Whats the Big Hurry?

Quite often I get asked what the magic solution is for getting better Google ranking. Sometimes the questions sound fairly naive, something like this:

"I have recently established a site called wazooski.com and would like to rank much higher in Google, Yahoo and MSN. Can you tell me how to do this without spending a lot of money? Can I get into the top 10 within 1 or 2 months?"

This is one of those "rookie" questions. Experienced marketers know that predicting search engine rankings is always a hit or miss affair. SEO practitioners who "guarantee" high search engine rankings are making misleading claims, intended only to sell their services.

Imagine how many sites within any competitive area are going after those "top 10" rankings. Many of your competitors have been around for a few years, so they have an established site with lots of valuable content, steady traffic, and thousands of sites linking into them. How can you expect to just throw up a site and within a month or two walk away with a "top 10" position?

This is only possible within a narrowly defined, highly specialized niche. Say for instance you are going to hold a Wazooski family reunion next year, and want to use the internet to promote it. Chances are a few well placed announcements scattered around 20 or 30 article sites, directories and blogs will generate enough search engine activity to get you good positioning in the search engines. Within a month or two you should get the number one spot for "Wazooski family reunion", within the top 10 for "Wazooski", and possibly even an honourable mention further down the list for "family reunion". Using a blog or two will often speed this process up considerably.

The reason is pretty obvious: there is not a lot of competition for "Wazooski family reunion". In fact you may be the only one competing for that term. All you really need to do is get your site or your announcements spidered and the chances are pretty good that you will get a high ranking almost immediately.

But try this with a more competitive term and you are talking a completely different game. Considering that most competitive terms have thousands of sites chasing after that illusive "top 10" ranking, you will be lucky to even get on the radar screen.

And trying to do it within a month or two is almost completely unrealistic.

Rick Hendershot publishes the <a target="_new" href="http://www.sbo-linknet.com">Linknet Network</a>, a group of websites and blogs offering web owners advertising and link promotion opportunities.

Google Zombies Need To Wake Up

Over the last couple of weeks, I've received more e-mails in response to my article, "Google's Trap, DMOZ's Nap, And Yahoo!'s Crap," than any other article I've ever written. And that's saying a lot because, I've written close to forty articles.

Most of the e-mails are very supportive and appreciate of the fact that I'm going after Google and the other large search engines, by telling it like it is.

Now even though I appreciate your e-mails and support, I need to make one thing perfectly clear. For the record, I AM NOT GOING AFTER GOOGLE!

Is Google a greedy, self-serving entity? Yes! Yes, they are. But lots of entities are greedy and self-serving. For that matter, so are a lot of people. The fact of the matter is, I happen to like certain things about Google. I think they're a fine search engine, and they perform a very valuable and much needed service.

No, my articles are not directed at Google per se. My articles are directed at the tens of thousands of Google zombies who blindly follow and applaud Google's every move and whim, like rats following the Pied Piper of Hamelin.

This also includes a good portion of the media, which also seems to be caught up in the bright lights of Google--not unlike a deer frozen by the headlights of an oncoming car.

Zombies, wake up! Google is a search engine--period! Nothing more, nothing less. And I will not exaggerate their existence or importance!

They are not a god or some sort of deity. They are a search engine--that's all.

And even though I've already said it in several different articles, I'm going to say it again. All of that money you're spending on search engine optimization, so that you can play in Google's sandbox is going to be all for naught.

Because other websites that haven't done any search engine optimization whatsoever are already starting to rank ahead of you in Google's results pages.

Yet, you keep spending your money, and beating your brains out trying to figure out Google's algorithms. And just when you think you've got it figured out, Google decides to take its ball and go home. Zombies, wake up! You're playing a game you can't win!

Didn't November 16, 2003 teach you anything? It's never wise to put all of your eggs into one search engine basket. I mean, forget about the "Florida Update." What if by some strange chance, Google goes offline for a day--for a week?

Think it can't happen? Think again. Nobody thought last summers crippling east coast blackout could ever happen either, but it did happen, and it turned about to be the biggest blackout in recent U.S. history.

Nothing and no one is infallible. So, zombies, wake up and do yourself a favor. Do the smart thing, and develop other ways to promote your website.

About The Author

Dean Phillips is an Internet marketing expert, writer, publisher and entrepreneur. Questions? Comments? Dean can be reached at mailto: <a href="mailto:dean@lets-make-money.net">dean@lets-make-money.net</a>.

Visit his website at: <a href="http://www.lets-make-money.net" target="_new">http://www.lets-make-money.net</a>

Search Engines: Tips and Strategies on Getting Listed and Ranking High for Newbies

You've got a website. You've put countless hours into it, tweaking the look and feel and making sure all the links work. The bad news is there are a gazillion other websites out there. The good news is there are many things you can control to make sure your site isn't lost in the morass of dot coms.

One of the most important is showing up in the search engines, and getting listed in the top 20 for your subject. This article covers the steps you can take within your site.

First things first: Just like there's no &quot;get rich quick&quot;, there's also no &quot;get listed quick&quot; (unless you pay for it).

Getting top listings in the search engines is an accomplishment. It gets you traffic and it gets you credibility. You can buy sponsored listings ? you can't buy credibility.

Always Remember: Search engines base their usefulness on the quality of the results they give. You want people who are searching for your product to find your site; they want people who are searching for your product to find relevant sites. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is all about making sure you both get what you want.

SEO requires many steps. They pay off, but not immediately. Once you're &quot;spidered&quot; you'll see the effects of changes you make pretty quickly, but getting &quot;spidered&quot; (sorry to all the arachnophobes) can take awhile.

Spidered: Search engines search sites throughout the entire World Wide Web (if that sounds a lot like Sally searching for seashells by the seashore, it's intentional). But, to search for your site, they have to know you're there. So, these benevolent spiders send their hairy arms searching through the Web and whatever sticks to their spindly legs they keep.

If you create a web these spiders might want to visit, this process gets you a more desirable string on their web. You want to create a spa for spiders.

Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

Think about it: how do you search for something on the Internet? You put in a few words that say succinctly what you're searching for, i.e. downtown Chicago restaurants.

So, when you design or revamp your site, consider the keywords anyone would use to find what you offer.

The beauty of the Internet is the ability to target niche markets. You don't need a gazillion hits a month. You need people who are searching for YOUR product to find YOUR site. To illustrate the above example: if you search for &quot;downtown Chicago restaurants&quot; in Google, TheLocalTourist.com is the first listing. If you look for &quot;Chicago Restaurants&quot; it's aways down the list. But that's perfect. Because The Local Tourist only lists restaurants in downtown Chicago.

If The Local Tourist had a high listing for Chicago Restaurants, then someone looking for a place to eat in one of the outlying neighborhoods would be disappointed, and we don't want that.

By focusing on your niche keywords, on your target market's desires, you're forced to evaluate what you have to offer and the best way to present it. When you designed your product or service, you (hopefully) had the end-user in mind. So you know what they want.

As you're starting out, don't use the most popular keywords; use ones that don't get as many searches because there won't be as much competition. You're just trying to establish a presence. A good resource to find the popularity of keywords is http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/. Type in the keywords you think people would use to find your work and this tool will show you how many people have searched for it in the previous month through Overture. Google searches are approximately 12x that number.

Scope Out Your Competition

Go to your favorite search engines and type in your chosen keywords. Now visit the top three for each set of keywords from each search engine. Try to figure out how they got such high listings.

An easy way to keep track of this reconnaissance work is to create a simple spreadsheet and use a different worksheet for each search term. You'll want to have a row for each of the following:

1. Search term

2. Search engine

3. Your ranking:

a. If I'm not in the top 50, I simply write that.

b. Add a date next to the ranking so you can track your movement up the listings

4. Overture traffic (number of times term was searched for last month)

5. Repeat the following 3 times, for the top 3 listings:

a. Listing URL

b. Title

c. Description

d. Keywords

When you visit each of your competitor's sites, you're going to use a wonderful tool called Source Code. Copy and paste their URL into your spreadsheet, then in your browser click on View?Source. A new window opens with their HTML. (I always feel a little dirty when I do this, like I'm a voyeur or a spy, which I guess I am. That being said, it's completely legit.)

Now that you're seeing all their dirty laundry, you're going to look for their Meta Tags, which will be at the top of the code.

Meta Tags are the code in the HTML that visitors don't see but search engines do. They used to be the main way to get listed, but search engines have gotten smarter since abusers were loading up their tags with irrelevant keywords. They aren't nearly as important as they used to be, but the Title and Description tags are still vital. Many search engines use the title for the listing and the description for, well, the description. If your tags are relevant to your content, they don't hurt and do help with some.

Find the tags for Title, Description, and Keywords. Simply look for &quot;title&quot;, &quot;description&quot; and &quot;keyword&quot; at the top of the source code.

1. The title uses the main keywords potential customers use to find sites. For example, TheLocalTourist's home page title is &quot;Downtown Chicago Restaurants, Bars and Nightclubs, Shopping, Events, Things To Do&quot;. This title highlights the areas of the site where I want to receive search engine rankings based on the number of searches on those terms.

