KEYWORD ANALYSIS: TOP PAYING KEYWORDS

In people’s search for higher incomes from Google AdSense a lot of AdSense publishers are looking to find those keywords that really bring the best income possible. The higher an advertiser pays for a keyword, they more the advertiser receives when they click on a link.

But how can you find such words for your site? Well, the answer to that question depends a little on who you are and what you’re prepared to do to get those keywords. But the general good news is that you can indeed find such words if you need them.

Of course, if you can afford such a solution, one of the best ways of getting your hands on those words would be to pay for them. There are specialized companies that do business by finding people good keywords, not only for the purpose of more AdSense revenue but for search engine optimization as well.

Such a service can be found on “Top Paying Keywords” http://www.toppayingkeywords.com/?hop=moneymkr and this is a no-brainer to getting relevant content on your site and increasing your revenue by a whole bunch quickly.

Of course, if such a solution does not work for you, you can ultimately resort to a method of personal investigation. That means you try out keywords by yourself and see which ones work better or worse for yourself.

While you might also be doing this for the first method (paying someone else to get the keywords) it would probably be better then this because you’d at least be narrowing down search to certain items.

While you’re trying this make sure to keep using AdSense’s ‘channels’ feature along the way as it can be a very good way of letting you know which sections of your site are generating income and which aren’t.

Of course, you can also yield a great amount of help from AdSense’s arch enemy Overture. Overture gives you the possibility of entering keywords and finding out not only how much advertisers are paying to get them on your page, but how much people are clicking on the words as well. This service can be found at: http://www.pixelfast.com/overture/

You can also try out a tool called Word Tracker http://jeremyburns.com/a/wordtracker. What this tool can do is tell you how many sites are already using the same keywords. Learn from this lesson and don’t try to use the words that a lot of people are already using.

Also, a great aid may very well be found in Google itself. Search Google for any keywords you may wish to include in your pages and look at the results. The results on the left will probably be your competitors (and if they have Google AdSense ads on their page you can bet then are) while the links on the right display ads relevant to your search.

If your search doesn’t yield any AdSense results then you might want to reconsider including those keywords in your site.

Make sure you don’t use any dead words (words that don’t get any links on AdSense other then public ads. That is probably the most important thing you should be doing.

Of course these are only a few methods of getting out of the dead zone and starting to make serious money with AdSense. If you’ve seen a lot of people with “not so hot” websites generating a lot of AdSense revenue, using these tips can get you right behind them (or in front if you’re really smart) very fast. Although this is the case it is also very important to remember that having the highest paying words does not mean that you make the most money. You have to also consider how many times the advert is clicked on.

ADVERTISERS BENEFIT OF USING ADSENSE

Google is the biggest search engine on the web. It controls over 40% of Internet searches, and with that it controls pay per click advertising (pay per click). PPC involves the advertiser paying a rate for every click through (CTR) in which the advertisers set. As their budget increases, their position increases, and as their position increases, they get more traffic.

This has lead to over 140,000 companies choosing to advertise with them, and they advertise in a number of ways. The first way is through is through appearing on Google searches, the second is through appearing on distributors websites, and the third is through appearing in distributors search results. As advertisers appear in Google searches, the question is sometimes asked. Why do they choose to advertise with distributors as well?

One reason for this is scalability. Those who originally choose to advertise in search results and who were getting a ROI (return on investment) will decide at one point that they need to identify other advertising opportunities. With thousands of websites which have the capacity to display their adverts the advertisers can gain further exposure very quickly.

Another reason why advertisers choose to advertise in Google distributors websites is that it gains them further exposure. 60% of internet users do not use Google, so the advertiser can appeal to a wider audience through choosing to opt for distribution channels. Many website users may be looking to buy a product such as a phone, yet instead of coming across a website which sells such a product, they come across an article. If the article is on a website which contains Adsense then inevitably advertisers can use this channel to penetrate their audience.

Another reason why advertisers choose adsense is because they trust Google. The company is renowned for being an ethical company who are fun to work whilst providing free services to millions worldwide. Advertisers feel that money invested with Google is safe. Despite the evolution of click-fraud and its inevitable disadvantages for advertisers they appear to understand that this is an issue which Google wants to stop and hopefully will eventually. Advertisers are happy that Google admits a problem exits and provides refunds accordingly.

The trust in Google also stems from a trust in pricing. The pricing is set by market forces and therefore advertisers never feel that publishers or Google are overpricing the service. This means that as long as advertisers are able to advertise they will continue to do so, if not at the same rates.

Another strong advantage for advertisers is that they can appear where publishers promote their service. An example of this can seen if you consider a publisher who is discussing the benefits of new IT software. If a software retailer appears on the website then inevitably they will be the likely source from which the web surfer will purchase the product. If the surfer is not interested then you could argue that they would not click on the advert.

The service which Google provides has created an opportunity for businesses of all sizes to advertise. Although the issue of click fraud still plagues the service it is till widely regarded as the best. New businesses attempt to promote themselves on the web, whilst established brands alike choose to attract interest in their service using the same technique.

FUTURE OF ADSENSE

There are many ideas springing up concerning what AdSense will look like in the future and how the system will change as opposed to what it is now.

Firstly, it’s clear that targeting algorithms will become even better and more powerful then they are now. This has clearly been seen with the Google search engine itself over the last few years and it should be of no surprise as this happens with AdSense. Advertisers will appear in more appropriate results and those advertisers who manipulate their content to allow high paying keywords to appear may struggle to do this unless it is actually appropriate to their content.

Another thing which is bound to happen is more protection for AdWords advertisers concerning click fraud. Google acknowledges this to be a very key issue that it needs to address as quickly as possible and there’s no doubt it will happen as fast as possible. At the moment those who have high levels of traffic, can easily disguise IP addresses and increase CTR ( Click Through Rate).

Google is always keen on improving its products and this has been seen before in AdSense. The search engine company has introduced site-targeted AdSense CPM, “smart pricing” and domain blocking and there will probably be improvements that have already been added by other similar sites.

One such example is the option for the advertiser to have more control over where the content is being displayed. This could mean blocking your site from displaying on several addresses that host AdSense banners.

Another idea that has been advanced is that Google will integrate AdSense in other forms of media like newspapers or television and so on. While this might seem to be more on the science-fiction side of the facts there’s no indication that this might not happen.

Google have access to an international array of over 150,000 advertisers of whom may choose to penetrate offline markets in different countries. With Google’s strong network of advertisers, they may choose to appoint or allow offline distributors to create a format for Adwords advertising in content, in search and now offline.

More options could be implemented for AdSense publishers, allowing them to specify keywords of their own. While Google has been reluctant of this there’s no indication that this will not happen in the future.

Also, a lot of people are demanding a clear specification of the pricing policy of AdSense. Google has given no indication of why this isn’t public information but at this moment it seems highly unlikely that such information will ever be present on Google AdSense.

Another feature that could find itself into AdSense would be letting website publishers see which links are generating clicks on their website and based on what keywords they arrive there.

This could end up being a major issue that could threaten the entire system as it could perhaps encourage more adsense only websites as profits become more transparent. A lot of people may make AdSense-only sites, designed just for making profits through AdSense.

While this is already happening today, it might be foolish of Google to put such tools in the hands of its publishers.

However, one thing that could happen is a way for users to fix their issues with low AdSense generated income on their site. This could be done through an on-line wizard or something similar that would make suggestions to website owners based on their contents.

