Aug 20, 2008
by: Suzanne Morrison
Copyright 2004 Suzanne Morrison
I don't know about you, but when I first entered the world of internet marketing I thought I could just submit my newly finished website to a few search engines, then sit back as the visitors flocked to my site.
I imagined that people would arrive on my website, as if by magic, purchase goods, and perhaps come back again for more.
A week or so later I came down to earth with a big bump.
I realised that it would take a bit of time and effort to see the results that I was dreaming about!
Since my reality check, I have learned all about the weird and wonderful ways of internet marketing.
In this article I will tell you about my top 5 free ways of increasing website traffic.
All these methods are completely free and if you spend some time on them you will find that they work consistently.
(1)Writing Articles
Writing an article on a subject related to your website and getting that article published has two major benefits:
- People who are interested in your article will read it and often click on the URL in your resource box find out more. This gets you another free targeted visitor. Targeted, because that reader wants to find out more on the subject of your article, which is hopefully related to the subject of your website.
- Every publisher of your article must also publish your "resource box". Adding a resource box with your URL to all of your articles will increase the number of links leading back to your website, which in turn helps to increase your search engine position
For a list of directories to submit your article to, see Article Submission Directories
(2)Forum Networking
There are many discussion forums on the internet, on every topic you could possibly imagine.
Most discussion boards allow posters to attach a "Signature" with their post containing additional information about themselves, such as their name, URL and sometimes even an advertisement.
By visiting a few forums regularly and participating in the discussions, asking and answering questions, you can build up trust with other forum members, whilst at the same time getting free exposure for your website.
Just try to make a useful contribution to the forum - be sure to read the forum rules and don't spam!
(3)Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking has two main benefits for you.
Firstly, the more links that you exchange, the more chance there is that someone will follow a link from another site and land on your website.
Secondly, your website will be perceived more importantly by search engines.
The more links you have from other sites, the greater your chance of getter ranked more highly by all the search engines.
Here are some Dos and Don'ts to help you get more out of your link exchanges.
- Do link with sites that will be of interest to your visitors.
- Don't link with pages that have unorganised link directories with hundreds of links on each page. This won't benefit you with increased traffic or search engine rankings.
- Do link with sites that have a clearly labelled "Link Directory" from their main page. You aren't likely to get much traffic from a hidden or hard to find link directory.
- Don't use link farms or FFA pages. You are unlikely to get extra traffic using these methods and the search engines may penalise you.
- Do use link directories to help you find link partners. You can find some Link Exchange Resources here
- Do stay organised. Use link exchange software, or a spreadsheet to keep track of the link exchanges you have requested and the contact details of the webmasters.
(4) Email Signatures
This is a very simple, but often forgotten way of increasing your website visitors.
Most of us are sending lots of emails a day, but many of us just sign them with just our name, or perhaps nothing at all.
Instead, why not end your emails with a short signature containing your name, a bit about your website along with the URL?
Keep the signature short (4 lines), to the point and avoid hype or SHOUTING.
You may be surprised at the extra visitors you receive through doing this. It's amazing how curiosity will lead the recipients of your email to click on your link!
(5)Using Traffic Exchanges
Finally, this is one easy way to guarantee instant hits to your website. You can build up credits for free by surfing or building up a downline to surf for you.
The downside of this method is that the visitors you receive from traffic exchanges are not as targeted as the visitors that you will receive via the other methods that I have described.
The reason for this is that people surf traffic exchanges for one reason - to earn as many credits as possible in as short a space of time as possible!
This gives you a challenge - how do you attract the attention of someone who is looking at your web page for 20 seconds or less?
Here are two tips -
- Know your market - spend some time surfing on the exchange that you are advertising on and pay attention to the types of web pages being advertised. Make sure that the pages you advertise are going to interest your target market.
- Use a short, simple attention grabbing page that can be read in a few seconds - there is no point advertising a huge page of text that takes 5 minutes to read. The chances are, your visitor will get bored and click on the "next" button without giving your page a fair chance.
Regularly invest some time in each of these 5 traffic generating methods and you will see your web statistics moving in the upwards direction before you know it.
About the author:
Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of How to Start an Internet Business To learn more about how to promote your website download your free 30 Days to Success Ebook
Circulated by Article Emporium
I don't know about you, but when I first entered the world of internet marketing I thought I could just submit my newly finished website to a few search engines, then sit back as the visitors flocked to my site.
I imagined that people would arrive on my website, as if by magic, purchase goods, and perhaps come back again for more.
A week or so later I came down to earth with a big bump.
I realised that it would take a bit of time and effort to see the results that I was dreaming about!
Since my reality check, I have learned all about the weird and wonderful ways of internet marketing.
In this article I will tell you about my top 5 free ways of increasing website traffic.
All these methods are completely free and if you spend some time on them you will find that they work consistently.
(1)Writing Articles
Writing an article on a subject related to your website and getting that article published has two major benefits:
- People who are interested in your article will read it and often click on the URL in your resource box find out more. This gets you another free targeted visitor. Targeted, because that reader wants to find out more on the subject of your article, which is hopefully related to the subject of your website.
- Every publisher of your article must also publish your "resource box". Adding a resource box with your URL to all of your articles will increase the number of links leading back to your website, which in turn helps to increase your search engine position
For a list of directories to submit your article to, see Article Submission Directories
(2)Forum Networking
There are many discussion forums on the internet, on every topic you could possibly imagine.
Most discussion boards allow posters to attach a "Signature" with their post containing additional information about themselves, such as their name, URL and sometimes even an advertisement.
By visiting a few forums regularly and participating in the discussions, asking and answering questions, you can build up trust with other forum members, whilst at the same time getting free exposure for your website.
Just try to make a useful contribution to the forum - be sure to read the forum rules and don't spam!
(3)Reciprocal Linking
Reciprocal linking has two main benefits for you.
Firstly, the more links that you exchange, the more chance there is that someone will follow a link from another site and land on your website.
Secondly, your website will be perceived more importantly by search engines.
The more links you have from other sites, the greater your chance of getter ranked more highly by all the search engines.
Here are some Dos and Don'ts to help you get more out of your link exchanges.
- Do link with sites that will be of interest to your visitors.
- Don't link with pages that have unorganised link directories with hundreds of links on each page. This won't benefit you with increased traffic or search engine rankings.
- Do link with sites that have a clearly labelled "Link Directory" from their main page. You aren't likely to get much traffic from a hidden or hard to find link directory.
- Don't use link farms or FFA pages. You are unlikely to get extra traffic using these methods and the search engines may penalise you.
- Do use link directories to help you find link partners. You can find some Link Exchange Resources here
- Do stay organised. Use link exchange software, or a spreadsheet to keep track of the link exchanges you have requested and the contact details of the webmasters.
(4) Email Signatures
This is a very simple, but often forgotten way of increasing your website visitors.
Most of us are sending lots of emails a day, but many of us just sign them with just our name, or perhaps nothing at all.
Instead, why not end your emails with a short signature containing your name, a bit about your website along with the URL?
Keep the signature short (4 lines), to the point and avoid hype or SHOUTING.
You may be surprised at the extra visitors you receive through doing this. It's amazing how curiosity will lead the recipients of your email to click on your link!
(5)Using Traffic Exchanges
Finally, this is one easy way to guarantee instant hits to your website. You can build up credits for free by surfing or building up a downline to surf for you.
The downside of this method is that the visitors you receive from traffic exchanges are not as targeted as the visitors that you will receive via the other methods that I have described.
The reason for this is that people surf traffic exchanges for one reason - to earn as many credits as possible in as short a space of time as possible!
This gives you a challenge - how do you attract the attention of someone who is looking at your web page for 20 seconds or less?
Here are two tips -
- Know your market - spend some time surfing on the exchange that you are advertising on and pay attention to the types of web pages being advertised. Make sure that the pages you advertise are going to interest your target market.
- Use a short, simple attention grabbing page that can be read in a few seconds - there is no point advertising a huge page of text that takes 5 minutes to read. The chances are, your visitor will get bored and click on the "next" button without giving your page a fair chance.
Regularly invest some time in each of these 5 traffic generating methods and you will see your web statistics moving in the upwards direction before you know it.
About the author:
Suzanne Morrison is the webmaster and owner of How to Start an Internet Business To learn more about how to promote your website download your free 30 Days to Success Ebook
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by: Jack Humphrey |
| Copyright 2004 Jack Humphrey Critical Mass Website Promotion is the elite goal rarely attained by website marketers in any industry. Reaching critical mass and getting targeted website traffic on autopilot (meaning you don't have to promote your site for 6 months and the traffic NEVER declines) is the Holy Grail of internet marketing. When you hit critical mass in your market, things change drastically for you and your business. Your marketing efforts go down in direct proportion to your customer support and sales going up. It sounds awesome. It IS awesome. But only a tiny fraction of websites on the net every achieve critical mass. Here's a nutshell version of what it takes. 1. Work Hard Internet marketing is no game to be manipulated by using software and quick fixes to a very large problem, which is long-term, steady traffic coming to your site. There is no magic pill, silver bullet, or guru secret that will help you to achieve critical mass in your market. Hard work and intense study of the internet and how people surf, what they want, and how you get in front of them while they are surfing is the only answer. The internet marketing game is for professionals and you MUST make yourself a professional marketer of your "shop" just as you would in the real world. 2. Understand Your Market Understanding exactly who you are selling your products or services to is the crucial first step in achieving critical mass. The worst thing you could ever do is put the hard work in and achieve critical mass in the wrong market for your products and services! Know your market. Know your best, ideal customer inside and out. Get your links in front of them, ideally, everywhere they surf for related information to your site. 3. Be Vigilant Over the years I have watched people listen to what I have to say about website promotion and then take one of two paths: 1) They work their tails off and do what I tell them, with great results and rewards for their efforts (more sales, more traffic, more branding and recognition). 2) They buy my book, take a half-hearted shot at the easiest things in the book, get bored, tired, or impatient, and then they go back to chasing down quick fixes. I have watched people who had the answers they needed in their hands, and drop them for more glamorous-sounding, fast solutions. Which we all know don't work. I will say this again - THERE IS NO WAY TO TO QUICKLY OR INSTANTLY ACHIEVE CRITICAL MASS IN YOUR MARKET! You must work like anyone in business who is in it to succeed works. If you do not know everything about your business and how to market it, your competition will eat you alive because they WILL know everything, I guarantee it. Just like in the real world, the one who works harder, smarter, and is vigilant about his or her business is going to come out on top every time. You owe it to yourself and your family to learn your craft and do it better than most people in your market if you want to succeed. 4. Achieve Critical Mass In order to hit critical mass, you must be everywhere, or nearly everywhere your best customers surf. This means linking back to your site from reciprocal links, articles, press releases, joint ventures, forum participation, and good search engine positioning for your best keywords. In order to have literally thousands of links pointing to your site in high-profitle areas where human beings actually go and read/surf, it takes pure time and effort. You must submit your articles to the best free content directories. Over and over until you have published everywhere you can that is relevant to your market. You must secure deals with high-profitle sites in your market to swap QUALITY links. I am talking about links that people will click on, not just links that only search engines will see. You must be everywhere that is a good place to be on the net in your market. This takes time. This takes hard work. This is what it takes to have a viable, long term website traffic solution for your business. Reaching critical mass, or even sitting down and deciding a plan of action to pursue critical mass in your market takes maturity and a final realization that you can have anything you want in the world if you want to work for it. The day you stop chasing quick fixes to drive spurts of unqualified, un-targeted traffic to your site is the first step in achieving your goals as a professional internet marketer. About the author: Jack Humphrey is the author of Power Linking 2: Evolution. He is an internet marketing consultant and copy writer for major online clients. http://power-linking-profits.com Circulated by Article Emporium |
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by: Andy Murray
Copyright 2005 Andy Murray
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking to generate revenue. While FREE traffic from the search engines seems the most logical way to go, actually staying ahead of the game can be tough. Here are my top 3 ways to send your traffic counter spinning without the headaches.
1. Trading Links With Other Webmasters:
By mutually agreeing with another webmaster to trade link exposure on each others site, you're expanding your market reach significantly. Not only does this generate instant traffic from the link partner, but you'll also BOOST your Google PR and link ranking with other search engines as a bonus.
This helps you rank better in the listings, generating even more FREE traffic, without doing any complicated SEO.
There are some great tools to help you get started trading links. Some of them are even free. I don't recommend them personally because annoying banners or other types of ads compete for the same space, doesn't look very professional.
Alternatives to FREE software worth checking out are...
The ALMIGHTY Zeus - The one I use. Tough to get used to, but an excellent piece of kit. The darn thing learns and just keeps getting smarter the more you use it. (And a FREE trial so you can become a master before you buy)
http://www.cyber-robotics.com
Reciprocal Link Manager - Not as sophisticated as Zeus but much easier to learn if you're pressed for time.
http://reciprocal-manager.com/
Axandra's Arelis - Lots of great reviews for this one and more in the Zeus mould.
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm
2. Writing Articles to Publish Online:
This technique is a very close second to my favourite one which I'll share in just a moment. The amount of exposure you can get from writing a simple article is astounding.
After you've written it up, you submit to the major article directories, then just sit back and watch the traffic stream in.
