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Wednesday, May 16, 2007

Vital Tips for Improving SEO Visibility


Vital Tips for Improving SEO Visibility
by Amit Mishra
Presently, for most of the internet surfers Search engine is no more an unidentified phrase. Search engines are the most convenient and the easiest tool for retrieving information from the World Wide Web. Nearly every internet users take search engines as their primary source of searching information. Search engine index consists, millions of web pages containing a wide-range of subject matters and encompassing numerous advanced search criterion. Search engine algorithms are specially programmed for sorting and synthesizing relevant information together for further retrievals. When cyber users look for any information through search engines, they select the web pages which are very relevant to the theme of the search query. When people search information through World Wide Web, they generally use evocative words in place of brand name or terms. For example, while searching for “the most affordable flight”, searchers tend to use “cheap air price” for a key-phrase. Hence, if a company offers flight services, then it has to optimize its website on the basis of the searched key-phrase, i.e., “cheap air price”. It is true that if your website is not optimized on those appropriate keywords, then your page will not be displayed in the search engine results page (SERP) when searchers search for that particular keyword. In general, visitors give more significance to the first top 10 search results. Because, there is an impression that the results which are displayed among top 10 are the best sites in that particular field. So, all the webmasters try to boost their SEO visibility to attract more targeted visitors to their website. So, webmasters should use search-engine-friendly content and keywords to get higher ranking in search engine result pages (SERP). Here are some of the vital tips to increase SEO visibility of your website. • Content plays a very significant role in getting better search engine ranking. Keyword research is very necessary to write good content. While selecting keywords for your website, try to find out the words that people use when they search in the World Wide Web. So optimize your content with your most targeted keywords. It will help you to get a better search engine ranking. • To increase the SEO visibility of your website you can write quality articles for your own website as well as for others. • While designing your website, keep search engines as well as your targeted customers in your mind and build it accordingly to attract both of them. • Press releases help you to increase the number of inbound-links to your website and it will increase your SEO visibility. Click Here…. So always send out optimized press releases because an optimized press release can easily get listed in different search engines, news engines and other relevant website. • This is one of the best methods to increase your SEO visibility - write blogs and post them in different blog sites; your brand will appear everywhere and you will get more number of back links. • Always avoid, unethical search engine optimization methods which may cause search engines to penalize your site or may get banned by search engines.

Search engine marketing firms

Search engine marketing firms
by Chris Tremblay
If you're a webmaster, maybe you'd love to find a search engine marketing firm that'll take care of your website and get you listed #1 for a popular keyword, for a mediocre fee.
Life isn't always that easy. Handing your search engine optimization to a firm won't get you ranked #1 for a particular keyword overnight. Like most things in life, getting a high rank requires work and patience.
If you get a search engine marketing firm to work on your website, you will save time and most probably see good results. However, results always take time before they come and you might have to wait 6 months for a visible amount of traffic to arrive at your website thanks to a search engine marketing firm you hired. Click Here….
With a search engine marketing firm however comes a steep price - you could be paying $5 000 for work to be done on your website. This is a big price, and most of us mediocre webmasters don't have that kind of cash to spill into a website.
Also, because search engine marketing firms don't give you guarantees, it's not always certain you'll get the ranking you want. If you find a firm that gives you a guarantee, I suggest you stay away from them. They will either get you a #1 ranking for a term that nobody searches for or they'll simply run away with your money.
Currently, your website is probably ranked #1 for a certain key phrase and you probably don't even know about it. If you take the title of the site and search for it in Google, you'll probably be ranked #1. However, no one searches for that key phrase and therefore you haven't advanced much. Some search engine marketing firms will simply find a key phrase that you rank #1 in and say they've done their work.
Make sure you choose a good search engine marketing firm if you want to work with one, and if you have the investment required. Look for a firm that is very professional and that has a good reputation.
For those who don't have the money to hire a search engine marketing firm, I suggest you do your SEO by yourself with the help of SEO software.
Today, there are many SEO software application that can automate almost all the tasks you need to be doing. Imagine all the time you'd be saving if you had an application that would:
-Analyse your competition -Get Link partners -Tell you which link partners hurt your website -Make sure your link partners are linking back to you -Tell you which pages of your site are indexed, what rank, and for what term, constantly
And these are just the tip of the iceberg to what SEO software can do today. If you're looking to do some SEO on your website, you absolutely need an SEO software.
I suggest SEO Elite to all my clients. It is one of the most powerful SEO software out there.

Google Wants to Stop Backlink Selling - Another Myth from Big G?

Google Wants to Stop Backlink Selling - Another Myth from Big G?
by Nick Bokhonok
Google reports to initiate the work over the changes in its algorithm to make sure that backlink selling (for SEO purposes) fades away.
I am not going to dispute about the morality of purchasing backlinks for SEO purposes in this article, because this is a subject for another very long discussion.
But let's try to answer a simple question...
Can Google Invent Any Algo to Stop Backlink Selling?
Right now Google offers to report sites that are selling backlinks, and they will use this info to find out some algo to fight it.
Google is not saying how exactly they will fight backlink selling, but I think the wisest idea would be to simply not count backlinks (in terms of rank calculation) if the site is reported for heavy backlink selling. This should make the purchase of links not interesting for webmasters and break the whole trend of buying links for the sake of SEO.
BUT...
How can Google tell good links (real links) from bad links (paid links made for the sake of SEO)?
I personally know many super reputable webmasters' forums that sell backlinks. (!) Intermingled with real backlinks (!). That makes impossible to invent some algo that will tell good links from the bad links. Because - when done wisely - all backlinks look super natural.
So, if it's impossible to invent this algo, this means sites that sell backlinks in a wise way are out of threat. And Google will be catching only stupid link farms and greedy average sites that create piles of backlinks. Click Here….
It looks like Google most probably will make a big public punishment for some minors - and that's it. Big sites will be still selling the backlinks. And webmasters will be still buying the backlinks.
It's highly possible that Google creates the buzz trying to threat naive webmasters and scare them away from buying links.

Sunday, May 13, 2007

how to hire an SEO firm

by Manish Mathukiya)

While Search Engine optimization (SEO) is very important to your web site, especially if you want to expand your web site's exposure, you need to make sure that it is done properly. Your web site cannot afford to fall victim to the bad practices of SEO. Also, if you pay for a Search Engine company to do your SEO work for you, then your wallet cannot afford this either. So, do be careful that you do not pay too much money for too few results. You also need to be sure that you do not fall prey to bad SEO techniques. In order to ensure that this does not happen, there are some really important steps that you should take before you hire a company or an individual to do SEO work for your web site. These steps include:

1. Before you even talk to this SEO person or firm, you are going to need to find out how well-known and experienced they are. Make sure that you ask them for their list of clients and whether any of them are available for you to talk to. You should then contact these clients to find out if they were satisfied with the SEO work that this person or firm did for them.

2. Spend some time examining their portfolio so that you will know what kind of results they have accomplished.

3. Make sure that you have them explain to you how they are going to optimize your web site so that those people who are using your keywords in the major Search Engines are able to find your site. Stay away from those techniques that Search Engines consider spam: using doorway pages, hiding text in the background, utilizing re-directs and other such methods that have been blacklisted.

