SEO recommendations

Promoting Your New Website

2008-10-10T23:57:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about building your website from the ground up. This article did not dive into great detail on any specific topics, but rather touched on the key points you will want to address. In this article I will place most of the focus on the promotíon aspect of this previous article. Image of bullhorn saying 'Promoting Your New Website'

While at times new websites can experience organic search rankings in a matter of months, for the most part, it can take well over a year before you start to see any progress, and that is if you start promoting right away!

SEO
If your new website has not been properly optimized for the search engines, then this is a necessary first step you must take. Ensure that your new site has integrated the appropriate keywords into all the fundamental areas of the site. Without this critical step of optimizing your site, in many cases no level of promotíon will help you get those search rankings.

Note: Extreme numbers of inbound links can sometimes cause an un-optimized site to rank, but an optimized website will seriously reduce the number of links needed, and its associated cost. This varies from industry to industry, but is true as a general rule.

Ideally the optimization of your site occurred during the planning and building stages, but if it did not be sure to get this completed as soon as possible.

Press Releases
The first thing you should do when your site goes live is issue a press release. Be sure to include a link back to your website, preferably with your target phrase hyperlinked as well. Submit this press release to an aggregator such as PRWeb. This will help get the word out that your site is live, draw some attention from the public, and also get you that first valuable link to your website.

Search Engine Submission
These days search engines will find your site on their own, and submitting to them is not necessary. If you feel you must submit your site to the engines, submit it only once and shortly after the site goes live.

In order to help the search engines fully spider your new site, the best thing you can do in terms of submissions, is to create and submit an XML sitemap. Submit this sitemap to your Google Webmaster Tools account, and also be sure to include a call to it within your robots.txt file by adding the following line including a complete path to your sitemap:

Sitemap: http://www.domain.com/sitemap.xml

There are many tools out there to help you build your xml sitemap. Google has placed a líst of some of these tools on their "Third Party Programs" page.

Directory Submission
Back in August I wrote about using Directory Submission to help build links. The general gist of it is to be sure that there is a high level of relevance in the directories you submit your site to, especially if it is a paid directory. Currently DMOZ still has a high level of value as it is seen as a strong authority at Google. Make the attempt to have your site listed here in the most relevant category possible.

Link Building
There are a number of ways you can work to grow your back links. In July I wrote about 13 ways to help build links. Links are one of those strategic tools that won't ever be a bad investment. Today they play a significant role in search rankings for most industries, especially in Google. While the future will almost undoubtedly still see search value in links, even if that value declines, or disappears entirely, quality links can still help drive traffic as well, and a strong base of inbound links can deliver you customers well into the future.

Explore the different ways to build links to your site. A steady progressive rise in inbound links will help Google look positively in your direction. Do not be afraid of reciprocal links either. If you are trading with highly relevant websites to your industry, then you should have nothing to be afraid of.

Social Media
Promotíon largely consists of building links and becoming recognized by the search engines, but in order to help you build those links, getting your name and brand out there can really do wonders. By increasing awareness of your site and product, the public will often help create the buzz you need, and often, this can result in fresh links to your website.

To help get your site in the eyes of as many people as possible, take a look into Social Media and consider creating profiles on some of the popular platforms. This can include creating a YouTube account and uploading instructional, informational, or interesting product videos. You can set up a Facebook page, and work to build a community around your product. Create a profile page on Squidoo, MySpace, and Flickr, amongst many others.

These pages often act as backlinks to your site, and also help spread awareness. Be sure to keep your social endeavors updated regularly or any viewership you have will dwindle as people lose interest. If you are able to build a strong following, this can result in many individuals linking to your site and spreading the word, resulting in long term benefits for you and your site.

Your use of social media does not have to be exactly about your company. For instance, let's say you sell cars. Your use of the social platform, while it may note your business, can focus on other car info including trivia, news, photos, etc. The key is to keep it relevant, not identical - you are not looking to create a mirror of your site.

Article Writing
Write articles about the subject of your website and submit them to various services such as EzineArticles. Consider also writing for your blog to help grow your site content. By writing and distributing relevant articles you can create a nice cushion of relevant incoming links. By writing articles that closely match the topic of your site, and including a link back to relevant content within your site, you can help out not only with search engine rankings, but by creating an extra traffic stream for your site.

Pay Per Click
While Pay Per Click (PPC) will not give you many long standing benefits, it can help you to start making sales immediately which in turn can give you the funds needed to promote your site via other means. If you need that immediate traffic, this is one way to get it, but at a cost, and as soon as you stop paying, your traffic stops, so it is far from a reliable long term means. In some industries however, it can pay off, so it is definitely worth considering.

Summary
In general, reference your website everywhere possible. Get links from every relevant source you can think of, issue a press release, and get your site lísted in the key directories for your industry. The more eyes you can put your URL in front of and the more relevant sites you can get to link back to yours, the sooner you will start to see progress in the search engines.

For many industries it can literally take years to get those coveted first page results - in some industries it may be near impossible, but if you want a chance, you need to start promoting that new site of yours immediately.

10 Key Tips on Choosing the Best Hosting Package for You

2008-10-10T23:53:00.000-07:00

This is not exactly a "top 10" líst, as all of the following things could easily be listed as the most important consideration. Individuals, small companies and big corporations all need to consider the same things when choosing a hosting package.

The overall "tip" here is that you need to get accurate information to make comparisons among hosts. Therefore, each individual tip is another, separate aspect of the hosting relationship that you need to investigate. You should take them all seriously.

1. Traffic ("data transfer" or "bandwidth") - These terms refer to the amount of information, measured in bytes, that is delivered from your website to visitors. Although you will hear about "unlímited bandwidth", check to see if the same terminology used for marketing purposes is reflected in the contract. In other words, read the contract before signing on the dotted line. Unless you will be uploading photo archives or using your site to swap large files, your small- to mid-size website should normally use no more than 3GB of bandwidth monthly. Watch out for "overage" charges (per additional GB, usually) and consider upgrading your account if the site traffic increases.

2. Disk space - Apply the same skeptical approach to the "unlímited disk space" deals, as you did to the claims about traffic above. Again, the majority of small to mid-size sites need 10-20MB of web space at most, so unless 500MB or "unlímited space" is part of the basic package, don't bite. You can easily determine how much storage you need by checking your file sizes and adding them up - all the HTML pages (which are small) plus all the images (some of which can be big).

3. Uptime ("reliability") – The minimum figure for uptime should be 99%. Today, in fact, that is the minimum advertised amount, as 99.5% or more is referred to all the time. Many people would consider this the most important consideration.

4. Tools and security (FTP, PHP, SSI, etc.) – Some hosts require getting prior approval to install various scripts like CGI or PHP. You would be less constrained with a host that does not make you wait for approval. To properly maintain databases, set up security measures and otherwise customize your site, you need the full tool set. Once you find out what you get in the way of tools, press a bit further and find out about restrictions on their use, if any.

5. Email – What's the use of having a custom-named domain for your business if you continue using Hotmail or other web-based mail applications? Every hosting plan will include e-mail services, allowing you to look and sound like a "real company" with its own e-mail addresses. The quality of such add-ons as auto-responders, mail filters and mailing managers will vary among potential hosts. Don't forget to verify that you will also have "webmail" (web-based access to your mail server) and make sure to evaluate the anti-spam tools that are available.

6. Technical support – As things often break down at the worst possible times, you want tech support available as much as possible. Sometimes "24/7 support" is more like "12/5 support", so find out about coverage on weekends and holidays. It is also important to speak with a human being rather than be stuck in a circle of FAQ pages and e-mail service requests. If you face an emergency that threatens your business, you also want to know that the tech staff is knowledgeable. Ask about their training.

7. Remote controls – It may be called your "control panel", it may be called a "tool kit", but every host will give you utilities with which to manage your account. Often, there is a certain web page established from which to do this. Managing your e-mail, mail accounts, passwords and anti-spam tools are all basic chores for webmasters. With a powerful set of tools, the important control over your business stays in your hands.

8. Server architecture – There are numerous reasons for choosing one type of server over another. If you want to use the ASP web programming language, for example, it is only available on Windows servers. However, cost-wise, it is often better to use a Unix system running Apache server software, which is stable, dependable and lets you manage error pages, block specified IP addresses, stop email harvesting and more, without waiting for your host to approve anything. Also, if yours will be an e-commerce site, you will want to get SSL (Secure Socket Layer), MySQL and shopping cart functionality.

9. Costs and payment plans – Price, quite obviously, is an important factor, but the most expensive hosts are not always the best ones. Consider cost, of course, and beware of dramatic price differentials on what are really quite similar plans. You can pay via annual or quarterly payment plans that will discount the monthly rate, and the more you pay at once (and upfront), the less you will pay per month.

10. Reputation and reviews – Search the Internet and talk to all of your business colleagues. Track down both complaints and praises about your potential hosts, but remember to consider the source of the comments.

You will save yourself a lot of frustration if you do your homework. If you are unclear or uncertain about any of the particulars, ask someone you know who has more expertise for assistance. You can also take the bull by the horns and use the Internet as your school, to learn what you need to know about hosting companies and how they work.

The Evolution of Online Advertising Technology - More Targeting, Less Privacy (Part One)

2008-10-10T23:51:00.000-07:00

Please bear with me as I go through a brief history of basic online advertising. The evolution of targeted online advertising is interesting, because I believe the perceived harmlessness of early advertising technology and targeting tactics lulled many people into a sense of complacency or perhaps even false security.

In the beginning of targeted online advertising, there were banner ads. As many people recall, these were supposed to drive the Internet marketing industry in its infancy. Scads of publishers paid scads of money based on a CPI (cost per impression) model or simply paid huge dollars for banner ads and other targeted online advertising on well-trafficked sites.

Then something crazy happened - nothing. It turns out that the banner advertising technology on the Internet was not the magic bullet it was purported to be. The old way of making money based on providing content (the way magazines and newspapers ran advertising) just didn't seem to work in this context.

This new advertising technology was part of the reason for the collapse of the dot-bomb era. All the talk was about "eyeballs," "stickiness," "bleeding edge," "cradle to grave," and several other terms that, in retrospect, would have sounded more at home in a Wes Craven movie than in an emerging industry. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of business models depended on a traditional marketing strategy working more or less the same as it always had when introduced into a non-traditional setting.

All the while, one company, originally called GoTo, then Overture, and finally bought by Yahoo!, actually formulated a targeted online advertising system that worked - keyword advertising. Companies could bid on a per-click basis for certain key terms, which sent valuable traffic to its website.

Obviously, the improvement in advertising technology had to do with the model itself, which was perpetuated on relevance. By only bidding on keyphrases that you wanted, you could only pay for visitors who had already shown an interest in your products or services. This targeted online advertising model was soon copied by Google, who tweaked it and made it better.

There were not many raised eyebrows at this time, in terms of privacy. After all, the user was the one entering the query, and nobody suspected at the time that search engines might one day actually create individual profiles on users. We were all just really enjoying "having the information at our fingertips" without the potential hazards of ink stains and paper cuts that traditional research required.

Google then took a similar idea a step further. Instead of just serving up targeted online advertising on its home page, the company created a content distribution network called AdSense. In this program, owners of websites could sign up to have the ads placed on their sites. Google would then use a "contextual" logic to determine which ads to place where. In other words, Google would "read" the content on a page and then serve up targeted online advertising in the area provided by the site owner that was relevant to the content.

There were a few missteps with this new advertising technology (one classic example was when the online version of the NY Post ran a story in 2004 about a murder victim whose body parts had been packed into a suitcase. Running alongside the story was an ad that Google served up for Samsonite Luggage). Yet this targeted online advertising service also caught on, with nary a cry from privacy people. After all, you don't have to visit the sites. And the site owners don't have to sign you up for the service, right?

Suddenly, Gmail was offered and that raised some eyebrows. Gmail, of course, is Google's free email-based platform. Gmail gave people an (at that time) unprecedented 1 gigabyte of email space (Yahoo!, if memory serves, offered 4 megs for free email accounts and charged people for more memory). The only caveat – Gmail would use a similar advertising technology platform as AdSense, but it would decide which ads to serve up by reading through your emails.

Well, this new approach to advertising technology creeped some people out, and privacy advocates were a bit more vocal about using targeted online advertising by parsing through people's emails. A California lawmaker tried to introduce some legislation preventing the practice. International privacy groups chimed in with their own concerns. In the end, however, the fact remained that one had to sign up for a Gmail account and everyone that did was (presumably) aware of how the service worked before they did sign up. So it was an opt-ín system – If you didn't want Google parsing through your email and serving up relevant, targeted online advertising, you didn't have to use the service.

So there we all were, happily surfing away, not a care in the world. What most of us didn't realize was that enough free cookies were being distributed to each of us to turn the otherwise docile Keebler elves into tree-dwelling Mafioso erroneously plotting a turf war.

These cookies, of course, are the ones that websites place on your computer when you visit – little packets of information that record your visit, and sometimes, your activity there. Certainly, there's a legitimate reason for this. When you return to a website, it can help if it remembers your last visit and you can pick up where you left off. Assume, for example, that you were making multiple purchases from an e-commerce site and had a bunch of stuff in your shopping cart but were forced to abandon the site before completion. It's nice to go back and pick up where you left off without having to do it all over again.

Digital advertisers, however, saw another opportuníty for targeted online advertising. They invented advertising technology that would scour through the cookies on your personal machine, figure out what you liked and disliked by looking at the types of sites you went to, and then feed up highly targeted online advertising based upon your browsing history. These companies included aQuantive, DoubleClick, ValueClick, and others. Of the companies I mentioned, only ValueClick is still independent. Google snapped up DoubleClick, while Microsoft snapped up aQuantive. Clearly, these companies believe in the future of Internet advertising technology and also believe in the long-term legality of this technology.

Now some real red flags were raised. I've written about this advertising technology before, so I'm not going to go over it all again here. Suffice to say that some government regulators were pretty skeptical about this new form of advertising technology and there have been numerous suggestions for regulation. The lack of uproar from the public, however, has not really created any backlash for the companies in question. It could be because there is widespread ignorance about Internet advertising technology (and I believe there is, based on conversations with people of average Internet experience). Perhaps a part of it is also that privacy has been eroding on the Internet one incremental step at a time.

To be continued in part two...

How to Get Free Press

2008-10-05T02:39:00.000-07:00

Free press is one of the best ways to spread the word about your website, your product, and your brand. However, most people don't know where to start. Fortunately, it's really not as hard as you might think.

There are thousands of articles being published every single day on blogs, newspapers, and magazines. Bloggers, writers, and journalists have pages to fill and all of them are actively looking for interesting topics to write about.

Many people forget that PR is about public relations. It's not just about writing a press release. It's about getting to know the journalists. Find out what kind of stories they're working on and see what you can do to help them. PR is really about listening and engaging key influencer's.

You need to connect. Connect with journalists who are writing about stories in your industry. Send them a quick note to tell them what you like about their writing. Provide them with story ideas within your industry. Provide them with value and they will have open ears whenever you want to pitch your story.

But remember, a journalist is extremely busy. You must respect their time. Keep everything short and sweet. Get to the point quickly and concisely.

Most journalists can be easily contacted through email, which can be found on their website, in their byline, or within the publication they write for. However, many writers and journalists can also be found on a number of different social media networks, including Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. These social media platforms are another great way to connect with bloggers and mainstream media journalists.

However, what if you could get reporters and writers for major publications like the New York Times, USA Today, and the Wall Street Journal to actually come to you for their information for articles?

This is exactly what you'll get with PR Leads, a service which connects experts with reporters. At $99 per month, this is one of the best publicity bargains around without actually hiring a full time PR agency.

This is one of the easiest ways to get your name in print. PR Leads connects you with journalists in your area of expertise. They put you in direct contact with reporters who are actively looking for quotes. In fact, you'll get 3-5 emails per day sent directly to your inbox.

However, if $99 is a bit too high for you, there's also a free service called Help a Reporter Out that offers a similar service. It's run by a New York PR guy named Peter Shankman.

Much like PR leads, they connect you with PR people and journalists who are looking for sources.

Each day, they will send you up to 3 emails containing anywhere from 2-10 queries per email. You can then respond to any queries that are targeted within your niche.