As an added bonus you start to gain more respect within your industry. Articles have this uncanny knack to create an aura of expertise around the writer.
You also benefit yet again with search engine ranking, as other webmasters with mailing lists publish your article on their site. Creating yet another link back to you.
Articles are a VERY effective pre-selling technique too.
How much more targeted would a prospect be arriving at your website after reading one of your articles in an email or on another site?
Not only did you get the recommendation from the publisher, but if they enjoy reading your article and get some value from it, you've already broken down one of the main barriers of selling...
TRUST!
Here are some cool resources to get stuck into:
Editorial guidelines:
http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
Some great "How To" advice:
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/howto.html
And a nice BIG list of directories and announcement lists:
http://www.marketingchick.com/howto/article-marketing.shtml
3. Viral Marketing:
Viral Marketing is defined as “Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do”; E.g. When Hotmail users send e-mails, they “infect” the recipients with the tagline at the bottom of their messages.
If you UNLEASH a 'Viral Marketing' campaign, it will just keep on multiplying, spreading your message around the web like wildfire. I absolutely LOVE this method of sending quality traffic to my website for FREE.
Generating free traffic with 'Viral Marketing' is easily the most rewarding use of your time. Taking good steps to craft the right offer and layout of your 'Viral Marketing' message is essential. But get it right, and not only will a truck-load of qualified visitors come to your website, but an air of respect and expertise is generated around you and your business.
About the author:
Andy Murray is a marketer and publisher writing informative reports to help grow your online business. Get his latest offering "Unleash Your Viral Marketing Potential" for FREE by simply following this link: http://www.zerohourmarketing.com/Viral-Marketing-Report.htm
Circulated by Article Emporium
Targeted website traffic is the lifeblood of any website looking to generate revenue. While FREE traffic from the search engines seems the most logical way to go, actually staying ahead of the game can be tough. Here are my top 3 ways to send your traffic counter spinning without the headaches.
1. Trading Links With Other Webmasters:
By mutually agreeing with another webmaster to trade link exposure on each others site, you're expanding your market reach significantly. Not only does this generate instant traffic from the link partner, but you'll also BOOST your Google PR and link ranking with other search engines as a bonus.
This helps you rank better in the listings, generating even more FREE traffic, without doing any complicated SEO.
There are some great tools to help you get started trading links. Some of them are even free. I don't recommend them personally because annoying banners or other types of ads compete for the same space, doesn't look very professional.
Alternatives to FREE software worth checking out are...
The ALMIGHTY Zeus - The one I use. Tough to get used to, but an excellent piece of kit. The darn thing learns and just keeps getting smarter the more you use it. (And a FREE trial so you can become a master before you buy)
http://www.cyber-robotics.com
Reciprocal Link Manager - Not as sophisticated as Zeus but much easier to learn if you're pressed for time.
http://reciprocal-manager.com/
Axandra's Arelis - Lots of great reviews for this one and more in the Zeus mould.
http://www.axandra-link-popularity-tool.com/index.htm
2. Writing Articles to Publish Online:
This technique is a very close second to my favourite one which I'll share in just a moment. The amount of exposure you can get from writing a simple article is astounding.
After you've written it up, you submit to the major article directories, then just sit back and watch the traffic stream in.
As an added bonus you start to gain more respect within your industry. Articles have this uncanny knack to create an aura of expertise around the writer.
You also benefit yet again with search engine ranking, as other webmasters with mailing lists publish your article on their site. Creating yet another link back to you.
Articles are a VERY effective pre-selling technique too.
How much more targeted would a prospect be arriving at your website after reading one of your articles in an email or on another site?
Not only did you get the recommendation from the publisher, but if they enjoy reading your article and get some value from it, you've already broken down one of the main barriers of selling...
TRUST!
Here are some cool resources to get stuck into:
Editorial guidelines:
http://ezinearticles.com/editorial-guidelines.html
Some great "How To" advice:
http://www.promotewitharticles.com/howto.html
And a nice BIG list of directories and announcement lists:
http://www.marketingchick.com/howto/article-marketing.shtml
3. Viral Marketing:
Viral Marketing is defined as “Any advertising that propagates itself the way viruses do”; E.g. When Hotmail users send e-mails, they “infect” the recipients with the tagline at the bottom of their messages.
If you UNLEASH a 'Viral Marketing' campaign, it will just keep on multiplying, spreading your message around the web like wildfire. I absolutely LOVE this method of sending quality traffic to my website for FREE.
Generating free traffic with 'Viral Marketing' is easily the most rewarding use of your time. Taking good steps to craft the right offer and layout of your 'Viral Marketing' message is essential. But get it right, and not only will a truck-load of qualified visitors come to your website, but an air of respect and expertise is generated around you and your business.
About the author:
Andy Murray is a marketer and publisher writing informative reports to help grow your online business. Get his latest offering "Unleash Your Viral Marketing Potential" for FREE by simply following this link: http://www.zerohourmarketing.com/Viral-Marketing-Report.htm
Circulated by Article Emporium
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by: Oluwafisayo Akinlolu |
| You are permitted to republish this article as long as it remains unchanged and the author given complete credit for it. Do not forget to send the author a courtesy note. admin@profitbomb.com ------------------------------------------ 3 Freebies That Guarantees Constant Traffic By Oluwafisayo http://profitbomb.com In 1931, Ted and Dorothy Hustead decided to move to a town that had four things; a good school, a Catholic Church, a doctor and an opportunity. They wanted to open their own pharmacy. They eventually chose Wall, South Dakota, as the perfect location. To others, however, Wall seemed to be in the middle of nowhere - somewhere between the Black Hills and the Badlands. The first year was a tough one - thick dust, intense heat, and strong winds. In their desire to move on to a more welcoming place, tired, throat - perched travellers rarely stopped. Then, Ted and Dorothy came up with an idea. They made a sign that read: Free Ice Water At Wall DrugStore. The sign became something of a novelty. They made more sighs and put them farther and farther from Wall - eventually, as far as other countries of the world. All druggists, of course made "free" ice water available for their customers. Nobody however, had thought of advertising the luxury. Eventually, some 4000 to 6000 customers a day stopped at Wall DrugStore. Josh Billings remarked, "Common Sense is instinct and enough of it is genius. "When it comes to attracting traffic, everybody has ideas BUT it all seem not to work!" I was almost ready to quit when I found a blend of strategies that work. Top Internet marketers use it to achieve tons of results, brand their names all over the Internet, explode sales and achieve record breaking list size in minimum time with little or absolutely nothing spent. It is all captured in the word FREE and truthfully, if you have nothing FREE working hard for you out there, it is time to get down to work and get up with one! Here are 3 easy to implement freebies you can start with right now. 1. Give Out A Collection Of Free eBooks. Go around the web and harvest a collection of free ebooks, then give it away for free on your website in exchange for people doing something e.g. signing up for your newsletter. 2. Write Articles and Give It Away Free. I wrote 2 articles last year and got 700+ subscribers from it without lifting a finger after submitting it to a few article submission sites. It is surprising to note that my list still grows today as a result of those articles. 3. Pull Your Articles Into A Report and Give Away Reprint Rights To it Free. This sounds insane but if you are smart, it can make you a success overnight. All you need to do is bury your other programmes in the middle of your ebook and "wham," you start getting dangerous results. © Oluwafisayo, 2005. ------------------------------------------------- Achieve record breaking list size and incredible website traffic on a complete, zero budget ... GUARANTEED. Oluwafisayo's latest *FREE* report takes you by the hand and shows you exactly how. http://profitbomb.com ------------------------------------------------- About the author: Oluwafiayo is the owner of http://profitbomb.comwhere he unleases closely guraded traffic secrets of internet heavy weights. Circulated by Article Emporium |
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by: Richard D. Bailey
If you have been unsuccessfully trying to get listed in Google or just hitting roadblocks when trying to get more of your pages listed in Google, then you need to read this short article. I am about to reveal a simple SEO secret that can save you a lot of time, money and effort.
Google has a preferred search submission format that it actually asks webmasters to use, It's called a Google SiteMap.
Admittedly, creating and using XML is no easy task for anyone who is non-technical or inexperienced with web coding, however there is a site or two on the web that can actually help you create an XML sitemap and then submit it to Google so that this venerable search engine can crawl your previously unknown web site and get you listed.
Of course there are no guarantees that your site will get high ranks or that it will meet Google's guidelines for inclusion, so be sure to make sure that your site is properly optimized and meets their guidelines before using these tools.
Before I reveal these tools and show you where to go to find out how to use them, let's take a look at the basics.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a special document formatted created to allow communication between applications and also between organizations. XML is a practical system that structurally defines the format and composition of intricate documents and data such as invoices, news feeds, inventory reports, catalog listings and other complex documents. A seasoned programmer who understands XML can easily create XML applications that know how to pull data from XML sources and then format it for presentation to end users.
In the case of Google, this same XML data format can be used to define your site's pages and their position in relation to each other. So for example, your "about_us.html" page is usually connected only one click away from your "index.html" page. When used in this manner to define pages and their positions we are creating what is commonly known as a sitemap.
Google says in the own words, "Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index. It's a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google to keep us informed of all your web pages, and when you make changes to these pages."
So in essence, Google is asking us to help them index the web by using this simple technique that will no doubt become a major help to struggling webmasters everywhere.
Google, by the way, will accept simple text file based sitemaps. Please consult their site for more information.
How to get your sitemap indexed.
Once your sitemap has been created and uploaded to the main directory of your web site, simply use this URL to submit it:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url
Just replace the parameter, "sitemap_url" with the actual URL of your sitemap. Example:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.mywebsiteabc.com/
sitemap.xml
You can also open a Google account before submitting to make sure that you can actually track your submission to check your sitemap status.
https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount
I promised to reveal the tools used to facilitate the creation of XML sitemaps and here they are...
The Tools Revealed:
SiteMapspal:
Use this Google recommended online tool to generate a Google friendly xml sitemap that you can simple cut/paste and then upload to your site. Simply provide your site URL and select a few optional settings and with one-click ease you will have a sitemap, ready to go.
http://www.sitemapspal.com/
Google SiteMap Generator:
Provided by Google themselves, this is not for the faint of heart, it requires some knowledge of working with Python scripts (a web coding format) and will requires installation on your site.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html
SiteMap Validator:
Use this Google recommended tool to validate your sitemap for accuracy.
http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/internet/google/submit-validate-sitemap/
About the author:
Certified Guerilla Marketing Coach and speaker, Richard Bailey is an Internet Marketing consultant who develops methods and technology to attract customers. Serving large and small business from Real Estate Marketing to the Chemical Industry. Contact Richard by visiting http://www.ClientByDesign.comor call 914-206-9625
Circulated by Article Emporium
Google has a preferred search submission format that it actually asks webmasters to use, It's called a Google SiteMap.
Admittedly, creating and using XML is no easy task for anyone who is non-technical or inexperienced with web coding, however there is a site or two on the web that can actually help you create an XML sitemap and then submit it to Google so that this venerable search engine can crawl your previously unknown web site and get you listed.
Of course there are no guarantees that your site will get high ranks or that it will meet Google's guidelines for inclusion, so be sure to make sure that your site is properly optimized and meets their guidelines before using these tools.
Before I reveal these tools and show you where to go to find out how to use them, let's take a look at the basics.
XML (Extensible Markup Language) is a special document formatted created to allow communication between applications and also between organizations. XML is a practical system that structurally defines the format and composition of intricate documents and data such as invoices, news feeds, inventory reports, catalog listings and other complex documents. A seasoned programmer who understands XML can easily create XML applications that know how to pull data from XML sources and then format it for presentation to end users.
In the case of Google, this same XML data format can be used to define your site's pages and their position in relation to each other. So for example, your "about_us.html" page is usually connected only one click away from your "index.html" page. When used in this manner to define pages and their positions we are creating what is commonly known as a sitemap.
Google says in the own words, "Google Sitemaps is an easy way for you to help improve your coverage in the Google index. It's a collaborative crawling system that enables you to communicate directly with Google to keep us informed of all your web pages, and when you make changes to these pages."
So in essence, Google is asking us to help them index the web by using this simple technique that will no doubt become a major help to struggling webmasters everywhere.
Google, by the way, will accept simple text file based sitemaps. Please consult their site for more information.
How to get your sitemap indexed.
Once your sitemap has been created and uploaded to the main directory of your web site, simply use this URL to submit it:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url
Just replace the parameter, "sitemap_url" with the actual URL of your sitemap. Example:
www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=http://www.mywebsiteabc.com/
sitemap.xml
You can also open a Google account before submitting to make sure that you can actually track your submission to check your sitemap status.
https://www.google.com/accounts/NewAccount
I promised to reveal the tools used to facilitate the creation of XML sitemaps and here they are...
