SEO

SEO is a marketing discipline focused on growing visibility in organic (non-paid) search engine results.

Data Entry

A data entry clerk, similar to a typist, is a member of staff employed to enter or update data into a computer system database, often from paper documents using a keyboard, optical scanner, or data recorder.

Web design

Web design encompasses many different skills and disciplines in the production and maintenance of websites. The different areas of web design include web graphic design; interface design; authoring, including standardised code and proprietary software;

Web development

Web development is a broad term for the work involved in developing a web site for the Internet (World Wide Web) or an intranet (a private network).

Content Writing

A website content writer or web content writer is a person who specializes in providing relevant content for websites. Every website has a specific target audience and requires a different type and level of content. Content should contain words (key words) that attract and retain users on a website.

Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Benefits of using blogs

If you are a regular Internet user, the chances that you havent heard of the term "Blog" is minimal. People use blogs to write about personal topics, feelings and opinions. But did you know that blogs could be used to boost your business also? The simplicity in creating the blogs along with the interactivity between different blogs makes them a very good option for marketing purposes. You can inform people avout your products and services, generate links for SEO purposes and much more.
After reading the below benefits of how blogs can boost your business you are bound to get one today.
1. Setting up a blog is pretty simple. You can choose to design your own blog format on your existing site or you can use a free blog from free blog hosting services like Wordpress or Blogger.
2. You can publish your own articles on any topics related to your business and provide information about your products or services to people. With a little help of Search Engine Optimization Skills you can top in your keywords and get great traffic for your blog.
3. One of the great things about blog posting is that they can be as short as 75-100 words and still help you accomplish your internet marketing goals.
4. When you post articles and other items of interest, people may like them enough to post the link on their web sites. The more one-way links you can generate with your blog, the better your chances of improving your search engine rankings and driving more traffic to your web site.
5. You can also participate in affiliate marketing by using your blog. When you sign up to be a member of an affiliate program, you'll want to do as much as you can to promote those products and services and generate commissions.
6. To improve your Brand Identity you can sell products and merchandise from your blog.

Crucial Features of Link Building For SEO

Links are the connection between two pages across the web. In fact, all the webpages available on the internet are connected via one or more links. These links play a crucial role in the search engine optimization as the search engines count on the links to award the webpages for their relevance and credibility. Generally, the links are considered as votes for a webpage and hence, more the number of link to a site the more useful it is for the visitors. Therefore, the search engines consider the links as one of the important criteria while ranking a webpage for a particular keyword. Sometimes, the links become the important means to bring visitors, including search engines, to a website. Hence, the best SEO company strategically develops the link building programs for any SEO campaign.

Links are another important SEO term and the different features of the links are discussed bellow.

Links- Internal, Inbound and Outbound

In a layman’s term you can use incoming and outgoing links for the inbound and outbound links of a website. As it is discussed, the incoming links are like votes for a website and can significantly improve the rank of a webpage on the search engine result pages. So, the webmasters try their level best to secure numerous incoming links to their sites. A couple of years ago, there were numerous ethical and unethical techniques of link building. But, the search engines have grown smart with their changing algorithms and counting only quality links of a webpage. Outbound links are also equally important and if you are linking to any reputed website, you are referring your visitors to an informative and useful page. The internal links of a website also has a major role to play in making all pages of the site get indexed by search engines.

Source Page and the Anchor Text of the Link

There are two parts of a link- a source page and a destination page. The source page of the link is called linking page and the destination pages is called linked page. While evaluating a link the search engine takes into account both the source as well as destination page. And, when the quality of the link is considered, the source page, its PR and relevance are the features that are important. The text the link starts from is also an important feature for the search engines. You may get a link from one of the reputed sites but the anchor text can make a lot of difference to the quality of the link. Therefore, the best SEO company gives importance to use of keyword in the anchor text.

The Don’ts of Link Building Strategies

As the mechanism behind the search engine algorithms have changed a lot, now the search engines are able to differentiate between the qualities of the links. Any unethical practice of link building can lead your site to get penalized by the search engines. Purchasing links and building links from the links firms should be avoided. Even links from a webpage with numerous outbound links are not effective for a site.
Make a careful strategy for link building or take help of the best SEO company in this regard to enhance your site ranking on the SERPs.

The Correlation of Website Redesign and SEO Campaign

Whenever you are making any change on your website, it definitely affects your online business and SEO campaign. Hence, taking decisions for your online business is not easy. It is not necessary that your website and the services will remain the same for ever. When there will be a need for a change in its designing, there will be a lot of on the SEO strategies that you are currently following. Most of the times the webmasters hand over their SEO campaigns to the best SEO company and expect that it will bring them the desired results and help them achieve their marketing objectives. But, the crucial matter of SEO is that the webmaster or the online marketers need to understand different aspects of online marketing while making changes to their websites.

How much you Understand Your Website

Your website represents your business and it is through your website that you will do your online business. There are millions of online service providers in the same industry across the web. But, unless you have an attractive and impressive website, chances are low that you can get returning visitors to your website. Hence, before staring SEO, you must need to understand the problem that lies in your website and fix them as soon as possible. Moving forward with your SEO campaign without fully understanding the drawbacks in the site may lead to wrong decisions in selecting the SEO strategies. If you are hiring the best SEO company, they will inform you about your website problem and prepare a report on website analysis before the commencement of the SEO campaign.

Be Prepared to Face the Consequences of the Changes

If you have already started your SEO campaign and want to make some changes to your website, you may have to face the negative consequences. But, if you are doing the alteration strategically, you can get positive long-term impact on your website despite of some short-term negative effect. Hence, it is really crucial that when you are making changes to your website you must have a vision to understand its impact on your business. For instant, it is necessary to make new keyword research every time you introduce new services to your business or when the search behavior of the users changes. In such a scenario, giving a new direction to your campaign will definitely affect the ranking of your website in search engines. Hence, the best SEO company considers several aspects of the clients’ website before making any changes.

Avoid any Permanent SEO Solution for Your Business

Taking decision on SEO campaign is not easy especially when you consider the changing algorithm of the search engines. Hence, the best SEO company doesn’t go for any permanent solution in the SEO campaign for a website. But, the best SEO company has another reason for not making a permanent decision for the website. Every time you make any changes to your website, you have to work on making new strategies for the SEO campaign starting for keyword research to targeting niche customers.

Simple Tricks of High Search Engine Rankings

With lots of websites vying to get visibility on the search engine result pages, it’s only the top rankings websites that have maximum number of traffic. The advantage of getting visibility for the right keyword is you can get more visitors who may turn into buyers and invest in your services. The online marketers who understand the potential benefit of search engine optimization make the best use of top SEO company to get higher visibility and consequently generate higher ROI. Once the high rankings are achieved, they can tray to retain that position with continuous SEO practices.


There are some steps that help to get high search engine rankings


Selecting the Right Keywords


Whenever you think of website promotion and SEO, the most crucial thing that plays a key role in the whole matter is the keyword. Strategic selection of the keywords becomes the foundation to your SEO campaign. You can take help of keyword research tools like WordTracker, Overture to help you get the relevant keywords for your website and business. The keywords with low competition and high search volumes are best ones.


Optimizing the Website with Keywords


The general search technology of the search engines are based on presence and usage of the keywords on the webpages. Therefore, use of the keywords with proper density and proximity makes a great difference in your website being ranked on the SERPs. Apart from using the keywords in the body content, using them on the page title, and other meta tags, hyperlink text, etc are also important for a good search engine ranking.


Internal Linking of the Webpages


You can allow the search engine spiders to crawl all pages of your website and index them only if you can properly plan the internal linking structure of your website. It is really essential that the important pages of your website are easily accessible for the search engines as well as the human visitors. If you are hiring a top SEO company for your SEO campaign, they will suggest you about linking structure and improve it if required from the SEO point of view.


Quality Inbound Links


Inbound links are one of the major factors influencing the ranking of the website on the SERPs. Again, the major search engines consider quality and not the quantity of the links for checking the relevance and credibility of the pages. Hence, while planning your link building strategies, it is really important to keep in mind the criteria that make a link worth considering for the search engines.


Relevant Content


Whatever SEO techniques the top SEO company may apply, the content of a website will be of prime importance for ever. Starting from attracting the visitors and compelling them to turn into buyers to making your webpages link worthy, content play a major role on a website.


Ongoing Website Optimization Strategies


SEO is a continuous process and if you want your website to rank well and retain the positions on the SERPs, you must pay attention to continuous SEO campaign. As the search engine algorithms keep on changing, the ongoing SEO campaign will now not allow the changes affect the ranking of the website.

