You might be wandering the reasons your web site is not getting much internet traffic. After all your web site took lots of financial and human resources, but unfortunately like so many web sites, it is quite unknown and as a result it does not get enough internet traffic to make it financially viable.
Did you know that about 80 percent of all web site traffic originates from search engines? Yes, it is true! Listing near the top page of search engines and obtaining the attention of your target audience should be a main priority for any web site internet promotion.
And the good news about this is that improving a web site position in search engine pages may be done for free. How? Using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
There are many ways to promote a web site. Some promotions are paid and some are free. Among the free ones, the search engine optimization techniques enable web sites to become search engine friendly. In other words, it makes website pages to accept the search engine crawler in a friendly way. These techniques will be some of the steps one will have to use to obtain a better position in search engine's pages, when searching for specific keywords, related to services or products offered by a web site.
Search engine optimization steps for a web page:
Title:
The html Title tag is a very important element and must include the most important keywords or phrases, which best represent the products or services offered by the web page. It should not contain more than 60 characters.
Keywords:
The html meta Keyword tag should have all the keyword phrases which best represents the products or services offered by the web page. Avoid repeating keywords and bad use of capital letters. It should not contain more than 250 characters.
Description:
The html meta Description tag is a description of the web page, which will be displayed by the search engine. Make sure it contains keywords phrases. Avoid repeating keywords and bad use of capital letters. It should not contain more than 200 characters.
Keywords in Headings:
Keywords in Headings tags (h1) will be interpreted by search engines as being an important keyword relevant to the web page, and it should be looked for and indexed by the search engines.
Web page text:
It is a good practice to include informative text one every page, using natural language and appropriate keywords. It should contain more than 200 words. Informative text should be placed in the html Body section of the web page.
Keywords in Alt Tags:
Every html picture "img" tag should contain an ALT tag with an appropriate description. Keywords should always be used when appropriate.
Keywords in Anchor Tags:
Every html hypertext link "a href " should contain a TITLE tag with an appropriate description. Keywords should always be used when appropriate.
Robots.txt file:
Make sure there is a robots.txt file in you web site directory. This is a text file created by the webmaster, which will guide the search engine´s crawler when indexing a web site.
There are some cases in which one might not want to have some web pages indexed. This way thru the use of robots.txt, one will have control over which pages will be indexed and made available to the search engines.
User-agent: *
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /data/
HTML code validation:
Search engine's crawlers become more efficient when indexing web pages with no html errors. Beware that some html errors can make search engine crawlers to give up indexing web pages. So it is recommended for those web pages to be indexed, there should be no html errors.
Links:
Links are very important to search engines. The quality of links and whether it is reciprocal or not, are important factors in evaluating the importance of a web page. Links from web sites with higher page ranks are a plus.
Registering with Directories and Search Engines:
It is very important the registration of a website with directories and search engine web sites. It is a way of telling the world that your web site exists. Avoid using automatic search engine/directory registration.
Search engine optimization has become a very important set of procedures which helps web sites to become more relevant to search engines. To obtain an increase in internet traffic will take some time. It probably will take some kind of additional promotion too. But anybody in need of higher internet traffic, free search engine optimization might be considered his first option.
August 12, 2010
SEO India : Plan for Internet Marketers
How to optimize your site
I don't like doing seo, but its very much needed. Search engine optimization for your website should be one of a webmaster's main goals. Getting traffic from the search engines is not only free but is also constant (depending on what keywords that you are targeting) traffic. Below is a plan that web masters should follow when they decide that they will start optimizing their websites, you should include a combination of onsite and offsite search engine optimization.
Step one: What keywords your going to optimize for
Think of what keywords that you want to target. If you target the wrong keywords then you may never see any results for them, just some common sense. And if you target overly competive keywords then it may take too much time to see results but once you do it will be well worth it. I would recommend targeting in the middle when selecting keywords to optimize your site for when you're starting out.
Here is a free keyword tool that you can use to get an idea of what keywords are popular: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/.
Just a quick tip when selecting keywords, i usually use the plural version for keywords or keyword phrases because the plural version includes the single one. For example if you have a keyword "shoe" try making it "shoes" because the keyword "shoes" include the keyword "shoe" but its not the same in reverse.
Step two: Start onsite optimization
This is one layer of search engine optimization and this process includes manipulating the source code of your website with keywords. The places to put keywords in your website includes the title tags, meta tags, within the text of your website, and within links (anchor text).
Title tags: This is the most important part to place keywords in your website and surprisingly a lot of web masters just leave this area blank. Search engine bots show the most prominence (importance) to keywords within the title tag which is why its critical to include keywords here.
Place keywords here
Text of document
Meta tags: Place keywords here but be careful not to place too many here or else you will be viewed as spamming the search engines "keyword stuffing." These use to be an easy way to score top rankings in the search engines but the search engines have evolved overtime and this is no longer possible to score high rankings with stuffing the meta tags. You will need a proper combination of onsite and off site optimization which i will explain later. Meta tags goes between the head tags in your source code.
