Getting your product or service delivered to your targeted audience is one of the most important success factor in internet based business. There are many technique to deliver your content to your targeted audience. Submit good articles to high traffic ezine directory is one of the technique which is relatively simple and affordable for build up your online business. Below are lists the benefits.
1. You'll brand your web site, business and yourself by submitting articles to e-zines. You could include your name, business name, your credentials, web site address and e-mail address in your resource box.
2. You will become known as an expert on the topics you write about. This will give you and your business extra credibility which will help you compete against your competition.
3. Your article might also be placed on the publisher's home page. If they publish each issue on their home page this will give you some extra exposure.
4. You might get extra exposure if the e-zine publisher archives their e-zine on their site. People might want to read the back issues before they make the decision to subscribe.
5. You will get free advertising. This will allow you to spend your profits on other forms of advertising. You could buy advertisements in other e-zines that don't publish your articles.
6. You might get extra income from people wanting to hire you to write other articles, books, or even ask to speak at seminars. This is a great way to multiply your income.
7. You could allow e-zine publishers to publish your articles in their free e-books. Since people give them away, your advertising could multiply all over the internet.
8. You will get your article published all over the web when you submit it to an e-zine publisher that has a free content directory on their web site. They'll allow their visitors to republish your article.
9. You'll gain people's trust. If they read your article and like it, they won't be as hesitant to buy your
product or service. You will then be able to increase your profits.
10. You could get your article guaranteed to run in an e-zine. You could agree to run one of their articles in your e-zine if, in exchange, they run yours in their e-zine. It's a win/win situation.
The above list is a great start if you are thinking of starting a business on internet. It is relatively simple and very affordable.
August 10, 2010
SEO India : Improve Your Websites Performance
How well is your website performing? Are you satisfied with the amount of customers who view your website? Do you get enough business through your website? By reading this article you will be in a position to do something about all three questions.
It's all very well having a nicely designed and appealing website for your business but it's of no use if you don't get the customers to visit it. The number one term you will find associated with this is search engine optimisation. You will find endless sources on the Internet telling you to optimise this and optimise that but what does it all mean?
Search engine optimisation simply means making your website as friendly to search engines as possible. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN provide your business with the ability to reach a huge amount of customer's, they are by far the most successful method to boost sales for your business. If your website is nicely optimised then you will have a greater chance of appearing higher up on the search engines.
Most customers will type in a phrase into the search engine and view the first couple of websites that it finds, they will usually be successful in finding what they were looking for on the first page of results. Statistics show that customers very rarely look further than the first page (90% don't look past the first page) so what good is it if your website was on page 10? This is where search engine optimisation comes in, it will give your business a greater chance of being on that first golden page in the search engines.
There are many methods that all contribute to a higher ranking but some are more influential than others. The first factor is having a well built website. This is a standard feature that all website design companies should offer.
The second method is keywords. Keywords are the words that are associated with your business, the idea is to include these words in your website so when a customer types in a phrase in a search engine, your website is more likely to appear. Keywords should be chosen carefully to target the correct market for your business. It's no good targeting the word "Fruit" if your business sells website design.
The third factor that contributes to a high search engine ranking is back links. This simply means a link from someone else's website to yours. The more links you have to your website the better. Search engines view your back links as a sign of popularity and obviously the more popular you are the more successful you appear.
One of the best methods for this is to submit your website to online directories, not only will you get a back link but you are also likely to get a lot of customers coming to your website from that link. Make sure that you select trusted directories and one's that can relate to your business, there is a chance that you will get penalized by search engines if you sign up to link farms (websites that collect lot's of spam and poor quality links).
Finally, having a website that is constantly updated also gives you a boost in terms of search engines as they like to see fresh content. This is also likely to draw customers back to your website as they know they are likely to see something new. This in turn will boost the amount of traffic you get to your website which will also help in gaining a higher search engine rank.
These are just some of the methods in which you can improve your website performance, there are many other factors that contribute to a high search engine ranking. Most are an on-going process so it is very beneficial to your business to continually try to improve your performance as there is always someone competing against you for that top spot.
It's all very well having a nicely designed and appealing website for your business but it's of no use if you don't get the customers to visit it. The number one term you will find associated with this is search engine optimisation. You will find endless sources on the Internet telling you to optimise this and optimise that but what does it all mean?
Search engine optimisation simply means making your website as friendly to search engines as possible. Search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN provide your business with the ability to reach a huge amount of customer's, they are by far the most successful method to boost sales for your business. If your website is nicely optimised then you will have a greater chance of appearing higher up on the search engines.
Most customers will type in a phrase into the search engine and view the first couple of websites that it finds, they will usually be successful in finding what they were looking for on the first page of results. Statistics show that customers very rarely look further than the first page (90% don't look past the first page) so what good is it if your website was on page 10? This is where search engine optimisation comes in, it will give your business a greater chance of being on that first golden page in the search engines.
There are many methods that all contribute to a higher ranking but some are more influential than others. The first factor is having a well built website. This is a standard feature that all website design companies should offer.
The second method is keywords. Keywords are the words that are associated with your business, the idea is to include these words in your website so when a customer types in a phrase in a search engine, your website is more likely to appear. Keywords should be chosen carefully to target the correct market for your business. It's no good targeting the word "Fruit" if your business sells website design.
The third factor that contributes to a high search engine ranking is back links. This simply means a link from someone else's website to yours. The more links you have to your website the better. Search engines view your back links as a sign of popularity and obviously the more popular you are the more successful you appear.
