SEO Secrets Exposed

Link Building and Baiting

2010-06-27T09:39:00.000-07:00

Armed with the results of keyphrase research and other code changes, we can now implement those SEO changes to the site.

Implementation is the process of applying your findings and proposed solutions to the website inq question. If you are doing SEO for a client, you should prepare a formal document listing the specific changes you recommend to achieve on-page benefits. It will cover all sections and typically show the “Before” and “After” states so that the reader can judge whether he or he can accept the changes. Clients will often negotiate some changes to the content, but be careful that the changes don’t ruin the page relevancy (which is entirely possible).

Uploading Files
If the website is powered by a Content Management System (CMS), then you could be modifying its templates and uploading the textual content through the CMS.

Sitemaps
Build an XML Sitemap – Important!
These days there are billions of web pages and not enough spiders to index them, so you can help the spiders out (and improve your chances of being indexed) by building and submitting an XML Sitemap in the correct format.
Here is the layout of a sample sitemap containing just one URL, supplied by http://www.sitemaps.org which is sponsored by Microsoft, Google and Yahoo! and contains some more details.

On a meta-level, I think of “linkbait” as something interesting enough to catch people’s attention, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. There are a lot of ways to do that, including putting in sweat-of-the-brow work to generate data or insights, or it can be as simple as being creative. You can also say something controversial to generate discussion (this last one gets tired if you overuse it, though). Sometimes even a little bit of work can generate a reason for people to link to you.

There are many tools, both online and software ones, to build a sitemap, so you need not be too concerned about the technicalities. An online sitemap generator is at www.xml-sitemaps.com/ and another is at sitemap.xmlecho.org/sitemap/. To conserve bandwidth, the online tools may only crawl a few thousand pages, so if you run a huge site, you should use an offline tool. A free, downloadable tool is at enarion.net/google/phpsitemapng/ or gsitecrawler.com but you can find many more if you do a search.

SEO again

2009-06-29T02:02:00.000-07:00

The use of search engine optimization is very much needed in defining the success of your online business. The traffic that your website generates indicates the potential sales it can provide for your product. The use of SEO techniques in maintaining favorable traffic has been widely used by online advertisers to gain advantage over other competitors. The page views are very much critical since it indicates how effective the website is in gathering potential customers. This also takes advantage of the people’s habit of looking for services, products and information using search pages.

Today, thousands of Internet marketers and webmasters employ SEO techniques in an attempt to raise their rankings in major search engines. They do this by optimizing on page factors, and by building back links to their sites. This combination makes it easy for the search bots to determine the overall theme of the site. For example, if you own a website about money making, you can optimize your site so that the crawlers will lap up every web page that you post online. How do you do that?

First, start with on page factors. These are elements that have full control over. Make sure that you include your target keyword phrases in your page title, your Meta tags, and your article body. Don’t stuff your web page content with unnecessarily keywords. Just sprinkle it all over, like what you would ordinarily do if there are no search engines around. In other words, write naturally. You must remember, it’s not only the bots that are reading the content. You have to keep your human readers in mind as well.

But on page optimization is only half of the process. The other half, is a little more tricky, for it involves link building. The problem is, you don’t own these sites, and you have no control over external sites. So how do you get them to link back to you?

A very popular method is to outsource your link building campaigns. There are many ways to build links to a website. For instance, you can use article marketing, social bookmarking, blog commenting, or submit your URLs to a bunch of web directories. But all these methods require you to put in some time and effort. To distribute a single article to hundreds of article directories could take a few hours.

SEO specialists understand what it takes to do the job properly. Some even offer to take all the work off your lab for just several hundred dollars per quarter. This is a small price to pay to get a site ranked in the major search engines.

To maintain the rankings, link building must continue consistently. Some sites fall into oblivion because the site owners neglected the sites, and back links start to fall off gradually. As a result, the rankings start to drop as well. If you want a steady stream of traffic, try to work out some rankings maintenance program with your service provider. That will keep your website at the top of the search results for ages!

Must Use SEO Tips for Web Designers

2009-06-25T02:01:00.000-07:00

1. Make the code prettier than the design

When building the front end of your site, make sure to use semantic code. By using descriptive tags to structure your pages, search engines will be able to read and have a better understanding of your content. This will also make the process of styling your site much easier and cleaner.
2. Use but don’t abuse your keywords

Keywords are the words that describe your content. It’s important to have them appear in strategic places throughout your page, such as: URL, title tag, and main heading tags. It’s also important to have it appear often in the body of the content, but not too often, which might cause your content to be penalized for keyword stuffing.
3. Avoid using Flash for navigation

As tempting as it is to whip out some nice looking drop down effects for your site’s navigation using flash, don’t do it. Search engines have trouble reading flash files, which means the links used in the navigation can’t be followed.
4. Use unique page titles

Each page on your web site should have a title attribute, and each title should be unique. If you use the same title for every page, search engines will think that every page on your site is about the same subject.
5. Don’t forget about images

Make use of the alt attribute of an image to properly describe it. As smart as search engines are, they can’t see what an image looks like. Failing to this can cost you substantial traffic from image searches.
6. Don’t use generic links

Search engines place a high importance on links. So when linking to relevant content, be sure to use a word that describes the content. For example, if you were giving your reader a link to learn more about Photosop, use something like “Learn more about Photoshop” as opposed to just “Learn More”.
7. Don’t use images to replace text

As designers, we always want to make things look as good as possible. This means sometimes replacing ugly browser rendered heading text with a nice smooth image. Try to avoid doing this. Again, search engines can’t see the contents of an image, and this is where you should be putting your keywords.

Edit: Looks like I misspoke(or mistyped) on this one. There are valid ways to accomplish this, such as FIR.
8. Use AJAX sparingly

Ajax is great for enhancing the user experience, but try not to over do it. Content generated with ajax can’t be linked to. A good rule of thumb is: if what you are loading with AJAX can be an individual page, then avoid using it.
9. Get indexed quickly

To get your site indexed in search engines in a timely manner, try getting it linked to by a popular site in a related niche. Submitting it to Google also works, but sometimes it can take several days if not weeks.
10. Build incoming links

The number and quality of incoming links plays a big role in the placement of your site in search results. Having quality and unique content is a good way to get people to link to your site. Another way is to be generous with your own links.
11. Use a consistent URL

When you build a site, decide from the beginning if you want to use or drop the “www”. Once you decide, stick with it. Search engines, for example, see www.webdesignledger and webdesignledger.com as two different sites and as duplicate content, which they do not like.
Do you have any additional SEO tips? Let us know.

SEO Tips & Techniques for Real Estate

2009-06-22T01:58:00.000-07:00

1. Commit yourself to the process. SEO isn’t a one-time event. Search engine algorithms change regularly, so the tactics that worked last year may not work this year. SEO requires a long-term outlook and commitment.

2. Be patient. SEO isn’t about instant gratification. Results often take months to see, and this is especially true the smaller you are, and the newer you are to doing business online.

3. Ask a lot of questions when hiring an SEO company. It’s your job to know what kind of tactics the company uses. Ask for specifics. Ask if there are any risks involved. Then get online yourself and do your own research—about the company, about the tactics they discussed, and so forth.

4. Become a student of SEO. If you’re taking the do-it-yourself route, you’ll have to become a student of SEO and learn as much as you can. Luckily for you, there are plenty of great Web resources (like Search Engine Land) and several terrific books you can read. Aaron Wall’s SEO Book, Jennifer Laycock’s Small Business Guide to Search Engine Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization: An Hour a Day by Jennifer Grappone and Gradiva Couzin are three I’ve read and recommend.

5. Have web analytics in place at the start. You should have clearly defined goals for your SEO efforts, and you’ll need web analytics software in place so you can track what’s working and what’s not.

6. Build a great web site. I’m sure you want to show up on the first page of results. Ask yourself, “Is my site really one of the 10 best sites in the world on this topic?” Be honest. If it’s not, make it better.

7. Include a site map page. Spiders can’t index pages that can’t be crawled. A site map will help spiders find all the important pages on your site, and help the spider understand your site’s hierarchy. This is especially helpful if your site has a hard-to-crawl navigation menu. If your site is large, make several site map pages. Keep each one to less than 100 links. I tell clients 75 is the max to be safe.

8. Make SEO-friendly URLs. Use keywords in your URLs and file names, such as yourdomain.com/red-widgets.html. Don’t overdo it, though. A file with 3+ hyphens tends to look spammy and users may be hesitant to click on it. Related bonus tip: Use hyphens in URLs and file names, not underscores. Hyphens are treated as a “space,” while underscores are not.

9. Do keyword research at the start of the project. If you’re on a tight budget, use the free versions of Keyword Discovery or WordTracker, both of which also have more powerful paid versions. Ignore the numbers these tools show; what’s important is the relative volume of one keyword to another. Another good free tool is Google’s AdWords Keyword Tool, which doesn’t show exact numbers.