Description Meta:
This should be a description of your website and always put important keywords in the beginning of the sentence if applicable."
Meta Keywords:
Some quick tips. Try to use the plural form of your keywords here and to also see if there are common misspellings for popular keywords and lace them here. DO NOT repeat keywords.
Heading tags:
Heading Size 1
Make sure to place your keywords here because this helps tells search engines related content on your website.
Keywords in the anchor text:
This is important, whenever you are linking within your website make sure to place keywords in the links, search engine algorithms like this. For example, if your selling a weight loss product instead of having a link that simply says "click here" have the anchor text say "click here to get the ultimate guide to weight loss." Anchor text code=Keywords go here
Alt tag
If you have a lot of graphics on your site there are a couple of things you want to do. First, you want to make it small as possible without losing none of the quality if possible. Websites that are bombarded with graphics usually take some time to load which can cause visitors to get impatient and leave so this is important to keep in mind. Also, make sure to place keywords in the image alt tags:
Make sure to actually describe the image, just don't use this as an extra means to stuff keywords, and use the keywords here that you have in your title and meta tags. Make sure to spell correctly (unlike what I'm doing) when your working on the on site optimization for your website. NEVER EVER copy and paste text from word into your html text editor, that can cause all types of complications. Write your keywords up in word and the copy and paste your text into a text editor like notepad or wordpad and then paste it into your html editor.
Offsite optimization
Offsite optimization has nothing to do with manipulating the source code of your website and relies heavily on links which brings me to my first tip with optimization, and that is to write articles. The funny thing is by getting links to your site is also a quick way to get indexed in the search engines.
Writing articles:
I like writing articles because the Internet was made for information and when someone is searching for something online they are most likely looking for information that they are searching for, i will assume that you did a good amount of searching today or browsing if your reading this right now. Okay, write and submit articles to website directories. I have tested and founded that a 3% keyword density is usually perfect when writing articles. Always place keywords within the anchor text in the links of your signature.
Classic blog and ping:
Search engines love blogs, and these are an easy way to get backlinks to your sites. Just open up a free blog at blogger and make a post with a link back to your site. You can also try deep linking by linking to other content parts of your site as well in your blog.
Blog comment:
Find the top blogs in your niche and leave a comment, but no spamming... thats just tasteless.
MSN, Google, and Yahoo Homepage:
Make and customize your own personal webpage for each of these search engines and post your articles here with a link back to your website. They also have rss so that you can syndicate your content as well.
Google: pages.google.com
Yahoo! my.yahoo.com/
MSN: my.msn.com
Press release:
Write and syndicate press release, this is a great way to get backlinks as well as also get some media attention about your website.
Extensive list (Link bait)
Take the time to make an extensive list of links to useful resources, this is great ways to make your website ready to get eaten up with links.
Build a 101 list:
These are almost next to impossible to not get linked to and often get dugged often in digg. I wrote an article in a couple of hours titled 101 muscular ways to get more traffic to you website and blogs and this have given me enormous amounts of backlinks and a good amount of traffic from the search engines, blogs it was reposted on, and forums as well.You can also make a separate page on your website for directories. These are great way to link to useful information, but its also a great way to link to pages within your site (if its useful) a process called deep linking.
Sitemap:
Sitemaps are important because not only does it help make your website easier to navigate for a first time user, it also helps spider your site which will help your content get indexed in the search engines. There is no secret, if the pages are not indexed in the search engines then that means they cannot draw any traffic from them. So, this is where sitemaps come in. Sitemaps are written in xml, a language i don't like but a language the search engines love (same languages that blogs are written in). Once you have your sitempap which has to be in .xml format before you submit to Google go here:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
Here are some xml sitemap creators:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
http://pingoat.com/goat/google_sitemap
http://www.neuroticweb.com/recursos/sitemap/
Yahoo sitemap
To submit go here:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
MSN sitemap
To my current knowledege, MSN doesn't currently have a particular place to submit sitemaps to, but from my understanding if you submit your sitemap to Google, then MSN will pick it up because it can understand that protocol. Go here for more information if your curious: http://sitemaps.org.
This should work for Yahoo! As well, so thats why its important to always submit your sitemmaps to Google. Also, here is another trick that you can do. You can always ping the search engines so that you will tell them that "hey i updated my content come and visit and spider my website you." Here is the code: http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://www.YourSiteMapURL
There you have it, a nice summary of what you need to do in order to start an effective search engine optimization plan so quick reading, print this out, and get started working, all the best.
I don't like doing seo, but its very much needed. Search engine optimization for your website should be one of a webmaster's main goals. Getting traffic from the search engines is not only free but is also constant (depending on what keywords that you are targeting) traffic. Below is a plan that web masters should follow when they decide that they will start optimizing their websites, you should include a combination of onsite and offsite search engine optimization.
Step one: What keywords your going to optimize for
Think of what keywords that you want to target. If you target the wrong keywords then you may never see any results for them, just some common sense. And if you target overly competive keywords then it may take too much time to see results but once you do it will be well worth it. I would recommend targeting in the middle when selecting keywords to optimize your site for when you're starting out.
