Article by Sam Osborne

The Internet has provided ways to revolutionize how we live our daily lives. It has crawled into the different dimensions of human lives- business, communication, information dissemination, personal relationships. People have made a paradigm shift towards using the Internet to aid them in their daily activities.

With this context in mind, many people are continuously struggling to get noticed in the world of the Internet. Websites are growing like mushrooms everywhere, every time. How can one’s website get past the millions of other websites and eventually be noticed by its target audience?

Search engine optimization aims to achieve the goal of getting more visitors to a website by helping it get higher rankings in the search engines. This simply means that search engine optimization’s goal is to make a website appear on the first pages, if not the first page of a search done through the search engine.

There are two ways to be able to get noticed by search engines. One is through pay-per-click-advertisements. A good example of a pay-per-click system that is employed by search engines is the Google Adwords system. It has created a hype and has given Google around 5 billion dollars in terms of revenue per year. Webmasters can place their bids to be shown when a keyword is searched by a surfer. The highest bidders will get their sites to appear first when the search is being done.

The second way of getting high rankings from search engines is through organic searches. Search engines evaluate websites by using what they call “spiders.” These programs scan the websites and collects information about them. They then collate the information and pass it on to the search engine. This area is primarily the main arena of search engine optimization. It utilizes a set of methods to be able to get search engines to list the website on high ranks.

Traffic

The main purpose of search engine optimization is to increase the traffic generated by a website. Websites are built to be seen by Internet surfers and search engines can help it achieve this goal.

The power of the search engine should not be underestimated. It is one of the building blocks of the foundation of the Internet. A survey showed that 90% of all Internet users employ search engines to aid them in their Internet-related activities. Google, the dominant player in the search engine industry, generates 70% of all search-related Internet activity.

People and Search Engines are alike

Search engines behave like people. They like websites which contain substantive information about a certain topic. The best sites usually appear first in search engines because people like them as well as the search engines.

Search engine optimization does not only generate traffic, it helps maintain the traffic. The behavior of the search engine is indicative to the behavior of the people who visit the website. Search engine optimization leads to the optimization of a webpage or a website. It will lead to a website which is more organized and a website which contains substantive information.

Target Audience

The use of the search engine to be able to target one’s target audience is one of the most effective Internet marketing strategies. It is not like other on-line marketing techniques (such as email marketing) which can lead to a lot of leakages in terms of targeting the right audience.

Search engines segment the market and connect the right people together. People search for topics which they are interested in and this is the main strength of search engines in connecting markets together.

Cost Effectiveness

One can do search engine optimization under the assumption that he knows what he is doing. Search engine optimization is a full-time job and has a very long learning curve. This is why most people would resort to out-sourcing the job to experts who are good at what they do. One should be cautious, however, in hiring a search engine optimization company or consultant. Factors such as pricing and service should carefully be assessed before signing a deal. If done properly, search engine optimization is a very cost effective way of getting more people to know about one’s products or to know about a certain issue or event that a website is disseminating.

SEO is very important for websites since it determines the position of the website in comparison with its competitors. It does not only generate traffic from the targeted audience but is also a cost-effective way of optimizing the website.

Article by Todd Herman

When it comes to successful website marketing, the one word that should never be invoked is “haphazard”. Instead, a deliberate approach that follows established successful marketing logic is a far better plan. This, of course, begs the question as to what rules comprise this logical, success based approach. While there are no absolutes that guarantee website development marketing success, there is a number of “tried and true” website marketing rules that will improve any strategy. These rules are worth examining.

Chart your goals – First and foremost, any website marketing strategy needs clearly defined goals along with a clear plan to achieve them. This will aid greatly in keeping any marketing plan on target and focused. For example, if you are selling a product you may have a goal of increased sales. In order to do this, you have to spell out exactly HOW you plan to increase sales. Also, the intended time frame for achieving the goal should be spelled out. This way, if you are not on target for meeting your goals, then the website development marketing strategy can be tweaked and modified. But this can only be accomplished if a clear goal is sought at the very beginning. You can’t revise something that never existed in the first place.