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Types Of Blog Postings

Blogging is becoming one of the most popular online activities. To some extent, the versatility and variety in the blog postings done online, contribute to the popularity of the blogs. The present types of blog postings are not even imaginable a few years before blogging actually started. This has led the online population to adopt blogging as their favorite past time.

The Popular Types of Blog Postings: -

There are various types of blogging and the blog postings, which vary with the purpose of creating the blog. The following are some of the popular types of blog postings –

News related posts
These posts are based on the latest news. The blogger, posting news related posts, do not just focus on giving the breaking news, rather, he analyzes and presents it in his own perceptive.

Informative posts
Informative posts are created to provide information on a certain topic. These are most common type of blog posts and many a times serve as valuable resources of information. Generally, professionals or amateurs of the respective subject write them.

Review-based posts
Reviews on a product or service of a company are called review-based posts. These days, reviews have become very popular in terms of monetizing the blog. Many companies pay for positive reviews on their product or service.

Debate posts
A blog post, which features some discussion on a certain topic, does very well in the blogging world. The debate can be between two bloggers or between a blogger and commenter. It is essential to balance the post at the end of the debate.

Personalized posts
Posts, which feature the personal details of the blogger, are called personalized posts. They are also called online diaries. The posts can be on family details, likes-dislikes, daily life, etc of the blogger. Though it is unlikely for these posts to be successful, personalized posts of the celebrities are very popular among their fans.

Video posts
Bloggers, who have a very interesting or funny video to share with others, post it in their blog. Besides posting the video, they also provide additional information on the video like their review, significance of the video, comments, etc.

Each type of blog post has its own significance. The above information helps you to understand different types of blogs posts and helps to understand when to use which.

Website Content

There are many different ways to present your website, but none of these will do you any good if no one wants to stay at or return to your site, due to the lack of quality.

What does your site say, is it worth reading? I have fell victim to the quantity vs. quality mindset where I believed that as long as I have many posts my site was fine. After reading through some of my past posts on my blog I don’t even want to read them.

Different ways to optimize your website are all over the internet today. You could spend a fortune buying every book and tool out there to optimize your site. The one tip I continue to read out of all blogs and books is having good content on your site.

Search engines today are looking to eliminate the irrelevant and focus on the quality. That is not to say there are not other ways to increase your search engine rankings, however, if you are new to the online scene, starting with the basic of quality content is key.

If you have the quality content in place it will attract more readers and the search engines will find a reason to index you. Along with quality content come comments on your blog or website and by attracting these comments, you will have people generating content for you.

If you believe you have the content in place then venture on into some other methods of optimizing your site. The content is important however, since there is no reason to increase your link popularity if no one wants to read what you have to say.

SEO: On page Optimisation

In the economic downturn, marketing budgets are being slashed and jobs are being cut. Companies are cutting costs any way possible to stay afloat. However, companies still need to keep a presence in the market place, otherwise their brand awareness will diminish. Many companies have been looking to towards internet marketing and search engine optimisation (SEO). In this article we will shine some light on one of the most fundamental SEO techniques: on page SEO.

In SEO there are two factors that will help you rank highly in the major search engines. The first one is on page factors. These are like dotting the I’s and crossing the T’s. These on page factors help tell the search engine spiders that your website is relevant for the keywords that you would like to appear for. The second is off page factors. These dealing with creating inbound links to your website. This is where the majority of your rankings will be derived from. However, you first need to get your on page work done, as linking campaigns can take many months to implement.

On Page Factors

To understand how Google sees your site go to Google and type in a search query. When the results show go to anyone of the results and choose the small link at the bottom right of the result that says cached. The cached version is a snapshot of the page that Google took the last time that they updated their indexing. At the top of the page choose the option “text only version”. This is what Google actually see’s when they crawl your site. Google does not actually see the graphics on page, only the text. The enlarged bolded headings on the page are your H1 and H2 tags. Knowing how the search engines see your page make help you realise the importance of creating correct on page optimisation. We will go on to explain these main tags as we go through this article.

Title Tags

Title tags are the most important elements in on page SEO. This is the first tag that search engine spiders read. Your title tag tells the search engines what the most important phases are for the page. There is an art to creating title tags that are keyword rich for search engine spiders, and still accurately and succinctly conveying the content of the page to the reader.

With your title tag, always place your most important keyword first. For instance, let’s take an example of a site that was trying to optimise for Accounting. If from your keyword research that you would like to optimise for accounting and also the long tails of accounting such as accounting in the state you live and accountants, then your title tag should read as follows:

Accounting, Accounting Melbourne, Accounts

In this example you will accurately convey to the search engine spiders that the relevant terms on page are accounting, accounting Melbourne and accountants. Now the rest of your tagging and copy needs to show the spiders content relevant to your title tags.

One note to remember when you are creating any major on page tags is not to key word stuff your tags. An example of keyword stuffing in the same example would be Accountants, Accountants, Accountants. This may seem odd, however in the early days of SEO spammers use to trick the search engine spiders with such techniques. This second example would now be detected by the search engine spam filters instantly.

Meta descriptions

Meta descriptions are used to give search engines and users a 160 character description of what the content on page is about. Keep this consistent with your title tags. The content of this tag is important as a well worded meta will increase your click through rate when it appears in the search results.

The second use for meta descriptions is to give a snapshot of the page content to users on the search engine ranking placements (SERPS).

H1 Tag

In HTML tags go from H1-H6. The H1 tag is the most important of these. There are a few ways that you can position H1 tags. The aim should to have the H1 at the top of the page so this is the first thing that they crawlers read after they have read you title and meta’s. An effective way is to put these in the header file at the top right of the page. The other way is to make your main headline your H1.

One word of warning with H1 tags. Be careful about hiding them in the style sheet. Some designers will do this, as at times it is difficult to find a place to position the H1 tag. While Google can’t read your style sheet, you run the risk of a competitor reporting you to Google for spamming.

H2 Tag

The easiest way to position the H2 tag is in a heading. Try adding a keyword at the beginning of the heading.

Other on page techniques

Keyword density

Keyword density and keyword saturation are important to let search engines know that your page is relevant for the keywords that you are optimising for. However, keyword density is becoming less important as search engines become more sophisticated. Still try and keep keyword density to 2-3%.

Strong Tagging

Tagging is when a word on the page appears bold. Don’t overuse this. Once or twice on page is fine.

These on page SEO tips will help your SEO campaign and help you rise to the top of the search engines!

SEO - Way to Keep Your Business Ahead Of Your Competitors

How to get better ranking on the search engines like Google, MSN, Yahoo; and get more profit out of the business is the major worry of the businesses. But it’s not easy to get higher rankings and get more traffic. It requires lots of concentration and understanding the working of the search engines. The search engine optimizations’ are engaged in getting higher rankings and assist your business in maximizing profit.

It’s not only that improving the rankings but also flourish the business. Now, SEO us the most important for your business so that you business can grow. If you haven’t considered SEO for your business, there is still time left to market your business on the Internet and increase online visibility. Your competitors might already have used search engine optimization technology and start attracting customers your potential customers. It is very irritating that your competitors offer inferior goods and they are getting more business just because they have opted for search engine marketing. Now, it is clear that SEO is important to gain better rankings and attract potential customers.

While selecting SEO services, you should keep in mind that SEO is long term process and you should have patience in order to get better rankings through ethical ways. No matter whatever SEO company you have taken help of, it is almost sure that it would take at least a couple of months to get your website on the top ranking of the search engine results. You need to continue the SEO process in order to keep your business ahead of your competitors.

What search engines do to consistently monitor the websites? It visits the websites occasionally and index new topics on the website. It also measures the quality and popularity of the website by the number and the kind of links to the website to other. There are plenty of other parameters other than website topics, quality and popularity that search engines use before ranking a website for each keyword searched. So, it is better to hire an experienced SEO consultant company to help you with the proper optimization of the search engines and meet with their demands

Arrow, a leading name aligned with SEO Melbourne, offers leading edge SEO services that keep your business ahead of your competitors. If you are looking for SEO firm in Melbourne, Arrow will be the right choice for you.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Black Hat SEO | SEO Traffic Spider

Black Hat SEO attempts to employ techniques that are not recommended as part of a good SEO design. This is because it focuses on improving page rankings using deceptive tactics which are disapproved by search engines. One basic truth that one needs to know about Black Hat SEO is that it may produce a high web page ranking, however, these results may only last temporarily since sites using such techniques will eventually be banned or penalized when they are discovered utilizing these tactics. This penalty on using Black Hat SEO techniques can either be in the form of reducing the website’s ranking or totally removing the site’s listing from the database through search engine algorithms or by manually reviewing the website.

