Saturday, June 7, 2008 

Search Engine Optimization --- An Overview

Search engine optimization is one of most popular online marketing tool for any website. With most websites looking forward to increasing the online sales of their products/services, search engine optimization can be a very cost-effective tool to target and procure your customers online. In this paper, we will discuss about search engine optimization, its benefits and how you can optimize your website for top search engine rankings.

What is search engine optimization?

Search engine optimization (also known by various other names like search engine ranking, search engine promotion, website promotion, SEO etc.) is a method through which a website is given top rankings in various search engines. According to a recent industry study, 1 in every 20 people go to the second page of search results pages, but only 1 in every 100 people go beyond that. So, by top search engine rankings, we mean that your website should be within the first two pages of the search results, preferably in the first page (i.e. within top 10 rankings).

2. What are the prime benefits of search engine optimization?

Top search engine rankings result in more pre-qualified business leads coming to your website which in turn can convert to greater sales for your organization.

Search engine promotion is one of the cheapest methods of advertizing for your organization. Compared to advertizements in the newspapers/magazines or in the television, search engine promotion costs many times less and can bring more traffic to your websites, thereby providing greater ROI.

Search engine optimization enhances online brand identity of your organization.

3. What are the key factors for your website to have top search engine rankings?

Search engines change their algorithms frequently, thereby forcing the search engine optimization companies to re-strategize their search engine optimization techniques. However, the following attributes are basic and play a major role in procuring top search engine rankings.

a. Keyword Research Keywords play the most vital role in your search engine optimization campaign. Keywords (can be 1, 2, 3 or more words) are the search terms which a surfer types in the search box of a search engine to reach your website. Let us consider that you are an India-based Outsourcing consultant interested in optimizing your website for top search engine rankings. The following are some of the keywords which surfers will type to reach your website -

Keywords

bpo

bpo india

bpo outsourcing services

business outsourcing services

business process outsourcing

offshore companies

offshore outsourcing

offshore outsourcing services

offshore services

outsource india

outsourcing companies

outsourcing consultants

outsourcing india

outsourcing services

outsourcing services company

Keyword research tips

  • Always target keywords that best describe your products/service.

  • Try to find multiword potential keywords compared to single keywords.

  • Try formulating keywords which give answers to as why/how/what .?

  • Utilize your server log files to know what your customers searched most while visiting your site.

  • Use keyword generator softwares like Wordtracker (http://www.wordtracker.com) or Overture (http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/)

  • Include popular common misspellings (e.g. viagra typed as viagara etc.) in your keyword list.

b. Title of the webpage - - Title has a deep impact on your websites search engine rankings. Experience shows that most companies use the following as title of their index page which can prevent them from getting top search engine rankings.

Welcome to the website of XYZ.com

For example, lets continue with the above example of India-based Outsourcing consultant.

An ideally optimized title should contain the top 3-5 keywords of your business, e.g. outsourcing consultants, outsourcing india, outsource india

Optimized Title - Outsourcing Consultants, Outsourcing India, Outsource India

c. Description Meta tag of the webpage Description of a webpage also plays important role in getting top search engine rankings.

Optimized Description - Develop a suitable description based on your top 3 keywords

d. Keywords Meta Tag of the webpage - This meta tag was of great importance at one time. But rampant manipulations (i.e. multiple, often non-relevant keyword stuffing in the keywords tag), leading to abuse has resulted in search engines giving lesser importance to keywords tag while ranking sites. Nevertheless, you can always place top 3 5 keywords of your site in the keywords tag.

Optimized Keywords -

e. Importance of Content/Keyword-enriched optimized pages for top search engine rankings

Well, if there is one aspect which holds supreme importance in search engine, specially in Google ranking, then it is this. Yes, content! The popular industry say Content is King was perhaps devised by watching Googles love for content. Develop content based on the top keywords related to your business. While developing content for your web pages, keep in mind the keyword density (KD).

Mathematically speaking, Keyword Density is the ratio of the total number of time a keyword is repeated divided by the total content words. Since KD is normally represented in percentage, the above figure is to be multiplied by 100

For example, if you have developed a web page of around 250 words on the keyword search engine optimization, and that particular keyword (search engine optimization) is repeated 10 times, then

Keyword Density (KD) = 10/250 * 100 = 4%

As a thumb rule, Keyword Density of an optimized page for top search engine rankings should vary between 2 7 % (this figure varies among different search engines)

4. Submission of Keyword-enriched optimized pages After you have finished content development for the optimized pages based on the keywords targeted for top search engine rankings, submit those pages to various search engines.