10. Open up a PPC account. Whether it’s Google’s AdWords or Yahoo’s Search Marketing or something else, this is a great way to get actual search volume for your keywords. Yes, it costs money, but if you have the budget it’s worth the investment. It’s also the solution if you didn’t like the “Be patient” suggestion above and are looking for instant visibility.

11. Use a unique and relevant title and meta description on every page. The page title is the single most important on-page SEO factor. It’s rare to rank highly for a primary term (2-3 words) without that term being part of the page title. The meta description tag won’t help you rank, but it will often appear as the text snippet below your listing, so it should include the relevant keyword(s) and be written so as to encourage searchers to click on your listing. Related bonus tip: You can ignore the Keywords meta altogether if you’d like; it’s close to inconsequential. If you use it, put misspellings in there, and any related keywords that don’t appear on the page.

12. Write for users first. Google, Yahoo, etc., have pretty powerful bots crawling the web, but to my knowledge these bots have never bought anything online, signed up for a newsletter, or picked up the phone to call about your services. Humans do those things, so write your page copy with humans in mind. Yes, you need keywords in the text, but don’t stuff each page like a Thanksgiving turkey. Keep it readable.

13. Create great, unique content. This is important for everyone, but it’s a particular challenge for online retailers. If you’re selling the same widget that 50 other retailers are selling, and everyone is using the boilerplate descriptions from the manufacturer, this is a great opportunity. Write your own product descriptions, using the keyword research you did earlier (see #9 above) to target actual words searchers use, and make product pages that blow the competition away. Plus, retailer or not, great content is a great way to get inbound links.

14. Use your keywords as anchor text when linking internally. Anchor text helps tells spiders what the linked-to page is about. Links that say “click here” do nothing for your search engine visibility.

The Difference Between Beginner and Intermediate SEO

2009-06-20T01:57:00.000-07:00

When you are ready to try things you have not read about in SEO blogs and forums, when you take on a Web site where things are not done to your specification, when you start getting involved in competitive SEO, you’re ready for Journeryman status.

Intermediate SEO looks for advantages in everything: other people’s optimization mistakes, other people’s generosity, other people’s marketing oversights. Beginning SEO relies on the advantages handed down by a mentor or free service provider.

Intermediate SEO may produce the next great thing, the next successful service site. Apprentice SEO may get the local craft shop’s Web site onto the first page for a geolocal keyword.

You don’t have to be a Master SEO to be successful. Intermediate SEO is very often successful. Intermediate SEO requires resourcefulness, tenacity, and a very judicious application of techniques and tips shared by other people. Intermediate SEO challenges you to question everything. Intermediate SEO demands that you start explaining things. Intermediate SEO means you have to understand what you are doing, at least enough so that you can recover from any mistakes you make.

Your kit of intermediate SEO tools should include at least:

* Five successfully optimized Web sites you can study to remind yourself of why they succeeded
* A growing list of resources you can use for linking, visibility, and testing
* Two or three reliable references to help you learn the terminology that Web tools and services use
* A set of analytical tools that let you look at Web page code, server-provided information, and other useful “under-the-hood” things
* Your own Web site (server account) where you can experiment, prepare files for presentations, and play without worrying about hurting client campaigns

You’ll add your own tools as you improve and grow.

Intermediate SEO works on complex, challenging opportunities. You go after multiple keywords, multiple verticals. You work with inadequate content, insufficient linkage. You develop new skills, new resources. You abandon old skillls and resources that no longer help you. You analyze, analyze, analyze. You work endlessly, ceaselessly, tirelessly.

Every site you look at should tell you something about how successful it really is. You have to learn how to read behind the copy. Do you know the difference between a real testimonial and a faux testimonial? Do you know where to find the real testimonials? The Journeyman SEO has to know.

That’s the key to being successful: you have to know. What you do in your quest for knowledge determines what techniques you learn and come to rely upon.

White Hat SEO Techniques

2009-06-18T01:56:00.000-07:00

Website Promotion - The First Step:

You don’t need to submit your website to any of the main search engines or the bulk of the other search engines.. Because it’s just a waste of time, if your website has a handful of incoming links from other websites then any search engine will naturally index your site after finding it from these links. However you can get indexed in search engines within 24 hours! Yes that’s correct.
1 Link on any page ranked 5 or more - spidered and indexed within 24 hours.
2 links on any page ranked 4 or more - 48 hours.
4 Links on any page ranked 3 or more – 96 hours.

White Hat SEO Techniques:
Using White Hat SEO techniques to get ranked in SERPS involves :
1) Building a website with unique content and images.
2) Trading links fairly.
3) Getting your website listed in directories or on other websites with related content.

Let us see the techniques in detail.

1) Building a website with unique content and images.
Unique content is content found only on one website, the bigger your website is (the more unique content you have), then the higher it will rank in SERPS and the more traffic you will get because you have many text keywords which can match search engine queries. You will also naturally have many internal hyperlinking keywords.

2) Trading links fairly.
This means making your link exchange with other websites that have the same or a similar theme to yours. It also involves regularly checking the links to ensure both parties are adhering to the deal and that the site you are trading with is not cheating on reciprocal links.
Cheating on reciprocal links can mean making a lowly link exchange into a lucrative one-way link. There are a number of ways Black Hat webmasters use to do this. White Hat webmasters should also be aware of these techniques as they are more than likely being used against them.

3) Getting your website listed in directories or on other websites with related content.
Getting other websites to link to you, without you reciprocating the link is much more important. You can submit your link to your signature in forums, directories which don’t cheat you, your friends’ websites, Obviously if you have stuff which is free, or funny or entertaining, or your website is very useful or informative then other surfers may link to your site.

Using white hat SEO does not involve buying links of any form. Buying links is now considered by Google as a violation of their guidelines and an attempt to manipulate SERPS. So basically this means that if you buy any links at all which are HTML links direct to your website then you are in violation of Googles guidelines.
Links purchased for advertising should be designated as such. This can be done in several ways, such as: Adding a rel=”nofollow” attribute to the a tag..

What Are The Benefits of Search Engine Optimization?

2009-06-16T01:55:00.000-07:00

Higher Search Engine Rankings in Google and Yahoo!
Google, Yahoo!, and MSN use complex algorithms to determine which websites are the most relevant for specific searches. Learning how to optimize your website to take advantage of the algorithms will help your website get a higher search engine ranking for your keywords that your customers use to search for what you sell.

Increased Website Traffic from Google and Yahoo!
97 percent of Google users do not search past the first 30th listing. Therefore, the higher your website ranks in the search engines the more people will find your website and visit. When you implement these Free SEO tips you will improve your search engine rankings and rocket past your competitors. The best chance you have of reaching the top of the search engine rankings and staying there is to use search engine optimization.

Reduced Customer Acquisition Costs
If your website does not have a Top 30 ranking on Google you are paying for each new customer you get using PPC or you just don’t have any traffic or customers. By moving your website listing into the Top 30 in Google you will reduce your advertising costs and will get free traffic by Google, Yahoo!, and MSN. Search engine optimization is the cheapest long term Internet marketing strategy available!

Increased Revenue and Sales Margins
The more people that visit your website, the more likely you are to make a sale. Getting lots of free website traffic will increase your overall revenue and sale margins by reducing the amount you pay to acquire each new customer.

Hindrance for Website Owners From Search Success

2009-06-14T01:53:00.000-07:00

1. Don’t fall for obtaining low quality links. Always research out the popularity of websites that you obtain links from, and avoid obtaining links from link farms.

2. Don’t obtain links using the same anchor text and description repeatedly in short bursts, that is a red flag to the search engines that you want to manipulate their well thought out algorithm.

3. Make sure you always have unique Meta and Title Tags for EVERY page. You need to understand that every title should have at least one unique element to set it apart from your other pages. Include major keywords in your title and make it appealing so that it actually receives clicks!

4. Update your website regularly. You should run a blog with bi-weekly updates at a minimum on your website if you really want to succeed. Also research out the blog topics and use titles and keywords that will generate an increase in website traffic you are not tapping in to.

5. Don’t over do reciprocal linking, and have a diverse link portfolio! According to Google, reciprocal linking is valuable - however it can be harmful if it is overdone. You should obtain links from Blogs, Blog Posts, Forums, Reciprocal links, Articles, Social Media bookmarks and more!

6. Don’t be deceitful to the search engines. Don’t try to over use keywords, hide text or create doorway pages. Everything on your website should be well thought out, unique and valuable to both search engines and users. These are often times signs of black hat seo.

7. Network with other website owners. You need to create great relationships with powerful website owners and use those relationships to benefit both yourself and the other website owner. Get advice from them, get links from them and give something back!

8. Research out your competition. You need to know what your competition is doing in every way. Find out where they are getting links from. Find out what they are doing on their website, and determine any new ideas they are using to generate traffic, links and business!

9. Work hard and don’t give up. Search engine optimization is a tiring and hard to accomplish effort, and once you have put in effort you need to stick with it and never consider giving up. Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off the goal.

Four Fundamental Principles of SEO

2009-06-12T01:51:00.000-07:00

1. Visibility
2. Content Organization
3. Keyword Research
4. Links

Successful search engine optimization buids or enhances visibility, manages content organization, promotes ongoing keyword research, and incorporates links into its strategy.