But the major buzzword of the day is RSS. The possibility of sending targeted ads directly to users without requiring any navigation on their behalf is becoming a reality with RSS. And there are clear signs that Google isn’t going to let such an opportunity pass by.

This is what “interactive television” and similar items have been trying to do for quite some time now. But the Internet would be a much better medium for this, because there are no mediums quite as interactive as the Internet.

But in the end, this is mostly speculation and we are bound to have Google surprising us with new features we would have never thought of.

WHY ADSENSE IS BEST?

Undoubtedly, you’ve heard about Google’s AdSense and you are thinking about giving it a go. But is it really worth placing an AdSense banner on your site?

The answer is a definite yes. You could always have some other banner on your site, or even use some search of affiliate ad program and that would probably make you some money, given of course that your site enjoys a healthy amount of visitors. However with affiliate marketing, it is expected that the visitor from your website completes a sale before you are remunerated.

But that’s nowhere near what you get for using AdSense. There are people who earn in excess of 100.000 dollars per year by using AdSense. And it doesn’t just stop with making more money. Firstly, the ads are text only. That means they’re by far less obtrusive on your visitors then your average, flashy banner that’s designed to catch the eye of the visitor.

Sure, you’ll have to ensure they get better placement, so as to be noticed but despite that they don’t bother viewer’s as much as traditional ads. Think about the many sites you’ve seen using pop-ups, floating banners and many other schemes that will have visitors screaming in anger every time they visit the said website. You can actually do better then that, annoying people less and still making an amount of money.

Secondly, the ads are generated based on the contents of your site automatically. When you use an affiliate ad program, you have to specify certain categories that your sites belong to.

However, if any page on your site falls outside of these categories, the banners aren’t targeted anymore. And what that means is that you’re potentially showing ads to people who don’t have any interest in them and that can lead to inefficiencies.

With Google AdSense that just about never happens: the ads present on your site will always be in sync with whatever your visitors are interested in and that adds to your site’s value and to the revenue it produces.

What’s more, the look of these banners and their size is customizable, which means they will feel more integrated with the rest of your site’s content, which brings an increase in your site’s overall visual quality as opposed to a traditional approach.

For many people, there’s also a great problem with finding people to advertise on their site as well. AdSense is clearly the easiest solution available to this problem today.

It’s free to join the AdSense program and it almost takes no time at all. The potential database of websites from AdWords is larger then anything you might encounter from any competitor, numbering over 150.000 users. This means as more people compete the CPC or cost per click for search terms will inevitably rise.

Also, setting up AdSense on your site is a breeze, and you can complete the whole process in less then an hour. It takes a lot less to do then any form of affiliate advertising which is yet another reason to choose the easy AdSense approach.

All you need to do is add an AdSense banner on your website (other then registering with the program of course) is to copy & paste a few lines and you’re all done, you get to choose where the banners go, how large they are and how they integrate with the rest of your site.

For any webmaster out there, that’s a killer scheme because it lets you draw the line between your site’s usability level and the amount of advertising you wish to have. Some people need the money badly while others just keep AdSense running to pay for the hosting of their website.

AdSense is a great advertising program because a lot of thought has went into making it “just work for everyone”. It works great for the people who use AdWords, for the webmasters using AdSense, and most importantly for the visitors of the websites.

KEYS OF ADSENSE

If you’re just boarding on the AdSense train, and looking to find a quick way to make the profits you’ve seen all being pulled of all over the Internet, you might be interested in a couple of tools.

These software tools are designed to aid AdSense publishers in getting a better understanding on how traffic flows through their site. Some will help you in understanding which keywords gain you more money and which locations give you the best AdSense payment.

One of the best such tools available is AdSense Gold (http://www.profitbooks.com/go/astracker) which allows you to have a better understanding of which ads and formats actually get more clicks and which are useful or nearly useless.

This program works by tracking views and clicks on all the publisher’s pages. It even goes as far as offering you the possibility to see which referrer each visitor came in through.

There’s a free tool called SynSense (http://www.singerscreations.com/RSS/Posts/235.asp) which is more of an AdSense monitoring tool. This sits in the tray and offers actualized AdSense stats as you hover your mouse over its icon. It’s a very nice tool for those which like to be informed on how their AdSense is doing at all times of the day.

Google provides you with stats in a csv format on their site. So someone made a tool that can automatically download such files and extract a lot of information from them. The name of this tool is CSV AdStats and it is available from http://www.nix.fr/en/csvadstats.aspx?q=download

It has a large number of features, including the possibility to highly customize reported stats, exporting data and charts to other formats. It’s in French but the language can very easily be changed to English.

Of course any tool can only access these stats as often as 15 minutes but the authors are well aware of that fact and none of these tools will get you in trouble with Google because of that.

If, however, you’re browsing content most of the time, and your tool of choice is the Firefox Internet browser, there’s an extension for this program that allows you to view the stats in your status bar.

Again, this software is aware of Google’s 15 minute rule and enforces its usage, 15 minutes being the minimum time between updates. The Google AdSense notifier for Firefox can be obtained from http://code.mincus.com/?p=3

There is also a program called Golden Keywords out there that helps you in getting the best keywords for your site. It’s really efficient and very easy to use. It does come with a price tag though, it costs $49.95 and it can be obtained from http://www.regnow.com/softsell/nph-softsell.cgi?item=8616-2

So as you can see, software developers are making more and more programs meant to help you in your quest to maximize your AdSense profits. But before you go out looking for them remember that Google has a few features of its own as well.

It does offer some reports (albeit a bit more limited) and using the ‘channels’ feature is a good way of finding out which ads on your site are really bringing in most of the revenue.

Be on the look out as new tools appear daily and make sure to invest time in your site, as that is the real key in success with AdSense.

MAINTAINING ADSENSE TRAFFIC

If you’ve been running AdSense ads on your site for quite a while and you feel that you aren’t making as much cash as you could, in 99.99% of cases you’re right. Most people feel frustrated that they cannot generate the revenues they expected, and this is down to traffic levels as well as click through rates.

There are many ways to turn traffic into AdSense traffic and here is a short list of them with a description for each.

The first thing that you need to do is tune up your site’s contents. While for some people this isn’t an option (if you’re running a forum for example it’s a lot harder) most people can make their AdSense sites veritable cash cows.

To begin, you should find out what your site’s keywords are. This is a basic technique in SEO (search engine optimization) known as keyword density verification. A good tool for this job is SEO Density Analizer.

You should then take this list of words and search the Overture Search Inventory or Google AdWords Sandbox to find out what other words could be doing better then what you currently have.

From that point on try to keep your site focused on the things that appear mostly in the keyword suggestions you receive. Try to include those keywords, or at least some related keywords as often as you can in the links on your site.

Because of the way Google AdSense works this is a sure way to increase your earnings because you’ll get better ads in your AdSense banners, similar to how you would get a better Google PageRank

It’s also important that you continuously add new pages to your site. This is very important, as the more pages you have, the higher the chance is that you’ll get more hits on your ads.

It’s also very important that you choose the appropriate formats for your AdSense banners and the best locations for them. While this is a much wider subject you should generally know that the top three Google AdSense formats are: 336×280 large rectangle 300×250 medium rectangle and 160×600 skyscraper.

Make sure you choose the appropriate colors for the ads, as making them too different from your site’s content (or just different in a bad way) is sure to make visitors regard them as banners which have nothing to do with the site itself.

Make sure these ads are positioned where they’ll generate the highest amount of profit. Most times, that location is said to be right before the beginning of your site’s actual content.