The Tools Revealed:
SiteMapspal:
Use this Google recommended online tool to generate a Google friendly xml sitemap that you can simple cut/paste and then upload to your site. Simply provide your site URL and select a few optional settings and with one-click ease you will have a sitemap, ready to go.
http://www.sitemapspal.com/
Google SiteMap Generator:
Provided by Google themselves, this is not for the faint of heart, it requires some knowledge of working with Python scripts (a web coding format) and will requires installation on your site.
https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/docs/en/sitemap-generator.html
SiteMap Validator:
Use this Google recommended tool to validate your sitemap for accuracy.
http://www.smart-it-consulting.com/internet/google/submit-validate-sitemap/
About the author:
Certified Guerilla Marketing Coach and speaker, Richard Bailey is an Internet Marketing consultant who develops methods and technology to attract customers. Serving large and small business from Real Estate Marketing to the Chemical Industry. Contact Richard by visiting http://www.ClientByDesign.comor call 914-206-9625
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by: Glenn Murray
If there's one thing that Google loves, it's content. Done right, a content rich website is almost guaranteed to rank highly. But how to get that content? You can write it yourself, but that takes a lot of time. You can pay an SEO copywriter to write it for you, but that takes a lot of money. If only there was another option...What if you could get your content for free? And not just a little bit of content; a lot! What if you could get an almost unlimited supply of keyword rich, expertly written content, specific to your subject matter, absolutely free of charge? Would you snap it up and upload to your site in an instant? Of course you would! Well here's the good news: you can! Read on to find out how you can get a top ten ranking in the search engines without paying a single cent...
Yes, content gives you a great ranking
Content is king. This is widely acknowledged as fact, but if you need further convincing, consider the following two points:
Point 1 - In Google's own words, one of the keys to a high ranking is to "create a useful, information-rich site" (from “Google Information for Webmasters” - http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html).
Point 2 - Google insider, codenamed 'Google Guy', advocates a list 26 steps to building a high ranking site. Step 5 of the list says, "build one page of content and put online per day at 200-500 words" (from Brett Tabke's "26 steps to 15k a Day" - http://www.searchengineworld.com/misc/guide.htm, advocated by Google Guy in a WebMasterWorld QA session - http://www.webmasterworld.com/forum30/29727-6-10.htm).
But why does content give you a great ranking?
I won't go into any further detail about IF Google loves content. I will, however, briefly explain WHY. Google's love affair with content is based on two key attractions:
1) Google loves sites with a lot of content because it assumes they provide a lot of useful information. And remember, that's the whole reason Google exists - to help people find useful information. The more helpful Google's results, the more traffic (and revenue) it gets.
2) Google loves sites that have a lot of links pointing to them because this means other webmasters hold your site in high regard, and Google assumes this means the content is useful. And naturally, if you create a useful site, other webmasters will link to it because this makes them useful to their visitors (thereby developing site loyalty), and they gain credibility and authority because they're associated with you.
So how can you get free content for your website?
Three words: 'free reprint articles'. There are hundreds of thousands of people out there writing high quality, helpful, informative articles on virtually every topic imaginable, then giving these article away to any webmaster who wants to publish them on a website. In exchange for the article, the author asks only that you retain the author bio at the end, complete with all links (e.g. "Glenn Murray is an SEO Copywriter and Article Submission Specialist...).
To find free content for your website, simply visit any one of hundreds of 'article banks' on the Internet such as http://www.ezinearticles.com, http://www.goarticles.com, or http://www.articleblast.com. Browse or search for the subject you're interested in, then take the article(s) for free. There is absolutely no charge. Some of these sites will even send a regular stream of articles direct to your website (using RSS).
Alternatively, you can sign up to any number of article distribution lists and get articles delivered direct to your email inbox. Again, it's absolutely free! Some of the better known distribution lists include http://groups.yahoo.com/group/article_announce, http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Content, and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Free-Reprint-Articles.
TIP: The article banks and distribution lists mentioned above are just the tip of the iceberg. There are hundreds more - just do a search for "free reprint articles", "article submission", "article submission site", "submit article", "article submit site", "free articles", or "free content". You may even find a site or list which only deals in articles relating to your particular subject matter.
Why is it free?
Why are these authors giving their articles away? Because it helps the author's own search engine ranking. It's a promotional activity known as 'article PR'. As explained above, Google loves sites with lots of links pointing to them. Every time their article submission is published, the author gets another link to their website. In fact, if the article is really good, it may be published hundreds of times. And each time, it's another link to the author's website. Put simply, article submission is a writer's free pass to the top of the search engines. (In this sense, the "PR" in article PR stands for PageRank.)
Furthermore, like traditional public relations, article PR also conveys a sense of authority because your articles are widely published. And because you're proving your expertise and freely dispensing knowledge, your readers will trust you and will be more likely to remain loyal to you. (In this sense, the "PR" in article PR stands for Public Relations.)
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How do I know if the quality is good?
It's a process of natural selection. The better the article submission, the more often it will be published, so it's in the author's interest to write and submit articles of the highest quality. Of course, this doesn't always happen, but in most cases, you'll be reviewing the articles before you post them anyway, so if you discover one that's not up to scratch, don't use it.
In time, you'll become familiar with the authors who consistently put out good quality content - you may even find enough of them that you don't need to go looking for content from anyone else...
Where do I put the free content?
Most people put the articles in an 'Articles' or 'Resources' section on their website, but you can put them anywhere you like.
How much free content should I use?
As much as you want or as little as you want. It all depends on your needs and the needs of your audience. If your audience expects that at least some of your site is original content, then give it to them.
But what about the duplicate content issue?
It's not an issue!
There's a lot of a talk about how Google penalizes duplicate content. The theory is that when the majority of the content on two separate webpages (on different sites) is the same, the one with the higher PR will be shown and the other one will not.
Whether or not this theory is true is still a hot topic in search engine circles, but regardless, it doesn't affect people publishing free-reprint articles. When you publish the article, just make sure you have unique content around it. Generally, it's enough to have your own unique introduction to the page (which may be common to all pages), and your own navigation elements, headers, footers, sidebars, logos, images, etc.
Conclusion
Free reprint articles are a great way for you to achieve a high ranking. And you don't have to pay a cent! So what are you waiting for?
Happy reprinting!
About the author:
* Glenn Murray is a website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He owns article submission service Article PR and copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com Visit http://www.DivineWrite.comor http://www.ArticlePR.comfor further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.
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It's a process of natural selection. The better the article submission, the more often it will be published, so it's in the author's interest to write and submit articles of the highest quality. Of course, this doesn't always happen, but in most cases, you'll be reviewing the articles before you post them anyway, so if you discover one that's not up to scratch, don't use it.
In time, you'll become familiar with the authors who consistently put out good quality content - you may even find enough of them that you don't need to go looking for content from anyone else...
Where do I put the free content?
Most people put the articles in an 'Articles' or 'Resources' section on their website, but you can put them anywhere you like.
How much free content should I use?
As much as you want or as little as you want. It all depends on your needs and the needs of your audience. If your audience expects that at least some of your site is original content, then give it to them.
But what about the duplicate content issue?
It's not an issue!
There's a lot of a talk about how Google penalizes duplicate content. The theory is that when the majority of the content on two separate webpages (on different sites) is the same, the one with the higher PR will be shown and the other one will not.
Whether or not this theory is true is still a hot topic in search engine circles, but regardless, it doesn't affect people publishing free-reprint articles. When you publish the article, just make sure you have unique content around it. Generally, it's enough to have your own unique introduction to the page (which may be common to all pages), and your own navigation elements, headers, footers, sidebars, logos, images, etc.
Conclusion
Free reprint articles are a great way for you to achieve a high ranking. And you don't have to pay a cent! So what are you waiting for?
Happy reprinting!
About the author:
* Glenn Murray is a website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He owns article submission service Article PR and copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com Visit http://www.DivineWrite.comor http://www.ArticlePR.comfor further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.
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by: Lawrence Deon
One of the biggest hurdles online marketers face is web site promotion. There are literally countless ways to promote online; some are good while others are a complete waste of time.
What works? Well there are several good strategies to get your message out to your niche. Each strategy will produce different results for various niches.
Contests or Sweepstakes
Holding a contest or sweepstakes is a proven way to promote your web site. You can announce your site to hundreds of web sites that list free contests and sweepstakes.
Press Releases
One of the most powerful promotion strategies is sending out press releases about your contest or sweepstakes. Ask entrants to your contest or sweepstakes if they would accept offers from your business in the future by e-mail.
Chat Rooms or Forums
Use online chat rooms to promote your web site. Find the right chat room where your targeted audience or niche would gather. Announce to everyone in the chat room something interesting or free that's offered on your web site to attract visitors.
Always be aware of chat room rules before engaging the visitors in a sales pitch that could be considered spam.
Cross promotional enterprising
Cross promote or joint venture your web site with other sites.
I try to find other web sites that have the same target audience, but are not in direct competition with my business. It’s a sure fire method of increasing my exposure to qualified prospects.
Cross promotional enterprising with other businesses will increases your online exposure, sales, and helps beat your competition to the top of the search engine results pages.
It doesn’t matter what your promoting you’ll find businesses to cross promote and joint venture with all over the Internet.
Traffic Generators
You can easily promote your web site by using traffic generators. I’m not talking about magic bullets or hocus pocus schemes either.
They could be free e-zines, a service, e-book or contest etc. Giving away traffic generators gives you the opportunity to get free advertising by including your ad on them.
Take it one step further and make it viral. Write a short ebook and give away the distribution rights. Other webmasters are generally receptive to promote quality content! .
I sweetened the deal for my subscribers by adding a viral ebook, PPC Cash Bonanza and an issue-by-issue contest for free advertising in my newsletter, the Ranking Report.
There are literally hundreds of online directories that will also let you submit your freebie information. Remember; let other people give away your traffic generators.
Email Discussion Groups
Posting messages to e-mail discussion lists is another great way to promote your web site.
An e-mail discussion list is a group of people connected together via e-mail that can communicate with one another.
When you post a message to a list always make sure you include your signature file at the end. Include an attention getting sentence why they should visit your web site. Just like a headline. Make it provocative and compelling!
There are many more ways to promote your website. If one of these methods doesn’t work for you find another, but whatever you do… do something.
Once you've committed to taking action everything you do online from sending emails to blogging or even just surfing the web, should be motivated towards producing more visitors to your web site and referring prospects through promotional means.
Do nothing… get nothing, do a little & get a lot!
About the author:
Lawrence Deon is an SEO/SEM Consultant and author of the popular search engine optimization and marketing model Ranking Your Way To The Bank. http://www.rankingyourwaytothebank.com
Please feel free to reprint this article. An active link back to http://www.rankingyourwaytothebank.comis required. Publishers not linking back will be asked to remove this article from their site.
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by: Brett S. Lane
eMergent Marketing of Cleveland, Ohio is a bright, young search engine optimization company emerging in an industry surrounded by hype and cynicism. eMergent Marketing has expanded its SEO arsenal by offering Web site usability testing and conversion services to its clients, in order to improve the likelihood that their Internet marketing efforts have the greatest impact on consumers.
eMergent Marketing represents a whole new way of thinking about Internet marketing and eCommerce strategy. It's no longer good enough to just focus on driving Web site traffic. With growing competition and increasingly savvy online consumers, it has become critically important to attract the right site visitors in the most cost-effective manner. By offering a more complete service than most traditional search engine optimization (SEO) firms, eMergent Marketing delivers more value to its clients by leveraging the in-house usability expertise as part of the search engine optimization and search engine marketing processes.
The eMarketing experts at eMergent Marketing have been studying and practicing search engine optimization since the late 1990’s. Their proven optimization methodology has helped countless companies improve their search engine visibility in the natural search engine listings and attract potential customers to their sites.
While eMergent Marketing continues to experience rapid growth, they remain focused on providing the highest levels of customer service and communications. According to Paul Elliott, President of eMergent Marketing, “The search engine optimization industry has historically been plagued by unethical providers and those who simply do not understand the complexities of search marketing. At eMergent Marketing, we go the extra mile to ensure our optimization clients know exactly what we are doing, when we are doing it, and the results our services will produce. While no ethical search engine optimization firm can guarantee first place rankings, eMergent Marketing has achieved outstanding results for all of our organic optimization clients – a fact our clients will be happy to share with you.”
If you are currently looking for an SEO company that provides leading edge results and customer service, eMergent Marketing is the logical choice. Their combination of experienced Internet marketing professionals with Web site usability and conversion experts creates the new standard for the Web marketing industry. Contact eMergent Marketing today to learn more about the Search and Conversion Methodology for improving the return on investment (ROI) from your site.
About the author:
Brett S. Lane is an Internet Marketing Specialist for eMergent Marketing, located in Cleveland, Ohio.
Web Site Conversion & Usability Testing
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eMergent Marketing represents a whole new way of thinking about Internet marketing and eCommerce strategy. It's no longer good enough to just focus on driving Web site traffic. With growing competition and increasingly savvy online consumers, it has become critically important to attract the right site visitors in the most cost-effective manner. By offering a more complete service than most traditional search engine optimization (SEO) firms, eMergent Marketing delivers more value to its clients by leveraging the in-house usability expertise as part of the search engine optimization and search engine marketing processes.
The eMarketing experts at eMergent Marketing have been studying and practicing search engine optimization since the late 1990’s. Their proven optimization methodology has helped countless companies improve their search engine visibility in the natural search engine listings and attract potential customers to their sites.
While eMergent Marketing continues to experience rapid growth, they remain focused on providing the highest levels of customer service and communications. According to Paul Elliott, President of eMergent Marketing, “The search engine optimization industry has historically been plagued by unethical providers and those who simply do not understand the complexities of search marketing. At eMergent Marketing, we go the extra mile to ensure our optimization clients know exactly what we are doing, when we are doing it, and the results our services will produce. While no ethical search engine optimization firm can guarantee first place rankings, eMergent Marketing has achieved outstanding results for all of our organic optimization clients – a fact our clients will be happy to share with you.”