If you’re not thinking about all four aspects of search engine optimization, you’re not engaging in intermediate-level SEO.

Visibility is the most difficult principle to master for many people because it cannot easily be measured. You can define a metric. For example, you can say you have achieved visibility when your site hits the top ten results for one or more queries.

Content organization was once considered to be the most important aspect of search engine optimization. Unfortunately for many Webmasters, link bombing tactics became easy and popular, and today’s Web is littered with the damage that link bombing has inflicted on Internet Marketing.

If you cannot optimize content (and that includes organizing it), you are not ready for intermediate SEO.

Keyword research never ends. I think most SEOs who have been around for a few years understand that but it’s hard to persuade clients that they should re-evaluate their keyword choices. Clients never change their vocabularies, but intermediate SEOs absolutely must update their query vocabularies or they’ll lose track of the markets they deal with.

Links are the baby food of search engine optimization. Anyone can get links. The difference between a Journeyman SEO and an Apprentice SEO is measured not in the quantity of the links but in their quality. One Intermediate SEO link should be worth 10, maybe 100 Apprentice SEO links. Spammers rarely move beyond Apprentice Level linking. Since they deal in volume they don’t need to.

Sadly, most SEOs are so obsessed with linkage they never move beyond Apprentice Level linking either. If you’re spending most of your time getting links you’re doing it wrong (unless you’re in one of a handful of competitive queries). SEO link obsession is not only stupid, it’s self-destructive. We can thank spammers and white hat SEOs alike for the Google Supplemental Index. Had it not been for all the link building tips and techniques people have shared on blogs and forums through the years we wouldn’t have ever heard of Google Supplemental Hell.

techniques of link baiting

2009-06-10T01:50:00.000-07:00

The virtual world is a testimony to the abundant creativity in web designers of all platforms, which is contrary to the belief that creativity is rare.

Public relations are an indispensable part of an organisation. The necessity to create a market for your product through the publicity of the product is as important as the products itself. As creativity and public relations are required for product promotion then the web is arguably the best way to do it. It is therefore essential that creative techniques of link baiting are used.

Web designers use their creativity to put forth a novel website to the viewers. PR is possible on the website not merely by creating attractive advertisements for the potential clients, but also by creating back links. Back links enables the search engine to choose the web page ranking position efficiently, so in effect this is a search engine optimisation tool.

Numerous links leads to heavy traffic and eventually great PR. In order to optimise efficiency , link baiting is used to create a long list of keywords to refer back to your site. As more and more people visit your web page the search engine ranking position of your web page is made more obvious to the public. Internet is the fastest and the easiest way to reach the audience, which is probably why creative techniques of link baiting have been developed.

The techniques of link baiting are both subtle and blatant. Certain link baiting techniques are used commonly amongst web masters as they have proved more successful. Consider the following creative link baiting techniques:

A contest is a very popular link baiting technique used by web masters. Numerous contests request the contestants to write a short article or a few lines about their company. Are they actually interested in what you to think about them? Not really, the whole purpose of asking viewers to write about them, is that this strategy creates numerous back links. A more loaded a website with back links, gives a better placement position on the search engine results display page.

Offering free tools to the viewers also increases link baiting. When a website offers creative tools to the users, many discussions are held on blogs and forums about the tools a web page offers. Being talked about everywhere magnifies and glorifies the brand image of companies by creating abundant back links.

Another creative technique of link baiting is creating lists. If lists like “top 100 ways of making money online”, are released then it gets infinite back links. The subject matter also gets great attention.

Controversies are not a suggested way to create back links but numerous sites exploit this technique as well. Bloggers and web masters attacking your content also aid in increasing the number of back links. Creating unique and original content and being the first to publish that content on the web also brings with it great opportunities to be talked about across the internet.

As your content is unique people will refer to your website time and again and bloggers will also discuss it publicly. Generalised tutorials like speaking English or any language used in the global domain will also increase readership and back links.

Attacks, are a bane of the search engine optimization technique of link baiting. So next time you come across controversies, attacks, contests, free tools and lists on the web page you will know the reason for it- link baiting to increase traffic. All these are creative techniques of link baiting will enhance the brand image of a company or serve vested interests.

SEO Copywriter Techniques

2009-06-07T01:45:00.000-07:00

Simple SEO Copywriter Strategies

1. Page titles. This is probably the most common, and costly mistake I see in people's websites. They will often have the same title for every page of the site, or use something that offers them nothing in return. Create a page title that is no more than 75 characters long (including spaces), rich with keywords that are reflected in the body copy. For now anyway, this is a huge factor in every webpage's organic ranking, and it's really easy to do correctly.
2. Keyword density. This is a much-debated factor of search that has seen some changes and fluctuations in the past few years. However, I have found that by targeting only one to three keywords per 250-word page and making sure the terms or phrases appear in the beginning, middle and end of the body copy, your specific density is not much of an issue anymore. 250 words has remained pretty constant, but the importance of density has been much more up-and-down to thwart black-hat practices like keyword stuffing, or spamming. That all said, I still target between a 3 and 8 percent density for pages in sites that don't have a lot of other contributing factors that will help them build organic strength (like back-links, extensive internal linking, large site footprint, etc.). The lower end of this scale is typically what I do for less competitive terms, the higher end is the target when it is in a smaller site for a more competitive term. It has always worked for me this way, and I don't see it changing anytime soon. There are lots of free density checkers out there--just find a free one you like to use, and check your site's pages to make sure each one has the density it needs to do what you want it to do.
3. Titles, bolding, bullets and headers. Reading simple html tags like H1, H2 headers, strong or bold tags, or bullets and numbered tags seems to make the search spiders and the search engines attribute more value to the words held within these tags. The titles, bolding and bullets in each webpage serve a double purpose for you--they make your copy easier to scan and understand for the user, and if strategically researched and created, they also build your relative keyword strength in the search engines.
4. Add more content to your site. You have to make regular additions to your website to increase what is called your site's "footprint." It makes perfect sense: the more pages your site has added to it in regular intervals, the more relevant and authoritative the search engines will see it to be. Start a newsletter, or an industry-specific blog, or put out regular press releases and post them on your site. The engines will index these pages if you let them, which increases your assumed industry relevance: which turns into more traffic, which becomes more opportunity. You score a really easy thing with any one of these approaches, and a press release with a carefully, and very specifically worded link back to your site picked up by industry news-site-scrapers (which is very common) posts your article all over the web, for free. Makes you appear as a leading authority in much less time than it takes to actually become an authority at something. Scary, but true. But in whatever way makes sense to you, add a couple pages a month to your site, letting it grow in a natural way...this is a very valuable and easy way to increase your site strength.
5. Build a site map. I have had a lot of clients that don't think they need a site map for any number of reasons. What a site map does for you though, is to create a single page that has a link to every other page in your site. This allows the spiders to find everything you want them to index in one place, and increases the likelihood that every page of your site will be indexed. Going back to the footprint concept, the more pages your site has indexed, the more authoritative you will be considered, and the more traffic you will receive (at least in theory).

Organic search success is not rocket science but there are simple strategies that combine good writing, good code, and good research that will work every time. Don't try to cheat--you will lose. The world of search is competitive and can often be pretty unforgiving. However, if you are careful and deliberate in your site construction and promotion, you can easily build and maintain some regularly increasing traffic, making your success in the search engines grow. Guaranteed.

What is SEO (Search Engine Optimization)

2009-04-04T04:20:00.000-07:00

An Interesting Article

What are Search Engines and Directories?

Web sites offering search facilities are of 2 types. A search engine (SE) is a software system collected Index (suchlike Lycos, Hotbot etc.,) or a human composed directory (suchlike Google, Yahoo ,dmoz etc.,). Put differently, it is a huge database which contains links to every site that have been submitted to them including some details about each web site. The important difference between the two is that one is reviewed by a human and spiders and the other by a Spider or Robot only.

In a few cases the human who reviews your web site might decline it because it's not presented in the suitable category or if the web site isn't fine in its quality. But in the case of a computerised SE, a program known as a Robot or crawlers sent by the SE to visit the submitted web site, gather up the information about the web site then include it in the SE database. These Robots are quicker and not as choosy as humans.
How to optimize your site?

Prior to submitting your web site to whatever SE you will need to be sure it's ready. You might want prepare the webpage title, META tags (keywords and Description) and some of the first few lines of text of the page you submit

TITLE Tag

The SE will afford a high degree of importance on the words in the title. So, whenever someone is searching for "SEO Guide" and if the phrase "SEO Guide" is in the title of the web site then there's a fine probability of the web site coming out on the first page of a search. If you open the HTML source of this webpage you'd find something that appears like this.

TITLE SEO Guide

You want to type your title of your web site in the place between as it is shown above.
META tags

META tags declare all the details about your web site to a SE. They're veiled in the code of the site and may afford a different data to the search engines for instance, keywords, description, author and more. Whilst these are all non-mandatory in any web page it is a must for marketing your web site through SEs. Each SE applies its own weigh to each META tag.so it is important to acknowledge several things that interest these search engines.
Keywords

It's very important to formulate the keywords carefully so that any user who's using a SE could discover your web site once he/she enters the appropriate keywords or phrases.. You had better come up with a set of keywords that precisely fit into the content of your web site and its goals and intention.