One of the best methods for this is to submit your website to online directories, not only will you get a back link but you are also likely to get a lot of customers coming to your website from that link. Make sure that you select trusted directories and one's that can relate to your business, there is a chance that you will get penalized by search engines if you sign up to link farms (websites that collect lot's of spam and poor quality links).
Finally, having a website that is constantly updated also gives you a boost in terms of search engines as they like to see fresh content. This is also likely to draw customers back to your website as they know they are likely to see something new. This in turn will boost the amount of traffic you get to your website which will also help in gaining a higher search engine rank.
These are just some of the methods in which you can improve your website performance, there are many other factors that contribute to a high search engine ranking. Most are an on-going process so it is very beneficial to your business to continually try to improve your performance as there is always someone competing against you for that top spot.
SEO India : You Have A Website Now What?
You start with a great idea or product that you want to market. You have done the research and built the website but how do you drive people to your site? The internet can be a field of dreams; however, due to its sheer size even if you build it, they may not come.
If you have unlimited funds, you can definitely pay to get your website submitted to multiple search engines quickly. If you want to submit your website to search engines for free, it can take anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks for the search engine to finally add you to their results. But you want traffic now.
There are a lot of submission programs being advertised on the internet. Some are legitimate programs and some will take your money and not deliver. It is hard to know who to trust. Here are some ideas to help assist you on the road to success.
1. Promote your website yourself.
This sounds like a very broad statement and just where do you start? Get creative. There are many avenues that you can take to advertise your product and/or website.
a. Add your website information to your signature line in your email account. Every time you send an email, you are also advertising your website.
b. Print up flyers about your product / website and post them around your community.
c. Take out classified ads in your local papers. Many of these you can do online and can do so rather cheaply.
d. There are multiple free classified sites that you can submit to. You may not get a large number of clicks through free classifieds but the goal is to get your information circulating.
e. Another good avenue I have found to drive traffic to your website without having to pay out large advertising dollars is by using Instant Buzz. Instant Buzz is the easiest way to drive targeted traffic to your website just by doing what you do anyway; surfing the web. You can install Instant Buzz in seconds, never do anything different ever again, and you'll still earn traffic every time you surf. It is free to use so you don't really have anything to lose and everything to gain. For more information you can visit http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?jpvh28
2. Pay-Per-Click
This form of advertising can get pricey pretty quickly but by using Google Adwords and Yahoo, you can set your own daily spending limit to ensure you don't go over budget. Both sites have keyword help to assist you in creating the keywords for your ads. A small word of advice, start small when using Pay-Per-Click. Allow yourself the opportunity to get the hang of it. If you choose keywords with low click price, you can receive more clicks before you reach your limit. There are a lot of great resources out there to learn about using Pay-Per-Clicks.
I have come across an eBook that has changed my way of thinking when it comes to Internet Marketing. It is called "Dotcomology. The Science of Making Money Online". This book contains information on how to use Pay-Per-Click search engines properly to drive traffic to your site; How to profit using Google Adwords; How to make your website attractive, engaging and interactive. This book has so many resources and insights, I am unable to list them all within this article. The best part of this eBook is that it is free. No gimmicks, no hype. Just a free resource for you to use.
If you have unlimited funds, you can definitely pay to get your website submitted to multiple search engines quickly. If you want to submit your website to search engines for free, it can take anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks for the search engine to finally add you to their results. But you want traffic now.
There are a lot of submission programs being advertised on the internet. Some are legitimate programs and some will take your money and not deliver. It is hard to know who to trust. Here are some ideas to help assist you on the road to success.
1. Promote your website yourself.
This sounds like a very broad statement and just where do you start? Get creative. There are many avenues that you can take to advertise your product and/or website.
a. Add your website information to your signature line in your email account. Every time you send an email, you are also advertising your website.
b. Print up flyers about your product / website and post them around your community.
c. Take out classified ads in your local papers. Many of these you can do online and can do so rather cheaply.
d. There are multiple free classified sites that you can submit to. You may not get a large number of clicks through free classifieds but the goal is to get your information circulating.
e. Another good avenue I have found to drive traffic to your website without having to pay out large advertising dollars is by using Instant Buzz. Instant Buzz is the easiest way to drive targeted traffic to your website just by doing what you do anyway; surfing the web. You can install Instant Buzz in seconds, never do anything different ever again, and you'll still earn traffic every time you surf. It is free to use so you don't really have anything to lose and everything to gain. For more information you can visit http://www.InstantBuzz.com/r/?jpvh28
2. Pay-Per-Click
This form of advertising can get pricey pretty quickly but by using Google Adwords and Yahoo, you can set your own daily spending limit to ensure you don't go over budget. Both sites have keyword help to assist you in creating the keywords for your ads. A small word of advice, start small when using Pay-Per-Click. Allow yourself the opportunity to get the hang of it. If you choose keywords with low click price, you can receive more clicks before you reach your limit. There are a lot of great resources out there to learn about using Pay-Per-Clicks.
I have come across an eBook that has changed my way of thinking when it comes to Internet Marketing. It is called "Dotcomology. The Science of Making Money Online". This book contains information on how to use Pay-Per-Click search engines properly to drive traffic to your site; How to profit using Google Adwords; How to make your website attractive, engaging and interactive. This book has so many resources and insights, I am unable to list them all within this article. The best part of this eBook is that it is free. No gimmicks, no hype. Just a free resource for you to use.
SEO India : Google Marches On!