On pages with a long text body, you might find skyscrapers to do better, simply because users get exposed to them for more time. Also, for sites with news or similar items, you might find a good position to be at the bottom of your content, because that’s when people are finished reading your story and are looking for something else to do.

You should use more AdSense units if you have a lot of text on your page. Just make sure not to overdo it because you might find that you will get a lot lower CTR and lower revenues then you were getting in the first place by employing this technique inappropriately. You can add as many as three units, so use them wisely.

There’s a Google AdSense Preview Tool that will let you visualize what ads would get served on your page and it can come in very handy as a testing mechanism.

Just make sure you respect the AdSense policy regarding click fraud. As a pointer you could place a picture next to your adds, just make sure to leave some room in between in order to make sure this isn’t regarded as encouraging visitors to click the link.

Of course there are more ways to increase AdSense traffic from your site, but these should serve as a good starting point for income maximization.

IDENTIFYING CLICK FRAUD

Identifying and tracking examples of click fraud is the first step to eradicating the problem. Click fraud is an enormous drain on the resources of advertisers operating on a national and international scale, estimated to occupy around 30% of all pay per click advertising spend. With so much at stake, its no wonder the search engines are investing so much time and effort into devising solutions.

One way in which Search Engines and other pay per click programme providers have attempted to curb the growing click fraud problem is through introducing IP address repetition algorithms. These formulae are designed to pick up on suspicious click patterns emanating from a singular IP address, which can help to uncover the existence of click farms and competitor-led sabotage, as well as identifying potential fraudsters at source.

However, there is an array of problems with this method of attempting to identify the fraudsters. Firstly, fraudsters logging on through a dialup modem, DSL line or cable modem can almost completely bypass this check, as with every new online session, a new IP address is generated. Furthermore, there is an extensive range of software available to alter IP addresses, which again can be used for ‘cheating’ the algorithm. Cookie and session tracking are other methods by which search engines can attempt to uncover potential fraudulent activity, but again there are ways around these for the fraudsters.

More comprehensive software is being developed which profiles and reports on the browsing habits of each click-through to enable companies to track and monitor suspicious behavior, although this could be seen by many as intrusive and ineffective as anything on a small scale is still likely to go unnoticed, based on the vast coverage of ads across the internet.

The problem of click fraud recently hit the headlines with a class action raised against Google, prompting Google to offer $90million as a potential settlement. Perhaps an acceptance of their responsibilities, Google’s offer goes some way to suggest the extent of click fraud, and its vast costs to the internet economy.

There are a number of self-help remedies that can be implemented to keep an organization out of trouble. The first of these remedies is the reliance on search engine optimization and organic listings. If a site is well and fully optimized, it could eventually realize a ranking that another site is willing to pay $2.50 a click for. Similarly, with organically high rankings there are no clickthrough rates, therefore the costs associated with PPC are not applicable. Although the process is significantly more laborious and takes significantly longer to see results, the SEO process is much cheaper in the long run, and with an estimated 25-30% of all clicks being performed fraudulently, an organically high listing can save money which would otherwise be drained by click fraud for more beneficial reinvestment.

Year on year, as the pay per click advertising market continues to grow and expand, surely click fraud will follow suit. Unless an effective means of preventing click fraud is developed and successfully implemented, buyers will steadily lose confidence in the advertising medium and turn to more effective, less wasteful marketing methods, which would seriously hit the search engines and could potentially threaten the online economy as a whole.

ONLINE ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES

The collapse of the online-advertising market in 2001 made marketing on the Internet seem even less compelling. Website usability, press releases, online media buys, podcasts, mobile marketing and more – there’s an entire world of internet advertising opportunities to explore. We specialize in internet marketing strategy, online advertising, web marketing and conversion. Learn about the latest business trends in Internet marketing, search engine marketing, e-commerce marketing, online advertising, branding marketing and interactive media. We believe more and more online advertisers are turning to performance-based advertising to fulfill their Internet marketing objectives. Marketing on the internet requires that one be found using keyword searches or some form of online advertising.

Providing services for web site design, hosting, online shopping, databases, flash, streaming video, web site maintenance, search engine optimization, local internet advertising, and more. We specialize in internet marketing strategy, online advertising, web marketing and conversion. You want an internet advertising company to be aware of your business and the competitive nature of your market place whilst advertising online. The online advertising market is competitive enough to find a similar deal elsewhere for your internet advertiusing solutions.

The collapse of the online-advertising market in 2001 made marketing on the Internet seem even less compelling. Provider of online radio station services, e-mail, Internet advertising, business directory search, e-commerce services and Internet community services. Learn about the latest business trends in Internet marketing, search engine marketing, e-commerce marketing, online advertising, branding marketing and interactive media. Investigate the cost of your online internet advertising with the ready-reckoner, below.

Cost per click internet advertising comes in various forms online such as advertising with sponsored links, recommended links etc. casino gambling internet online uk Internet online result sea advertising gambling internet. Planning an effective Internet/online advertising strategy with an online advertising firm with professional experience will render the best results for any online business.

Website usability, press releases, online media buys, podcasts, mobile marketing and more – there’s an entire world of internet advertising opportunities to explore. Paypopup.com is a four year old online advertising network which consists thousands of specialized websites in providing unique target internet traffic. Marketing on the internet requires that one be found using keyword searches or some form of online advertising. NON-COMPLIANCE The FTC periodically joins with other law enforcement agencies to monitor the Internet for potentially false or deceptive online advertising claims.

OUTDOOR ADVERTISING "THE KEY TO SUCCESS"

To a general advertiser outdoor advertising is worthy of consideration. Outdoor advertising is considered as the oldest form of advertising. Posting bills on wooden boards in the late 19th century led to the birth of the term billboard. Today, outdoor advertising includes not only billboards but also car cards in public transportation, displays in airports, ski areas, and sports arenas and in-store displays among others.

Consider this scenario: you were on your way to the office and without even looking at the morning paper you found out that your favorite boutique is opening in the neighborhood. Or you were on your way home from work when you find out that a major company you would love to work for is hiring – and this you knew without even having your own radio on. How did all these happen? Through outdoor advertising.

Outdoor advertising is very powerful and effective. It has the ability to target consumers quickly and accurately. Likewise, it can create a strong visual impression that reinforces continuity and name recognition, making your overall marketing campaign even more effective. According to studies, more and more consumers are spending time than ever driving or riding in cars and walking in cities. This means that customers are exposed to outdoor advertising more than ever before. Hence, making use of outdoor advertising can significantly increase your chance of attracting more customers.

Designing and creating an outdoor advertising is like creating a visual storytelling. The expression of an idea can surprise viewers with words or excite them with pictures. Humor is a powerful design choice for outdoor advertising. The character of outdoor advertising requires a clear message, a strong brand identity and a fast impact. Outdoor advertising shares many communication characteristics with other media, but it is the differences that truly determine what will be effective design elements for an advertisement.

So what could outdoor advertising do that traditional advertising can’t? Outdoor advertising has better advantage when it comes to a regional or national showing. And outdoor advertising can reinforce the primary message delivered through broadcast or print. Additionally, outdoor advertising requires low active processing because consumers receive its messages when they are in an inactive state of mind. Often, commuters sit idle in their vehicles when outdoor messages are presented so their mood is under stimulated. This is a good opportunity for advertisers because well-presented outdoor designs will grab attention when commuters are deprived of other creative stimulation.

Thus, keep in mind that impressive advertising is essential for the long-term success of any brand, since advertising works best when an individual consumer learns that a product or service is a good choice for them.