4. You should get at least 3 proposals, all from different SEO companies or people. Then you will need to look at these very carefully so that you can see if there are any similarities. This will help you to know who is being honest with you and who is trying to sell you something that is not going to work. You will also be able to look at the different prices that you would be charged. Of course, you will need to remember that the cheapest service is not always the best service. On the other hand, the highest priced service may not be offering you a complete and feasible course of action. So, you need to try to find a service that is going to give you what you want within the price range that you can afford.

5. Before you even pay for the service, you need to make sure that you get everything in writing. You will then need to read through this document very carefully to make sure that it covers everything that you have discussed, including what methods will be used to achieve the results you want. Once you are sure that you have read and agreed to these documents, you will want to have them signed by both parties. (For very large jobs, you may wish to consult with a lawyer before signing anything.)

6. Be sure that you clearly state what the terms of payment are going to be. While you are not going to find any SEO person or service who is willing to do work for free or work that will be paid on a performance basis. However, most will not shy away from a base plus performance incentive package. You also should not pay for everything up front. Instead, you should pay 50% up front, then 50% once the work was completed. All of this should be as clearly defined in your contract as is possible so that everyone who is involved will be protected, just in case expectations are not met.

What it all boils down to is that you need to have a basic understanding of SEO terminology and methodology.

Sunday, April 29, 2007

Monitor Your Online Exposure with Google Alerts


by Dean Chafee
Would you like to be alerted daily about new sites, blogs or newsgroups that may have popped up that refer to you or your website?
Google has a feature called Google Alerts that can do just that. This is a great way to stay aware of your "internet footprint" and possibly protect your reputation and/or identity.
It's easy. If you have a Google account, sign in and click on the My Account link at the upper right. In your list of Services, click on the Alerts link. Here you can create a new Google Alert with the search terms, type (areas to search), how often including "as-it-happens", and your email address. Click the Create Alert button. That's it. Now every time new Google content matches your search terms you will receive an email about it.
If you don't currently have a Google Account, you will need to sign up for one to use this feature. Simply go to www.google.com and click the Sign In link in the upper right corner, then click the 'Create an account now' link. The sign up is quick and easy and you can take advantage of other Google account features like Personalized Home and Search History which are also very useful.
I suggest creating at least one alert for your full name, and make sure to enclose it in quotes for proper results, and another for each web site you own and/or operate. For example, I receive a daily search results for my name "Dean Chafee" and another for my primary website "www.howtofixyourstuff.com".
You can also use this feature for tracking news about your favorite sports figure or celebrity.
This is actually very informative to see who may have picked up one of my published articles or created a link to my website. The daily search gives you an incremental result that is, at least for my small footprint, very easy to manage.
Try it, you'll like it!
About the Author
Get your fix at www.HowToFixYourStuff.com. A community of People Helping People Fix Stuff.


13 Dos and 6 Don'ts of Article Marketing That Will Produce Better Results

http://www.myaffiliate-program.blogspot.com

by Mike Bradbury
Over the past year or two, every SEO, Blogger, and Website Promoter has heard about the wonders of article distribution and the positive results that articles can yield for an otherwise unknown website.

The purpose of article marketing is three fold:

1.) Get your name out there as an expert
2.) Get traffic from links within your article
3.) Increase your search engine link popularity
In all three cases, the more highly distributed your article, the higher the likelihood of your articles achieving each goal. In this article I examine the dos and don'ts of article marketing and reveal a few secrets that will land you more back links and higher traffic from your article submissions.

WHAT TO EXPECT
If this is your first time submitting articles, you may be bubbling over with anticipation. Calm down. Not to say that article marketing is without benefit, but for those of you who think you've found the Holy Grail of site visibility, you're in the wrong place.

Pertaining to the three goals mentioned above, here is what you can expect:
Making an Expert of Yourself - Don't expect to be getting calls from conference coordinators asking you to speak at their annual event in Las Vegas. But hey, it looks good on a resume, right?
Sending Traffic to Your Website -Sadly, the site traffic you receive directly from articles is pretty small. You can maximize it by tweaking the ways you submit, but don't buy a car with plans to pay it off using article-generated AdSense revenue. For that matter, don't buy a sandwich.
Link Popularity and Search Engine Rankings - Article marketing's saving grace. If you know how to optimize a page on your site as well as the links in your articles, you will see improvement in ranking.

THE DOS OF ARTICLE MARKETING
Write something unique... but not too unique. Most experts will tell you that in order to achieve success in article marketing, you must write on a topic that hasn't been covered. However, if that means writing an article which is so specific that only 19 people in the world will find it relevant, like "24 Ways to Pet a Brittany Spaniel," you won't have success either. SO...
Put a new spin on an old subject. If you can't write something "unique," put your spin on something old.
Write something useful.
Make it scannable. You want people to make it to the end of your article and click on those precious signature links, right? Well then, make sure they can get to the end of the thing. Use sub-headers. Use bulleted lists. Use HTML. Increase the amount of traffic you're getting by making your article scannable.
Optimize your links. Whenever possible, optimize your links for the search engines. This means either placing important keywords in the anchor text of your signature links or placing them close to the URL in situations where anchor text is not permitted.
Deep link. I have found that links from articles usually don't yield site authority with the search engines, but they do help search engines define what term your page should be ranked for. A highly optimized page with highly optimized links from articles pointing to it can often find its way to the top, regardless of a site's authority.
Write conversationally. The Internet is like totally laid back, man. Use it to your advantage and connect with your audience by keeping things conversational.
Proof read. And then do it again. And then have someone else do it. And then one more time for good measure.
Make it 600 - 900 words long.
Use an automated form-filler. I use a program called Fireform. It cuts my submission time to seconds instead of minutes. Google it.
Submit a "How-To." And don't hold back. The more in-depth, the better.
Submit a list. If there is one thing I've learned from VH1, it's that people love lists.
Write your article to adhere to the submission guidelines of as many directories as possible. The less you have to go customize any individual submission for a specific directory, the more directories you'll submit to.

THE DON'TS OF ARTICLE MARKETING
DON'T Use affiliate links. Most directories won't publish an article laced with affiliate links and most content publishers won't either. We've already established that articles don't drive traffic, so by placing affiliate links in your article, you're really just robbing yourself of search engine backlinks.
DON'T Sell your company. Don't sell your products either. In fact, try your best not to even mention who you work for in the body of your article. Writing an article to sell a product diminishes the credibility of that article as well as its chances of being republished.
DON'T Use an automated article submission service or program. There are far too many variations between article directories to effectively automate submissions. Your success rate will plummet if you use a service like this.
DON'T Use links in the article body. Many article directories don't allow links in the body of the article, making them one more piece to customize from directory to directory.
DON'T Re-word someone else's article. First, it's plagiarism, or, as they call it in the grown-up world, copyright infringement. Second, articles like these are easy to pick out and will have lower success rates.
DON'T Get discouraged. You probably won't see search engine improvements for a month, but they will come. Instead of checking the SERPs every 10 minutes for signs of improvement, write and distribute another article. Don't give up.