Here is a free keyword tool that you can use to get an idea of what keywords are popular: http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com/.
Just a quick tip when selecting keywords, i usually use the plural version for keywords or keyword phrases because the plural version includes the single one. For example if you have a keyword "shoe" try making it "shoes" because the keyword "shoes" include the keyword "shoe" but its not the same in reverse.
Step two: Start onsite optimization
This is one layer of search engine optimization and this process includes manipulating the source code of your website with keywords. The places to put keywords in your website includes the title tags, meta tags, within the text of your website, and within links (anchor text).
Title tags: This is the most important part to place keywords in your website and surprisingly a lot of web masters just leave this area blank. Search engine bots show the most prominence (importance) to keywords within the title tag which is why its critical to include keywords here.
Place keywords here
Text of document
Meta tags: Place keywords here but be careful not to place too many here or else you will be viewed as spamming the search engines "keyword stuffing." These use to be an easy way to score top rankings in the search engines but the search engines have evolved overtime and this is no longer possible to score high rankings with stuffing the meta tags. You will need a proper combination of onsite and off site optimization which i will explain later. Meta tags goes between the head tags in your source code.
Description Meta:
This should be a description of your website and always put important keywords in the beginning of the sentence if applicable."
Meta Keywords:
Some quick tips. Try to use the plural form of your keywords here and to also see if there are common misspellings for popular keywords and lace them here. DO NOT repeat keywords.
Heading tags:
Heading Size 1
Make sure to place your keywords here because this helps tells search engines related content on your website.
Keywords in the anchor text:
This is important, whenever you are linking within your website make sure to place keywords in the links, search engine algorithms like this. For example, if your selling a weight loss product instead of having a link that simply says "click here" have the anchor text say "click here to get the ultimate guide to weight loss." Anchor text code=Keywords go here
Alt tag
If you have a lot of graphics on your site there are a couple of things you want to do. First, you want to make it small as possible without losing none of the quality if possible. Websites that are bombarded with graphics usually take some time to load which can cause visitors to get impatient and leave so this is important to keep in mind. Also, make sure to place keywords in the image alt tags:
Make sure to actually describe the image, just don't use this as an extra means to stuff keywords, and use the keywords here that you have in your title and meta tags. Make sure to spell correctly (unlike what I'm doing) when your working on the on site optimization for your website. NEVER EVER copy and paste text from word into your html text editor, that can cause all types of complications. Write your keywords up in word and the copy and paste your text into a text editor like notepad or wordpad and then paste it into your html editor.
Offsite optimization
Offsite optimization has nothing to do with manipulating the source code of your website and relies heavily on links which brings me to my first tip with optimization, and that is to write articles. The funny thing is by getting links to your site is also a quick way to get indexed in the search engines.
Writing articles:
I like writing articles because the Internet was made for information and when someone is searching for something online they are most likely looking for information that they are searching for, i will assume that you did a good amount of searching today or browsing if your reading this right now. Okay, write and submit articles to website directories. I have tested and founded that a 3% keyword density is usually perfect when writing articles. Always place keywords within the anchor text in the links of your signature.
Classic blog and ping:
Search engines love blogs, and these are an easy way to get backlinks to your sites. Just open up a free blog at blogger and make a post with a link back to your site. You can also try deep linking by linking to other content parts of your site as well in your blog.
Blog comment:
Find the top blogs in your niche and leave a comment, but no spamming... thats just tasteless.
MSN, Google, and Yahoo Homepage:
Make and customize your own personal webpage for each of these search engines and post your articles here with a link back to your website. They also have rss so that you can syndicate your content as well.
Google: pages.google.com
Yahoo! my.yahoo.com/
MSN: my.msn.com
Press release:
Write and syndicate press release, this is a great way to get backlinks as well as also get some media attention about your website.
Extensive list (Link bait)
Take the time to make an extensive list of links to useful resources, this is great ways to make your website ready to get eaten up with links.
Build a 101 list:
These are almost next to impossible to not get linked to and often get dugged often in digg. I wrote an article in a couple of hours titled 101 muscular ways to get more traffic to you website and blogs and this have given me enormous amounts of backlinks and a good amount of traffic from the search engines, blogs it was reposted on, and forums as well.You can also make a separate page on your website for directories. These are great way to link to useful information, but its also a great way to link to pages within your site (if its useful) a process called deep linking.
Sitemap:
Sitemaps are important because not only does it help make your website easier to navigate for a first time user, it also helps spider your site which will help your content get indexed in the search engines. There is no secret, if the pages are not indexed in the search engines then that means they cannot draw any traffic from them. So, this is where sitemaps come in. Sitemaps are written in xml, a language i don't like but a language the search engines love (same languages that blogs are written in). Once you have your sitempap which has to be in .xml format before you submit to Google go here:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/
Here are some xml sitemap creators:
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
http://pingoat.com/goat/google_sitemap
http://www.neuroticweb.com/recursos/sitemap/
Yahoo sitemap
To submit go here:
http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
MSN sitemap
To my current knowledege, MSN doesn't currently have a particular place to submit sitemaps to, but from my understanding if you submit your sitemap to Google, then MSN will pick it up because it can understand that protocol. Go here for more information if your curious: http://sitemaps.org.