2. The description is where sites give their metaphorical &quot;sound-byte&quot;. The trick is to pick keywords and write a compelling, succinct description without sounding like you're trying to use all your keywords. Gee, it sounds so easy.

3. The keyword meta tag is simply a listing, separated by commas, of all the keywords people would use to find a site. They should be different for each page because the content is different. ONLY use keywords that represent your content. Don't go crazy and don't use the same ones too many times.

Copy their tags and place them in the appropriate rows in your spreadsheet.

Now go back to the page itself and read through it. Take note of how they use their keywords in their content. It's a good idea to print each one.

Finally, gather your spreadsheets and your competitor's site print-outs and pull the keywords and descriptions that reflect your site's content. Analyze how they present their information.

This process is time consuming, but it forces you to take a look at your competition. It also, of course, makes sure your site is search engine friendly and therefore potential-visitor friendly.

Step By Step Optimization

Now it's time to really get down to business.

Change your file names to include the most relevant keywords for each page. You can't do that with the home page since it has to be something like &quot;index&quot;, but you can name the other pages on the site with the relevant keyword for each page. Believe it or not, it does make a difference. Pick one or two so the file name isn't too long.

Write a title (not a meta tag, a real title) for each page as close to the top of the page as possible using the best keywords to describe the content. Format it as Header 1. (Most HTML editors have an easy way to format text without going into the code if you're unfamiliar with HTML.) You're putting it at the top of the page because search engines read like we do: left to right, top to bottom. This placement and the header formatting is a flag stating that &quot;This is what the page is about&quot;.

Within the content of each page, include a blurb that uses as many keywords as possible without being annoying or redundant. Make your keywords bold, but only once. A good, brief example is the Things to Do page http://www.thelocaltourist.com/ThingsToDo.htm. This is one of the most frequently visited pages on The Local Tourist from search engines.

Make sure every picture has an &quot;alt tag&quot; (alternate). That's the text that shows up while the picture is loading. Search engines can't &quot;read&quot; pictures, so the alt tags show them what the picture is about. On most HTML editors you add the alt tag in picture properties.

Use your hard-earned knowledge from spying to create your own meta tags. Tailor your competitors' usage for your own site. (Learning how to implement meta tags is beyond the scope of this article, but you can do a web search for &quot;meta tag tutorial&quot; to find plenty of help.)

Ta da! You now have a website that's ready to be submitted to the search engines. It's a good idea to check your rankings on a regular basis and track them with your spreadsheets. Remember, this is not an instant process. The absolute best way to get impressive rankings is to have a content-rich quality site that addresses your target market's needs.

Theresa Carter is the creator, publisher, and search engine optimizer of The Local Tourist, a free online guide to downtown Chicago. Find restaurants, bars, spas, salons, events, attractions, shopping, media, transportation, articles about Chicago and more. <a target="_new" href="http://www.thelocaltourist.com">http://www.thelocaltourist.com</a>

Linking for Fun and Profit

Well actually, linking isn't fun at all. In fact, it's quite tedious. Seeking, responding to requests and adding links takes time and effort. But, if you're not actively building links the RIGHT way you are going to be left behind. In other words, your site will be "Lost in Cyberspace". The plain fact is Google, and to a lesser extent, other important search engines, reward sites with links from relevant and important pages.

If you want your site to deliver lots of targeted search engine traffic (and who doesn't?) there are two equally important factors:

1) lots of keyword-rich, search engine friendly content<BR>2) lots of relevant, incoming links from the RIGHT sources

For real success you need to cover BOTH of these strategies. Don't concentrate on one and not the other.

So, how do you go about building your links? It's not rocket science, but as I said, it does take time and effort. From my own experiences, here's what you should do:

1) Download and install the Google Toolbar:

<A target="_new" href="http://toolbar.google.com/">http://toolbar.google.com/</A>

This will show you the PageRank of the page you are viewing. PageRank is a measure, rated from 1 to 10, of the "importance" that Google gives to that page. There has been a lot written about PageRank. You don't need to become obsessed with it but it IS an important consideration when determining WHO to link to. A link from a PR-5 page is worth FAR more than a PR-0 page.

2) Establish a resource or links directory for your site. This lets potential link partners see that you are willing to exchange links. You should make it clear on your links pages what your linking policy is i.e. under what conditions you will agree to exchange links.

3) Your aim should be to build a resource directory that is relevent to your business. Don't try to build a mini Yahoo with umpteen different categories. Keep your directory focussed on your site theme. When you first start out you will be inclined to link to anybody in exchange for a link FROM anybody. This is a mistake. Be patient and choose your link partners carefully.

4) Before requesting a link from another site, add that site to your directory. Contact the webmaster and tell them you added their link because you believe their site would be of interest to your visitors (and so it should). Give the url where your link is located and ask for a return link, along with instructions on how you would like your link worded. NEVER demand by saying things like "if you do not link to us we will remove your link".

5) If you have not received a reply after 2 - 3 weeks send a polite follow up. Again, don't demand. No one is under any obligation to link to you. If you do not receive a reply to your second request it means that the webmaster does not want to link to you, or they are simply too busy to respond. In that case, leave it and move on. I receive dozens of link requests a day. Sometimes it takes me many weeks to get around to responding. You'll go mad worrying about links that have not been reciprocated. Your time is better spent.

6) When you receive a link request visit the site and check that it meets with your requirements as set down on your link pages. Is it a quality site with good content or just a "link farm"? If it doesn't meet your requirements don't link to it.

The webmaster SHOULD have already linked to your site but be prepared to overlook that breech of linking protocol if it's from a good quality, high PR site.

7) Beware of webmasters who add your site to their "directory" which turns out to nothing but a link farm i.e. has no useful content, just a bunch of links, and asks you to link to an entirely different site, one that HAS good content. These webmasters are playing you for a sucker. The benefit is all theirs.

8) As I said in point #1, links from high PR pages are worth more than links from low or no PR pages. Seek out high PR linking partners but keep in mind it is the PR of the actual page your link is on that matters, NOT the PR of the home page. In other words if the home page PR is 5, but the page your link is on is several layers deep in the directory, it will probably have a PR of 0 and be of little benefit to you. Check the PR of the actual page your link is on, or is going to be on, before agreeing to exchange links.

Each page on your links directory should be no more than one click away from your home page, and your linking partner's site should be the same. If your link is placed on a page which looks something like this - directory/category/subcategory/subcategory with your link - you will derive NO value from that link.

9) Be prepared to negotiate your links. Savvy webmasters understand the value of links from high PR pages. If you add a link to a PR-0 page on your site don't expect your link partner to put your link on a PR-6 page, and your link partner shouldn't expect the same from you. Exchange value for like value.

When you first start out your site may not have any PR due to a lack of incoming links. This reduces your bargaining power. However, you can overcome this by getting your site listed in as many large business directories as possible. Some of these you will have to pay, such as Yahoo and Microsoft's Business Directory, but many others are free. You'll find a good list here:

<A target="_new" href="http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php">http://www.strongestlinks.com/directories.php</A>

10) Be specific about how you want your link partner to link to you. It is MOST important that the link to you contain your targeted keywords in the anchor (linked) text. When I ask for a link to my site I don't want the link title to be:

Steve Pronger Web Business Solutions

Instead, I ask for:

Create Website | Small Business Website Designer

or whichever keywords I am targeting at the time. A search for those keywords at Google will illustrate my point!

11) And finally, here is an excellent resource to help you find quality link partners. It's called Value Exchange, and will put you in contact with like-minded webmasters:

<A target="_new" href="http://www.stevepronger.com/value_exchange.htm">http://www.stevepronger.com/value_exchange.htm</A>

Steve Pronger is a website designer and affiliate marketer helping small businesses achieve success on the Web. Visit his Web Business Solutions site at <A target="_new" href="http://www.stevepronger.com">http://www.stevepronger.com</A>

Breaking the Myth About Page Rank (PR)

The most difficult challenge most web designers face is getting traffic to your site. There are plenty of companies who promise to send traffic your way. Sadly, most of this traffic is not qualified. Yes, your hit counter will move higher, however, if its not qualified, you may find you have unhappy visitors to your site. Unhappy visitors will not click on your ads or purchase your products.

Once you have optimized your site, consider submitting it to every search engine. If you want to get spidered quicker in Google, have a web page with a PR of 4 or higher point to your site. Your site will be spidered within a couple of days!

One myth I would like to bust is that PR is a measure of a web site. Its not. I receive countless emails offering a reciprocal link with their PR5 or PR6 site. Unless my link is appearing on the main page, or a page that has PR6, I am not getting a share of PR6. Most likely, my link will appear on a page that has a PR2!

Page rank is Google's ranking of that specific page's relevance. Just because the main page has a PR of 4, does not make every page on the site a PR4. Beware of sites who claim that they will exchange links with you and its to your benefit since they have a PR5 or PR6. Where is your link appearing? If its on a page that has a PR of 4 or 5 or 6, great!