FEEDBACK IN COMMUNICATION

Conversations can be a tricky business. Sometimes, decoding what is said with what is meant is difficult at best. However, communication is a necessary tool in today world. And it’s not only speaking that can be difficult, but trying to interpret body language, and other language barriers are just a few of the obstacles barring effective communication. It’s often been the case were one party completely miscommunicate to another due to a misunderstanding between parties.

Most people learn to talk when they are relatively young. Gaining in verbal capacity as the get older and engage in conversation with more and more people throughout their lives. And while most people will spend their time constantly speaking, some never really learn to listen, which is the king of effective communication. It may seem strange to hear such a thing as this, but it’s true. Even though it may not sound true to the individual who just spent the last couple moments listening to some co-worker blather on about his fantasy football picks, but it is.

Without proper listening, speech communication would just be a lot of annoying sounds. Unfortunately, most of the time we spend listening, really is just the process of physically absorbing the annoying squawks and squeaks that come out of someone.

The problem with listening is that it’s so hard. It’s even harder to Listening actively. What’s required to listen actively is more difficult to learn than it was to learn to speak when we were young. It’s not something that can be absorbed through simply interacting with other humans. Active listening requires the receiver in the conversation to seek out among the speakers words and try to understand what the speaker is really saying. To fish through the emotion, defensiveness, cultural differences and jargon.

If it’s so hard to listen than it must be extremely hard to get some one to pay attention to what your saying

One of the most important elements of communication is creating effective feedback. Whether by picking up on non verbal cues or audible ones feedback is important. Knowing that your message is being understood correctly is vital. Feedback when done by the sender, allows the speaker a chance to make sure that the listener understands what is trying to be communicated. Someways to use feed back is through closed ended questions like “do you understand what I’m saying?” or ” did that make sense?” Another effective tactic is using an open ended question and through this method the listener will hopefully summarize the message you have been trying to impart and in turn expose any misunderstandings between the two of you. Using a question like “what do you think about what I’ve just told you?” or “what are your feelings on the subject?” are both effective examples of using a open ended question in order to obtain clarification between the sender and the receiver.

In the business world feedback is even more crucial. Feedback from your employees, your clients, and customers plays an important role in creating and maintaining a business or institution. Making sure that they understand what your trying to say whether it’s through management or advertising. It’s important to know that, not only is your message getting through, but that it’s being interpreted correctly.

Once you’ve gained an understanding of how your information is being perceived and interpreted. You’ll know how to proceed, cutting of those things feedback has shown to be ineffective and replacing it with solutions known to produce the results you want.

Make sure that people understand what you are trying to say. Whether in marketing, management, or just everyday conversations. Through feedback, communication can be an effective tool in the world of business and everywhere else.

BRANDING BENEFITS

There is such a lot of talk going around about branding, but what exactly is your brand and how do you use it to help you reach more people and market your products or services?

Your brand is the core of your marketing, the central theme around your products and services.

Your brand is not your Logo or your Company Name, unless of course you are Microsoft or the Yellow Pages online directory.

For people to come and hire you, or buy from you in droves, your brand needs to be crystal clear, attractive, exciting and powerful. In fact your brand needs to be powerful enough to rouse your customers into action, and at the same time it needs to actively express you, what you’re about and your uniqueness.

Once you’re sure of your brand you also gain a tangible and easy way of talking to people about what you do. It makes it so much easier to do your marketing when you have it clear in your mind what it is you’re selling in the first place.

When you’re creating your brand you are creating a memorable marketing message that will inspire people to take action and choose you over your competitors.

Here are five useful tips to help you find your brand:

Your Brand Tip 1

Your brand is the core of what you do. What feelings or emotions does your business inspire in you and in your customers? Did you know that peoples’ decision to buy is based on emotions, not facts?

Your Brand Tip 2

Think about how you present yourself, not just on your website but when people see you, talk to you on the phone, or read your email. Is your marketing consistently saying what you want it to? Are people getting confusing messages from you, or is it clear from the start what you do?

Your Brand Tip 3

Think like your potential customer, try to get inside their head and see your products or services from their point of view. How do they experience what you do, and how does it make them feel?

Your Brand Tip 4

What is it you do that makes you stand out from the crowd? If you don’t think you do, then you need to think of a way that you can, because your brand should be somehow different from everyone else’s, its not enough to be just the same as others but better.

Your Brand Tip 5

What are your best abilities, do you know your greatest strengths? Choose an unbiased person, who knows you well, to help you decide what your top attributes are; your brand should be based around your unique strengths and abilities.

Ultimately, creating a strong, memorable, compelling and meaningful brand is essential for successful marketing, and something you can do with a bit of thought, and may be a bit of help from your (unbiased) friends.

CREATING AN AWSOME ADVERTISING

Many small businesses don’t get success they want from advertising due to availability of very little resources. The results are simply flat due to lack of good ideas for improvements. Whether the ads are put in a local newspaper or are printed in the famous periodical or posted on a website, the money invested should gain the desired outcome. There are some common mistakes small businesses and professional service providers do when designing and posting the advertisement, which leads to the failure of the advertisement.

Bigger is better is believed in by many. That’s exactly what some of the small firms think when they want to advertise their product. They think bigger and select a medium where they need to invest a lot of money, but do not reach the targeted market. Like if a company specializes in designing diet plans and want to help out people who had disappointing results from their individual diet plans, and the company chooses to advertise a full page in the local paper instead of running advertisement in a health magazine, obviously not many of the dieters will notice the advertisement and the advertisement doesn’t get the desired attention.

So the point is to come up with the best campaign, which will increase the probability of the ad getting viewed and the right customers trying to buy the product or sign up for the service. Studies and research can be carried out on the market and targeted audience can be narrowed down. Once getting the list of newspapers, magazines and magazines meant for the customers in mind, find out how many readers they have and the cost they ask for posting the ad. Special deals are offered by them from time to time and can only be found by watchful eye.

It is estimated that everyday people are subjected to around three thousand commercials. That is a huge number and if someone desires to be noticed, he should certainly be different. Not only the services and product sold should be unique in the market, so should be the advertisement. For example, if a business selling mattresses says, “We sell mattresses”, it will not make a statement and will be passed off as any other mattress advertisement. But if they say, “Our mattresses are of the finest quality”, it will make the advertisement stand out in the crowd. Other catch lines are “Are you suffering from back pain? Probably you must try our mattresses “, are more specific and will catch the fancy of the people who are suffering from back pains since a long time. The advertisement should also focus on the uniqueness of the product and how it is better compared to the competitors’ product.

Focusing on the problems of the customers and giving a solution for them, is what a customer demands. A customer does not buy a product; he buys benefits in the form of a product. The real value of the product should be realized and a clear picture of it should be presented to the customer so he will be able to relate with the product. If the advertisement doesn’t specify the solution it can provide, the customers will never know of it. So focusing on the customers problem is what some ads miss.

The last thing missing in most of the advertisement is motivation for the customers. If the advertiser has designed the advertisement and the customer had read the advertisement, all efforts and money invested will be wasted if he doesn’t get up and do something about it. It shouldn’t be assumed that the customer knows what to do; instead the advertisement should influence the mind of the customer and should tell him what to do. Call of action is the final job of the advertisement. It should call for information, or visiting the store or even visiting the online store. The message should sound confident and clear.

IMPORTANCE OF SEO

If your business is dependant on customers visiting your website, then you should take a second and ask yourself if you’re happy with the amount of business you’re receiving from your site. If the answer is yes and you’re overloaded with work, then you probably already had your site optimized or chose other means of advertising. However, being that you’re reading this article, you are probably in search of answers or suggestions as to creating more traffic to your website.