There are several approaches that webmasters can adopt in Black Hat SEO. These can range from keyword stuffing, page stuffing, invisible text, farm links to many more similar techniques to deceive search engines and obtain maximum visibility and ranking. These methods do not adhere to search engine rules and regulations and create a poor user experience.

Some Common Black Hat SEO Techniques:
Keyword Stuffing - By keyword stuffing we mean distorting search engine results by overloading the web page content with long lists of keywords you wish to rank for. It involves repeated use of a word or phrase to improve a page’s relevancy.

Hidden Text – This involves inserting text that is mostly repetitive use of keywords usually placed at the bottom of the page. This hidden text is text colored to blend with the background of the page and is invisible to the user visiting the page. The concept behind this Black Hat SEO strategy is that the search engine spiders can detect the hidden text even if people cannot see it as these spiders read the page’s content through the HTML code. Few search engine spiders can make out and also disregard any text that is used to blend with the page’s background color.

Page Stuffing – This is another widely used technique to attract traffic from search engines. Here the variations of the web page that is replicated or slightly changed are submitted to the search engine. The possibility of all these variations resulting in top rankings on the search engine is high if the page does well for a particular word or phrase.

Cloaking – Page Cloaking means using one webpage for the search engine that crawls the site and then altering the webpage to show another page to users. This alteration of web pages is used as a practice to trick the search engines. This can deceive users about the content they will see when clicking on the search results.

Meta Tag Stuffing – Meta Tag Stuffing is another technique of adding keywords in a webpage without overloading the page with keywords. However, when using this tactic, high traffic keywords are placed in the page which is totally irrelevant to the web page content. This is done only to boost additional traffic to the site regardless of the fact that these keywords do not match the website content.

Link Farming – Link Farming involves exchanging shared links with other websites to enhance SEO. The main purpose behind this tactic is to increase the amount of websites that will link to your site. This is because search engines like Google rank websites based on the quality and quantity of other websites linking to your site. You can gain a top ranking in search engine results if more sites are linked to yours as this signifies that your site has high popularity among internet users. However, link farming is considered to be a spamming technique and can lead to your site getting banned.

Cheating the system through all these Black Hat SEO techniques temporarily boosts visitor traffic; however, since users usually don't like to be deceived, the profitability of these methods is questionable. People would not like to visit a site that does not offer what it claims to be. Besides, majority of the search engines also impose penalty on web sites employing Black Hat SEO tactics, which signifies that webmasters gain a short term victory and a long term failure.

Black Hat SEO may be quite tempting to use as it does produce the desired results, though temporarily. But its really not worth the risk for the spamming techniques it uses and can potentially lead to your site getting banned. Therefore, it is advisable to use efficient and ethical search engine optimization White Hat SEO to get a higher ranking for your site.

Blog To Make Money

I'm going to teach you ways to make money from your blog. Hopefully you can earn some pretty good amounts of money, and do it so that you can quit your day job, only if that's what you want. Or you can just do it as a side thing and make extra cash on the side.

Want to start earning money NOW from your blog? Check this out, Blog To Make Money.

Now, here's the important stuff to know. Blogs are websites that contain regular articles based on a certain topic of interest, or news event, or even personal experiences. Any person, even a child, can create their own blog for free. You can place in reports whenever you would like to, that is once it's up and running. Please continue reading to discover more about making cash from your blog.

The easiest websites to run, are most likely blogs. Not only that, but they are very common all over the Internet, and very easy to use. There are many blog promoting sites that will promote your blog if it contains valuable information. The Internet is full of helpful information nowadays about so many topics, so writing about anything will do.

If you put articles up on your blog, it makes you a "blogger", and by putting those articles up, you are "blogging". People on the Internet are free to see your blog, and the articles you put up.

When content is put up on your blog, people will start visiting, and this is how your "money-making" journey begins. Use your visitors as a means to begin making an income from your blog.Several things you can do to make money from your blog are:

1. Ads - You can get Advertisements from different sites. The top places to get ads from are Google Ads and Yahoo Ads. Google Adsense, is what I highly suggest. Once you sign up for free, you can place ads on your blog instantly. You get profit for every advertisement which is clicked. The amount you get per click is usually over 50 cents, which is a good amount.

2. Affiliate Marketing - When you join up to a site like Clickbank, you choose products and then promote them on your blog. If you're interested in Affiliate Marketing, I suggest having a read of this article, How to Affiliate. Affiliate Marketing enables you to make the most money from your blog.

3.Referring to reward sites - Whenever a person joins a reward site, such as a survey site, through your link, you get rewards in turn. To get more help with this, check out the following article, Get Paid to Click. All those are 'paid to click' sites. Everytime one of your referrals finishes a survey or clicks on advertisements. you also get paid. It can be related to a matrix of payments, therefore a fairly easy cash flow system.

Ads, such as Google Adwords, can be used to get more traffic coming to your blog.

At the end of the day, if you'd like to blog to make money, these are the best ways. The greatest method to generate money is to provide valuable information on your blog that is helpful to your visitors. When free valuable content is provided, the |traffic comes automatically and you will generate reputation. You can earn money like this due to the connection created between you and your readers, they will keep coming back to your blog. Blogging is an easy way to generate online money that you can run part time, so you have to at least try it.

The Distinction of keywords for best search engine optimization

The suitable keywords and the placement on your Website are crucial with your rows on the Search Engine. After having prepared your list about the keywords well, you should start to place these primary terms on your site. The principal language, which left on the Website where should it be placed? The distinction of your main expressions will determine how well your search engine optimization will be.

The first consideration are the tags of your title. Because you open a first page via the web browser, the tag of title appears on the top of the first page as usual. As for Google and others, the label of title is extra crucial. Competing with other parts on the site, the part of Search Engine holds the proportion raised for the tag of title. Thus, to put key terms in this label is the revolving one to intensify the balance of vision of Google and others. Moreover, the tag of tile also appears on the result of a explore on Yahoo or others and hyper-link would be then related to your site. Consequently, that the label of title is described well or not refers to if the navigators can be drawn attraction to click on your Website like choosing many results of a explore. And labels it of heading is the first description which people can read as seeking of the results are shown via the Search Engine made thus with the tag of as possible title easier as you can so that people can realize what your Web Page is about.

The next deliberation is the description of metatags. The description of Meta is a little label of HTML and mainly used to describe the contents of the first page. But the label of Meta is these years not arranged in the current rule of the analyses of operation because it is not as important as the tag of title. But we always propose readers to compose the label of Meta because certain seek engines would express the contents of the label of Meta in the results of a online exploration. This can be attraction so that the navigators of Web click on and for read materials inside. You point out that description cannot be exaggerated; otherwise, because the visitors of your WebPages review your Website but find that outside the contents are not as what you describe, it can move back soon.

Choosing proper keywords of metatags are the next item that we should consider in order to perform excellent SEO. The tag of main term is not only crucial like labels of title and description of metatags. But so of the correct labels of your primary term can be noted downwards, that can do it good. As a typewriting of the tags of keyword, it should choose the primary terms, which refer to the contents of this first page to avoid the main words of surplus, irrelative or doubles. This tag will not be read by people in common state except on Google, Yahoo and others and depends on your Website optimization.

Titles of navigation and HTML are next in order. The titles are terms placed that enters in tag of HTML and mainly prompt navigators what are the principal contents and for the Search Engine, it is held in the pivotal place for a online exploration.

One of that last but also very important is the content on your site in relation to your keywords. The report/ratio of the numbers of primary terms to the words in this first page is called density of keyword. Your primary terms should appear in the suitable contents of site to improve your Website rankings. When it comes to the numbers of time and the frequency, you can seek the main expressions, which you want to perform to ensure quality optimization on MSN and others and to compile statistics about the density of the higher main expressions on the site. To suitably exceed keywords on the site will be useful for the row of the Website in the Search Engine. But, excessively of the modifiers can be regarded as Spam by Google, Yahoo and others.

Friday, June 19, 2009

How to Improve Your Website's Ranking in 5 Simple Steps

Search engine optimization is about making your site visible to people who might potentially be looking for your product or service. You can have a well designed website, but if it is not optimized to show up on search engine results, it won’t really matter. SEO makes it so that the content on your site is constructed in such a way that search engines can easily discern what is relevant on it and thus index it properly and make it show up on relevant searches. Here are five steps that use basic SEO techniques that will help you get started.

1. Write articles on other websites
Publishing articles and blog posts on different sites will drive quality traffic via links your way. Also, establishing correlations between your site and relevant outside pages will make it easier for search engines to classify your content.

2. Write for the readers not the engines
If you insert too many keywords into an article with the intention of having them show up more on search engines, the only result will be a confusing and awkward sounding article that will immediately drive readers away. These kind of awkwardly -put-together articles turn people off fast. Use keywords only in places where it feels natural to use them.