October 19, 2006-Wow!!! First Google reports another blowout quarter. Earlier the same day, Nielsen publishes search results for September 2006, and Google put the hammer to the competition there also. They garnered 50% search share which equates to 24% growth year over year (YOY). Talk about impressive numbers-the Google train obviously isn't slowing!
How does this impact the major search game? Does this sound the warning siren to Microsoft that maybe they ought to reconsider buying out Yahoo? It makes perfect sense given the fact that Microsoft's search results continue to fall (-12% YOY to a 9.23% share), and Yahoo isn't keeping Google within an eyeshot either although they still maintain a nice share of the search market (23.4%; up 12% YOY). The two of them combined would give Google a little competition, and we, the consumer, would benefit from greater services and advancements in software along with online options as the companies battle it out in the marketplace. If not, Google is going to run off and hide.
Perhaps Yahoo (with a lot of cash to spare) will buy some smaller niche companies to make themselves even more attractive to Microsoft, but I don't believe Microsoft will sit by idly while Yahoo postulates what to do next. It's Microsoft's move to make, and the time to act is now; not a year from now when their collective search share is even lower. Google is a formidable threat to Microsoft, and they aren't going to take a breather just because they've hung up yet another blow out quarter financially and in search. Yahoo has shown they can't keep pace on their own so they're going to need some help if they have any intention of ever catching Google. Google smells blood, and that signals the time to push harder; not back away. YouTube is likely just the beginning of an intriguing acquisition spree for the gang in Mountain View.
Microsoft would be wise to snatch up Yahoo right now after Yahoo posted a rather blah quarter earlier in the week which will shrink their market capitalization a little where Mr. Softy could acquire Yahoo at a "discount." They didn't like the idea of buying Yahoo at $29/share a couple months ago, but they should probably like it at $25.
Yahoo isn't "dead." It's not like they're stinking up the joint (they are still growing albeit much slower), and they do understand the search game which Microsoft hasn't quite yet figured out. It seems to make a logical marriage at this stage of the game.
Bottom line: this is shaping up rather nicely as a good ole fashion duel that may take some time to determine the ultimate winner, but we'll be anxiously monitoring the three "big dogs" as they ponder their next move in this high stakes search engine chess match. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.
How does this impact the major search game? Does this sound the warning siren to Microsoft that maybe they ought to reconsider buying out Yahoo? It makes perfect sense given the fact that Microsoft's search results continue to fall (-12% YOY to a 9.23% share), and Yahoo isn't keeping Google within an eyeshot either although they still maintain a nice share of the search market (23.4%; up 12% YOY). The two of them combined would give Google a little competition, and we, the consumer, would benefit from greater services and advancements in software along with online options as the companies battle it out in the marketplace. If not, Google is going to run off and hide.
Perhaps Yahoo (with a lot of cash to spare) will buy some smaller niche companies to make themselves even more attractive to Microsoft, but I don't believe Microsoft will sit by idly while Yahoo postulates what to do next. It's Microsoft's move to make, and the time to act is now; not a year from now when their collective search share is even lower. Google is a formidable threat to Microsoft, and they aren't going to take a breather just because they've hung up yet another blow out quarter financially and in search. Yahoo has shown they can't keep pace on their own so they're going to need some help if they have any intention of ever catching Google. Google smells blood, and that signals the time to push harder; not back away. YouTube is likely just the beginning of an intriguing acquisition spree for the gang in Mountain View.
Microsoft would be wise to snatch up Yahoo right now after Yahoo posted a rather blah quarter earlier in the week which will shrink their market capitalization a little where Mr. Softy could acquire Yahoo at a "discount." They didn't like the idea of buying Yahoo at $29/share a couple months ago, but they should probably like it at $25.
Yahoo isn't "dead." It's not like they're stinking up the joint (they are still growing albeit much slower), and they do understand the search game which Microsoft hasn't quite yet figured out. It seems to make a logical marriage at this stage of the game.
Bottom line: this is shaping up rather nicely as a good ole fashion duel that may take some time to determine the ultimate winner, but we'll be anxiously monitoring the three "big dogs" as they ponder their next move in this high stakes search engine chess match. Stay tuned, the best is yet to come.
SEO India : Google AdSense and AdWords
Many websites include a section or two with the "Ads by Google" above it or below it. These are ads displayed via Google's AdSense. When you do a search on Google and see ads in the search results pages, they are generally AdSense ads.
AdSense - The Yin:
Google's AdSense is programming that "senses" the content of a page or search. It finds keywords on a web page or in a search phrase to determine the subject of the content. It does this by either "reading" the page, or taking a look at the search term that was typed into Google Search. It can "Sense" which ads in the system are relevant to the content or search and display them - thus: "AdSense."
Before ads on a page are displayed, AdSense searches its database of advertisers and finds ads that are associated with keywords on the page or in the search. Now AdSense needs to decide which of the thousands of ads vying for position are actually displayed. To make this decision, AsSense looks at the advertiser's bids for the relevant keywords. The advertisers that have a combination of the highest bid, keyword relevance and best click through get displayed first.
Google tracks clicks on ads and advertisers pay Google the bid price for each click. When the AdSense ad is on someone's web page, Google pays the website owner a portion of the payment for each click. The term "monetizing" your site refers to taking your existing site and placing ads like AdSense on it to make money (or finding other way to make money with websites). If you get 10,000 visitors and 10% of them click an ad that pays you, theoretically, $0.75 per click, you just made $750! Not bad for just copying some AdSense code (which Google provides) into your popular website's HTML (if your site is not popular, learn about SEO - Search Engine Optimization - from sites like AcmeWebResources).