Now that we got that out of the way, let’s address why optimization is important. For starters, who doesn’t want more business, right? I mean business is money and almost everyone I know enjoys making more money.

So, with that being said, seo is an essential part of the online community when it comes to actually making money.

The reason I’m saying this is because the web is a vast place.

Whatever your company sells or offers as a service is more than likely offered by many others. Some of your competitors have probably already had their site optimized. My point being is that there are probably 100′s if not 1000′s of sites ahead of you in the search engines.

A professional SEO can rank your site and bring EFFECTIVE traffic your way. Let’s use an example. Let’s say you’re selling candles and you want your site to come up in Google when some one types in “candles”.

Now there is definitely some competition going on to rank for that key term, but not a whole lot. You’re competing with roughly 7 million other sites using that term. Now you’re probably saying to yourself 7 million! That’s a lot! It may sound like a lot, but it’s not that bad.

The term “candles” was searched a total of 2,580 times over the last 110 days. This is according to a very accurate tool we use to find key terms to use. Let’s say you rank #1 for that term and you get everyone who searched for that term to click on your site. Now, assuming you get 10% of the total traffic to complete a sale, that is 258 sales.

Assuming a candle is 5 dollars and each person only purchased ONE candle. 5×258 = $1290 Not bad right? The hard part is done. That’s getting people to your site. Now all you have to do is sit back, relax, and watch sales increase. The possibilities are endless!

PRESS RELEASE IDEAS

Ask yourself what readers or a reporter will be interested in.

Are you launching a web site?

Is there an issue you can protest?

Do you offer an apprenticeship or internship?

Do you have an employee that is retiring?

Have you won an award, contest or special certification?

Are you introducing a new product or service?

Are you making a major change to your products or services?

Have you been mentioned in a book or article?

Have you become a member of an association?

Are you making a change in pricing –especially reductions?

Are you offering a new training program for employees?

Can you take part in a controversy?

Can you write about a customer’s success story?

Is there something new or unique about your company or organization?

Can you release a testimonial received from a customer?

Can you publish results of a poll or survey?

Are you sponsoring a program or event?

Do you offer free advice?

Are there any unusual products or services that you offer?

Can you publish a summary of useful or new facts?

Has one of your customers received an award?

Do you know a way for people to save time or money?

Can you write a letter to the editor?

Are you holding a seminar or lecture?

Has one of your offices moved or expanded?

Are you having a half price sale?

Have you completed a study or research project?

Has one of your employees won an award?

Is some kind of special event happening for your company?

Are you attending or hosting a trade show or exhibition?

Have you had a visit by a celebrity?

Do you have a unique way of selling or producing your product or service?

Can you work with the media on a joint project?

Have you been involved in legislation?

Do you have a unique projection or forecast?

Do you have a new trademark?

Do you have a new publication?

Are you opening a new physical or virtual branch location?

Are you involved with fundraising or other events?

Are you speaking at a conference or seminar?

Are you celebrating a company anniversary?

Have you obtained a new client or large new customer?

Do you have a unique product or service?

Can you adapt a national survey or report to explain your own company’s news?

Have you received significant recognition in your field?

Have you discovered a new use for your product or service?

Are you running for office?

Are you holding a competition or contest?

Do you have news that could affect people’s health or make life easier?

Are you giving away free samples or demo accounts, etc?

Can you write a tie-in with a current news event?

Are you involved with civic activities?

Have you spoken in front of a noteworthy audience?

Are you offering a reprint of a speech?

Do you have a great testimonial to tell?

Have you published a report or any kind of useful or new information?

Have you testified as an expert witness?

Have you won a new contract?

Can you make a timely analysis or prediction?

Is someone on your staff receiving a promotion?

Do you have any community value that you can tell about?

Have you had an interview or meeting with a celebrity?

Can you hold an event to tie with a holiday or special occasion?

Is your company involved in any charitable or community actions that has an upcoming event?

SEARCH ENGINE RANKING

How do you plan for future changes in search engine rankings?

It would be great to have a crystal ball, prying into the plans of the search engines and how they may change weights of algorithms and the like.

For those of little SE understanding, algorithms are formulas or rules set up by SE’s to determine ranking. Each rule then has a different weight or percentage of importance assigned to it. A good example of this is currently Google’s high weighting of linking over all other factors or rules.

So knowing this how do we get ahead of the game?

Do we simply keep up with the Jones (Google) in current time and not worry about future changes? Or do we allow for future changes in algorithms so we don’t have to go changing thousands of pages later on?

For me I will take the later…. and this is how it’s done…

We simply build in all factors that the SE’s currently rank sites on, a few they may use into the future and concentrate on ones that are the most sensible…. here is a list

domain name >> the name itself, length of registration past and future

domain hosting >> good hosting network. different ip range for mininets/virtual real estate

meta tags >> title, keywords, description

on page >> keyword density, headers, alt tags, outbound links, outbound link text, site map, less graphics, no flash or frames

visitor usability >> fast loading, good content, good navigation, search equipped, site map

html >> w3c compliant

directories >> dmoz & yahoo, local, industry specific, large generic

linking >> inbound links, reciprocal links, domain & text linking (spread), same/similar industries (semantic latent indexing), no linking for bad neighborhoods or sites, quantity & quality of links, where links are placed on the page, link density, ip class/range

I’m sure there are a few others that I could add to this list however on the whole currently this is it.

If you include all of these items into building your next web page and sites, no matter how the SE’s decide to change their algorithms by giving one factor a higher importance over another, you will be in good stead to keeping up top rankings.

Like anything else, high search engine ranking is not rocket science! You just have to know the rules and then do the work.

Start with one keyword or phrase, do the research, implement a plan, do the work, get the high ranking and then move onto the next keyword or phrase…..

And if you want a huge head start, there’s some great info out on fast SEO ranking.

OVER OPTIMISATION

So you put a lot of work into creating a really great website only to find that noone can find it and Google doesnt rank your site very highly. You hear about a thing called “search engine optimization” and decide to give it a try. Before you go adding your keywords to every element of your pages and building links any way you can, take a step back and remind yourself of the old saying, “sometimes less is more”.

Search engine optimization, or SEO, has really taken off over the last five years as more and more fledgling webmasters have created websites, only to find that noone comes to visit. As they search around for ways to get more visitors, most of them quickly find resources on how to optimize a web page for the search engines and go right to work sprinkling keywords everywhere and building links from any place they can get them.

This causes problems for a search engine because, lets face it, you are trying to manipulate the search results and they are trying to avoid being manipulated. After all, just because YOU think your site is a great resource on a topic doesnt mean that it is. Google has already adjusted for the webmaster that is over-optimizing their website, and its called the Google “sandbox”. The sandbox is a name that disgruntled webmasters have given to the situation where a new site that should rank well for a keyword is nowhere to be found in the rankings, only to suddenly appear one day several months down the road. What is this sandbox effect and what could cause it?

My theory is that the “sandbox” is actually more of a “trustbox”, meaning that Google looks at many attributes of your site to determine if you are attempting to manipulate the search rankings. The most obvious, and the twp traps that most beginning webmasters fall into, I believe, is over-optimizing your on-page content and building too many low quality links too fast.