Reciprocal linking, if done properly, will ensure that your keywords are at the top of the search engine. If you have a popular keyword, youll need to have more back links. Pick your link partners properly, and ensure that they are linking to your keyword.

For example: if your site is www.joesdinner.com, consider sending out requests to relevant higher ranking pages to start with, followed by lower ranking pages and ask web designers to link back in the following manner:

< a href= "http://www.joesdinner.com" >best dining in new york</a> - joes dinner is the only place to eat when you're staying in New York.

Presuming their keyword is "best dining in new york", having links pointing to your site with an anchor tag incorporating your keywords will improve your search engine rankings dramatically.

Once you have established a collection of sites pointing to your site using your keywords, you will start receiving reciprocal link exchanges from other sites. This is where you can start to be particular.

If you want to maintain an effective PR and attract better sites for linking, follow these tips:

a) Is it indexed?

While their site may be indexed, the page where they are placing your link, is it at least indexed by google? If you type in allinurl:www.sitename.com/links/right_here.html and there are no results, consider declining their offer. If the page your link appears on has not been indexed, there is no benefit whatsoever to you. If your pages have PR, they may consider placing your link on another page. If the page your link appears on is indexed, but does not have PR, consider accepting their offer. While the page today may not have PR, it will in time.

b) How many neighbours?

The value of the page rank is shared with each of the links on that page. If you are splitting that PR with several other sites, your share of PR will be small, which doesnt help you. Reconsider accepting any link exchanges if your site is 1 of more than 30 - 40 sites that will appear on that page, unless its a very high PR. Further, if there are too many links on that page, Google may consider the page to be part of a link farm, which may end up penalizing your site.

c) Is it relevant?

Google is big on relavancy. Ensure your links pages are relevant. If you operate a site about golf, having links from cooking sites will not help you establish your page rank. It may cost you more than you get in return.

How to Find Good PR sites:

a) Do a search for them by typing in your keyword and start asking for reciprocal link exchanges. Take a look at their PR and go from there. Remember, its the number of sites that backlink to you that matters, not strictly the PR of the page. I would rather have 50 pages that have a PR1 pointing to my site, than to have 5 sites that have a PR5. Of course, if you can get 50 pages that have a PR5 pointing to your site, you are laughing!

b) Take a look at your existing link partners and check out their links pages. Its clear the people appearing on those links pages are interested in reciprocating.

c) Purchase software that will help find quality link partners.

It is important to attract higher PR sites when you are on a reciprocal link campaign. However, its not the most important thing when it comes to search engine rankings. Its the backlinks that point back at you that are key. The more of those, the better off you will be for your keyword.

Remember: every page starts off as a PR0. Just because its new doesnt mean it wont get a higher PR once google gets around to assessing a score. If the page your site appears on is indexed, and its a relevant site of quality, consider exchanging links. You'll grow a large list of link partners in a short period of time, and increase your search engine rankings in the process.

Christopher Smith has been helping people make money through Google Adsense by providing them with the <a target="_New" href="http://www.adsenseheaven.com">Top Paying Adsense Keywords</a> for his visitors to Adsense Heaven. <a target="_new" href="http://www.adsenseheaven.com">http://www.adsenseheaven.com</a>

Twelve Steps to Higher Search Engine Placement

Recent studies suggest that more than 80% of new visitors to any web site get there as a result of a search engine query. If this study is to believed, it certainly suggests that working to get high rankings in the search engines might be the most effective thing you can do to bring traffic to your site.

The following 12 design tips will help you get started in optimizing your site's search engine placement.

1. Design for Specific Search Engines - there are hundreds of different search engines, but for best results you should design your site to take full advantage of the search criteria of the big three - Yahoo, Google and MSN. If you can get high rankings in these three, you won't need to worry about the other search engines. Knowing how these search engines rank sites (as well as why they will penalize a site) is important. The rules change often, but the tips below are the most current.

2. Know your target audience. Before you apply any of the tips below, do some research and find out what are the most likely key words and phrases your target audience will be searching for. In most cases, the key words or phrases won't be your site name, but will be something related to the solution to a specific problem or the answer to a specific question. Knowing the question that will be asked is half the battle.

3. Use Meta tags. By now just about everyone knows about Meta tags. These are commands you can place in the html on your web page to help the search engines categorize what your page is about. The two most important Meta Tags are 'Keyword' and 'Description'. The description Meta tag should describe what is on the particular page, and the keyword Meta tag should include the important key words from the page. Avoid using 'fluff' words and phrases as these will be ignored by the site.

Warning: If the keywords in the Meta keyword line are not found within the text on the web page, some search engines will penalize the page or simply not list it. This is done to prevent 'meta tag' spoofing.

My advice - have a different Meta description tag on every page. And be sure that keywords in the keyword tags are used on the page.

4. Optimize your Title tag. Many search engines give considerable weight to the html title tag on the page. It is the first element the search engine will scan and weight. Not including a title instantly reduces the search engine ranking your page will receive. When yo create a title tag, include keywords and write it to catch the attention of the users be scanning lengthy lists of titles in search engine results.

For higher ranking, make sure the title tag matches headline text on the page. And be sure to use a different title tag for each page on your site. (Pages with the same title tag will often be ignored.)

5. Use Keywords in page headlines. Page headlines are important - to your visitor as well as to search engines. Use short keyword phrases, including hot button words and phrases. Avoid 'fluff' and generic words.

My advice - use a strong headline on the page, and use the same headline in the title tag.

6. Use interesting text. Search engines actually count all the words on a webpage, then rank those words by frequency of use. The more often you use a word or phrase(up to a point), the higher you will rank with that word or phrase in the search engine. For that reason, be sure to include words or phrases that are likely to be searched for on your pages.

My advice - Keep your text short, on topic, and packed full of keywords. Avoid useless and meaningless words, and certain phrases that will place you in the penalty box.

7. Use the AlT tags on all images. Search engines are starting to index sites by the images found on the site. They accomplish this by looking at all the image tags on the page, and cataloging the ALT tags accompanying the image. Obviously if you don't use the ALT tag, then images on your site won't be properly cataloged. When using the alt tag, be sure to use a keyword or phrase describing the content of the image.

8. Use the Title tag on links. Search engines look at all text on the site, including the title tag on the links on your site. Most sites still don't use the link title tag, so when you do, you gain an advantage. The link title should be a short keyword or phrase.

My advice - Check out how the pages on my site have a left navigation menu filled with department names. I try to make these names keywords for my site, and the link to the departments all make use of the title tag. Doing it this way means that the search engine ranks the department names twice. Once as text, and again as a Link Title Tag.

9. Provide a Link Trail. Search engines coming to your site follow the links on the front page that lead into your site. These links should provide a 2 level trail to all pages on your site. If you don't provide a link trail, the search engines probably won't find all your pages. (And even if you do provide a 'link trail' - if you use the same title tag and Meta tags on your pages, the search engine may ignore all the pages beyond the first one.)

My advice - check out how every page on my site has a one click link trail to any department on the site. You are never more than two clicks away from any page. Plus every page has at least 30 different link trails (through the departments) making it easy for visitors as well as search engine spiders to move through the site.

10. Avoid the Penalty Box. Search engines are getting smarter every day, and they will penalize a site if it violates search engine rules. These rules include:

Keyword spoofing - using keywords not related to site content

Keyword spamming - pasting hundreds of copies of the keywords on the page just to get high ranking

Numerous doorway pages - using hundreds of index pages that do nothing but point to the site

Link Spamming - submitting links to the 500,000 link submission services

Page Redirects - not necessarily a major penalty, but can cause loss of ranking

Frames on Main Page - not necessarily a major penalty, but can cause loss of ranking

Flash Movie on Main Page - not necessarily a major penalty, but can cause loss of ranking

My advice: Keep in mind that search engines are intelligent software. When they visit a page they try to determine what the page is about, relying primarily on the titles, headlines, text, links, and images on the page. That's why it is important to focus on those elements, and avoid the ones that can put you in the penalty box.

11. Check for errors. Before you submit your page to the search engines, run the page through an html checker and a spelling checker. Search engines do check and take into consideration spelling and html errors, and will penalize a page that has too many of either.

My advice - take the time to do it right. If you get a poor ranking on a search engine it might be six weeks before the search engine comes back to re-rank you. Get it right before you submit to the search engines, and then keep it right so when the search engine returns, you will continue to get high rankings.

12. Manually submit the site. Don't be tempted to use an automatic site submission program. They don't work, and can get you penalized. Better to manually submit your site to the top search engines. Yahoo, Google, MSN.

My advice - Start with Google.com, then yahoo.com, and then MSN.com. Each has a place to register your site with their search engine.

This may seem a lot of work, but if you do it right and get high rankings, it will pay off.

Craige Stacey has been studying search engines optimization as a hobby and has achieved some very good search engine positions in the past for PublisherGate - <a target="_new" href="http://www.publishergate.com">membership website software</a>

Is Something Missing From Your Keywords Research? (Part 2)

In my previous article, I raised the issue that proper keyword research must take into account countries. The reason for that was that the demand for keywords can vary between countries. I gave examples of that fact using the Overture keyword tool.