3. Headlines
Tag your headlines and sub-headlines with the “header” tag. Optimize them by including the main keywords in the title. This will increase your search engine ranking, as headlines are important when it comes to search engine robots looking for relevant content.

4. Use the main keyword in your first paragraph
Search engines look primarily at the first paragraph when conducting a search, so it’s a very good idea to include the main keyword in the first paragraph of an article or content page.

5. Include internal links
Embed internal links into the content of your website’s article and pages. These links should take readers to related pages, so that they can learn more about a particular topic if they want to. Also, linked keywords show up more in searches and help increase your ranking.

Good SEO caters to people, and uses search engines as a tool for reaching relevant traffic. Remember to use keywords naturally and where appropriate.

Tips On Doing SEO For Small Business

There is a common understanding that SEO or search engine optimization is just for big businesses and corporations who want to extend their market reach online. Search engine optimization is not just the domain of large companies; small businesses also need the services of SEO in order to compete well in the market. So how to you implement the SEO for small business?

Research is critical in doing SEO for business

In any kind of activity, the need for research will always be there. In trying to tweak and update SEO for small business, you need to ask yourself what you will try to change in your site. Jumpstart your SEO job by writing down your goals for the business and start writing the possible queries that user may type in order to find your website and your small business. In trying to use SEO for small business, make sure too that you research the chosen keywords. You can make it happen by signing up with Google Ad Words. From there, your SEO for small business will now call for the identification of the right keywords that you can use for your websites. Plus this step requires you to understand your competition- see what are the high performing keywords for that site and learn the things that they are doing best so that you can copy their strategies as well. Once research has been done, then the next step for the SEO for small business requires you to do some on-site tweaks on your websites. Doing the SEO for small business means you need to evaluate the visual design of the business site. If the design of the website don’t attract readers but repel the readers, then no amount of work on the part of the SEO firm can help. In doing on-site checks as part of SEO for small business, make sure that you look at the HTML code of the website and optimize as well all the related tags.

Selected tips on how you can do your SEO for small business

Here are other tips when doing the on-site tweaks as part of SEO for small business:

1 Make sure that the keyword should be in the title tag
2 Make sure that the keyword is in the H1 for each page
3 Keyword must be present on the content
4 Try to optimize the URL architecture and this is part of SEO for small business
5 And on relevant images, make sure that you incorporate the keywords in the alt
tags and in the file names Consider off-site tweaks when doing SEO for small business.

Other on-site steps that you can take as part of your efforts on SEO for small business include the need to decide if our website is in need of meta-description and the need to include the company address and the phone number. The contact information should be made visible on all pages of the website and this should be part of your SEO for small business. And finally, your SEO for small business should include offsite activities. Your SEO for small business on this stage will include the need to include the website to major industry-related directories. This stage of SEO for small business means getting more links plus deciding if the social media sites will deliver more benefits for you. And more importantly don’t stop your SEO for small business without tracking its improvement- or non improvement.

Request Website Content

You managed to get your site up, but something very vital is missing, Content. Content is the fundamental structure that tells us what your site is all about. If you have shallow content you risk scaring away the global audience from your site and never getting them back. The rich and more informative your content is, the more global audience you are likely to get. You may want to request content for several reasons. Your site is a business site and you want to provide as much as information as possible relating on what you do or sell.

Secondly, you may request content if you can’t generate it at the rate at which readers are seeking for answers from questions regarding your services, and thirdly, you may request content for SEO purposes. Requesting website content can do a lot for your site. Applying SEO techniques on your requested website content will help attract traffic and at the same time fulfill the need of those making the search. Content is king as far as SEO is concerned. Your site will be frequently visited by crawlers in search for fresh content and the more you update your website content the more your site will be highly indexed for that matter.

On the other hand website content can be requested in the form of articles. Articles can be of $5,$10,$20 or even $50 depending on what the content is talking about. By getting a web content provider, you will be sure that crawlers will always be visiting your site and traffic generated when search engines display the fresh content.

Affordable Small Business SEO

Do you have a small business which you want to give a head start in the very competitive internet marketing world? If yes, then you know that affordable small business SEO will play an integral part in your marketing campaign. This is a must to start up and establish your small business, allowing it to be accessed by your target market and get a surge of interested customers. If you are currently in search for a cost-effective and powerful affordable small business SEO, be sure to go for reputable and time-tested SEO service. With a good affordable small business SEO service, your business’s status can be substantially improved.

Building quality website with engaging web design and good SEO can be a challenge for a small business. More often than not, it can be expensive especially if you choose web design, hosting services and SEO services to the same company that create giant websites or online businesses. What you do not know is that there are various good affordable small business SEO out there that can provide you the services and results that you need. Whether you want traffic or you want your website to be seen at the top of search engine results pages, affordable small business SEO can do that for you. Affordable small business SEO is the key to dominating the web without spending much.

Most affordable small business SEO providers aims to provide affordable SEO solutions, comprehensive web marketing services, and all other related services. Knowing that good SEO can make a difference on how a website performs online, small business owners should be meticulous in picking affordable small business SEO. While some can bring your goals to life, some can just promise limited optimization. So, it is really essential that you conduct a comprehensive research on the affordable small business SEO service you are hiring to prevent pitfalls.

Affordable small business SEO service that works can bring your online business on top. It can deliver information strategically to your target market and allow search engines to find it. By optimizing your website, your visitors are turned into customers, which in turn will bring you massive profits. Earning good rankings can also be acquired from affordable small business SEO. Don’t think that affordable SEO service can only offer limited marketing strategies. Though affordable small business SEO providers offer cost-effective services, but they can guarantee your small business a solid ground in the search engine result pages as well as stable surge of traffic.

Depending on the goals of your small business, the affordable small business SEO provider will stick to that goal and work to make that happen. On the part of small business owners or organizations, it is of utmost importance to investigate the capabilities of the affordable small business SEO providers. Simply because they offer cost-effective offers, you are plunging into it without further deliberation and planning. The key to getting the most from good yet affordable small business SEO service is to know what they can give, discuss what you want to achieve, and how are they accurate in delivering to your set timeframe.

Monday, June 15, 2009

SEO Quizs

Welcome to our SEO Quiz!

Practice is testing our SEO knowledge daily but how about a quiz with some easy, some difficult, and some very difficult SEO quiestions? The reward for performing great at the quiz will not be the first place in Google but if you know a lot about SEO and can think creatively, the first place in Google is within your reach.

Please, take your Black Hats before starting the quiz. Your Black Hat will spoil the fun of having organic results at the quiz! Even if you don't get the highest possible score, there is no reason for drama!

Wish you luck and have fun!

SEO Quiz : Question 1 of 10

Question: What is meant by “Google bombing”?

Answers:
· Submitting the site again and again in order to include it in Google's index.
· Multiple sites linking to the same site, with the same anchor text in order to get high ranking for the keyword in the anchor text.
· Extensively using the word “Google” on your pages in order to get high rankings with Google.

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SEO Quiz : Question 2 of 10


Question: You have enough quality inbound links with the keywords in the anchor text but still you do not rank well in Google, even for your site name. What will you do? Check no more than 3 answers.

Answers:
· Try with variations of the anchor text.
· Add more inbound links.
· See if the targets on your site have not been damaged (i.e. renamed, or deleted, or moved) by mistake.
· Check if you have more outbound than inbound links.
· If inbound links don't help, add more keywords in other places.

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SEO Quiz : Question 3 of 10

Question: The main purpose of search engine spiders is to:

Answers:
· Visit sites.
· Check if sites perform ethical SEO.
· Index sites.

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SEO Quiz : Question 4 of 10

Question: Which of the following are criteria for the uniqueness of a page (unique as opposed to duplicate content)? Check all that apply.

Answers:
· Code similarity.
· Text similarity.
· Page names.
· Titles, headings, page titles and metatags .
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SEO Quiz : Question 5 of 10

Question: How do you know how much to pay for a text link from another site to yours?

Answers:
· There are unified text link prices and they depend on the quantity of links I buy.
· When I get an offer for purchasing text links, I start negotiating and I usually drop the price considerably.
· The price is often different because it depends on the current rating of the site that will backlink to me.
· $0.10 for a text link is a fair price.

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SEO Quiz : Question 6 of 10

Question: In terms of Web marketing, what does the abbreviation PPC stand for?

Answers:
· Points Per Click
· Pay Per Click
· Paid Placement Cost
· Paid Points Calculator

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SEO Quiz : Question 7 of 10

Question:
For which of the following file types a SEO expert needs to provide an alternative textual description? Check all that apply.

Answers:
· html.
· swf.
· pdf.
· gif.
· doc.