I believe that the newer your domain is, the less tolerance Google has for over-optimization of pages, or suspiciously fast link building. Once you trip the filter, youre placed in the holding cell (“sandbox”), because Google suspects you of trying to manipulate the results. I also believe that the tolerance for over-optimization varies based on the industry, so spammy industries such as pharmaceutical drugs are far more sensitive to over-optimization than most. That can cause some discouragement by many who are hoping to find fast success, since those industries are already competitive enough that you NEED highly optimized content and lots of links to possibly compete for top rankings, but you cant do it too quickly or you will be sandboxed.

At a recent WebmasterWorld conference, Matt Cutts from Google stated that there really wasn’t a “sandbox”, but “the algorithm might affect some sites, under some circumstances, in a way that a webmaster would perceive as being sandboxed.” This means that avoiding the sandbox is merely a matter of optimizing your site without tripping the filters in Googles algorithm.

Ask yourself these questions to avoid over-optimization penalties:

- Is your title a single target keyword phrase and nothing else?

- Is your keyword phrase found in several of the following locations: title, header, subheaders, bold or italicized words?

- Does the page read differently that you would normally speak?

- Are you in a competitive industry that is frequented by spammers?

- Have you acquired a large number of low PageRank links quickly?

- Do you have very few high PageRank (6+) links pointing to your site?

In summary, the current theory about Googles “sandbox” is that it is actually more like a holding cell where the Google “police” keep your website when it is suspected of possibly trying to manipulate the search results. As the domain ages, most sites eventually gain enough “trust” to escape the sandbox and immediately start ranking where they normally would. Remember that Google is not manually ranking every website – in the end it is simply a computer algorithm and those who are able to score well in Googles algorithm WITHOUT tripping any filters will achieve top rankings and profit the most.

KEYWORD SELECTION

Search engines are the vehicles that drive potential customers to your websites. But in order for visitors to reach their destination – your website – you need to

provide them with specific and effective signs that will direct them right to your site. You do this by creating carefully chosen keywords.

Think of the right keywords as the Open Sesame! of the Internet. Find the exactly right words or phrases, and presto! hoards of traffic will be pulling up to your front door. But if your keywords are too general or too over-used, the possibility of visitors actually making it all the way to your site – or of seeing any real profits from the visitors that do arrive – decreases dramatically.

Your keywords serve as the foundation of your marketing strategy. If they are not chosen with great precision, no matter how aggressive your marketing campaign may be, the right people may never get the chance to find out about it.

So your first step in plotting your strategy is to gather and evaluate keywords and phrases.

You probably think you already know EXACTLY the right words for your search phrases. Unfortunately, if you haven’t followed certain specific steps, you are probably WRONG. It’s hard to be objective when you are right in the center

of your business network, which is the reason that you may not be able to choose the most efficient keywords from the inside. You need to be able to think like your customers. And since you are a business owner and not the consumer, your best bet is to go directly to the source.

Instead of plunging in and scribbling down a list of potential search words and phrases yourself, ask for words from as many potential customers as you can. You will most likely find out that your understanding of your business and your customers’ understanding is significantly different.

The consumer is an invaluable resource. You will find the words you accumulate from them are words and phrases you probably never would have considered from deep inside the trenches of your business.

Only after you have gathered as many words and phrases from outside resources should you add your own keyword to the list. Once you have this list in hand, you are ready for the next step: evaluation.

The aim of evaluation is to narrow down your list to a small number of words and phrases that will direct the highest number of quality visitors to your website. By “quality visitors” I mean those consumers who are most likely to make a purchase rather than just cruise around your site and take off for greener pastures. In evaluating the effectiveness of keywords, bear in mind three elements: popularity, specificity, and motivation.

Popularity is the easiest to evaluate because it is an objective quality. The more popular your keyword is, the more likely the chances are that it will be typed into a search engine which will then bring up your URL.

You can now purchase software that will rate the popularity of keywords and phrases by giving words a number rating based on real search engine activity. Software such as WordTracker will even suggest variations of your words and

phrases. The higher the number this software assigns to a given keyword, the more traffic you can logically expect to be directed to your site. The only fallacy with this concept is the more popular the keyword is, the greater the search engine position you will need to obtain. If you are down at the bottom of the search results, the consumer will probably never scroll down to find you.

Popularity isn’t enough to declare a keyword a good choice. You must move on to the next criteria, which is specificity. The more specific your keyword is, the greater the likelihood that the consumer who is ready to purchase your goods or services will find you.

Let’s look at a hypothetical example. Imagine that you have obtained popularity rankings for the keyword “automobile companies.” However, you company specializes in bodywork only. The keyword “automobile body shops” would rank lower on the popularity scale than “automobile companies,” but it would nevertheless serve you much better. Instead of getting a slew of people interested in everything from buying a car to changing their oil filters, you will get only those consumers with trashed front ends or crumpled fenders being directed to your site. In other words, consumers ready to buy your services are the ones who will immediately find you. Not only that, but the greater the

specificity of your keyword is, the less competition you will face.

The third factor is consumer motivation. Once again, this requires putting yourself inside the mind of the customer rather than the seller to figure out what motivation prompts a person looking for a service or product to type in a particular word or phrase. Let’s look at another example, such as a consumer who is searching for a job as an IT manager in a new city. If you have to choose between “Seattle job listings” and “Seattle IT recruiters” which do

you think will benefit the consumer more? If you were looking for this type of specific job, which keyword would you type in? The second one, of course! Using the second keyword targets people who have decided on their career,

have the necessary experience, and are ready to enlist you as their recruiter, rather than someone just out of school who is casually trying to figure out what to do with his or her life in between beer parties. You want to find people who are ready to act or make a purchase, and this requires subtle tinkering of your keywords until your find the most specific and directly targeted phrases to bring the most motivated traffic to you site.

Once you have chosen your keywords, your work is not done. You must continually evaluate performance across a variety of search engines, bearing in mind that times and trends change, as does popular lingo. You cannot rely on your log traffic analysis alone because it will not tell you how many of your visitors actually made a purchase.

Luckily, some new tools have been invented to help you judge the effectiveness of your keywords in individual search engines. There is now software available that analyzes consumer behavior in relation to consumer traffic. This allows you to discern which keywords are bringing you the most valuable customers.

This is an essential concept: numbers alone do not make a good keyword; profits per visitor do. You need to find keywords that direct consumers to your site who actually buy your product, fill out your forms, or download your product. This is the most important factor in evaluating the efficacy of a keyword or phrase, and should be the sword you wield when discarding and replacing ineffective or inefficient keywords with keywords that bring in better



Ongoing analysis of tested keywords is the formula for search engine success. This may sound like a lot of work – and it is! But the amount of informed effort you put into your keyword campaign is what will ultimately generate your business’ rewards.

SUCCESSFUL DIRECTORY SUBMISSION

The buzzword of the hour is ‘SEO’. It has transformed the architecture of sites, brought about many new jobs, and is now considered vitally important for those that want to take their online operations to the next level. In its simplest form, search engine optimization (or “SEO”) is about doing everything you can to boost your natural ranking in the major search engines. The algorithm that ranks your site (despite variations across engines) is a compilation of many different variables. There is no one magic secret or special key you can turn. The goal is really to check off as many variables as possible from that algorithm. The kicker is that, for the most part, we don’t actually know what is contained in these algorithms that are so important to us. We can, however, make educated guesses. And there are several aspects of SEO that most, if not all, industry professionals agree on. One of those factors is the importance of link-building.

The Internet was built upon links. Sites link to one another to guide users through relevant information. Since these links basically mean, “there’s relevant information on this site,” each link pointing towards your site counts as a “vote” towards it. These votes help improve your natural ranking, especially when coupled with a well-built SEO friendly site. The big question is, of course, how do I go about getting other sites to link mine? Fortunately, the answer is an easy one, because there are many well run search engine friendly directories that would be more than happy to link to your site as part of their directory.