If you are currently looking for an SEO company that provides leading edge results and customer service, eMergent Marketing is the logical choice. Their combination of experienced Internet marketing professionals with Web site usability and conversion experts creates the new standard for the Web marketing industry. Contact eMergent Marketing today to learn more about the Search and Conversion Methodology for improving the return on investment (ROI) from your site.
About the author:
Brett S. Lane is an Internet Marketing Specialist for eMergent Marketing, located in Cleveland, Ohio.
Web Site Conversion & Usability Testing
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by: Monia Hassan
What is Google Sandbox?
Google Sandbox is applied on new websites, it determines the timing of site inclusion as well as ranking in Google search engine results (SERPS).
This process could take up to 6-8 months, which could be against your plans causing frustration to webmasters.
The question is what is to be done during the time in which websites are in Google Sandbox?
Do not waste time on checking your website listings in results page instead emphasize on SEO methods to accelerate your listings & improve status of ranking results.
Also make efforts to appear on other major search engines such as MSN & Yahoo since they do not have sandbox like Google, this will help drive traffic to your website while waiting for Googlebot to index your pages.
Link building strategy is another important issue not only will it improve ranking but also it will help Googlebot spider to find your pages easier while it’s in the sandbox instead of repeatedly submitting your website every time.
Content is king
Main part for ongoing development of your website is to add new content on continuous basis since the most thing search engines are after is good quality websites with relevant content.
Conclusion at the end is that waiting for Google Sandbox is nothing but a waste of your precious time; instead do some useful efforts on developing your website with relevant content & adding inbound links as a part of your linking strategy to make Google happy with what it sees as well as your target visitor.
About the author:
Monia Hassan is specialized in providing SEO services. Working for Moon Search Engine Optimization Company(www.moonsearchengineoptimization.com) specialized in SEO services.
Writing SEO articles is part of her task, to help increase people knowledge of what trends are used by search engines on an updated basis.
What is Google Sandbox?
Google Sandbox is applied on new websites, it determines the timing of site inclusion as well as ranking in Google search engine results (SERPS).
This process could take up to 6-8 months, which could be against your plans causing frustration to webmasters.
The question is what is to be done during the time in which websites are in Google Sandbox?
Do not waste time on checking your website listings in results page instead emphasize on SEO methods to accelerate your listings & improve status of ranking results.
Also make efforts to appear on other major search engines such as MSN & Yahoo since they do not have sandbox like Google, this will help drive traffic to your website while waiting for Googlebot to index your pages.
Link building strategy is another important issue not only will it improve ranking but also it will help Googlebot spider to find your pages easier while it’s in the sandbox instead of repeatedly submitting your website every time.
Content is king
Main part for ongoing development of your website is to add new content on continuous basis since the most thing search engines are after is good quality websites with relevant content.
Conclusion at the end is that waiting for Google Sandbox is nothing but a waste of your precious time; instead do some useful efforts on developing your website with relevant content & adding inbound links as a part of your linking strategy to make Google happy with what it sees as well as your target visitor.
About the author:
Monia Hassan is specialized in providing SEO services. Working for Moon Search Engine Optimization Company(www.moonsearchengineoptimization.com) specialized in SEO services.
Writing SEO articles is part of her task, to help increase people knowledge of what trends are used by search engines on an updated basis.
Do It Yourself Search Engine Optimization: How to Generate Free, High Pagerank Links Quickly and Easily
by: Kempton Smith
Here's a quick and easy search engine optimization (SEO) technique that anyone can use to generate free, high Google pagerank links to their site.
SEO in a nutshell: get quality links to your site; the higher the pagerank, the better.
The problem is that if you submit your site to a high pagerank directory or search engine, it can take months for your site to appear. Moreover, many high PR directories and search engines charge big bucks for the privilege of getting listed with them. For example, the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) directory takes several months or more to list a site. And Yahoo charges $299 per year for a commercial site to be listed in their directory.
While it's great to be listed in these directories and search engines, many will automatically find and list your site free if you have good quality links to your site. High pagerank links to your site indicate to many search engines that other sites that they rate highly link to you. Therefore, they conclude, your site will probably be useful to their users. So you deserve a higher pagerank, according to Google. And the higher your pagerank, the better your search engine visibility. It's part of the SEO game and you can learn how to play.
Now here's my secret to getting some high pagerank sites to link to you immediately and at no charge.
First you need to create a web page on your site with a list of links. You will be adding links to other sites on your links page in exchange for these sites adding your link to their link pages. So let's call this page a reciprocal links page. You don't just add any site to your reciprocal links page, however. You will be looking for high pagerank links to add to your links page. It's better if you include links to sites that are related to your products or services. To make search engines happy, limit each of your reciprocal links pages to about 50 links.
Many sites maintain their reciprocal link pages using the free LinkMan script from PHPJunkYard. If you wish, you could do the same, but it is not necessary. You can download this php script from http://phpjunkyard.com
The LinkMan script allows a site's visitors to add their links immediately after they add links to the site on their pages. So all you have to do is to find sites using this LinkMan script, add their link to your reciprocal links page, and you can immediately add your link to theirs.
Because the LinkMan script is free, the developer requires the following notice on the links page: "Powered by Link manager LinkMan 1.02 from PHPJunkYard - free php scripts."
You can find sites using LinkMan then by searching for the exact phrase "Powered by Link manager LinkMan 1.02 from PHPJunkYard" on Google, for example. Note that there are other scripts named Linkman, so you should not just search for "LinkMan". Play around with your search phrase to find also sites using earlier versions of LinkMan.
Visit some PHPJunkYard LinkMan link pages with a browser showing the Google pagerank. You will very soon come across a site using LinkMan that has a high Google pagerank. Bingo! Add their link to your reciprocal links page and then add your link to theirs. You immediately have a free link on a high pagerank site. Free instant SEO!
And that's a quick and easy search engine optimization technique you can use to generate free, high pagerank links.
About the author:
Kempton Smith is an article ghostwriter who writes interesting, useful, keyword-rich articles for internet businesses to use to promote their products or services online. Contact him at kempton at kemptonsmith.com for details. Visit http://www.kemptonsmith.comfor a free report on how to use articles to promote your web site online.
Here's a quick and easy search engine optimization (SEO) technique that anyone can use to generate free, high Google pagerank links to their site.
SEO in a nutshell: get quality links to your site; the higher the pagerank, the better.
The problem is that if you submit your site to a high pagerank directory or search engine, it can take months for your site to appear. Moreover, many high PR directories and search engines charge big bucks for the privilege of getting listed with them. For example, the Open Directory Project (DMOZ) directory takes several months or more to list a site. And Yahoo charges $299 per year for a commercial site to be listed in their directory.
While it's great to be listed in these directories and search engines, many will automatically find and list your site free if you have good quality links to your site. High pagerank links to your site indicate to many search engines that other sites that they rate highly link to you. Therefore, they conclude, your site will probably be useful to their users. So you deserve a higher pagerank, according to Google. And the higher your pagerank, the better your search engine visibility. It's part of the SEO game and you can learn how to play.
Now here's my secret to getting some high pagerank sites to link to you immediately and at no charge.
First you need to create a web page on your site with a list of links. You will be adding links to other sites on your links page in exchange for these sites adding your link to their link pages. So let's call this page a reciprocal links page. You don't just add any site to your reciprocal links page, however. You will be looking for high pagerank links to add to your links page. It's better if you include links to sites that are related to your products or services. To make search engines happy, limit each of your reciprocal links pages to about 50 links.
Many sites maintain their reciprocal link pages using the free LinkMan script from PHPJunkYard. If you wish, you could do the same, but it is not necessary. You can download this php script from http://phpjunkyard.com
The LinkMan script allows a site's visitors to add their links immediately after they add links to the site on their pages. So all you have to do is to find sites using this LinkMan script, add their link to your reciprocal links page, and you can immediately add your link to theirs.
Because the LinkMan script is free, the developer requires the following notice on the links page: "Powered by Link manager LinkMan 1.02 from PHPJunkYard - free php scripts."
You can find sites using LinkMan then by searching for the exact phrase "Powered by Link manager LinkMan 1.02 from PHPJunkYard" on Google, for example. Note that there are other scripts named Linkman, so you should not just search for "LinkMan". Play around with your search phrase to find also sites using earlier versions of LinkMan.
Visit some PHPJunkYard LinkMan link pages with a browser showing the Google pagerank. You will very soon come across a site using LinkMan that has a high Google pagerank. Bingo! Add their link to your reciprocal links page and then add your link to theirs. You immediately have a free link on a high pagerank site. Free instant SEO!
And that's a quick and easy search engine optimization technique you can use to generate free, high pagerank links.
About the author:
Kempton Smith is an article ghostwriter who writes interesting, useful, keyword-rich articles for internet businesses to use to promote their products or services online. Contact him at kempton at kemptonsmith.com for details. Visit http://www.kemptonsmith.comfor a free report on how to use articles to promote your web site online.
Do-It-Yourself Search Engine Optimization
by: Lois S.
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is big business. If you rely on search engines to bring visitors to your business website, you need to rely on more than luck. Your business will lag far short of its potential unless your site is optimized and re-optimized for search engine results.
What is search engine optimization?
SEO is optimizing your website for search engines, acquiring inbound links, and monitoring your traffic and referring links to use them optimally. SEO is also studying and monitoring your competitors’ techniques.
The goal of SEO is to bring in targeted traffic that is organic, i.e., from search results. When people type in a keyword or phrase that you’ve optimized your site for, you want your site to appear on the first page, preferably high on that page. Good SEO results in increased traffic without the cost and time spent on advertising.
The SEO industry
Where there’s a need, there’s an industry ready to help you spend money on that need. SEO firms charge from a few hundred dollars up to six-figure amounts to optimize your site for search engines.
If paying thousands of dollars to an SEO firm isn’t in your budget, consider using SEO packages to optimize your site yourself.
A combination of SEO tools is needed to get the best results. The SEO packages described below offer a variety of tools to help you optimize your site for search engines.
SEO tools compared
While we’ve listed numerous features of each SEO tool, these comparisons are summaries only.
Internet Business Promoter (IBP)
Known for their link popularity tool ARELIS, IBP also produces a three-step suite of tools to help you promote your website:
1. Page optimization
• Generate, analyze, and edit keywords
• Optimize for the top 10 search engine rankings
• Optimize the title, link texts, and other parts of the web page
• Validate the HTML
• View the site via a spider simulator
2. Page promotion
• Submit your site to search engines and directories
• Search for sites that might add a link to your site
3. Results tracking
• Verify search engine positions automatically
Price: $179.95 or $349.95.
LinksManager
Links Manager is designed to help users manage reciprocal linking. It doesn’t require any software downloads, and current links pages can be imported into it. Some of its features:
Link organization and formatting
• Organize your links into multiple categories, subcategories, and “most popular links” lists
• Store the links on your own server
• Highlight newly added and featured links
Link management and tracking
• Remove dead links temporarily via a dead link checker
• Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist
• Rotate links automatically
• Deny link submissions according to the criteria you set via a blacklist
• View the most popular keywords on your links pages
Price: $19.95 a month.
SEO Administrator
SEO Administrator automates website promotion with tools that can do these tasks:
Keywords and site visitors
• Track your site’s position for your keywords in over 30 search engines
• Report on the keyword weight and density of your site as well as of competitors’ sites
• Suggest keywords that are relevant to each page
• Analyze your site logs to find out about site visitors, keywords used, referrers, and more
Search engines and directories
• Check which pages at your site have been indexed by various search engines
• Check Google PR, the number of inbound links, and whether or not the site is listed in the DMOZ and Yahoo directories
• Show the automated descriptions that search engines display for your pages
Price: from $70 to $150, depending on the version.
SEO Elite
With SEO Elite, you can find out exactly what your competitors are doing and copy their strategies. You can find out about your competitors’ web pages:
• Keyword density and prominence
• Their headings
• Their meta keywords
• Whether their site is listed in the Yahoo directory
• Which websites your competitors are advertising on
Concerning link partners and search engines, SEO Elite can:
• Find thousands of possible link partners
• Track details about pages with inbound links
• Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist
• Indicate which of your pages search engines have indexed
• Keep a record of where your site is ranked for search terms
Price: $167.
SEOToolset
The focus of SEOToolset is to provide data to help with website promotion. The toolset includes:
Your website
• Keyword density analyzer
• Keyword selection tool
• Reports on rankings for keywords, page names, and indexed page counts
• Link partner finder
Search engines and directories
• Engine-specific keyword research
• Traffic checker for keywords
• DMOZ category selector
• Search engine submission tool
• Search engine ranking monitor
Your competition
• Keyword research summary
• Link analysis of inbound links to competitors’ websites
Price: $90.00 per quarter per site.
