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Friday, March 25, 2011

SEO Tips You Should Know About To Increase Your Ranking On Search Engines

SEO Tips You Should Know About To Increase Your Ranking On Search Engines


Search engine optimization (SEO) is very important to any internet marketer. If your website has high page ranking on search engines, you get large volumes of traffic directed to your website through search engines. The more traffic you get, the more profits you earn as an internet marketer.
This article outlines some of the essential SEO that any internet marketer needs to know about. Many people try to do some SEO for their websites but fail to get results simply because they do not make their SEO strategies effective.
§         Spend some time researching on keywords and phrases. Use keyword research tools such as Wordtracker to find the best key words and phrases for your niche. Make sure that you use precise keywords which your potential customers would use while searching for information on the internet.
§         Next, you must optimize your website for your target niche. Provide relevant and keyword-rich content on your website such that your website will appear on search engines when your potential customers type your keywords.
§         It is important that you use your keywords and phrases in designing and categorizing your website or blog. Whatever products or services that your offer on your website for your niche, use your best keywords as this will help you to make your website show up on search engines for these keywords. It’s also important that you make sure that the design and layout of your website makes it easy for search engines to index your content.
§         Make sure that your website is useful and attractive so that other webmasters will want to exchange links with you. You will need to exchange links with other websites, but first you must make sure that your website is interesting and has high quality content so that other webmasters will be keen to exchange links with you.
§          Use your keywords in the internal text links on your websites because this can also help to increase your ranking on search engines.
§         All your web pages must have your keywords or phrases because search engines will pick these up first.
These SEO can make your website rank high on search engines and also maintain that position in the long term.

Search Engine Optimization Top Ten Tips


Search Engine Optimization:

New and Improved 10 Tips to the Top
Having a website that gets found in Google, Yahoo, and MSN, etc. isn't hard to
do, but it can be difficult to know where to begin. Here are our latest and greatest
tips to get you started:

1. Do not purchase a new domain unless you have to. Due to Google's aging
delay for all new domains, your best bet is to use your existing domain/website if
at all possible. If you're redesigning or starting from scratch and you have to use
a brand-new domain for some reason, you can expect to wait a good 9-12
months before your site will show up in Google for any keyword phrases that are
important to you.

2. Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines.
This may sound counterintuitive, but hear me out. The search engines are
looking for pages that best fit the keyword phrase someone types into their little
search box. If those "someones" are typing in search words that relate to what
your site offers, then they are most likely members of your target audience. You
need to optimize your site to meet *their* needs. If you don't know who your
target audience is, then you need to find out one way or another. Look for
studies online that might provide demographic information, and visit other sites,
communities, or forums where your target audience might hang out and listen to
what they discuss. This information will be crucial to your resulting website
design, keyword research, and copywriting.

3. Research your keyword phrases extensively. The phrases you think your
target market might be searching for may very well be incorrect. To find the
optimal phrases to optimize for, use research tools such as KeywordDiscovery,
Wordtracker, Google AdWords, and Yahoo Search Marketing data. Compile lists
of the most relevant phrases for your site, and choose a few different ones for
every page. Never shoot for general keywords such as "travel" or "vacation," as
they are rarely (if ever) indicative of what your site is really about.

4. Design and categorize your site architecture and navigation based on
your keyword research. Your research may uncover undiscovered areas of
interest or ways of categorizing your products/services that you may wish to add
to your site. For instance, let's say your site sells toys. There are numerous
ways you could categorize and lay out your site so that people will find the toys
they're looking for. Are people looking for toys to fit their child's stage of
development? (Look for keyword phrases such as "preschool toys.") Or are they
more likely to be seeking specific brands of toys? Most likely, your keyword
research will show you that people are looking for toys in many different ways.
Your job is to make sure that your site's navigation showcases the various ways
of searching. Make sure you have links to specific-brand pages as well as
specific age ranges, specific types of toys, etc.