You need to actually work hard on detecting the finest keywords. Try and put yourself in the shoes of the human searching for your site. What words or phrases would s/he apply?
Description

This is as well a META tag that tells the SE about your web site. It's the description that comes out under the title in the search results. This had better be close to 50 to 60 words. The description is often hard to prepare. On the one hand it of necessity to be really attracting and cause the human to click and go to your web site. Then again it had better contain fine keywords and phrases to get a high ranking in the search results. To get a good ranking it's essential to develop a really good description which echoes your title and at the least one or two keywords on which you would like to focus.
What is Spamming?

SEs are really sensitive to the information that you give them. The keywords that you use could be echoed in the title, keywords, description and in the content. This is okay simply there's a limits in doubling the keywords. You ought be very careful of how many times you echo them. All the SEs will permit a certain level of repeating of keyword. Still, whenever it's higher than what they allow, it will be counted as spamming and your page will never get indexed. The crawlers can calculate the keyword ratios quicker than you can.

Here are a few tips to avoid spamming:

1. Don't apply text color of same as the page background color to veil text.
2. Don't try to make one page for publicity to not switch it with another page after getting indexed.
How to Register your webpages?

Submitting a web site to whatever SE is fairly simple. On the home page of the SE locate the "Add your web site" or "Register url" or "Submit your web site" link. Plainly follow the instructions afforded by each SE to add your web site. A few of the SEs may expect you to submit all the pages that you wish to be indexed, for instance AltaVista. Some require that you submit only one page URL of your entire web site and all the left pages will be spidered. This means that the SE will automatically add the remaining pages. Google is an good example of this. In Google there's no direct link like "Add URL", then where will you submit it? Just do a search at Google.

Submitting to the directories like Yahoo!, dmoz, and Looksmart is a boring job. As they keep web pages below separate categories, you'll need to find the finest category under which your web site will fit. Remember, these are watched by humans. If you submit to inapplicable categories it might be counted spamming causing your web site submission could be dropped.

How to get Get listed?

At present you know that submitting your situation isn't a head honcho, simply how sure are you that your web site will be indexed? Getting indexed is nothing only getting a place for your site in the SE database. How do you check if your web site has been added to the SE? It's easy. If you search with your URL or domain name as the keyword and the results of the search will show whether you are indexed in that SE.

Each SE has its own policies to accept URLs that have been submitted. Some SEs take less time than others to get you listed. Be patient. Directories take a lot of time as they require person intervention. It's effective practise to resubmit the pages once in 30 or 40 days no matter of whether the web site has been listed or not.
Where are you?

If your web site has been listed then you might wish to know where you rank. If you are able to find your web site in the first twenty positions you've done a good job. If you're not ranked in the first 2 pages, then again you need to do some work. To save time finding your rank you are able to use a position analysis tools. But we do not recommend any tools.

Using Forums To Get Blog Traffic

2008-10-10T23:35:00.000-07:00

Forums are very important part of SEO in order to generate traffic, each content his highly regarded by search engines in order increase page hits, visitors and also page rank. Here are the few steps on how to take advantage of forums in getting blog traffic.

Step 1 - Find Forums Relevant to Your Business

Obviously you need to find the forums where your posts will be most relevant and reach the largest number of people that are interested in your industry. The easiest way to do this is go to Google or any other search engine any type into the search box “YOUR INDUSTRY + FORUM”. You could also replace forum with discussion board. This will give you a list of the most used forums for your industry.

Step 2 - Join the Major Forums

It is usually very easy to join a forum, but the most important thing to consider when joining is to set up your signature correctly. Your signature is another name for your resource box and it is vital that you include your website address within your resource box. Without this interested forum users will not be able to find you. This information will appear below each and every post that you make and those people that like your post will likely follow your link.

Step 3 - Get Familiar with the Rules of the Forum

If you are not aware of what you can and cannot do there is a chance your posts will be deleted and then you will just be wasting your time. Usually most forums will not allow you to post obvious adverts so don’t even try.

Step 4 - Ask Users for Input

If you have written an article on your website a good way to get people to your site is to ask them what they think or ask them if there is anything they would add to it. This will get people to your site and reading your article and possibly contributing. You can then add the ability to subscribe to your newsletter box at the bottom of the article which would allow you to get a customer base. This is a great way to gain exposure to your site and your business.

Step 5 - Answer Users Questions

If you are reading the Forum and a user has asked a question that you can help with, give as full and complete an answer as possible. If you have something on your site that could help with the problem recommend it and ask for feedback.

Asking for feedback will help you to get some honest critique on what you have to offer and it will also encourage people to visit your site. In addition if your answer is relevant and useful it will help you to gain some positive comments from other Forum users.

There are many other things that you can do on forums to engage with your audience and encourage them to visit your site. However the most important thing to remember is to get involved. Be a regular user and provide as much information for other users as you can. This will help to make you an authority and bring large amounts of targeted traffic straight to your website.

Effective Search Engine Optimization

2008-10-08T22:31:00.000-07:00

SEO has worked wonders for many online business undertakings. In fact the whole process of having an online identity through a website will fall flat without a proper search engine optimization strategy. Once you have determined which keywords and keyword phrases would best be suited for you website, it’s time to determine how often you should use them on your web page.

Till a website is well recognized my major search engines there is absolutely no chance that a site can become popular among visitors that are regular on the web. Search engine optimization is a process of optimizing your website on the way to rank high in the search engine. In the present times one can accomplish all type of task by sitting at home and working on an internet enabled computer. Content matters the most to have professional search engine placement. You can obtain links from other website and could link others as well from your website. So one thing that online business owners must take care of is to implement effective search engine optimization strategies for their business. After all this is the door to success on the web.

For Search engine optimization your web page must be information and keyword rich that must accurately describes your content. This will make the content of the site all the more effective. The basic idea behind search engine optimization is to alter the site in such a way so that search engine spiders see and receive the site differently.

It is through In order to make your visitor attempt a purchase; you need to entail influential and compelling content. Directory submission must be given utmost importance in Search Engine Optimization. Incorporating these elements that effective search engine optimization can be utilized for a site. Make sure that you study carefully what your competitor is doing and try to see what you can do to prove on this and make your site more popular.

Link building is one of the most effective ways for a site to increase its popularity quickly and continuously. Appropriate selection of the keywords in a search engine marketing process can create a lot of difference in the campaign of search engine optimization.

Manual link submissions with other sites that are relevant to your site can be easily done if you know the right way of doing this. While SEO is the best way to increase the amount of traffic to your website, it can also be a little bit difficult to figure out and use properly. One the link of your site is present at many places on the World Wide Web, search engines provide rankings easily. A high search engine ranking is one of the most efficient ways to get quality targeted traffic to your websites. Having an increased number of links also ensures that the popularity of the increases and an increased number of visitors come to the site.

About NoFollow Links

2008-10-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

What is Nofollow?

Nofollow is an html attribute first introduced in 2005 by Google. Originally, the rel=”nofollow” attribute was added to discourage comment spam in blogs. Links with nofollow should not influence the link target’s ranking in the search engine.

From the Google Blog:

From now on, when Google sees the attribute (rel=”nofollow”) on hyperlinks, those links won’t get any credit when we rank websites in our search results. This isn’t a negative vote for the site where the comment was posted; it’s just a way to make sure that spammers get no benefit from abusing public areas like blog comments, trackbacks, and referrer lists.

From Google Answers:

“Nofollow” provides a way for webmasters to tell search engines “Don’t follow links on this page” or “Don’t follow this specific link.”

So the rel=”nofollow” attribute is a tool that can help define your most important links to the search engines.

Search Engines that support nofollow: Google, MSN Search and Yahoo!

History of Nofollow

Originally, the nofollow attribute was used on the page-level with a meta tag. It instructed search engines not to follow (crawl) outgoing links on a page. Example: see code example on main site

Another way to tell search engines not to follow (crawl) pages was to include them in a robots.txt file. But it was more difficult to prevent robots from following individual links on a link by link basis. The rel=”nofollow” attribute allows webmasters to easily instruct the search engine robot to not crawl a link.

How to Spot Nofollow Links?

You can install browser plugins, or edits to Chrome to show a highlighted color over nofollow links. You can also install a plugin to your blogging software.

Nofollow Implications

Links are now either dofollow or nofollow. From the perspective of building links to your site or blog, dofollow links will always give you more link juice. While nofollow links won’t either harm or help your link building. With that said, how you decide to build links with respect to the nofollow attribute (whether you want to get ONLY dofollow links or both to create a more natural array of links) will be an individual choice. How to use nofollow in link building strategy is a discussion for my next post!

Nofollow FAQs

How Do I Remove Nofollow?