This free service actually started out as a group on Facebook called "If I can help a reporter out, I will." However, it got so big that Peter decided to start sending the enquiries by email. They now have over 10,000 members getting free PR leads.

You can sign up now at www.helpareporter.com .

Have you ever wanted to be a featured guest on National Television?

If you're looking to get on national TV shows, there's a specialized directory that will provide you with all the contact info you'll need to apear on top TV shows, including Oprah, the Today Show, CNN Fox News, CNBC, Nightline, Bloomberg TV, and many more.

This incredible service is known as "Harrison's Guide" and will give you 927 key contacts for 259 top national TV and cable shows that interview guests.

You'll find out exactly who to contact at each show and what to say to get them to put you on the air.

Find out more at http://www.freepublicity.com/getontoptv/ .

Participation is the key to good press. Get to know the influencers. But most importantly, get to know your readers. In today's world of social media, word of mouth can spread faster than ever. Everyone is now a content creator, a blogger, a social bookmarker, and an evangelist. These are the people you want to connect with.

People used to say that you had to get out there and knock on doors, but today you need to leave blog comments, interact on social networks, and above all: provide value. Contribute to the conversation.

Social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Pownce, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, Digg, Delicious, Ning, Google Groups, and many others can bring massive amounts of traffic, links, and attention. However, many people miss out on one of the biggest benefits of social media...

Feedback

Your customers are having conversations at this very moment in forums, social networks, blogs, and other media outlets. Connect with them and you'll be surprised at the amount of valuable feedback you'll get back.

This feedback can then be used to improve your products, your content, and your customer experience.

Building good PR is a process of building relationships with key influencers, building relationships with your community of readers and customers, and most importantly: creating insanely valuable content.

By being remarkable, you'll naturally be noticed by bloggers, reporters, journalists, and talk show hosts. Build a business that's worth talking about and people will start talking.

10 Most Useful Free Google Marketing Tools

2008-10-05T02:31:00.000-07:00

Google is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. Happy Birthday Google!

One way Google is celebrating this event is through funding 10 million dollars for the idea that can help the most people. An idea that could have the most impact on our world.

It's an ingenious way to celebrate Google and what it stands for... a birthday gift to everyone.

You can find out more about Google Impact Project here: 10 to the 100

Google Has Already Impacted Many People

Like a lot of webmasters and marketers out there, I am very grateful to Google. Mainly because Google has been very good to me and has made my online livelihood possible with organic rankings, Adsense revenue, Adwords...

Maybe I could have done it without Google, but it would have been a much more difficult job. And it's very hard to imagine a world without Google.

It's also hard to believe Google has only been around for 10 years... it has made all the difference to my onlíne marketing. I have used Google and Google Tools every day for the last six or seven years.

And it seems Google is only getting stronger and better. The new Google Chrome browser will only add to the long líst of Google's helpful offerings to the public.

With this thought in mind, here is my (biased) líst of the most 10 useful marketing tools Google has produced.

10 Most Valuable Free Google Marketing Tools

Google has become the dominant search engine on the Internet. It would be hard to imagine a web without Google. For that matter, it would now be hard to imagine a world without Google. As frightening as that may seem to many people, it is none the less true.

For better or worse, Google has permeated into almost every aspect of our everyday life. Being Googled is now a common expression and an act carried out by millions of users around the world each day. New Google products and services are coming on stream at a staggering pace, further increasing Google's impact on our lives.

Despite this dominating presence, many people still don't realize Google offers some excellent free marketing tools for marketers and webmasters. Marketing tools which can prove extremely valuable to any webmaster or marketer trying to promote their sites or products online. Useful tools that will make your promotions easier and much more profitable.

Don't be fooled by the 'free' label, these marketing tools might be free but they are also valuable. One even wonders why Google would be giving away these tools and services for free? It probably makes good business sense in the long run. By providing these free tools Google is fostering a lot of company good-will and building up the Google brand name in the process. Good PR is good business.

Every marketer and webmaster should be taking advantage of Google's good-will and snapping up these professionally run services and marketing tools. Here's a quick run-down of the 10 most valuable free Google Internet marketing tools:

1. Google Analytics

Perhaps the premier marketing tool offered by Google. It will prove helpful to both the marketer and the webmaster. Google Analytics gives you a daily snapshot of your web site. Google Analytics analyzes your traffic, where it comes from and what it does once it enters your site. You can monitor up to three sites for free.

Google Analytics is extremely valuable in analyzing your marketing funnel. It tracks all the steps leading up to your sales or checkout page. Vital information for raising your conversion rate and ROI.

You may be placed on a waiting líst for this highly in demand service from Google.

2. Google Sitemaps

Webmasters can use Google Sitemaps to almost instantly place newly created pages on their site into the Google Search Index. This is a XML file that is uploaded to Google as new pages are added on your site. Needless to say this can be a valuable service for any webmaster or marketer who wants to get their information on the web quickly.

3. Google Alerts

Be notified when someone or another site lists your site or mentions your name. Great way to keep track of all your online activities. Great way to monitor all your online business interests and products.

4. Google Froogle

Froogle is Google's price directory! It simply lists all the cheapest prices for different products on the web. For marketers and webmasters who are promoting products, it should be studied and analyzed. Optimizing your site's content for Froogle may prove to be very beneficial.

Follow Froogle or Google directions exactly on how to líst or display products on your site. Froogle will spider your site and display your prices and products to thousands of targeted customers. That, as they say, is priceless.

5. Google Checkout

Not exactly free but for those marketers who use AdWords - for every $1 spent on AdWords you can process $10 for free. You can also place the shopping cart logo on your AdWords ad and take advantage of the prestige and trust the Google brand name has built up.

Over time marketers may find this tool to be very effective and valuable.

6. Google eBlogger

Blogging has become vitally important to the health and functioning of your web site. No site should be without at least one blog and RSS feed. Creating a blog (online journal) on the topic of your web site or product will bring in extra traffic and targeted customers. eBlogger is a simple free blogging service that even lets you publish or post your blog files to your web site server. Keep in mind, each blog has that all important Google Blog Search bar.

7. Google Toolbar - Enterprise Version

Try the new enterprise version of the Google Toolbar for your company or business. Integrates countless features with all your employees or corporate network. These could include a common customer database, company calendar, financial news...

Keep in mind, Google also ranks every page it indexes on a scale of 0-10. While it is important to know the Page Rank of your pages, it is even more important to know the PR of your competitor's pages. You can use the toolbar to get the PR of each page you're visiting. Extremely helpful information for webmasters and marketers to know when forming online linking or business arrangements.

8. Google Groups

Every marketer knows the important of having a large contact líst of people with a similar interest. Social networking will play an ever increasing role in your success on the web. Just look at the growing popularity of sites like MySpace and LiveJournal.

Google groups is another form of social and business networking that every marketer should be aware of and pursuing.

9. Google Adsense

One simple way to monetize your web content is to use Google Adsense. Just place the Adsense code on your site and receive a check from Google each month. For webmasters who are not really into onlíne marketing (do such creatures exist?) Adsense can be a painless way to earn extra íncome from your site.

For professional marketers, using the Adsense system can supply a tremendous amount of marketing information on the keywords in their particular niche. It keeps the marketer informed on what keywords are being bid on and how much advertisers are willing to pay.

Adsense also has an excellent real-time tracking system you can use to keep track of all your important web pages.

10. Google Docs

A recent addition to Google's stable of free products. Google Docs (Writely.com) is a full featured online writing editor with spellcheck and great collaborating features. It also lets you publish your content directly to your blogs. One feature that may be of interest to marketers, is that it lets you save files in the popular download format of PDF.

Let's face it, until video takes over the web in four or five years time - the written word is still king on the net. It is the medium that markets, promotes and sells your content or products. Writely will help you write better.

Honorable Mention - Google Trends

This Google program will let you search popular trends, important for marketers searching for the latest hot product to promote. You can also break down these trends by different regions.

Final Note

Please take note that signing up for a Google account will usually help you in obtaining most of these free services or programs. Some of these programs may have to be applied for individually. But be assured, all these free Google marketing tools are well worth your time and effort. They will make your marketing easier and they will help any webmaster or marketer run their online business more efficiently.

How to Use Forums to Drive Laser Targeted Traffíc to Your Site in 7 Steps

2008-09-29T23:09:00.000-07:00

There is no doubt about the fact that Forum posting works when it comes to driving traffic to a site. On many occasions, I have successfully used posting to forums to gain exposure to my affiliate landing page, squeeze page, sales page, etc.

I tell you, if you're really smart, the goal of every forum post you make is to get as many people to subscribe to your líst! Posting to forums is a very fast and powerful way to build your base of subscribers in as little as 30 minutes. Below is a step-by-step guide:

Step 1 - Find Forums About Your Niche Very Easily

Just Google the following:
+"your niche" +forum
or
+"your niche" +"discussion board"

For instance, if I am looking for Forums in the Internet Marketing field, I type +"Internet Marketing" +forum. The results show the top Internet marketing Forums such as:

Online Pharmacy
Drugs Rx Guide
All Vitamins Online

Step 2 - Join the Forums and Set Up Your Signature

Remember to include your website address in your signature. Signature is another name for your resource box. Your resource box is just like an 'about the author info'. This appears at the end of every post you make and drives traffic to your website.

Step 3 - Read the Rules and Regulations of the Forum Before Posting

This ensures that your posts are not deleted by the Administrators of the Forum. Now, don't go about spamming all members of the Forum with your website advert. In fact, I will advise you not to post an obvious ad. It's a pure waste of time because it will be deleted.

So, what's next?

Step 4 - Ask for Input

Approach from a weak man's position. Assuming you've written an article on your site entitled "13 Ways to Drive Traffic to a New Site." You could make a post asking folks to check out the article and see if you missed anything. Or you can ask for additional points to add to your article. Of course you'll have your opt ín box at the end of the article with a compelling offering.

Let's say you've written an article on meeting the right partner. You could post a message like this: "If you had a chance to learn how to meet your right partner now, what would you do?"

It's a great way to get the attention of forum members to your article. You also get them engaged in the article by asking for their input. And who knows, you may also get other publishers who would use your content in their ezines, thereby getting more exposure for your site.

Step 5 - Ask for a Critical Assessment

If you are the type that is not easily hurt by honest feedback even when it hurts, you can go to a forum and ask for a honest critique. You may think this will not make people sign up for your líst, but I tell you, many people will end up subscribing to it. It's a more indirect and acceptable way to ask people to check out your site without blatant advertising.

Plus, the feedback they give you may help to make your squeeze page even more compelling. Ask them if it would persuade them to give it a try, assuming they were in your target market (of course, you already know they are by the forum you selected). And, if they say no, ask them why. You can get valuable information on what they want (and don't want) this way.

There are two types of forums where you should ask for critiques: the niche forum itself and a marketing forum. You'll likely get more sign-ups from the niche forum and good advice to test out from the marketing forum (although you'll get some opt-ins there as well).

Step 6 - Ask Your Target Market What They Want

Unknown to most people, this is one of the best ways to develop products and services. And most times, Forum members are ready to tell you what they'll buy and give you ideas for articles, auto-responder content, your blog posts, whatever you need. People guess the products their target market will want and create them only to discover no one is interested in the product, but with this approach, you have real people telling you what product they want, how they want it and how much they are prepared to pay for it.

The way you would use this technique to get them to subscribe is to post something like, "what's your biggest question about loosing weight?" Or "what's the single most important thing you'd like to know about building a business?"

Don't forget to ask if they're willing to pay for solutions to their problems and have them give you an indication of how much they would be willing to pay. Powerful stuff!

Let them know you've already answered 10 questions (your 10 step mini-course loaded in your auto-responder), for example. Then they'll be more likely to sign-up. Make sure you point out that you'll add to your mini-course with the answers to the questions they've provided, and that they'll get answers to the existing questions in your mini-course PLUS the new ones when they subscribe. Everybody wins!

Step 7 - Provide a Step-By-Step Guide or Video Tutorial

If someone asks how to create an ebook, give them a progression of steps they can take. Or, make a Camtasia tutorial video showing them how. Now that you've got them to your site, you'll want to "make them a proposal they can't refuse."

Provide a Líst of Resources and Websites

In addition to checklists, resource lists with website URLs make a great site for them to bookmark! Make sure you supply more than just links. Make it a huge info-page of information. A collection of resources, links to everything you have - articles, video, audio, your blog, other useful sites, tools, you name it.

Solve a Problem for People

If someone asks for help or asks a question, provide your experience and try to help them. But to maximize your odds of getting both the asker of the question and everyone else who reads the post to subscribe to your líst, try to phrase your answer in one of the following two ways:

1. Give them tips, techniques, shortcuts, secrets, or anything that offers both the promise of exclusive information and fast results. A shortcut to success.

2. Whenever possible, supply them with specific results. Think about it. When you want to learn how to make income online, you go to someone who is making revenue online to guide you. This quickly establishes you as an authority in that area.

And by helping them, maybe - just maybe - they'll click on the link in your signature to check out your website. If you direct them to a blog post or article you wrote to answer their question, they'll be even more likely to investigate.

That's all there is to it but at the end of the day, it's a failure-proof way to drive serious traffic to your website using Forum Posts. Apply it and see your traffic soar through the roof. Don't say I didn't warn you!

These 10 SEO Tactics Bring Me Over 2000 Visitors Daily

2008-09-24T09:51:00.000-07:00

No matter how hard some people try to mystify SEO, it is not as complicated as many would lead you to believe. Despite all the techno jargon that many in the field will throw at you: SERPs, SEM, PageRank, Keyword Density, Vertical Search, Algorithms... SEO is really simple to do if you understand some basic concepts and follow some easy steps.

Search Engine Optimization is getting your content listed in all the top positions in Google, Yahoo and MSN for your targeted keywords. When someone does a keyword search in a search engine for your particular subject or niche - you want your site or content to be at the top of the líst.

Here are 10 SEO tactics that have worked and are working for me at this moment in time.

1. Quality Content is and always will be your number one factor for getting high rankings and keeping them. You must understand search engines are simply businesses that supply a product like any other company. That product is information. They must provide quality results to anyone using their service to solve a problem, answer a question or to buy a product. The more relevant, the more targeted the search solution they return, the higher the overall quality of their product and the more popular their search engine will become. Providing quality content is vital for SEO success.

2. Keywords are your number one tools for achieving high rankings. You must understand keywords and how they work on the web. You must know how many searches are made each day for your chosen keywords. Sites like Wordtracker and Seobook will give you a rudimentary number of searches. Design your pages around your targeted keywords and don't forget to do some deep-linking to these pages on your site. Find and build backlinks to these interior keyword pages and not just to your home page or domain URL. Picking keywords with medium to low competition has worked out well for me. So too has using the more targeted and higher converting "long-tail" keywords been very beneficial for me.

3. Onpage Factors and site design will play a major role in the spidering and indexing of your site/content. Make sure all your pages are SEO friendly, make sure all your pages can be reached from your homepage and no pages should be more than three levels away from it - keeping a sitemap listing of all your major pages makes the search engines happy. Make sure you have all your meta tags such as title, description, keywords... optimized (Title = around 65 characters, Description = around 160 characters).

Remember, your title and description should be keyword targeted and are the first contact/impression anyone will have of your site - make sure you use them to draw and entice interested visitors to your site and content. Also make sure your title and URL are keyword matched for maximum effect. Having your major keyword in your Domain Name also helps, using a pike | to separate different elements of your title has helped my rankings, so too does having your keyword in the first and last 25 words on your pages.

4. Google will send you the most qualified traffic so concentrate the majority of your SEO efforts on Google. Don't ignore Yahoo! or MSN but Google is king of search so give it the respect it deserves. With its new browser, Google's influence will only grow stronger so you must optimize your pages for Google. Use Google's Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics to fine-tune your pages/content. I also use Google Alerts to keep up on my niche keywords and for comment link-building on the newly created pages Google is indexing.
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5. Link Building is still the most effective way to boost your search rankings. Make sure you get backlinks from relevant sites related to your niche market and make sure the 'anchor text' is related to your keywords but don't ignore the text and overall quality of the content linking to you. The anchor text is the underlined/clickable portion of a link. Don't forget linking is a two-way street, make sure you link out to high quality, high ranked relevant sites in your niche.