5. Program your site to be "crawler-friendly." The search engines can't fill out
forms, can't search your site, can't read JavaScript links and menus, and can't
interpret graphics and Flash. This doesn't mean that you can't use these things
on your site; you most certainly can! However, you do need to provide alternate
means of navigating your site as necessary. If you have only a drop-down
sequence of menus to choose a category or a brand of something, the search
engine crawlers will never find those resulting pages. You'll need to make sure
that you always have some form of HTML links in the main navigation on every
page which link to the top-level pages of your site. From those pages, you'll
need to have further HTML links to the individual product/service pages. (Please
note that HTML links do NOT have to be text-only links. There's nothing wrong
with graphical image navigation that is wrapped in standard <a href> tags, as the
search engines can follow image links just fine.)

6. Label your internal text links and clickable image alt attributes (also
known as alt tags) as clearly and descriptively as possible. Your site visitors
and the search engines look at the clickable portion of your links (the anchor text)
to help them understand what they're going to find once they click through. Don't
make them guess what's at the other end with links that say "click here" or other
non-descriptive words. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and
graphical link on your site. The cool thing about writing your anchor text and alt
attributes to be descriptive is that you can almost always describe the page
you're pointing to by using its main keyword phrase.

7. Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site based on your
chosen keyword phrases and your target market's needs, and make sure
it's copy that the search engines can "see." This is a crucial component to
having a successful website. The search engines need to read keyword-rich copy
on your pages so they can understand how to classify your site. This copy
shouldn't be buried in graphics or hidden in Flash. Write your copy based on your
most relevant keyword phrases while also making an emotional connection with
your site visitor. (This is where that target audience analysis comes in handy!)
Understand that there is no magical number of words per page or number of
times to use your phrases in your copy. The important thing is to use your
keyword phrases only when and where it makes sense to do so for the real
people reading your pages. Simply sticking keyword phrases at the top of the
page for no apparent reason isn't going to cut it, and it just looks silly. (Purchase
and read our Copywriting Combo for exact tips on how to implement this
correctly.)

8. Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page's unique Title tag. Title
tags are critical because they're given a lot of weight with every search engine.
Whatever keyword phrases you've written your copy around should also be used in your Title tag. Remember that the information that you place in this tag is what

will show up as the clickable link to your site at the search engines. Make sure
that it accurately reflects the content of the page it's on, while also using the
keyword phrases people might be using at a search engine to find your stuff.

9. Make sure your site is "link-worthy." Other sites linking to yours is a critical
component of a successful search engine optimization campaign, as all of the
major search engines place a good deal of emphasis on your site's overall link
popularity. You can go out and request hundreds or thousands of links, but if
your site stinks, why would anyone want to link to it? On the other hand, if your
site is full of wonderful, useful information, other sites will naturally link to it
without your even asking. It's fine to trade links; just make sure you are providing
your site visitors with only the highest quality of related sites. When you link to
lousy sites, keep in mind what this says to your site visitors as well as to the
search engines.

10. Don't be married to any one keyword phrase or worried too much about
rankings. If you've done the above 9 things correctly, you will start to see an
increase in targeted search engine visitors to your site fairly quickly. Forget
about where you rank for any specific keyword phrase and instead measure your
results in increased traffic, sales, and conversions.

It certainly won't hurt to add new content to your site if it will really make
your site more useful, but don't simply add a load of fluff just for the sake of
adding something. It really is okay to have a business site that is just a business
site and not a diatribe on the history of your products. Neither your site visitors
nor the engines really give a hoot!

Wednesday, March 23, 2011

Seven Steps to Organic Search Engine Optimization

Seven Steps to Organic Search Engine Optimization


Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a strategy to understand and leverage how search engines like Google and Yahoo! rank results. The goal is for your website to be listed at the top of relevant search results so prospects investigate your offerings before those of your competitors.