1. Browser Plugins - highlights all links which are nofollow

- Chrome extension - add text to ChromEdit and follow directions - FireFox has a version of the ChromEdit called ChromeEdit Plus - Firefox plugin - SEO for Firefox

2. Blog Plugins

Wordpress Nofollow Plugins:

- Lucia’s Linky Love - Rewards frequent commenters, you can set how many comments must have been made to be awarded a dofollow link. - Nofollow Reciprocity - Detects nofollow links, if you link to a site and it is nofollow, your link to them also becomes nofollow. - NoFollow Free - removes the nofollow attribute from blog comments and inserts an image band at the top of your pages with the phrase: “NoFollow Free” (optional). - Dofollow - Simply install and activate, all nofollows are removed from comments and trackbacks. - Dofollow (WP Plugin) - allows nofollows to be removed from comments, pingbacks and trackbacks but you can also set a comment age limit as well as have nofollow removed left by user type.

Andy Beard has a list of more nofollow plugins; including those for Blogger, TypePad and Moveable Type.

How Do I Add Nofollow?

For more control of your inbound and outbound links, you can add tag rel=”nofollow” within any html tag. Example: see code example on main site

Does a link with nofollow count as a backlink?

Opinions vary on whether the nofollow attribute is completely discounted, or just given less relevance to the search engines. Keep in mind that how the search engines view nofollow may also vary. However, according to Google, that answer is no.

Why would I want to use nofollow on a link?

You might want to use nofollow on a link you don’t endorse, but has information you want to point to. On blog sites, you may want to give a nofollow link to spam comments and give credit to comments that are well thought out or contribute to your post.

For the full version of this article, see the SearchEnginePeople.com blog.

How To Build Links Effectively

2008-10-04T09:23:00.000-07:00

In website/blog marketing strategy, most of the SEO jobs are already divided in more narrower types, One of these is the link builder, they are the one responsible for creating backlinks from there site to other sites.

Building Links is very important in order to increase/promote blog/website traffic and further increase blog/website value so that more visitors will come and most of all increase page rank.

Use the following steps to get backlinks for FREE:

1. Directory Submission
2. Social Bookmarking
3. Article submission
4. Create a Free Blog for Client
5. Blog Directory Submission
6. Reciprocal Links
7. Promotion by Press Release

1. Directory Submission

Search Engine Ranking needs one way inbound links. What we call it “off page optimization“. Directory listing is best way to get free quality inbound links. Website Directory submission is integral part of search engine marketing campaign. Link popularity can be enhanced by getting listing in search engine friendly web directories.

2. Social Bookmarking

Submit your site to social bookmarking sites such as Digg, Technorati, Del.icio.us, and Stumbleupon are just a few examples.

3. Article Submission

Article submission is one of the vital parts of SEO and traffic building. Article submission is a free way to get one way back links to your website, as well as increase position in the SERPs (search engine results page). Article marketing on the other hand, is a great way to drive lots of traffic to site.

Benefits of Article Submission

• Number of back-links to website
• Targeting different keywords and key phrases
• Back-links from content
• Authoritative back-links
• Traffic generation
• Higher website SERPs
• Increasing Google page rank

4. Create a Free Blogs

Create blogs on free site like blogspot, wordpress for your website and then submit blog in blog directories.

5. Blog Directory Submission

Blog directory submission is similar to website directory submission. In web directory submission, you submit websites manually to general and niche web directories within. In blog directory submission, You submit web blogs to specific niche blog directories that can help to increase your blog popularity.

6. Reciprocal Links

Reciprocal links have become one of the MOST popular methods of getting backlinks for your website. Although i dont really recommend them, a lot of SEOs have found success with their 2-way / 3-way reciprocal link exchanges.

7. Promotion by Press Release

Submit your Press Release to the Top press release websites in the world.

Benefits of Press Release

• Increase links from Press Release.
• Introduce the world and media about business.
• Expand business exposure.
• Increase traffic, marketing, and page rank.
• Highly Effective and permanent results.

Make Blog/Website Top of the Rankings

2008-10-02T22:09:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimization is basically improving the ranking and visibility of your website. Doing this means a thorough refining of your website. This aspect of internet technology has become a leading marketing strategy as tons of businesses have proven its effectiveness. Establishing a business is a costly undertaking. You cannot just afford to sit back and relax and wait for your clients to come and buy your product. With the competition now going more intense than ever, you need to take vital steps in order to dominate in your field of business. Placing your website on top of the rankings can mean a lot to you. Being on top of the search results means that your website has contents that are relevant to the searcher thus the search engine places you on the first page of the search results. Search Engine Optimization can be your best tool to stand out among your competitors. It can either cause a healthy war or even a cold war between your company and the other companies but that’s just a normal occurrence. In any business field the sociological principle called ‘survival of the fittest’ applies too. If you don’t do steps to compete and excel, then you might as well give up at first instance.

When a person searches for a desired website in the internet, he/she wants to find the most relevant and interesting site that answers his/her queries. This is where Search Engine Optimization comes in. Among the tons and dozens of other business websites, how can you be sure that your website will be opened and viewed by the searcher before another site satisfies his/her questions and needs? In this case you have to make sure that your business site appears on the top of the search results so that no competitor steals your possible client. Most probably, you are a frequent internet searcher too, and you know how impatient you can be when it comes to looking for the right information. In every search that you do, you want the appropriate results at the soonest possible time. To maximize all your resources for Search Engine Optimization, you must know some key factors that can make way for a higher ranking of your business website.

Keywords are essential factors in Search Engine Optimization. Placing keywords in the title, topics, and contents in your website is a key to getting a higher rank in a search engine. The more relevant your website gets, the higher it can rank. In the process of getting the appropriate keywords, you need to have sufficient knowledge and expertise in your business field or its related fields.

Meta tags are a key to a better search engine ranking. They are used by search engines to interpret the content of the website, and to determine its ranking. The important Meta tags that are used by search engines are Title tags, Keywords tags, Description tags, and Robots tags.

The content is the brain of the website. Employing Search Engine Optimization in the site’s content is making it keyword-rich, clear and concise, consistent, and grammatically correct.

Links also contribute to your site’s search engine ranking. Search engines evaluate the internal links, incoming links, and outgoing links of your website whether they are relevant or not.

Tips of Effective Blog Marketing

2008-09-30T21:43:00.000-07:00

Blogging has been very popular among people, they either do it for just for fun or a serious income stream. No matter what it is, we want to be successful about these things, here are some of few tips for effective

1. Know what users look for in the Internet
Know the keywords mostly typed by users in search engines. Once you know where the possible online market is, make use of this knowledge in creating your website so it suits what users mostly search for.
2. Increase your rank among search engines
When the users type-in keywords, you have to make sure your web pages are found on the first few pages of every search engine. A study found out that majority of the users regard those web pages found at first pages of search engines contain the information they are looking for. To improve your websiteís ranking, produce content with heavy keywords, make you website design attractive and user-friendly, and allow the users to communicate with each other.
3. Make your website description interesting, attractive, and which somehow sums up what your website is all about
Now that your web pages are found on the first pages in search engines, remember that you are also competing with other companies who provide similar services you offer to the users. Be very meticulous when choosing the description of your site. It should appeal to the majority.
4. Make your home page as appealing as possible
So you have generated traffic to your site, what happens next? As the saying goes ìfirst impression lastsî, this is quite applicable to your website too. Make your home page a welcoming page containing the summary of what your website is all about. Make it as enticing as possible, otherwise, people who have visited your site might end up living immediately without looking at the other pages of the site.
5. Provide excellent content
We all know that as customers, we are usually skeptical of doing business with someone we barely know of. This is also unavoidable when you are operating an internet marketing business. So how can you encourage customers to purchase any of your products and services? As a start, you may ask for their name, contact details and a permission to get in touch with them. You may send newsletters containing useful information about your website, products and services.
6. Update you content on regular basis
To have constant flow of traffic on your site, keep updated with the keywords that have become popular over that period of time. Next thing you have to do is to post articles on your site containing these heavy keywords. That way, your ranking among search engines is stable.
7. Start blogging
Blogs are what normally keep some websites still active nowadays. A blog is like your own personal site wherein you can update its content with ease. Another advantage of having a blog in your site is that search engine spiders immediately visit your site once you update.
8. Publish optimized press releases
A lot of users who search for information either go directly to search or news engines. It is important that your press releases should go immediately into all these channels. With an optimized press release, your site can be automatically tracked therefore increasing the number of visitors.

What is -950 Google Penalty

2008-08-19T02:16:00.000-07:00

Google -950 penalty is where your ranking in google will be reduced to -950 in google search results.

Your result most probablly will appear after rank 950++

The reason you get a -950 penalty from google is beacause of massive spamming of keywords in your webpage.

The main keyword that you are focusing on seo is repeated too many times. Therefore it will alerted and penalize for being spammy. To prevent from the -950 penalty, you must use your keyword properly.

First of all, you must make sure your keyword does not go over 4%, if not it will be considered spam for google and you will be penalize for it.

Please do not repeat too many the same keyword.

If you already penalized, please immediately remove all the spammy keyword and wait for few weeks and it will back to normal again.