AdWords - The Yang:
The other side to AdSense is AdWords. AdSense ads have lists of relevant keywords associated with them. Each keyword is bid on by the advertisers for placement in the results pages and on web sites around the world. The words that will prompt a display of an advertiser's ad are bid on by the advertiser. When an ad matches the words on a page, the ads are displayed; thus: AdWords. AdWords is the system in Google that is used to place ads that display in AdSense.
You can enroll in AdWords to pay for AdSense ads to drive traffic to your site. The first step is to sign up with Google. The next step is to associate keywords to associate with your site.
The idea is to drive traffic to your site through the use of relevant ads. The more relevant the ad to your content, the more targeted your traffic will be. Compose your articles around your list of keywords. Next, write an ad based on the keywords and assign keywords to the ad. You will bid on the keywords at the time you associate keywords with the ad. If one of your keywords is searched for or relevant to a site, and you have a good bid and relevant ad, your AdWord ad will be displayed. Only when someone clicks your ad are you charged by Google.
The more popular keywords are wanted by many competitors, so the prices per click can get pretty high. It is not uncommon for a click to cost $5 or even $10. If you have 10,000 ad clicks, after you account for your conversion rate (the rate that you convert visitors into buyers) you better be sure you are making more than the ad click costs! But it should never break your bank because you can set the bid limits and the monthly budget.
What if you can't afford $5.00 per click? Since the more popular keywords are so expensive, it is best to bid on less popular keywords because the cost per click is lower. Google presently has a minimum bid of $0.05 per click. If you can get those, you can reduce your advertising budget.
A popular site can make a lot of money, however, a lot of money and time can be wasted. To avoid waste, you have to learn as much as possible and get the right tools to do the research.
AdSense - The Yin:
Google's AdSense is programming that "senses" the content of a page or search. It finds keywords on a web page or in a search phrase to determine the subject of the content. It does this by either "reading" the page, or taking a look at the search term that was typed into Google Search. It can "Sense" which ads in the system are relevant to the content or search and display them - thus: "AdSense."
Before ads on a page are displayed, AdSense searches its database of advertisers and finds ads that are associated with keywords on the page or in the search. Now AdSense needs to decide which of the thousands of ads vying for position are actually displayed. To make this decision, AsSense looks at the advertiser's bids for the relevant keywords. The advertisers that have a combination of the highest bid, keyword relevance and best click through get displayed first.
Google tracks clicks on ads and advertisers pay Google the bid price for each click. When the AdSense ad is on someone's web page, Google pays the website owner a portion of the payment for each click. The term "monetizing" your site refers to taking your existing site and placing ads like AdSense on it to make money (or finding other way to make money with websites). If you get 10,000 visitors and 10% of them click an ad that pays you, theoretically, $0.75 per click, you just made $750! Not bad for just copying some AdSense code (which Google provides) into your popular website's HTML (if your site is not popular, learn about SEO - Search Engine Optimization - from sites like AcmeWebResources).
AdWords - The Yang:
The other side to AdSense is AdWords. AdSense ads have lists of relevant keywords associated with them. Each keyword is bid on by the advertisers for placement in the results pages and on web sites around the world. The words that will prompt a display of an advertiser's ad are bid on by the advertiser. When an ad matches the words on a page, the ads are displayed; thus: AdWords. AdWords is the system in Google that is used to place ads that display in AdSense.
You can enroll in AdWords to pay for AdSense ads to drive traffic to your site. The first step is to sign up with Google. The next step is to associate keywords to associate with your site.
The idea is to drive traffic to your site through the use of relevant ads. The more relevant the ad to your content, the more targeted your traffic will be. Compose your articles around your list of keywords. Next, write an ad based on the keywords and assign keywords to the ad. You will bid on the keywords at the time you associate keywords with the ad. If one of your keywords is searched for or relevant to a site, and you have a good bid and relevant ad, your AdWord ad will be displayed. Only when someone clicks your ad are you charged by Google.
The more popular keywords are wanted by many competitors, so the prices per click can get pretty high. It is not uncommon for a click to cost $5 or even $10. If you have 10,000 ad clicks, after you account for your conversion rate (the rate that you convert visitors into buyers) you better be sure you are making more than the ad click costs! But it should never break your bank because you can set the bid limits and the monthly budget.
What if you can't afford $5.00 per click? Since the more popular keywords are so expensive, it is best to bid on less popular keywords because the cost per click is lower. Google presently has a minimum bid of $0.05 per click. If you can get those, you can reduce your advertising budget.
A popular site can make a lot of money, however, a lot of money and time can be wasted. To avoid waste, you have to learn as much as possible and get the right tools to do the research.
SEO India : Write Title Tags for Your Web Pages
When it comes to search engine optimization, the single most important sentence that you will write for your website is the title tag of your main page. If you write it properly then you will have taken a big step towards getting your site well placed in search engine queries for your important keywords.
Before I give you a step-by-step guide to writing title tags, let's define what they actually are and see why they are important. When you look at a web page in your browser, the writing in the blue strip above browser's commands (file, edit, view, etc.) is the title tag. On your actual html document the title tag is in the head portion between the notation and .
The title tag is important because it "tells" the search engine what the page is about, and in the case of your main page, what your website is all about. I remember back in my school days that we used to take standardized examinations in which we had to read a story and then answer the question: "What would be the best title for this essay?" Choosing a title tag is something like answering this kind of question. You've got to pick out the gist of your enterprise and highlight it in a sentence. So, take a look at your web page and get ready to begin, following these steps:
So, take a look at your website's title tags, and see if you can improve them. The effort that you make will be well rewarded.