Remember, the idea is to manipulate the system in such a way that your articles are published and republished as often as possible. By following this simple guide, you'll be on your way to achieving that goal.



About the Author
This article was written by Mike Bradbury. Mike is an SEO Analyst for Objectware, Inc, an Atlanta SEO, Ecommerce Solution and Atlanta Web Design Company.



Thursday, April 12, 2007

Attracting Visitors to your Profitable Home Based Business Using Links

Attracting Visitors to your Profitable Home Based Business Using Links
http://www.MoneyExpertReviews.com/MyEnterprise
by Liane Bate
When you own a profitable home based business, one of the biggest things you need to consider is gathering up links from other sites, and posting your links on other websites. The main reasons for this are to get more traffic to your site, and to increase your link popularity, or "link pop".
Link popularity is a measure of the number of links that point from other sites back to your site. The more back-links you have, the greater your traffic and possibly sales may be.
Link popularity is not the same thing as Google Page Rank, or PR. Page Rank is more a reflection of the quality of links pointing back to your site. This can be important too, but many webmasters would say that PR is not as important as focusing on making your site easy to use, read, and navigate for the average visitor.
If link popularity creates traffic for you, and helps you build a profitable home based business, then you really want to focus on attracting visitors to your site by making sure the URL to your website is posted on many other sites.
First of all, there are websites that will calculate your link pop for you if you type in "Link popularity checker" into Google's search box. If you visit one of those sites, you will be asked to type in your URL and it will give you the number of links you have in Google, MSN, and Yahoo.
There are many ways to spread your links around the internet. One of the ways is by doing another Google search for blogs and guest-books related to your website's topics. For example, if you own a profitable home based business website, you could enter the terms "profitable home based business" and follow that by "blogs" or "guest-books".
This will bring up a list of sites for you to visit and post comments on their blogs or guest-books related to the content of their blog or site. You want the comment to be useful, helpful, and related so that you are not accused of spamming. You also want to be sure to add your URL if allowed. Adding your URL will increase your link pop.
You can also attract visitors to your website by spreading your links around discussion forums on your website's niche. The same concept applies to forums that you must be very careful not to spam them with useless comments like "Oh, very nice. Now visit my site". Comments like these can get you banned. Make useful posts and in the signature file at the end you may leave your URL, and again your link pop will go up.
Finally, one of the best ways to make yourself a profitable home based business using links is by writing original articles and posting them to article directories around the internet. It's best to use an article distribution service so that your articles get to thousands of publishers who may use your article in their newsletter or on their blog.
In the signature file, you can again leave a link to your site. You can easily get hundreds of quality one-way back-links by using this method alone. The key is quality here. Write a useful article with information that will help others. In the link box, you can say something about yourself, and your business, and use keywords to link back to your site that give the readers a compelling reason to click.
If you make a consistent effort to build your profitable home based business by posting your link on other's sites, especially quality sites, then you may literally be "in business"! Consistency is key. If you get into a routine of commenting on blogs, guest-books, forums, and writing articles on a daily or weekly basis, you will soon have a very high link pop that leads to more traffic and sales!

Advantages of Using CSS in SEO Campaigns


by Adriana Iordan
Nowadays, when everybody is interested in getting the highest rankings possible for their sites with the search engines, it seems that the era of tables-based web sites is getting closer and closer to its end. CSS programming appears to hold the upper hand in this race for SEO, and it gains more ground as its popularity increases. What is CSS? Cascading Style Sheet is a web tool that can be utterly necessary if you want to give a professional, qualitative look to your site. It is recommended by W3C, who manages the standards for the Internet, in order to add style (e.g. fonts, colors, spacing, padding, alignment, etc.) to web documents. The style sheet is more and more used presently due to its usefulness and its advantages that are far from minor: it mainly allows to dissociate the content and the presentation of web pages, which makes them compatible for various browsers, and also accessible to people with disabilities (who must use accessibility readers), to PDAs or to WAP. Benefits of Using CSS for SEO Among the most common examples of CSS usage there are the modification of the colors of hovered links, text placement, establishing the spacing between words, and the modification of border size and style. The style sheets can be inserted directly into the HTML code of each page, but they can also be written on a different page, in an external file (.css). This second solution is by far the best one, primarily because it holds undeniable advantages such as: • The HTML code on each page is much cleaner • The CSS file is cached from the very beginning, and this speeds up the load time for the next pages • The update process can be performed much faster: it suffices to modify a single file to change the entire site, no matter the number of its pages. It is quite easy to see the close connection between search engine optimization and CSS. Style sheets will help you decrease the file size of your web pages, and will give you the opportunity to use more text and links than regular HTML, without being constantly afraid of spamming the search engines. Here is what you can achieve with CSS: 1. Reduced file-size While "traditional" HTML is overcharged with tags that offer to search engine spiders both the content and the presentation on the same page, CSS actually allows you to clean up your code and separate these two. By including the styling of the text in a separate file, you can dramatically decrease the file-size of your pages. Also, the content-to-code ratio is far greater than with simple HTML pages, thus making the page structure easier to read for both the programmer and the spiders. It is also possible to avoid using JavaScript for rollovers and mouseovers. With CSS you can define the visual effect that you want to apply to images, instead of using images per say. The space you gain this way can be used for text that is relevant for spiders (i.e. keywords), and you will also lower the file-size of the page. 2. Less load time If you have a web site with lots of traffic, slow-loading pages will not make your life easier. The benefit of having low file-size pages translates into reduced bandwidth costs. CSS can help you save some money by offering you the following advantages: • If the presentation information is placed in an external CSS file, this will be accessed only once, when the homepage is loaded. The CSS file will be cached on the user's computer, and the other pages of the site, that use the same CSS file, will load much faster. • Images can be set as backgrounds. They will load faster than images placed between HTML tags. • As opposed to tables, CSS needs less code, which means that browsers will read and display page content faster than they would in the case of tables-based pages. 3. Faster update Since CSS brings forth a simplification of the code on each page, they are much faster to read and changes can be performed easier. HTML code that needs to be modified is easier to track, and a simple change in the presentation of an element in the CSS file will reflect in all the pages where that particular element is present, without being necessary to update each and every page separately. 4. Increased browser compatibility CSS-based web sites are compatible with PDA and mobile phone browsers. Also, people with various disabilities (mainly visual) use what are called "accessibility readers", that translate the HTML code into various formats that contain no HTML tags. When translated, traditional, pure HTML stands many chances of being turned into something that does not make much sense to the impaired visitor. CSS, on the other hand, properly combined with HTML, can render useless the elimination of the HTML tags, and therefore make the reorganization of the content for readability unnecessary. 5. Higher rankings with the search engines CSS improves the readability of your pages. Search engines spider will be able to index your pages much faster, as the important information can be placed higher in the HTML document. Also, the amount of relevant content will be greater than the amount of code on a page. The search engine will not have to look too far in your code to find the real content. You will be actually serving it to the spiders "on a platter". CSS will help you create highly readable pages, rich in content, which will prove extremely helpful in your SEO campaign. As you very well know, better site ranking means better visibility on the web, and this can translate into more visitors and, ultimately, into increased sales or number of contracts. The Caveat of CSS CSS and SEO make a good pair when it comes to potentially gaining more income, based on a clean, well-built web site. Nevertheless, there is a very important matter that you should consider when using CSS in order to optimize your web site: never use CSS in order to hide text. It is quite common practice to attempt to offer different versions of text on a web page: one that is harder to read - to spiders, and a friendlier one - to human web readers. Most of the times, search engines will perceive this as cloaking, and even if it's made with the best intentions in mind, it could actually pass as spamming. Consequently, your site can be penalized and even banned for such practices. Conclusions The bottom line would be that CSS is much easier to understand and to optimize than simple HTML. It simplifies both the work of the SEO professional, as well as that of the programmer. CSS programming means providing the site with the ability of faster updates in the future, of faster information transfer, and brings along the advantage of a simple code for search engines. If we think only about the fact that keywords can be highlighted on a page without negatively affecting its look, the page file-size decreases, the code becomes cleaner and more readable, and the bandwidth costs are diminished by lowering the page load time, then it would be safe to say that there is virtually no limit in the series of advantages of using CSS in SEO campaigns. Copyright © 2007, www.avangate.com all rights reserved. This article was written by Adriana Iordan, Web Marketing Manager at Avangate B.V. Avangate is a complete ecommerce provider for shareware sales incorporating an easy to use and secure online payment system plus additional software marketing services and sales tools.