Web CEO
The 10 tools in the Web CEO package are designed to help you promote and maintain your website, improve search engine results, and analyze site visitors. A summary of these tools:
At your website
• Keyword research
• Website optimization
• Inbound link tracking
• WYSIWYG website editing and file uploading
• Link checking
• Website monitoring
• Stats analysis to track visitors, ad campaigns, transactions, and more
Search engines and competition
• URL submission to search engines
• Search engine rank checking
• Tracking who links to the competition
Price: $295 for one person. A free version is also available.
WebPosition
WebPosition, one of the oldest and most popular SEO tools, offers a five-step SEO process:
1. Determine your position in search engines
• Create search engine ranking reports
• Monitor your site’s placement in search engine results
2. Research and choose keywords
• Identify the most searched and least competitive keywords
3. Optimize your pages
• Compare your pages to those of top-performing sites and specific competitors
• Detect when your competitors’ pages have changed
• Be alerted to changes that could affect your site rankings
4. Design and submit your pages
• Use Page Builder and Upload Manager to design and maintain your site
• Submit your site to search engines with the Submitter tool
5. Analyze your results
• Track the correlation between search rankings and revenue
• Import top-performing keywords
Price: $149 or $349.
How to hire an SEO firm
If you’d prefer to hire an SEO firm instead, do your research. You’ll be spending a minimum of a few hundred dollars, more likely thousands of dollars for a medium-sized or larger website.
While many SEO firms are good at what they do, the field unfortunately has its share of scammers as well. They may tell you that a variety of tricks such as hidden text or cloaking will improve your site’s position in search engines. In reality, these techniques may get your site banned from search engines. More information is at these pages at Google.com:
• http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html Webmaster Guidelines
• http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html Search Engine Optimizers
If you’re considering an SEO firm, ask how they measure success. Will your site hits be organic? Look at the sites of SEO firms’ clients and the site for the SEO firm itself. Do the sites rank well for keywords at these sites? The search engine results for relevant keywords will indicate how successful an SEO firm is.
About the author:
Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.
Circulated by Article Emporium
Search engine optimization, or SEO, is big business. If you rely on search engines to bring visitors to your business website, you need to rely on more than luck. Your business will lag far short of its potential unless your site is optimized and re-optimized for search engine results.
What is search engine optimization?
SEO is optimizing your website for search engines, acquiring inbound links, and monitoring your traffic and referring links to use them optimally. SEO is also studying and monitoring your competitors’ techniques.
The goal of SEO is to bring in targeted traffic that is organic, i.e., from search results. When people type in a keyword or phrase that you’ve optimized your site for, you want your site to appear on the first page, preferably high on that page. Good SEO results in increased traffic without the cost and time spent on advertising.
The SEO industry
Where there’s a need, there’s an industry ready to help you spend money on that need. SEO firms charge from a few hundred dollars up to six-figure amounts to optimize your site for search engines.
If paying thousands of dollars to an SEO firm isn’t in your budget, consider using SEO packages to optimize your site yourself.
A combination of SEO tools is needed to get the best results. The SEO packages described below offer a variety of tools to help you optimize your site for search engines.
SEO tools compared
While we’ve listed numerous features of each SEO tool, these comparisons are summaries only.
Internet Business Promoter (IBP)
Known for their link popularity tool ARELIS, IBP also produces a three-step suite of tools to help you promote your website:
1. Page optimization
• Generate, analyze, and edit keywords
• Optimize for the top 10 search engine rankings
• Optimize the title, link texts, and other parts of the web page
• Validate the HTML
• View the site via a spider simulator
2. Page promotion
• Submit your site to search engines and directories
• Search for sites that might add a link to your site
3. Results tracking
• Verify search engine positions automatically
Price: $179.95 or $349.95.
LinksManager
Links Manager is designed to help users manage reciprocal linking. It doesn’t require any software downloads, and current links pages can be imported into it. Some of its features:
Link organization and formatting
• Organize your links into multiple categories, subcategories, and “most popular links” lists
• Store the links on your own server
• Highlight newly added and featured links
Link management and tracking
• Remove dead links temporarily via a dead link checker
• Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist
• Rotate links automatically
• Deny link submissions according to the criteria you set via a blacklist
• View the most popular keywords on your links pages
Price: $19.95 a month.
SEO Administrator
SEO Administrator automates website promotion with tools that can do these tasks:
Keywords and site visitors
• Track your site’s position for your keywords in over 30 search engines
• Report on the keyword weight and density of your site as well as of competitors’ sites
• Suggest keywords that are relevant to each page
• Analyze your site logs to find out about site visitors, keywords used, referrers, and more
Search engines and directories
• Check which pages at your site have been indexed by various search engines
• Check Google PR, the number of inbound links, and whether or not the site is listed in the DMOZ and Yahoo directories
• Show the automated descriptions that search engines display for your pages
Price: from $70 to $150, depending on the version.
SEO Elite
With SEO Elite, you can find out exactly what your competitors are doing and copy their strategies. You can find out about your competitors’ web pages:
• Keyword density and prominence
• Their headings
• Their meta keywords
• Whether their site is listed in the Yahoo directory
• Which websites your competitors are advertising on
Concerning link partners and search engines, SEO Elite can:
• Find thousands of possible link partners
• Track details about pages with inbound links
• Check whether or not reciprocal links at other sites exist
• Indicate which of your pages search engines have indexed
• Keep a record of where your site is ranked for search terms
Price: $167.
SEOToolset
The focus of SEOToolset is to provide data to help with website promotion. The toolset includes:
Your website
• Keyword density analyzer
• Keyword selection tool
• Reports on rankings for keywords, page names, and indexed page counts
• Link partner finder
Search engines and directories
• Engine-specific keyword research
• Traffic checker for keywords
• DMOZ category selector
• Search engine submission tool
• Search engine ranking monitor
Your competition
• Keyword research summary
• Link analysis of inbound links to competitors’ websites
Price: $90.00 per quarter per site.
Web CEO
The 10 tools in the Web CEO package are designed to help you promote and maintain your website, improve search engine results, and analyze site visitors. A summary of these tools:
At your website
• Keyword research
• Website optimization
• Inbound link tracking
• WYSIWYG website editing and file uploading
• Link checking
• Website monitoring
• Stats analysis to track visitors, ad campaigns, transactions, and more
Search engines and competition
• URL submission to search engines
• Search engine rank checking
• Tracking who links to the competition
Price: $295 for one person. A free version is also available.
WebPosition
WebPosition, one of the oldest and most popular SEO tools, offers a five-step SEO process:
1. Determine your position in search engines
• Create search engine ranking reports
• Monitor your site’s placement in search engine results
2. Research and choose keywords
• Identify the most searched and least competitive keywords
3. Optimize your pages
• Compare your pages to those of top-performing sites and specific competitors
• Detect when your competitors’ pages have changed
• Be alerted to changes that could affect your site rankings
4. Design and submit your pages
• Use Page Builder and Upload Manager to design and maintain your site
• Submit your site to search engines with the Submitter tool
5. Analyze your results
• Track the correlation between search rankings and revenue
• Import top-performing keywords
Price: $149 or $349.
How to hire an SEO firm
If you’d prefer to hire an SEO firm instead, do your research. You’ll be spending a minimum of a few hundred dollars, more likely thousands of dollars for a medium-sized or larger website.
While many SEO firms are good at what they do, the field unfortunately has its share of scammers as well. They may tell you that a variety of tricks such as hidden text or cloaking will improve your site’s position in search engines. In reality, these techniques may get your site banned from search engines. More information is at these pages at Google.com:
• http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html Webmaster Guidelines
• http://www.google.com/webmasters/seo.html Search Engine Optimizers
If you’re considering an SEO firm, ask how they measure success. Will your site hits be organic? Look at the sites of SEO firms’ clients and the site for the SEO firm itself. Do the sites rank well for keywords at these sites? The search engine results for relevant keywords will indicate how successful an SEO firm is.
About the author:
Lois S. is a Technical Executive Writer for http://www.websitesource.com and http://www.lowpricedomains.com with experience in the website hosting industry.
Circulated by Article Emporium
Different kinds of Keywords
by: Rakesh Ojha
Keyword can be classified into three categories :
-Single word Keyword
-Multiple word Keyword
-Keywords based on Theme
Keyword(s) are basic raw material used in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Keyword selection or Keyword Research as it is called technically, where we use special tools to find out a list of Keywords (search terms) searched by targeted audience, recently. Keyword can be single word, two or three words, multiple words and theme based.
Lets detail each of these one by one . Understanding these categories of keywords would also help one to decide as to their targeting on specific pages.
#Keyword of Single word
Keyword of Single word is used to target a large traffic but leads to highly competition category of sites. Keyword of Single word are known as generic Keyword(s) where we target general audience. Keyword of Single word does not help to target a specific page for a specific audience.
Although, Keyword of Single word helps in bringing huge traffic but these terms are mostly not relevant these days, as, searchers mostly use two or three keyword to find out their required information.
Instead single word keywords are good theme keywords.
We can use these primary keyword 5 to 7 times in a web page for good theming according of a site. The inside pages of the site can qualify these themes into product or service categories by adding qualifiers to these theming keywords.
Example:
Keyword “Services” will produce result of all the web sites related to Services which can be United States Department of Health and Human Services, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, direct Services, online Services, offline Services, Indian Services, American Services, food Services, agricultural Services, business Services, free Services, paid Services, etc.
#Keyword of Multiple words
Keyword of Multiple words is used to target a specific traffic, which leads to high sale, top position in search result listing as well as improves page rank competition. Keyword of Multiple words are known as Specific Keyword(s) where we target a specific audience & not general searcher. Keyword of Multiple words helps to target a specific page for a specific audience.
Keyword of Multiple words, more often than not are location specific and related to geographic area of your intended services or products.
#Keywords based on Theme
Keyword based on Theme are used to target a highly targeted audience, which leads to quick high sale, top position in search result listing as well as boosts page rank. Keywords based on Theme are known as Conceptual Keyword(s).
Keywords based on Theme consists all possible primary Keywords related to the web site therefore attracts high traffic of targeted audience. Keywords based on Theme add quality by providing Keyword Rich Text to search engines, which improve results and provide targeted search result listings.
Keywords based on Theme are used in each page of web site to focus on a specific topic correlated to a targeted topic or idea (theme). Keywords based on Theme effectively contribute in growth of informative pages for its site focusing on different related topics.
About the author:
I'm Rakesh Ojha and I have been into SEO field for the last 4 years. I'll be submitting more articles on SEO topics in the future.
I work as Manager - Online Marketing in an indian Firm - Mosaic Services(http://www.mosaic-service.com).
Keyword can be classified into three categories :
-Single word Keyword
-Multiple word Keyword
-Keywords based on Theme
Keyword(s) are basic raw material used in Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Keyword selection or Keyword Research as it is called technically, where we use special tools to find out a list of Keywords (search terms) searched by targeted audience, recently. Keyword can be single word, two or three words, multiple words and theme based.
Lets detail each of these one by one . Understanding these categories of keywords would also help one to decide as to their targeting on specific pages.
#Keyword of Single word
Keyword of Single word is used to target a large traffic but leads to highly competition category of sites. Keyword of Single word are known as generic Keyword(s) where we target general audience. Keyword of Single word does not help to target a specific page for a specific audience.
Although, Keyword of Single word helps in bringing huge traffic but these terms are mostly not relevant these days, as, searchers mostly use two or three keyword to find out their required information.
Instead single word keywords are good theme keywords.
We can use these primary keyword 5 to 7 times in a web page for good theming according of a site. The inside pages of the site can qualify these themes into product or service categories by adding qualifiers to these theming keywords.
Example:
Keyword “Services” will produce result of all the web sites related to Services which can be United States Department of Health and Human Services, The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services, direct Services, online Services, offline Services, Indian Services, American Services, food Services, agricultural Services, business Services, free Services, paid Services, etc.
#Keyword of Multiple words
Keyword of Multiple words is used to target a specific traffic, which leads to high sale, top position in search result listing as well as improves page rank competition. Keyword of Multiple words are known as Specific Keyword(s) where we target a specific audience & not general searcher. Keyword of Multiple words helps to target a specific page for a specific audience.
Keyword of Multiple words, more often than not are location specific and related to geographic area of your intended services or products.
#Keywords based on Theme
Keyword based on Theme are used to target a highly targeted audience, which leads to quick high sale, top position in search result listing as well as boosts page rank. Keywords based on Theme are known as Conceptual Keyword(s).
Keywords based on Theme consists all possible primary Keywords related to the web site therefore attracts high traffic of targeted audience. Keywords based on Theme add quality by providing Keyword Rich Text to search engines, which improve results and provide targeted search result listings.
Keywords based on Theme are used in each page of web site to focus on a specific topic correlated to a targeted topic or idea (theme). Keywords based on Theme effectively contribute in growth of informative pages for its site focusing on different related topics.
About the author:
I'm Rakesh Ojha and I have been into SEO field for the last 4 years. I'll be submitting more articles on SEO topics in the future.
I work as Manager - Online Marketing in an indian Firm - Mosaic Services(http://www.mosaic-service.com).
Aug 19, 2008
Creative Search Engine Optimization - A Case Study
by: Halstatt Pires
Search engine optimization this and search engine optimization that. You read and hear about it all day, but what about your site? While there are plenty of articles providing useful information, this article shows you how a real world example met with success. The point of this article is to emphasize creativity when approaching tough optimization situations.