6. Article Marketing is a well established method of getting quality backlinks and it still works. Writing short 500 - 700 word informative helpful articles with your backlinks in the resource box is still very effective for getting targeted traffíc and backlinks. Longer articles have also worked for me and I use an extensive network of distribution, including SubmitYourArticle, Isnare, Thephantomwriters... plus other major online sites. Don't forget the whole element of blogging and RSS feeds in your article distribution. And always remember you're also using these articles to pre-sell your content or products. Don't forget to leverage sites like Squidoo, Hubpages... to improve your rankings and traffic.

7. Onsite Traffic Hubs have worked extremely well for me. These traffic hubs are whole sections of your site devoted to one sub-division of your major theme. For example, if you have a site on Gifts, then wedding gifts could be a separate section. This would be fully fleshed out with extensive pages covering everything dealing with wedding gifts - a self-contained keyword rich portion of your site on wedding gifts. Works similar as a sub-domain, but I prefer using a directory to divide it up, such as yourdomain/wedding_gifts. (Most experts suggest always using a hyphen in your urls, but underscores have worked fine for me.) Search engines love these keyword/content rich hubs but keep in mind you're creating content to first satisfy your visitors.

8. WordPress blog software is extremely effective for SEO purposes. WordPress software is easy to install on your site even if you haven't any knowledge of installing server-side scripts. Besides, search engines love these highly SEO friendly blogs with their well structured content and keyword tagging. I have at least one of these on all my sites to draw in the search engines and get my content indexed and ranked. I also use Blogger (owned by Google), Bloglines and other free blogs to help distribute my content.

9. Social Bookmark/Media Sites are becoming very important on the web. These include a whole range of social sites like MySpace, FaceBook, Twitter... media news sites like Digg, SlashDot, Technorati... you must get your content into this whole mix if you want to take full SEO advantage of Web 2.0 sites. You should be joining these sites and using them. It's time consuming, but it will keep you in the swing of things. One simple thing you must do is to put social bookmark buttons on all your pages so that your visitors can easily bookmark your content for you. You can use a WordPress plug-in. I like using the simple free site/service from Addthis.com which gives me a simple button to put on all my content.

10. Masterplan! Many webmasters and site owners forget to develop or have an overall masterplan/strategy when it comes to SEO. You must have an understanding of what SEO is and what it can do for you and your site. More importantly, you just don't want SEO - you want effective SEO. In order to achieve effective SEO you must have three things: Relevance, Authority and Conversions.

First, your content/site must be relevant to the topic or niche area you're pursuing - your content must fit in and be related to all the other sites in your niche. That's why closely themed sites do so well in the search engines. They give only relevant content to what's been searched for or discussed.

Second, your content/site must be perceived as an authority site on your subject or niche. Establish this authority position and the search engines will love you and your content. One way to develop this authority, besides offering superior content, is to form links/partnerships with other perceived authority sites in your field. Always strive to make your site an authority site - tops in your niche - the one site everyone has to check before drawing or forming a conclusion.

Third, conversions should be your main goal of any SEO efforts because you want to convert your targeted traffíc into site members, subscribers, buyers or just repeat visitors. If you're into online marketíng, conversions will be the most important element of the whole SEO process because you want buyers, not just visitors coming to your site.

Most of all, you must convince yourself Search Engine Optimization is not difficult, nor is it the equivalent of the online bogeyman as many would like you to believe. Used effectively, SEO can give you the targeted traffíc you're seeking. Just follow some of the outlined steps/tactics listed above and you will have SEO working for you and your site in no time at all.

10 Ways to Drive Massive Traffic to Your Website

2008-09-22T13:17:00.000-07:00

Targeted traffíc is the lifeblood of any successful business. In this article, I'm going to show you how to get laser targeted traffíc in just a few simple steps.

1. Article Marketing - One of the best ways to drive targeted traffíc to your website is through the use of article marketing. This is one of the oldest techniques for generating traffic, but it's still one of the best.
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Once you have written your article, you can then submít it to some of the top article directories like EzineArticles, GoArticles, Buzzle, the American Chronicle, ArticlesBase, and SearchWarp. For a listing of the top article directories online, go to...
Online Pharmacy

You can also publish your website to Web 2.0 sites like Squidoo, HubPages, Zimbio, and Gather.com.

For a complete listing of Web 2.0 sites, go to...

Web 2.0 Directory : eConsultant

Article marketing is even more powerful when you submit exclusive articles to bloggers and owners of newsletters. This technique has sent me thousands of visitors with a single article. The key is to find the right distribution outlets.

Just imagine if you spend just one hour each day writing and distributing one article. In three months you would have 100 articles all sending you traffic on a daily basis.

So get out there and start syndicating your articles, submitting guests posts, and writing for online newsletters.

2. Viral Ebooks - Why not bundle your articles together and create a viral ebook? Giving away free ebooks is one of the best ways to generate traffic online. It's also one of the best ways to build your mailing líst.

You can submit your PDF ebooks to:

Scribd
eSnips
DocStoc
Calameo
Issuu
Yudu
FreeIQ , and
ButterflyReports

For a complete líst of ebook directories you can submit to, go to Free Ebook Directories .

Quick Tip: You can also convert your ebooks to exe files and submít them to all the different software directories online. You can convert your ebooks using a free piece of software called WebsiteZip Packer .

3. Blogging - Blogging is one of the best things you can do for your business. Blogging is a great way to get to know your readers. Plus, blogging can play a major role in getting valuable search engine traffic from Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

4. Submit your articles to Blog Carnivals. A blog carnival is a collection of blog posts on a particular subject. They are then posted together on on blog - called a host. The host (who is also a blogger), publishes the carnival on their blog, with links to each blog post that has been submitted.

This creates an excellent opportuníty to get your blog posts shared on other blogs.

There are a number of benefits to participating in blog carnivals. Not only will you generate extra traffic, but it also provides you with quality backlinks and an excellent opportuníty to connect with other bloggers.

To submit your article to a blog carnival, go to Blog Carnival - Blog Communities Publishing Magazines . For extra exposure, submit to multiple blog carnivals. Just make sure they're all relevant to your topic.

This is one of the easiest ways to create one-way backlinks coming into your site, which is one of the biggest factors when it comes to ranking high in Google.

5. Submit your blog posts to social bookmarking sites.

Social Bookmarking is one of the easiest ways to get extra traffic and links coming into your blog. Social bookmarking allows Internet users to save and organize bookmarks to a public website, tag them with keywords, share them with others, and browse what others have bookmarked.

Digg, Delicious, Mixx, and Digg are just a few of the social bookmarking sites you can use to maximize your exposure.

You can do a semi-automated submission to over 50 social bookmarking sites at AutoPoster.com .
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You can also encourage your blog readers to bookmark your posts as well with a Wordpress plugin called ShareThis.

6. Ustream.tv - Ustream allows you to create your very own tv station on the Web. However, it's better than TV because it's a live, interactive experience. While you're broadcasting the video, you're also getting feedback from the live chatroom.

Ustream gives your business a human face and a real personality. This is extremely valuable, because people like to buy and interact with people, not impersonal companies.

Live video allows you to reach entirely new audiences and develop a much greater level of engagement. A deeper level of engagement almost equates to a higher conversion rate when done correctly.

It's also an excellent way to get feedback from your audience.

7. Forum Marketing - Forums are another way to drive targeted visitors to your website. The key to getting quality traffic from forums is to find a forum that is highly targeted to your website, become involved in the community, and create a benefit-laden signature.

You can put a link back to your website in your signature. It's critical that you use your signature to provide something of extreme value along with a good call-to-action. Otherwise, why would anybody click?

The biggest benefit of marketing in forums is that they are centered around a very tight group of people who are all interested in the same subject. This is essentially a community of raving fans for a particular topic, making them extremely targeted prospects.

Forums are also an excellent way to connect with other bloggers, meet other marketers, and gain insights into your market.

8. Interviews are another great way to generate traffic.
When you interview a fellow blogger, they will almost always publish a link to the interview on their blog. At the same time, you are also sending traffic to their website by posting the interview on your blog.

This can be a very effective technique for generating traffic and meeting new bloggers. Unfortunately, most people are just afraid to ask.

9. Build a List - If you're not building a líst, you're missing out on a major source of ongoing traffic. Your líst is the most valuable asset in your business.

Best of all, it can be leveraged at anytime to drive a funnel of visitors to your website.

10. Video Marketing - Video sites have quickly become some of the most highly trafficked sites on the Internet, making them one of the best places to generate lots of extra traffic.

And don't worry, your video doesn't have to be a Spielberg classic. In fact, it can just be a PowerPoint presentation with audio. Even simple videos can drive thousands of visitors to your site.

Once you've created your video, you can then submit it to the top video submission sites with a tool called TubeMogul .

And finally, My Favorite...

Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to generate extremely targeted traffíc online. By following just a few basic principles, you can get lots of traffic from the search engines every month.

10 Quick Tips For Making Your Large Graphics Load Faster

2008-09-22T13:15:00.000-07:00

There's nothing worse then having to sit and wait while the images are loading on your webpages. We've become a society of convenience with microwaves, instant soup and lightening fast servers. We want things in the blink of an eye.

Your visitors expect nothing less when they land on your site. You've only got a couple of seconds before they hit that back button.... and they are gone... to a faster site that will give them the information they want instantly!

Here are 10 quick tips for decreasing the load time on your graphics.

1. Use Height and Width (Size) Attributes.

Example: width="144" height="259"

Every time a browser loads a webpage it looks for the the height and width attributes (size) of each image in your html code so it knows how to lay out the text and the graphics on that page.

This all takes place instantly behind the scenes. When the proper attributes are used, the browser loads the text before the graphics. This is good. It's faster this way.

If you don't use the attributes, it causes a delay waiting for the browser to download the images first and then lay out the text. The browser has to play catchup. It can't load text onto the screen until it has figured out the exact size of the graphics.

Make sure to use attributes on all your graphics, even those little tiny ones, like buttons and bullets.

2. Size Your Image Correctly

Lets say you're trying to place an image with a file size of 30k and height & width attributes of 300 pixels wide by 400 pixels high in a spot on your webpage that is designed to hold an image sized at 200 pixels wide by 300 pixels high.

To accomplish this you've changed the height & width attributes in your html code to 200 x 300.

You may think that since the image will be displayed at the lower size (200x300), the file size will be smaller and the image will load faster.

Not true. Regardless of what size attributes you use, that file size is still 30k and it will load at the same speed any other 30k image does.

Use an image editor to change the size of the image to the correct dimensions first. Then use the correct size attributes in your html. By resizing the image before you plug it into your html code, the file size will be smaller and the browser will load it quicker.

3. Animations

Animations are attention getters, but they quickly become annoying. They also slow down the loading of your page.

Limit the number of animated graphics on your page and set your annimation at a specific number of repetitions rather than allowing them to loop endlessly.

4. Use the Correct Image Format

If your image is simple with a small number of colors try converting it to a gif format. Good choices for this are clipart, bullets, buttons, charts and such.

A word to the wise. Not all images are suited for the gif format. Complex images, photos or those with enhancements such as reflections and drop shadows don't display well in this format.

The jpg format is suitable for complex images with lots of color variations. A good example of this is a photograph.

The png format can be used for either. The high end png format (png-24) produces a beautiful transparent image and maintains any enhancements you've included. The file sizes are generally higher so if you're at all concerned about load time, you may not want to consider the png format unless you have the software and skills to slice your images. (See Tip #5)

5. Slice Those Images

Image slicing is a technique used to breakdown a large image into smaller pieces to make it load faster.

I use the image slicer feature in Photoshop but there are also many options available to do this if you don't use Photoshop.

Search for "Image Splitter" - without quotes in your favorite search engine for líst of resources for slicing images.

6. Limit the Number of Graphics you Place on Each Page.

If your pages are loading too slow, consider removing some of the images. Keep only those that absolutely necessary.

7. Use Thumbnails

Use a java script to display a thumbnail and load the larger image only when the reader rolls their mouse over the thumbnail.

I use this technique when I have a lot of images I want to put on one page, but the page would be too big if I included them all at normal size.

I got this script from Dynamic Drive. As long as you keep their copyright notice in the html code you can use their scripts for free.

8. Browser Cache

Graphics and text are stored in what's called cache on your hard drive. This makes it easier and quicker to load files that are displayed in your browser. It loads them from the cache rather than over the net each and every time, if it's available.

To improve your visitors experience, take advantage of their browser cache. The best way to do this is by not putting identical images in more than one folder, subfolder or directory on your server. If the browser always calls the image from the same folder, it loads much quicker.

9. Optimize Your Images

Optimizing your images is a great way to reduce the load time. I generally optimize images I make for my clients to about 60%. I've found this to be the magic number that reduces the file to a reasonable size yet doesn't compromise the quality of the image.

I caution you on optimizing further. Greater percentages of optimization may leave your images blotchy with speckled blocks of color. It will often make your colors look washed-out and you may lose some of the fine details.

10. Progressive Optimization

A sneaky little trick I've learned is to select progressive settings when you're optimizing your images.

This doesn't really make your images load faster, however, they do load first at a very low resolution and continue to load progressively, with more detail, until they are fully loaded.

Your visitor at least has something to view and content to read while the loading process finishes up. This technique works with JPG, JPEG, PNG and GIF 89 file types.

In Conclusion

As we progress into the Internet future there will come a time when our connection speeds are so fast the speed at which webpages load won't be an issue. News information and graphics will flash across your screen at record breaking speeds. We'll get there. Maybe not in the next few years but eventually we will. History has already taught us that the technology is here. It's only a matter of time before we see it.

But until that happens how quickly our webpages load is something we need to take responsibility for.

Dominate Google Rankings Quick and Easy!

2008-09-17T11:07:00.001-07:00

Does dominating Google rankings quick and easy sound too good to be true? It really isn't. Following are a bunch of surefire SEO tips that have kept hundreds of my clients' sites on top of Google for years, with new ones every month.

There's a lot to cover and I hate long articles that drone on so I'll keep the info short and sweet. Let's start with the domain name.

Domain Names

Age: Make sure your domain name is at least six months old. If it's more than a year old, that's even better. Google often (but not always) likes domains to be at least six months old before indexing the site. How do they know? They use a "whois" database like the one at:

http://www.AllWhoIs.com

Go there and enter your domain if you want to see what Google (and anyone else in the world) can instantly know about your site.

TLD Type: TLD stands for Top Level Domain, which is to say the letters after the dot. The best ones to have are ".com, .net. .org and .edu." These get the most play in Google's top 3 rankings for just about every keyword you can imagine, with ".com" and ".edu" being the best.

Embedded Keywords: If you have your main keyword (and ONLY your main keyword) as a dotcom domain name with even just halfway decent page text and some good inbound links you can usually nail number one on Google for that keyword. I've done it dozens of times. It's a no brainer.

Dashes: Having a dash in your domain name might be bad for branding, but it can open whole new doors of opportuníty for your search engine optimization efforts. You see Google treats a dash as a null value (almost like a space) and can take them or leave them with equal indifference. So, if your main keyword phrase is a few words long, you can place a dash between each word. If that's taken, just try one dash separating the first and second words but leave the second and third word grouped together. You get the idea. Just keep trying combinations until you have one that works and scoop up the domain. Even if you sit on it for six months, you'll have it when you want it.

Now on to the next big item; keywords. The best keyword embedded domain name in the world will mean little if nobody is searching for that keyword. That said; let's find the best keywords possible for your site. Here's how...

Keywords:

Keywords in Demand: Let's snoop into Google's keyword database and find some winners. Go to Google Keyword Tool and enter any keyword or phrase you think your target audience is looking for. Now click on the top header link to sort by desired search volume to see which words get the most searches.

Go Long: And don't be afraid to use longer keywords as long as they get plenty of searches. Not only will this narrow the tasks of your workload for actual optimization but it will open all kinds of new options for finding great (dash laden) domain names and even help cut back on your competition.
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Narrow Your Field: Now take the top ten or so relevant keywords and phrases and líst them in order of "Approximate Monthly Searches Performed." You might want to paste the keyword into one column of a spreadsheet and the number of searches into the next column. This next part takes a bit of math so we might as well let Excel do it.