There are two types of search engine optimization strategies: organic and paid. Organic SEO involves building your website in such a way that search engine spiders find key words and links so that your site comes up at the top of search requests. Paid SEO involves placing pay-per-click (PPC) ads on Google AdWords, Yahoo Overture, or other search engines. PPC advertising is a fast and effective way to generate leads and boost website traffic. Unlike organic SEO, which may take weeks to generate results, you can have a PPC ad up and running within a matter of minutes. Together, organic and PPC advertising can result in immediate leads and a significant return on marketing investment.

Here are the typical steps involved in an SEO project:

Step 1: Analyze and Select Keywords
Keyword analysis is the process of determining which key words or phrases your prospects are most likely to type into search engines to find the solutions you offer. Use your internal staff, competitor’s web site, web analytics tools and PPC ads to help you select the optimal words and phrases.


SEO vendors analyze log files and use web analytics technology to identify the words and phrases prospects are using to find your site and that of your competitors. A free utility such as the Overture Search Term Suggestion Tool suggests search terms and tells you how many times they are entered into the search engines in a given month.

Step 2: Enhance Content
 

Once you have a targeted list of keywords and phrases, you should begin the process of incorporating them into all parts of your website, including URLs, meta keywords and descriptions, titles, text and links. Not long ago, it was sufficient to only incorporate the keywords into your site’s meta index. This is no longer the case. Search engines rank sites based on content and links, not just meta descriptions.

Step 3: Add Content
 
In addition to adding keywords to existing content, you should continually create new content. The more the content relates to your targeted keywords, the higher your ranking. One way to boost the amount of relevant content on your site is to publish white papers and articles in multiple formats such as HTML and PDFs and include separate executive summaries.

Step 4: Modify Site Design
 
Some design tips to improve the visibility of your site to search engines include:
  • Use clean HTML code
  • Avoid incorporating key words or links in graphical images or Flash since they will not be identified or indexed by the search engines
  • Eliminate frames since they also make it difficult for search engines to index your site

Step 5: Build Link Popularity
 

Search engines rank web pages based on the number and quality of links pointing to a site. To increase your link popularity, incorporate links to and from partners and affinity sites. Make sure that these sites relate directly to the products or services you sell. Frequently publish press releases and articles that point to your site.

Step 6: Submit the Site
 

When your site is optimized, you will want to submit your site to directories to improve your link popularity. Pick high quality general directories, such as dmoz.org and specialized vertical directories within your industry. Often submissions carry a minor price tag, but if the directory has good traffic (use www.alexa.com to check) it will be worth it. As long as your site has good inbound links, search engines will find it.

Step 7: Monitor Results & Make Adjustments
 

SEO vendors such as Bloofusion (see Sidebar) have tools to monitor your search engine traffic and rankings. They can analyze downloads or purchases and determine how your customer came to your site and what pages they viewed prior to purchase. With this knowledge, you can then add additional content or make other changes to your site to maximize results.

Summary
 

Organic SEO is a business strategy that all companies should consider. Most SEO projects produce desired results within three to six months. It is advisable to hire an SEO expert who has the analytical tools, industry knowledge and web development skills to quickly and effectively optimize your site. Your competitors are doing this today.

How do Backlinks Help with SEO

How do Backlinks Help with SEO


A backlink is a link which directs others towards your site; they are also often referred to as inbound links (IBL’s).  So, the number of backlinks that your site has is an indication of how popular or important it is according to your peers (other site owners).  These are especially important for SEO, as search engines such as Google will give more credit to those sites with a good number of quality backlinks.  So they will then consider these sites more relevant than others in the results pages of a search query.