To support my argument (that we need to be aware of countries when doing keyword research), I gave 2 reasons:

1. it will help us determine which countr(y/ies) to target, and

2. it will help us know what countr(y/ies) our visitors are most likely to come from.

I would like, in this article, to expand on these 2 reasons. I would also like to add further reasons why any keyword research must be country based.

1. When doing keyword research, we need to understand the limitations of our research. This is necessary in order to remove any assumptions we make about our findings. For example, if you find that the demand for a keyword is very high in the US, you cannot assume that the demand for that same keyword will also be vey high in other countries. You will only know for sure how much demand there is worldwide by doing country specific keyword research. Such research can be done using a tool such as the Overture keyword tool,

2. It will tell you where your visitors are most likely to come from. This in turn will tell you what features you need to add to your web site. For example, if you are targeting a keyword that is in demand in the US only, then obviously most of your visitors will come from the US. This then means that you need to design your web site primarily for US visitors. You will hence need to:

- use US spelling such as "color" and not "colour",

- if you sell products, then list your prices in US$,

- if you live in the US, then add a fax number so your visitors can place orders by fax,

- if you live in the US, you could organise a US free call number for your visitors to ring you should they need to,

- if you live in the US and you ship your orders, then you could include shipping costs. You could also include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- if you don't live in the US, then you will need to make it possible for your visitors to pay you in US$,

- if you don't live in the US and you ship your orders, then you could include shipping costs. And you could include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- and so on . . .

If on the other hand, you are wanting to target several non-English speaking countries, then:

- you may need to add a translation service to your site so that your visitors can read your site in their language,

- you may need to add a currency exchange service so that your visitors can convert your prices into their currency,

- you may need to make it possible for your visitors to pay you in their own currency,

- you may need to add other ways for your visitors to pay you apart from credit cards. You could offer international cheques/checks, money orders, direct bank transfers, . . . I once had a customer who wanted to pay me in Euros from Italy and needed my address to do so. The easier you make it for people to place an order, the greater the chances someone will place an order!

- if you ship your orders, then you could add the shipping costs to each of the countries you are targeting. And include how long it will take for them to receive their order,

- and so on . . . May be you can think of other things you will need to add to your site to accommodate your international visitors.

3. It will help you target the right keywords for the country you want to target. For example, if you want to target Canada, then you will need to use keywords that are in high demand in Canada only. There is absolutely no point doing keyword research in the UK if you are wanting to target Canada as the keyword demand between the 2 countries may vary greatly.

4. It will help you develop a keyword strategy so that you can target several countries at the same time. This can be achieved in several ways depending on the keywords' demand and supply.

- you could use keywords that are in common demand in the several countries. For example, if you sell "widgets" with your site and you find that there is a healthy demand for "black widgets" in the US, the UK, Canada and Australia. Then you could target that keyword with your site as that keyword will help you target 4 countries in one go,

- you could use keywords in demand in each country, as long as they complement each other and are highly relevant for your site. For example, using the widget idea, if you found that "colored widgets" are in demand in the US, "white widgets" are in demand in the UK, "black widgets" in Canada, and "coloured widgets" in Australia. Then, you would just target all these keywords with your site which would not be hard to do as all these keywords can easily be targeted together.

Given the right circumstances, you could even use both strategies at the same time.

As I mentioned in my first article, the Overture keyword tool enables you to research the demand for keywords in some 19 countries around the world. To see the countries that Overture supports, go to www.overture.com and have a look at the top right corner of the page. By clicking on any one of the countries listed, you will have access to the Overture keyword tool for the country you selected, and this will enable you to research the keyword demand in that country.

As you may know, keyword demand is only one half of the equation. Keyword demand needs to be looked at together with its supply numbers. One of the ways of determining keyword supply is to use Google. This means that to you need to know how to use Google to research the supply of keywords in your country of interest. This is a bit harder to explain and beyond the scope of this article.

I hope that this second article has convinced you about the need to be country aware when doing your keyword research. The success of your web site may depend on it.

Serge M Botans

Serge M Botans is the CEO of <a target="_new" href="http://www.meta-keyword-advice.com/">Meta Keywords Advice</a>, a web site that provides advice on keywords. Free evaluation available. He is also the inventor of CID, which is an altenative to KEI.

Youve Got The Power, Why Arent You Promoting It?

Like all things, theft is theft, misery loves company, negative people are everywhere, business is sometimes bad, things go up and others go down.

If those are all true then knowledge is power right? Wrong, knowledge is only power if applied. So why is it that most of us only apply "commercialized" marketing tactics and fail to utilize the little stuff that counts?

For instance, Google allows us to promote 2 url's, www.yoursite.com & http://yoursite.com

So ok. Nothing new...

Then why aren't you promoting the power Google gave to you?

See there's some of us who know that adding a link to both urls within our sites is a powerful thing. But what most of us don't know is that you can't just simply add both url's and expect good results!

You can't just want popcorn without poping the corn!

What you want to do is give 2 URL's and 2 Key Phrases. That's it, there it is! So if you promote your main page twice,

re: www.yoursite.com & http://yoursite.com

.. Then you want to give Google 2 key phrases for both urls seperately within your title tag.

Don't stop there though, try utilizing both key phrases respectively within your description tag, alt tags, H1 tags and within a portion of your text.

Here are the results of your efforts:

So the next time google searches your site, it now has more food then before and you actually didn't have to do too much. Your search terms have now doubled for 2 urls pointing to the same information.

Have fun with this and remember, search engines don't like spam tactics and neither do your visitors, so play safe and stick to the rules!

About The Author

Martin Lemieux

Founder and President of Smartads.

<a href="http://www.smartads.ca" target="_new">http://www.smartads.ca</a> & <a href="http://www.smartads.info" target="_new">http://www.smartads.info</a> - Here to provide you with effective web design & web advdertising services.

To read more of Martin's articles and get these weekly tips,

Sign up here: <a href="http://www.smartads.info/newsletter" target="_new">http://www.smartads.info/newsletter</a>

7 Steps to Highly Relevant, Search Engine Friendly, and People Useful Web Site Content

The task is to build a Content Rich Search Friendly and People Friendly Web Site Quickly. These 7 Steps will show you how with about 10 Hours work you can build over 50 pages of rich, Search Engine relevant content for your web Site

Step 1 - What is Your Web Site's Main Theme

This is a Fairly easy step. Most people know the main theme of there Web Site. Some Popular Themes are Health, Golf, Home Based Business, Weight Loss and Crafts

Step 2 - Find Sub-Topics for your Theme

Find as Many sub-topics as you can pertaining to Your Theme. One good way to do this is grab a Pen and paper and write as many Sub-Topics as you can in Five Minutes. Write everything down no matter how silly it seems. You may not use every sub-topic Just write it down.

Some Topics for Home Based Business:
Email-Marketing, Ezine-Publishing, Ezine-Marketing, E-Books, Web-Design, Site-Promotion, Affiliate-Revenue, Auctions, SEO,Traffic-Building, PPC-Advertising, Internet-Marketing,Branding,Self-Improvement,Copywriting, Public speaking

Some Topic for Golf
Tiger Woods, PGA, LPGA, Masters, Majors, Michelle Wie, Golf Clubs, Golf Balls,Drivers, Short Game, Putting, Best Golf courses, Best Golf Cities,College Golf

The Reason we want to find lot's of sub-topics is we want a good variety of keywords for people to use to find you.

Step 3 Rate Your Sub Topics

Determine the Importance of all your Sub Topics. Rate the Sub Topics from 1 to 10 with 1 Lowest and 10 Highest. It is ok to give the same rating to more then 1 Sub-Topic. Try not to give all the sub Topics the same rating.

(You will Repeat Steps 4 to 7 for as Many sub-topics as you can. Working from highest rated to lowest rated it is a good idea to completely finish 1 Sub Topic Before going on to the next sub topic)

Step 4 Find Articles for Your Sub Topic

Ideally your goal should be to find 10 or more Articles per Sub Topic. For Topics Rated 7 or Higher You may want to find 15-20 Articles. For Topics Rated less then 5 fewer Articles maybe 5-7 are ok. Topics Rated 1 or 2 may have even fewer Articles or none at All.

Select a good mix of articles for your sub-topic. Keep in mind your goal to create web pages that people will find useful and the Search Engine Bots will want to Index Highly

I find most of my Articles Here http://ezinearticles.com

If you can't find what you need there here is a page with over 50 Article Resources http://ewguru.com/hbiz/article-submit.html

Step 5 Create a Web Page with each article.

This is Fairly simple to do just cut the Article into your Template. Fill out the Title and Description Meta Data and publish it to your web Site. This can be done in about 3-5 Minutes per Article with a Little Practice. For Details see this Article on instant content http://ewguru.com/hbiz/instant-content.html

Step 6 Create an Article Table of contents

Create an Article Table of contents for your Each Sub Topic. This Gives you instant Links. Simply Create a Link to each article on a Web Page. Here is a Sample Table of Contents Page (http://ewguru.com/hbiz/df-toc.html).