This should work for Yahoo! As well, so thats why its important to always submit your sitemmaps to Google. Also, here is another trick that you can do. You can always ping the search engines so that you will tell them that "hey i updated my content come and visit and spider my website you." Here is the code: http://api.moreover.com/ping?u=http://www.YourSiteMapURL
There you have it, a nice summary of what you need to do in order to start an effective search engine optimization plan so quick reading, print this out, and get started working, all the best.
Search Engine Marketing Optimization Products Reviewed
Most books and software ever sold online have-in one form or another-something to do with Search Engine Optimization. Why is this such a sought after service? Because... getting a good spot on major search engines can be the difference between $0 in profit per day versus $500 to $150,000 in profits per day (depending on the product you are promoting). Now there are many books and programs out there... and trust me, I've tried nearly all of them. Here are my personal recommendations:
1 - The SEO Elite Software is by far the best of the best in software out there. It is a bit pricey to start off with, but it will literally save you thousands of dollars in promotions. The advantage you have is that you can create instant back-links to your site whenever you choose to, and on more sites then you could ever dream of. To have access to tools with a 1/4 of these abilities you would pay about $239 a year somewhere else. In short... you get more than you pay for. I'd rate it 10/10
2 - Search Engine Optimization is another great, great tool. The price is a fraction of what you would pay on the previous software, but you are also more limited as to what you can or cannot do with this system. Still a super program, but remember: You Get What You Pay For.
3 - Links Master is a program different from the previous two in the sense that you get someone else to blast your text ads out onto hundreds of sites. Problem? You have limited control over the kind of sites and the amount of sites linking to your site. Again... a great service, but it does tend to go hard on the wallet of those starting out.
Believe it or not-there is no secret to getting your site listed number 1 on major search engines. You read that right! Search Engine Marketing is always spoken of as though it is hard to do. And gaining a number 1 spot on Google, well, that is just plain impossible. If done right, YOU can prove all those assumptions wrong.
Using software number 1 it is easy and fast as lightning to get top ranking on major search engines and, as previously stated, it takes very little effort on your part. Go to the site, read the testimonials-and if you are serious about getting that number 1 spot... I trust you will purchase the software. The SEO software is to the online marketer today as a machine gun would have been to a warrior in medieval times: It literally blows all Search Engine Marketing competitors to pieces!
Search engines can be an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to a web site. Our search engine marketing page provides access to the collective wisdom of all the top search engine marketing experts with regularly updated articles, links to resources, and announcements of new tools and services available to the search engine marketing industry.
Do you want your site to rank number 1 on Google?
Then use the number 1 Search Engine Marketing tool, which is currently being used by thousands of search engine marketers around the world. Gain YOUR #1 spot on Google, Yahoo, and MSN in record time!
1 - The SEO Elite Software is by far the best of the best in software out there. It is a bit pricey to start off with, but it will literally save you thousands of dollars in promotions. The advantage you have is that you can create instant back-links to your site whenever you choose to, and on more sites then you could ever dream of. To have access to tools with a 1/4 of these abilities you would pay about $239 a year somewhere else. In short... you get more than you pay for. I'd rate it 10/10
2 - Search Engine Optimization is another great, great tool. The price is a fraction of what you would pay on the previous software, but you are also more limited as to what you can or cannot do with this system. Still a super program, but remember: You Get What You Pay For.
3 - Links Master is a program different from the previous two in the sense that you get someone else to blast your text ads out onto hundreds of sites. Problem? You have limited control over the kind of sites and the amount of sites linking to your site. Again... a great service, but it does tend to go hard on the wallet of those starting out.
Believe it or not-there is no secret to getting your site listed number 1 on major search engines. You read that right! Search Engine Marketing is always spoken of as though it is hard to do. And gaining a number 1 spot on Google, well, that is just plain impossible. If done right, YOU can prove all those assumptions wrong.
Using software number 1 it is easy and fast as lightning to get top ranking on major search engines and, as previously stated, it takes very little effort on your part. Go to the site, read the testimonials-and if you are serious about getting that number 1 spot... I trust you will purchase the software. The SEO software is to the online marketer today as a machine gun would have been to a warrior in medieval times: It literally blows all Search Engine Marketing competitors to pieces!
Search engines can be an effective method of driving highly targeted visitors to a web site. Our search engine marketing page provides access to the collective wisdom of all the top search engine marketing experts with regularly updated articles, links to resources, and announcements of new tools and services available to the search engine marketing industry.
Do you want your site to rank number 1 on Google?
Then use the number 1 Search Engine Marketing tool, which is currently being used by thousands of search engine marketers around the world. Gain YOUR #1 spot on Google, Yahoo, and MSN in record time!