Competition:

Competition: Less is Better: "Less is better." Well that's the understatement of the year. But how do you know how much competition you will be up against? It's easy. Simple division does the trick nicely. Here's how...

Google It: Go to Google and paste in your first keyword phrase. Look in the upper right area of the page and see how many pages you will be competing against if you try to optimize for that keyword (Results 1 - 10 of about 123,000,000 for "keyword".) Now record that number in the cell to the right of "searches performed." You can go ahead and do the same for each keyword. When you have all the info you need have Excel divide the number of "competing pages" by the number of "searches performed." The lower the resulting ratio; the better your chances. Your best bet is to take the lowest ratio number with the highest number of "searches performed." This is your optimal target.

Even More: But we're not done yet! Now find the next best two runnerup keywords and write them down in order of importance. We'll need them soon.

Content:

The King Lives!: You're probably sick of hearing it but content really is king. Developing search engine friendly, well optimized content (for REAL people) is key to your success. Google can read a Web page just like a person thanks to its natural text algorithm. So keyword spamming and robotic writing do not work with Google. But here's what DOES work...

Keep it Real: Call a close fríend and tell him or her exactly what you want to tell your web visitors. Then as quick as you can write it down, as close to "word for word" as you can remember. Just let the words flow. You can fix spelling and grammar later.

Fitting In: Now, with your líst of three keywords, go back through your text and fit your most important keyword as close to the beginning of the first sentence as possible. Now go ahead and place your number two keyword someplace else toward the beginning of your first paragraph. Your third keyword should go into the beginning of the second paragraph if possible.

Now use only one of your keywords for each of the next three paragraphs. Try to make them fit naturally toward the beginning sentence or two of each paragraph.

Throw in a Curve: Now use a reverse order for the very last paragraph. Put your least important keyword (number 3 pick) at the beginning of the paragraph and your best keyword at the end. This shows consistency (at least as far as Google is concerned.)

Last but not least, do not repeat any keyword more than three or four times on a page. I stick with a 3 x 3 method and it works great (3 keywords each mentioned 3 times over the course of about 9 paragraphs.)

Getting Links and Monitoring Your Site:

Inbound Links: Having high quality inbound links can account for more than 75% of your search engine ranking success. Getting these links is the crucial step that will get you over the top. At the same time you need to monitor your progress and your site's status (how search engines REALLY see it). This will tell you not just where you are - but where you are likely to be. In the old days, we had to do all of the link work and monitoring by hand. And believe me, it took a long time (I averaged about 16 hours per week; per site!). My advice is to find a good SEO tool and let it do the tough and repetitive work for you. If you get hold of the right product, it's the best money you'll ever spend.

I started out with WebPosition Pro and used it for a couple years but switched to another tool that has automated linking, which I find to be the most time-consuming and now most important aspect of SEO on Google. This was probably a good call since Web Position was recently banned by Google for abuse.

Anyway, here are my results for both...

SE0elite Cost = $167 (lifetime free upgrades and no annual fees)

Personal Results: 121 top 5 rankings on Google in 3 weeks - Mostly 1's and 2's.
Best Features: Finds best link partners; Automates link process; Finds "Google "authority sites."

WebPosition Cost = $389 WebPosition Pro or $149 Standard (plus $99 per year subscription fees for either)

Personal Results: 44 top 5 rankings in Google in eight weeks - Mostly 3's and 4's.
Best Features: Site Monitoring (recently banned by Google); Great reporting; Site Critic

Now you're ready to dominate Google. Good luck!

Using Internal Linking To Get Better Search Engine Exposure

2008-09-17T11:07:00.000-07:00

Anyone who runs a website should be aware of a few basic search engine linking tactics. Used properly you can interlink your website so that Google, Yahoo and the other major search engines will rate you higher in both page rank and search engine results for your keyword/key phrase niche terms. If you're unaware of what internal linking means, here's a basic overview.

Internal linking involves the links on your website that point to other pages on your website. Internal linking is very important because it allows the search engine spiders, those automated bots that scour the Internet looking for information, to find all of the pages on your website. In comparison, external linking are links that are on your website which link out to other websites, and there are specific tactics for those as well. In this article, however, we're going to cover a few simple tactics and strategies to get your internal linking up to speed.

When you're developing your website, you will tend to put a whole lot of pages of similar information tailored to a specific niche or subject that you want to convey to your visitors. You probably will have information, news, how-to articles, tips and sales pages, where informed visitors can buy your products or services. Your internal linking structure will not only benefit your visitors, but it will help you rank better with the search engines as well.

Having a good navigation system makes Google and Yahoo happy, and in turn, they will reward you because you are doing things to improve the visitors' website experience. So, for example, if you have an internal linking structure that is seamless, intuitive and allows your visitors to quickly find what they're looking for, search engines will give you more page rank, index more of your web pages and return higher search results for user queries.

Why? You have taken the time to help your website visitors have an excellent customer experience. As a result, your tactics and strategies should be geared towards giving arriving visitors not only the information that they seek, but have it presented in a way that they, and search engine bots, will love.

So how do you accomplish this? There are a few basic tactics, you can use that will improve your internal linking structure right off the bat.

Number 1 - use the rel="nofollow" HTML tag for pages that you don't want to pass rank to Google. For example, let's say you had a three-page site. Now, we all know that most people have more than three pages for an entire website; however, this will make it easier to follow.

The first page is your home page which gets 100% of the search engine ranking and love. The second page is an information or information/sales page, with the third being a checkout page. If you don't use the nofollow tag on one of the pages, both pages will be passed half of 50% each for the link from the home page. So, they'll each get 25% of the ranking and love passed through from the spiders. The search engine spiders will naturally give your home page the best page rank and index it first. Say, you want to link to the information/sales page and make sure that a lot of people find it, because the information page is what will sell your product or service. For ranking and indexing purposes, you consider the checkout page as useless, so you don't care if the search engines find it or not. In fact, you'd prefer it if they didn't index it all. What do you do?

When you link from your home page, you can do one of two things.

Link to the information page only from the home page. Link to both pages but use the no follow tag to the checkout page. In that way, if someone arrives who is already sold on your product, they can go directly to your checkout page and buy the product. However, if it is an uninformed visitor, they can clickthrough to your information/sales page or they click on the indexed Google or Yahoo link that's been picked up by the spider.

Two things happen with scenario #2. You give the customer/visitor the option. Because, the search engine is applying SEO love to one page and not two, the page rank passed will not be 25% and 25% for each page, but 0% for the checkout page and 50% for the information page which needs it. You maintain the search engine indexing and page rank for those pages that are important.

This is just one thing that needs to be considered when setting up your website. Professional SEO firms use this algorithm in order to get specific pages on your website to rank higher and return results in the search engine results pages that are much higher than other pages like your checkout pages which you don't care about.

Number 2 - Add extra links in your navigation area or footer area that link to important pages and main sections on your website. This extremely easy tactic is often overlooked by many websites, but it does return very good results for deep linking, and most SEO firms will review your footer links when they take you on as a candidate in order to utilize that other form of deep linking.

The reason for this is that so many people forget to do it, and many Web designers add really cool buttons, images and all kinds of funky image stuff that do nothing to improve your page rank or your results in a search engines. You should remember that search engines can't follow image links or links created in JavaScript. So, you want to add simple text links that the robots can follow to index your website more fully.

These are only two of the tactics that are covered when you hire a professional, savvy SEO firm to optimize your web layout and linking structure.

Secrets Your Web Designer Isn't Telling You

2008-09-13T01:50:00.000-07:00

If I was to ask you right now "Are you absolutely certain that your web site is optimized for high visibility in search engines?", what would you say?

What if I was to ask "What position in the major search engines does your site appear in for your target search terms?" Or how about "Does each page of your site have tailored Title and META Tags?"

If you would answer "No" or "I don't know" to any of these questions, you would be amongst the 60% of web site owners whose web sites are missing out on traffic because they are not designed for search engine compatibility. Has your web designer optimized YOUR site for your target keywords? Have they made sure it is visible in Google and the other major search engines? More than likely, you don't know because they haven't told you. Ask them today!

But what exactly is search engine optimization? Simply explained, it is the technique of attaining a high ranking in search engines and directories via changes to your site code to make it more search engine compatible.

In my experience, web designers keep a lot of secrets. One of the biggest ones is that they have no clue about what makes a web site compatible with search engines. Another is that they like to build expensive, flashy sites and so convince their clients that an attractive web site never uses a lot of text.

So your web designer may have included target keywords and phrases in your Title tag and META tags (in the HTML code of your site). They may even have explained to you that these are very important references that search engines use when ranking web sites for search relevancy. I've met many a web designer who claimed that this was all it took to optimize a web site.

But did you know that you need to tailor your Title and META tags for each page of your site? Did you know that optimizing your site meta tags is only a tiny fraction of the job? Did you know that search engines actually need to find target keywords within the visible body text on your site pages in order to find it a relevant match for related search queries? Did you know that they also need to find those same keywords and phrases used within the text links that help people navigate your pages?

It's true. For search engines to rank your site highly for particular words or phrases that you would expect potential visitors to type in, each individual page of your site MUST be built with those words and phrases in mind.

For example, if you are a Miami florist, you should have logical search phrases such as "flowers", "Miami florists", "bouquets Miami" and even target search terms such as "Miami weddings", "Valentine's Day gifts" etc integrated in your title and meta tags, as well as in the visible text of your site. Better still, build and optimize a page for each product or service that you offer. That way, if anyone types in those phrases in a search engine, your site is more likely to appear higher in the search results.

Can you honestly say your web designer has built your site with your target search terms in mind? If not, it might be time to schedule an appointment with them.

So why wasn't your site optimized for search engines when it was built? Depending on who developed your site and how it was built, you'll find a million different reasons for this. Many web developers believe it is the site marketer's job to ensure the site is found in search engines and vice versa. Most don't bother checking that your site is found in the important search engines, assuming you or your marketing department will do it. Or perhaps it wasn't discussed in your original development budget.

Not many web design firms know how or have time to optimize a site successfully, no matter what they tell you. They might feel it is outside their core business, or they might believe it is not part of the "design process". Consequently, your site can be launched for many months without the search engines having any idea it exists.

Some web development firms don't include even the most basic META tags in your site code when building it. Or those that do include META tags without close consultation with you, resulting in the wrong search terms used and poor performance. This is quite typical! Remember that search engine optimization requires both client interaction and constant monitoring to be successful.

The bottom line? If your designer can't show you substantial search engine traffic they've achieved for other clients, chances are they won't be able to optimize your site properly. Search engine optimization (SEO) specialists have sprung up to fill the need for these services. Many SEO's will work either directly with you or with your web site designer to ensure your site gets the exposure it deserves in the most popular search engines and directories. My suggestion is to pay a little more for a specialist with a good track record and reap the rewards.

Remember, search engine users generally only explore the first 10 or 20 search results. If you site isn't in the top 20, you won't be found, it's as simple as that. Always include search engine optimization into your marketing budget or your site could be as effective as a billboard at the end of a dead end street.

Putting The "Ad" Into Adwords

2008-09-08T12:59:00.000-07:00

When you're new to AdWords, it's tempting to devote far too much time and energy in trying to craft that "killer" ad. But the truth is that writing ads is a science, not an art. Here are a few of the rules.

1) Don't Fly Blind...

In over five years developing AdWords campaigns, we've haven't ever seen a profitable example that didn't track conversions.

AdWords Conversion Tracking is simple to install and a "must" for measuring ad performance. Remember, by itself the Clíck-Through- Rate (CTR) of an ad tells you nothing about the ROI it's delivering. We've seen many examples of ads with a lower CTR, but higher conversion rate.

Google Analytics obviously adds a great deal more data, but takes time to master. However, one feature worth using immediately is its ability to tell you which ad position yields the best results.

Finally, don't forget the AdWords Reports section. This has improved significantly over the past year, and the Search Query Performance report is a real asset in optimizing keywords and ad copy.

2) Cut out the Middle Man...

In this case, the "middle man" is Google. When developing and testing your ads, it's vital to put yourself in control as far as possible:

Delivery Method: By default, Google spreads the delivery of your ads evenly throughout the day, ensuring you don't exhaust your daily budget (and they get to spend as much of it as possible). However, it also serves to mask the true demand for your product or service. We have seen many cases where ads are more profitable at certain times of the day. If you have a limited budget, spend it when you'll get the best return. We recommend running campaigns using Accelerated delivery. Keep an eye on your daily budget and adjust accordingly.

Ad Serving: If you're running multiple ads, Google will automatically start favouring the one with the highest CTR once a certain volume of clicks have been receíved. We don't use the default Optimize option, and recommend you select Rotate for ad serving.

We have AdWords campaigns for some of our clients that have been running for over three years, but we always maintain at least two ad variations per ad group. Even if there's only a single word difference, one ad will ultimately prove superior and deliver an improved ROI.

The Rotate option also gives you more granularity when testing ad variations. Say you want to do a 1/3-2/3 split; you simply create two copies of ad "A" and one of ad "B". Using the same principal allows you to create 60/40 and 70/30 splits, which are very useful in some circumstances.

Network Options: Start your testing using Google's Search network only. Uncheck both their Partner and Content networks. Once you have some solid data from mainstream search traffic, you can add their Partners. Google's partners are a pretty "mixed bag", and you may decide to exclude them altogether (we often do).

Finally, enable the Content network and Content Bids. Don't run on the Content network with the same bid as Search - you're just handing Google money. By default, we set Content Bids at 1/10 of that on the Search network: so if your Search bid is 0.50p, set your Content bid to 0.05p for openers.

If you find your product or service has "traction" on the Content network (true in about 25% of cases in our experience), it may be worth running separate campaigns for Content searches.

All these options can be set from the Campaign Management tab in your account. Select a campaign and clíck the Edit Settings button.

3) A Stitch in Time...

It's important to optimize your ads (and separately your keywords and bids) to a fixed schedule. By default, we run a three-month cycle: Every three hours for the first day. Every day for the first week. Every week for the first month. Every second week for the second month. At the end of the third month.

You can adapt this schedule to suit your clíck volume, but make sure you have a schedule and stick to it. You'll learn more about your target audience, and employ your time more efficiently. Don't forget to take weekdays, weekends and seasonal trends into account.

4) Study your Competition First...

Before writing your first ad, take time to study your competition using a selection of core keywords and phrases.

This is particularly important if you're thinking of using Google's Keyword Insertion feature. This is becoming increasingly popular and can be counter-productive; making your headline look identical to the competition.

5) All for One and One for All...

Achieving a good Quality Score, and providing visitors with a rewarding experience, means treating your keywords, ads and landing page as a single unit.

Ensure your most popular keywords appear in your ad's headline and copy. If you cannot accommodate core keywords in your ads, segment your ad groups further.

Make sure core keywords follow-through to your meta data and landing page copy. Try to write ad copy that flows naturally and qualifies visitors to your site. If you sell software for Microsoft Outlook, for example, a headline such as "Using Microsoft Outlook?" will help avoid Apple users, who might find your product of interest, but are unlikely to become customers.

6) Simplicity Sells Harder...

Capitalize letters and words in your ad copy for emphasis (not all the time). Capitalizing the first letter of every word in your copy actually makes reading more difficult.

Be honest and don't use words like "free" unless you're really giving something away for free within 3 clicks of your landing page.

7) Understand what Matters...

According to research undertaken by Google in 2005, the headline of your ad represents 40% of its impact. The first line of copy accounts for 25%, the second line 20% and the Display URL 15%.

AdWords' power comes from the ability it gives you to intercept prospects at the exact moment they're looking for what you sell. The basic PPC ad format is simple, and works best with a single clear message and a strong call to action.

Video Search Engine Optimization

2008-09-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

Most of us know that a site that's well configured for search engine access is a major part of getting high traffic levels. However, you might not have thought about optimizing your video as well as the rest of your site. Since multimedia content is becoming a much more popular way of distributing information, correct video search engine optimization is important.

For instance, on YouTube alone (which accounts for more than ninety-eight percent of the videos viewed via Google), more than eighty-two million people watched over four billion videos last year. That makes YouTube both the top video sharing site and the top video search engine.