Step 7 Write a Blog entry

Create a Blog Entry for your Table of contents for this Sub-Topic Be Sure and use Pingomatic to ping your Web Page

Summary

The Key is to build a Content Rich Web Page with many Keywords. By Finding 5 or more Sub topics and 10 Articles per Topic you would have 50 Different Web Pages. It is possible to create 10 Articles, a table of contents and do a Blog and a Ping in about 90 Minutes. If You do this 3 Times a Week in a less then weeks you will have over 50 pages of content.

After you have Completed Steps 4-7 for all of your Subtopics add 3 or 4 Articles per week to keep your page Fresh.

Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001. Subscribe to Mike's Newsletter here <a target="_new" href="http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/viraltraffic.html">http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/viraltraffic.html</a> Get some useful Free Downloads Here <a target="_new" href="http://trafficninja.com">http://trafficninja.com</a>

What is The Google Sandbox Effect?

In the age of fair competition you may find it hard to believe that a search engine may hinder the appearance of a new website. This is what is currently believed to be happening on more web servers today. Some programmers have viewed Google as uncomfortable to rank newer websites until they have proven their viability to exist for more than a period of &quot;x&quot; months. Thus the term &quot;Sandbox Effect&quot; applies to the idea that all new websites have their ratings placed in a holding tank until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence.

However the website is not hindered as much as the links that are reciprocated from other users. Newer links that are created are put on a &quot;probationary&quot; status until again they pickup in rank from other matured sites or placed directly by an ad campaign. The idea behind the hindrance is to prevent a fast ranking to occur on a new website. The usual holding period seems to be between 90 and 120 days before a site would start obtaining rank from reciprocal or back linking.

Some advice has been given to have companies you are going to reciprocate back add your link first to the website. This may help grandfather your site in, thus reducing the waiting time associated with &quot;new&quot; websites. People have noticed a 0 page rank when first signing up and receiving a bolstering 7 page ranking after 4 months. Why the delay? The fact is, that if people realized how easy it would be to get a high ranking, would that take away the credibility of the engine. It depends on whom you ask, but it does seem to be happening frequently to newer subscribers. Do not discontinue back linking, your rank will eventually appear.

Jakob Jelling is the founder of <A target="_new" href="http://www.sitetube.com/">http://www.sitetube.com</A>. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites.

Submitting Your Site to Search Engines and Directories

Regardless of which type of business you currently have, you will definately want to have a website and begin marketing it on the world wide web. After you have designed your website, the next step is to ensure it is properly "optimized", meaning that it's body text(the text you see), title and meta tags(the text that you don't) all have the words you are trying to be found for on the search engine results.

Many individuals optimize each individual page of their website for a different search engine, but I recommend that you focus on the biggest Search Engines like Google and MSN Search. Some high profile Search Engines such Altavista seem to be fading in importance fast so it may not be crucial to optimize any pages for such engines that only send a small amount of traffic anyway. I recommend a keyword density of about five percent on the keywords you wish to come up for. While these search engines are of prime importance for your site, you should not rely fully on Search Engines or Directories for traffic to your website. You will want to try other tools like web logs (also known as "blogs"), an e-zine you publish, free-for-all pages, usenet, articles, bulletin boards, and so forth.

The first lesson about search engine submissions is to simply do it by yourself. This will also save you much needed capital that can be better spent elsewhere. Even though here are a plethera of automated submission services out there, it is recommended that you submit your website to at least the primary Search Engines manually. This is due to the fact that the primary search engines are so vital, and some of them automatically reject any submission made from a program. Furthermore, each search engine has different allowable numbers of keywords and they vary on how many characters your site description can be. They also want different kinds of personal information (althought in some refreshing instances they just ask for your web address). Submission software, even when accepted, is generally not flexible enouph to cover all the bases. Plus, the reality is that manually submitting your website is easy enouph that anyone can do it, and I mean anyone who knows how to type a word. You essentially just go to the Search engine you want to submit to and click the "add website" or "add site" link. Then insert the website address. Actually a few are a tad more complicated than that, but most are really that easy. This is what some people are paying seo firms to do for them, sometimes not as well.

Some Search Engine "spiders" or "crawlers" will eventually find your website if you submit your URL (Uniform Resource Locator) to them or not. They will find your site by following links from other websites that link to yours. For this reason you should consider trading links with other similiar but non-competing websites. Doing this will also give you website a higher ranking on some of the major search engines. This is because some engines, like Google and MSN for example, rate your website at least partially on it's "link popularity" with other websites. This is also a free way to help your site recieve more traffic without wheelbarrels full of venture capital. And sometimes these free methods are as effective than more expensive strategies and do not always take up more time.

Although meta tags are not as critical to your site as they were in the past, they are still of some value. Concentrate mainly on the title and description tags and make sure the keywords you want to come up high for are there. To find out if your meta tags are optimized, go to scrub the web dot com as they have a free meta tag checking service. They will automatically spider your webiste and give you suggestions on how many keywords each of your tags should have, etc. Some search engines, such Inktomi still give a relatively high relevence to these tags.

When creating your "Alt" tags for your pictures on your site, do not stuff too many keywords there as the Search Engines, at least some of them, seem to be getting wise to this tactic and may penalize your page. The main Search engines and Directories you should focus on for yours site include Google (which is currently the most popular), Yahoo(you need to pick a category to submit your site if you are submitting to the directory side. Some categories are free to submit to and others are not), Search.msn.com, Inktomi(used in several search engines. Pay for inclusion or you can wait untill the spider finds your site for free), ODP or thr Open Directory Project(critical to be listed here, go to dmoz.org), Looksmart(free and paid listings) and Lycos.com.

For more information go to <a target="_new" href="http://www.home-business-match.com/">Home Business Articles</a> and find out more about search engine optimization in the business article archive.

Ryan Joseph is writer/researcher. For more info visit <a target="_new" href="http://www.aaronsfreebies.com/">http://www.aaronsfreebies.com/</a>

The Two Most Important Things You Must Do For Google Top Ranking

Attaining a top ranking in Goggle or any other major search engine nowadays is a herculean task indeed. But webmasters are archieving this enviable position continuously. The common thing about many of these top sites is that they have plenty of good content and quality one way inbound links.

These are the two most important elements in search engine optimization today. Content and quality links are the most difficult aspects of present day SEO. I guess that is why the major search engines have adopted these two elements of SEO as a must for top ranking. They are right of course. Content is what the search engines crave and quality one way inbound links is what makes a site an authority site for a particular keyword.

CONTENT:

Providing quality content at your website is not an easy task. It involves research, coming up with good ideas always, visiting forums and discussion groups to know what the latest trend is and so on. There are so many ways to come up with great ideas to write on. Some of these are;

1. Visit discussion forums and learn what problems people are seeking solutions for.

2. Browse other relevant sites and see what other webmasters are doing. This could give you creative sparks.

3. Subscribe to quality newsletter that give the latest trends, tools and resources in your line of business.

How to create content for the search engines..

The easiest way to creating content for your site is through publishing other people's Articles. You can setup your site to receive and automatically publish articles after reviewing them. The trick here is to go for very good, useful and quality articles. Once your site becomes known for quality articles, visitors will keep coming back for more.

However, the downside is that a visitor reading a good article would want to click to the author's site. Another disadvantage is that most times articles are not written for good search engine optimization. Important SEO techniques like keyword Density, keywords in headings etc may not be taken into consideration by the author.

Another way to easily create content is to hire a ghost writer. You pay a certain amount to have somebody write articles for you. You can find good writers at elance.com

Using a blog to create content.

One way to continuously provide content for your site is by using a blog. In your blog you can link to the rest of your site. The blog could be part of your site. For example, http://www.ebizstartups.com/my-business-tips.html. That is the URL of my blog. I have links to the main site from my blog this ensures that the search engines visit my blog and the main site quite often because the blog is updated often with content and if you have a new product you want to introduce at your site, start from your blog and link to the product page. Updating your blog frequently with new content ensures the search engines visit often. Once the frequent updating trend is set you will find that the search engine spiders will visit even when you stopped updating for a while.

ONE WAY INBOUND LINKS.

How do you get these one way inbound links? This is the million dollar question. For an in depth strategy for acquiring these type of link go my site at http://www.ebizstartups.com and download a free PDF version of the report. If you can generate these type of link you are on your way to the top of the major search engines. But wait a minute. Is it just to generate links to your site? If it is just that, it's easy.

Write articles and submit to article submission sites. At the bottom of your article or your resource box you are allowed to put in a link to your site using the URL of your site. But what good will that do you? It will bring you traffic okay. But that is as long as you keep writing those articles. Once you stop the traffic stops. However, the links you acquire through articles using your site's URL may only increase your site's link popularity but not link reputation.