Problems for BusinessTaxRecovery.com
In November of 2004, our firm took on the seo marketing for BusinessTaxRecovery.com. The site was being promoted through offline activities and pay-per-click campaigns. No effort had been made to achieve high rankings in Google, Yahoo or MSN.
Keyword analysis revealed that combinations of the root keywords, “business” and “tax” were going to be difficult to attack. The primary problem concerned government agencies with web sites. The IRS site, for instance, had roughly 9,680 inbound links and an absolute ton of content. State agencies weren’t far behind. The California tax agency site had roughly 7,000 inbound links and, again, tons of content.
For a final nail in the coffin, the client informed us the business was cyclical with the busiest months being January through April when people focused on taxes. The site absolutely had to rank highly during this period. We had two months to achieve results.
Gulp!
The Solution for BusinessTaxRecovery.com – 140,000 Hits
After staring at a Salvador Dali painting for a few hours, we came up with a solution. It involved a combination of internal site page focus, meta tag optimization, link exchange and massive article promotion. The results produced 145,828 hits from January through April, with only 5,000 coming from the pay-per-click program.
The first step was to change the focus of the site from the home page to the article page. Jumping the tax agency sites on keywords such as business tax and taxes was impossible in two months, so we didn’t even try. Instead, we decided to focus on the keyword phrase “business tax articles” and bring people into the site through the article page. Meta tags were optimized and a link exchange program undertaken. The key to campaign, however, was a strong article promotion campaign.
Since taxes are confusing, it seemed obvious that an article campaign focusing on tax information would meet with success. Boy, did it. Approximately 35 articles were written, published and submitted to article directories. Since the articles were timely, they were snapped up and published. The articles produced direct traffic to the site as well as numerous inbound links because of the link created in the article byline.
As for the search engines, we focused on everything but Google. We expected nothing from Google because the major content and meta tag changes would take six to eight months to show results per the usual practices of Google. In reality, it didn’t matter. The Yahoo and MSN search engines produced big time.
In mid-January, the site went to number 1 on MSN under “business tax articles.” By the end of January, Yahoo was also listing it as number 1. MSN started listing it at number 1 for “tax articles” in February. The combination of these listings produced a significant amount of traffic, conversions and a very happy client.
Can we go on cruise control now? No! With the end of the tax season, the traffic to the articles page of the site has dropped by 75%. Nobody is looking for tax information after April 15th, so this is hardly surprising. The promotion of the article page was simply a short-term solution to a difficult situation. While it should produce traffic during the first quarter of each subsequent year, it is not a year-around solution.
Over the next six months, we will focus on the long-term goal of jumping over the tax agency sites for keywords such as “business taxes”, etc. It is going to take a lot of patience, but will eventually produce a significant amount of business for the client.
Creativity is often the key to conquering seo situations. Blindly slapping up new meta tags and links isn’t always the best answer. Sometimes, a little pre-emptive consideration can yield amazing results.
It did in this case.
About the author:
Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com- an Internet marketing and advertising company. To read more marketing articles, visit MarketingTitan.com
Search engine optimization this and search engine optimization that. You read and hear about it all day, but what about your site? While there are plenty of articles providing useful information, this article shows you how a real world example met with success. The point of this article is to emphasize creativity when approaching tough optimization situations.
Problems for BusinessTaxRecovery.com
In November of 2004, our firm took on the seo marketing for BusinessTaxRecovery.com. The site was being promoted through offline activities and pay-per-click campaigns. No effort had been made to achieve high rankings in Google, Yahoo or MSN.
Keyword analysis revealed that combinations of the root keywords, “business” and “tax” were going to be difficult to attack. The primary problem concerned government agencies with web sites. The IRS site, for instance, had roughly 9,680 inbound links and an absolute ton of content. State agencies weren’t far behind. The California tax agency site had roughly 7,000 inbound links and, again, tons of content.
For a final nail in the coffin, the client informed us the business was cyclical with the busiest months being January through April when people focused on taxes. The site absolutely had to rank highly during this period. We had two months to achieve results.
Gulp!
The Solution for BusinessTaxRecovery.com – 140,000 Hits
After staring at a Salvador Dali painting for a few hours, we came up with a solution. It involved a combination of internal site page focus, meta tag optimization, link exchange and massive article promotion. The results produced 145,828 hits from January through April, with only 5,000 coming from the pay-per-click program.
The first step was to change the focus of the site from the home page to the article page. Jumping the tax agency sites on keywords such as business tax and taxes was impossible in two months, so we didn’t even try. Instead, we decided to focus on the keyword phrase “business tax articles” and bring people into the site through the article page. Meta tags were optimized and a link exchange program undertaken. The key to campaign, however, was a strong article promotion campaign.
Since taxes are confusing, it seemed obvious that an article campaign focusing on tax information would meet with success. Boy, did it. Approximately 35 articles were written, published and submitted to article directories. Since the articles were timely, they were snapped up and published. The articles produced direct traffic to the site as well as numerous inbound links because of the link created in the article byline.
As for the search engines, we focused on everything but Google. We expected nothing from Google because the major content and meta tag changes would take six to eight months to show results per the usual practices of Google. In reality, it didn’t matter. The Yahoo and MSN search engines produced big time.
In mid-January, the site went to number 1 on MSN under “business tax articles.” By the end of January, Yahoo was also listing it as number 1. MSN started listing it at number 1 for “tax articles” in February. The combination of these listings produced a significant amount of traffic, conversions and a very happy client.
Can we go on cruise control now? No! With the end of the tax season, the traffic to the articles page of the site has dropped by 75%. Nobody is looking for tax information after April 15th, so this is hardly surprising. The promotion of the article page was simply a short-term solution to a difficult situation. While it should produce traffic during the first quarter of each subsequent year, it is not a year-around solution.
Over the next six months, we will focus on the long-term goal of jumping over the tax agency sites for keywords such as “business taxes”, etc. It is going to take a lot of patience, but will eventually produce a significant amount of business for the client.
Creativity is often the key to conquering seo situations. Blindly slapping up new meta tags and links isn’t always the best answer. Sometimes, a little pre-emptive consideration can yield amazing results.
It did in this case.
About the author:
Halstatt Pires is with MarketingTitan.com- an Internet marketing and advertising company. To read more marketing articles, visit MarketingTitan.com
Creative Search Engine Optimization – A Case Study
by: Halstatt Pires
Search engine optimization this and search engine optimization that. You read and hear about it all day, but what about your site? While there are plenty of articles providing useful information, this article shows you how a real world example met with success. The point of this article is to emphasize creativity when approaching tough optimization situations.
Problems for BusinessTaxRecovery.com
In November of 2004, our firm took on the seo marketing for BusinessTaxRecovery.com. The site was being promoted through offline activities and pay-per-click campaigns. No effort had been made to achieve high rankings in Google, Yahoo or MSN.
Keyword analysis revealed that combinations of the root keywords, “business” and “tax” were going to be difficult to attack. The primary problem concerned government agencies with web sites. The IRS site, for instance, had roughly 9,680 inbound links and an absolute ton of content. State agencies weren’t far behind. The California tax agency site had roughly 7,000 inbound links and, again, tons of content.
For a final nail in the coffin, the client informed us the business was cyclical with the busiest months being January through April when people focused on taxes. The site absolutely had to rank highly during this period. We had two months to achieve results.
Gulp!
The Solution for BusinessTaxRecovery.com – 140,000 Hits
After staring at a Salvador Dali painting for a few hours, we came up with a solution. It involved a combination of internal site page focus, meta tag optimization, link exchange and massive article promotion. The results produced 145,828 hits from January through April, with only 5,000 coming from the pay-per-click program.
The first step was to change the focus of the site from the home page to the article page. Jumping the tax agency sites on keywords such as business tax and taxes was impossible in two months, so we didn’t even try. Instead, we decided to focus on the keyword phrase “business tax articles” and bring people into the site through the article page. Meta tags were optimized and a link exchange program undertaken. The key to campaign, however, was a strong article promotion campaign.
Since taxes are confusing, it seemed obvious that an article campaign focusing on tax information would meet with success. Boy, did it. Approximately 35 articles were written, published and submitted to article directories. Since the articles were timely, they were snapped up and published. The articles produced direct traffic to the site as well as numerous inbound links because of the link created in the article byline.
As for the search engines, we focused on everything but Google. We expected nothing from Google because the major content and meta tag changes would take six to eight months to show results per the usual practices of Google. In reality, it didn’t matter. The Yahoo and MSN search engines produced big time.
In mid-January, the site went to number 1 on MSN under “business tax articles.” By the end of January, Yahoo was also listing it as number 1. MSN started listing it at number 1 for “tax articles” in February. The combination of these listings produced a significant amount of traffic, conversions and a very happy client.
Can we go on cruise control now? No! With the end of the tax season, the traffic to the articles page of the site has dropped by 75%. Nobody is looking for tax information after April 15th, so this is hardly surprising. The promotion of the article page was simply a short-term solution to a difficult situation. While it should produce traffic during the first quarter of each subsequent year, it is not a year-around solution.
Over the next six months, we will focus on the long-term goal of jumping over the tax agency sites for keywords such as “business taxes”, etc. It is going to take a lot of patience, but will eventually produce a significant amount of business for the client.
Creativity is often the key to conquering seo situations. Blindly slapping up new meta tags and links isn’t always the best answer. Sometimes, a little pre-emptive consideration can yield amazing results. It did in this case.
About the author:
Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com- an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.
Search engine optimization this and search engine optimization that. You read and hear about it all day, but what about your site? While there are plenty of articles providing useful information, this article shows you how a real world example met with success. The point of this article is to emphasize creativity when approaching tough optimization situations.
Problems for BusinessTaxRecovery.com
In November of 2004, our firm took on the seo marketing for BusinessTaxRecovery.com. The site was being promoted through offline activities and pay-per-click campaigns. No effort had been made to achieve high rankings in Google, Yahoo or MSN.
Keyword analysis revealed that combinations of the root keywords, “business” and “tax” were going to be difficult to attack. The primary problem concerned government agencies with web sites. The IRS site, for instance, had roughly 9,680 inbound links and an absolute ton of content. State agencies weren’t far behind. The California tax agency site had roughly 7,000 inbound links and, again, tons of content.
For a final nail in the coffin, the client informed us the business was cyclical with the busiest months being January through April when people focused on taxes. The site absolutely had to rank highly during this period. We had two months to achieve results.
Gulp!
The Solution for BusinessTaxRecovery.com – 140,000 Hits
After staring at a Salvador Dali painting for a few hours, we came up with a solution. It involved a combination of internal site page focus, meta tag optimization, link exchange and massive article promotion. The results produced 145,828 hits from January through April, with only 5,000 coming from the pay-per-click program.
The first step was to change the focus of the site from the home page to the article page. Jumping the tax agency sites on keywords such as business tax and taxes was impossible in two months, so we didn’t even try. Instead, we decided to focus on the keyword phrase “business tax articles” and bring people into the site through the article page. Meta tags were optimized and a link exchange program undertaken. The key to campaign, however, was a strong article promotion campaign.
Since taxes are confusing, it seemed obvious that an article campaign focusing on tax information would meet with success. Boy, did it. Approximately 35 articles were written, published and submitted to article directories. Since the articles were timely, they were snapped up and published. The articles produced direct traffic to the site as well as numerous inbound links because of the link created in the article byline.
As for the search engines, we focused on everything but Google. We expected nothing from Google because the major content and meta tag changes would take six to eight months to show results per the usual practices of Google. In reality, it didn’t matter. The Yahoo and MSN search engines produced big time.
In mid-January, the site went to number 1 on MSN under “business tax articles.” By the end of January, Yahoo was also listing it as number 1. MSN started listing it at number 1 for “tax articles” in February. The combination of these listings produced a significant amount of traffic, conversions and a very happy client.
Can we go on cruise control now? No! With the end of the tax season, the traffic to the articles page of the site has dropped by 75%. Nobody is looking for tax information after April 15th, so this is hardly surprising. The promotion of the article page was simply a short-term solution to a difficult situation. While it should produce traffic during the first quarter of each subsequent year, it is not a year-around solution.
Over the next six months, we will focus on the long-term goal of jumping over the tax agency sites for keywords such as “business taxes”, etc. It is going to take a lot of patience, but will eventually produce a significant amount of business for the client.
Creativity is often the key to conquering seo situations. Blindly slapping up new meta tags and links isn’t always the best answer. Sometimes, a little pre-emptive consideration can yield amazing results. It did in this case.
About the author:
Halstatt Pires is with http://www.marketingtitan.com- an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.
Confused About Google's Index, Link Dampening, & No. of Links?
by: Glenn Murray
I recently received another 'please help' email from a gentleman named Ian who runs an adventure company in Tanzania (http://www.betheladventure.co.uk ). Ian was concerned about the effect of a variety of issues including indexing and link dampening, and was desperate for help. Unfortunately, he had read some fairly misleading articles in the past, so he had a somewhat mixed up understanding of the factors at play. Because I suspect he's not alone in his concern and confusion, I decided to publish the details of our discussion.
Ian's email consisted of several questions. I've listed each separately below, followed by my response.