YouTube receives as much as thirteen hours of new user-submitted video every minute, and more than fifty percent of the people watching videos online share links with other people. So, getting a good YouTube ranking could be an important way to bring people to your site.

For owners of video content, video search engine optimization is a good way to get exposure, ad income, and free traffic. Being discovered by the viewers has to happen before you can get lots of views. That means making sure that your data is rich in meta information, and that you use quality RSS or MRSS feeds that you update on a regular basis.

Make sure that your meta data is well placed and relevant to the topic. A cleaner can help you remove distracting or irrelevant meta information from the file.

Only after you produce well optimized content should you contact the search engines and submit your video. This places you in the queue of web crawlers, and means you'll be indexed more quickly and more often than if you hadn't bothered to submit. The more regularly your content is crawled, the better your chance of rating well on search results.

Index your site on other engines than Google or YouTube. They can spread your video to other search engines you may not have thought of. For instance, indexing your site on Blinkx will cause it to show up on Ask and MSN, among others.

One important part of your strategy should be a series of related videos. When a viewer sees a video online that he or she likes, there's a good likelihood that this viewer will look for others like them. While a single great video will be popular and welcomed, you'll do even better if it's part of a series.

Use an embedded video player, too. Many viewers will be more inclined to view your submission if it's part of your site or blog than if they had to go to your video hosting service to see it. However, you should avoid players that use only Flash. Don't use pop-up players, which annoy more people than they amuse, and will actually cause you to lose views.

The more views you get, the more likely you are to be picked up by other sites, linked to, and rank well on video searches. You can even customize embedded video players to display playlists related to your company, and adjust the layout, and other information.

Create traffic by placing a video search box on your site. This adds unique content and boosts ad revenue. Make sure that you create a video of the appropriate length for your audience, and that you're looking for the right response.

You can use analytics to find out how long a customer stays on your video page, which will tell you if your video is too long. You can also use analytics to tell you which of your videos get the best response. Once you know this, you'll be able to decide which content should be linked first on your home page.

Remember that no webcrawler has ever bought a product or a service. If you're a local business using video to advertise, clicks are a lot less important than calls. Include a call to action with your contact information as part of your video - thumbnails are an excellent way to do this. You can use YouTube to create thumbnails at the quarter, half, and three-quarter marks. Making sure that you have both a local listing and a video listing on Google's Search Engine Results Page also increases your likelihood of getting visits.

You may also wish to make sure that your videos are high enough quality for and in the right format for television. Google TV is very affordable, and lets you create closely targeted video.

Don't use Active X controls and export all files as swf format. Use Google Video sitemaps to help with navigation, and build a separate page for each video, rather than hosting many videos on the same page. Use a simple text title and description, and optimize that page as you would any other. Then, link to it from the index page.

Descriptions and titles need to be consistent across all your sites, and file names should descriptive and make sense to the viewer. Remember that Different communities require different approaches. Prominent keywords can help on many sites. However, while keyword rich content will help videos hosted on your site be noticed by Blinkx or Truveo, it won't help on YouTube.

You'll need to get the attention of the community in general. Video responses to popular, related videos can help get others to visit your contribution. Your content will appear in close proximity to videos that are already popular. Make sure you include an active URL in the description of your video, and end the video with a mention of the link. Annotations can help you link to other YouTube videos. Be sure to allow comments!

Don't tag with irrelevant search terms, no matter how popular they might be. Remember that you need to appeal to real people, rather than just optimizing blindly. While you might turn up early in a search with good optimization, an unappealing video will cause people to pass you by. If you know what kind of content your audience prefers, you'll be able to create the right video marketing plan for your business or organization.

Video search engine optimization is an important part of any video marketing strategy. If you're planning to market your business or organization using multimedia content, creating it correctly and surrounding it with the right keywords and other information can help it be noticed. Before you submit a video, make sure it's optimized.

What's Wrong With E-Commerce Websites?

2008-09-04T10:11:00.000-07:00

What is going on with e-commerce websites? It appears that online entrepreneurs spend so much time worrying about website traffic that they ignore the customers who actually want to buy something.

Recently, I tried to order a product we spotted at a trade show. It was perfect for our application so we did a Google search to find the manufacturer and a líst of dealers who sold the item.

Almost all the websites that distributed the product had proper contact information and invited people to call, which we did. After six frustrating phone calls to dealers we still hadn't found anyone willing to answer the telephone. Since we had to leave a message almost everywhere we called, we decided to try California even though we are located in the east, and it was far too early for any reasonable person to be at work.
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We finally got in touch with a friendly salesperson in Boston, who was very helpful but unfortunately the company was out of stock. Despite not being able to fill the order, we kept their information on file because they were friendly, accommodating, and dealt with all our questions. They tried their best to meet our needs but if we would have ordered using their online system and found out later that the product was back-ordered we would have been very upset since we had a deadline to meet.

Next we reached the manufacturer who told us he was too busy to check if he had any stock, and maybe he could get back to us by four o'clock. Just as we were ready to give up, the phone rang; it was the owner of the California dealer, who had the product in stock, took the order, and shipped it out the same day.

Businesses, especially website businesses cannot run on autopilot; customers are people and they expect to be treated like human beings. Now it is not always possible to answer every phone call the minute someone calls, or to have every product in stock when people need it, but the more human interaction you can build into your website the better your sales will be. To paraphrase that old saying about horses, "you can lead search traffic to your website, but you can't make them order."

Why Should Anybody Buy From You?

Ask yourself this simple question: why should anybody buy anything from you? You probably aren't the only company that sells your product or service, and even if you are, there are most likely substitutes available from competitors.

When potential customers find you on Google they are also finding all your competitors. So unless you sell a totally unique, non-fungible (non substitutable) product, service or brand that is also the lowest priced on the market, then you best give people some compelling reason to buy from you.

The product we were looking for was available from a dozen different website businesses, spread all over the United States and they all sold the same product at the same price. In the final analysis we purchased from the supplier that was the furthest distance away in a time zone three hours earlier than us; but we purchased from that supplier because we were able to talk to a someone who answered all our questions in a friendly, intelligent, and engaging manner.

It's what used to be called customer service before businesses were turned over to database programmers, number crunchers, and search savants who think of human interaction as something to be avoided.

The Human Touch Creates Confidence and Sales

Websites are a very efficient method of lead generation and potential sales as long as you engage your audience with a presentation delivered by a real person who explains as much as possible about the things you sell, and how you sell them. And that includes things like delivery, which is one of the major complaints and points-of-contention that online customers have. Nobody likes surprises, especially when they cost time and money.

Web sales success has little to do with features, benefits, or technical advancements, in fact a barrage of features and specifications is just as likely to confuse visitors, and paralyze their purchase decision. The one tactic that overcomes this problem, that inspires confidence in your advice, trust in your ability to deliver, and convinces people to purchase, is information presented by a real human being.

You Can't Always Handle Things Personally

Understanding you cannot always be available, the next best thing is Web video. A video provides a complete, consistent, error-free, professional presentation of the information you want customers to receive. Hiring, training, and managing staff is expensive, and their handling of customers is often unreliable, resulting in a negative impression of your company.

Lest We Forget Tricky Dick

And that brings me to the Web entrepreneur who thinks that they are so charming and persuasive that they are going to be their own Web-video host.

Anybody who studies audience behavior is familiar with the classic case of the 1960 Presidential debate between Nixon and Kennedy. Most people who listened to the debate on the radio thought Nixon won, while the people who watched on television thought Kennedy won. This was a seminal example of how auditory and visual performance influences content, impression and response.

This lesson has been well learned by politicians but has somehow escaped the attention of business leaders and Web entrepreneurs.

Human Motivational Optimization

Web entrepreneurs' obsession with search optimization, and their fascination with technical solutions to human problems, has created an e-commerce environment that is decidedly remote and unfriendly. Sales are a motivational exercise in people-problem solving: people buy things that fulfill physical, emotional, and psychological needs. The answer is to adopt a Human Motivational Optimization approach to the presentation of your website material.

What is Human Motivational Optimization? It is a mindset used for designing Web experiences for human beings, not just search engine spiders.

Human Motivational Optimization For E-commerce

Let's say you have an online business that sells clothing. The best way to display clothing is on a model who twists and turns so the audience can see the item from all sides, as well as how it hangs or drapes on a real person. A garment displayed flat looks like a rag, and just doesn't do the product justice.

Even quality still photography doesn't show how a garment looks when someone moves; and high quality fashion photography is more expensive than short fifteen to twenty second Web videos.

You can also add some professional voice-over narration that explains all the fabric details, design features and options available. A Web video fashion catalog is the most effective way to sell clothes online.

Perhaps you sell cosmetics. Another product ideally suited for Web video. Teaching visitors what products look best together based on particular facial features and coloring as well as different makeup styles for work, play, and evening are ideal opportunities to up-sell and build confidence in you and your products. Customer education is one of the best Web marketing tactics you can employ in order to distinguish yourself from the competition.

Not Every Product Is Sexy

Clothing and cosmetics are both high profile products, but let's say you sell something that is not quite so sexy, something like sandpaper. Sandpaper is boring but, if you need an abrasive product, you better pick the right one or you'll make a mess of whatever you are trying to build.

Teaching customers what products to use turns one-time buyers into long-term customers. When customers buy the wrong thing, they invariably blame the supplier, while suppliers that provide valuable purchase advice create a significant barrier to competition.

Even major box store retailers have learned that they cannot afford to have a bunch of part-timers helping customers. Best Buy has their Geek Squad and Apple Stores have their Geniuses.

Returns on electronics and computer equipment are too costly, and that goes double for online businesses where shipping is a factor. And that doesn't take into account customer ill will created by the aggravation and frustration of being sold the wrong thing. Rather than being an expense, a professionally produced Web-video e-commerce catalog is actually a tactic that saves time and money, both in the sales process, and customer relations.

Web video engages audience attention; informs viewers of product advantages, details and options; and explains who should purchase, as well as who shouldn't. It educates people on how to get the most out of what you sell, and it does it in the most compelling and memorable manner. It establishes a trust-based relationship with clients and that is something competitors cannot overcome with high pressure, price-slashing tactics.

The Geeks are Killing Your Business

Today we have a generation of entrepreneurs trained in highly specialized technical areas like search engine optimization, database development, statistical analysis, and Web-based programming. All of these disciplines view business, even marketing, advertising and public relations as if they are somehow quantifiable, scientific disciplines that can be measured and managed without consideration of that messy notion called human nature.

The biggest problem in business is dealing with people, and just because your business is Web-based, doesn't mean people no longer count.

We know 'if you build it, they will come' is not a viable marketing strategy, and the idea 'if they find you, they will buy' is just as wrong. Start thinking in terms of Human Motivational Optimization: start designing websites for people, not search engines.

How to Write Articles for Improved Search Engine Rank

2008-09-01T09:07:00.000-07:00

If you are looking for improved search engine rank for any page on your website, you have to learn how to write articles in order to make use of one of the major and most useful resources online: article directories.

Just as website directories can be used to promote your website online, article directories can be used to publish your articles. These articles can in turn be used to promote a specific page on your website, and in this respect are more useful than a website directory listing that promotes only your home page.
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You have few opportunities to direct search engine spiders directly to a page of your choice, and when one arises it should be made good use of. In fact, other than article directories and links on your website, you are unlikely to find such an opportuníty, and it should be seized whenever it arises. However, very few people actually know how to make best use of such an opportuníty and to use their articles intelligently to drive masses of traffic to their site.

You can use your Author's Resource to achieve that, but in order to get the Resource read, you have to get the article read. For that to happen, you have to write a good article and then make people read it. To do that your title must be good enough to persuade people to read it. To achieve that you must be able to write a good title. So how do you achieve all of these things? That is the purpose of this article: to teach you how to craft a title that will get you article read, and then to craft a resource that will compel the reader to visit your website - or the web page that you want them to see.

So, first the title: Before you can craft your title you will need a good topic or subject to write about. There are several ways to decide what that should be, but that is another article. Let's assume that you have decided to write about how to cure a slice in golf. The obvious title would be: "How to Cure Your Golf Slice".

Would that really be a good idea? How many web pages are there online with that title? A few thousand? A few hundred thousand? In fact if you use the term as a Google search you will find it is 387,000. You have 387,000 other websites competing for these keywords. Now, let's change it to "How to Cure a Golf Slice". You get 71,500 competing sites. Just one small word change: 'your' to 'a' reduces the competition by almost 82%.

What that means is that with fewer competing sites you have a lot better chance of having your website listed close to the top of the listings for the keyword. However, you also have to take the demand into consideration: if nobody is using these keywords in their search you won't benefit by using them. Using Wordtracker I get three times as many people, searching for 'cure A golf slice' than 'cure YOUR golf slice'. So based upon keyword research the title will be: How to Cure A Golf Slice
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This has three times the demand and over a fifth of the supply of the alternative with 'YOUR' in the keyword. That's the difference that one simple word can make to the success or failure of a keyword or keyphrase.

In practice it will make little difference, unless the prospect uses the exact phrase, in which case 'how to cure a golf slice' is the more likely of the two terms for somebody to use. Were the term 'cure my golf slice' used, both would have the same number of results.

You then write the article, making it as interesting and as useful to the reader as possible, and try to persuade them that they have to find out more by visiting your website. However, the purpose of this article is not to show you how to write articles, but how to use them. You do that using your Resource Box. This is a section that some directories provide in which you have to persuade the reader to visit your site. The directory won't describe it as such, but that is basically what it is. In fact not all directories provide a separate data box for this, so you have to add it to the end of your article, but either way you design it the same way.

Keep in mind that the resource box should not be used as a bio. Even though the directory might ask you to provide info about yourself, you should use it to promote your website. Here are some ideas for your resource box.
1. Provide more information and a free gift "For more information on this topic and a free gift check out Pete's website at xxxxxx" .
2. The Second Part Offer "You will find Part 2 of this article at xxxxxx.com, in which you will learn how to put this information to practical use."
3. The Final Offer "If this article interests you, you will find a limited period free offer on xxxxx.com, that will help you to cure your golf slice."
These are various uses to which you can put the resource box, and they are all effective in getting the important clicks. However the format that works best for me is something along the lines of: "For more information check out xxxxxx where I will show you how to make every article rock with cash generating pizzazz that makes you more in a month than your website does in a whole year."

That's how to use your articles and your resource to make money. Some people don't want the resource to look like an advert. Why not? Advertising is your life's blood and your resource is the only place in your article where you really can advertise.

SEO Web Design Secrets: Search Engine Optimization Tips for Beginners

2008-08-30T23:54:00.000-07:00

SEO web design is a skill that can be learned, though most search engine optimization for beginners courses dwell too much on linking strategy as opposed to web site design per se. There are many ways for most normal people to get an improved search engine ranking, and secure a high search engine listing, and while linking is important, good on-site SEO is also necessary.

Although it might not seem like it, getting a good listing on Google or any of the other search engines is not as difficult as many like to claim. There are rules to follow, and if you play the game properly then the outcome should be in your favour. The tips provided in this article are not really secrets as such; although many people offer to divulge marvelous secrets to you, all they are giving you is stuff that people have been using for years.
[Create Nice-Looking Web Image Galleries!]
So you won't get any secrets here. I have nothing hidden away that I don't want anybody to know, and if I had I wouldn't tell you about it! Would you? If you had some secrets that were so valuable that they were making you money, would you give them away free in an article like this one? Of course you wouldn't!

So here are my not-so-secret tips on getting a good listíng in Google and improving your search engine ranking. You likely know a fair bit about meta tags, and have been informed that most are not used by search engines. Well let me tell you something. If you 'Google' Article Services you will finds my website right at the top in the #1 position for that keyword. Check the description that Google provides right under the title: that is exactly as it is in the 'Description' tag that I have on the site. So don't let anybody tell you that Google doesn't use the Description tag, because they do. So do Ask and MSN (now Live Search), and Yahoo also uses it, but not the whole thing exactly as written.

The Keyword tag is another matter. Google isn't interested in what you tell them the keywords are: they decide the relevance of the page themselves from the text and Alt tags on the page. Google no longer needs keyword repetition to understand what you are writing about: they have the LSI algorithm now, that will determine the meaning of your page from the character strings it contains. The algorithm is programmed to calculate a relevance factor from the vocabulary you use in relation to the rest of the vocabulary on the page. However, back to SEO web design, and some search engine optimization tips for beginners.