While link popularity is the amount of links that point to your site link reputation is the amount of links that point to your site with your keywords in the anchor text. Search engines use this anchor text link carrying keyword to judge your link reputation and determine whether your site is an authority site for that keyword. Understand all that? No? okay let's look at it in another way. If all the links pointing to your site have the text a s the URL of your site. Unless somebody searches using the exact URL of you site your site will never be found. And people do not conduct searches using URL like www.ebizstartups.com but if the other site pointing their links to your site with the link text having for example "link popularity" then you are on your way to the top for that keyword.

The author, Salihu Ibrahim, has several good articles to his credit. Examples are, "Google adwords made easy" and "How to acquire one way inbound links". These and other articles could be found at his site at http://www.ebistartups.com. He is also the owner of <a target="_new" href="http://www.autoresponders4all.com">http://www.autoresponders4all.com</a> which provides completely free autoresponders for webmnasters.

Not Ranking High Enough on Search Engines? Here?s Some Help!

Search engines are frugal things. (Froogle, too, haha! Sorry, lame joke) They take many, many things into consideration when ranking your pages. Below are some things you should do to be sure you're ranked as high as possible.

Keywords

Go for keyphrases, not single keywords. Unless you want to spend the next 3 months trying to break into the first page for a single keyword, focus on keyphrases. Besides, most searchers search for two or more words. Single keywords just don't provide the targeted results searchers are looking for.

Focus on the keyphrases that you can take over. Keyphrases like &quot;Exit now&quot; or &quot;Exit Here&quot; or even a keyword like &quot;Exit&quot; will be next to impossible for you to get a top 3 ranking, because of the overwhelming popularity for porn site landing pages to put a link to Yahoo, Google, or Disney with the anchor text of one of those keyphrases mentioned above. Go ahead, try it out ? type one of them into Google and see what you get. Funny enough, Disney recently took the lead over Yahoo for the keyword &quot;Exit.&quot; Go Disney go!

Site Focus

Don't allow your site to focus on more than 1-2 different things. Create separate sites for each product or service, and if you'd like, a main site to describe your company, and have it link to all of your products. This will allow you to better target your pages, because a user looking for widgets isn't going to stick around long on a page for a company that sells widgets and woozles, when they don't see information about widgets (even if it's blatantly obvious) Think about it this way: You're always one click away from losing a customer on the internet. Do everything you can to eliminate that one click.

Content: More is better

The more content you have, the better. Wait, let me rephrase that ? the more RELEVANT content you have, the better. Plain old content, or keyword-stuffed will only get you so far. Remember, you've got to keep your visitors in mind primarily, because it doesn't matter how high your SE ranking is if your visitors don't convert to customers.

How do I get new, relevant, free content?

Start posting articles on your site; you're the expert here, so utilize that information. But keep your articles from sounding like you're only writing it to advertise your product (advertorials). If it sounds too much like an ad, your visitors won't read it.

Also, try to mention your chosen keyphrases as much as you can without making the article sound &quot;stuffed.&quot; What's &quot;stuffed&quot; mean? Here's an example: You're writing about widgets, you wrote the widgets article about widgets so you could say widgets as much as you possible while talking about widgets. Would you want to sit and read that? No. Neither would anyone else.

There are also quite a few places on the net where you can find articles that are free to reprint on your site. A few of them are <a target="_new" href="http://www.EzineArticles.com">http://www.EzineArticles.com</a>, <a target="_new" href="http://www.Content-Articles.com">http://www.Content-Articles.com</a>, and <a target="_new" href="http://www.ArticlesFactory.com">http://www.ArticlesFactory.com</a>. As I said, there are many sites like these, but these are the 3 best, in my opinion. Some article directories are focused on a single set of topics (like Business Marketing) and others, including the three mentioned above, contain articles from many, many categories.

If you write your own articles, submitting them to as many article sites as possible, again including the three I listed before. The more places you submit your article, the more sites will pick it up ? either through RSS (Really Simple Syndication) or by cutting and pasting your article to their site. The latter option is preferable to you, because your article will stay on their site longer. This will work hard to generate you more traffic from visitors to those sites who read your article and increase your SE rankings through backlinks. (For more information, check out an article I wrote about backlinks at <a target="_new" href="http://www.Content-Articles.com/article.aspx?i=24">http://www.Content-Articles.com/article.aspx?i=24</a>)

How often should I add new content?

Add new content at least weekly, and absolutely no less than monthly to give your customers reason to come back, and Search Engines will also increase your ranking because your site is active and you've got good content.

What about forums?

Forums can be great tools for site promotion, if you do it right. Do NOT post ads to a forum that isn't for posting ads. You will do more to destroy your credibility than generate traffic. Put a link to your site in your signature, and post questions and answers to the site, just like everyone else. If a topic that your site contains information about comes up, feel free to post the URL in the body of the topic (make sure this is allowed by the forum rules first) but always mention that it's your site, so nobody is mislead and thinks the post is a referral, which it's not (because it's your site).

These tips are just a few of the things that you can do to increase your search engine rankings. Take your time and develop a good site, write quality articles, submit them to as many places as possible, and watch your ranking go up while the visitors come rolling in.

Jason a long time web developer and the owner of Premier MicroSolutions, LLC. If you're looking for more articles about getting higher SE rankings, go to <a target="_new" href="http://www.Content-Articles.com">Content-Articles.com</a> and check out their great directory of articles.

10 Steps To Higher Search Engine Positioning

There is perhaps no more level playing field in business than the Internet. It is this fact that has created millionaires from paupers. The amount of money that can be made depends of course on your industry and your products and/or services but to be sure, if it can be sold at all, it can be sold online.

While there are many methods out there for building a profitable website, from banner ads to email campaigns, by far the most cost effective over time has proven repeatedly to be search engine positioning. That major advantage search engine positioning has over other methods of producing revenue online is that once high rankings are attained and provided that the tactics used were ethical and that continued efforts are made to keep them, they can essentially hold and provide targeted traffic indefinitely. Your site will rise and your site may sometimes fall in the rankings but a solid and complete optimization of your site will insure that through algorithm changes you may fluctuate but you will not disappear.

I have been ranking websites highly on the Internet for quite a few years now and there are some essential rules that, if followed, will insure that over time your website does well and holds solid and profitable positions on the major search engines.

Here are the 10 steps to higher search engine positioning:

Step One - Choosing Keywords

You first must choose your keywords. This is perhaps the most important step of the process as incorrectly targeting phrases can result in traffic that is not interested in your product. There are three tools that I use virtually every day to help pick the most appropriate keywords:

Overture's Search Term Suggestion Tool (<a href="http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/" target="_new">http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/</a>)

WordTracker (<a href="http://www.wordtracker.com/" target="_new">http://www.wordtracker.com/</a>)

A Brain

The last in the list is the most important. Look through the potential keyword phrases and think, "Who would be searching using that phrase?" If the answer is, "a student looking for information" then chances are it won't result in a sale. If the answer is "Someone who is looking specifically for a product I offer," then obviously this is a prime candidate as a targeted keyword phrase.

Step Two - Site Content

Even before I optimize websites I like to get a good deal of new content down in order to insure that I know exactly where I'm going and exactly what I need to do to get there. Creating some of the new content before starting the optimization process can be doubly helpful in that it can reveal potential additions to your website that you may not have considered (a forum or blog for example). If you already have a site, perhaps simply sit on your back deck, sip on a coffee and image what you would do if your whole site was lost and you had to start again (other than launch into a very colorful discussion with your hosting company).

Step Three - Site Structure

A solid site structure is very important. Creating a site that is easily spidered by the search engines yet attractive to visitors can be a daunting and yet entirely rewarding endeavor. To adequately structure your website you must "think like a spider" which is not as difficult as it may sound. A search engine spider reads your web page like you would read a book. It starts at the top left, reads across, and then moves down.

Priority must be given then, to what you place near the top of your page.

Step Four - Optimization

Once you have your keyword targets, your content created and your site structure established you must now move on to the most obvious step, the optimization of your content.

As noted above, a spider places importance on what it reads highest on the page and so beginning with a sentence that includes your targeted phrase only makes sense. That said, stuffing in keywords in hopes that it will add weight to your page generally doesn't work. The term "keyword density" refers to the percentage of your content that is made up of your targeted keywords. There are optimum densities according to many reputable SEO's though exactly what they are is debata ble. Estimates seem to range anywhere from 4 or 5% to 10 to 12% (quite a gap isn't it).

Personally, when it comes to keyword density I prescribe to one rule: put your keywords in the content as much as you can while keeping it comfortably readable to a human visitor.

Some do it first, I do it last, regardless of when you do it you must choose your heading. At the beginning of your content you have the opportunity to use the tag to specify the heading of your content. This tag is given extra weight and is also an indicator to the search engine of where your actual content starts. Make sure to use your keywords in the heading but don't shy away from also adding additional words (though not too many).

