for years, or perhaps a lifetime, then กOrganic SEOก would definitely be the better choice of optimization method.
No matter which type of SEO methods are chosen or implemented, an ongoing campaign of optimization does need to exist, as the parameters that are used for the rankings and placement by the Search Engines, change frequently, and research into current methods needs to be done routinely.
As the old saying goes, กDifferent strokes for different folksก, really applies to Search Engine Optimization and rankings and placement. The whole Search Engine Optimization process is really more กart than scienceก, and continues to change daily.

About The Author

Vishal P. Rao is the editor of http://www.homebasedbusinessopportunities.com A website dedicated to opportunities, ideas and resources for starting a home based business. He is also the owner of the http://www.workathomeforum.com an online community of folks who work at home.

This article was posted on July 13, 2004

by Vishal P. Rao

The Fatal Attraction of Online Marketers

The Fatal Attraction of Online Marketers

by: David Leonhardt

Suppose you were offered 263 links coming into your website from 263 other websites all in one fell swoop. Everybody knows that the more inbound links you have, the higher you will rise in the search engine rankings.

Suppose further that these were real links from real websites that actually sold real products and services – no cheap FFAs throwing comeons on a street corner on the bad side of town.

Suppose further that this offer included the reciprocal linking code for all 263 sites that just had to be cut and pasted into your website. Piece of cake.

Does it get any sexier than this? Are you drooling yet? Does the sweet perfume of กkaching!ก float around your head? Is this love at first site?

Well, no, itกs actually a fatal attraction, one you had best resist. One that could infect your website with deadly communicable diseases.

I resisted this very offer not long ago, and you should resist anything similar. Hereกs why:

4. The link pages on these sites are essentially link farms. The more links on a page, the less value they have in a search engineกs eyes, especially when you start approaching or even passing 100 links. And don’t expect any direct traffic from this kind of link, either.

5. There is a technical term for identical pages within a site or on multiple sites. It is called กduplicate contentก, and it is strictly verboten by the search engines. Here is what Google says about them: กDon’t create multiple pages, subdomains, or domains with substantially duplicate content.ก

6. Do some quick math. You have 289 outgoing links, 263 of them are labeled กbad neighborhood websitesก by the search engines … so bad that they might even have been banned. What do you think will happen to your rankings?

Sadly, many webmasters fall for such tantalizing comeons without thinking carefully about what the repercussions might be.

There is a lot of truly bad advice floating around the Internet on how to trick the search engines or find a shortcut to high rankings. This is one example of how following poor advice and hopping into bed with the wrong partner could kill your business.

Here is a good rule of thumb. Twoกs company. Threeกs a crowd. Four or more will get you arrested. OK, so I just made that up, and itกs not very elegant. But it will keep you from falling for that inevitable offer with the comehither eyes and the deadly communicable disease.

About The Author

Discover how to climb the rankings the RIGHT way: Pick up a copy of Don’t Get Banned By The Search Engines at http://thehappyguy.com/SEO.html. You might also want to find out how to promote your website with a media relations plan at http://thehappyguy.com/publicityselfpromotionreport.html, or profit from more free publicity ideas at http://www.thehappyguy.com/publicityselfpromotionproducts.html

[email protected]

This article was posted on October 20, 2003

by David Leonhardt