Wednesday, April 4, 2007

SEO Tips: Onpage and Offpage Optimizations


by Alan Liew

A website that has not been optimized for the purpose of search engine ranking will rank very far behind in search engines. If you want to see your website ranks high in major search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN, search engine optimization is a must. Imagine what will happen if your website ranks 1st in Google for a popular search term. Well, most probably Google will bring a lot of free targeted traffic to your website every day which may skyrocket your product\'s sales, affiliate commission or Adsense earning. There are two types of search engine optimizations: 1) On-page Optimization 2) Off-page Optimization On-page Optimization On-page optimization is the process of structuring or changing the elements on your webpage so that it can be found by search engines for specific keyword(s). The on-page elements or factors that you need to change in order to improve your website\'s positions in search engines include title Tag, header tags, page content, alt tag, meta description tag and meta keywords tag. Title Tag/Page Title Title tag is the tag that defines the text in the top line of a web browser. The title tag is probably the most important on-page factor because search engines usually use the title tag to provide a link to the sites which match the query made by the user. Thus, Adding your main keywords to the title tag will definitely boost your website\'s rankings. Let\'s use the following keywords as an example: a) Make Money Online b) Make Extra Money The title tag for your webpage should look like this: Make Money Online Make Extra Money The \"\" character can be added by holding the shift key on your keyboard and pressing the backslash key above the enter key. You should limit your keywords to a maximum of 3 on each webpage because too many keywords in a title tag may be seen as spamming by search engines. Don\'t start off with highly popular keywords because these keywords usually in fierce competitions and it can take several years for your website to rank top in search engines. Try to start off with keywords that have less than 10,000 monthly searches. Header Tags The H1 header tag will be used as the title of the content on the webpage. As search engines read pages from top to bottom, so the H1 tag should contain your most important keyword and it should be placed at the top of the page which will be seen by your visitors. If you need to add a sub-heading for your webpage, you can create a H2 header tag and include your second most important keyword into the H2 tag. Page Content Use your keywords throughout the page content in natural ways. Try to include your primary keywords within the first or second sentence of your content. Do not over use your keywords in your content. One or two times for a big paragraph is more than enough. Alt Tag The alt tag of your images should contain your keywords. Don\'t add similar keywords to each image as search engines may see them as spam. Meta Description Tag Search engines will use your meta description tag as the short description of your website listed in their search result pages. Thus writing a keywords-rich description will surely help in improving your website\'s position. The length of your description should not be too long, 2 to 3 sentences will be enough and the description should be encouraging people to click the link to your website. Meta Keywords Tag Meta keywords tag may have been completely ignored by Google and other search engines but not Yahoo. Yahoo is still encouraging webmasters to use meta keywords tag for improving the rankings of their websites. You can visit http://help.yahoo.com/help/us/ysearch/ranking/ranking-02.htm to read more about Yahoo\'s webmaster guidelines. Add all your keywords to the tag in order of importance and don\'t repeat the same keyword. On-page optimization will improve your website\'s positions but you can\'t achieve top rankings with on-page optimization only. To get your website to the top, off-page optimization is needed. In fact it is the off-page optimization that can get your website to the top. But this does not mean that on-page optimization can be ignored because off-page optimization is far more effective when on-page optimization is in place. Off-page Optimization Off-page optimization concentrates on increasing the number of backlinks. Backlinks or inbound links mean the links to your website from other websites. The more websites linking to your site, the higher your website\'s positions will be. There are actually two types of backlinks: 1) One-way link - A relevant website links to your webpage without requiring a link back from you. 2) Reciprocal link - The owner of a relevant website agree to place a link to your website and in exchange you provide a link back to the owner. Search engines weight more heavily on one-way links than reciprocal links. Other important off-page factors you need to pay attention are: 1) Anchor text used in the link pointing to your website. 2) The Google page rank (PR) of the website linking to you. Anchor Text When you exchange link with another site, you will need to provide your website\'s title that will be placed on the link exchange partner\'s website. The website\'s title will be a clickable link to your website and the clickable link is called anchor text. You anchor text should contain your targeted keyword. Google Page Rank (PR) You can see the Google page rank of a website using Google toolbar. Here\'s the link to download and install Google toolbar. http://www.google.com/tools/firefox/toolbar/index.htm Page rank shouldn\'t be ignored when building backlinks. The more high page rank relevant websites (websites that have content related yours) linking to you the faster your website will reach top ranking in Google. In order to rank high, you need to build as many backlinks as possible. But don\'t grow your backlinks too fast as Google may de-index your website for this reason. There are no specified guidelines by Google of how many inbound links you can build daily. Based on my experience it is safe to have 5 to 10 backlinks per day. There are several ways to get backlinks to your site. Here\'s how...... Send Link Exchange Requests to Potential Links Partners Before starting a link exchange campaign. You need to create a link directory that will be used to provide a link back to your potential link partners. Your website is ready to exchange link with other webmasters once the directory created. You can find your potential link partners by searching on major search engines like Google and Yahoo for your targeted keywords and then visit each website in top 100 or top 200 listings. Make sure that the site you are requesting a link exchange related to yours. When a potential link partner has been found, you will want to go ahead and add your potential partner\'s link to the appropriate category in your site\'s link directory and then send an email to the potential link partner stating: a) That you have linking to your potential link partner. b) A direct link to the page where the potential link partner listing can be found. c) How it would benefit to the potential link partner\'s if linking to you. d) Your linking details. To achieve better result, you should not get backlinks to your home page only. Try to get links pointing to your other webpages too. Also use more than one keyword anchor text. Article Marketing Writing several articles and submitting them to article directories for publication is a great way to build one-way links. By including a link to your website in your articles resource box, you not only gain quality one-way links but also drive free targeted traffic to your site. Your articles may drive truckloads of traffic if they are impressive. There are hundreds of article directories if not thousands. You can find them by going to Google and entering the search term \'article directories\'. Directories Submitting your website\'s link to directories is another way of getting backlinks. Directories normally offer 3 types of listings: 1) Paid listing 2) Free listing 3) Free listing but require a link back from you. If you choose the first or third option and your website meets the submission guidelines and rules of the directories, your link will usually be listed within days. If you select the second option, you have to wait longer and your website\'s listings aren\'t guaranteed. Getting listed in quality directories with Google page rank 7 or higher such as DMOZ and Yahoo directory can be more beneficial for increasing your rankings than a lot of links from smaller and newer directories. But it is not easy to be accepted by these quality directories. Press Release Press release is simply an announcement of an important event for your business. Just like article marketing, you can gain one-way links by writing a press release with a link pointing to your site and submitting it to other websites. To find websites that accept press release, you can go to Google and enter the search term \'submit press release\'. Affiliate Program If you are selling a product or a membership service, launching an affiliate program is a good idea to increase both your inbound links and online sales. Webmasters that are interested to market your product will place your link on their websites and you get free one-way links.