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SEO Quiz : Question 8 of 10
Question: How important are metatags today?

Answers:
· Not important at all.
· They have only minor importance, but it can be neglected.
· Somehow important.
· Very important, almost as much as keyword density.
· They are the single most important SEO tool.

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SEO Quiz : Question 9 of 10

Question: Is the following metatag appropriate for a site that sells books?

Answers:
· Yes, the following metatag contains all the keywords I need.
· No, it is rather short, I have more keywords to optimize for.
· I would rather swap “publish” and “novel” because “novel” is more important than “publish”.
· Yes, this metatag is OK even though it could have had more keywords.
· Why bother with metatags at all?
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SEO Quiz : Question 10 of 10

Question: What is necessary to do for optimizing Flash sites? Check all that apply.

Answers:
· Put the most important items in a Flash presentation on the home page
· Add descriptive metatada to the Flash presentation.
· Provide alternative pages that describe the contents of the Flash presentation.
· Have a good keyword density in the Flash presentation.


Ranking in Country Specific Search Engines

In the world of Search Engine Optimization, Location is important. Search engines like to bring relevant results to a user, not only in the area of keywords and sites that give the user exactly what they are looking for, but also in the correct language as well. It doesn't do a lot of good for a Russian-speaking individual to continually get websites returned in a search query that are written in Egyptian or in Chinese. So a search engine has to have some way to be able to return the results the user is looking for in the right language, and a search engine's goal is also to try and get the user as close to home as possible in the realm of their search results.

Many people wonder why their websites don't rank well in some search engines, especially if they are trying to get ranked in a search engine based in another country. Perhaps they may not even know they are in another country? You say that is impossible: how could one not know what country they are in? It might surprise that individual to find that their website might in fact be hosted in a completely different country, perhaps even on another continent!

Consider that many search engines, including Google, will determine country not only based on the domain name (like .co.uk or .com.au), but also the country of a website's physical location based upon IP address. Search engines are programmed with information that tells them which IP addresses belong to which particular country, as well as which domain suffixes are assigned to which countries.

Let's say, for instance, that you are wishing to rank highly in Google based in the United States. It would not do well, then, for you to have your website hosted in Japan or Australia. You might have to switch your web host to one whose servers reside in the United States.

There is a tool we like to use called the Website to Country Tool. What this tool does is it allows you to view which country your website is hosted. Not only will this tell you what country your site is hosted in, but it can also help you determine a possible reason why your website may not be ranking as highly as you might like in a particular search engine.

It might be disheartening to learn that your website has been hosted in another country, but it is better to understand why your site might not be ranking as highly as you'd like it to be, especially when there is something you can definitely do about it.

Choose SEO Company

Check the PR of their own site. If they can't optimize their site well enough to get a good PR (over 4-5), they are not worth hiring.

Ask them what keywords their site ranks for. Similarly to the page rank factor, if they don't rank well for the keywords of their choice, they are hardly as professional as they are pretending to be.

Do they use automated submissions? If they do, stay away from them. Automated submissions can get you banned from search engines.

Do they use any black hat SEO tricks? You need to know in advance what black hat SEO is in order to judge them, so getting familiar with the most important black hat SEO tricks is worth before you go and start cross-examining them.

Where do they collect backlinks from? Backlinks are very, very important for SEO success but if they come from link farms and other similar sites, this can cause a lot of trouble. So, make sure the SEO firm collects links from reputable sites only.

Get some personal impressions, if possible. Gut instinct and impressions from meetings are also a way to judge a company, though sometimes it is not difficult to get mislead, so use this approach with caution.

High price does not guarantee high quality. If you are eager to pay more, this does not mean that you will get more. Just because a firm costs more DOES NOT make them better SEO's. There are many reasons for high prices and high quality is only one of them. For instance, the company might work inefficiently and this is the reason for their ridiculously high costs, not the quality of their work.

Cheap is more expensive. This is also true. If you think you can pay peanuts for a professional SEO campaign, then you need to think again. Professional SEO companies offer realistic prices.

Use tricky questions. Using tricky questions is a double-edged sword, especially if you are not an expert. But there are several easy questions that can help you.
For instance, you might ask them how many search engines they will automatically submit your site to. If they are scammers, they will try to impress you with big numbers. But in this case, the best answer would be "no automatic submissions".
Another tricky question is to ask them if they will place in you top 10 for some competitive keywords of your choice. The trap here is that it is them, not you, who chooses the words that are best for your site. It is not that probable that they will choose exactly the same words as you suggest, so if they tell you that you just give them the words and they push you to the top, tell them “Goodbye”.

Do they offer subscription services? SEO is a constant process and if you want to rank well and keep on like that, efforts are necessary all the time. Because of this, it is better to select a company that includes post-optimization maintenance, than get a company that pushes your site to the top and then leaves you in the wild on your own.

We tried to mention some of the most important issues in selecting a SEO company. Of course, there are many other factors to consider and each case is different, so give it some thought, before you sign the contract for hiring a SEO company.

Choosing a SEO Company

After you have been dealing for some time with SEO on your own, you discover that no matter how hard you try, your site does not rank well or that your site ranks well but optimizing it for search engines takes all your time and all your other tasks lag behind. If this is the case with you, maybe it is better to consider hiring a SEO company to do the work for you. With so many SEO companies out there, you can't complain that you have no choice. Or is it just the opposite – so many companies but few reliable?

It is stretching the truth to say that there are no reliable SEO companies. Yes, there might be many scam SEO companies but if you know what to look for when selecting a SEO company, the risk of hiring fraudsters is reduced. It is much better if you yourself have a substantial knowledge of SEO and can easily decide if they promise you the starts in the sky or their goals are realistic but even if you are not quite familiar with SEO practices, here is a list with some points to watch for when choosing a SEO company:

Do they promise to guarantee #1 ranking? If they do, you have a serious reason to doubt their competencies. As the Google SEO selection tips say, no one can guarantee a #1 ranking in Google. This is true even for not so competitive words.

Get recommendation from friends, business partners, etc. Word of mouth is very important for the credibility of a company. For instance, we do not perform SEO services but despite that we constantly receive e-mails asking for SEO services. We always direct these inquiries to Blackwood Productions because we have worked with this company for a long time and we know that they are competent and reliable.

Ask in forums. There are many reputable Web master forums, so if you can't find somebody who can recommend you a SEO company right away, consider asking in Web master forums. However, beware that not all forum posters are honest people, so take their opinion (no matter if positive or negative) with a grain of salt. Forums are not such a reliable source of information as in-person contact.

Google the company name. If the company is a known fraudster, chances are that you will find a lot of information about it on the Web. However, lack of negative publicity does not mean automatically that the company is great, nor do some subjective negative opinions mean that the company is a scammer.

Ask for examples of sites they have optimized. Happy customers are the best form of promotion, so feel free to ask your potential SEO company about sites they have optimized and references from clients. If you get a rejection because of confidentiality reasons, this must ring a bell about the credibility of the SEO company - former customers are not supposed to be a secret.

Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Sites like digg.com, reddit.com, stumbleupon.com etc can bring you a LOT of traffic. How about getting 20,000 and more visitors a day when your listing hits the front page?
Getting to the front page of these sites is not as difficult as it seems. I have been successful with digg and del.icio.us (and not so much with Reddit though the same steps should apply to it as well) multiple times and have thus compiled a list of steps that have helped me succeed:


1 Pay attention to your Headlines
Many great articles go unnoticed on social bookmarking sites because their headline is not catchy enough. Your headline is the first (and very often the only) thing users will see from your article, so if you don't make the effort to provide a catchy headline, your chances of getting to the front page are small.
Here are some examples to start with :-

Original headline : The Two Types of Cognition
Modified Headline : Learn to Understand Your Own Intelligence

Original headline: Neat way to organize and find anything in your purse instantly!
Modified Headline : How to Instantly Find Anything in Your Purse

Here is a good blog post that should help you with your headlines.

2 Write a meaningful & short description
The headline is very important to draw attention but if you want to keep that attention, a meaningful description is vital. The description must be slightly provocative because this draws more attention but still, never use lies and false facts to provoke interest. For instance, if your write “This article will reveal to you the 10 sure ways to deal with stress once and forever and live like a king from now on.” visitors will hardly think that your story is true and facts-based.

You also might be tempted to use a long tell-it-all paragraph to describe your great masterpiece but have in mind that many users will not bother to read anything over 100-150 characters. Additionally, some of the social bookmarking sites limit descriptions, so you'd better think in advance how to describe your article as briefly as possible.

3 Have a great first paragraph
This is a rule that is always true but for successful social bookmarking it is even more important. If you have successfully passed Level 1 (headlines) and Level 2 (description) in the Catch the User's Attraction game, don't let a bad first paragraph make them leave your site.