But the most popular directories receive thousands of applications to review. As such, they develop rules and guidelines for your submission. These rules are put in place to ensure that the submission and approval process can flow as smoothly as possible, as well as to help the directory select only the sites that are, in fact, relevant. And so the question returns: how do I ensure that my site gets accepted into the high-quality, top web directories?

It is very easy to adhere to the rules of a web directory with very little effort. In addition, because the editors of any directory are really looking for the same things, the rules from web directory to web directory tend to be very similar.

Count Those Characters:

One of the big rules imposed by directories has to do with the length of your title, description and keywords. If there were no limit, some people would write an essay for descriptions and cram in every possible keyword. Let me assure you that no directory editor wants to review a site application that could be broken up into chapters! Directories impose restrictions that essentially force you to be straight to the point. You might not be able to say everything about your site, so pick the most important points and go with that. Before you start submitting anywhere, sit back and write a few well-formulated descriptions that span 100, 150, 200, and 250 characters. One of those four levels will generally work in any web directory you come across. Once that’s done, most of the hard work is out of the way. Now all you have to do is look for the character requirements, copy and paste your blurb of that length, and you’re all set. The same thing holds true for keywords, so prepare a few different options so that, come submission time, it’s just a matter of picking the right one.

Would You Approve A Spam Filled Site Application?

Do not spam your directory listings. That can’t be more clearly stated, yet for some reason, people still do it. You are never going to get listed in any human reviewed directory when you try this tactic. An example of this would be that if you sell widgets, when you submit your information you repeat the word ‘widgets’ in your title, description, and keywords as many times as possible. Typically comprehension takes a back seat as the focus becomes cramming the word in as many times as possible. Directory editors hate this and it’s a very easy rejection. If you think that even attempting to spam like this is helpful, you might want to think again. If you spend time submitting to web directories with poorly articulated, spam-filled information, you are going to get rejected. You’ve then wasted a lot of your time and gotten absolutely nothing in return.

Choose The Right Category:

Web directories are sorted by topic and editors typically take great pride in ensuring that everything stays well organized. A tiny little bit of effort on your part to choose the right category can vastly improve your chances of being listed without any delay. The reason is simply that if you are an editor and you want to approve a site, you probably only have to click one button. But, if that site chose the wrong category, then you need to edit the application to modify the category (and now the editor has to find the correct category in the hierarchy!), which takes more time. If you are the editor sitting there with thousands of applications to process, it’s much easier to click the ‘reject’ button than it is to start fumbling through categories. So, put yourself in their shoes and do them a favor, because ultimately it’s you and your site that stand to benefit when you are approved.

A successful web directory submission campaign is when you maximize your time so that you get listed in the most directories possible. By following the above tips, you can help ensure you get approved, which goes a long way towards achieving your goal. With everything pre-written and good intentions to play by the rules, you’ll be flying through your submission campaign in no time.

RANKING BETTER IN SEO CONTESTS

The keyword is totally unique in the eyes of the search engines, and there are strong rules in these contests.

Some of the general important rules of seocontests.

1. No black hat search engine optimization allowed

2. No one from the official announcement website can enter this contest.

3. No Spamming of keywords and website

4. No cloaking or keyword stuffing

These contests generally are started with a time frame given to show the results in search engine results pages.

These are some of the general tips to rank better for the contest.

1. Try to get a older domain name rather than a new one, this is because there is a myth that search engines rank old domains better.

2. Never try to add the contest keyword more than 10 times to your contest webpage because this will result in keyword stuffing.

3. Add meta tags to your contest page which may include title, keywords, description and robots tag.

4. Add H1 , H2, and H3 tags correctly with the keyword in the first H1 tag.

5. Try to add unique contest to your webpage, which is totally fresh, as search engines like fresh content.

6. After the onpage seo is completed , start doing link building by exchanging links with relevant websites.

7. Add a sitemap to your website and continue with the link building.

If these steps are done perfectly , you can make sure that your webpage tops the search engine result pages.

BROKEN LINKS ARE BAD FOR SEO

A webmaster or website owner’s role or responsibilities do not end when the website he operates goes “live” and is now accessible by visitors online. There are a whole new set of responsibilities and functions that a website owner has to assume in order to make sure that his website continuously works perfectly and is able to fulfill its intended functions. Some of the responsibilities he has to assume include providing fresh content as much as possible, submitting the website to search engines and actively looking for reciprocal links in order to raise the ranking in search engines.

One of the most crucial responsibilities of a website owner is to check for broken links to his website. Broken links can be considered as one of the worst things that can happen to a website. A lot of not so good perceptions and negative effects arise from having a site that is riddled with broken links.

In fact, broken links are plaguing so many websites that it is being considered as a serious problem on the web. Many reasons can be cited for the spread of broken hyperlinks, the general causes of broken links include: Websites not being maintained with the appropriate degree of dedication, the architecture of the website and how information is placed within the site constantly changes, and the large incidence of websites that are closing down.

Hyperlinks are a very important component of websites because it aids in the navigation around the webpages and points to directions outside of the site. A website without links is like a ton of documents that are piled one on top of the other with no rhyme or reason and no intelligent way for you to get to the information that you need.

Link management is a very important and absolutely essential part of maintaining a website. As previously mentioned, broken links bring with it very negative perceptions about the website and these can have very detrimental effects on the traffic generated by the website.

From a technical perspective, broken links can stop search engine robots dead in its tracks, effectively preventing it from completely mapping out a website for submission to search engines. In addition, a website that is riddled with numerous broken hyperlinks gives visitors the idea that the site is unprofessional and that the website owner or owners have a dubious reputation – very costly image problems that are hard to change once it is established. Moreover, visitors who encounter many difficulties in a website will most likely not go back for a return visit, this is almost tantamount to losing prospective clients. They will be turned off because they won’t get the page that they are looking for, thinking that it is not really in the site when in reality the page is there only that an error in coding made the page inaccessible.

With internet users becoming more and more sophisticated as time goes by, it will take website owners more effort to entice these users to visit their websites and broken hyperlinks will not help this very difficult process in any way.

Website owners and webmasters should be very aware of the bad effects of having broken links in their websites. They should diligently weed out and fix any broken links. Fortunately, there are now a growing number of handy utilities that can help webmasters located broken links. With these utilities, managing a website becomes relatively easier.

For example, xml-sitemaps.com has programmed a standalone script that will not only create sitemaps but also looks for broken links in a website and then informs webmasters or website owners what links they are and to which pages the links are associated with. This automation of the task of checking broken links is a great time saver for webmasters and website owners.

WEB DEVELOPEMENT AND SEO

Search engine optimization, or SEO, is the act of altering or optimizing your website and it’s content in order that search engines deem it to be relevant and useful to certain topics. You are able to select the most appropriate topics through the use of certain keywords in your website.

When surfers conduct searches on search engines they are presented with a list of results for that search term. These results are called Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) and generally speaking, the websites that appear at the top of the SERPs will receive plenty of traffic to their websites from searchers.

In order to determine your position on the SERPs, search engines use their own algorithms. While nobody knows for absolute certain what these algorithms are it is widely accepted that your website needs to be easy to navigate, popular and relevant.

Easy navigation means that your site should have text links to each of its pages. If you use a flash menu system then you should include a sitemap in order that search engines and visitors can quickly and easily find their way around the whole of your website.