Keywords – More than anything, website marketing relies heavily on search engine traffic. A significant reason for this is that most people find websites through their search engine queries. This is done by plugging keywords into the search engines related to the subject they seek. As such, weaving proper keywords into the text of a website is critical to any website marketing strategy. Without proper keywords, search engine traffic will always be minimal.

Stay up to date with website marketing innovations. There have been many inroads achieved in website marketing over the past three years. The explosion of pod casting, social networking, and file sharing services has all been utilized to market websites with tremendous success. Staying current with web development marketing trends along with being open minded regarding new marketing strategies are critical for success. Yet, there are many website publishers who do not take advantage of what these new inroads offer. Sorry, but a 1998 website marketing strategy will not work in the modern era. Exploring valuable cutting edge marketing strategies, however, will give any website’s exposure a boost.

But never forget tried and true methods such as email promotions either! Email marketing to promote a website is virtually as old as the internet itself. Email website marketing has survived for so long is because it is effective if used correctly. This means a website must employ targeted emails derived from solid “opt in” lists. (Random spam emailing has long since lost its effectiveness) The email should also not be “prattle” and must include items of interest. This includes website news and updates, discounts on products and services, etc. This is a strategy that the major websites (Amazon.com, Borders.com, and Ebay.com) have all used for significant success. There is no reason why this success can not be duplicated by other websites.

Create a solid website. Ok, you have drawn traffic to your website….now what? Any website marketing strategy is only as strong as the website itself. If the website is poorly designed, difficult to navigate, not user friendly or just downright boring people will leave it soon after they arrive. As such, it is critical that any website being marketing be properly designed or any web development marketing strategy employed will be doomed to failure. If there was a golden rule to website marketing it would be this!

As you can see, there is no “magic” to proper web development marketing. There is simply a common sense approach that applies logical rules to enhance success. While this isn’t always easy, it is never difficult either.

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Article by Sean Milea

Online Business Do’ and Don’ts for New Businesses.

Many people take the risk of launching an online business. Some succeed, and some don’t. There are many factors contribute to the success, or lack thereof, of a new online business. Every would-be entrepreneur has to have patience, creativity, knowledge in their field, and be willing to do something different to set his business apart from the pack. Here are some tips to make your first online business a success:

1. Set a reasonable timeline for success. The current mentality of instant gratification does not apply to online businesses. Many first time entrepreneurs expect too much right out of the gate, only to be disappointed. Set realistic goals, and a realistic timeline to accomplish them.

2. Budget time for site maintenance. Your website is your storefront; keep it attractive and updated so shoppers don’t pass you by. If you don’t take the time to update your site, you could damage your credibility, lose consumer interest, and make your own product stale. Continuously update the content of your site; it might help you develop new marketing strategies along the way to success.

3. Know your competition. Competition will keep you on your toes, and there’s plenty of it to be had online. Online businesses come and go, and it’s important to learn from others’ mistakes. You also need to know who else is vying for your consumers’ attention and dollars. There’s nothing that can’t be benchmarked, unless it’s trademarked. Look at marketing strategies, and ask yourself why a certain site caught your interest, or why a certain business appealed to you. Use your consumer perspective to best your competition.

4. Do more, and do it better. Everything about your business should be creative and unique. If you go with the proverbial flow, you’ll flow right out of the marketplace. You started your business because you thought you had something unique to offer consumers; find a unique way to present it to them, too.

Seo and gaining top position are in minds of lots of web masters. Everybody tries to get to search engine’s first page in order to be able to sell their product and service.

Natural Search engine optimization is the process that is used to enable any given web-site to feature in the natural leads to search engines. It is process that can be categorized in to six phases: on-page optimization and off-page optimization. Web pages can be optimised with organic SEO techniques that make definite your web-site conforms to any or all the necessary criteria, so serving to it to gain a higher organic search position. On-page Optimization deals with the organic Search engine optimization strategies that are sometimes utilized on the pages of an online site to optimize it. Lots of and additional corporations are finally beginning to perceive the benefits of organic SEO, so whereas it may not appear as simple as different strands of promoting, I do think it is the right beginning point for any self respecting business. Firms that practice true “organic SEO” can observe the net site itself and say “How will they tend to generate this web-site something that alternative sites would require to link to.