SEO India :10 Costly Search Engine Mistakes to Avoid
If you have a website then you already know the importance of traffic. Traffic is to Internet marketing as location is to real estate. It's the only thing that really matters. If you cannot generate targeted visitors to your site, you will not make any sales.
Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.
Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after all, isn't that what you want.
1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic.
2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page or site.
3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.
4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page (such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity, the hot search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is considered spam by the search engines and may cause the page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the search engine listing.
5. Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic or layer that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text does not really describe the graphic or layer it will be considered spam.
6. Relying on hidden text.
You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it, it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example, some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same color as the background of the web page; thereby, making it invisible.
7. Relying on tiny text.
This is another version of the item above (relying on hidden text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this.
8. Assuming all search engines are the same.
Many people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it a point to learn what each major search engine requires for high visibility.
9. Using free web hosting.
Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many times the search engines will eliminate content from these free hosts.
10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.
Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the web that will do this for free.
This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good for your website.
Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may have your site banned from the search engines forever. Invest a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility and your net traffic will increase.
Usually the owner or designer of the website is the person designated to drive traffic to the site. The chief ingredient in generating traffic is the search engine. Of coarse, you can use advertising, but it's going to cost you. Using the search engines to generate targeted (interested in your product) traffic is the least expensive method known.
Unfortunately, many website owners do not understand the importance of search engine visibility, which leads to traffic. They place more importance on producing a "pretty" website. Not that this is bad, but it is really secondary to search engine placement. Hopefully, the following list of common mistakes, made by many website owners, will help you generate more targeted traffic to your site...after all, isn't that what you want.
1. Not using keywords effectively.
This is probably one of the most critical area of site design. Choose the right keywords and potential customers will find your site. Use the wrong ones and your site will see little, if any, traffic.
2. Repeating the same keywords.
When you use the same keywords over and over again (called keyword stacking) the search engines may downgrade (or skip) the page or site.
3. Robbing pages from other websites.
How many times have you heard or read that "this is the Internet and it's ok" to steal icons and text from websites to use on your site. Don't do it. Its one thing to learn from others who have been there and another to outright copy their work. The search engines are very smart and usually detect page duplication. They may even prevent you from ever being listed by them.
4. Using keywords that are not related to your website.
Many unethical website owners try to gain search engine visibility by using keywords that have nothing at all to do with their website. They place unrelated keywords in a page (such as "sex", the name of a known celebrity, the hot search topic of the day, etc.) inside a meta tag for a page. The keyword doesn't have anything to do with the page topic. However, since the keyword is popular, they think this will boost their visibility. This technique is considered spam by the search engines and may cause the page (or sometimes the whole site) to be removed from the search engine listing.
5. Keyword stuffing.
Somewhat like keyword stacking listed above, this means to assign multiple keywords to the description of a graphic or layer that appears on your website by using the "alt=" HTML parameter. If the search engines find that this text does not really describe the graphic or layer it will be considered spam.
6. Relying on hidden text.
You might be inclined to think that if you cannot see it, it doesn't hurt. Wrong.... Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them invisible. For example, some unethical designers my set the keywords to the same color as the background of the web page; thereby, making it invisible.
7. Relying on tiny text.
This is another version of the item above (relying on hidden text). Do not try to hide your keywords or keyword phrases by making them tiny. Setting the text size of the keywords so small that it can barely be seen does this.
8. Assuming all search engines are the same.
Many people assume that each search engine plays by the same rules. This is not so. Each has their own rule base and is subject to change anytime they so desire. Make it a point to learn what each major search engine requires for high visibility.
9. Using free web hosting.
Do not use free web hosting if you are really serious about increasing site traffic via search engine visibility. Many times the search engines will eliminate content from these free hosts.
10. Forgetting to check for missing web page elements.
Make sure to check every page in your website for completeness, like missing links, graphics, etc. There are sites on the web that will do this for free.
This is just a few of the methods and techniques that you should avoid. Do not give in to the temptation that these methods will work for you. They will do more harm than good for your website.
Not only will you spend weeks of wasted effort, you may have your site banned from the search engines forever. Invest a little time to learn the proper techniques for increasing search engine visibility and your net traffic will increase.
SEO India :How To Optimize Your Free-reprint Article
I have been around the internet for quite sometime - offering outsourced services and software products. I see a lot of internet marketing techniques on how to get more traffic and attract more paying customers, but only one technique seemed to work for me considering my tight budget.
So what is this technique?
This technique is called free content article marketing or free-reprint article marketing. It is basically writing an article with topics covering your products/services. The main idea of this is to keep your article ratio at 70% quality and useful information/tips to 30% advertisement. The 30% advertisement refers to your bylines or the resource box at the end of each article.
Your bylines or "about the author" content is the key to article marketing. This is the part where you can make yourself as an expert in your field, the part where you can ask readers to visit your site and the part where you can mention what you offer and do.
I already wrote an article, what now?
Is your article optimized?
Optimizing your article is always the first thing to remember. There are lots of ways to optimize an article, but let me share to you mine.
Before writing an article think of a keyword, be sure to include that keyword in your title. Make those search engines love your article by first optimizing your title.