  1. Google - http://www.google.com/addurl.html

  2. AlltheWeb - http://addurl.alltheweb.com/add_url

  3. AltaVista - http://addurl.altavista.com/addurl/new

  4. MSN - http://submitit.bcentral.com/msnsubmit.htm

5. Role of Link Popularity in top search engine rankings

Link popularity has assumed tremendous importance for getting good ranks in Google now a days. In fact, what started as a friendly reciprocal link exchange program among various webmasters has now become a sub-industry within the SEO industry itself, with thousands of link farms popping up every day! Yes, if you are interested in getting top ranks in search engines, especially Google, then you must pay effort in building up links for your site.

Create a html page, preferably named as Resources/Links/Partners and place a link of this page from Index Page of your site. This page should never be more than 1 click away from the index page of your site, else webmasters wont be interested in participating in the reciprocal link exchange program.

Target both industry-related and non-industry-related websites as your link exchange partners. For example, if you are providing outsourcing services, then try getting links from industry-related websites (i.e. websites dealing with outsourcing services, maybe your business rivals!). This is important, because if 10 of your rival sites give links to your site, then Google will surely pay importance to your site, because getting links from rival companies are difficult. Your site MUST be of some high caliber, else the other 10 sites wont have linked! Also, try procuring links from top ranked general informative websites as well.

Always exchange links with websites which have high Google PageRank (PR) of at least 4, the more the better! (both Index Page as well as Resources/Links Page of the Link Partners site should have PRs of >=4) [PageRank is a proprietary tool that Google uses to determine the importance of a page and varies in a scale of 0 (least important) to 10 (maximum importance)].

Have a link code ready for participating in link exchange program. Here is a sample link code for an India-based Outsourcing consultant.

- Indian outsourcing consultant providing guidance to companies willing to set up outsourcing centers in India.

Always prefer a text link (as given above) in comparison to a banner link, where your chance of Google and other search engine spiders finding the potential keywords is limited only to the alt tag of the banner. Also, Google pays importance to the text of the incoming link/anchor text (i.e. the incoming link text must contain high potential, relevant keywords), so develop a link text with title (indian outsourcing consultant) which will help you in Google Ranking.

Refrain from javascript link code because Google spider finds it difficult to index.

Key SEO Factors

  • Targeting the right keywords for your website

  • Title of your webpage

  • Description Meta tag of your webpage

  • Keywords Meta tag of your webpage

  • Quality, Informative Content

  • Link Popularity

Conclusion -

With Googles numero uno position in the search engine market being threatened by arch-rivals Yahoo! [bought Overture, the largest PPC search engine recently, who in turn bought Altavista and Alltheweb] and Microsofts MSN [believed to be developing its own search engine], it is no doubt that the search engine industry is going to experience tremendous changes in the next few months. The recent Google Florida Update is just one of the many upheavals that we may be witnessing in an industry where the only constant factor is the change. However, the various techniques outlined in this paper are basic and are we believe that following them you will be able to achieve top 10 ranks in Google and other search engines.

About The Author

Prabuddha S Raychaudhuri is the Founder & CEO of Search Engine Optimization Guru Pvt. Ltd. (http://www.searchengine-optimization-guru.com), a premiere Search Engine Optimization and Marketing (SEO/SEM) consultancy firm, catering to clients which range from Fortune 500 to small home business start-ups. Our services include Top 10 Google and other search engines rankings, Pay Per Click (PPC) targeted traffic campaign, Paid Listing Management, Keyword Advertizing. Prabuddha holds a Bachelor Of Engineering (B.E.) in Construction Engineering and can be contacted at prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com.

prabuddha@searchengine-optimization-guru.com

 

Article Marketing Secrets

Article marketing is one of the easiest ways to generate quality, qualified traffic to your web site, and I want to share with you now some secrets of article marketing.

First off, before I get into any secrets of article marketing, let me explain what is not a secret: how article marketing works.

The basic premise with article marketing is that you write articles that are related to topics on your web site, and then you put links to your web site in those articles. You submit those articles to the various online article directories, and they publish your articles on their web pages.

So what are the secrets?

One more disclaimer these are not really secrets, but since almost nobody does these, then I assume most people dont know them. You see, the average person submits somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 articles. But the average fulltime article writer submits perhaps 20 or more per day. And you have to assume that article marketing works if people are willing to spend the time to write and submit 20+ articles per day, and call it a living.

Now the secrets.

1) You have to write more than 7 articles. If you write and submit correctly a lot of articles, people see your name online a lot, they run into your articles all over the web and they naturally assume that you are an expert. Who are you going to believe the guy with 1000+ articles, or the one with 4 articles?