Organic Search engine optimisation or Organic Search engine optimization nowadays requires a multi level approach and a few firms developed a range of fabulous value for money expert SEO Services to cater for the organic seo needs of all business varieties from startups to high finish companies. On page Optimizationcontainsthe organic Search engine optimization strategies that are usually utilized on the pages of a web-site to optimize it. Off-page Optimization involves the ways that are usually utilized off the pages of a web-site to optimize it. A groundwork engine optimization company usually falls in to one among 2 camps. A “White Hat” search engine optimization corporation can utilize a largely content-based mostly approach and won’t violate the terms of service of the main search engines. A “Black Hat” search engine optimization corporation can apply a chiefly know-how driven approach and often take no notice of the terms of service. However a research engine optimization company that takes the word “organic” literally believes that the “Black Hat” approach is something but “organic Search engine optimization. An enquiry engine optimization corporation that is practicing “organic Search engine optimization” recognizes this reality and can refuse SEO work when prospects insist that content addition is not an option.

Google wishes its search results to become additional pragmatic, not for any political, social or even intellectual reason. Leading search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN have their own set of rules – often called search engine compliancy – which they utilize to see a site’s relevancy based on the information it finds therein. To check the idea for yourself, visit Google and try your listings for a person’s main merchandise and services. “The vital issue to note is that when an organization first gets listed on Google’s 1st page, the traffic in the primary 2 months goes up virtually exponentially, and exchange rates conjointly improve strongly. Organic search engine optimization utilizes selected simple and moral tricks to generate a person’s web-site or sites appeal to the algorithms and spiders employed by Google and other major search engines. It looks to me that non-profits utilize the net in the way that works well with Google, at the least.

In organic Search engine optimization, tiny, simple changes can often generate a huge impact on your traffic. Another advantage of organic Search engine optimization is that it s not plagued by advertisement blindness. However the same token what works today for organic Search engine optimization might not work tomorrow, however the character of getting to rank a diverse choice of web-sites means that it will be next to impossible to absolutely eradicate the impact of organic SEO while not impacting the bulk of a person’s results. I hope that organic SEO can be around for some time.

How can Search engine optimization corporations undertaking prime 10 rankings whereas others bulk at even the notion that the Search engine optimization client ought to receive anything in come back different than a statement of labor and at the tip of the month some of fancy reporting regarding hours spent on link building, editorial submission and alternative seemingly vital search engine optimization tasks. The reality as continually is between the 2 different camps of Search engine optimization companies who either certification prime ten rating or don’t. Therefore, why a few Search engine optimization companies offer performance certification, while other Search engine optimization firms don’t?

The difficulty is basically faith . The trust by the purchasers placed in to the hands of the Search engine optimization companies to try to to the most effective they will to recognize the first page rating results they were employed to deliver. Therefore, it comes right down to which business will sound additional convincing on their web-site touting their SEO services with fancy graphics, client case studies, testimonials, badges of affiliations with SEO managers and being associate of higher business agency.

Hi All
I have asked a similar question for SEO onsite optimisation and would really like to know what offsite seo is all about – From what I gather its just link building but is it any sort.

Hope this makes sense

thanks in advance

Article directories have recently become very popular. There are over 600 directories on the Internet and more are appearing every day. Unfortunately, the average life of a new directory site is about three months. Within six months, over 80% of them will close their doors. I suppose it is because they were not making as much money as they hoped. Or perhaps it is because these sites are fairly time intensive, requiring an editor to review each article before it is published. It is probably a combination of these two factors.

For that reason, it is important to submit your articles to the best article submission sites. These are the biggest directories that have been around the longest and have the highest Page Ranks. I have submitted a number of articles on this subject in the past. In this article, I want to talk about backlinks and getting your website listed on page one of the search engines.