Friday, March 23, 2007

The Myth of Rankings - Beyond Search Engine Optimization

by Scott Buresh
What follows is a condensed version of a conversation that happens all too frequently when I am approached by a prospect interested in search engine optimization (SEO):Prospect: We need our website optimized, because we aren't showing up for any searches.Me: What searches have you tried?Prospect: We don't show up for ANYTHING.Me: Why do you want to show up in searches?Prospect: Well, it seems like we should. Our competitors do, and our website is WAY better than theirs.Me: But, really, what would you stand to gain from showing up prominently in search engine results?Prospect: Well, we could get more people who are looking for our products or services to find out about us.Me: So, what you are saying is that increasing your search engine results could help you to increase sales and awareness?Prospect: Yes.Me: Now we're on the right track. Since your goals are to increase sales and awareness, have you thought about not only improving your search engine rankings, but also getting more people to take an action on your site that leads to a sale, getting more people to read your press releases or whitepapers so that they can consistently associate your company with your offering, or sending your prospects a regular newsletter to reinforce your name and expertise?Prospect: Didn't you hear me? Our website is great. We just don't show up for searches.And so it goes.A consistent problem with the "ranking-centric" mindset demonstrated above is that it doesn't reflect a powerful rationale for getting involved in SEO. Where is the true business case? What tangible results are desired? In general, if a prospect can't explain what he or she hopes to achieve beyond "higher rankings" or "more traffic," we'll first try to educate, and, if that person can't move beyond these base subjects, we'll kindly refer them elsewhere.More and more frequently, people are getting into SEO for the wrong reasons (and sometimes for no real reason at all). Achieving high rankings for targeted keyphrases, while an admirable and worthwhile goal, is really only a small piece of the entire online marketing puzzle. In this article, we'll discuss a few additional, but equally vital, pieces.Website ConversionWebsite conversion is the art and science of getting more of the people who come to your website to take the action that you want them to take - fill out your contact form, read your whitepapers, sign up for your newsletter, or (in the case of e-commerce) buy something. For a company that is trying to build offline business, this action is typically something that gets prospects into the sales pipeline through some form of online registration. For a company or organization that is trying to build awareness, this action can be a number of things - getting visitors to a certain page of the site, getting them to stay longer at the site, or getting them to tell a friend about the site. The critical point that is commonly overlooked in a ranking-centric mindset is that no number of high search engine positions will address the real problem if your website is not serving as an effective marketing and sales tool. And, as I have said many times before, the overall net effect of raising your conversion rate from one to two percent is the same net effect as doubling your traffic, and it is almost always easier. Increasing the number of visitors to a site that does not convert them effectively is like pumping high performance gasoline into a car with engine trouble - it might help the car to run a little bit better, but if you'd done repairs before adding the premium fuel, it really would have hummed.Online PRYour website is only one potential online destination where people can find out about your company, and a typical user will regard your site as an advertisement since you have complete control over the content. With optimized press releases and expert articles, however, you can have your company name mentioned on popular news sites and industry portals, where credibility is more inherent.Optimized Press ReleasesPress releases that are optimized to appear when certain terms are typed into news search engines are an excellent way to build name recognition and credibility. If someone is taking the time to look for news related to your industry, he or she is probably either in your business, learning about your market, or writing a piece about your industry. The last category is especially significant since a recent study* indicates that 98% of journalists go online daily, 92% use the Internet for article research, and 73% use it to find press releases. Whatever motivation a person has when he or she searches for news related to your industry, you want your company represented in the results.Expert ArticlesAnother great way to promote your expertise and business is to write expert articles and submit them to the leading online publications in your field. At least one person in your company is almost certainly an expert in your field - why not let everyone know that? A person that reads an expert article published on an industry portal, and who subsequently clicks through to the website (from the link in the expert's bio) is extremely targeted and already has a favorable impression of your company. Moreover, the same study cited above found that 76% of journalists go online to seek news sources or experts. When your company has demonstrated that you have experts on staff by publishing articles in credible, non-biased forums, the phone invariably starts to ring. Your experts will be asked to provide their opinions, quotes, or experiences for feature articles, often in prestigious industry publications. The benefits of this, of course, do not need explanation. A side benefit to both of the strategies above is thatthey increase the number of inbound links to your website and, therefore, can help greatly enhance your search engine rankings - which might be the primary reason you looked into SEO in the first place.NewslettersDirect mail was once considered a marketer's dream - but email newsletters can be much more effective. Imagine a direct mail list with a low delivery cost, where every single person on the list has shown an interest in receiving such mailings. Such is the nature of opt-in email newsletters. People have shown enough interest in your company, or, at least, in what your company has to say, to invite you to communicate with them on a regular basis. They are essentially giving you permission to keep yourself "first in mind" whenever they are considering your products or services. Such opportunities are rare in the marketing world. By combining the conversion principles you have applied to your website to your email newsletters, you can also get people to take an action that puts them into your sales pipeline without worrying about getting them to your website itself.ConclusionThese are only a few of the additional ways to expand an online initiative beyond a misdirected ranking-centric approach. Weblogs (or blogs) are often considered another new frontier in online marketing, and we haven't even touched on paid media opportunities such as banner ads or pay-per-click marketing. However, the three components mentioned above are important elements of a complete and successful online marketing initiative. An SEO campaign launched without considering them is like driving a four-cylinder car with only one cylinder firing - it will move, but you'd definitely reach your destination more quickly - and more smoothly - with all four.About the AuthorScott Buresh is managing partner of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing (www.mediumblue.com). His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ZDNet, WebProNews, MarketingProfs, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, and Search Engine Guide. He also contributed to Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue is an Atlanta search engine optimization company whose clients include DuPont and Boston Scientific.

