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

Source : www.searchenginecollege.com

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 © 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. Don’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.