Do not quote your title! Search engines will not like it, for example, "Five Ways to Effectively Market your Product". Get rid of the quotes!
If possible put the keyword first in your title, for example, European Cruise - You Deserve Only the Best.
When your title is ready, try to spread your keyword several times all over your article. Try to keep a decent keyword density and do not try to spam the search engines.
Do not sacrifice your credibility for optimization. Some authors are fond of inserting dots between words that are considered as spam. Just like the word "free". If you are trying to sell a product or service make yourself credible and your articles professional.
Ok I'm set! Now what?
Submit your article to article directories and article announcement lists. There are hundreds, if not thousands of article announcement lists and article directories. Article directories is where you can let your articles reside and Article Announcement lists announce your articles to a variety of targeted audience.
Here are a few article directories you can use:
www.isnare.com
ezinearticles.com
articlecity.com
ideamarketers.com
There are thousands of article announcement list, is there a site to do the submissions for me?
Yes, indeed there are sites that do the submissions for you, but there is a payment for each article you send or if not, a monthly payment.
Try checking these sites for Article Announcement offers:
www.isnare.com/pbenefits.php - Distribute as many articles as you can for $35/month with an option to request for proofreading before distributing your article.
thephantomwriters.com - Amount depends on the number of articles you distribute
www.ezineannouncer.com - I haven't looked at this one yet
www.articlesubmissionsites.com/ - $49.00 introductory six month renewable membership
So what is this technique?
This technique is called free content article marketing or free-reprint article marketing. It is basically writing an article with topics covering your products/services. The main idea of this is to keep your article ratio at 70% quality and useful information/tips to 30% advertisement. The 30% advertisement refers to your bylines or the resource box at the end of each article.
Your bylines or "about the author" content is the key to article marketing. This is the part where you can make yourself as an expert in your field, the part where you can ask readers to visit your site and the part where you can mention what you offer and do.
I already wrote an article, what now?
Is your article optimized?
Optimizing your article is always the first thing to remember. There are lots of ways to optimize an article, but let me share to you mine.
Before writing an article think of a keyword, be sure to include that keyword in your title. Make those search engines love your article by first optimizing your title.
Do not quote your title! Search engines will not like it, for example, "Five Ways to Effectively Market your Product". Get rid of the quotes!
If possible put the keyword first in your title, for example, European Cruise - You Deserve Only the Best.
When your title is ready, try to spread your keyword several times all over your article. Try to keep a decent keyword density and do not try to spam the search engines.
Do not sacrifice your credibility for optimization. Some authors are fond of inserting dots between words that are considered as spam. Just like the word "free". If you are trying to sell a product or service make yourself credible and your articles professional.
Ok I'm set! Now what?
Submit your article to article directories and article announcement lists. There are hundreds, if not thousands of article announcement lists and article directories. Article directories is where you can let your articles reside and Article Announcement lists announce your articles to a variety of targeted audience.
Here are a few article directories you can use:
www.isnare.com
ezinearticles.com
articlecity.com
ideamarketers.com
There are thousands of article announcement list, is there a site to do the submissions for me?
Yes, indeed there are sites that do the submissions for you, but there is a payment for each article you send or if not, a monthly payment.
Try checking these sites for Article Announcement offers:
www.isnare.com/pbenefits.php - Distribute as many articles as you can for $35/month with an option to request for proofreading before distributing your article.
thephantomwriters.com - Amount depends on the number of articles you distribute
www.ezineannouncer.com - I haven't looked at this one yet
www.articlesubmissionsites.com/ - $49.00 introductory six month renewable membership
SEO India :Free Traffic Exchange ?
A free traffic exchange offers webmasters the ability to promote their websites or affiliate marketing campaigns for free, or at very low cost. The idea is to surf around other members websites, and for each viewing, you get so many of your own URLs and banners added into the rotation for other members to view. There are hundreds, if not thousands of free traffic exchanges online today. The trick is to find the ones that work best for you. Not all free traffic exchanges are created equal and the most active ones are not necessarily the best ones for your needs.
Free traffic exchanges are a great marketing tool for a variety of reasons. The most obvious reason is that you get lots of people looking, and hopefully clicking on your website or promotional pages. But there are hidden benefits to free traffic exchanges you may not have even considered.
Search engines love free traffic exchanges because of all the incoming and outgoing links they generate. Plus the rapidly changing content is another reason the search bots love these things. Exchanges that have more content also generate a higher pagerank, and therefore more traffic, and increased memberships. The key is to find exchanges that are very active and have lots of members. The more members they have, the more potential customers you get looking at your offer and your chances for sales conversions are that much better. But bigger isn't always better.
Some free traffic exchanges may convert sales like crazy for one person, and be a complete waste of time for another. If everyone were promoting the same website or affiliate program is the same traffic exchange for example, then chances are you would not make many sales. Even if you were promoting the #1 thing on the internet, if everyone promoted the same program, your chances are much lower that someone will purchase through your website or link to make you any money. Also, when people see the same ad over and over again, they get desensitized to it. Don't fall into this trap. It's one thing to try and sell a very popular product/service/ebook etc, but it's another thing when a million other people are trying to do it too. Competition is a good thing, because it validates your market, but too much competition is tough and it's time to move on to something else.