2) The article directories that have high page ranks in the search engines can get your articles into the top ten spots for select keywords something that your puny little site can scarcely do. So when they get your article to a top ten spot, you get clicks from the articles. And the clicks are high quality, because they not only originated in a search engine, looking for you (higher quality than PPC) but they have read your article and have decided they want to know more from you. This is really high quality traffic.

3) Your own subscribers will develop more trust in you as they read your articles online. This will augment your web site, your email campaign, your sales campaign everything.

Do you want to learn more about how I do it? I have just completed my brand new guide to article marketing success, Your Article Writing and Promotion Guide

Download it free here: Secrets of Article Promotion

Do you want to learn how to build a massive list fast? Click here: Email List Building

Sean Mize is a full time internet marketer who has written over 900 articles in print and 9 published ebooks.

 

Ways Of Getting One Way Links In The Link Building Process

One way links pays a lot for your link building strategy. They can increase your websites presence and strength in all major search engines. This is an integral part of off page search engine optimization. It enhances the website presence and gives your website a great popularity. Link building is a process which takes place away from the actual constructed site. There are different ways of getting one way links. Some of these are indicated as under-

Directory submissions - This is one of the most reliable source of getting one way links. You need to submit to the relevant category in the directory that allows one way submission some directories give approval easily. Directories first review the sites manually and then give approvals. In case the submission or the website submitted is not according the suggested guidelines of directory, it is often rejected. This process can take weeks to months depending upon the directory status and differ from one directory to other. High quality and high page rank directories often accept paid submissions.

Article submissions are other way for getting links. The main purpose of article is to provide useful information related with your website topic to the readers. Generally article should not be in directly in the form of promotion and advertisement statement. Such articles do not get approvals. Articles should be written in a way to discuss some specific theme or topic related to your website and providing reliable information from it. Apart from getting links the other benefit of article is that website owner can generate a good amount of visitors to the site. Articles are submitted in article directories and some good amount of article sites are Ezine articles and article dashboard etc.

Another way is Social book marking sites which is also one of the best source of getting links from web pages. A person needs to register in these sites and they can store the links to the web pages which they find it effective and useful for them. Whenever they log into the account they have the access to the links stored by them. Other users can also access these links. Thus these links assist in search engine optimization for website. Other people with similar interest and category and tag can view these links. Social book marking sites allows the users to tag and bookmark the pages and users can search for the bookmark associated with a given tag.

Blog is a website where you can continuously contribute some stuff in the form of an article, information or knowledge base. You can always provide something latest through a blog. Visitors are able to know what is new and people become aware about your website. Through blog people comes to know about your website. Just like articles blogs can bring a good amount of traffic to your website. . Blogs also comes in instances of website and counts as back links. You can post your blog in various number of blog sites available. You can include link of your website in the blog to generate a visitor to the blog to your webpage.

Another important feature is press release which is a statement or announcement for the launch of a new product or services, news and event related to your website. These are submitted in press release sites and an important way of getting the one way links.

Another important feature is RSS submission which means really simple syndication. It the summary of the content of an associated website in the form of an XML file. We can include links to the website pages for which we want one way links. This makes it possible for people to manage their websites in an automated manner which seems easier then to check manually.

Rajeev Guglani writes articles for SEO. He has vast exposure in writing for Search Engine marketing. He is working for NDDW. For web site promotion, Search Engine Optimization and Link Building Services visit http://www.nddw.com

 

Article Writing - 3 Ways To Monetize Your Articles and Ebooks

You can make profit by writing your articles if you understand how the process works. Here are some ways to monetize your writing process.

  • Write articles to promote an affiliate program you are supporting. For example, if you purchase a program, ebook, or materials from someone and you benefited from what you learned, contact that person and ask them if they have an affiliate program that you can join. Most people who have been selling their information on the internet for any period of time have their own affiliate program. You can then write articles about the product and tell of your experience with it so that your readers will know more about it. At the end of your article, in the resource box, you can put your affiliate link to the product. Most article directories do not allow affiliate links, so you will need to purchase a domain name to forward the link. This will cost you about ten dollars for a year and will make you much more money than that if you write articles to promote the product.
  • Another way to make money with articles is to have them link back to your own product or service. Each article will work like a little robot to promote you. There are people all over the world reading articles 24 hours a day and your article will be read by people who will have the opportunity to click the link at the end of your article and go back to your blog, website or sales page. Over time you will have a steady flow of visitors based on how many articles you write.
  • The third and best way to monetize articles is by combining them into an ebook. As you write more articles on the same topic you are building a body of work that can be structured and organized into an ebook that will sell online for years to come.