Step Five - Internal Linking

To insure that your website gets fully indexed you have to make sure that the spiders have an easy path through your website. Text links make the best choice as the anchor text (the actual words used to link to a specific page) add relevancy to that page for the words used to link to it. For example, if I ran a website on acne and had a treatments page I could link to it with an image, with text reading "Click for more information on how to treat this skin condition" or simply "Acne Treatments". When a search engine spider hits an image it has no idea what the image is and, while it will follow the link, it will not give any weight to the page it hits. If you use text that does not contain the keywords you are targeting you are essentially supplying the engine with the same lack of relevancy as with an image, but if you use the phrase "Acne Treatments" to link to your acne treatments page you are attaching relevancy to that page for those keywords.

There are two main ways to insure that your site gets well spidered AND that the relevancy is added. The first is to place text links on the bottom of your homepage to your main internal pages (not EVERY page, that just looks odd). The second is to create a sitemap to all your internal pages and link to it from your homepage. Both methods have advantages and disadvantages but that's a whole article unto itself.

Step Six - Human Testing

So now you have your site, it's optimized and you have your navigation in place. The next step is to put it past someone who has never seen your site (and preferably who won't know how much work you've put in and tell you it's great even if it's not).

Ask them to find specific information and see how long it takes. Ask someone else to just surf your site and watch which links they click and ask them why they chose those ones.

Most importantly, find out how the content reads to them. You've spent hours working through the content at this point and are probably not the least biased on its readers. Find out how it reads to someone who has no invested interest in the site and correct any issues they may bring up.

Step Seven - Submissions

I take a different philosophy than most when it cones to search engine submissions. I submit to directories (both general and topic-specific) and to a few topical search engines but for the most part I've found submitting to Google, Yahoo, MSN and the other major engines has proven to be a bit of a waste of time. The major search engines are spidering search engines which means they will follow links to wherever they go. Simply having sites that are spidered by the major search engines linking to you will get your site found.

When I have spent time submitting my sites I have found they get picked up in about a week. When I have simply skipped this step and sought out reputable directories and other sites to get links from I have found that at least the homepage of the site gets indexed in as little as two days.

Neither will hurt your rankings but simply to make the best use of your time, seek our directories and other websites to get links from and leave the spiders to find you on their own.

Step Eight - Link Building

All of the major search engines give credit to sites that have quality links pointing to them. How many is enough depends on your industry and targeted phrases. Running a search on Google the reads "link:www.yourcompetition.com" will reveal approximately how many links a competitor has.

The first place to seek links is with general and topic-specific directories. After that you may want to move into reciprocal link building. Reciprocal link building is the exchange of links between two websites. Some webmasters will simply link to any website that links back to them. I highly recommend being more particular than that.

Find websites that you believe your site visitors would genuinely be interested in and you've probably found a good link partner. You want to find links from sites that are related to yours.

There are obviously many more methods to building links than directories and reciprocal link building. Again though, this is a whole article (or more) in itself.

Step Nine - Monitoring

Whether you use WebPosition Gold (<a href="http://www.webposition.com/" target="_new">http://www.webposition.com/</a>) or just run searches manually by hand you will have to monitor the major search engines for your targeted phrases. Also, you will need to review your stats to see where your traffic is coming from and what search terms are being used to find you.

If a month passes and you don't see any changes then more work needs to be done. I'm certainly not stating that you should take a month off, a solid search engine positioning strategy involves constantly adding content, building links, and insuring that your visitors are getting the information they want to have and finding it as easily as possible.

Step Ten - Reward Yourself

So you've done it. It's taken many many hours of work but you're rankings are doing well. What you've created is a solid position that will stand the tests of time provided that you continually revisit the above noted steps and insure that your website is always one step ahead of your competition (who have noticed you climbing and succeeding as you would notice others climbing up around your ranking).

Now it's time to turn off your computer, take your partner out (you haven't had much time for them lately) and have a great week(end). You've got a lot of work to do to maintain and build on these rankings but the hardest part is over. Congratulations!

About The Author

Dave Davies is the owner of Beanstalk Search Engine Positioning (<a href="http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/" target="_new">http://www.beanstalk-inc.com/</a>). He has been optimizing and ranking websites for over three years and has a solid history of success. Dave is available to answer any questions that you may have about your website and how to get it into the top positions on the major search engines.

<a href="mailto:info@beanstalk-inc.com">info@beanstalk-inc.com</a>

Which Search Engine Optimization Services to choose, Google OR Yahoo?

Search Engine Optimization is emerging as the most powerful form of Internet Marketing in the recent years, and is bound to increase in the coming few years. Many companies have now emerged from countries like UK,CANADA, and India providing cost effective Search Engine Optimization Services.

Internet Marketing in the form of Search Engine Optimization has helped to build several successful business portals online. Many successful Software Firms,Travel agencies, Business services are becoming aware of the power of Search Engine Optimization.

Studies have shown that you can generate 60% of your traffic alone from search engines like google, and rest 40% from yahoo, and other search engines. Search engine optimization is emerging as a new era of Online Business science, which helps to generate more traffic, and more revenues from your existing businesses.

Search engine optimization is further categorized into two categories organic search, and PPC( Pay per Click). Organic Search engine optimization depends on the natural ranking of your web page, whereas PPC is a paid service offered for companies who want to kickstart their business from the day one without going through the labour of organic search engine optimization, which can be achieved over a period of time.

In the broader perception it has been observed that Organic search engine optimization is far more reliable in long-term, whereas PPC is reliable for short term solutions.

Many Internet marketing companies have emerged, helping business owners to achieve top rankings on major search engines either through Organic Search OR PPC.

Author's Profile :

Name: Bhupinder Singh

Occupation: working as webmaster for BSOLUTIONS, <a target="_new" href="http://www.bsolutions.s5.com"> http://www.bsolutions.s5.com </a>, and has worked for several international clients from UK,US,CANADA,and India. Having experience of more than 3 years in web development and Search Engine Optimization, I have evolved a wide expertise in Search Engine Optimization Techniques. Contact me: <a href="mailto:bhupinder@bsolutions.s5.com">bhupinder@bsolutions.s5.com</a> or <a href="mailto:bhupinder@seohawk.com">bhupinder@seohawk.com</a>

The Secret To Getting Indexed In Yahoo

Getting indexed in Yahoo has become very difficult in the last few months. The indexing robot, Yahoo!Slurp, has become erratic. For some sites, the robot will view all pages, but only add a few to the Yahoo database. For other sites, sub-domain listings actually start disappearing! So, what's the secret to getting indexed?

Pleasing Yahoo!Slurp

The secret to getting indexed in Yahoo involves constant updates to your site. The updates, however, have to be done on both the site and through Real Simple Syndication (RSS) feeds. Here's how you go about getting indexed.

The first step is to start a blog for your site. You can build a blog on your site or use a free service. I prefer blogger.com because it is easy to use, but you can use whatever you like. Once you have your blog up, you should make entries that correspond and link to content on your site. For example, I will post this article on my blog, Moshing Search Engines, and link it to the article page on MarketingTitan.com.

To supercharge the impact of the blog, you should also link to a site map on your site. If you don't have a site map, make one in HTML. The Yahoo robot will definitely follow it and index the pages. Don't rely on the xml site map strategy Google is promoting.

Once you have the blog up with content posted, you must turn the blog into a real simple syndication feed. Again, you can use your own system. I prefer to use a free service because I really don't have the time to waste on such things.

Feedburner.com seems to work find and is simple to use. Opening an account with Feedburner is so easy, I am not even going to explain it. At the end of the process, feedburner will kick out the link for your RSS feed. Here's where the magic begins.

If you have a yahoo email account, you need to access you're My Yahoo page. If you don't have an account, get one! Once you are on the My Yahoo page, do the following:

1. Click the &quot;add content&quot; link in the upper left hand under the search box.

2. When the new page opens, click the &quot;Add RSS by URL&quot; link on the right of the &quot;Find Content&quot; search box in the upper section of the page.

3. Enter the exact link provided by Feedburner and click &quot;add.&quot; Do NOT add the url for your blog.

4. Click the &quot;My Yahoo&quot; tab at the top of the page and refresh the page.

At this point, you should see your feed at the bottom of the page. If you don't, be patient. Yahoo is sometimes slow, so just try it again in an hour or so. When the feed is added, you should see the name of your blog and the title of each post under it. Yahoo can take up to a day to add new posts, so don't panic if they don't show up immediately.

Once you've completed the above, Yahoo will follow the links in the blog and index the pages on your site. If one of the links goes to a site map, you are in business. As an added bonus, Google will do the same thing. Let's look at an example.

We are currently building NomadJournalTrips.com, which has been up for about a month. Roughly 10 to 20 pages are being added each day. Nomad Rick's Ramblings is the blog for the site and the feed is included on four &quot;My Yahoo&quot; pages for various email accounts. Yahoo has indexed 95 pages and is about four days behind the page additions. Google has indexed 151 pages and is adding to the index every day. The blog and RSS feed are solely responsible for getting these pages indexed this quickly.

Depending on the size of your site, the process can take a few days or a couple of weeks. Every time you add new content, slap it into your blog with links. In no time, you will be taming Yahoo!Slurp.