Backlinks are very important if you want to improve your website’s Page Rank. The Page Rank of your website is one factor that determines popularity of your site. The more popular your site, the higher it appears in search results. The most popular site will appear as the first listing on page one of a search. The second most popular site will get the second listing, and so on. Ideally, you want your website to appear on the first page of search results. This can bring you tons more traffic than if your site shows up on page 150 of search results. If your site appears on page 150, you will see little if any traffic from the search engines.

One way to improve your Page Rank is by getting links from larger Page Ranked sites that point back to your website. An easy way to accomplish this is by submitting articles. Each time you submit an article, the article directory will post your links on their site.

But, it does you little or no good to list your articles with directories that have low Page Rank numbers. That is why it is important to submit to only the best article submission sites. I classify the best submission sites as directories with a Page Rank of 4 or higher. (The Page Rank of the article directory must be higher than the Page Rank of your own site.)

By consistently submitting articles to The Best Article Submission Sites, you will see the Page Rank numbers of your site slowly improve. And, as your Page Rank improves, your site will creep up in search results and you will develop more search engine traffic.

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Many people think that getting a website on the internet is an automatic ticket to fame, increased traffic and three-fold increase in sales figures. Alas, if they only knew that they are only at the bottom rung of a rather long ladder. Getting your business online is different from creating a website. To get your business online, you have to market it appropriately. You have to take certain definite steps towards attracting dedicated traffic which will in turn get converted into a huge customer base. Then you can truly say that you have arrived!

The first step in online website marketing is to get the word out. People must know that your website exists. If you already have a brick and mortar shop, then the best way to start publicizing your website is to let your regular customers know that they can simply shop online. Your regular customers will be delighted, particularly if you give them an added incentive like a free gift or a small discount. You may enhance your online presence through ads in your local papers, word of mouth and yellow page listings.

However, if your goal is to reach out to a global customer base, then, you have to get into online website marketing in a more serious manner. One of the options is to make use of the services of online marketing firms. These firms have the expertise to provide complete business solutions to small businesses. They are experts in Search Engine Optimization techniques. Thus, they will incorporate code into your website that will help you claw your way up in search engine rankings. These firms will also go a step further and link your website with the important search engines, so your web presence will become conspicuous. In short, they will place you somewhere at the top of search engine listings. But they are pricey.

If you do not want to use the services of a firm, you could do a large part of website marketing by yourself. The first thing to remember is to let your viewers know what your business is about. A well laid out website is the best way to do this. Good design, cutting edge technology and helpful tools will help you attract customers.

The next step is to woo search engines so they peg you on top of their listings. There are many ways you can do this, but each of these steps requires persistence. Do not expect online website marketing to yield immediate results.

To attract search engines, your code must be search engine optimized:

* Include title and meta tags in your pages.

* Link your pages well.

* Use descriptions when you insert images.

* Use a sitemap because search engines love sitemaps.

* Update your content every few days because fresh content attracts search engines.

The next important tool in your kit is social media networking. This is nothing but logging on to Blogs and discussion forums related to your website, and posting on them. This way, you attract the notice of prospective customers, who will follow your link back to your website. Also, build and maintain relationships with products and companies that are associated with your products. They will link to you and you can return the favor. Use video and audio effectively on sites like YouTube where millions of people come. Do everything to build your network online.

Making money through your website is possible when you get involved in effective online website marketing. Just check out your best competitors and find out what they are doing. Duplicate it with some extra effort and you could easily become #1 in your niche!

Article marketing can reward you with a number of significant benefits. If done properly, it can generate monthly income for your online business. It can bring in loads of traffic. And it can improve the Page Rank of your site. But, if you just write one or two articles a week, you will not accomplish any of these goals. You have to write at least four to five articles a week (one a day would be better and three a day would be best) and you have to submit your articles to the best article submission sites.

What do I mean by the best articles submission sites? For the most part, these are the largest article directories, and usually include sites with a Page Rank of four and above. It does you little good to submit your articles to a site that gets little traffic.

That is why it is important to track your articles and check on the number of page views that your articles are getting once a month. If the article directory allows you to check your article stats, do so. Using that feature, you can determine the number of page views your articles are getting. If your articles are receiving few, if any, page views, stop submitting to them and submit to another.