Q: When I search for the number of backlinks to my site using "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", I see only 23 results. It appears that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Is there a time delay before they are credited to a site? "
A: Firstly, I think you may have the dampening link filter a little confused. According to the dampening link filter theory, your links are found and recognized by Google, you just don't get the full benefit from them until a given period of time has elapsed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) doesn't stop links from appearing in Google's results when you search for them. (The only reason your backlinks might not appear in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about things like the dampening link filter. For a start, it's far from established / accepted fact. Many well regarded SEO experts don't believe in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does exist, it only affects those businesses with the budget to generate the huge numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to trigger it. If your number of backlinks suddenly increases by 20, that's no problem.
And secondly, don't believe everything Google tells you. By searching for "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", you generally only see a small percentage of actual links to your site. The best way to search for links is to search for just the URL "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" , then on the page that displays next, select "Find web pages that contain the term "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" ". When you do it this way, you'll see all the pages that contain your URL. In most cases, the URL will be an active link (or at least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). When you do this search, you'll see that your site has about 169 links, not 23.
Q: Another question is about indexed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I understand this is a record of pages that have been changed. I had 32, it went down to 28 and now this morning it is down to 26. Do they only keep the pages for a month or is there more to the indexed pages than I realized?
A: The number of indexed pages is simply the number of pages on your website that Google 'knows about'. Theoretically, the only time the age of a page comes into play is when the page is too young*, i.e. Google spiders haven't visited it yet, or Google hasn't updated its index. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I suspect it's just a temporary shift. The number of results in Google's searches varies pretty much constantly.
*Actually, technically speaking, it has been suggested that Google is not capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be online (and the 10 million more that are added every day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are pushed out of the index. (This is a very rough description of the theory - if it's happening at all, it's likely to be far more complicated than this.) If this is happening, it may explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. Although I think it's a long shot, a good way to deal with it is to maintain high quality content, to keep increasing it, to keep generating backlinks, and to generate a Google sitemap. To find out more about sitemaps, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login . To download a free - and very useful - tool for generating a sitemap, go to http://johannesmueller.com/gs/ .
I know there's a lot of confusion surrounding these issues, so I hope you've found this exchange helpful.
Happy indexing!
About the author:
* Glenn Murray is a website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He owns article submission service Article PR and copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com Visit http://www.DivineWrite.comor http://www.ArticlePR.comfor further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.
I recently received another 'please help' email from a gentleman named Ian who runs an adventure company in Tanzania (http://www.betheladventure.co.uk ). Ian was concerned about the effect of a variety of issues including indexing and link dampening, and was desperate for help. Unfortunately, he had read some fairly misleading articles in the past, so he had a somewhat mixed up understanding of the factors at play. Because I suspect he's not alone in his concern and confusion, I decided to publish the details of our discussion.
Ian's email consisted of several questions. I've listed each separately below, followed by my response.
Q: When I search for the number of backlinks to my site using "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", I see only 23 results. It appears that only 23 of our backlinks have survived Google's dampening link filter. Is there a time delay before they are credited to a site? "
A: Firstly, I think you may have the dampening link filter a little confused. According to the dampening link filter theory, your links are found and recognized by Google, you just don't get the full benefit from them until a given period of time has elapsed. The dampening link filter (if it exists) doesn't stop links from appearing in Google's results when you search for them. (The only reason your backlinks might not appear in a Google search is if Google hasn't yet indexed the pages containing the links.) Also, don't worry too much about things like the dampening link filter. For a start, it's far from established / accepted fact. Many well regarded SEO experts don't believe in it at all. Furthermore, even if it does exist, it only affects those businesses with the budget to generate the huge numbers (hundreds or thousands probably) of links reputedly required to trigger it. If your number of backlinks suddenly increases by 20, that's no problem.
And secondly, don't believe everything Google tells you. By searching for "link:www.betheladventure.co.uk", you generally only see a small percentage of actual links to your site. The best way to search for links is to search for just the URL "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" , then on the page that displays next, select "Find web pages that contain the term "www.bethaladventure.co.uk" ". When you do it this way, you'll see all the pages that contain your URL. In most cases, the URL will be an active link (or at least it should be, and you should ask them to make it so). When you do this search, you'll see that your site has about 169 links, not 23.
Q: Another question is about indexed pages (using site:www.betheladventure.co.uk). I understand this is a record of pages that have been changed. I had 32, it went down to 28 and now this morning it is down to 26. Do they only keep the pages for a month or is there more to the indexed pages than I realized?
A: The number of indexed pages is simply the number of pages on your website that Google 'knows about'. Theoretically, the only time the age of a page comes into play is when the page is too young*, i.e. Google spiders haven't visited it yet, or Google hasn't updated its index. As to why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing, I suspect it's just a temporary shift. The number of results in Google's searches varies pretty much constantly.
*Actually, technically speaking, it has been suggested that Google is not capable of indexing all 11.5 billion pages currently believed to be online (and the 10 million more that are added every day), and that as it indexes new pages, old pages are pushed out of the index. (This is a very rough description of the theory - if it's happening at all, it's likely to be far more complicated than this.) If this is happening, it may explain why the reported number of indexed pages is reducing. Although I think it's a long shot, a good way to deal with it is to maintain high quality content, to keep increasing it, to keep generating backlinks, and to generate a Google sitemap. To find out more about sitemaps, go to http://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login . To download a free - and very useful - tool for generating a sitemap, go to http://johannesmueller.com/gs/ .
I know there's a lot of confusion surrounding these issues, so I hope you've found this exchange helpful.
Happy indexing!
About the author:
* Glenn Murray is a website copywriter, SEO copywriter, and article submission and article PR specialist. He owns article submission service Article PR and copywriting studio Divine Write. He can be contacted on Sydney +612 4334 6222 or at glenn@divinewrite.com Visit http://www.DivineWrite.comor http://www.ArticlePR.comfor further details, more FREE articles, or to download his FREE SEO e-book.
Buy Traffic – Successfully Buy from Traffic Brokers.
by: Charles Nevery
Buy traffic - There is one fast way to deliver traffic by the thousands to your website within 24 hours. Buy traffic from traffic brokers. Most traffic brokers show your website as a full page pop-under without the internet explorer bar on selected type of geo targeting and category. Today the standard website traffic categories are –
Untargeted – Untargeted traffic is usually a source of the fastest traffic and it has no Geo targeting or category. Untargeted traffic is good for sites that are not a specific niche. Such traffic is good for joke websites or dating websites.
Targeted traffic – Targeted traffic is not Geo targeted but it usually consist of a wide range of categories witch can be found here for example -
http://www.prosubmit-traffic.com/programs.html
USA Targeted – US targeted traffic is from servers that host websites in the US and target a broad range of targeted audience. S o if your website is in English and is once again like a joke website or retail website than this would be a good choice.
USA Category Targeted – US category targeted traffic in my opinion is by far the best. You can target the US geography and pick your website to show as a full page pop-under on a category specific range of websites. A wide range of categories witch can be found here for example -
http://www.prosubmit-traffic.com/programs.html
Author – Charles Nevery
http://prosubmit-traffic.com
Contact@prosubmit-traffic.com
About the author:
10 years on internet marketing/Seo
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Buy traffic - There is one fast way to deliver traffic by the thousands to your website within 24 hours. Buy traffic from traffic brokers. Most traffic brokers show your website as a full page pop-under without the internet explorer bar on selected type of geo targeting and category. Today the standard website traffic categories are –
Untargeted – Untargeted traffic is usually a source of the fastest traffic and it has no Geo targeting or category. Untargeted traffic is good for sites that are not a specific niche. Such traffic is good for joke websites or dating websites.
Targeted traffic – Targeted traffic is not Geo targeted but it usually consist of a wide range of categories witch can be found here for example -
http://www.prosubmit-traffic.com/programs.html
USA Targeted – US targeted traffic is from servers that host websites in the US and target a broad range of targeted audience. S o if your website is in English and is once again like a joke website or retail website than this would be a good choice.
USA Category Targeted – US category targeted traffic in my opinion is by far the best. You can target the US geography and pick your website to show as a full page pop-under on a category specific range of websites. A wide range of categories witch can be found here for example -
http://www.prosubmit-traffic.com/programs.html
Author – Charles Nevery
http://prosubmit-traffic.com
Contact@prosubmit-traffic.com
About the author:
10 years on internet marketing/Seo
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Automatic Website Submissions Beware
by: daniel chow
Submitting your website to search engines is the first and the most basic step a webmaster takes to get the word out about his/her new website. There was a time when this was a very long and tedious process, where one had to go through many different search engines, and submit their websites manually, but now there are many services, which promise that they will automatically submit your website, for a low cost, thereby saving you a lot of time and hassle. So are their claims genuine? Should you go with them? Or is it better to do this boring and tedious job manually? This article aims to answer these questions.
¡§We will submit your website to 10,000 search engines for only $30¡¨, ¡§Get listed in 1000 search engines for only $15¡¨, these are the sort of claims you would have probably read on many websites, offering search engine submission services. It is strictly advised against using such services, due to many reasons, discussed below.
Firstly, there are at the most 10 major search engines, which send 95% of the traffic to all websites, and the other 5% are usually free for all (FFA) search engines, which just take in submissions, and may rank your site at the top for a short period, and will lower your position as soon as a new load of submissions come in. Even if they do send you little traffic it is likely to be untargeted. It is also to be noted that most FFA search engines are topic specific. Another danger with these types of search engines is that your email address is most likely to be sold to third parties and ultimately your inbox filled with spam, and when you are going for a 1000 submissions, there is no way to find out which search engine actually sold your email address.
There are some other services which actually claim to submit your website free to these search engines, now as the saying goes ¡§there is no free lunch¡¨, they purely work with the sole intention of obtaining your email addresses for spam purposes.
Another claim made by some search engine submission services is ¡§we can get you high rankings in major search engines¡¨. This is totally untrue, and impossible. Search engine submission by these services is done by using automatic software, which opens up the site submission page, fills up the form with the help of information provided and submits it. This process has nothing to do with optimizing your website for better rankings. Some of these services also claim that they can get your entire site indexed in only a day. Once again, this is not possible as most search engines have limits on the number of pages that can be submitted to them, in a day. For e.g. with Google you can submit a maximum of five pages per day.
About the author:
www.seoassistance.com
Automatic Website Submissions Beware
copyright? SEOasssistance.com
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Submitting your website to search engines is the first and the most basic step a webmaster takes to get the word out about his/her new website. There was a time when this was a very long and tedious process, where one had to go through many different search engines, and submit their websites manually, but now there are many services, which promise that they will automatically submit your website, for a low cost, thereby saving you a lot of time and hassle. So are their claims genuine? Should you go with them? Or is it better to do this boring and tedious job manually? This article aims to answer these questions.
¡§We will submit your website to 10,000 search engines for only $30¡¨, ¡§Get listed in 1000 search engines for only $15¡¨, these are the sort of claims you would have probably read on many websites, offering search engine submission services. It is strictly advised against using such services, due to many reasons, discussed below.
Firstly, there are at the most 10 major search engines, which send 95% of the traffic to all websites, and the other 5% are usually free for all (FFA) search engines, which just take in submissions, and may rank your site at the top for a short period, and will lower your position as soon as a new load of submissions come in. Even if they do send you little traffic it is likely to be untargeted. It is also to be noted that most FFA search engines are topic specific. Another danger with these types of search engines is that your email address is most likely to be sold to third parties and ultimately your inbox filled with spam, and when you are going for a 1000 submissions, there is no way to find out which search engine actually sold your email address.
There are some other services which actually claim to submit your website free to these search engines, now as the saying goes ¡§there is no free lunch¡¨, they purely work with the sole intention of obtaining your email addresses for spam purposes.
Another claim made by some search engine submission services is ¡§we can get you high rankings in major search engines¡¨. This is totally untrue, and impossible. Search engine submission by these services is done by using automatic software, which opens up the site submission page, fills up the form with the help of information provided and submits it. This process has nothing to do with optimizing your website for better rankings. Some of these services also claim that they can get your entire site indexed in only a day. Once again, this is not possible as most search engines have limits on the number of pages that can be submitted to them, in a day. For e.g. with Google you can submit a maximum of five pages per day.
About the author:
www.seoassistance.com
Automatic Website Submissions Beware
copyright? SEOasssistance.com
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Are You Getting Nuked By Google Lately?
By: Martin Lemieux
Since the last Google update, there have been many instances and examples of the Google Nuke Bot! This is what I call it anyway. Have you visited a favorite website lately only to realize they've been nuked by Google?
More and more we are seeing internet marketing / SEO companies getting nuked, by Google completely removing them from their data banks. I am not going to mention any names because I'm sure the owners of the once populated websites already know and are embarrassed from this development.
Since the word went out on WebPositionGold getting banned from Google for automatic queries sent to Google, we are noticing other related websites going down for the count as well.
For the info on WebPositionGold, go here:
http://www.socialpatterns.com/search-engine-marketing/webposition-banned/
The things is, we already know about Webpositiongold, what about other sites that are getting hit hard? Has your site been nuked?
It seems as though, some sites that had thousands of links pointing from Google are getting hit the hardest. It seems like Google is cracking down on "spam tactics", "submission tactics", and anything related to unethical SEO practices.
Is Google Making An Effort To Uphold Their Webmaster Guidelines?