Before I give you a step-by-step guide to writing title tags, let's define what they actually are and see why they are important. When you look at a web page in your browser, the writing in the blue strip above browser's commands (file, edit, view, etc.) is the title tag. On your actual html document the title tag is in the head portion between the notation
The title tag is important because it "tells" the search engine what the page is about, and in the case of your main page, what your website is all about. I remember back in my school days that we used to take standardized examinations in which we had to read a story and then answer the question: "What would be the best title for this essay?" Choosing a title tag is something like answering this kind of question. You've got to pick out the gist of your enterprise and highlight it in a sentence. So, take a look at your web page and get ready to begin, following these steps:
| 1. | Make sure your three or four most important keywords or keyword phrases appear in the title tag. The most important words should appear near the beginning of the sentence, and they can be repeated within the sentence for added emphasis. For example, if I am offering low-cost web design, then my title tag might look like this: |
| 2. | Leave your branding and sales pitch for another part of the web page. Although it is a natural tendency to want to put your company name at the beginning of the title tag, you should remember that unless you are very famous like Coca Cola, people are not searching for you. So, put your most important keywords at the front of the title tag, and establish your brand name with your logo and other elements of the web page. If your company name includes your keywords, like our hypothetical Acme Web Design Company, then put it in the title tag, but not necessarily at the beginning. Similarly, the title tag is no place for your sales pitch, so keep out flowery or extraneous adjectives, unless they are actual terms used in searches for your product or service. |
| 3. | Place your geographical or niche-defining term in your title tag. If you are trying for a top ten or top twenty position for a term such as "web design," then you are really in for a difficult struggle. However, suppose the Acme Web Design Company is located in Columbus, Ohio. Then instead of attempting the almost impossible task of getting the top rankings for the term "web design," it would be far better to get a high ranking in the geographical niche using a title tag such "Web Design, Columbus, Ohio: Low Cost Web Design in Columbus, Ohio by The Acme Web Design Company" |
| 4. | The title tag can be longer than you think. Some guidelines say that the title tag should be no longer than 70 characters. It is true that only the first 70 characters will show in the top bar of the browser, but search engine robots will read the rest of the tag and the search engines will not penalize you for going over the 70 character mark. Take a look at highly ranked sites in heavily competitive categories and you will see examples of long title tags. Write the tag according to your need to get your important words and phrases included in a sentence that best describes what your product or service is about. |
| 5. | Vary the title tags on the inner pages of your website. Even with a long title tag, it is not possible to highlight all the possible terms which someone might use to find your website. This is not a problem if you make use of the other pages of your website. Instead of simply having a title tag that says "services" our web design firm could highlight "low cost, web design services" on that page. The "contact" page could be used to emphasize the geographical location once again, and so on. Many websites make the mistake of repeating the same title tag on each of the inner pages of the site. Avoid this and use each of your page's titles to target important keywords and keyword phrases. |
So, take a look at your website's title tags, and see if you can improve them. The effort that you make will be well rewarded.
SEO India : Paid Directory Submission Checklist
Every online business needs traffic, which comes with increased visibility on the web. One great way to get noticed is to get listed in the major directories. Links from good directories increases your site's visibility many fold.
There are thousands of web directories on the net and selecting the good ones to submit your site can be a time consuming task. Also there are free directories and paid directories. You need to submit to both types of directories.
The following checklist is for paid directory submission only. This checklist will help you choose the best and worthwhile paid directories on the net.
Submission Check List:
There are thousands of web directories on the net and selecting the good ones to submit your site can be a time consuming task. Also there are free directories and paid directories. You need to submit to both types of directories.
The following checklist is for paid directory submission only. This checklist will help you choose the best and worthwhile paid directories on the net.
Submission Check List:
- Check out if the directory is indexed in major search engines.
- Check the robots.txt file. Make sure that search engine bots are allowed to crawl the pages where you intend to put your listing. Check the Meta tags to make sure that search engine spiders are not prevented from following links in it. A Meta tag with noindex/nofollow will not be indexed or spidered and links in that page are not followed by bots.
- Check if the directory is being maintained regularly. Visit the directory from time to time to see if errors are getting corrected, site information is getting updated and the like. In short, look for positive activity on the directory.
- Check if the listings in category pages match in theme and content or not. Directories with tight focus on relevant grouping of web sites are useful for visitors and tend to show up frequently in SERPs for keyword searches.
- Check out the age of the directory. Do a whois search (http://www.whois.net) to get this information. Many new directories vanish after a few months due to lack of maintenance and promotion. With older directories you can at least be sure that your listing will remain visible for a reasonable period.
- Check if the directory consists of too many empty categories - it is not useful for visitors and also does not send a too good signal to the SEs about the directory. Think twice before submitting to such directories.
- Check if the contact information is available on the site. Proper businesses will provide you with some kind of contact information.
- Check the Alexa rank of the directory - it is not accurate, yet you can get an idea of traffic the directory receives. Look for directories with decreasing Alexa Rank as it indicates that the directory is getting popular.
- Check if the directory provides SE friendly urls. No JavaScript link or redirection. Also watch out for dynamic urls. Sometimes search engines find it difficult indexing or recognizing dynamic urls with parameters like http://www.&;lt;examplesite>.com/index.html?cat=1&p=12...
An example of SE friendly URL is http://www.hedir.com/business.html - Check whether category pages have too many outgoing links. If your link is one of 100 links on a page, visitors will find it difficult to locate your site.