How to Improve your Click Through Rate in Google AdWords

By Kalena Jordan
Like many people who earn their income via the Internet, I use affiliate programs to supplement my income. One of the affiliate products I promote (Proposal Kit) had been performing particularly well for me recently and I decided to help things along by creating a Google AdWords campaign based around my reviews of the product.After one month, the campaign was going ok, I was getting a few sales here and there and certainly making a good ROI on the promotion. However, although my Click Through Rate (CTR) was pretty good (1.2%), it was starting to slide backwards and I thought I could do better. As you probably know, your ad position in Google relies heavily on your CTR compared to your competitors, so I was keen to turn things around and keep my high ad positions.Around this time, I bought Nick Usborne's book Net Words and started to read it, taking notes as I went. I realized that according to Nick's philosophy, my AdWords ads were flat and boring. They were just not appealing enough to entice people to click on them. As Nick explains in his book, "Being blah guarantees you'll never be heard".So I set about re-writing some of my ad text to speak more directly to my audience and ask them a question that required a response. Below is an example of an ad targeting the search query "business proposal before I changed the text:
Business Proposal KitClose the sale with a professionalbusiness proposal template kit.
And here is the text I replaced it with:
Need a business proposal?Create your own professionalproposal with our template kit.
The aim was to get my average CTR for the entire campaign up to around 2% from the existing 1.2% it was sitting at.I logged off for the evening and went to bed, not expecting too much. The next morning, I had messages in my email in-box advising me that I had made 3 sales overnight! I was quite excited and logged into AdWords to see how things were going. Sure enough, my clicks were way up and two of the three AdGroups I had edited were showing an average 33% CTR! My overall campaign CTR had risen from 1.2% to 2.4%. I had never experienced CTR that high before. The ad I had changed used to show a 2.5% CTR and after a few days the changed ad displayed a 4.3% CTR.Taking note of the ads that had attracted the most clicks, I created more around related keywords and phrases, using similar headlines to the ads that were performing the best. This time, I incorporated Nick's advice to use short and punchy copy.Below is an example of an ad I was using to target the search query "seo contract" before I changed the text:
Sample SEO contractProposal Kit provides a perfect SEOcontract template. Read our review.
And here is the text I replaced it with:
Need an SEO contract?Create yours.Today.
After another week, my average CTR for the whole campaign jumped from 2.4% to 4% and I had a couple of ads showing 100% CTR! You can imagine how excited I was. Of course the high CTR builds on itself because the higher your CTR, the higher your ad position and the higher your ad position, the more clicks it is likely to attract. So my campaign had jumped from 1.3% in the first month, to 2.4% in the second month and after my fine-tuning, it's now showing a 4% CTR consistently. And the sales? Well I now average at least seven sales per week, up from two per week over the past 6 months and my affiliate commission is at an all time record.The exercise just goes to show that a few thoughtful tweaks to your ad copy can make a HUGE difference to your bottom line. So what are you waiting for? Go tweak that copy in your own campaigns...Copyright Ă‚© 2005 by Kalena Jordan. All rights reserved under U.S. and international law.-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-The above article may be re-published as long as the content remains unchanged and the following paragraph is included at the end of the article, including the URL links:Article by Kalena Jordan. As well as running her own SEO business Web Rank, Kalena Jordan manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Top 10 AdSense Tricks To Boost Your Commission

By Kalena Jordan
Source : www.searchenginecollege.com
Google AdSense is fast becoming the preferred way for people to earn an income online. Forget eBay and multiple affiliate programs - Whether you are a work-at-home mom trying to make a little extra cash or an Internet entrepreneur with hundreds of monetized websites, AdSense is truly the easiest way to earn money.Simply sign up for a free account, grab your ad code and paste it in your site. But here's the amazing thing - no matter how much money AdSense is making for you right now, a few simple tweaks can increase that amount considerably. And I should know, after learning about these tricks, I more than doubled my AdSense commissions!The self-proclaimed AdSense gurus and experts are sharing this insider knowledge, for a fee. You can learn all these secrets from them, as long as you buy their e-book, sign up for their seminar or purchase their newsletter. But I'm going to share all their AdSense tricks for free. Here they are:1) Color code your ads to match your web site palette *exactly*. Don't use frames around your ads. Instead, in the AdSense code generation interface, make sure you choose the same color as your page background for the ad frame and the ad background.When choosing the ad heading colors, match them to the *exact* color of your page headings. Use the exact same ad background shade as your page background. Use the exact same ad text font and color as the text on your pages. You can see an example of this color-matching on my search engine advice blog - notice the 4 link ad unit and skyscraper text ad unit on the left hand side under the headings Ads by Google as you scroll down the page? The link and text colors are identical to the color palette used throughout the rest of the page.Near enough is NOT good enough. If you can't quite get the color matching right, use Google's built in color palette together with the RGB to HEX or vice versa color converter on this page. That handy little tool was a life saver for me.This is probably the one single tweak that made the most difference to my commission levels.2) Try not to use the traditional horizontal banner style or leaderboard image ads because people are blind to them.3) Use Google's own AdSense optimization tips and visual heat map to assist you in deciding where on your page to place your AdSense ad code.4) Research competitive keywords using a keyword research tool such as Keyword Discovery or grab a list of the most popular keywords from various sources and use them in your web site pages where relevant. This article is a good source of frequently searched keywords. Targeting popular keywords should trigger AdSense ads on your pages that utilize those keywords. The more popular the keyword or phrase, the higher AdWords advertisers are generally willing to pay per click for it so the higher your commission on those clicks.5) Incorporate the AdSense code into your page so that the ads look like a regular part of your site. You can see an example of this on the Internet Dating Stories site where link ads are incorporated within the regular left hand navigation of the site under the heading "Sponsor Links".6) Use Google's new 4 and 5 link ad units wherever possible. They seem to have a much higher Click Through Rate (CTR) than regular ad styles. You can view all the AdSense ad formats here.7) Place images next to your ads to attract the eyes. You can see this in place on the search engine article library page at the bottom where 3 images draw your attention to the bottom of the page. But be careful here - the use of arrows or symbols enticing viewers to click are NOT allowed by Google and publishers may NOT label the Google ads with text other than "sponsored links" or "advertisements".8) Use the full allowance of multiple AdSense ads on each of your pages - 3 regular AdSense ads, plus 1 link unit. Use careful placement of these ads so they blend into your site and don't distract from your content. Clever use of this allowance can be seen on this page about bad Internet dating stories where you see:- 1 horizontal 4 link ad unit towards the top of the page under the first paragraph- 1 vertical skyscraper text ad unit about halfway down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"- 1 vertical skyscraper image ad unit down the left hand side under "Sponsor Links"- 1 horizontal text banner unit at the bottom of the page with images above each ad.You can also include 1 AdSense referral button in addition to the 3 other units.9) Tailor your page content to a particular niche or focus. Page content that is tailored towards a specific theme is more likely to trigger AdWords ads that closely match the content and are therefore more likely to interest your visitors and inspire them to click. DonĂ¢€™t create pages merely for the sake of placing AdSense ads. Visitors (and search engines) can see through this ruse in an instant.10) Use custom Ad Channels for each of your ad placements, for example, "Top 5 Link Unit Blue Palette" or "Left Side Navigation Image Skyscraper" etc. Tweak, track and measure the success of each of these custom channels so you know what gives you the highest CTR. Some ad formats and colors will work better than others, but you won't know which until you test, test and test some more!-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-The above article may be re-published as long as the following paragraph is included at the end of the article and as long as you link to the URL mentioned below:Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College, an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.