Will it come to a point where if we don't uphold the Google guidelines, we cannot be successful online? This thought is ridiculous but almost scary to think it could happen! What about website's that still hide text through same background colours? Hidden div layers? and mirror pages? Why hasn't Google attacked those issues first?
You can almost make the assumption that by Google nuking websites that send automatic ranking & link popularity queries to their data base, this may be a huge effort to relieve the strain on the query servers in order to free up some memory.
How Does Getting Your Website Nuked From Google Affect Your Credibility?
An event like this could ultimately ruin your reputation online. People who have come to trust your knowledge and judgment on Google rankings may never look at your company the same ever again. People might think to themselves "I don't want to get nuked like they did!".
How Can You Tell You've Been Nuked?
* Your Google Page Rank is now 0-2/10 and should be at least 5/10
* You have zero backlinks listing in Google anymore
* You have zero internal website listings within Google by doing (site:www.yoursite.com)
* Google's cache of your website is no longer to be found
For newer websites, don't be confused between this nuking process and your own evolution online. Getting and maintaining a high PR level takes a lot of work.
Once Nuked, Does Google Still Come Back?
The question I have for websites that have been nuked: Can you still see Google in your stat log files for your site? If so, I wonder if Google is still keeping an eye on you and watching your every move?
In Conclusion:
Stay away from programs that generate automatic queries into Google. Don't check your link popularity 3 times a week and especially don't check your search engine rankings twice a day. Just simply promote your website and measure your success through your internal website stats and monthly profits. Google doesn't appreciate websites that consistently draw their power in order to measure their success, just simply take that out of your daily actions.
Cheers to your online success!
About the author:
About The Author:
Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network who helps companies like yours to increase your business offline and online.
Smartads Internet Marketing: http://www.smartads.info
Smartads Canada: http://www.smartads.ca
Web Designers Directory: http://www.3dimentionaldesign.com
Copyright © 2005 Smartads Advertising Network - Reprints Accepted. Author resource must be included!
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Since the last Google update, there have been many instances and examples of the Google Nuke Bot! This is what I call it anyway. Have you visited a favorite website lately only to realize they've been nuked by Google?
More and more we are seeing internet marketing / SEO companies getting nuked, by Google completely removing them from their data banks. I am not going to mention any names because I'm sure the owners of the once populated websites already know and are embarrassed from this development.
Since the word went out on WebPositionGold getting banned from Google for automatic queries sent to Google, we are noticing other related websites going down for the count as well.
For the info on WebPositionGold, go here:
http://www.socialpatterns.com/search-engine-marketing/webposition-banned/
The things is, we already know about Webpositiongold, what about other sites that are getting hit hard? Has your site been nuked?
It seems as though, some sites that had thousands of links pointing from Google are getting hit the hardest. It seems like Google is cracking down on "spam tactics", "submission tactics", and anything related to unethical SEO practices.
Is Google Making An Effort To Uphold Their Webmaster Guidelines?
Will it come to a point where if we don't uphold the Google guidelines, we cannot be successful online? This thought is ridiculous but almost scary to think it could happen! What about website's that still hide text through same background colours? Hidden div layers? and mirror pages? Why hasn't Google attacked those issues first?
You can almost make the assumption that by Google nuking websites that send automatic ranking & link popularity queries to their data base, this may be a huge effort to relieve the strain on the query servers in order to free up some memory.
How Does Getting Your Website Nuked From Google Affect Your Credibility?
An event like this could ultimately ruin your reputation online. People who have come to trust your knowledge and judgment on Google rankings may never look at your company the same ever again. People might think to themselves "I don't want to get nuked like they did!".
How Can You Tell You've Been Nuked?
* Your Google Page Rank is now 0-2/10 and should be at least 5/10
* You have zero backlinks listing in Google anymore
* You have zero internal website listings within Google by doing (site:www.yoursite.com)
* Google's cache of your website is no longer to be found
For newer websites, don't be confused between this nuking process and your own evolution online. Getting and maintaining a high PR level takes a lot of work.
Once Nuked, Does Google Still Come Back?
The question I have for websites that have been nuked: Can you still see Google in your stat log files for your site? If so, I wonder if Google is still keeping an eye on you and watching your every move?
In Conclusion:
Stay away from programs that generate automatic queries into Google. Don't check your link popularity 3 times a week and especially don't check your search engine rankings twice a day. Just simply promote your website and measure your success through your internal website stats and monthly profits. Google doesn't appreciate websites that consistently draw their power in order to measure their success, just simply take that out of your daily actions.
Cheers to your online success!
About the author:
About The Author:
Martin Lemieux is the president of the Smartads Advertising Network who helps companies like yours to increase your business offline and online.
Smartads Internet Marketing: http://www.smartads.info
Smartads Canada: http://www.smartads.ca
Web Designers Directory: http://www.3dimentionaldesign.com
Copyright © 2005 Smartads Advertising Network - Reprints Accepted. Author resource must be included!
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12 Things You Really Should Know About SEO
by: James Doc Lewis
From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and "buy" traffic, by various means.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
About the author:
James 'Doc' Lewis spends much of his professional time as SEO for http://www.emeraldcoastentrepreneur.com/Emerald Coast Entrepreneur. Doc started practicing his magic long before the term SEO was even coined and continues to study and perfect methods of workable and cost effective SEO and SEM, devising unique solutions to diverse marketing challenges.
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From the very beginning of the Internet, the number one challenge which all of us have faced is how to attract qualified visitors to our websites. Throughout the boom years, one of the most popular solutions was to get massive funding, relatively easy to get in those days, and "buy" traffic, by various means.
As an iconoclastic young developer, with ambitions of beating the "big boys" at their own game, more time than money or the connections to get it, I sought a less capital intensive methodology to achieve the same results. Years of study and rapt attention to the pertinent forums, trying everything that even seemed to make sense (making many mistakes along the way, and learning much from each one), then carefully monitoring the results, has lead to many highly workable tools in our SEO bag of tricks. The outcome of these trial and error methods, (lots of both) lays the foundation of our SEO services and the basis for the ongoing growth of traffic to your website and ours.
The simple fact of the matter is this: Expertise in any other form of writing in no way qualifies one for the type of writing required to optimize a website for the Internet. There are many sites which have less than correct punctuation, grammar, and even spelling which rank #1 in their optimized search phrases. This is not to say that I don't think these things are important, only that to be found in the search engines, they are not the most important consideration.
The flip side of this argument is equally true. Just because someone knows all the ins and outs of all of the search engines, can write algorithms in their sleep, has lunches with Dr. Eric Schmidt and is on a first name basis with Larry Page and Sergey Brin, does not, in any way, make them a writer. All of the writing on this site was done as a collaborative venture between Susan K. Thompson, a professional writer with strong academic credentials and real world experience, in both business and marketing, and myself. Was there a lot of editing and re-write? Yes. Were there disagreements? You bet! Was it worth it? Look at the record.
Emerald Coast Entrepreneur was launched on May 1, 2005 with most site optimization in place and submission to the directories just beginning. With a total monetary investment of less than $100.00, and a time investment, I'd rather not think about, but which approached 300 hours, the site was given a PR5 ranking by Google on it's first update, less than 2 months after our launch.
Studies show that over 90% of all online users use search engines to find what they are looking for, whether products/services, or just plain old information.
The following twelve points will, I hope, summarize a philosophy, approach and methodology to the SEO question which is both sound and effective, along with giving some helpful insight into the industry itself.
1. Content. Content. Content.
Effective, professional, optimized Copywriting is the single, most important factor in any SEO campaign. Search engines index websites based on the content found on each page of the site. With a thorough understanding of the language and grammatical conventions combined with intensive research, to find and exploit the market focus, one can move a website to the upper echelon of the "SERP's" (Search Engine Results Page) in a methodical as well as ethical manner.
2. Analyze Web Logs.
Measure everything, at least twice, and then check again. While I would be the first to say that many of the procedures that make up website optimization are more art than science, one needs to take a very scientific approach to the results of the effort. This is done by methodically keeping a record of, and making an analysis of the sites web logs. There are a number of specialized software which make the job easier but at the bare minimum, one needs to keep a close eye on the site visitors and their activity while on the site. No matter how well planned the strategy, it is largely theoretical until proven by the results, which can only be measured by the logs, and a thorough analysis of their content.
3. No one can guarantee a #1 ranking on Google, or any other search engine.
Those who promise such feats will either optimize for such vague search term phrases (such as, "green stunted widgets with purple Polka-dots and icing") that no one will ever likely look for, or they are making a false claim, which they have no intention of keeping, or they have an inside edge at Google, something which they will loose, quickly, when the honest folks at Google find out about it. The other option, that they will take the money and run, is worth mentioning here but I'll be polite.
4. Some things are just plain silly.
You don't need to submit your site to 50,000 search engines. Businesses which offer this service are suspect, at best. 85% of the search results on the Internet come from one search engine, which, if you have one link from an established website, or better yet, a directory, will find your site just fine, on it's own. Four (4) search engines account for over 90% of the traffic on the web. As for any supposed benefit which may accrue from being listed in an obscure search engine in Botswana which specializes in safaris to the Kalahari Desert and receives 7 hits per day; well, you figure it out.
5. SEO is not Pay-per-Click.
While no one would argue the effectiveness of getting increased traffic and sales, through a well planned, pay-per-click campaign, the fact remains that the conversion rates are generally low and they cease the moment the "pay" stops. With a well planned and executed SEO campaign, while results may take a bit longer, they continue to produce, and in fact grow, long after the work is done and paid for. Quite often we have found that after a thorough optimization of a site, only minor adjustments are needed on an ongoing basis, primarily related to new content and/or new items of sale or service.
6. SEO is not witchcraft, Druidism, shamanism.
Neither does it require any special chants, ceremonial fires, or vestments, though some of us do like to howl at the full moon, on occasion. There are no "Top Secret" practices which a reputable SEO can not tell a client, a judge, or his mother, for that matter. The very nature of the Internet has always been cooperative and there is nothing about SEO that can't be learned, with a heavy dose of time and money. A reputable SEO firm will give you an item per item breakdown of just where the money goes. Be wary if you sense a secretive atmosphere or any unwillingness to answer questions. While there are technical points which might take some background to fully understand, if one has a solid overview of the entire situation, a simple explanation should be easy enough to come up with.
7. Do-it-yourself SEO.
Yes, you can execute your own SEO campaign and find a reputable SEO firm to help plan and organize it for you. About one half of my own clientele do some part of the actual work themselves, or have their in-house dedicated personnel do it, after discussion of the goals and aims of the business/website, a thorough website analysis, comprehensive search phrase research, and focused instruction on the ways and means of achieving high SERPs. These preliminaries are followed up with a detailed program of suggestions and methods which the client can then implement themselves or hire others to perform. Average savings; 30-40%.
8. Phased Implementation.
While many companies spend thousands of dollars per month on Search Engine Optimization, an alternative is available which will pay dividends to you in increased sales and leads without the high initial investment. The most important consideration is to have a reputable firm handle the initial evaluation and suggested optimization planning first. The trial and error method will cost much more, in the long run, with or without the desired result. After studying the plan and establishing a workable budget you may implement the plan as finances allow.
9. Remember the old saying, "If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is."
Never was this more true than in the realm of SEO. While concrete and measurable gains will always come from a well thought out and executed optimization strategy, the Internet is a competitive media and we all want to be number one. Accept that a steady upward movement, over time, will place you worlds ahead of a flash followed by a crash.
10. A thought to ponder.
At stake, in the race for the top, is the very existence of your website, your business, and quite possibly your reputation. Beware of any "shortcuts" or less than ethical schemes that anyone might suggest to further your business goals. When it's all said and done it is you, the business owner, who bears the responsibility for any company or individual you hire. Insist on knowing exactly what the strategy is and what steps are being performed to implement it. If it seems, in the least, suspicious, ask for and get an explanation. In this case, not only is Ignorance not bliss, it could very well be the beginning of the end for your business.
11. All incoming links are not created equal.
Both the relevance to your line of business and website subject matter and the PR value of the incoming link determine how valuable they are to your own PR ranking. With Google starting the trend, nothing new there, and most of the others following close behind, the days of grabbing all the inbound links, in any way possible, are gone. Not only will low ranked and/or irrelevant inbound links not help, they will, in fact, cause a penalty. Link farms, free-for-all link schemes, automated link accumulation software, or any other fad that doesn't carefully screen the links and websites they are coming from will, in the long run, do more harm than good.
12. It's more than just facts and figures.
The relationship between an online business and SEO is, perhaps, one of the closest of business relationships. In order to be effective, a SEO must know not only the facts and figures pertaining to the endeavor, but s/he must know something of the dreams and aspirations of the business principals. Things which don't normally come out in a prospectus are often invaluable information when searching for the "right fit" into the complex world of the Internet. My own clients sometimes ask, due to the frequency of my calls and email in the early phases, "Am I your only client?" I usually laugh and say something to the effect that until I know your business almost as well as you do, yes, you are the only one that counts.
About the author:
James 'Doc' Lewis spends much of his professional time as SEO for http://www.emeraldcoastentrepreneur.com/Emerald Coast Entrepreneur. Doc started practicing his magic long before the term SEO was even coined and continues to study and perfect methods of workable and cost effective SEO and SEM, devising unique solutions to diverse marketing challenges.
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