And now I'd like to invite you to find out how to get your ebook written by visiting Connie Ragen Green at http://www.EbookWritingandMarketingSecrets.com where you will receive free tips and a Special Report on writing and marketing your articles and ebooks. For more information on article writing and marketing visit http://www.WriteArticlesWithJeffHerring.com

 

Search Engine Optimisation Services Specialist Discusses Website SEO - Part 7

Everything you write and place onto the internet creates a link. You are adding information to a website by writing content. That content in that submission company's service creates a link which contains the information pointing to your website. The spiders see this as direct content, as the content is discussing and promoting your website. This is critical to effective and successful search engine optimisation. Hand submit that link to the Google search engine.

Hand submit every link you create to the Google search engine. Then place each of those links on a link building website on the internet. This builds a huge number of back links pointing to all the websites that you are promoting. What you want to do SEO wise is write keyword specific titles, meta tags and content to build links which you hand submit to the Google search engine and then place all those links onto your link building website.

You do not have to build flashy and 'eye appealing' or cosmetic websites. Websites are about producing and showing good information for your readers. They come to your website, to obtain information. Not to join your business because you have a flashy website. This is another important search engine optimisation technique to never forget. Anyhow, the Google search engine spiders do not spider the images. They look for original content and links and not for "flash".

Creating good clean crisp original content is one of the critical keys to SEO effectiveness and success. The other critical factors are linking and creating back links. Join any one of the many link building systems on the internet for free to store your links as you create them. Hand submit the url of this link building website to Google every day as well.

Clyde Thorburn
Search Engine Optimisation Services Specialist
Johannesburg South Africa
http://www.mortgageleadgenerationonline.com
clydesseoservices@freemarketingsystem.net
Landline: 2711 432 2225
Skype ID: clydethorburn
Yahoo IM: crthorburn

 

Secret Article Profits - This One Review Will Expose The Truth About Making Profits From Articles

Secret Article Profits Review - Recently, a young marketer called Dylan Loh released his blueprint on how to make money from articles named Secret Article Profits. I was lucky enough to to grab a copy from Dylan himself and managed to size up Secret Article Profits for a few hours. This article will put my thoughts down in black and white.

You may already know that writing articles is a very profitable way to make a side income or even a full-time income online. It is definitely a great way for newcomers to make their first dollar on the Internet. This method of earning affiliate commissions has been coined Bum Marketing. However, contrary to the name itself, there is a little work involved, but the rewards are long-lasting and great. However, you need to master the formula to maximize your earnings. This is where Secret Article Profits comes in.

Secret Article Profits goes into the basics first before flying head first into the advanced strategies like niche selection, keyword selection, and how to write eyeball-grabbing headlines. I particularly like the part where Dylan shows you exactly how to write resource boxes that really pull in the clicks.

Moving away from affiliate commissions, Secret Article Profits also shows you to use your Paypal account to pull in cash from your articles as well. I know this tip will be worth thousands to many who have bought it because I have used it myself! This is probably the best article marketing product I have seen over the past year, so you would do well to get it if you want to master this totally free method to making lots of commissions of online.

Fabian Tan is the author of the free 51-Page Report:

"Murder Your Job: How To Build Cash Sucking Autopilot Businesses In 30 Days Or Less!"

Head over to http://www.MurderYourJob.com to get your free copy now before its gone!

 

Crack The Code To Increasing Your Link Popularity And Dominating The Search Engines

One of the biggest keys to achieving good rankings is being able to get very high quality one way links to your website. The way that search engines work is that the more quality websites that you have linking to you the better your rankings will be.

These days it is becoming a lot more difficult to acquire very good one way links. The primary reason for this is that most search engines have a very sophisticated algorithm that they use to determine the value of the ones that you get. It is becoming a lot more difficult to cheat the system. I remember when I first started on the internet it was really easy to get reciprocal links and dominate the search engines.

The best way to do this is to build a good quality website that people want to link to. If you look at a site like YouTube many people will automatically link to it because it provides very good content. You can submit to the popular directories. However, many of them charge a fee so be prepared to cover this initial cost.

Another popular way is to use websites like Prleap and Prweb to do frequent press releases. Your website may also be picked up by other sites that are interested in the newsworthy event that you are promoting.

Another way is to do link baiting. This would typically be writing controversial articles and submitting them to web 2 sites like Digg. If you do this correctly many of the people will vote for your site.

Finally, my favourite method is article marketing. Write good quality articles and submit them to the major directories. Include your site in the resource box.

Are you really interested in driving massive traffic to your website?

Here's the answer:

Secrets Of Article Marketing - Download your free ebook now.

Mark Abrahams is a full time internet marketer who has helped others to earn a living online.