If the article directory does not have an option to check your stats, a good stat counter can supply you with that information if you are linking your articles to your website (and you should be).

In addition to submitting your articles to the best article submission sites, you should also submit them to a number of directories that are related to your niche. Normally, these sites will attract people that are actively looking for information on a particular subject. If you are promoting a product or your website, this is a very good place to submit articles to generate interested prospects.

So, in closing, do not submit articles to the very small or new directories. Submit them where it will benefit you most. Send them to the best article submission sites. That way, if the articles are well written. You know that you will get your fair share of page views.

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Of all the areas of Internet Marketing, Search Engine Optimization is the most misunderstood, and potentially the most important to your marketing efforts. There are millions upon millions of pages of web content out there — you can work hard, build a great site, and then be totally lost in the shuffle. SEO is important. It’s also a very complex process that requires patience, careful planning and a long-term approach.

If you’re just getting started with:

Selecting an SEO firm

Trying to start a search engine campaign on your own

Reviewing your current SEO efforts

…read on. This article should provide you with a high-level review of the SEO process, dispel a few SEO myths, and help you understand legitimate optimization strategies.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Search Engine Optimization, or SEO, defies easy definition. But here’s a short version:

Search Engine Optimization
Using keyword analysis and other legitimate practices to gain the highest possible search engine and directory rankings, under a given key phrase, for a given URL.

Every SEO professional in the world just cringed, so I’ll break this definition down a bit and hopefully prevent a hail of angry e-mails:

Keyword Analysis is the process of mining keyword search data to find the best balance between the keywords you need and the best potential search niche. More on this later.

Search Engine means an automated search engine. ‘Search Engines’ include Google, AlltheWeb.com, Yahoo (powered by Google plus their own directory information), AOL Search, Ask Jeeves and MSN Search. A search engine obtains its results from ‘spiders’ or ‘bots’ — small programs that come to your web site read it in much the same way you would: By reading the content on a page, and then moving from page to page via links. A directory, on the other hand, is built at least in part by human beings reading sites and other information and deciding where each site fits into the directory structure. Yahoo’s directory area and Open Directory are both examples of directories.

Ranking is the numeric rank reflecting your position in the results list when someone performs a search on a particular set of keywords.

Highest Possible means getting as close to number one as you can. Sometimes you just can’t get that number one spot. Maybe someone else has a 400-page web site solely dedicated to the key phrase for which you’re attempting to optimize. Or maybe they’re paying a fortune in advertising. That’s life, sometimes…

Key Phrase is the keyword or set of keywords someone types into the little ‘search’ field in Google or Alta Vista or any other search engine.

A URL is the address of one page on your site. Most search engines display keyword search results and provide a link directly to the page most relevant to those results, rather than your home page. It’s very, very important to keep that in mind when you build and optimize your site.

Legitimate Practices is a pet peeve of mine. A true search engine optimization campaign will not use practices such as page or content cloaking, redirects, or lists of links (so-called ‘link farms’) but relies on good coding practices, well-written content, steady link popularity work and site features that will be every bit as valuable for site visitors as for search engine ranking. Anything less is a short-term fix that will likely reduce your rankings more often than increase them.

So, the long version of the definition would be:

Search Engine Optimization
Using keyword analysis, good coding practices, well-written copy, link popularity analysis and careful site organization to move a web page as close to the number one search results position as possible for a given key phrase, in both search engines and directories.

Hey, that’s not so bad after all. But how do you get started? First, you separate reality from myth…

SEO Urban Legends

There are quite a few SEO myths out there. Here are my favorites:

The Keywords META Tag Matters. Mostly wrong. Only Inktomi pays any attention to the keywords meta tag. You should do something basic, but don’t bother putting in keywords that aren’t supported by your page content.

Search Engines can read Flash, images and video. Sorry, and Ford isn’t selling a flying car yet, either. Search engines can read one thing: Text. Anything else, while perfectly legitimate as a design tool, will not help your ranking. And relying too heavily on Flash or images may reduce your site’s visibility. Google is one partial exception — they can read some links in Flash, but still have very limited ability to read Flash content.