Reasons Why Visitors Dont Come Back to Your Blog/Website

2008-08-19T01:29:00.000-07:00

1. Flash animation overloaded:

Using animations excessively on web sites would put your visitors off. Beware of blinking text and images. Only use animations where it would add a value to your content.

2. Color combinations:

Don’t just use the colors because they are your favourites. Choose right color combinations for your text and background. For instance blue over red background makes it difficult to read. Go for the colors that are easy on the eyes.

3. Lack of Maintenance:

Make sure all your links are working properly. Also, make sure your site loads correctly.

4. Built for one Browser:

You have to keep this in mind that there are other browsers as well as Internet Explorer and they are also used wisely. Your site may not render as the same way it appears in your own browser. So make sure to test your site on different browsers and different machines.

5. Using Tables Excessively:

Tables may not render same way in the old browsers. And some browser may not support tables. So try using table wisely.

6. Using Images as Background:

When you using images as your background, make sure it doesn’t distarct your visitors to read your content.

7. Pop-up, Pop-unders:

Don’t give your visitors something they don’t expect. In most cases, users will press the back button or close button of the browser as the pop-up and pop-unders appear. Try to avoid using them.

8. Excessive Advertisement:

Always label your advertisements as sponsored links, advertisement, or anything similar. Don’t expect your visitors to find your main content between advertisement. Because they won’t. Dedicate a space in your site for advertisement and label it clearly.

Trillion Hits For Google

2008-08-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

Google engineers announced in the official Google blog that their search engine has reached the 1 trillion mark. That is, they have indexed 1 trillion URLs.

We’ve known it for a long time: the web is big. The first Google index in 1998 already had 26 million pages, and by 2000 the Google index reached the one billion mark. Over the last eight years, we’ve seen a lot of big numbers about how much content is really out there. Recently, even our search engineers stopped in awe about just how big the web is these days — when our systems that process links on the web to find new content hit a milestone: 1 trillion (as in 1,000,000,000,000) unique URLs on the web at once!

8 Site Indexing Tips / Techniques

2008-08-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

By: Prashant K Shukla

The most effective SEO technique is to index the pages of new website. There are lot of important issues, one should take care. We are providing a simple guide steps to help you in this regard.

1. Just design you website structure, create your content pages (don't worry if they are not completed yet) and publish them swiftly. Because, the process of indexing, new websites takes about two months. So, this technique helps you saving time.

2. Since, you have already designed your web site structure and contents (may be incomplete or with minimal info) as I said earlier. Now, create a sitemap for the site and submit this to Google Sitemap Service. Yahoo has lately created a similar service to Google Sitemap and so also submits your website to it. There are lots of online free site map generation services available.

Here are few of them, you may use.

* Create your Google Sitemap Online By: XML Sitemaps
* ROR Sitemap Generator By: ROR Web
* Site Map Builder By: sitemapbuilder

3. Third step is to submit your website to some Open Directory Project; DMOZ is good and is used as basis by many search engines like Google, MSN and Alexa. This process again takes several months. So, the first step plays a good here too.

4. There are three major search engines namely Google, Yahoo and MSN. Submit all your pages for inclusion in these three major search engines and keep submitting your site pages to other search engines on a regular basis. Do it manually or you may use some search engine submission software or service which may help you by automatic submission.

5. There are lot of SEO Friendly Directories on the web. Some are paid services and some allows free submissions of URL. Submit your website to these SEO Friendly Directories. All major search engines crawls these Directories frequently. This will help you both a catalyst for the indexing of the web pages and also move a step forward in Page rank Building.

6. You may start Building links using Reciprocal Link exchange programs. The text links should not only point to your website homepage but also to other pages down in the website page structure.

7. Posting on Google Groups advertising for your website is something very helpful in building good Page Rank. The posts should include at least two links to your website.

8. Participate in topic discussion on other sites is also a great technique to make your existence strong and do include your site URL in the reference section.

SEO Secret: Update Blog Daily

2008-08-18T20:47:00.000-07:00

If you can write fresh content on a regular basis, the better. Although not all blogs are created equal. It all depends on your niche.

Let’s say you’re writing a techno buzz blog. Your readers will rely on you to read about the latest in gadgets and technology. A daily update is best. If you do it only once a week, I guarantee your readers will turn elsewhere for info.

It’s a different case if you’re blogging about your organization, you don’t have to post every day. You can write something only whenever you have a major event or changes. After all, you already have your own set of readers who turn to your site periodically.

Which brings me to the point of the importance of a regular update on your blog if you’re concerned of your ranking in the search engines.

If your goal is to be the number one result for your keyword search, a daily update is a great help to keep you moving to the top. And if you’re already on the first page of the SERP, it will keep you there.

As any SEO enthusiast already know, spiders love to return to sites that are frequently updated. They would perhaps correlate that with constant fresh content, equals original and noteworthy content.

Update your blog as often as you think it’s needed. But don’t just post anything for the sake of making a post. Think of quality first over volume. After all, we blog for people, not for robots.

Golf SEO

2008-07-15T08:12:00.000-07:00

Everytime I watch golf, I get the feeling not only with their shots but the environment as well, the well green grass and the clear blue skies made the sport such a popular among those who enjoy nature at its fullest, there are many golfkurse around the world, they have their own characteristics and it is unique according to their location and weather, there are different types range the course formation.

Golf can have both a positive and negative impact on the environment. The negative effects include carbon dioxide emissions generated by people travelling to and from the golf course, the use of fertiliser containing nitrogen and phosphorus causing eutrophication in nearby watercourses, pesticides leaching into watercourses and the ground water, high energy consumption and the generation of significant quantities of waste.

But these environmental problems can be reduced, provided that they are noted and incorporated into the planning process. The Nordic golf unions are ensuring that new knowledge is produced through research, and that this knowledge is used in the planning and maintenance of golf courses. The location and design of golf courses has an impact on the environment, and conflicts of interest may arise between the owners and those representing countryside and cultural values, residential development and open-air recreation. If environmental sustainability is considered at the planning stage, the negative impact can be reduced. Many areas of a course, e.g. water courses and woodland areas, can house a varied flora and fauna, and this can be encouraged further. Greens, tees and fairways can also become areas of great biodiversity through responsible management.

If you want to enhance your golfing skills, you got to have the right materials for the job, the Golfreisen Offers different kind of golf accessories and a chance to learn golf, it is not that bad because you will get a professional help from a golf trainer. It is good especially if you are having problems enhancing your golfing skills or just want to show of to your friends.

They also have this Golfshop that offers golfers with their choices of different golfing accessories and apparels , If you want to lift up your game to the highest level then you got to have the best gadgets and accessories to use

SEO as a Team

2008-07-14T23:31:00.000-07:00

As much as companies find the need to outsource part or all of their SEO efforts, many do not have a clear picture of the value that comes from hiring an agency versus a full time, in-house SEO. While many consultants and some agencies offer “value meal” pricing and packages, the cost for a search engine optimization effort will vary based on the scope of the project, hours allocated, client side resources, web site technology and competitiveness of the market.

Web site managers that balk at monthly SEO retainers claiming they could hire a full time person for those costs to do SEO in-house don’t really understand all that’s involved with marketing a web site through search engines. Client side SEOs are more Project Managers than they are implementation experts and often get burdened with related tasks on top of continued internal education and evangelism. It’s a lot for one person to do and do well.

What’s important for companies to understand is that when hiring an agency for SEO, the value of the search engine optimization consulting service comes from a team effort. Agency structures vary, but my own experience is that when an online marketing client that involves a SEO component is brought on, it’s through the coordinated efforts of multiple people, disciplines and expertise that result in a successful program.

Finding a single person that has numerous client engagements under their belt with expertise in each of the areas above is unlikely. Certainly not for what it costs to hire the entire SEO team from a capable, experienced agency.

Here’s a quick check list of what functions and expertise a SEO team brings to a project:

* SEO/Online Marketing Strategy
* Client SEO Education and Training
* Provide Tools for Client to “Sell” SEO Internally and Report Successes
* Defining Campaign Goals
* Competitive Analysis
* Assessing Previous Tactics (Non Search Engine Compliant and Potential Spam)
* Keyword Research
* Inventory Digital Assets
* Web Site Content Optimization
* Coordination with Interdepartmental and Cross Functional Teams Client Side
* Digital Asset Optimization
* Code Optimization
* Site Architecture and Server Side Issues
* Oversight of Client SEO Implementation: Editorial and Code
* Link Building
* Content Marketing/Promotion Plan
* Content Creation/Mashups/User Generated Content
* Content Syndication
* Web Analytics
* Ongoing Performance Monitoring (Rankings, Traffic, Conversions)
* Revising Optimization and Content Promotion Efforts and Consulting

That’s a tall order to fill for a team let alone a single individual.

Before all the talented solo SEO practitioners reading this post get too excited, I do want to emphasize that in many cases a single consultant or in-house practitioner can be the ticket for a SEO campaign. Web sites that only need tweaking and that already produce a variety of content can see progress over time without an entire agency team.