In addition to the Description meta tag, the HTML tags you should use are:

1. The Keywords meta tag. Although little used it only takes a second to put in, and does no harm. There is evidence that some search engines might use it. The rest of the meta tags are pointless.

2. The TITLE tag. This is the title of your web page, and should contain the primary keyword for the page. Each page should be written round one primary keyword that relates to the subject of your website or niche.
[Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!]
For example, if your niche is costume jewelry, the primary keyword for your home page would be 'costume jewelry'. You could then have a number of 'silos' with a main page title for each. The title of one main silo page could be 'simulated diamonds' and the first page title of that silo could be 'garnets'. All of these are the primary keywords for their respective pages. Another silo could be 'colored gem stones', with that as the primary keyword for the main silo page, and that for your first sub-page in that silo could be 'citrine'. And so on.

Each page must have one primary keyword, and it should be included in the Title tag for that page. The Title tag does not appear in the body of the article, but in the HTML between the two HEAD tags in your html.

3. The H tag. These are heading tags, with H1 being the most important. The heading for each main section in your page should be contained within H1 tags, and many pages have only the one set of such tags. Subheadings, containing secondary keywords, should be contained within H2 tags, and so on. Thus, in the example above, the heading or your garnets silo could be could be 'Garnets in Costume Jewelry' in H1 tags.

After an introduction to garnets, you could then have an H2 heading containing 'The Source of Garnets: Where Garnets Come From', then another passage of text headed 'How Garnets are Cut for Costume Jewelry', again held in H2 tags.

4. The ALT attribute. Use 'Alt = ' within the Img tags of your images and graphics. This lets the search engines know what the graphic is about: search engines do not read graphics, and the Alt attribute offers you the chance to use your graphics meaningfully with respect to SEO web design.

Text Formatting

That's all you have to worry about regarding the HTML tags. Your text formatting can be used to emphasize to search engines what the important text on your page is. Thus, if you use bold text, underscoring or italics, they indicate the important words and phrases. Thus, use the "STRONG" and "U" html tags in your heading.

Write Naturally

Don't worry too much about your keyword density (KD), other than having too much. Too high a KD could harm you if Google thinks you are making unnecessary use of them. Write naturally for human readers, and not robots. If your text reads well and makes it clear what the subject of the passage is about, then you will be fine. In my writing I ignore the concept of KD altogether. I use my keywords as indicated above, and also in the first and last 100 characters on the page (or at least in the last paragraph somewhere).

Good SEO web design is not keyword fixated, but contains good contextually related vocabulary that the LSI algorithm can use to target the relevance of the page to the search term being used by somebody using the search engine to find information. That's all a keyword is: a term used by somebody looking for information. If you cannot work without a target KD, then I would go for a max of 1 not 3%)

None of these are web design secrets, and I doubt if there are any such secrets left any more. I suppose the only thing even approaching a secret here is that my description meta tag is copied exactly by Google in the listing for my #1 placed website. That allows you to determine how Google users see the description of your site in the listing.

I have several more SEO web design tips, but these will be the subject of another article. In the meantime if you implement these search engine optimization tips for beginners, then you should soon see an improvement in your website's search engine ranking.

Clicking into the Future, Predictions for 2007

2006-12-29T12:25:00.000-08:00

Clicking into the Future, Predictions for 2007
By Jim Hedger (c) 2006

While 2006 was a great year for webmasters it was a time of
great change and challenge in the search engine sector. The most
notable trend from 2006 was the continued advancement of Google
against natural rivals Yahoo, MSN and Ask, as well as its
persistent movement towards other, less obvious advertising
venues. Next week we will look back at the ghosts of 2006 but as
the New Year approaches, thoughts turn towards the spirits of
things to come.

Predictions for 2007

1/ Google's early entry to radio advertising will bear fruit
prompting Google to start examining television advertising.

When it comes to the allocation of advertising dollars, Google
fundamentally altered the rules of the game. In the past, mass
market advertisers would gamble on a shotgun approach to
ad-spending. The options consisted of newspaper, magazine,
telephone directory, radio or television. While each medium
could provide statistics showing their print-run and audience,
tracking the success or failure of these types of advertising
has always posed a problem for manufacturers and retailers. When
Google popularized the pay-per-click model in which advertisers
only pay when a person actually views the ad, a new model was
born.

Google's billing model will have to alter slightly to meet the
radio and video formats however, as digital radio and television
becomes the norm, tracking will become far easier. Google will
be able to charge by the listener or viewer though it remains to
be seen if listeners or viewers will actually listen to or view
advertisements on digital radio or television.

2/ A consortium of major newspapers and publishers will form a
consolidated advertising group to combat Google. The initiative
will fail.

In 2006, Google literally sucked much of the money out of the
pool of resources shared by publishers on or offline. With its
venture into newspaper advertising, Google has threatened the
classic golden goose of traditional news publishing, the
classified ad section. News gathering organizations, already
reeling from a loss of advertising income to other facets of the
online marketplace should band together much as several airlines
have to reduce cost and difficulties booking tickets. The
newspapers and magazines could easily promote local, regional,
national and even international advertising opportunities at a
much lower cost than they could individually. If they can band
together to undercut Google's costs is another question however
they will either figure out how to collectively raise
advertising income or they will become Google advertising
affiliates.

3/ Congress will initiate an open investigation of pay-per-click
advertising models.

We already know of closed-door congressional inquiries into the
PPC market. Stemming from the AIT vs. Google case, we have
learned of FBI and Secret Service investigations, and in-camera
hearings before congressional committees. We also know of at
least two republican and one democratic senators interested in
opening further investigations.

How this one plays out is a mystery, but it will likely play out
this year. Thus far, the investigations have been kept behind
closed doors, a silent testimony to the strength of Google's
lobby effort in Washington DC. No matter how talented and
strenuous the lobby, an investigation of Click Fraud will be
made public sometime this year.

4/ An investigation of pay-per-click advertising models will
threaten Google's stock values.

Hence the strong lobby effort. If common sense doesn't threaten
Google's stock values, the threat of congressional oversight
will.

5/ Google will drop below $450 before the end of first quarter
2007. If Google drops below $425, watch for a major landslide in
California.

The market is softening. With expected slowdowns in the housing,
building, manufacturing and retail sectors, tech investors are
showing signs of skittishness going into 2007. The first part of
January is traditionally a time when the market readjusts to
decisions made by investors in the last weeks of December. Many
sell shares towards the end of the year in order to clarify
their incomes for tax time. This year, a number of analysts have
advised clients to unload some of their Google shares as a hedge
against an expected downturn in share values.

While Google remains far above the $450 range, expect it to drop
to around $450 by mid-March. It's earnings to assets ratios are
way too extended and though it has better prospects than any of
its competitors, the search advertising market is changing
rapidly. The only thing that saves Google from dropping is
rapid entry into the television advertising market. The first
signs of a weakening AdWords market will be the catalyst of the
first round of a Goog landslide. If the share prices hit $425,
watch for major selling. If it goes below $400, buy a boat.

6/ Yahoo will find focus and direction.

Having freed itself from the sticky peanut butter mess it found
itself in late 2006, Yahoo has made the first steps towards
reorganizing their messy organization. The battle between
Hollywood and Sunnyvale has been settled with the geeks coming
out on top of the agents. This year is Yahoo's year to stage a
serious comeback or to languish into obscurity. I suspect the
former. However, all the major algorithmic search engines will
face a new challenger this year.

7/ The major search engines will face a new and socially adept
competitor this year.

Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales has hooked up with Amazon to
produce a human-powered search engine that will be released
sometime in 2007. This collaborative effort to dethrone Google
will be moderately successful. Wikisari will quickly become one
of the biggies, but Google will still be king.

8/ 2007 will be the year Internet marketers discover the power
of online video.

The use of video will become a standard component of online
communication. Advertisements, long-distance conferencing and
public relations in general will be affected. The advancement of
video online will set the stage for a major realignment in the
traditional entertainment industry.

9/ DIY Infotainment Distribution for fun and profit.

Using tools like the Yahoo Publisher Network, YouTube, Flickr
and distributed podcasts, webmasters and private websites will
start to replace professionally developed network broadcasts as
an information and entertainment source.

Add efficient monetization to the mix through Yahoo Search
Marketing ads and you have an effective enticement for
adventurous webmasters to try entering the market.

10/ YPN will see challengers this year.

While the Yahoo Publisher Network is by far the most advanced
program of its kind, expect to see other search entities
introducing their own webmaster friendly monetized information
and entertainment distribution programs.

11/ The search marketing environment will further fragment with
the following sectors seeing;

stronger gains: Video, Social Networking, Niche marketing,
Vertical search
weaker margins: Traditional domain-driven SEO, Small-scale PPC

12/ Changes to the SEO Billing Model

Many traditional SEOs will be forced to adopt PPC style billing.
Fees will be charged based on the success of a campaign as
opposed to flat fees charged up front or on a monthly basis.
Greg Boser has written and commented on this several times, most
recently in a conversation with WebmasterRadio's Daron Babin on
the last Rainmaker show of 2006.

13/ Consolidation in the Search Marketing Sector

In 2007, financial pressures faced by firms in the SEO part of
the search marketing industry will produce a sector that looks
very different from the one we work in now. Watch for
consolidation between allied SEO, SEM, Public Relations and
link-building firms as clients demand full-service vendors.

14/ Hasty La Vista

Early Microsoft Vista users will eat a number of worms, catch a
bunch of viruses and end up as Zombies. As a result, savvy IT
departments put off the update until Microsoft can prove it has
created a master-patch.

15/ Patch This Microsoft

That big patch will be ready for download in 2008, effectively
delaying the rollout of Vista for another year.

2 Bonus Predictions

16/ Duke Nukem Forever

Duke Nukem Forever will be noted as the greatest game that never
was.

17/ Planet Fortune
Webmasters will have more rewarding opportunities this year than
ever. 2007 will see the fruition of several major initiatives
started in 2005 or 2006 such as the YPN, online video
advertising, and the combination of on and offline advertising.
With the largest public relations and marketing firms in the
world taking serious note of search, the search marketing
industry will be truly considered part of the mainstream ad
industry. This will empower webmasters as more attention, energy
and assistance is directed towards helping webmasters present
interesting content framed by increasingly expensive
advertising. There is a lot of fortune to be found online this
year and much of it will trickle down to the grassroots.

2007 is going to be an intense and interesting year. Next week,
we'll take a look at how I did in my 2006 predictions.

Embracing Cascading Style Sheets Makes Good Sense

2006-12-26T00:54:00.000-08:00

Embracing Cascading Style Sheets Makes Good Sense
By Fred Black (c) 2006

Why do I like Cascading Styles Sheets (CSS) and what makes
CSS so great. The answer only makes sense if you know what
CSS is.

The Holy Grail of CSS is to separate the content of a web
page from the instructions that control what it looks like.
This makes it much easier for various devices to display
the web page correctly. The same page would display
correctly on all standard web browsers (Internet Explorer,
FireFox, Opera, Netscape, etc.), and devices used by
persons with a handicap, cell phones, other devices, and
yet-to-be-developed interfaces. The web site designer would
not have to make separate pages for these devices. However,
reality is different and here in the real world CSS does
not do all these things. It does have enough positive
points to make it worthwhile to learn and incorporate it
into your web pages.

There are multiple ways to control how something looks on a
web page. The color, size, and font used for a headline or
for a paragraph of text can be defined with in-line styles
and tags. The term "in-line" means that the commands for
controlling the color, size, and font are mixed in with the
content. This makes the source code for the page cluttered
and hard to read and edit when you want to update it or fix
something. Also, because you're repeating the same commands
over and over throughout the page, the file size of the
page gets larger and hence slower for those browsing your
site.

As opposed to in-line styles, CSS is not repeated
throughout the page. CSS can be defined in the head
section, or put in a separate file and referenced from the
HTML file, or both. CSS consists of definitions of how a
page component should render itself on the page. For
example, you can define that a headline should be blue, 24
point, centered text and that a paragraph should be black,
12 point, justified text. Once that is defined, any normal
HTML paragraph tags or headline tags would use these
definitions when rendered.

You can define almost all the normal HTML objects this way;
background color, background image, background image position,
tables, cells, images, divs, etc. This leaves your HTML code
clean and much easier to read. Just like those Ronco TV
commercials, there's more! If you have a multi-page web site
and you use CSS and all your CSS definitions are in a separate
file, you have one place to go to change the look and feel of
all the pages in your site. Imagine if you have a 50 page site
and you learn that the size of your text in all your paragraphs
is too small or the wrong color to maximize sales: instead of
having to edit 50 pages and change the definition of each
paragraph, you simply edit the CSS file and you're done!

But with CSS what do you do if you want one paragraph or a
set of paragraphs to look different? You define a class. If
you have a right column where you display ads in your CSS,
you would define a class and give it a name such as ".rcol",
then you would define the necessary items that you want to
look different (p tags for example). ".rcol p" would be
used to control how a paragraph tag was rendered. You
simply add "class=rcol" to the paragraph tag, or the table
tag if it's in a table, or div tag if it's in a div, etc.

This is also where the cascading in CSS comes into play:
the default definitions cascade down into a class as long
as the class does not contain something that overrides the
default. This means that in our example text rendered in a
paragraph tag looks different for the rcol class, but
because that's the only thing we've defined for rcol,
everything else would use the same styles as the rest of
the page.

You can also define size and positioning for objects in
CSS. This is one place where we hit the real world of CSS
pretty hard. Not all browsers support the size and position
commands the same way. This leads to hacks that define a
position and then use a command that is known. For example,
to cause Internet Explorer to bail out of the CSS, after
that line you use a position command that Netscape for
example understands. CSS uses the last definition of an
object so this technique can be used to "trick" or "hack"
CSS into working across more browsers than it normally
would.

I don't recommend doing this. One reason is that
it's messy and easy to forget why you did something. The
other reason is because as browsers are updated, or new
devices come online, they may not follow these unwritten
and unsupported hacks and your pages are apt to be all
messed up. To get around this I usually use CSS as much as
I possibly can and then use tables and in-line definitions
to control positioning and size. Some people will go to
great lengths to use CSS for everything, even replacing all
tables, but here in the real world, you should get the
page built, functioning, and in a form that can be used
reliably on as many platforms as possible.

Not all web site software packages like Microsoft Front
Page, Dreamweaver, or Adobe GoLive, etc. fully support CSS.
You'll have to do some coding manually. Don't worry, it's
not that hard. I have an online course that can teach you
how, just follow the link at the end of this article.

Take the time to learn CSS and implement it in your web
pages. It will be time well spent.

Web Development with SEO in Mind

2006-12-26T00:48:00.000-08:00

Web Development with SEO in Mind
By Adam McFarland of iPrioritize
(http://www.iprioritize.com/) (c) 2006

When a business owner decides to bring their business to the
web, generally the last thing that they think about is search
engine optimization. They assume that whomever they hire to do
their web design will put up a site and then submit it to the
search engines and the traffic will magically pour in.
Unfortunately it takes more than that to drive search engine
traffic to your site, and even more unfortunately most
developers don't program with SEO in mind, nor do they educate
the client about the process involved in gaining traffic from
search engines.

Whether it's carelessness or a lack of knowledge, or a
combination of the two, this often leads to a client that
several months down the road doesn't understand why their site
doesn't get any traffic and isn't helping their business. A
good designer will not only program with SEO in mind, but will
also educate the client about the basic principles of SEO,
whether they are the one who executes it or not.

Many times the clients I inherit have gone through this scenario
and then face drastic on-site changes to get their site search
engine friendly before we are even able to begin the arduous
process of link building. Whether you are designing a site for
yourself or for a client, following the simple steps below when
programming will ultimately save the business time and money and
result in a search engine friendly site that truly maximizes the
online potential of the business.

Use proper tags for headings, bold text, italic text, and lists
– HTML has heading tags, bold tags, italic tags, and ordered and
unordered lists for a reason and you should use them. Using CSS
you can practically style them however you like, but actually
using a heading tag for your headings, and bold tags for
important text, will help allow search engines understand what
text on a page is a heading or what is more important than the
surrounding text. Simply applying a CSS style that makes text
larger or bold doesn't do that.