Mirroring my site in multiple locations will improve ranking. Actually, just the opposite. Duplication of content will generally have no effect or, worse, reduce your ranking in major search engines. Most search engines now have rules against this form of ‘spam’ and may reduce your ranking or ban your site altogether.

‘Doorway’ pages improve ranking. Pages that have lots of keywords but then quickly redirect to the main site will not help you in major search engines, such as Google. And, if someone catches you and reports you to Google or the other search engine, you may be banned altogether. A ‘landing’ or ‘bridge’ page, though, that’s designed to be as useful for users as for search engines, and does not redirect the user, can help by providing keyword-rich content that’s genuinely worthwhile.

Firms promising to get me #1 rankings in 10,000 search engines for $99.95 can help. I alternate between tooth-grinding and hysterical laughter when I see these ads. First, there aren’t 10,000 search engines. Actually, there are probably 10-20 you should really worry about. Getting listed in the other thousand or so is largely a waste of time. Second, no one can guarantee any ranking in any search engine for a specific keyword. Period. And finally, the price is less than half the cost to get an express submission in a single directory (Yahoo). Chances are anyone trying to get you to spend the $99.95 is operating a ‘link farm’ where they list dozens, or hundreds, of sites. While they won’t hurt your ranking, they won’t help, either. To learn more about how to choose an SEO firm, check out Google’s article: http://www.google.com/intl/mr/webmasters/seo.html.

Firms charging me more money and guaranteeing a #1 ranking on Google can help. This is the latest SEO scam. I can get you a number one ranking on Google, too, as long as I get to pick the keyword or can get you ranked under a fairly unique company name. But no one, and I mean no one can guarantee a #1 rank under a specific keyword. Even Google says so.

Forget the myths — if an offer seems too good to be true, it is. The truth is that search engines are now almost savvy enough to read your pages like a human being would, so anything that will drive away a typical site visitor will also probably reduce your ranking. Things that will increase your search engine ranking include:

Well-written content

Good, clean HTML code

Useful, relevant TITLE tags

Useful, relevant DESCRIPTION tags

Relevant, appropriate links from other web sites

There are some basic steps that, well executed, will do more to increase your page rank than an ocean of snake oil.

The SEO Campaign Process

A typical SEO campaign starts with keyword analysis, and then emphasizes insuring your site doesn’t impede search engine bots and follows up with ongoing link and traffic analysis. If you like pretty pictures, here’s one:

 What’s a Bot?
A ‘bot’ is a program used by a search engine to read the content of your site into a directory. I mentioned this briefly in ‘What is Search Engine Optimization?’ above. Keep up, now….

Step 1: Keyword Analysis. Ah, keywords. If you say the right word enough times on your site, you’ll get that coveted #1 spot, right? Wrong. Choosing the right keywords starts with you making a list of the keywords or phrases under which you’d like to be found, and typically ends up somewhere completely different. Typically, selecting the best keywords is a four-step process:

List the keywords and phrases under which you’d like to be found.

Find out whether anyone searches on those keywords, and whether they’re searching for relevant items.

Find out how many other sites are struggling for rankings under those keywords.

Pick keywords with the same meaning but a better search-to-competition ratio.

Maybe I want to rank #1 under ‘Search Engine Optimization’. Guess what? There are 686,000 other URLs in Google trying for that spot. Hmmm. But wait! Under ‘Seattle Search Engine Optimization’ there are only 19,000. So, I targeted that key phrase, instead. And guess what? We got a #3 ranking.

Don’t forget about relevance, either. If you want a high ranking under ‘tires’, you’re going to have your work cut out for you. And in the end you’ll likely end up getting found for ‘bicycle tires’, ‘automobile tires’, ‘spare tires’ and who knows what else. Is it worth it? Sometimes yes, sometimes no. But you have to do your homework to find out.

Data Mining and Keywords
If you’re doing a campaign for a large site, you may end up testing and comparing thousands of keywords and phrases. Having a good data-mining tool (even Excel will do) on hand is important when you’re doing keyword analysis. We use S-Plus, by Insightful Software. It’s saved our lives, and clicker fingers, several times.