Tips And Ideas For Making Money Online

By Jim Biscardi
Source : www.searchenginecollege.com

For many people looking to improve their financial situation, running a home business has given them a freedom they never thought would be possible. There is nothing more satisfying then the pride of ownership that comes from being a business owner - not to mention spending more time with family and spending your day doing the things you want, instead of the things you need to do! Unlike most "brick and mortar" pr traditional businesses, it is possible to start an internet business to make money online without having to work long hours or seven days a week. As a home business owner, you make your own hours and schedule. There are no sick days, no having to make an uncomfortable call to the boss, etc. If you need to be home for most of the day, then starting a home business will give you the income you will need and the freedom to work when you want.
Making money online can be done in a variety of ways. The Internet has revolutionized the whole concept of making money. You can sell goods and services through your own web site, you can join an affiliate marketing program - where you become like a "distributor" for the parent company, you can offer your writing, editing, web design, and other creative services to those who need it, or you can find a data entry or customer service program. You can even sell other people's products in what are called "master rights" or "private label rights" programs. No writing skills; business or product-development experience; or business degree are required! One thing that should determine which business opportunity you decide to pursue is the amount of automation provided to you. Remember, this is the Internet! You should be able to leverage your time in the most constructive manner. I hate calling and selling - I think that is an awful way to spend your time. Most of your prospecting time should be on generating traffic through Internet marketing - not cold calling!
Finding out more about what is available will require you to search the internet, ask others who work from home, and begin visiting job boards to see what is available. Also, if you choose the affiliate route, be sure to sign up under a good sponsor - one who is part of a good team with tools, resources and mentoring! You shouldn't have to learn lessons the hard way on your own. Learn from the successes and/or failures of your sponsor and the team. Once you have decided which business to go into, you will have to spend time building a web site and marketing your services. Most good affiliate programs provide you with turnkey websites and other material, but you will eventually want to make your own, more personal site. This will help you build a customer base. After a few months, you will have an internet business that makes good money online.
Once you have started your business, you may want to find other ventures that will make money. This is what is referred to as "multiple streams of income." There are many programs available that will give you commissions for sales that are made through your marketing efforts. You can find numerous opportunities for this type of program. You may also be able to use one business to promote another. I suggest getting some good experience with one business venture before deciding to grow into multiple income streams. This way, the skills you have developed and the lessons you have learned in your first business can help you get off to a good start with your next one.
As you learn more about the internet, you will be able to make connections, see money making opportunities, and you will be able to learn more about what is available. This is a great way to reinvest the money you have earned while maintaining your bottom line. Internet businesses that make money online are those that are continually advertised in different markets - so be sure to diversify your marketing campaigns. By expanding your business or starting another, you will increase your profits and take advantage of everything the internet has to offer. Most importantly, you will be able to attain the pride of business ownership and the lifestyle of your dreams!
About The Author:
Jim Biscardi is owner of Dynamic Wealth Systems, LLC, a source for online entrepreneurs, and writes on a variety of subjects. To learn more about this topic Jim recommends you visit: http://www.DynamicWealthSystems.com

Building An Internet Business At Home; Setting Up Your Systems

By Roxanne Greenidge

Don't be fooled; working at home is a serious undertaking that will need your undivided attentiveness. If you are thinking that working at home is effortless, you are in for some big surprises. There many persons who are working at home who would swear that they are putting more time and effort into their home business than what they used to do while they had an 8 to 5 job in the office.
One of the major challenges that you will face when you work in the comforts of your home while taking care of your children is to get the full cooperation of your family. Building an Internet business at home and working at home, you will need the full cooperation of the entire family. If you have children, you must let them understand that you are working and that you are not available to play with them all the time. Even though having you at home and not being able to play with you all the time may be difficult for your young children to understand in the beginning, they will soon get used to the idea that you are working at home and cannot be disturbed during specific times of the day.
Building an Internet business at home is a huge undertaking that would need your time and concentration. There are a lot of factors that you will need to think about when you are considering building an Internet business at home. First, you will need to set up your own systems. Building an Internet business at home is just like setting up a regular business where you will need to put systems in place so that you can work more professionally. If you are putting up an e-store, the first thing that you will need to set up is your purchasing systems. Although you may not be obligated to keep inventories of the goods you are selling, you must have ready access to the products in case somebody will place an order online.
Aside from the purchasing system, you will need to set up a system on how your clients can obtain orders and pay for their orders. There are a lot of turnkey software that you can use for obtaining orders and receiving payments from clients so you will not really have many problems in this area. Just make sure that you get one that is reliable software so that you will not have any difficulty tracing your sales.
In addition, you will need to set up is your delivery system. Your client will judge your services by the competence of your delivery system so make sure that you get an excellent courier as partner. If you are planning of catering to clientele all over the world, you should set up a very reliable delivery system so that you will not end up losing some goods along the way.
About The Author:
Copyright Roxanne Greenidge. To find the best home based business ideas and opportunities so you can work at home visit: http://www.RoxanneGreenidge.com

Blog Archives And Seo

By Chris Angus
Source : www.searchenginecollege.com

When most people visit your site, the most articles that they will see is anywhere from three to fifteen depending on the length of them and whether or not you have linked them "behind the fold." Behind the Fold means that they are stuffed in your archives. Of course, this begs the question, Are these search engine optimized blogs lost forever in the archives or are they still accessible to search engines?
The good news that even though your blog posts from the past are not displayed on the blog page but this does not mean that they are not accessible to the search engines or your readers.Most blog software and online providers supply some kind of archiving system so that readers can easily search your blog for other articles. In fact a little box that allows your readers to search a blog is a good plug in to look for when you are choosing a provider.
Sometimes the archives are listed in a separate list on another page by date or subject. On other templates, there may be a list of general categories scrolling down one side of your blog that people can click on to read other subjects. Another possibility is that a calendar object may be put on the page so that people can look up the blogs in the archive by date. Another techniqueis to keep all of your category headings for your blogs as keyworded titles and to maintain a lot of them. The more categories you have describing your blog archives the more keywords you will have available to the search engines.
Even though these posts are not archived on your front page they are still searchable through the search engines. The more articles you have in your archives the more visible your site is likely to be in the search engines.
About The Author:
Christopher Angus is a SEO and Website Marketer. He can be contacted at: Sales (at) Brilliantseo.comhttp://www.illustratemyname.comhttp://www.mobility-direct.co.uk http://www.seocompanyuk.com