Most search engines will want websites to have a level playing field, and so will more often than not look for natural links that have been built slowly over time.  Although it can be fairly easy to manipulate the links on a web page in order to achieve a higher ranking, it is a lot harder to influence a search engine with external backlinks from another site.  This is why these feature so highly in a search engine’s algorithm.  Today it has gotten even harder to achieve these inbound links because of unscrupulous webmasters.  Such people try to achieve these links by deceptive or sneaky techniques (through either hidden links or through automatically generated pages).  Such pages are known as link farms and they are generally disregarded by search engines.  But if you are linked to such a link farm, then you may find your site being banned entirely from these search engines.

Another way of achieving quality backlinks to a site is to entice quality visitors to come to yours. 

There are a number of ways in which back linking can be achieved.

1.             Reciprocal Linking - this is where you link to another site that provides the same service or product as you and they in turn have a link to your site on theirs.

2.             Site Submissions.  Submit links for your site to directories which allow free submissions, or if you can afford it, some paid directories.  There are many sites around which offer a service where you can submit your site details to numerous sites.  Plus, if you want, you can always create your own directory of similar websites. 

3.             Articles.  This is another way of getting great backlinks.  So if you have a reputable looking site that contains informative, well written reviews, then there is a good chance that your articles will receive high search engine rankings also.  But it is vital that any articles you write are on the subject, informative and thorough in relation to your site.  Also you could always write a few articles for submission to article sites such as EzineArticles.com or SearchWarp.com.  This is another great way of getting even more backlinks to your site.

Below are a few tips you will need to consider in order to write good articles for your site.

a.                    Write in a way that your intended target audience will understand what you are trying to say.  In other words, don’t write it like you were a teacher talking to a class of 10 year olds, but don’t be overly complicated.

b.                    Watch your spelling, grammar and punctuation.  If in doubt, then use your spell checker.

c.                    Do not make your article too long.  Usually a good article will consist of between 350 to 500 words.

d.                    Always include a resource box at the end, as this will include that all important backlink to your site.  This resource box should also include a short biography regarding you and your site.

Blogging.  This has now become an integral part of the internet, and is one of the most effective ways of linking.  You either have the choice of placing a few words of comments on to someone else’s blog, or you may want to link to them from your own blog.  In fact, you will find that most blogs will be happy to link back to you.  However, it is important that you try to update your blog regularly and post interesting content to ensure that people will want to link back to you.

What is Search Engine Friendly Content

What is Search Engine Friendly Content


we will look at just what search engine friendly content is.  Although you may think it is about stuffing your website with target keywords, it isn’t.  In fact, you may find that you could fall foul of the search if you do this.  What you need to remember is that you need to write copy that not only spiders will look at, but also human beings will as well.  What is the point of having a site that is highly ranked, yet none of your visitors can understand?  So it is vital that your site is user friendly to both your visitors, as well as search engine spiders.

First of all you need to answer the following questions:-

1.                What is your site for?
2.                What does it do?
3.                What do you want your visitors to do when they reach it?
4.                Would you like them to spend money when they get to it?
5.                Or are you just providing them with information?

So you need to remember these, as they will have an impact on the copy that you write for the content of your site.

So whenever possible, use short paragraphs or bullet points, as these are more likely to attract visitors, while more lengthy essays will only drive them away.

But if you are selling a service or product then you need to make your site look interesting.  Provide as many calls to action as you can, and not just provide them with an online price list.

So remember that you are trying to attract the search engines, but your site should be designed first and foremost for human readers.  As long as a site has been designed well with people in mind, then 9 times out of 10 you will find that it is search engine friendly also.

Just like a visitor to your site reads the copy on your page in order to figure out what you have to offer, so does a search engine.  So when a search engine is looking at your page, they are looking for keyword phrases in your copy (Content). 

Below are provided a number of tips which should help in your SEO using the content on your site.

1.                  You should have at least 200 words of copy on each page of your site.  Although this may be difficult at times, search engines really like it, so it is important that you increase the amount of copy where you are able to. Generally speaking, once you surpass 1,000 words, the search engines will pretty much stop looking…so no need to get too long, unless the desired action you want from the visitor requires it.