There are several tools that help you research the number of searches and competitors for keywords. Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) is a good one — don’t depend on their results from Overture, though, unless you’re specifically preparing an Overture campaign. Metacrawler’s MetaSpy tool is worth a look, too. Ideally, look at results from a few different sources.

Keyword analysis is the hardest part of a campaign, in number-crunching terms. It requires a lot of work and may not tell you what you want to hear. But in my experience it’s critical to a successful campaign.

Step 2: Search Engine Readiness. Almost every web site we review has one or more problems that will prevent search engine bots from properly reading all content. Typical showstoppers include:

An all-Flash or all-images home page

A home page that automatically redirects to another page

Pop-up ads (does anyone really read these things?)

A site full of pages with fewer than 400 words on a page

Broken links

Navigation that is generated by JavaScript

No TITLE or DESCRIPTION tags

A major step in any SEO campaign is making sure that the site will present the friendliest profile to search engines. Happily, the investment in optimizing will also pay off in a faster, more universally compatible site.

Step 3. Content and Site Preparation. You’ve done your research: You know which keywords match your message, and your site’s HTML code is one big search engine welcome mat. Now it’s time to make sure that your site contains those keywords. This is where I most often see folks get confused — should you rewrite your web content to emphasize keywords? Yes, but with extreme caution. Should you make small, appropriate changes? Yes. Here are my guidelines for content preparation.

Don’t write for keywords (much). This almost always leads to stilted, hard-to-read prose. Writing keyword-rich content that really works for users is an art form. Be careful.

Do a little careful editing. If you use the word ‘car’ but ‘auto’ is the keyword you need, chances are you can do a few replacements without marring your carefully crafted copy.

Spend time on the titles and description tags. Make sure every page in your site has a unique, relevant TITLE and DESCRIPTION tag.

Never use an automatic page generator. Tools like WebPosition Gold offer to generate optimized pages for you. Don’t. They tend to hurt your ranking as much as help, and they generate ugly, ugly pages.

Write more stuff. More content is almost always better. If your site is just missing a specific keyword or phrase, but you think it’s important, then your potential customers probably do too. By adding a few more pages, or a white paper, or some other content focusing on those absent keywords, you’ll likely help visitors and improve your keyword ranking at the same time. And, the more text-rich your site is, the better the odds that you’ll catch longer, stranger but really important key phrases that you can’t anticipate.

Step 4. Link Analysis. Quite a few major search engines (Google, most importantly) weigh your ‘link popularity’ when ranking your site. A more accurate term, though, is ‘link analysis’, because these engines don’t just count up the number of links to your site. They look for links near and containing relevant text. So a page full of links, one of which happens to be yours, won’t help very much. But a link from a related site, near a short paragraph that contains relevant keywords, will probably give you a boost. Having keywords in the link itself is even better. A quick example:

http://www.portentinteractive.com doesn’t help much.

For search engine optimization, visit http://www.portentinteractive.com is much better.

For search engine optimization, visit Portent Interactive where ‘search engine optimization’ is the link to Portent, is the absolute best case.

There are a few ways to build your link popularity:

Contact sites that relate to yours and request a link exchange. This works really well, but obviously takes a long time.

Syndicate your content. If you can provide an easy way for interested webmasters to link directly to relevant stories on your site, you provide an instant link popularity boost, and get your message out to boot.

Start an affiliate program. If you sell a product, consider setting up an affiliate sales program.

Google’s ‘One Site, One Vote’ Rule
Google awards a lot less weight to a link to your site if that link is on a page with lots of other links. That’s why so-called ‘link farming’ doesn’t work. Ideally, you want a link to your site from a page that includes relevant content and not that many other outgoing links.

Step 5. Submit your site. Many search engines, Google included, allow you to submit your site for free. Generally you can submit your home page and let the search engine crawl the rest of your site. Some directories and engines offer paid ‘express’ services, and some, like Teoma, require that you pay for URL submission. Which engines you choose depends on your budget and campaign.