How to Make Search Engines Happy in 3 Easy Steps

By Kalena Jordan
Source : www.searchenginecollege.com
Does your web site make search engines happy? Despite all the negative hype lately, it's pretty easy to design a web site that search engines will accept with open arms. All it takes is 3 easy steps:1) Follow the Search Engine GuidelinesNearly all search engines publish their own guidelines regarding the submission of sites, the type of sites they will accept and recommendations for optimized content. Google recently updated their Webmaster Guidelines which cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative search engine behavior that they consider to be "spam". They also published SEO Guidelines - advice for webmasters to heed when choosing an SEO. Google was the first search engine to publicly acknowledge search engine optimizers in this fashion.It's not just Google publishing anti-spam guidelines. You'll find them at the following search engine sites as well:- MSN Search webmaster guidelines - AltaVista terms of use (AltaVista is a Yahoo-owned company)- Yahoo terms of service- Yahoo guidelines on search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)- Yahoo definitions of search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)- Yahoo content guidelines- AskJeeves / Teoma terms of service and spam policy- AskJeeves / Teoma editorial guidelines2) Avoid Spamming the Search EnginesOften, webmasters will use search engine spam techniques without even being aware that they are doing so. Or worse, web designers can - advertently or inadvertently - integrate techniques that could cause a site to be penalized in the site's rankings in one or more engines, without the site owner's knowledge of such penalties. The key to avoiding spamming the engines is research.Keep track of the various search engine guidelines via the links above. Watch for any changes they make to these guidelines and tweak your site accordingly. Trawl the various webmaster and search engine forums regularly to ensure your site doesn't use any of the latest methods that appear to be penalized. If you suspect your site has been penalized, remove the offending content, contact the engine concerned and ask to be reinstated.Google actually encourage you to file a re-inclusion request via their Help Center and this post by Google staffer Matt Cutts outlines what should be included.Alternatively, here is a sample email template you can use instead:----------------------------------------------------Sample Re-inclusion Request Email:Dear [search engine name],I am the owner of [your site URL]. I did not realize that participation in [spammy method] and[spammy SEO name] programs could cause problems for my website. I wasassured that these techniques were search-engine-friendly by [your source for using spammy method].I now understand that the practices used are not acceptable. I apologize for having allowed them to be placed on my website. I've removed the questionable pages and links from the site. I promise not to repeat such mistakes.I am asking you to please consider reinstating my website,[your site URL] into the [search engine name] Index. Sincerely,[Your Name]--------------------------------------------------To assist them to provide a high quality service, search engines encourage people to report search results they are dissatisfied with. If you spot some content spam or techniques that are clearly in breach of the search engine's public guidelines, you can report it using these links:- Google spam report or via search-quality@google.com- AllTheWeb relevancy problem report (AllTheWeb is a Yahoo-owned company)- AltaVista search results manipulation report (or via Yahoo's spam report below)- Yahoo spam report- AskJeeves spam report or via information@ask.com3) Build Sites for Visitors Rather than Search EnginesThe methodologies may have changed over the years, but the same principles have always applied to "good" or "white hat" SEO. Build sites for humans, not search engines. Make the site as user friendly as possible, avoid the bells and whistles and include high quality, relevant content.Wherever possible, include text-based content and navigation menus with simple, descriptive, well-written copy designed to convert your visitors into customers. Include keywords and phrases your audience would logically type in to search engines to find sites like yours. Only link to sites that are relevant to your target audience and spend some time on usability, making sure all your forms and shopping carts work.Remember that what pleases a visitor is almost always what pleases a search engine too.About the Author:Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.

How to Make Search Engines Happy in 3 Easy Steps

By Kalena Jordan
Source : www.searchenginecollege.comDoes your web site make search engines happy? Despite all the negative hype lately, it's pretty easy to design a web site that search engines will accept with open arms. All it takes is 3 easy steps:1) Follow the Search Engine GuidelinesNearly all search engines publish their own guidelines regarding the submission of sites, the type of sites they will accept and recommendations for optimized content. Google recently updated their Webmaster Guidelines which cover the most common forms of deceptive or manipulative search engine behavior that they consider to be "spam". They also published SEO Guidelines - advice for webmasters to heed when choosing an SEO. Google was the first search engine to publicly acknowledge search engine optimizers in this fashion.It's not just Google publishing anti-spam guidelines. You'll find them at the following search engine sites as well:- MSN Search webmaster guidelines - AltaVista terms of use (AltaVista is a Yahoo-owned company)- Yahoo terms of service- Yahoo guidelines on search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)- Yahoo definitions of search engine spam (covering AltaVista and AllTheWeb as well)- Yahoo content guidelines- AskJeeves / Teoma terms of service and spam policy- AskJeeves / Teoma editorial guidelines2) Avoid Spamming the Search EnginesOften, webmasters will use search engine spam techniques without even being aware that they are doing so. Or worse, web designers can - advertently or inadvertently - integrate techniques that could cause a site to be penalized in the site's rankings in one or more engines, without the site owner's knowledge of such penalties. The key to avoiding spamming the engines is research.Keep track of the various search engine guidelines via the links above. Watch for any changes they make to these guidelines and tweak your site accordingly. Trawl the various webmaster and search engine forums regularly to ensure your site doesn't use any of the latest methods that appear to be penalized. If you suspect your site has been penalized, remove the offending content, contact the engine concerned and ask to be reinstated.Google actually encourage you to file a re-inclusion request via their Help Center and this post by Google staffer Matt Cutts outlines what should be included.Alternatively, here is a sample email template you can use instead:----------------------------------------------------Sample Re-inclusion Request Email:Dear [search engine name],I am the owner of [your site URL]. I did not realize that participation in [spammy method] and[spammy SEO name] programs could cause problems for my website. I wasassured that these techniques were search-engine-friendly by [your source for using spammy method].I now understand that the practices used are not acceptable. I apologize for having allowed them to be placed on my website. I've removed the questionable pages and links from the site. I promise not to repeat such mistakes.I am asking you to please consider reinstating my website,[your site URL] into the [search engine name] Index. Sincerely,[Your Name]--------------------------------------------------To assist them to provide a high quality service, search engines encourage people to report search results they are dissatisfied with. If you spot some content spam or techniques that are clearly in breach of the search engine's public guidelines, you can report it using these links:- Google spam report or via search-quality@google.com- AllTheWeb relevancy problem report (AllTheWeb is a Yahoo-owned company)- AltaVista search results manipulation report (or via Yahoo's spam report below)- Yahoo spam report- AskJeeves spam report or via information@ask.com3) Build Sites for Visitors Rather than Search EnginesThe methodologies may have changed over the years, but the same principles have always applied to "good" or "white hat" SEO. Build sites for humans, not search engines. Make the site as user friendly as possible, avoid the bells and whistles and include high quality, relevant content.Wherever possible, include text-based content and navigation menus with simple, descriptive, well-written copy designed to convert your visitors into customers. Include keywords and phrases your audience would logically type in to search engines to find sites like yours. Only link to sites that are relevant to your target audience and spend some time on usability, making sure all your forms and shopping carts work.Remember that what pleases a visitor is almost always what pleases a search engine too.About the Author:Article by Kalena Jordan, one of the first search engine optimization experts in Australia, who is well known and respected in the industry, particularly in the U.S. As well as running her own SEO business, Kalena manages Search Engine College - an online training institution offering instructor-led short courses and downloadable self-study courses in Search Engine Optimization and Search Engine Marketing subjects.