This text, wherever possible, should include your most important keyword phrases, but should still remain logical and easy to read by visitors to the site.

2.                  Ensure that you use the phrases which you have used in the other tags on the pages during this part of the optimization process.

3.                  Add additional copy filled pages to the site, such as how to articles, tips or tutorials.  Not only do these types of pages help with SEO, but you may find that other sites will link to yours.

These tips should not be ignored, as optimizing your page copy (content) is one of the most important things you could possibly do in order to improve your rankings in the Search Engines.
 

How to Determine the Keyword Selection for Your Site

How to Determine the Keyword Selection for Your Site


Making a website attractive to search engines is a key factor for its success.  One of the key ways in which to rank well with search engines is by optimizing the visible keywords on the pages.   But in order to be successful in your keyword strategy campaign, you should use the following two steps.

Keyword Selection
You will need to determine what your pages are offering and also determine which words that your potential visitors might use in order to search for the pages of your site.  You then need to create keywords which are based on those words.

For the full optimization of keywords on your site you should use between 3 to 5 keywords on the appropriate pages.  It is vital that you start using them from the top left and then down.  Many times you will find that this will be the first 200 words on each page of your site which will include the title tag, headings, abstract etc.

So the closer to the top left of your page the keywords are placed then the more weight they will be given by Google.  Often, visitors will view your site in the same way that the search engine spider’s do, so emphasizing your keywords from the top left and down is a good way to design a site.

However, if your pages are already built, you may be thinking it is too late to select your keywords.  But it’s not.  It does not matter if you choose your keywords before or after the site has gone live (although it is better to do it before, as then you will not need to rewrite the text on the pages).  But if it is live, then you may have the keywords, but they may not be the right ones.  Yet they could be and you have not fully utilized their optimization value.  So, if you wish, by using a thorough keyword selection process, you can make sure that they keywords you are using are optimized to their fullest extent.

Also, another issue where keyword selection is concerned is you need to determine whether the keyword is too popular or competitive.  So if you find sites that are already competing for high rankings using particular keywords, then you may need to select more specific keywords instead.    This can also be said for keywords which have several different meanings as well.  Therefore it is important that you look how users will search for your pages, and which specific questions the content of your pages actually answers.  So whenever possible, refine the keywords that you use in order to answer these questions.

But whenever you are refining your keywords, it is important that you keep in mind that a large portion of searches carried out on the net contain three words or more.  So when people are searching for answers on the internet, they will often phrase their search term as a question.  Therefore many people will not use search words that describe the solution to a question.  So in order to optimize your pages to their full extent, it is best if you think like the person who is searching.

Check out the Competition
This is a great way of getting ideas, and you do this by carrying out a search using keywords that you already know, and that you would like to target.  Then click through the top sites that come up as a result of this search.  Then once on the site, view their source HTML code and view the keywords that they have in their Meta tags.  But it is important that you remember to use those keywords which relate to your site or page.  It is easy to view a sites HTML code, all you do is click on the “View” button at the top of your web browser page and then select “Source” or “Page Source”.

By developing a list of keyword phrases, you should be able to optimize each page of your site for the search engines.

What is the Basic Link Structure within a Site

What is the Basic Link Structure within a Site


This is probably the most obvious, but certainly one of the most overlooked aspects of search engine optimization.  This helps to make sure that search engine spiders can actually find (crawl) all of your site’s pages.  But if they can not find them, then they won’t get spidered, and this means that they won’t get indexed.  In fact, no amount of search engine optimization you try will help.

Below are some points that should be taken note of in respect of link structure for your site.

Spiders can not see links which are accomplished by JavaScript.  This is because, as far as search engines will be concerned, they do not exist.  So if you want spiders to follow the links on your site, do not use JavaScript.  In fact, you will find that Google will not spider any URL if it looks like it has a session ID in it.  So any URL’s that have a longish number or odd characters (such as a question mark) in them should be avoided (these are often dynamic URL’s). 