However, when dealing with a complex organization and web site, there is no substitute for the depth of experience, established processes and speed at which a SEO team can deliver results.

SEO and SFO

2008-07-14T22:16:00.000-07:00

SEO: Search Engine Optimization, SFO: Search Friendly Optimization.

These two things are what most webmasters have trouble balancing. These things seem to always be on opposite ends. On one hand you have to make sure search engines can crawl your website without any problems. On the other you have to keep the site looking good to keep your visitors.

These are all based on what kind of site you plan on making. A corporate website selling shoes in the real world might focus on keeping the site looking good to visitors. And maybe pack it up with flash and all kinds of descriptive images. On the other side a site about online products, e-commerce, might cut back on the images and focus on seo. I will go into both of these just in case.

Let's start with seo. The first thing you need if you choose seo is to meta tags. Now there many meta tags generators out there for a quicker way to make them. But I suggest like me you make them yourself according to the search engines you want your site to better perform at. In short you have to study those search engines and find out how they get their content and what meta tags they require or may find usefull. Mine is based on google so check out the source of the blog and those are the tags that google uses.

Also a site that may help you out with your seo is: http://sitesubmit.ca/ they require you to be a member to use their tools but it's worth plus it's free. They have many seo tips and tools. In your reaserch of the search engine don't forget ranking. Find out what they base their search results on and how they decide which results show up first when a user queries. Like google uses google googlerank and overall page rank. But you may hav eto increase your content on a subject in order to increase your keyword density and such.

Second sfo. SFO is fairly easy to accomplish once you have the right info. Like many sites they host regular polls and surveys about what users like and their personnal opinions. It's an effective way of knowing your audience. Once you know most of your visitors like certain kinds of things you start providing them. Therefore pleasing your users and making a successful site. But never forget about the stalistics the users don't need to tell you. Like what browsers usually visit your site and what operatinf systems they use. And as many webmasters know firefox and internet exploer(leading browsers) have different rendering engines. So find out which most of your users use and customize your site to it. Also if the stalistics show that they have just about equal users use what we a splash page. To allow the user to show which version of the site they want to view. Two versions of your site may be hard to keep up but remember it's worth it. In one case one of my friends had to do four different versions. And keep them updated at the same time.

10 SEO Rules For Webmasters

2008-07-14T18:59:00.000-07:00

Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is a vital component of any website. As a web designer or blogger, it’s important you understand how SEO works. Here are ten easy rules that will immediately improve the SEO on all of your web sites.

Rule 0: Do Not Cheat. Period.

If you walked into a room full of genius scientists with PHDs, do you think you could outsmart them all? No. Google has hundreds of rooms full of genius scientists with PHDs, and their job is to work 60 hours a week to make sure you can’t fool Google. You can’t outsmart them. Ever. Ignore any advice on trying to cheat the system and focus on making great web sites with great content, and your sites will show up fine in searches.

Rule 1: Stick to Your Keywords

Pick a few keywords or phrases that describe your site. Use them, and words related to them, whenever it’s natural to do so. Repeating them uselessly is no good (rule Zero), use them in sentences, headlines, and links.

Rule 2: Content is King

Users don’t search for design, they search for content. If your site doesn’t have content people want, no one will look at it.

Every page on your site should follow the Inverted Pyramid. Each page should lead with a relevant H1 tag with one of your keywords, and the first paragraph of text should be a summary of the rest of the page.

Rule 3: Clean Code is Searchable Code

Build your sites in a text editor, and write clean, human-readable HTML. The HTML should follow the conceptual structure of the page, navigation first, followed by the H1 tag, then the first paragraph, etc. Try to use descriptive tags when possible. Use UL for lists, P for paragraphs, H tags for heads and subheads, and STRONG for bolded text. Don’t overuse Divs.

Your site can still be artistic and cool, that’s what CSS is for.

Rule 4: The Home Page is the Most Important Page

Your home page is the key to your site being found by search engines. It should summarize the rest of the site, and give a clear, compelling reason for a user to look at the other pages in the site.

Rule5: Links Have Meaning

Search engines pay a lot of attention to the links on your site, and the words used in those links. Never use “click here” or “see more” for a link. The link text should describe where the link will take the user, such as “more examples of CSS web design” or “learn how we can improve your SEO.”

The more relevant the links on a page, the more findable the page becomes. Don’t go overboard, and don’t link to anything irrelevant. If your page is focused on minimalist web design, a link to the Design MeltDown page on minimalism will boost your SEO. A link to a hilarious picture of a cat will not.

Rule 6: Title Tags for the Win

Every page in your site should have a title with the site name and a short description of the page. About 60 letters total. Include a keyword. Remember that the page title is what appears in search results, it should give users a clear reason to click on it.

Your navigation links should have title attributes that match the titles of your pages. This looks like . It’s a small thing, but it will give you a significant SEO improvement.

Rule 7: Alt Tags Matter

Every image on your site should have an alt tag. Especially images that are relevant to the page. If your page is focused on CSS tricks, labelling a screenshot “example of rounded CSS corners” will improve your page’s findability. Labelling it “screenshot” or “image” will do the opposite.

Rule 8: Ignore Most Meta Tags

A long time ago meta tags were the secret to SEO. Those days are gone. The only meta tag that really matters now is the description tag. Search engines may use it to provide the text under the link to your page in their results. Make sure it describes the page in a way that explains why a user searching for your content would want to look at your page.

Rule 9: Have a Site Map

Make sure you have a site map. This is an xml file that describes the structure of your page. Make one, and give it to Google.

Rule 10: Design for Humans

Search engines are designed to find what humans want. That means the best way to make your site findable is to design it for humans. Your job as a designer is to solve a problem, not make art, prove a point, serve your ego or break a boundry. In this case, your problem is to provide your users with a site that is easy to use and full of what they’re looking for. If you can do that, the search engines will find you.

Increase Your Online Traffic

2008-07-09T01:26:00.000-07:00

More and more people are establishing blogs every day. Blogging provides an easy way to get a web site online to start an online business without any knowledge of html or any other computer language. But one thing every blog has in common is the need for traffic. Regardless of whether you use a blog or web site, you need traffic to be successful.

Use these 7 easy steps to increase your blog traffic:

1. It is very important to confine your blog posts to one specific topic. This is called your niche. By writing on a single subject, you will acquire loyal readers who are looking for fresh information in that field. If your log posts talk about everything under the sun, you will not gain many loyal followers (unless your blog is very entertaining or funny).

2. In addition, the search engines will reward your site if all of the information it contains is on one single topic. This alone is a very powerful reason to select a niche. Search engines can bring you a significant amount of traffic and are definitely worth courting.

3. Add fresh exclusive content to your blog on a regular basis. Post new information as often as you can and try to do it on a consistent basis. It is better to post one article every other day than to submit 15 articles once a month. By doing it every other day, the search engines will visit your blog on a regular basis and give your site a higher ranking. This will increase your site's visibility and bring your blog traffic.

4. Submit you blog to as many different blog directories as possible. There are a number of services that will take care of this tedious work for you, but it is an important step in getting traffic, especially when the site is new.

5. You should also submit your site to the rss feed submission sites. Rss subscribers represent a significant following for the largest blogs and can bring you a significant amount of traffic and income. This is very important, don't skip this step! In addition, this is another good way to build up one way links to your site and, as mentioned above, the search engines love one way links and will reward your site with traffic.

6. Use the social bookmarking sites for every article you post. There are a number of free sites that will do this for you. You can find them by doing a search, but I recommend onlywire dot com. They will submit your post to 22 other bookmarking sites. By effectively bookmarking your posts, you can instantly increase your blog traffic.

7. Develop partnerships with blogs in the same and related niches. Comment frequently on other blogs and leave a link to your own blog in your signature. Set up strategic partnerships with other blogs and use small ads in visible locations to refer readers to each other's site.

Use these 7 easy steps to increase your blog traffic and start making money online.

Secrets of Driving Traffic to Your Site

2008-07-09T01:23:00.000-07:00

Building a website is not all you need to do. Once you have a site you need to know how to drive traffic to the site. The following are 6 traffic weapons that you can apply to immediately drive targeted traffic to your website. Learn how to transform your site quickly and easily.

The key to succeeding in any internet related business is traffic. So then, how do you get visitors to flow to your site? Driving customers, clients, or readers to make your website a place that they regularly visit is really not hard to do. Driving traffic does not just happen on its own. You need to plan and execute the plan to make it happen.

1. Consider visiting other sites that are similar to yours. Visit the blog or forum of these sites and post a message with a back link to your site. A back link is simply the URL (address) or your site. Needless to say you need to put the back link in the context of a short sentence or message. If the site allows you to have a signature, then add a link to your site in your signature.

2. Create a blog with a RSS feed that notifies subscribers whenever you have updated information. Then create new content in your blog regularly. You will find that others will begin to link to you from their own pages and list you as a valuable source of information.