4 Content is king
However, the first paragraph is not everything. Going further along the chain of drawing (and retaining) users' attention, we reach the Content is King Level. If your articles are just trash, bookmarking them is useless. You might cheat users once but don't count on repetitive visits. What is more, you can get your site banned from social bookmarking sites, when you persistently post junk.

5 Make it easy for others to vote / bookmark your site
It is best when other people, not you, bookmark your site. Therefore, you must make your best to make it easier for them to do it. You can put a bookmarking button at the end of the article, so if users like your content, they can easily post it. If you are using a CMS, check if there is an extension that allows to add Digg, Del.icio.us, and other buttons but if you are using static HTML, you can always go to the social bookmarking site and copy the code that will add their button to your pages.
Here is a link that should help you add Links for Del.icio.us, Digg, and More to your pages.

6 Know when to submit
The time when you submit can be crucial for your attempts to get to the front page. On most social bookmarking sites you have only 24 hours to get to the front page and stay there. So, if you post when most users (and especially your supporters) are still sleeping, you are wasting valuable time. By the time they get up, you might have gone to the tenth page. You'd better try it for yourself and see if it works for you but generally posting earlier than 10 a.m. US Central Time is not good. Many people say that they get more traffic around 3 p.m. US Central Time. Also, workdays are generally better in terms of traffic but the downside is that you have more competitors for the front page than on weekends.

7 Submit to the right category
Sometimes a site might not work for you because there is no right category for you. Or because you don't submit to the right category – technology, health, whatever – but to categories like General, Miscellaneous, etc. where all unclassified stuff goes. And since these categories fill very fast, your chance to get noticed decreases.

8 Build a top-profile
Not all users are equal on social bookmarking sites. If you are an old and respected user who has posted tons of interesting stuff, this increases the probability that what you submit will get noticed. Posting links to interesting articles on other sites is vital for building a top-profile. Additionally, it is suspicious, when your profile has links to only one site. Many social bookmarking sites frown when users submit their own content because this feels like self-promotion.

9 Cooperate with other social bookmarkers
The Lonely Wolf is a suicidal strategy on sites like StubleUpon, Digg, Netscape. Many stories make it to the front page not only because they are great but because they are backed up by your network of friends. If in the first hours after your submittal you get at least 15 votes from your friends and supporters, it is more likely that other users will vote for you. 50 votes can get you to the top page of Digg.

10 Submit in English
Linguistic diversity is great but the majority of users are from English-speaking countries and they don't understand exotic languages. So, for most of the social bookmarking sites submitting anything in a language different from English is not recommendable. The languages that are at an especial disadvantage are Chinese, Arabic, Slavic languages and all the other that use non-latin alphabet. German, Spanish, French are more understandable but still they are not English. If you really must submit your story (i.e. because you need the backlink), include an English translation at least of the title. But the best way to proceed with non-English stories is to post them on where they belong. Check this link for a list of non-English sites.

11 Never submit old news
Submitting old news will not help you in becoming a respected user. Yesterday's news is history. But if you still need to submit old stuff, consider feature articles, howtos and similar pieces that are up-to-date for a long time.

12 Check your facts
You must be flattered that users read your postings but you will hardly be flattered when users prove that you haven't got the facts right. In addition to sarcastic comments, you might also receive negative votes for your story, so if you want to avoid this, check you facts - or your readers will do it.

13 Check you spelling
Some sites do not allow to edit your posts later, so if you misspell the title, the URL, or a keyword, it will stay this way forever.

14 Not all topics do well
But sometimes even great content and submitting to the right category do not push you to the top. One possible reason could be that your stories are about unpopular topics. Many sites have topics that their users love and topics that don't sell that well. For instance, Apple sells well on Digg and The War in Iraq on Netscape. Negative stories - about George Bush, Microsoft, evil multinational companies, corruption and crime also have a chance to make it to the front page. You can't know these things in advance but some research on how many stories tagged with keywords like yours have made the front page in the last year or so can give you a clue.

15 Have Related Articles / Popular Articles
Traffic gurus joke that traffic from social bookmarking sites is like an invasion – the crowds pour in and in a day or two they are gone. Unfortunately this is true – after your listing rolls from the front page (provided that you reached the front page), the drop in traffic is considerable. Besides, many users come just following the link to your article, have a look at it and then they are gone. One of the ways to keep them longer on your site is to have links to Related Articles / Popular Articles or something similar that can draw their attention to other stuff on the site and make them read more than one article.

16 RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing
RSS feeds, newsletter subscriptions, affiliate marketing are all areas in which the traffic from social bookmarking sites can help you a lot. Many people who come to your site and like it, will subscribe to RSS feeds and/or your newsletter. So, you need to put these in visible places and then you will be astonished at the number of new subscriptions you got on the day when you were on the front page of a major social bookmarking site.

17 Do not use automated submitters
After some time of active social bookmarking, you will discover that you are spending hours on end posting links. Yes, this is a lot of time and using automated submitters might look like the solution but it isn't. Automated submitters often have malware in them or are used for stealing passwords, so unless you don't care about the fate of your profile and don't mind being banned, automated submitters are not the way to go.

18 Respond to comments on your stories
Social bookmarking sites are not a newsgroup but interesting articles can trigger a pretty heated discussion with hundreds of comments. If your article gets comments, you must be proud. Always respond to commends on your stories and even better – post comments on other stories you find interesting. This is a way to make friends and to create a top-profile.

19 Prepare your server for the expected traffic
This is hardly a point of minor importance but we take for granted that you are hosting your site on a reliable server that does not crash twice a day. But have in mind that your presence on the front page of a major social bookmarking site can drive you a lot traffic, which can cause your server to crash – literally!
I remember one of the times I was on the front page on Digg, I kept restarting Apache on my dedicated server because it was unable to cope with the massive traffic. I have many tools on my site and when the visitors tried them, this loaded the server additionally.
Well, for an articles site getting so much traffic is not so devastating but if you are hosting on a so-so server, you'd better migrate your site to a machine that can handle a lot of simultaneous hits. Also, check if your monthly traffic allowance is enough to handle 200-500,000 or even more visitors. It is very amateurish to attract a lot of visitors and not be able to serve them because your server crashed or you have exceeded your bandwidth!

20 The snowball effect
But despite the differences in the likes of the different social bookmarking communities, there are striking similarities. You will soon discover that if a post is popular on one of the major sites, this usually drives it up on the other big and smaller sites. Usually it is Digg posts that become popular on StumbleUpon and Reddit but there are many other examples. To use this fact to your best advantage, you may want to concentrate your efforts on getting to the front page of the major players only and bet on the snowball effect to drive you to the top on other sites.
An additional benefit of the snowball effect is that if your posting is interesting and people start blogging about it, you can get tons of backlinks from their blogs. This happened to me and the result was that my PR jumped to 6 on the next update.

Some Ugly Aspects of SEO

1 Dependent on search engines

It is true that in any career there are many things that are outside of your control but for SEO this is a rule number one. Search engines frequently change their algorithms and what is worse – these changes are not made public, so even the greatest SEO gurus admit that they make a lot of educated guesses about how things work. It is very discouraging to make everything perfect and then to learn that due to a change in the algorithm, your sites dropped 100 positions down. But the worst part is that you need to communicate this to clients, who are not satisfied with their sinking ratings.

2 No fixed rules

Probably this will change over time but for now the rule is that there are no rules – or at least not written ones. You can work very hard, follow everything that looks like a rule and still success is not coming. Currently you can't even rely on bringing a search engine to court because of the damages they have done to your business because search engines are not obliged to rank high sites that have made efforts to get optimized.

3 Rapid changes in rankings

But even if you somehow manage to get to the top for a particular keyword, keeping the position requires constant efforts. Well, many other businesses are like that, so this is hardly a reason to complain – except when an angry customer starts shouting at you that this week their ratings are sinking and of course this is all your fault.

4 SEO requires Patience

The SEO professional and customers both need to understand that SEO takes constant effort and time. It could take months to move ahead in the ratings, or to build tens of links. Additionally, if you stop optimizing for some time, most likely you will experience a considerable drop in ratings. You need lots of motivation and patience not to give up when things are not going your way.

5 Black hat SEO

Black hat SEO is probably one of the biggest concerns for the would-be SEO practitioner. Fraud and unfair competition are present in any industry and those who are good and ethical suffer from this but black hat SEO is still pretty widespread. It is true that search engines penalize black hat practices but still black hat SEO is a major concern for the industry.

So, let's hope that by telling you about the pros and cons of choosing SEO as your career we have helped you make an informed decision about your future.