It is important that you make sure that all pages link to at least one other page.  Pages which do not link out are known as “dangling links”.  It is important that you structure the internal links so that targeted search terms are reinforced.  So make sure that you organize your links so that your topic’s sub topic pages are linked to it (ensuring that you use the right link text that is specific to the page being linked to) and vice versa.  See below for the different types of methods we mean.

Link Text (<a href=”url”>some link text</a>
This is one of the 2 most important elements to ensure good rankings for a site.  It can either be on pages within the site, or on other sites’ pages.  But which ever way you do it, it is important that it is included.  It is vital that you include the target page’s main search term in the link text.  Also, whenever possible, do not use identical text for every link that links to a page.  But if you can include the target page’s main search term in the link text instead.

In fact, links will carry more weight with search engines if the text around them is concerned with the target page’s topic and search term(s).

Title Tag <title>some title words</title>
This is probably second most important element in order to get good rankings for a site.  It is important that you make sure the page’s search term is contained within this tag.  So place it as near to the front as possible while ensuring that the title reads well.  In fact, there is nothing wrong with you placing the search term up front on its own and then follow it with a period such as “Page Rank. Google Page Rank and how do I make the most of it?”  As you can see, the target search term here is of course “Page Rank”.  But what you should obviously do is make sure that each page’s title tag is different from the title tags on your site’s other pages.

Description Tag <meta name=”description” content=”a nice description”>
You will find that some search engines, such as Google no longer display the description like they use to.  But no matter what, you should include this on each page for those search engines that do.  There are even the odd times when Google will actually display them.  So it is vital that you write a description that is appealing and incorporates the page’s search term into it at least once but preferably twice is better.  So if you can, place one at the start or as near to the start of the description as possible.

Keywords Tag <meta=”keywords” content=”some keywords”>
It is important to remember that the keywords tag is never actually treated by search engines as keywords.  They will be treated as text on a page.  Although this tag is not effective as it used to be, there is no reason to leave it out.  Instead, make sure that you put in plenty of relevant keywords and include the search term once at the front of the tag. Also, you do not need to separate keywords or key phrases with commas (as is often done) as search engines ignore these.

H Tag <Hn>some heading words</Hn>
The “n” in this tag represents a number from 1 to 6.  The biggest heading is represented by 1.  You will find that H tags are given more weight than ordinary text in a page, and so the bigger the H size, the more weight it will have.  So it is important that you include your target search term in the H tags at least once on the page, but if possible two or three times is even better.  Also place your first H Tag as near to the top of the site page as possible.

Bold Text
This gives more weight to a page than ordinary text, but not as much as an H Tag does.  So where ever possible, enclose the search term in bold tags occasionally where it appears on the page.

Normal Text
Whenever possible, use the search term as often as you can on the pages of your site.  But ensure that they do not detract from how the page actually reads.  Ensure that you use the term once or twice in the very early pages of the body text, and then as often as possible throughout.  If you need to, reword small parts and add sentences to ensure that the search term is well represented in the text for good search engine optimization.

But you will probably find that each word you have in your search term will be found separately on the page.  So, if you need to, add a few of them throughout the page.

Alt Text <img src=”url” alt=”some alt text which is displayed or mouseover”>
Include your search term in the alt text of all images on your pages.  It is important to remember that some systems, such as those used by Braille readers and speech synthesizers, use the alt text.  So it may be advisable to make them usable while including the search term.

So in summary what you need to do is as follows:-

1.                Select the main search terms you wish to use.
2.                Allocate these search terms to a suitable existing page, and if you need to, split pages.
3.                Organize your internal links, and then link text, to suit the target search terms and their pages.
4.                If you can, organize those links from other pages to suit the target search terms and their pages also.
5.                Now organize all the on page elements in order that they suit each page’s target search term.
6.                Finally, now sit back and watch your site’s page rankings begin to improve.