We all know clicking on ads in a free traffic exchange can be very boring, monotonous and can take a lot of time. That's why you need to make the best of your opportunity or you will just be wasting a lot of your time and effort on something that just isn't working. If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn't promoting, especially within that particular traffic exchange.
One way to use free traffic exchanges to your advantage is to join a few at first, and see if your sales pick up. If your sales aren't doing well, then test out a few more. When you do find a few traffic exchanges that appear to be generating sales for you, then narrow those down until you find the one, or two that are working. Now concentrate your efforts on those because they're the ones you want. At least for now anyway. Things may change, so keep an eye on your campaigns and if sales seem to be falling off, then it might be time to change your offer or find another traffic exchange that could pick your profits up again.
As I mentioned, your individual promotion is everything. If you're trying to promote something everyone else is, I don't care what traffic exchange service you're using, your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all. You cannot always blame the exchange. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and think if you're doing all you can to make sales.
If you're going to be using multiple free traffic exchanges, and I recommend that you do, your first priority should be to pick up a multi-tab web browser. Many of these browsers are free and run on PCs and MACs. The tabs feature allows you to have one web browser open with multiple tabs each going to a separate website. You could easily put 5 or 6 of your free exchange sites in these tabs, and earn credits for all of them at the same time. So instead of surfing for 1/2 an hour or an hour earning 200 hits for one exchange, you could earn 200 hits for 5 exchanges in the same amount of time. This is a huge time saver and multiplies your earned hits by 5X or 6X.
Getting free traffic to your website is a lot of work. If you don't have the money to spend on full blown PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords, free traffic exchanges are a great way to get the traffic you need.
Free traffic exchanges are a great marketing tool for a variety of reasons. The most obvious reason is that you get lots of people looking, and hopefully clicking on your website or promotional pages. But there are hidden benefits to free traffic exchanges you may not have even considered.
Search engines love free traffic exchanges because of all the incoming and outgoing links they generate. Plus the rapidly changing content is another reason the search bots love these things. Exchanges that have more content also generate a higher pagerank, and therefore more traffic, and increased memberships. The key is to find exchanges that are very active and have lots of members. The more members they have, the more potential customers you get looking at your offer and your chances for sales conversions are that much better. But bigger isn't always better.
Some free traffic exchanges may convert sales like crazy for one person, and be a complete waste of time for another. If everyone were promoting the same website or affiliate program is the same traffic exchange for example, then chances are you would not make many sales. Even if you were promoting the #1 thing on the internet, if everyone promoted the same program, your chances are much lower that someone will purchase through your website or link to make you any money. Also, when people see the same ad over and over again, they get desensitized to it. Don't fall into this trap. It's one thing to try and sell a very popular product/service/ebook etc, but it's another thing when a million other people are trying to do it too. Competition is a good thing, because it validates your market, but too much competition is tough and it's time to move on to something else.
We all know clicking on ads in a free traffic exchange can be very boring, monotonous and can take a lot of time. That's why you need to make the best of your opportunity or you will just be wasting a lot of your time and effort on something that just isn't working. If you have your own niche website, then you already differentiated yourself from the pack. If you are an affiliate marketer, then you need to find products/services that everyone else isn't promoting, especially within that particular traffic exchange.
One way to use free traffic exchanges to your advantage is to join a few at first, and see if your sales pick up. If your sales aren't doing well, then test out a few more. When you do find a few traffic exchanges that appear to be generating sales for you, then narrow those down until you find the one, or two that are working. Now concentrate your efforts on those because they're the ones you want. At least for now anyway. Things may change, so keep an eye on your campaigns and if sales seem to be falling off, then it might be time to change your offer or find another traffic exchange that could pick your profits up again.
As I mentioned, your individual promotion is everything. If you're trying to promote something everyone else is, I don't care what traffic exchange service you're using, your sales conversions are going to be very low, or nothing at all. You cannot always blame the exchange. Sometimes you have to look at yourself and think if you're doing all you can to make sales.
If you're going to be using multiple free traffic exchanges, and I recommend that you do, your first priority should be to pick up a multi-tab web browser. Many of these browsers are free and run on PCs and MACs. The tabs feature allows you to have one web browser open with multiple tabs each going to a separate website. You could easily put 5 or 6 of your free exchange sites in these tabs, and earn credits for all of them at the same time. So instead of surfing for 1/2 an hour or an hour earning 200 hits for one exchange, you could earn 200 hits for 5 exchanges in the same amount of time. This is a huge time saver and multiplies your earned hits by 5X or 6X.
Getting free traffic to your website is a lot of work. If you don't have the money to spend on full blown PPC (pay-per-click) campaigns like Google AdWords, free traffic exchanges are a great way to get the traffic you need.
SEO India : 4 Tips for article writing
Have you been writing and submitting your free reprint articles for quite sometime now?