Halstatt Pires is with <a target="_new" href="http://www.marketingtitan.com">http://www.marketingtitan.com</a> - an Internet marketing and advertising company in San Diego, California.

How To Improve Your Search Engine Ranking

With search engines like Google currently indexing over 8 billion pages, it is becoming more and more difficult to get a top search engine ranking. Type in a popular search phrase such as "Internet Marketing" into Yahoo or Google and you will be returned over 8 million results!

Unless your website is in the first two or three pages, it is unlikely that you will receive many visitors from search engines.

So what should a webmaster do to give their website the best chance of ranking high in the search engines?

All search engines work slightly differently and have ever changing algorithms for ranking web pages, but these tips can be applied when planning, developing or marketing a website to help you reach that top page of search engine results.

(1) Choose your keywords carefully

It's extremely important to set aside time to research your keywords. It's best to do this in the planning stages, before developing your website, but many of us start a website without knowing a thing about how the search engines work, so you may find yourself doing this weeks or months later.

Try to choose phrases that are searched on frequently and if possible have a low number of competing websites.

To get an idea of the number of times a keyword is searched for per month, type a keyword into the box at

<A target="_new" HREF="http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/">Overture Search Suggestion Tool</A>

This will tell you how many times your keyword was searched on in the previous month (based on Overture's partner search engines) and give you a list of similar keywords.

Another useful tool to help you choose your keywords is Word Tracker. This tool will help you choose your keywords and give you a "KEI" for each set of keywords based on the popularity of the keyword (number of searches) and the amount of competition.

You can try this out for free on <A target="_new" HREF="http://wordtracker.com">Wordtracker</A>

If you manage to pick your keywords in the planning stages you may even be lucky enough to find a domain name that contains your keywords.

(2) Optimise your pages

Once you have decided on your keywords you will need to optimise your pages for those keywords. Here are a few tips.

- Ensure that the Title of your page contains your keywords.

- Mention your keywords inside the meta tags. Most search engines no longer use meta tags, but some make use of them so it is still worthwhile using these.

- Try to make sure that the first occurance of readable text on your page contains your keywords

- Ensure that your keywords are mentioned in the initial paragraph of your page

- Use your keywords throughout the text of your page - but be careful not to overdo this. Your page should still be readable by humans!

- Use your keywords between the headline tags on your page ("H1" tags or H2/H3 if H1 is too big)

- Occasionally bold or italicise your keywords

- Make sure that links pointing back to each page on your site contain the keywords for each page

- Give all your images an "ALT" tag and put your keywords in here too - again, don't overdo this

- Try to put some of your keywords in your outbound links

(3) Start Linking

One of the most important criteria in getting a good search engine ranking is the number of backlinks you have to your website from related websites.

Type in your chosen keywords to Yahoo or Google and take note of the top 3 sites returned to you.

Now go to <A target="_new" HREF="http://tools.marketleap.com/publinkpop/">Link Popularity Checker</A> and put the URLs of the top three sites into the linking tool, along the URL of your own site.

Have a look at the difference between your site and the top 3 sites and this will give you an idea of how many links you need in order to get a top search engine ranking for these keywords.

The best ways to get links back to your site are:

- By writing articles related to the subject of your website and getting them published on the internet

- Reciprocal Linking with other related websites

- Posting on newsgroups and forums that allow you to have a signature attached to your posting (with your uRL in it)

- Submitting your site to directories.

Try to make sure that the anchor text (clickable text) that links back to your site contains your keywords.

(4) Add Content Regularly

Another thing you may have noticed is that top ranking websites have lots of content.

Regularly updating your website and adding fresh content will also help your site to rank more highly in the search engines.

If you don't have time to create your own unique content there are plenty free articles available Just type "Free website content" into Google and you'll have your pick of the 18 million results that it returns to you!

To improve your ranking, follow steps 1 and 2 above and repeat steps 3 and 4 regularly.

Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of <A target="_new" HREF="http://www.homebiz-direct.com">http://www.homebiz-direct.com</A> To learn more about how to promote your website visit her <A target="_new" HREF="http://www.homebiz-direct.com/internetMarketing.html">Beginner's Guide to Internet Marketing</a>

Winning the Search Engine Wars!

Creating and building effective Search Engine marketing campaigns is like trying to nail jello to the wall! The challenge can be daunting to many, requiring very specialized knowledge of process that must be blended with unique and disparate technology. Here is some insight gained from years of experience providing these services to clients.

<ul>

<li>SE marketing is very effective in driving qualified traffic to a web site. Over 85% of global surfers utilize Search Engines to find goods and services.

<li>What can you expect for Search Engine ranking via back-end conversions or desired responses? There is no "silver bullet" answer to this question; we've seen results vary from a low of 1.4% to a high of 22%. You'll make a dangerous assumption if you measure results purely by focusing solely on SE marketing. Your back-end response mechanisms (sales rep interaction, e-commerce fulfillment, newsletter signup, web site, etc.) will greatly affect the ROI. Assess and critique from a holistic perspective.

<li>It's a zero sum game if you use any of the low cost "we submit to thousands" of search engines service companies. These submissions do very little to drive viable rankings. If you aren't achieving rankings in the top 20-30 (page 1-3) listings then you're wasting marketing resources.

<li>Don't make the mistake of focusing solely on Search Engine marketing to drive market awareness (online branding) and revenue. Develop mutually reinforcing processes that are synergistic by utilizing Directory submissions, Usenet/Newsgroup seeding, Newsletter sponsorships, Opt-in e-mail, PR and other offline marketing processes.

<li>Stringent keyword analysis for HTML text is one of the underlying foundations of a successful Search Engine Ranking campaign. It's analogous to the importance of ad copy for a conventional print campaign. Most good SE firms use a commercial database service like WordTracker which enable them to analyze the relative popularity of keywords and then build a submissions and optimization process around the selected keywords.

<li>The actual Title for your Index and Interior pages will also have a significant impact on whether or not a campaign works. It needs to be the right length, typically 10-20 words, have no hyperbole and pique a searcher's curiosity.

<li>Contrary to endless marketing hype, there are no quick solutions in this form of interactive marketing. It will take at least 1-2 months before you see any immediate results. And for significant results; i.e., page 1-3 listings via top tier engines add another 2-3 months on top of this on average.

<li>Web site content development impacts good SE rankings - the more the better. Develop content which is relevant to keywords. We use linguistic analysis software for our clients and then build a standalone "stealth web site" which has content expressly designed for SE spiders (bots). This level of sophistication and proprietary process is expensive and time-consuming but very effective.

<li>Remember the Armand Hammer quote about Russia? "An enigma wrapped inside a box buried deep in the ocean." This is apropos to the Search Engine world, as the top tier SE's all change their submission rules and algorithms on a regular basis. So hire a SE firm that understands the market - or be prepared to invest a great deal of time to achieve tangible results.

</ul>

About The Author

Lee Traupel has 20 plus years of business development and marketing experience - he is the founder of Intelective Communications, Inc., <a href="http://www.intelective.com," target="_new">http://www.intelective.com,</a> a results-driven marketing services company providing proprietary services to clients encompassing startups to public companies. Lee@intelective.com

<a href="mailto:Lee@intelective.com">Lee@intelective.com</a>

Submit Your WebSite: Add Your URL to Web Directories & Search Engines

Why get into Search engines and directories?

Increase backlinks of your webiste. If your website is listed in Directories then your website can get traffic from directries and search engines counting that backlinks for ranking of your website.

Search engines continusly finding websites through "Bots" follow links on the internet, as they find new links, they updates those pages to their database. if someone linking to your website or If you submit your website in search engines then only they can list your site.

You can submit your website into various Directories. Every Subject Related Search Engines and Directories are Available today.

You can find folloing B2B trade leads Directories, Trade events, resources to submit your website and Increase backlinks for your website.

Industries Specific Business Directories, Agriculture and Food Related Industries Directories, Automotive And Other Vehicle Directories, Chemical Related Industries, Computer, Telecommunications and Electronics Directories, Construction Materials and Cement, Consumer Goods Directories, Energy Directories, Environmental Industries Directories, Medical Related Industries Directories, Metal Industries Directories, Mining Directories, Packaging Industry Directories, Scientific Products Directories, Textiles and Apparel Directories, Tool & Machinery Directories, Toys & Sporting Goods, Wood, Pulp and Paper Industries Directories

Nowdays you can find Countrywise Search Engines and Directories also. If you are promoting products and Services in overseas Market then you need to submit your website into Countrywide Search Engines also.

You can find more than 10,000 search engines from more than 200 countries at <a target="_new" href="http://www.smartoffice.org">http://www.smartoffice.org</a> website. here you can find list of all types of Directries also.

here you can find top 300 search engines and Directories all over the world. mostly 80% Internet Traffic coming from these Search Engines and Directories.

Yogesh Ahire is eMarketing Consultant from India and also Author of ebook Discovery of e-Marketing URL: <a target="_new" href="http://www.e-guru.org">http://www.e-guru.org</a> and <a target="_new" href="http://www.superbrand.co.in">http://www.superbrand.co.in</a>