Optimize your images – search engine spiders can't read text
within an image. Adding ALT text to your image tag helps, but
ideally you should remove all wording from the image and style
it using CSS, adding the remaining portion of the image as a
background image to the text. Here is a side-by-side comparison
(http://www.seo-playbook.com/image_example.php) of two images
that look the same in your browser, but much different to a
search engine spider.

Avoid canonical problems – believe it or not, search engines can
see http://yoursite.com, http://www.yoursite.com, and
http://www.yoursite.com/index.html as three different pages. A
simple solution is to use a 301 redirect
(http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php) to point
all of your pages to their "www" counterpart. You can also select
the preferred domain that Google shows in the new Google
Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters/) console.

Get rid of Session IDs if you have a PHP site – have you ever
seen a PHPSESSID variable added to the end of a URL on a PHP
page (it looks something like PHPSESSID=34908908)? This happens
because PHP will add a unique PHPSESSID to URLs within your site
if cookies aren't available. This can be extremely problematic
for your site's search engine ranking. Google and Yahoo will see
a unique PHPSESSID in the URL every time they visit a page on
your site, and in turn think that said page is a different page
each time. At worst, this could be viewed as duplicate content
and get your site banned, and at best it will reduce the
perceived value of each page. One solution that I've used
successfully is to utilize url_rewriter.tags
(http://www.php.net/session).

Put CSS and JavaScript in external files – nearly every site
nowadays uses CSS and JavaScript for something. While both are
great for enhancing user experience, neither will help your
search engine ranking if left on your page. One of the factors
that search engines consider when ranking your site is the
percentage of code relevant to the search term. CSS and
JavaScript can take up hundreds of lines of code, minimizing the
importance of your text and in turn hurting your ranking. By
putting them in separate files and simply including them in your
page by reference, you can reduce hundreds of lines down to one
and increase the amount of code in the file that is relevant
content.

Minimize the use of tables in layouts – the debate about whether
or not tables should be used in site design has been going on
for years and there's no end in site. I fall somewhere in the
middle – there are certain circumstances (like organizing
tabular data) where I think tables still make the most sense,
but I also appreciate the SEO benefits of using CSS layouts.
CSS layouts drastically reduce the amount of code in your site
that isn't content that the user sees. Just like moving CSS and
JavaScript to an external file, the less on-page code that isn't
content, the better. Check out search engine friendly layouts
(http://www.searchenginefriendlylayouts.com/) for some free
example layouts.

Validate your site – a site doesn't have to be perfectly coded
to rank high in the search engines (there are many, many other
factors), but valid HTML will help ensure that search engines
and browsers alike will accurately see your page. Try using the
official W3C Validator (http://validator.w3.org/) or install
this handy Firefox extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/
firefox/249/). Validating generally identifies areas of code
that are redundant, unnecessary, or not accepted across all
browsers. All of which will help make your site more search
engine friendly.

Future Evolution of Search

2006-12-26T00:39:00.000-08:00

Future Evolution of Search
By Scott Van Achte, Senior SEO,
StepForth Search Engine Placement Inc. (http://www.stepforth.com) (c) 2006

The search engine world never rests. As online marketing
professionals discover new ways to obtain top rankings the
algorithms evolve right along side. There are two primary
reasons behind the updating of ranking algorithms. To increase
the quality and relevancy of the results, and to decrease the
many pages of online spam.

As the algorithms are updated, new ways to affect the results
are discovered, and the algorithm must then be again adjusted.
This is a cycle that has been around since the early days of
search, and one that won't be going away any time soon. A lot
has changed over the years, and the future is sure to also
deliver its plethora of surprises, but there are three main
factors that will always have some level of impact on your
search results.

SEO, Content and Links

Some people say that the world of search engine optimization is
over and that the entire basis behind successful rankings lies
in the power of incoming links. While incoming links do play a
significant role, and in most cases are a necessity, they are
far from the only determining factor.

There are many determining factors behind what will affect the
ranking of a site. The three largest contributing factors are
SEO, links, and site content. To compete in highly competitive
industries a site needs numerous on-topic pages of content,
relevant incoming links from a variety of sources, and, solid
site optimization. While search is always changing, these three
factors will remain constant. Each may change in the level of
impact they have, but they will always contribute to the top
listings.

Site content and SEO go hand in hand. Content is very important,
but without the SEO to add focus, it can go unnoticed. Proper
keyword densities, link paths and keyword placement will always
play a role in having the content discovered and ranked by the
search engines. If the fundamental SEO aspects are not in place,
there is a strong chance that the content may never see the
light of day. Incoming links add focus and relevance for the
site overall, but if the content is not relevant to the desired
phrases the odds of obtaining a top ranking are very bleak.

Links play, and will continue to play a strong role in the
future of search rankings as they add that important vote of
confidence. When site A links to site B, that tells the search
engines site B is worth considering. Value is passed, based on
relevance and the overall authority of site A.

As more and more webmasters develop new linking schemes, the
algorithms responsible for displaying top sites have to
continually evolve to weed out the ever increasing amounts of
spam. While Google's current algorithm relies heavily on
incoming links, especially for sites in highly competitive
markets, this algorithm will have to change and mutate over time
as the internet continues to evolve. If rankings were determined
100% by inbound links where would this leave us? Thousands, if
not millions, of valuable websites would go completely unnoticed.
We would also see many sites ranking that are not relevant to
the actual search term due to issues related to Google bombing.

Political opinions aside, the single word "failure" does not
accurately represent the George Bush bio page; however, it
continues to rank #1 in Google. This was made possible by the
anchor text used in links posted by thousands of bloggers and
webmasters. If links were solely responsible for rankings, we
would see a lot more examples of Google Bombing as the actual
number of links required to 'bomb' would decline.

Where is Search Going?

For us to know the exact future of search we will have to wait
and see what happens, but some things are certain to grow in
popularity.

The future will undoubtedly see more advances in localized
search, serving results relevant to the locality of the
searcher. Is this the best way? Only time will tell, but even if
this is the future, we will still see SEO, links & content
dictating the results. The SEO and content will have to be in
part geared towards local information such as zip codes, city
names, etc, but they still will be important contributors.

Links will undoubtedly contribute to rankings long into the
future, but quite possibly will have a reduced role with more
SEO fundamentals making a comeback. One example is to take a
look at MSN Live Search. As reported by Ross Dunn in the SEO
BLOG (http://news.stepforth.com/blog/2006/11/
msn-algorithm-update-nov-3rd-2006.php) just this past weekend
an algorithm update has shown increased value on fundamentals
such as title tags and domain names. These two areas were once
an incredibly powerful tool in obtaining rankings, and had
reduced in value. Now, at least in MSN, they are gaining ground
once again.

Still in its infant stages, Mobile Search is growing as more and
more people turn to their cell phones and other mobile devices
for search. Mobile search will likely have the most benefit for
localized type searching. People looking for an address, weather
report, local business, entertainment information, etc. As time
goes on the number of users using Mobile Search will continue to
grow, and optimized sites will be the ones found by these
searchers. A whole new level of optimizing mobile websites will
likely emerge.

In 10 years time search will certainly look very different.
While it has become a staple in the lives of millions, in the
big scheme of things the internet is still very young and search
even younger.

Why SEO will always be important

SEO will always play an important role in having sites found in
the search engines. Regardless of how search algorithms evolve
they will always require a level of on site content in order to
correctly rank websites. As long as this content is considered,
proper keyword placement and frequencies will play a role.

SEO in itself will continue to change. The proper frequencies of
keyword placement, linking techniques and URL structure may
alter, but will always have an impact.

As we move into the future and as the search engine algorithms
continue to evolve SEO will always play an important role in
having your websites obtain top rankings. While the small things
will always change it is important to have the basic
fundamentals in place and doing so will help sustain consistent
rankings into the future.

The Life and Near Death of DMOZ

2006-12-21T23:01:00.000-08:00

The Life and Near Death of DMOZ
By Jim Hedger (c) 2006

The casket was all but closed on the venerable Open Directory
Project (ODP, or dmoz.org (http://www.dmoz.org/) ). A December
16 blog post by an ODP founder, Rich Skrenta, "DMOZ had 9 lives.
Used up yet?" (http://www.skrenta.com/2006/12/
dmoz_had_9_lives_used_up_yet.html), suggested that the directory
at DMOZ is now, like Marley's ghost, deader than a doornail.
DMOZ was down and, for over a month and a half, it looked like
it was down for the count.

In reality, DMOZ is not dead though the rumours of its demise
were not exactly exaggerated either. Because this six-week
unscheduled outage followed several years of consumer
dissatisfaction, lagging editorial energy, and layoffs at AOL,
many made the logical assumption that the plug had been pulled.

While the website still functions as a searchable directory, its
editing functions have only just been restored after six weeks
of downtime. Since the last week in October, editors and
submitters have been greeted by versions of a customized DMOZ
404 page (http://www.dmoz.org/unavailable.html). DMOZ was
basically a dead directory referencing over 4million websites
spanning nearly 600,000 categories. Though editing has been
restored, it is still not possible to submit new sites.

Even if webmasters could submit new sites, chances are they
would not receive timely editorial attention. For the last few
years, webmasters have complained about the now legendary
backlog of sites awaiting review and inclusion. It can take
months or even years for spelling mistakes to be corrected and
an enormous number of the 590,000 categories that make up the
directory do not even have editors. Though many webmasters
consider the Open Directory useless because of that backlog, it
still swings a big weight in the search sector.

The greatest success of the Open Directory Project stems from
the free database access offered to any other search entity. The
majority of search engines and directories use the ODP's
RDF-esque data-dump (http://esw.w3.org/topic/DmozRdf) to help
populate their databases. As every ODP listing is human edited,
Google and other search engines have tended to treat ODP
references as trustable sites. Carrying a PageRank of 8, links
from the ODP continue to be considered Google-Gold by SEOs.
Other search engines receiving results from the DMOZ directory
include Ask, Yahoo and AOL. Clearly the ODP remains an important
entity in the search space.

It has certainly earned its status as an important entity. The
Open Directory Project has a long history that dates back to
1998. Since the day it went online as GnuHoo in June 1998 it has
played a crucial, defining role in the evolution of the search
sector and of the Internet.

Gnuhoo appeared on June 5 1998 in response to the rapid growth
of the web. The number of new sites coming online in 1998 far
exceeded the capacity of Yahoo's editorial staff that was
rumoured to number less than 200. Gnuhoo co-founders Richard
Skrenta and Bob Truel believed they could create a better
directory using an unlimited supply of volunteer editors than
Yahoo could with their limited team of professional editors.

They were right. NewHoo grew faster than Yahoo did in the last
half of 1998. Less than a year after it went online, the
all-volunteer project had acquired 8,000 editors and over 430,000
websites. By then it had undergone two name changes and had been
acquired by one of the largest emerging online entities.

Within days of being online, Gnuhoo had attracted enough
attention to force a rapid succession of name changes. First
the Free Software Foundation objected to the use of the term GNU
after a Slashdot article misconnected the two projects. Gnuhoo
was thus renamed Newhoo. A few days later, Yahoo raised issues
about the use of the suffix "Hoo". At the same time, Netscape
Communications Corporation opened a dialogue with Skrenta about
acquiring the upstart directory project as a major asset during
their competitive phase with Microsoft.

Promising to respect the founders' original intentions to keep
the site a non-commercial entity, Netscape acquired the
directory for $1 million in October 1998 and renamed it the Open
Directory Project. ODP data was released freely under the Open
Directory Licence. A month after Netscape bought ODP, America
Online (AOL) purchased Netscape. AOL agreed to honour the Open
Directory Licence, formalizing it in a Social Contract
(http://dmoz.org/socialcontract.html) with the web community.
This marks the real start of the ODP's rise. By early spring
1999, most of the major search engines were pulling data from
the ODP.

1998 and 1999 was a special time in the history of the Internet.
Billions of dollars were invested as eager speculators and
venture capitalists moved to cash in on the promise of instant
riches. Start-up companies with no functional business plans
became multi-million dollar concerns overnight. The first
generation of instant online millionaires was spawned and talk
of breaking the traditional business cycle was taken seriously.
The bottom was about to fall out of what had become a
stratospheric marketplace but at the time, very few saw the
danger through the haze of the hype. When the sky fell, it fell
hard. In a tangential way, the ODP was directly involved. Though
it is technically a non-profit society, ownership of the ODP is
considered a business asset.

The trigger event that led to the crash of 2000 was the most
significant deal in the history of global publishing. In January
2000, less than a year after it had acquired Netscape and DMOZ,
AOL purchased the Time Warner media empire for approximately
$160 Billion in an all-stock deal. The excess of that deal, one
in which an upstart tech firm absorbed the largest brick and
mortar information and entertainment business in the world, made
a number of analysts look at the silliness of it all. Within
three months, the shares AOL used to buy Time Warner would be
worth a fraction of their value when the deal was struck.

The Tech-crash of 2000 had a cascading effect across the web.
Most, if not all, of those new businesses without business plans
were quickly put out of business as the value of those firms had
declined and no new sources of investment were forthcoming.
Online properties supported by shareholders, such as Yahoo and
AOL/Time Warner, were in sudden desperate trouble. 18-months of
tech sector doldrums set in as the investment world started
looking for a revenue source that could sustain the staggering
costs of the sector.

A new search engine appeared on the scene around this time. It
had a funny name and appeared to disregard the dominant portal
or directory structure favoured by most search engines. Hidden
behind its sparse front page and childish logo was a
revolutionary way of producing what everyone agreed at the time
were extraordinarily accurate search results. The age of Google
began in late 2000. A year later, the power of viral marketing
had propelled Google into the big leagues, making it a serious
challenger to AltaVista, Lycos and Yahoo.

Google populated itself in part by using DMOZ data. In its
earliest years, Google used DMOZ as its directory, displaying
virtually mirrored results. Google's unique method of judging
page content by the number and value of incoming links made a
listing at the Open Directory critically important for SEOs and
webmasters. As Google's popularity and reach grew, the value of
a DMOZ link grew. Because ODP listings are human reviewed,
Google has traditionally tended to trust them, thus producing
stronger placements faster. Between 2001 and into 2005, Google
was responsible for over 80% of all organic search listings
either directly or through feeding competitors such as Yahoo and
MSN.

When Google figured out how to make the paid-advertising system
Overture was using make oodles of money, all hell broke lose
again and we rapidly advanced to where we are today.

When Google became the most important search engine, search
marketers began targeting the Open Directory with site
submissions, often with several sites for the same company. As
one ODP editor put it, "We never asked to be used by Google like
this." As the decade progressed, new methods of creating web
documents (html editors, CMS, blogs, etc...) spurred another
period of extraordinary growth that far surpassed the ability of
DMOZ editors to keep up.

A classic dilemma existed. A link from DMOZ could mean the
difference between weeks and months waiting for a good placement
at Google. The ODP was never supposed to have such influence.
The relationship Google's algorithm created between itself, the
Open Directory and webmasters wanting a DMOZ listing ended up
threatening the open editorial policies originally envisioned.
It was difficult to enlist new editors when many applicants were
primarily motivated by the ability to insert their own sites.

Though it boasts almost 75,000 editors, it also contains over
590,000 directory categories and sub-categories. The Open
Directory is enormous and continues to be driven by volunteers.
One of two things happen; either its volunteer editors deal with
an average of 8 categories each or some categories will have to
go unedited. The latter tends to happen more often than the
former and the public and search engines are left with a less
than complete directory to draw from. Such has been the case for
the past two or three years.

In their defence, the ODP editorial staff would suggest that
the majority of sites they continue to see are junk advertisement
pages designed for SEO or PPC purposes. Similar comments appear
in any number of threads found at the Open Directory Resource
Zone (http://www.resource-zone.com/forum/), a public chat forum
designed to promote communication between editors and users.

With a massive backlog of unreviewed submissions and a huge
demand from search marketers hungry for the rankings boost
expected from a DMOZ listing, many felt the ODP was becoming an
elite, secretive society. Editorial applicants reported their
requests were going unanswered and allegations of corruption
(http://www.sitepronews.com/archives/2005/may/30.html) amongst
rouge editors emerged. By end of 2005, the ODP appeared to be in
total disarray with more sites in the review process than were
actually in the directory. Throughout 2006, the ODP has become
less and less relevant to the search marketing community until,
towards the end of the year, it was gone.