Step 6. Review, Revise, and Keep Going. Think you’re done? Wrong — search engine optimization is an ongoing project. At least once per month, review your rankings, site traffic reports and link popularity and tweak your site as necessary. The tools you need to measure results are:

Site traffic reports. Any web hosting company should provide you with a web site traffic report, and almost all of the reporting tools in use today provide a ‘referrals from search engines’ section. Take a look at this section for a good measure of campaign results.

Link counts. Use the link: command on Google (see above) to determine your link popularity.

Your keyword list. Search on the relevant search engines to see if your ranking has improved.

Your brain. You have to interpret what you see, and decide whether changes are warranted. There’s no hard and fast rule for this, and no magic formula. Sorry about that…

So now you’ll get instant results, right? Well, not quite…

A Word About Expectations

Search engine optimization can take time. Even Google only refreshes its entire index once a month, so don’t expect instant results.

If your first registration run doesn’t generate increased rankings within a month or two, don’t panic. Look at your site traffic and search on the keywords you chose. Make sure that the search engine you’re checking actually includes your site, too — most likely the bots just haven’t gotten around to ‘crawling’ your site.

Still stumped? Find a professional. Sure, we cost money. But you may have missed something about your site that’s preventing a good keyword rank, and a second set of eyes can help.

A Solid Marketing Strategy

Obviously, Search Engine Optimization is a big job. But nothing can send more traffic to your site, for lower per-click cost. If you follow the basic steps, and keep at it, you will definitely get results. What’s really, really important is to make sure you don’t award too much weight to one step (such as link popularity) at the expense of the others. A well-rounded campaign will provide solid, long-term results.

What about pay per click?
Pay-per-click services, such as Overture and Google Adwords, are very different animals. If you’ve done your keyword analysis you’re halfway there, but there are other tasks. I’ve not talked about them in this article because, well, they need an article of their own. Check back soon…

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is now a big business in the web world. Today, thousands of SEO companies have come up to tweak websites so that they rank top position in search engines. How to find out the right SEO firm in the market? Here are few tips to help you decide correctly.

SEO Firm Rank

A good SEO Company should work on the website design and content to make it popular among the target audience. It should get quality traffic, increase sales, invite prospects, get quality inbound links, and similar such proactive promotional results. To find out if the SEO firm is good at its work, check out the ranking of the SEO firm itself.

A start up SEO firm would not have a ranking. To a large extend it shows that this firm does not have the portfolio to show the work it has done. In short, if you find that the SEO firm does not have a good online presence in the search engines, don’t choose that firm to tweak your website.

Client’s Feedback

What effectively matters is the client feedback. As SEO does not have concrete steps to get be successful but requires a series of trials, edits, and changes to be thriving, it is important what the client feels about the website work it has done.

Testimonials show how well the firm has done its job. If you are looking for the right SEO Company for your website, read through the articles, discussion forums, social networking write ups, and blogs.

If you are an active member of a social networking site, don’t forget to ask your colleagues and other members about the SEO expert in the market.

Portfolio

An efficient SEO Expert firm would not hesitate to show the portfolio of the websites it has worked on in the previous assignments. You can get first-hand knowledge of their real performance. Check how well these websites have ranking in search engines.

An SEO team which has stayed in business for a long time would have a number of good websites to show. Check out the types of websites they have worked on. Was it content-centric or website design-centric? A good team would ideally show all the aspects of optimization and have notable websites to illustrate its skills.

Time, Project Deal, Tasks

It also matters to check the time for which the firm had been hired for the website. Was it on an hourly ongoing basis or was it a one-time project deal? Do check out the steps for the optimization procedure or the tasks that the firm plans to do for a particular amount of remuneration.

Tactics

Find out the White Hat techniques followed by the firms and ask what they have to say on tackling the dubious techniques. Instead of being banned by search engines, your website should get promoted by the SEO experts in a way that it maintains its top ranking position in the market for a long time to come. Check these aspects, steps they plan to do against the price they charge, and type of monitoring they plan to do, before finalizing an SEO company.