SEO India : Search Engine and Lead Optimization
The most optimal way for an online Real Estate agent to succeed is thru rapid lead generation and follow up. And in order to escalate your leads, you must start off with an acceptance of your current traffic and lead conversion ratio.
Ask yourself "How many visitors does it take to get to a lead?"
In fact, when we initially interview a potential client often times the conversion is close to a dismal 200:1. Depending on design features, you should really get at the most 50:1. And probably 30:1 is more like it.
Conversion comes from on page conversion optimization & Keyword representation.
On Page Factors
Most people have heard of Search Engine Optimization. Few talk about on page conversion optimization.
First of all, this whole concept pre-supposes that you are starting off with a most wanted action (MWA). Sometimes your MWA is Branding, sometimes it is Leads. And many times it is both lead capture and branding that you are asking your website to do.
If Leads are your goal then your call to action is critical. Other features on your page can distract the viewer from your objectives.
On Page factors that may increase or decrease conversion are:
Asking them to sign up (making your call to action clear)
A Johnson Box (these are those tabled boxes that break up your body copy)
Color can attract or distract
Too many buttons
Animation
Offer Placement. Where are you placing your call to action?
Variety of Call to Action
Frequency of your call to action
These are just a few of the attributes that may help your lead count to go way up.
HappyVille Real Estate
There is a reason that studies have found that Pay per Click search engine results often render poor conversion rates. Specificity.
The reason is that you can only use high volume keywords with pay per click (PPC). These high volume keywords are by their nature generalized. They are also the most profitable for the engine. But what may profit the engine does not always profit you. (Thats not to say that PPC doesn't have its place in a search marketing campaign)
9 times out 10, I am asked to "make my site #1 for "My City real estate". While this is a worthy objective, it is at best very short sighted. Words like "City real estate", "city homes", city condos", are all high volume in just about any city you research.
However, a successful marketing campaign must employ search engine click thrus that are made up of general & specific "streams of traffic". This is because traffic is a comprehensive endeavor. You wouldn't just rent out 1 or 2 of your penthouse units and leave the rest of your 150 unit apartment complex empty? You couldn't expect profitability would you?
However, this is exactly what most agents do when they go after a few high volume words.
Traffic is made up of the combined visits that come from various inquiries into a search engine.
Each inquiry represents a finite amount of possible traffic determined by the placement in the engine, for a particular keyword phrase.
So long story short, a few keywords aren't going to make your business. You need a Universe of words in order to get monster traffic and lead conversion.
Additionally, not all keywords or traffic are created equal. Step out of real estate monetarily and imagine yourself as Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com. What would delite you more?
500 visitors that typed in "Books"? Or 500 visitors that typed in "Harry Potter"? Or better yet, "Harry Potter, Sorcerors Stone"? The more specific you get, conversion goes up and the closer you can get to that elusive 1:1 conversion.
The challenge however, is that the more specific you get with our keywords, the less traffic you get. So you need to represent a large amount of these specific keywords that produce low traffic by themselves. But combined, create a large stream of very convertable traffic.
By optimizing your on page factors and your keywords that drive people to your site, you will take your visitor to conversion ratio down to a respectable number.
Ask yourself "How many visitors does it take to get to a lead?"
In fact, when we initially interview a potential client often times the conversion is close to a dismal 200:1. Depending on design features, you should really get at the most 50:1. And probably 30:1 is more like it.
Conversion comes from on page conversion optimization & Keyword representation.
On Page Factors
Most people have heard of Search Engine Optimization. Few talk about on page conversion optimization.
First of all, this whole concept pre-supposes that you are starting off with a most wanted action (MWA). Sometimes your MWA is Branding, sometimes it is Leads. And many times it is both lead capture and branding that you are asking your website to do.
If Leads are your goal then your call to action is critical. Other features on your page can distract the viewer from your objectives.
On Page factors that may increase or decrease conversion are:
Asking them to sign up (making your call to action clear)
A Johnson Box (these are those tabled boxes that break up your body copy)
Color can attract or distract
Too many buttons
Animation
Offer Placement. Where are you placing your call to action?
Variety of Call to Action
Frequency of your call to action
These are just a few of the attributes that may help your lead count to go way up.
HappyVille Real Estate
There is a reason that studies have found that Pay per Click search engine results often render poor conversion rates. Specificity.
The reason is that you can only use high volume keywords with pay per click (PPC). These high volume keywords are by their nature generalized. They are also the most profitable for the engine. But what may profit the engine does not always profit you. (Thats not to say that PPC doesn't have its place in a search marketing campaign)
9 times out 10, I am asked to "make my site #1 for "My City real estate". While this is a worthy objective, it is at best very short sighted. Words like "City real estate", "city homes", city condos", are all high volume in just about any city you research.
However, a successful marketing campaign must employ search engine click thrus that are made up of general & specific "streams of traffic". This is because traffic is a comprehensive endeavor. You wouldn't just rent out 1 or 2 of your penthouse units and leave the rest of your 150 unit apartment complex empty? You couldn't expect profitability would you?
However, this is exactly what most agents do when they go after a few high volume words.
Traffic is made up of the combined visits that come from various inquiries into a search engine.
Each inquiry represents a finite amount of possible traffic determined by the placement in the engine, for a particular keyword phrase.
So long story short, a few keywords aren't going to make your business. You need a Universe of words in order to get monster traffic and lead conversion.
Additionally, not all keywords or traffic are created equal. Step out of real estate monetarily and imagine yourself as Jeff Bezos at Amazon.com. What would delite you more?