Choosing SEO as Your Career


Some Good Reasons to Choose SEO as Your Career

1 High demand for SEO services
Once SEO was not a separate profession - Web masters performed some basic SEO for the sites they managed and that was all. But as sites began to grow and make money, it became more reasonable to hire a dedicated SEO specialist than to have the Web master do it. The demand for good SEO experts is high and is constantly on the rise.

2 A LOT of people have made a successful SEO career
There are many living proofs that SEO is a viable business. The list is too long to be quoted here but some of the names include Rob from Blackwood Productions, Jill Wahlen from High Rankings, Rand Fishkin from SEO Moz and many others.

3 Search Engine Optimizers make Good Money !
SEO is a profession that can be practiced while working for a company or as a solo practitioner. There are many jobboards like Dice and Craigslist that publish SEO job advertisements. It is worth noting that the compensation for SEO employees is equal to or even higher than that of developers, designers and marketers. Salaries over $80K per annum are not an exception for SEO jobs.
As a solo SEO practitioner you can make even more money. Almost all freelance sites have sections for SEO services and offers for $50 an hour or more are quite common. If you are still not confident that you can work on your own, you can start a SEO job, learn a bit and then start your own company.
If you already feel confident that you know a lot about SEO, you can take this quiz and see how you score. Well, don't get depressed if you didn't pass - here is a great checklist that will teach you a lot, even if you are already familiar with SEO.

4 Only Web-Designing MAY NOT be enough
Many companies offer turn-key solutions that include Web design, Web development AND SEO optimization. In fact, many clients expect that when they hire somebody to make their site, the site will be SEO friendly, so if you are good both as a designer and a SEO expert, you will be a truely valuable professional.
On the other hand, many other companies are dealing with SEO only because they feel that this way they can concentrate their efforts on their major strength – SEO, so you can consider this possibility as well.

5 Logical step ahead if you come from marketing or advertising
The Web has changed the way companies do business, so to some extent today's marketers and advertisers need to have at least some SEO knowledge if they want to be successful. SEO is also a great career for linguists.

6 Lots of Learning
For somebody who comes from design, development or web administration, SEO might look not technical enough and you might feel that you will downgrade if you move to SEO. Don't worry so much - you can learn a LOT from SEO, so if you are a talented techie, you are not downgrading but you are actually upgrading your skills packages.

7 SEO is already recognized as a career
Finally, if you need some more proof that SEO is a great career, have a look at the available courses and exams for SEO practitioners. Well, they might not be a CISCO certification but still they help to institutionalize the SEO profession.

Friday, June 5, 2009

Top 10 SEO Mistakes

1- Targetting the wrong keywords
This is a mistake many people make and what is worse – even experienced SEO experts make it. People choose keywords that in their mind are descriptive of their website but the average users just may not search them. For instance, if you have a relationship site, you might discover that “relationship guide” does not work for you, even though it has the “relationship” keyword, while “dating advice” works like a charm. Choosing the right keywords can make or break your SEO campaign. Even if you are very resourceful, you can't think on your own of all the great keywords but a good keyword suggestion tool.

2- Ignoring the Title tag
Leaving the title tag empty is also very common. This is one of the most important places to have a keyword, because not only does it help you in optimization but the text in your Title tag shows in the search results as your page title.

3- A Flash website without a html alternative
Flash might be attractive but not to search engines and users. If you really insist that your site is Flash-based and you want search engines to love it, provide an html version. Here are some more . Search engines don't like Flash sites for a reason – a spider can't read Flash content and therefore can't index it.

4- JavaScript Menus
Using JavaScript for navigation is not bad as long as you understand that search engines do not read JavaScript and build your web pages accordingly. So if you have JavaScript menus you can't do without, you should consider build a sitemap (or putting the links in a noscript tag) so that all your links will be crawlable.

5- Lack of consistency and maintenance
We often encounters clients, who believe that once you optimize a site, it is done foreve. If you want to be successful, you need to permanently optimize your site, keep an eye on the competition and – changes in the ranking algorithms of search engines.

6- Concentrating too much on meta tags
A lot of people seem to think SEO is about getting your meta keywords and description correct! In fact, meta tags are becoming (if not already) a thing of the past. You can create your meta keywords and descriptions but don't except to rank well only because of this.

7- Using only Images for Headings
Many people think that an image looks better than text for headings and menus. Yes, an image can make your site look more distinctive but in terms of SEO images for headings and menus are a big mistake because h2, h2, etc. tags and menu links are important SEO items. If you are afraid that your h1 h2, etc. tags look horrible, try modifying them in a stylesheet or consider this approach.

8- Ignoring URLs
Many people underestimate how important a good URL is. Dynamic page names are still very frequent and no keywords in the URL is more a rule than an exception. Yes, it is possible to rank high even without keywords in the URL but all being equal, if you have keywords in the URL (the domain itself, or file names, which are part of the URL), this gives you additional advantage over your competitors. Keywords in URLs are more important for MSN and Yahoo! but even with Google their relative weight is high, so there is no excuse for having keywordless URLs.

9- Backlink spamming
It is a common delusion that it more backlinks are ALWAYS better and because of this web masters resort to link farms, forum/newgroup spam etc., which ultimately could lead to getting their site banned. In fact, what you need are quality backlinks.

10- Lack of keywords in the content
Once you focus on your keywords, modify your content and put the keywords wherever it makes sense. It is even better to make them bold or highlight them.

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Professional SEO Company - Stay Ahead of Other Competitors

With quality services from a professional SEO company, you can improve your customer traffic and stay ahead of other competitors in the field. Such a company can serve as your ideal partner and help you achieve your business goals by placing your website in one of the top ten positions in search engine results.

Positive Transformation for Your Business

With the of a professional SEO company, you can increase sales, attract more visitors and generate more profit for your business. It can also boost your brand visibility, improve business relations and ROI (Return on Investment). This will help you improve your company’s reputation and credibility.

Services with a Competitive Edge

It is often difficult for budding businesses to excel leading ones. But a professional SEO company can make it happen. Such a company utilizes the services of SEO experts who can help you out in every phase of your website optimization process. SEO analysts, copywriters marketing specialists and developers with their joined effort will help you capture the attention of the internet users. You will also get all the required guidance and support to promote your website and increase its page rank. Some of the premium services offered by a professional SEO company are:

• Competition research
• Keyword research
• Keyword placement
• Optimized content building
• Meta tag optimization
• Optimized title tags
• Link popularity building
• Search engine submission
• Website analysis and reports
• Monthly maintenance

Choosing an SEO company

When deciding to employ a professional SEO company, opt for the one that has a good reputation and long-term experience in the online marketing industry. Compare prices and service packages of different companies, and choose a professional SEO company that can help you stay ahead of other competitors.

Link Building Process for Higher Site Traffic Concentration

If you wish to rank your website higher in search engines, than website link building is very essential part of it. Every additional link to your site, makes the target customer closer to your website. But that does not mean that you have to rush into this process, rather it has to be well-framed and planned one. Some links can fetch higher traffic than others. Therefore avoid aimless and wrong kind of website links else it could be penalized.

Earlier when this concept of back links was introduced, websites for higher ranking grabbed every opportunity for putting links. Such steps could lead the search engines to give your website higher rankings in the starting on the basis of number of incoming and outgoing links from your site.

The concept of artificial linking strategy also known as link wheels, link farms was being used in abusive manner. For instance even an automobile website linked to a site about clothes, music industry, food items, etc.

As a result the search engines altered their algorithms and many websites got de-indexed. It implies that the website was not recognized by the search engines and anyone else, leading to zero web traffic.

You may get lured by online offers of companies claiming to charge you fixed amount of fees and offer links to your website. They can do it, but if Google finds them then your website will be fined. Search engine Google has professional people who work round the clock and collect information which is processed leading to better search engine searches.

You may be excited to get as many links as possible in short span of time but, it might not be a good idea. Keep it a gradual process of producing steady but useful links to your website. Google also prefers such sites that follows a steady website link building process instead of getting thousands of links in a week itself.

Websites that have some quality to offer to their visitors and customers score high in their preference list. Quality content is one such factor, you might not able to produce original content everytime but then also content is required or compulsory.

One way link building also improves your site rank in search engines. It can be a little difficult to get one-way links, but in long run it proves to be beneficial in getting better rankings. A website that links back to your site gives the message to the search engine that the information that would be available from your website is useful and important for the visitors.

SEO Content Writing Makes Higher Ranking in Various Search Engines

Search engine optimization is all about uploading dynamic content in search engines. The main aim of SEO is to present an overview on the information of the services provided by a client’s website. The more dynamic a content is the more ranking it will acquire in search engines.