If so, how is your reprint rate doing? Is it doing well or is it a bit below 50%? Are webmasters approving your articles?
Here are some tips on how to write effective free reprint articles that would guarantee great interest from ezine publishers and webmasters.
1. Choose a good keyword
A good keyword is your "key" to getting high reprint rates for even just a single article. Try using this tool at http://www.wordtracker.com/ to find the best keywords.
2. Keyword density
Keyword density is the number of "keywords" found in an article or content which is then divided by the total number of words. Try to keep your keyword density at 5% to 7% maximum especially if you choose common keywords for your article. Keyword density is important because this is one of the things search engines look into when they rank the search results.
Do not try to make your article an article for search engines, make them full of quality, informative but still search engine optimized.
3. Shorter word count
Publishers or webmasters often love articles that are less than 1000 words, but it totally depends on the topic and how informative is your article. Try not to go around the bush and result to making your article at 1800+ words. In other words, do not make it like a short story. A good article may only have at least 250 words, but could still capture the reader's attention and have the attributes mentioned in numbers 1 and 2 above.
4. Good content
You wrote a 700-word article with good keywords and keyword density, but does it contain good content? Well, only you can answer that truthfully and if your answer is yes, then great! But for some few inviduals this isn't the fact, many are still writing articles that editors label as an "indirect" advert. If you really want a good reprint rate then make your article body 100% of quality information, tips, how-tos and tricks. Keep the 100% advert in your bylines and keep them short.
If so, how is your reprint rate doing? Is it doing well or is it a bit below 50%? Are webmasters approving your articles?
Here are some tips on how to write effective free reprint articles that would guarantee great interest from ezine publishers and webmasters.
1. Choose a good keyword
A good keyword is your "key" to getting high reprint rates for even just a single article. Try using this tool at http://www.wordtracker.com/ to find the best keywords.
2. Keyword density
Keyword density is the number of "keywords" found in an article or content which is then divided by the total number of words. Try to keep your keyword density at 5% to 7% maximum especially if you choose common keywords for your article. Keyword density is important because this is one of the things search engines look into when they rank the search results.
Do not try to make your article an article for search engines, make them full of quality, informative but still search engine optimized.
3. Shorter word count
Publishers or webmasters often love articles that are less than 1000 words, but it totally depends on the topic and how informative is your article. Try not to go around the bush and result to making your article at 1800+ words. In other words, do not make it like a short story. A good article may only have at least 250 words, but could still capture the reader's attention and have the attributes mentioned in numbers 1 and 2 above.
4. Good content
You wrote a 700-word article with good keywords and keyword density, but does it contain good content? Well, only you can answer that truthfully and if your answer is yes, then great! But for some few inviduals this isn't the fact, many are still writing articles that editors label as an "indirect" advert. If you really want a good reprint rate then make your article body 100% of quality information, tips, how-tos and tricks. Keep the 100% advert in your bylines and keep them short.
SEO India Search Engine Optimization
Search engine optimization or SEO is the process of improving the quality and volume of website visitor traffic through natural or organic search engine rankings. The earlier a website is listed within the natural search results for a desired keyword, the more search engine users will visit the site. A website's natural search ranking on Google cannot be paid for, it must be earned through careful web design and effective SEO.
SEO experts from Slingshot SEO reverse engineer ranking algorithms used by search engines, like Google, and consider how and why people search for specific keywords. Web design by Slingshot SEO has search engine optimization embedded in all aspects of programming and structural design. Often, websites are mistakenly programmed in such a fashion that search engine algorithms cannot even read the site's content. In this case web design that may look excellent to the human eye, is entirely non-existent to a search engine. A flaw like this can be devastating to your natural search engine rankings. SEO is an ever-changing field and our experts are learning new, effective and complex SEO techniques on a daily basis.
It should be noted that experts from slingshot SEO only use "white hat" SEO techniques. Slingshot will never use unethical forms of SEO that are intended to fool search engines and can even get your website banned from search engines indefinitely. White hat SEO techniques are meant to cater specifically to the goals and desires of search engines. Slingshot SEO designs websites that search engines will consider extremely relevant to keywords relating to your products or services.
SEO experts from Slingshot SEO reverse engineer ranking algorithms used by search engines, like Google, and consider how and why people search for specific keywords. Web design by Slingshot SEO has search engine optimization embedded in all aspects of programming and structural design. Often, websites are mistakenly programmed in such a fashion that search engine algorithms cannot even read the site's content. In this case web design that may look excellent to the human eye, is entirely non-existent to a search engine. A flaw like this can be devastating to your natural search engine rankings. SEO is an ever-changing field and our experts are learning new, effective and complex SEO techniques on a daily basis.
It should be noted that experts from slingshot SEO only use "white hat" SEO techniques. Slingshot will never use unethical forms of SEO that are intended to fool search engines and can even get your website banned from search engines indefinitely. White hat SEO techniques are meant to cater specifically to the goals and desires of search engines. Slingshot SEO designs websites that search engines will consider extremely relevant to keywords relating to your products or services.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)