500 visitors that typed in "Books"? Or 500 visitors that typed in "Harry Potter"? Or better yet, "Harry Potter, Sorcerors Stone"? The more specific you get, conversion goes up and the closer you can get to that elusive 1:1 conversion.
The challenge however, is that the more specific you get with our keywords, the less traffic you get. So you need to represent a large amount of these specific keywords that produce low traffic by themselves. But combined, create a large stream of very convertable traffic.
By optimizing your on page factors and your keywords that drive people to your site, you will take your visitor to conversion ratio down to a respectable number.
August 06, 2010
SEO India : Steps Before Website Traffic
By now, you probably already have the theme of your website established, your keywords picked and your website ready to go live. You're thinking that you'll submit your site to the search engines, sit back and see how much traffic the search engines will send you, right?
STOP! There are many different avenues you can take to drive traffic to your site but they should only be taken after you make the search engines your first priority. The search engines should be your foundation. They'll always send you a certain amount of traffic if you have a high page rank.
IMPORTANT!
Your website must be 'set up' for a high page rank in the search engines and it's important to do it 'before' you submit your site for the first time. Here's the reason why:
Usually, after you submit your website to the search engines for the first time, your website will be 'spidered' fairly quickly and hopefully your site will be listed on one of the top pages.
Your website may not get 'spidered' again for months so if you make changes to optimize your site, you may not see your changes take effect for quite a while. You could be stuck on a back page, if any page at all, for a very long time.
Without getting into the mechanics of designing your website, here are the basics of setting up your website to be search engine friendly.
THE FIRST STEP is to establish the main keyword for your site. This is the word or phrase that you want people to type into the search engines to find your website. It's important to have your site focused around your main keyword.
Let's say you have a site dedicated to 'building your own home' so we'll use 'home building' as our main keyword example.
THE NEXT STEP is to create a title for your website and to place it in the 'title tag' of your site. The 'title tag' should be the first tag in the 'head' of your site and it's important because many search engines use the contents of the 'title tag' as the title of the listing. They also look for keywords in the title and your main keyword should be the first words in the title.
Generally, your title should be no more than 40 characters and, again, it should begin with your main keyword. Try to avoid using 'stop words' in your title. Stop words are transition words such as - and, but, or, for, with, etc.
Here's a possible title using our example main keyword 'home building' - Home Building - Home Construction Plans
Notice our main keyword is first, the title is less than 40 characters (39), there are no stop words and we managed to sneak in 3 secondary keywords - home construction, construction plans and home construction plans. Clever huh?
THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'keywords meta tag'. This is where you list all the keywords you want to use for your website starting with your 'main keyword'. A good rule of thumb is to use about 20 keywords and your main keyword should be contained in about half of them.
Using our example keyword 'home building' our keywords could be - home building, home construction, home building plans, home building cost, construction plans, etc.
Notice I didn't use our main keyword 'home building' twice in a row. For example - home building, home building plans, etc. Search engines might see this as spam and it could hurt your ranking.
THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'description meta tag'. This is where you describe your website and, again, you should start with your main keyword.
Keep your description to about 150 characters, use as few 'stop words' as you can and sprinkle in as many secondary keywords as possible.
Make your description interesting because search engines often use the contents in your 'description meta tag' as the description of your website in the listing.
THE NEXT STEP is to use your keywords often in the body of your website. Make sure your 'main keyword' is somewhere in the beginning and at the end of the body of your page.
It's a good idea to use your main keyword in an 'h1' tag and a few of your secondary keywords in an 'h2' tag. This tells the search engines that you put importance on your keywords.
It's also a good idea to underline your main keyword no more than once and to use bold text for your main keyword no more than once.
Although there are other factors that determine your position in the search engines, having the basics of what search engines look for will give you a much better chance of making that illusive first page and driving consistent website traffic to your site.
STOP! There are many different avenues you can take to drive traffic to your site but they should only be taken after you make the search engines your first priority. The search engines should be your foundation. They'll always send you a certain amount of traffic if you have a high page rank.
IMPORTANT!
Your website must be 'set up' for a high page rank in the search engines and it's important to do it 'before' you submit your site for the first time. Here's the reason why:
Usually, after you submit your website to the search engines for the first time, your website will be 'spidered' fairly quickly and hopefully your site will be listed on one of the top pages.
Your website may not get 'spidered' again for months so if you make changes to optimize your site, you may not see your changes take effect for quite a while. You could be stuck on a back page, if any page at all, for a very long time.
Without getting into the mechanics of designing your website, here are the basics of setting up your website to be search engine friendly.
THE FIRST STEP is to establish the main keyword for your site. This is the word or phrase that you want people to type into the search engines to find your website. It's important to have your site focused around your main keyword.
Let's say you have a site dedicated to 'building your own home' so we'll use 'home building' as our main keyword example.
THE NEXT STEP is to create a title for your website and to place it in the 'title tag' of your site. The 'title tag' should be the first tag in the 'head' of your site and it's important because many search engines use the contents of the 'title tag' as the title of the listing. They also look for keywords in the title and your main keyword should be the first words in the title.
Generally, your title should be no more than 40 characters and, again, it should begin with your main keyword. Try to avoid using 'stop words' in your title. Stop words are transition words such as - and, but, or, for, with, etc.
Here's a possible title using our example main keyword 'home building' - Home Building - Home Construction Plans
Notice our main keyword is first, the title is less than 40 characters (39), there are no stop words and we managed to sneak in 3 secondary keywords - home construction, construction plans and home construction plans. Clever huh?
THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'keywords meta tag'. This is where you list all the keywords you want to use for your website starting with your 'main keyword'. A good rule of thumb is to use about 20 keywords and your main keyword should be contained in about half of them.
Using our example keyword 'home building' our keywords could be - home building, home construction, home building plans, home building cost, construction plans, etc.
Notice I didn't use our main keyword 'home building' twice in a row. For example - home building, home building plans, etc. Search engines might see this as spam and it could hurt your ranking.
THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'description meta tag'. This is where you describe your website and, again, you should start with your main keyword.
Keep your description to about 150 characters, use as few 'stop words' as you can and sprinkle in as many secondary keywords as possible.
Make your description interesting because search engines often use the contents in your 'description meta tag' as the description of your website in the listing.
THE NEXT STEP is to use your keywords often in the body of your website. Make sure your 'main keyword' is somewhere in the beginning and at the end of the body of your page.
It's a good idea to use your main keyword in an 'h1' tag and a few of your secondary keywords in an 'h2' tag. This tells the search engines that you put importance on your keywords.
It's also a good idea to underline your main keyword no more than once and to use bold text for your main keyword no more than once.
Although there are other factors that determine your position in the search engines, having the basics of what search engines look for will give you a much better chance of making that illusive first page and driving consistent website traffic to your site.
SEO India : How Search Engines Work
A search engine operates, in the following order: 1) Crawling; 2) Deep Crawling Depth-first search (DFS); 3) Fresh Crawling Breadth-first search (BFS); 4) Indexing; 5) Searching.
Web search engines work by storing information about a large number of web pages, which they retrieve from the WWW itself. These pages are retrieved by a web crawler (also known as a spider) - an automated web browser which follows every link it sees, exclusions can be made by the use of robots.txt. The contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how it should be indexed. Data about web pages is stored in an index database for use in later queries. Some search engines, such as Google, store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages, whereas some store every word of every page it finds, such as AltaVista. This cached page always holds the actual search text since it is the one that was actually indexed, so it can be very useful when the content of the current page has been updated and the search terms are no longer in it. This problem might be considered to be a mild form of linkrot, and Google's handling of it increases usability by satisfying user expectations that the search terms will be on the returned web page. This satisfies the principle of least astonishment since the user normally expects the search terms to be on the returned pages. Increased search relevance makes these cached pages very useful, even beyond the fact that they may contain data that may no longer be available elsewhere.
When a user comes to the search engine and makes a query, typically by giving keywords, the engine looks up the index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. Most search engines support the use of the boolean terms AND, OR and NOT to further specify the search query. An advanced feature is proximity search, which allows you to define the distance between keywords.
The usefulness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the results it gives back. While there may be millions of Web pages that include a particular word or phrase, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than others. Most search engines employ methods to rank the results to provide the "best" results first. How a search engine decides which pages are the best matches, and what order the results should be shown in, varies widely from one engine to another. The methods also change over time as Internet usage changes and new techniques evolve.
Most web search engines are commercial ventures supported by advertising revenue and, as a result, some employ the controversial practice of allowing advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results.
The vast majority of search engines are run by private companies using proprietary algorithms and closed databases, the most popular currently being Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo! Search. However, Open source search engine technology does exist, such as Dig, Nutch, Senas, Egothor, OpenFTS, DataparkSearch and many others.
Web search engines work by storing information about a large number of web pages, which they retrieve from the WWW itself. These pages are retrieved by a web crawler (also known as a spider) - an automated web browser which follows every link it sees, exclusions can be made by the use of robots.txt. The contents of each page are then analyzed to determine how it should be indexed. Data about web pages is stored in an index database for use in later queries. Some search engines, such as Google, store all or part of the source page (referred to as a cache) as well as information about the web pages, whereas some store every word of every page it finds, such as AltaVista. This cached page always holds the actual search text since it is the one that was actually indexed, so it can be very useful when the content of the current page has been updated and the search terms are no longer in it. This problem might be considered to be a mild form of linkrot, and Google's handling of it increases usability by satisfying user expectations that the search terms will be on the returned web page. This satisfies the principle of least astonishment since the user normally expects the search terms to be on the returned pages. Increased search relevance makes these cached pages very useful, even beyond the fact that they may contain data that may no longer be available elsewhere.
When a user comes to the search engine and makes a query, typically by giving keywords, the engine looks up the index and provides a listing of best-matching web pages according to its criteria, usually with a short summary containing the document's title and sometimes parts of the text. Most search engines support the use of the boolean terms AND, OR and NOT to further specify the search query. An advanced feature is proximity search, which allows you to define the distance between keywords.
The usefulness of a search engine depends on the relevance of the results it gives back. While there may be millions of Web pages that include a particular word or phrase, some pages may be more relevant, popular, or authoritative than others. Most search engines employ methods to rank the results to provide the "best" results first. How a search engine decides which pages are the best matches, and what order the results should be shown in, varies widely from one engine to another. The methods also change over time as Internet usage changes and new techniques evolve.
Most web search engines are commercial ventures supported by advertising revenue and, as a result, some employ the controversial practice of allowing advertisers to pay money to have their listings ranked higher in search results.
The vast majority of search engines are run by private companies using proprietary algorithms and closed databases, the most popular currently being Google, MSN Search, and Yahoo! Search. However, Open source search engine technology does exist, such as Dig, Nutch, Senas, Egothor, OpenFTS, DataparkSearch and many others.
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