Most of the directory appears to be functioning again though it
is likely a version carped together using data from the last RDF
file. When the server at AOL crashed, it took most of the
current directory and all of its records with it. A number of
meta editors have spent the past six weeks rebuilding the
directory with the help of a few friendly AOL techs. The submit
a site feature is, as of this time, not functioning.

Outwardly, the importance of the Open Directory was obvious but
the greatest contributions to the Internet from the Open
Directory team come from the people involved with the movement
and the open-source philosophy that has descended from them.

When Netscape absorbed it, the Open Directory Project became
part of an amazingly influential environment. Founded by
legendary Marc Andreessen, Netscape was already part of the Open
Source movement. Netscape founded the Mozilla Foundation in
January 1998, nearly a year before it acquired DMOZ. The
Mozilla Foundation introduced and marketed the Firefox browser.

The ODP was arguably the first successful long-term project that
could fall under the general heading Web2.0. Its philosophy set
the stage for the Wikipedia and other community based websites.
Unlike other collaborative projects that predate it, the ODP was
a truly grassroots endeavour. Participants didn't need to be
extraordinary technicians; they just had to be able to
understand the editing techniques used by their community.

Though rumours of its death are obviously exaggerated,
complaints about its demise are not. The ODP is a wonderful
entity, but the power it inadvertently exerts is far greater than
its ability to edit itself. Many have suggested the ODP should
shut its door for good but perhaps this downtime has given its
meta-editorial collective a chance to consider its role in the
search community.
================================================================
Search marketing expert Jim Hedger is one of the most prolific
writers in the search sector with articles appearing in numerous
search related websites and newsletters, including SiteProNews,
Search Engine Journal, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide.

He is currently Executive Editor for the Jayde Online news sources
SEO-News (http://www.seo-news.com) and SiteProNews
(http://www.sitepronews.com). You can also find additional tips
and news on webmaster and SEO topics by Jim at the SiteProNews
blog (http://blog.sitepronews.com/).
================================================================

Copyright © 2006 Jayde Online, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

SEO-News is a registered service mark of Jayde Online, Inc.

Anatomy Of A Web-Advertising Campaign

2006-12-20T22:07:00.000-08:00

Anatomy Of A Web-Advertising Campaign
By Jerry Bader (c) 2006

In The Beginning There Was Marketing

Anyone in business who has any interest in using the Web to
further his or her business is well aware of "search engine
optimization." Not a day goes by that my email in-box isn't
loaded with information on how to get the best search engine
results, and not a week goes by that a client or potential
client doesn't request that their website be not just search
friendly but search engine fanatical.

For some time we have been preaching the importance of
delivering the marketing message and that your message should
not be corrupted or distorted by techniques aimed at attracting
search engine robots while driving away real people who may
actually be potential customers.

Now I realize that in many circles this attitude is considered
outright heresy, but hopefully there are a few marketing types
around that understand websites have to deliver more than
miscellaneous random eyeballs; websites have to deliver a
message that is memorable, understandable, useable, and if
you're really good at your job, information that can be
incorporated into your audiences' belief system.

With that in mind we were pleasantly surprised when Google the
primary target of this SEO obsessive compulsive frenzy of
technical slight-of-hand announced that they were instituting
Google Video Ads and to add a little icing on the cake, they
purchased YouTube adding to their already considerable
investment in Google Video. Somebody at the big "G" thinks
video is a viable Web-medium even if the purveyors of search
engine fool's gold would have you believe otherwise.

The list of companies, including Forbes, Amazon, Wyeth, and
Ford, delivering Web-audio and Web-video grows daily and we are
not just talking about major corporations. Small companies are
using multimedia to get the edge on their larger competitors
who still have their heads buried in the search engine
optimization sand.

Acknowledging All The Issues

In developing our campaign to promote the use of Web-audio and
Web-video as an effective method of delivering marketing
messages over the Web, we identified four key issues that would
have to be addressed:

(a) We had to demonstrate that website design was about
delivering the marketing message and not just search engine
optimization.

(b) We had to demonstrate that even small and medium-sized
companies could afford professional Web-audio and Web-video and
that it wasn't cost prohibitive.

(c) We had to demonstrate that professional Web-audio and
Web-video required more than just the ability to use a video
camera and that professional multimedia story-telling required
a unique set of creative skills and technical ability not often
found in-house in most businesses.

(d) We had to demonstrate that the development and production
of creative multimedia marketing and professional webmedia
content had to do with talent and experience, not size.

These were the challenges that informed all our subsequent
decisions.

The Concept

In order to make people pay attention to what we had to say we
needed a concept that was both familiar and edgy. Sure we were
sticking a finger in the eye of all the search engine
optimizers but you can't be afraid to make a strong statement
if you want people to sit-up and take notice, especially if you
are fighting a tidal wave of misconception.

The fact that we were telling people that delivering your
marketing message on the Web using multimedia was more
important than search engine optimization was enough to make
what we were doing controversial, but we also needed a vehicle
that allowed us to present the opposing point of view. What we
needed was a recognizable style that demonstrated our ability
to deliver a memorable, comprehensible, useable,
belief-altering message in the medium we were promoting.

Since we primarily use Macintosh computers for all our work and
only use PCs to check for compatibility, we thought we would pay
homage to the brilliant Mac commercials running on television.
The format worked for us because it allowed us to create two
characters of our own that would present opposing points of
view over a series of videos that would comprise the campaign.
We knew that some people would react unfavorably to our using
such a familiar format but we figured it would demonstrate how
even small but talented production companies can deliver high
quality multimedia Web-based marketing on tight budgets.

A Market Primed and Ready

Our efforts in advocating the power of using the human voice
and image to deliver marketing stories over the Web was finally
getting through to companies who were fed-up with the cost and
ineffectiveness of continually chasing the holy grail of search
engine optimization. Company presidents and marketing managers
were starting to listen, starting to realize there was another
way. This campaign was aimed at pushing these business
executives to act on what they already knew: good marketing is
about delivering the message, not keyword density.

Preproduction, Production, and Post Production

We wanted to make sure we had a distinctive sound by composing
our own signature theme music and creating our own cast of
characters with a distinctive message promoting the concept of
multimedia. In fact these planned web-commercials really don't
sell anything, all they do is make people aware that search
engine optimization is not the only thing they should be
thinking about when they are developing a website or webmedia
campaign. In short, the medium was the message.

The use of Web-audio and Web-video is the best way to implement
this kind of marketing presentation. We sat down and started to
write and before we knew it we had eighteen scripts each
featuring a different issue in the search engine optimization
versus multimedia controversy.

The next step was finding the right actors to play the part.
Whereas Web-audio allows us to draw upon a vast number of voice
talents across North American, video is much more limiting,
especially if we wanted to keep the cost down to a reasonable
amount. Even if we were prepared to blow the budget on actors,
we knew our clients wouldn't, so it was important to
demonstrate that we could get the job cast at a sensible cost.
The casting proved to be an interesting exercise of frustration
and humor. We had all types of applicants ranging from the
sublime to the ridiculous to the outright bizarre, but
ultimately we were able to find two fine young actors who
understood exactly what we were doing and who took to the parts
as if they were written specifically for them.

One of our greatest assets as a firm is that we do everything
from concept to implementation, including writing, videoing,
editing, graphic, motion, and website design; but if you want
to produce a campaign at a sensible price you still have to be
careful you don't write overly elaborate scripts that require
multiple sets, locations or hard to acquire props. That said we
still had to find a cute dog we could trust on set, links of
various kinds of sausages, a hard to put together toy, and best
of all a real straightjacket from an interesting website that
specialized in rather strange items of clothing.

The shoot itself went extremely smoothly and we ended up
shooting all eighteen videos in less than two days. We assumed
some of the videos that looked good on paper just wouldn't
translate to the screen, but to our surprise every one of the
scripts worked. We knew what we wanted to say and weren't
afraid to say it, even though we were flying in the face of
conventional wisdom.

While Josh Bader our Director of Photography was digitizing,
color correcting and editing the raw footage, Simon Bader our
Director of Audio composed a number of theme music compositions
to choose from for our signature sound. Once all the pieces were
put together into a series of finished videos, we were ready to
implement the campaign.

Implementation

The first set of six videos were uploaded to Google Video and
YouTube as well as onto a webpage
(http://www.mrpwebmedia.com/ads/) that was created to house the
full campaign of eventually eighteen videos, each presenting a
different issue in the search engine optimization versus
multimedia controversy. Versions of the videos were also used
to create a Google Video Ad campaign.

Credits

Produced by MRPwebmedia
Executive Producer: Jerry Bader
Written By: Jerry and Josh Bader
Director of Photography and Visual Design: Josh Bader
Director of Audio and Music Composer: Simon Bader
SEO Guy: Sean Kaufmann
Multimedia Guy: Erez Bowers

Web Development with SEO in Mind

2006-12-19T03:57:00.000-08:00

Web Development with SEO in Mind
By Adam McFarland of iPrioritize
(http://www.iprioritize.com/) (c) 2006

When a business owner decides to bring their business to the
web, generally the last thing that they think about is search
engine optimization. They assume that whomever they hire to do
their web design will put up a site and then submit it to the
search engines and the traffic will magically pour in.
Unfortunately it takes more than that to drive search engine
traffic to your site, and even more unfortunately most
developers don't program with SEO in mind, nor do they educate
the client about the process involved in gaining traffic from
search engines.

Whether it's carelessness or a lack of knowledge, or a
combination of the two, this often leads to a client that
several months down the road doesn't understand why their site
doesn't get any traffic and isn't helping their business. A
good designer will not only program with SEO in mind, but will
also educate the client about the basic principles of SEO,
whether they are the one who executes it or not.

Many times the clients I inherit have gone through this scenario
and then face drastic on-site changes to get their site search
engine friendly before we are even able to begin the arduous
process of link building. Whether you are designing a site for
yourself or for a client, following the simple steps below when
programming will ultimately save the business time and money and
result in a search engine friendly site that truly maximizes the
online potential of the business.

Use proper tags for headings, bold text, italic text, and lists
– HTML has heading tags, bold tags, italic tags, and ordered and
unordered lists for a reason and you should use them. Using CSS
you can practically style them however you like, but actually
using a heading tag for your headings, and bold tags for
important text, will help allow search engines understand what
text on a page is a heading or what is more important than the
surrounding text. Simply applying a CSS style that makes text
larger or bold doesn't do that.

Optimize your images – search engine spiders can't read text
within an image. Adding ALT text to your image tag helps, but
ideally you should remove all wording from the image and style
it using CSS, adding the remaining portion of the image as a
background image to the text. Here is a side-by-side comparison
(http://www.seo-playbook.com/image_example.php) of two images
that look the same in your browser, but much different to a
search engine spider.

Avoid canonical problems – believe it or not, search engines can
see http://fda-approved-rx.com, http://www.fda-approved-rx.com, and
http://www.fda-approved-rx.com/index.htm as three different pages. A
simple solution is to use a 301 redirect
(http://www.webconfs.com/how-to-redirect-a-webpage.php) to point
all of your pages to their "www" counterpart. You can also select
the preferred domain that Google shows in the new Google
Webmaster Tools (http://www.google.com/webmasters/) console.

Get rid of Session IDs if you have a PHP site – have you ever
seen a PHPSESSID variable added to the end of a URL on a PHP
page (it looks something like PHPSESSID=34908908)? This happens
because PHP will add a unique PHPSESSID to URLs within your site
if cookies aren't available. This can be extremely problematic
for your site's search engine ranking. Google and Yahoo will see
a unique PHPSESSID in the URL every time they visit a page on
your site, and in turn think that said page is a different page
each time. At worst, this could be viewed as duplicate content
and get your site banned, and at best it will reduce the
perceived value of each page. One solution that I've used
successfully is to utilize url_rewriter.tags
(http://www.php.net/session).

Put CSS and JavaScript in external files – nearly every site
nowadays uses CSS and JavaScript for something. While both are
great for enhancing user experience, neither will help your
search engine ranking if left on your page. One of the factors
that search engines consider when ranking your site is the
percentage of code relevant to the search term. CSS and
JavaScript can take up hundreds of lines of code, minimizing the
importance of your text and in turn hurting your ranking. By
putting them in separate files and simply including them in your
page by reference, you can reduce hundreds of lines down to one
and increase the amount of code in the file that is relevant
content.

Minimize the use of tables in layouts – the debate about whether
or not tables should be used in site design has been going on
for years and there's no end in site. I fall somewhere in the
middle – there are certain circumstances (like organizing
tabular data) where I think tables still make the most sense,
but I also appreciate the SEO benefits of using CSS layouts.
CSS layouts drastically reduce the amount of code in your site
that isn't content that the user sees. Just like moving CSS and
JavaScript to an external file, the less on-page code that isn't
content, the better. Check out search engine friendly layouts
(http://www.searchenginefriendlylayouts.com/) for some free
example layouts.

Validate your site – a site doesn't have to be perfectly coded
to rank high in the search engines (there are many, many other
factors), but valid HTML will help ensure that search engines
and browsers alike will accurately see your page. Try using the
official W3C Validator (http://validator.w3.org/) or install
this handy Firefox extension (https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/249/). Validating generally identifies areas of code
that are redundant, unnecessary, or not accepted across all
browsers. All of which will help make your site more search
engine friendly.
================================================================
Adam McFarland owns iPrioritize - simple to-do lists
(http://www.iprioritize.com/) that can be edited at any time
from any place in the world. He also provides SEO consulting
(http://www.seo-playbook.com/) for small businesses looking for
a cost-effective way to drive more traffic to their site and
convert more visitors into customers.

Obtaining a Mortgage

2005-06-20T22:51:00.000-07:00

For many, the American dream begins and ends with the
purchase of their very first home. But, unless your name is
"Trump" or "Gates," you will most likely not be able to put
down all the money required to purchase your first home. So,
you will need to get a home loan - or mortgage - in order to
move into your dream home. But getting a home mortgage can
be a daunting task.

Basically, a home mortgage is an agreement you sign with a
bank or lending intitution that says you will pay them a
certain amount of interest on top of the purchase price over
a certain period of time if they lend you the money. Your
mortgage is secured against the property you will be
purchasing so if you default, the bank will become the owner
of the property.

Most likely, you are familiar with interest rates from your
credit cards or perhaps a personal loan or car loan. The
good news is that a home mortgage usually carries a much
lower interest rate than credit cards or personal loans.
This is because a home mortgage is for a much larger sum,
and the loan is paid off over a longer period of time, which
means the banks get a steady stream of income. Payments are
generally monthly, and the repayment timeframe will be from
10 to 30 years.

There are two major types of home loans in America now, with
a third type becoming more popular in recent years. The
first type of loan is the fixed home loan which allows you
to borrow the money at a specified or fixed rate of interest
for a specific numbers of years. Many borrowers sign up for
this loan because in doing so they avoid the risk of having
to incur extra expenses if home loan interest rates should
fluctuate.

The next type of home mortgage is a variable-rate mortgage.
With a variable-rate loan, the interest rate of the mortgage
changes with the interest rate available to everyone. The
rate is tied to the prime rate determined by the Federal
Reserve, and your bank may change the rate on these types of
loans based on the prime rate. When rates turn downwards,
variable rate loans are great. When the rates go up,
though, many borrowers on tight budgets must scramble to
try and pay their monthly mortgage.

The third loan, which is becoming more popular in America
is the bad credit type loan otherwise known as the low doc
loan. Bad credit or low doc home loans may sometimes be
slightly more expensive in terms of setup or maintenance fee
and usually attract a high rate of interest over the course
of the loan. This offsets the lenders increased risk at the
borrower having a poor or indeed no credit history and
possibly defaulting on the payments after getting the
mortgage. These loans are particularly popular with people
who have a bad credit history, people who have low incomes
including those who receive social welfare payments and
people who are self employed.

But, no matter what type of credit you have, there is most
likely a home mortgage that is available to you. So keep
trying and get into your dream home now!