In order to make your website appear popular you need to get links to your site. While search engines would rather these links were generated because visitors to your site genuinely found your content useful, it is commonplace to undertake a reciprocal link campaign or generate inbound links. Reciprocal links mean a website links to you in exchange for a link to their own site.

Relevance is judged by your content. By including the keywords you place in the metatags of your site throughout the body of your content and in certain places within your site you are indicating to the search engines that your website contains relevant information.

By combining these factors you can effectively convince search engines that you deserve to be near the top of their SERPs. However, this can take time and a lot of effort if you don’t fully understand what you are doing.

SUCCESS OF SEO ON WORLD WIDE WEB

When all is said and done, the only way that an Internet based business is going to thrive (even survive, in point of fact), is through ever increasing traffic to a particular Internet based venue. Traffic to a website is the key to the success of Internet business. One of the most effective methods of increasing traffic to a business website is through search engine optimization or SEO.

In this day and age, a great many people continue to find out information about businesses that are operating on the Internet and World Wide Web through search engine searches. Additionally, for the most part, people tend to visit only those websites that are generated after a search engine search that are listed towards the top of the search results. Therefore, if you want to have people visit your site after a search engine search, you will want to work to endeavor that your business website is ranked high on the search engine result listing.

Through search engine optimization, or SEO, an Internet based business can accomplish the goal of having a link to that business enterprise listed higher up on a search engine search result list.

In this day and age, there are professionals that specialize in SEO. As a result, if you are new to the Internet, if you are new to the world of Internet business, you will want to consider the hiring of a professional. While SEO truly is something that a business owner of operator can master in the long run, if you are new to the Net and really are intent on getting your business up and running, you will want to take the time to consider engaging the services of a SEO professionals. You can avoid the trials and travails of the learning curve — and get your Internet based business up and running (fast) in a shorter period of time by engaging the services of a qualified SEO professional.

In conclusion you also need to keep in mind that SEO optimization is only one of the Internet marketing tools that you should use to promote and expand your Net based business enterprise. SEO alone and without other marketing techniques will not be enough to ensure business vitality and success in the long run. The Internet is very competitive and you will want to include SEO optimization as one of the marketing tools that you rely upon to promote your business enterprise.

SEARCH ENGINE MARKETING

SEO guidelines also known as Search Engine Optimization set the rules used by major search engines like GOOGLE, Yahoo, and MSN, etc. to judge whether or not to include a website in their search engine results. Believe it or not , having your website included in Google results is not part of the Bill of Rights under the constitution. There are Search Engine Marketing guidelines that govern which websites are included and those excluded from their results.

SEO Guidelines – Thou Shall…

Write your pages for people, not for search engines. It seems obvious, doesn’t it? We have all gone to web pages with garbage content written to deceive search engines for top rankings. When discovered (and they will be discovered), these websites are banned. Other SEO guidelines prohibit offering different content to search engines than your visitors. Called “”cloaking”, it’s unethical and another trick to avoid for high search engine rankings. Instead, focus on providing useful content your visitors are seeking and update your site frequently with fresh content.

SEO guidelines – Thou Shall Not…

Here are some important search engine optimization methods to avoid when using SEO methods on your website. These are unethical techniques that may lead to having your websites removed from the Google index. OUCH!!! That hurts! Once banned, your site will not appear in GOOGLE results or partner sites.

SEO guidelines clearly ban link farms that create multiple links to your site to raise your page rank by unethical means. Sooner or later your site will be caught and penalized for breaking SEO guidelines. In particular, avoid links to web spammers and software that auto submits your pages to search engines.

SEO guidelines – Search Engine Optimization

Create web pages free of hidden texts and links seen only by the search engines. Instead, use search engine marketing strategies without redirects to other sites. Instead of garbage content, search engine optimization promotes useful reader content. Do you like to read the same thing again… read the same thing again… read the same thing again… neither does the search engine. After all, search engines are people too!

SEO HIGHLIGHTS

The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:

“A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data.”

The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights that you should consider for your SEO efforts.

Update Your Site

Updating your site is important when it comes to maximizing your rankings on Google. In addition to the manipulation of keyword density and meta tags, the patent application reveals that Google places significant value on how often your content is updated. The more often you update, the timely and relevant your site will appear to Google. In turn, this leads to higher rankings.

To appease mighty Google, consider the following plan of action:

1. Update pages frequently,

2. Add new pages to your site,

3. Interlink the new pages with others on your site, and

4. Add new pages on a weekly basis instead of all at once.

When Google returns to the site, you want to make sure that there is new content. The high rankings of blog sites are evidence of this approach.

Google’s Looking at Your Domain

In a new twist, Google claims that it analyzes the number of years of domain registration as part of the ranking process. The application suggests that domains that are registered for longer periods of time are given more value because such a commitment shows the site is not a fly-by-night jump page. It is recommended that you extend all domain registrations for as long as possible as part of your search engine optimization efforts. It is difficult to tell how much the registration process impacts the ranking process, but every little bit helps.

Google claims that it also digs deeper into domain names to evaluate the legitimacy of the site. Factors in the evaluation include the web host and the “who is” information. According to the patent application, Google maintains a database of hosts that facilitate spamming of the Google search engine. While such hosts are not detailed in the application, pray to God that you are not using one. You should evaluate your host if your optimization efforts are not producing results.

If your search engine optimization efforts for Google are failing, the patent application may provide answers. Talk about a perfect E-book!

SEO AND WEB TRAFFIC BENEFITS FROM BLOGGING

The best way to get people and search engines (which means more people) to your website is by getting relevant inbound links. If you have some spiffy new gimmick on your website this may be easy as everyone will be linking to you.

However, with a basic, solid web page the process maybe much more difficult and slower. How do you get people to link to you?

The best way is to empty your wallet! Ok, just kidding, but first we will learn how easy that is.

For example there is a pay for blogging service that will cost you at least $5 per blog post (ie: per link) and maybe $25 or more. Now that will eat up your budget, and fast. These paid blog links don’t come with any guarantee. You might get lots of visitors and you might not get any at all.

Pay per click is another great option for spending all your money. This will bring you visitors for sure and you’ll know how much each one costs. That’s it. There is no long term benefit. The ads show for only as long as you pay for them. When your money isn’t on the table, you don’t exist!

You can buy links all over the place and again this may end up costing you a pretty penny, you may or may not get suitable results but when you stop paying the results (good or bad) stop. You gain nothing for the future.

Now blogs are a great way to get visitors and develop a long term return. Blog posts tend to stick around for a long time. The trick here is to get people to blog about your website without forking over a bundle of your hard earned cash.

A great idea is to become a guest blogger. This would be where you write blog posts for other people’s blogs. Read: your links on someone else’s website for free!

This puts you in the drivers seat for a couple of reasons. First you have control over exactly what is said. Secondly, if you do a good job you may have the opportunity to make regular blog posts. That will build an audience on the blogs for your writing and turn into more and higher quality traffic for your website.

The key to being a great guest blogger is to write short (3 to 6 or so paragraph) posts that are interesting, informative, humorous and relevant to the topic of the blog (and your website). Of course they should have a link to your website. Don’t over do the linking. Don’t make it sound like an advertisement or something you just cut and pasted from your website.

A few minutes to compose a couple of well thought out paragraphs could do wonders for your web traffic. Keep looking for guest blogging opportunities and never use the same post for more than one blog. One post could bring a lifetime of traffic.

This may well be your most effective way to developing quality web traffic and enhancing your the SEO for your website(s).