3. Start with Free traffic techniques and then graduate to paid traffic. Makes sense? Common sense will make you successful sooner! Traffic exchanges can quickly bring in a lot of traffic. There are plenty of good free traffic resources. Consider using Traffic Swarm. Open a free account or sign up as a pro. I started with a free account then graduated to pro. Pro will allow you to gain more points sooner and benefit from your downline.

4. SEO mean Search Engine Optimization and is one of the best things you can do for your business. SEO will help you generate targeted traffic for your website. Targeted traffic means that the people that visit your website will actually be looking for what you have to offer! Techniques like keyword density within paragraphs as well as keyword placement within the title of the webpage,

Meta tags and the bolding, underline and italicizing of keywords within the webpage are a few of the SEO techniques that will impact traffic to your site. You may learn more about this at enlightenedsource.org

5. Use safe linking practices. Set up linking arrangements that appear natural. You only want to link to site related to your keywords and target market. Just having links is not what you want to do. In fact you will be penalized for just having links. It is not the number of links that matter. What matters is if the sites you link to be related to your site and that those site you link to have a rank of 3 or higher.

6. Good site content is very important. Search engines love content, and so do your visitors! Fresh content will keep your visitors coming back to your website at their own will and you’ll naturally get higher results at search engines

Alternative Social Media Sites

2008-07-09T00:47:00.000-07:00

Social media sites are very important for blogs/website in getting traffic as well as rankings and indices. Most of the let say "Experts in blogging/SEO" always rely on common social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, Delicious Reddit etc. ( I'm not against these social media sites, in fact I used them as well ) .

But lets face it, the World Wide Web is very vast and continue to grow, though there is a niche when it comes to social media sites. It is also nice to know that there are other social media sites out there that deserves a visit.

I mean there is nothing to lose here, all of these social media sites are free (most social media sites are).

The experience in SEO help me a lot in recognizing alternatives of moving on other sites, do not limit yourself in the web. Anyway , here are the alternative social media sites

Design Float [Design]
A site to submit anything from graphic design and marketing to architecture and digital art. Design Float doesn’t send a lot of traffic, but you are getting exposure to bloggers in the niche.

DZone [Development]
If you are baiting on sotware and web development then don’t miss out on DZone. A popular story won’t crash your server, but a good bait can pick up some good links.

eBaumsWorld eLinks [Offbeat]
The addition of eLinks means it is now possible to get a link and traffic from this aged domain. Strange or funny images and videos as well as humourous stories tend to do best.

Lipstick [Celebrity]
You’ll be instantly familiar with the Lipstick layout and system because it is based on Reddit, only it’s specifically for the celebrity niche. The site doesn’t send much traffic but you can get some decent links with the right story.

Meneame [General News]
When it comes to the ratio of traffic : linkage, I have never seen any site perform as well as Meneame. A popular story on this Spanish social media site will also send you a few thousand visitors.

Shoutwire [General News]
Should you submit a story here, go easy on your promotion as the editors are known to come down hard on anything that looks suspicious. Shoutwire will send traffic to a popular story and generate some linkage.

Sphinn [Marketing]
Sphinn was destined for success ever since it was spun off from the highly respected Search Engine Land. This is the best place to submit articles on SEO, online marketing, usability and other related topics. Users at Sphinn tend to be conversational; you’ll get comments and backlinks.

SugarLoving [General News]
This one is part of the Sugar Inc. network, so by submitting your content here you may also get coverage on one of their blogs.

When Rakings Go down

2008-07-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

If your website has suffered a drop in rankings recently don’t panic, read through this guide and get a better picture of what is happening behind the scenes. Prepare yourself for any future search result hiccups with our 10 Emergency SEO First Aid Tips and avoid paying someone else to diagnose the problem.

Assess the damage

Check site:www.yourdomain.com on Google to see if your website is still in the index.

If you see nothing at all or just your homepage then it’s serious – you need to work fast to salvage your online presence, especially if your business is e-commerce. This is a good indication that your site has been banned from the Google index… have you been a naughty boy?

If you see lots of your pages in the Google index then you can breathe a small sigh of relief – it’s unlikely to require surgery, just a course of antibiotics and a bit of physio. Search for your domain name (but without the site: prefix) and if you’re not there you’ve probably had your wrist slapped for dodgy SEO tactics. Consider it a gentleman’s warning that your rankings have plummeted, and you should take the opportunity to fix things as soon as you can.

If you are in both the index and the normal search results, but you’ve still lost significant rankings on quite a few keywords, then it’s likely Google has devalued a bunch of high profile links to your website. Check any under-the-table paid links you might have purchased. If they’re of no value anymore then put the money to better use.
Temporary algorithm shift

The search engine algorithms change every couple of days and often a drop in ranking is nothing to worry about. Micro-managing your search positions will just add stress and knee-jerk reactions to your digital marketing, so give it a couple of days to settle unless the drop is significant enough to hit your sales.
Check Google Webmaster Tools

Google Webmaster Tools will show you when your site was last spidered by Googlebot, and any problems it encountered. Investigate any errors to see if it’s indicative of a larger problem with your website. There’s also a chance it might tell you if you’ve been flagged as spam.
Have you changed anything?

Check with your designers and web developers if anything has been recently implemented. Often they roll out new code, page redirects, clever things with user-agents or IP addresses etc. and don’t think the marketing team needed to know. Find out what changed and change it back or fix the offending elements.

Make it your company policy to keep everyone aware of new website developments as a matter of course.
Check if you’ve been penalised as spam

Sometimes this is easy to determine and other times it’s not so obvious. Generally if you see your entire website drop around 30 places in Google’s search results for a number of keywords then it’s a fair assumption you’ve been given a slap on the wrist for gaming the system too aggressively. Stop what you’re doing until things settle; after that take it a bit easier in your grey hat tactics.

However, if Google decides to drop your website from the index entirely you need to act quickly, as getting back into the search results can be a slow burn. SEOmoz suggests asking yourself these questions before trying to diagnose:

* Has the site been buying or selling links in the past?
* Has the site ever cloaked or hidden content?
* Is it possible that someone’s hacked the site?
* Is the site restricting or redirecting robot access in some way?

If the answer to these is yes, here’s what you need to do:

* Check Google Webmaster Tools for any penalisation messages
* Stop cloaking your site (serving different content to humans and search engines)
* Drop any paid links from your website
* Cut loose any inbound links from your spammy blogs, microsites, and shady global footer links on your other websites
* Remove any keyword stuffing or hidden text
* Make sure your users aren’t bombarded with adsense links disguised as content
* Request re-inclusion from Google

Check your robots.txt file

It’s entirely possible you’ve restricted the friendly spiders from finding your content. Check www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt for any rules that are too wide. Sometimes you can accidentally restrict all spiders in an attempt to restrict specific spiders and bots like the waybackmachine or third-party scrapers. Google Webmaster Tools has a neat little robot.txt tester so you can develop your spider restrictions in a safe environment before setting them live.
Competition

If you’re in an industry where none of the players have a clue about SEO then be ever watchful for them getting clever. It’s easy to think you’ve got the search results dominated if you’re the only one putting any effort into your SEO strategy. A big wake-up call to one of your more formidable competitors could drop your rankings as they enter the game guns blazing.
Duplicate Content

The Google algorithm tries very hard to avoid results that have the same content. It tries to work out the canonical version and places the rest in the supplemental index never to be viewed by the majority of the public. However unlikely, it’s always worth checking if you’re running out of options.

To quote Google directly…

“… If you find that another site is duplicating your content by scraping (misappropriating and republishing) it, it’s unlikely that this will negatively impact your site’s ranking in Google search results pages. If you do spot a case that’s particularly frustrating, you are welcome to file a DMCA request to claim ownership of the content and request removal of the other site from Google’s index …”

You can check by typing this into Google…
“an original sentence from your website” –site:www.yourdomain.com
Devalued inbound links

Only you and your SEO consultant knows if you’ve been a little too happy with your link buying. Check the other sites that get similar links and see if they’ve been hit too – it might be worth cancelling some regularly payment agreements and putting the money to better use like writing original and compelling content.

Whilst kind of difficult to prove, it’s widely understood that the search engines can, and have in the past, decided a particular authority website no longer carries the same level of credibility that it once did.

This is definitely more documented on cases where the inbound links were purchased or rented. Don’t be surprised if swathes of your hard-earned links are suddenly worth far less, especially if you’ve been particularly aggressive in your link building strategy; buying too many at once is a good way to raise red flags.
Hosting/server/domain issues

Coming back to your web developers changing technical things – it can be worth a quick check to see if your site has moved servers, domains or nameservers recently. Whenever you move the site be ready for a thump to your search rankings.

Make sure you redirect anything you leave behind via a 301 permanent redirect: that should pass the vast majority of link juice (page rank) over to the new location and serves as a valuable instruction to the spiders.
In conclusion

A serious drop in rankings is usually down to one of three things…

Someone, somewhere changed something
Find out what was changed and either change it back quickly, or fix it.

You’ve stepped too far into blackhat SEO tactics
Remove as much incriminating material and links as possible, and request re-inclusion.

The environment in which you are competing has changed
Check for savvy newcomers to the rankings, and assess whether any paid links have been devalued.