There are infinite SEO professionals all around but the count for exceptional content writers is very few. Websites earn revenues by selling authentic information to customers. Search engines like Google and Yahoo are widely used by folks all over the world. A single appearance of one’s link in these search engines would draw the attention of thousands of visitors. More visitors mean more clicks and more clicks mean more revenues.

No matter how appealing a website and its products and services are. The first and foremost thing an online entrepreneur would require a good ranking in search engines. Everyday infinite articles are uploaded in article submission sites and search engines but only a few are able to meet the expectations of the SEO content writing. The basic principle of seo content writing is to get more hits from the visitors. And visitors will give hits to the articles only if the contents are good enough to read.

On the other hand, if the contents written are good enough but the arrangement of keywords is messy then there are no chances that these contents would gain higher ranking in search engines. For every online business owners it is a must that their sites should attain consistent ranking at least in top three pages in search engines. For further witness, we can look at the companies which are branded ones in the online market. Such companies are always found in the top three pages of search engines. They employ the best SEO professionals and content writers available in the SEO industry. These principles should be learned by the new comers in the world of Internet business. Hence SEO content writing is an integral part of online.

Monday, June 1, 2009

Using Keywording and Content in an SEO Article

We would now like to review SEO writing and the writer's most important goals. Do you know what the generally common mistake is that all SEO writers get producing an article? The main issue that every new article author can simply fall fowl of and indeed trap themselves is to overload the article itself with the keywords. The second thing is often that the writer can be focused too much on search engines, thus stopping thinking about about the more important audience- who he is writing to and for.A usual English speaking person may well think that it is very simple to write a good SEO article. Again this is a trap as he/ she will not know really the situation and has got not enough knowledge on how to do it properly. Even if your English is beyond that of perfect- you still need an excellent understanding of the comprehension rules, a deep skill level and good experience in this area.

Every time you start up to compose a SEO article, you must think on several plains and purposes. Fist is the search engine factor; another one is users and readability aspect. Here you must balance between the sense of your article as well as the density and positioning of key wording. Try not to make sentences clumsy, due to the fact that you need to insert here or there some keywords or key phrases. A reader may well give up following your article for the simple reason that it is really boring and uninteresting as you have not got over what you wanted to say well. Thus you may lose a visitor or potential client.

Creativity is welcomed in SEO writing. Vary and improvise with the keywords being used. Remember that key wording inserted into a text must be relevant and adequate to back up the written content. The article must flow naturally. The key words must be an accent and the main point of a paragraph or your idea. Usually it is the best when the key wording is used towards the end of the article. Thus you attract readers to them and draw attention to as significant points. By these means of key wording you raise traffic to your site. Also another good key point is never copy or plagiarize any part of article from the internet. This copy will be deleted by the search engines as being duplicate works.

When the article of completed re read and correct it, as it will often contain some semantic or grammar mistakes. This whole and fresh look gives you a good general grounding in the basic ideas about writing a formidable SEO entire article.Qualitative articles mean magnetizing a great amount of users to your online business

Creating qualitative SEO takes good team work. An West midlands Internet Promotion company is glad to provide you with the high professional approach and a satisfying product in SEO arena.

Earn your Site a Better Ranking

Which developer or web site owner does not want his site among the top ranked ones? It is a reward for your untiring efforts in making and maintaining the site. Of course the top sites get most of the clicks. The top search Engines (Google, yahoo and Microsoft) have not disclosed many factors that their algorithms consider. Yet there are some open secrets to get a better ranking. I share some with you.

Use the right keyword Speak the language your client would speak; use the right key word. Key word research is the most important. For that, you can conduct surveys among the masses or alternatively, you can simply use SEO tools such as key word generator. Content Forget the ranking if you can not provide the user with content.

A page should have a minimum of 200 word content. The best and most optimized word count ranges from 300 to 350 words. Target the download time Remember your target is to cater the majority. The majority of the internet users do not have high speed connections. Try to minimize the download time for your page. You can achieve this by creating different pages for different pages connected by links. By this you will get another bonus: the Search Engines also count links that a site offers. Meaningful nomenclature Make it a point to name all of the images on your page. Also these names should be meaningful.

The links in your site should be named according to what they offer. Do not use numbering or ambiguous names for pictures or links. If these things are taken care of then it is not a hard task to improve the ranking of a site. Putting it in very simple words, it can be achieved with consistence research, effort and maintenance.

Directory Submission Gets You Tons Of Quality - 1 Way Links

The search engines now, highly favor, websites that have a large number of quality, one way links pointing to them. Because of this, it's absolutely critical that we consistently try to get other websites to link to us, WITHOUT us linking back to them.

Yes, reciprocal linking is becoming less and less valuable. Submitting your website to website directories is an excellent way to get, quality, 1 way links pointing to your websites. You see, many of the website directories online have a high amount of page rank and have been online for several years.

These are 2 of the most important criteria for determining what a good link is, vs what a bad link is. These two criteria are:

The age of the website linking to you

The Page Rank of the website linking to you

With that said, many of these directories have both a high Page Rank AND are old websites, giving them more authority and power in the search engines.

Not only that, but there are literally thousands of website directories on the internet that are absolutely free for you to submit your website to! While it does take time to find these directories and then manually fill out all of the required criteria to submit your website, it is an excellent way to help increase your search engine rankings.

There are some good website directory submission software products on the market. The best of which is a product called Directory Submitter created by Brad Callen. Esentially you simply enter your website details into the software program 1 time, and then click on any of the 1600+ website directories in the software and it wil automatically fill in all of the submission criteria for you. Click the submit button and then your site has been instantly added to the website directory.

So, not only does it save you time in finding all of these directories, BUT it saves you an incredible amount of time filling out each and every website's submission criteria.

Pay Per Click Search Engine Advertising

PPC search engine advertising is by far the most affordable form of advertising available. PPC search engine advertising is a flourishing business that by 2008 is expected to reach $ 8 billion. PPC advertising is about producing leads. Creating leads will help potential buyers find the specific website that will provide them with the product or service they need.

However, PPC search engine advertising does not end there. It is important to understand that although PPC advertising generates leads, it is also important for users to find relevant information at the website they are directed to. Information is a valuable asset in PPC search engine advertising that is often left unchecked by many websites. Keep in mind that users are more likely to purchase products or services from a company that provided them with the necessary information they needed in the first place.

Qualified traffic with PPC search engine advertising

One of the benefits of PPC advertising is that it provides qualified traffic to a specific website. Users that click on a PPC ad are those in search of a particular product or service. This helps eliminate unnecessary clicks from non-prospective buyers that only produce expenditures not profits. PPC search engine advertising is also the fastest way to get a reasonable return on investment (ROI).

A bidding process is used to establish the price of a specific keyword. In general, the budget for PPC advertising may be a $100 to $100,000 depending on the number of keywords used. These prices can skyrocket in just minutes as more and more sites bid for the same keyword thus causing the prices to jack up.

PPC ads are placed alongside search engine results to which they are relevant. The highest bids for a specific keyword or phrase gets top billing on the search engine results page. Getting top placement provides greater odds for a PPC ad to get clicked by a qualified searcher.

Elements of PPC search engine advertising

PPC search engine advertising involves three basic elements; constant monitoring, response analysis and refinement as the essential factors involved in PPC search engine advertising. Proper management of PPC advertising can result in big profits for a website.

It makes it possible for sites to monitor the productivity of each PPC ad they place. This gives a site the opportunity to turn off any PPC ad that is not performing at its best. PPC search engine advertising provides the most economical way for a site to advertise on the World Wide Web.

The cost entailed in PPC search engine advertising is dictated by the clicks made on a particular PPC ad. The number of clicks made on a PPC ad is subtracted from the initial amount paid by the business to a search engine company. To minimize cost and maximize return on investment, a business will have to regularly monitor its PPC advertising campaign.

How to use PPC search engine advertising

Many businesses are unable to get the most out of their PPC search engine advertising campaign. PPC search engine advertising involves a lot more than just bidding on the highest keywords. Information is a main concern of many online users.

Providing online users with relevant information they need will help bring about a more long-term relationship with an online user that will more likely result in a sale.
Information provided to online users may be in the form of a newsletter or e-zine that online users would likely sign up for. Sign-ups may be enough to cover the expenses of a PPC advertising campaign.

Sign-ups also help generate leads for websites as they build opt in list from qualified online searchers who clicked their PPC ad. Getting personal information from qualified online searchers can be done in a variety of ways such as offering freebies for surveys or signing up for newsletters.

PPC search engine advertising is a continuous process that requires hands on supervision and a thorough understanding of PPC search engines. Businesses may opt to hire the services of a professional or do it with in-house experts. Whatever course of action is selected, a business is sure to get a huge return on investment (ROI) with PPC search engine advertising.