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Be #1 on MSN Bing by Christmas. Really!

11 2009 Monday

23

By Michael Small in SE Positioning

MSN’s new counterpart Bing is rewriting search engine history. Touted by Microsoft as the first ever “decision engine” it’s picking up steam like Yahoo in its heyday and is in place to give Google a serious run for its money.

Speaking of “serious”; it’s important to mention that MSN and now Bing are the search engine of choice for most credit card carrying adults. In fact, MSN Bing is the default search engine on every new Windows PC sold. That’s Big! A lot of people go to Google for playing around but stick to Bing when they mean business. And that’s great for you!

I recently obtained ten (out of 10!) top five placements on MSN Bing using a simple formula I can share right now. It took me only a few hours to do all the work, including the domain purchase and setting up hosting. Here is that magic formula:

• Focus on just one keyword for the site. Make it your most important.
• Use the exact keyword phrase as your domain name and be sure it ends in .com, .net, or .org. It is fine to use dashes between each or any combination of words in the domain name. They are treated as spaces by the search engine and are typically much easier to get than domains without dashes.
• Pay for two or more years when you register the domain. They appear to be using Google’s trick of checking registration dates and giving preference to those registered for more than one year.
• Post just one or two pages. If you need more than a home page, add a contact page or something else light on text. Note: You can use your site as a landing page and create links to all of your main site’s pages.
• Keep your home page text between 250 and 400 words. If you need to say more, add images that contain the text you want displayed.
• Put your keywords in the headings but do not use “head tags” or “strong tags.” Just make the text big and bold using the “bold tag.”
• Use your keyword phrase up to two times per one hundred words of text, but do not go over five full mentions for the entire page of text (plus up to two more for headings.)
• Mention your full keyword phrase once toward the beginning of the first paragraph and again within the first one third of the page text. Then use it once near the end of the page text. The other mentions can go anywhere in between.
• If you decide to go the software route to get faster results (still using these tips), stick with one that works well for MSN Bing. Many do not. Note: I developed the method above by using the tool I found at http://www.SEOeliteWeb.com.

Results: Here’s one example… I took one local client’s main keyword phrase of “richmond auto repair”, separated each word with a dash and registered the dotcom version. Within two weeks it became number one on MSN Bing for that keyword phrase and has stayed there as a gateway to the main site. It’s been four months now and I’ve done this for dozens of keywords, with my last experiment yielding 10 for 10 using just the tips listed here.

You can do it too.

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Mike Small is the SEO Specialist for Marketing Considerations, LLC. Based in Richmond Virginia, Marketing Considerations helps clients from all over the US, Japan, Germany and the UK with their search engine optimization needs.

How to Get Your Article to the Top of the Search Engines

10 2009 Thursday

22

By admin in SE Positioning

There are millions-if not billions-of articles on the internet. No matter the topic, people have already written about it online. So it can be difficult to get new articles to the top of the search engines. But, it can definitely be done.

It isn’t enough to select a topic people about which people will want to read. Let’s say that you went over to Google’s AdWords (or another website that determines which keywords are the most popular search terms at the moment) and then decided to write about one of the latest trends. While this does improve your chances of ranking higher on the search engines (and it is, in fact, a worthwhile step to take), it alone will not guarantee success. Instead, you will need to make your article stand out somehow.

Tips on Writing Your Article

Writing about the current buzzwords and trends-also known as viral marketing-is a great start. But you can definitely take other steps to make sure that your article rises to the top of the search engines. These are some ideas that you might try:

• Choose your keywords wisely. Let’s say that you did research and found that a certain brand of candy bar was a big trend that a lot of people were talking about because of a contest that was going on. Keywords for your article could very well be ‘candy bar’ and ‘contest.’ The brand name could also be a keyword. Don’t, however, choose something extraneous, such as ‘chocolate’ or ‘nougat.’ For this type of article or articles, you won’t need to describe the candy bar.
• Select keyword placement wisely. You should include your keywords in the headline of your article. You should also make certain to include them in the body of your article several times, toward the beginning and the end.
• Keep keyword density in mind. Keyword density is the number of times your keyword appears relative to the number of words in total. Your density should be no more than 5% to 7%. Any more than that, and most search engines may regard your article to be spam.
• Include links to high-ranking websites (or other articles on your own website). Links will help you to achieve high search engine rankings, especially if they are links to popular websites.
• Remember: Content is King. If the quality of your article isn’t good, no one will read it-and, therefore, no one will click on any of the links. Make your article interesting and readable.

What to do After the Article is Written

Once you have finished the article, there are still a few ideas you can try that can help to get your article to the top of the search engines:

• Submit your articles to the several article directories.
• Submit your article to ezine editors that accept articles on your topic.
• Look for blogs related to your topic, and ask if they accept outside articles for submission.
• Post a link to the article on Twitter and Facebook.
• Submit the article to social bookmarking websites, such as StumbleUpon and Digg.

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James Trent is a mentor and business coach that assists serious entrepreneurs in building a profitable online business with multiple incomes streams. James and his team have assisted hundreds of people in generating huge profits in their very first year. For more information and to contact James, visit his website.http://thesevenfigurepro.com

Source: http://www.submityourarticle.com

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Did You Forget the Obvious Directories?

08 2009 Thursday

6

By admin in SE Positioning

If you want your webpage to rank well, you will have to have a couple thousand backlinks.

A backlink is an inbound html code that points to your website. You are probably wondering why you would want a backlink.

I will explain it this way: If you have many websites with one-way links to your website, the search engines interpret this in your favor. You want to make sure that your website is at the “hub of the wheel” so to speak — all the spokes, or links, are pointing to your website.

Your goal should be that the search engines view your site as an “authority site”. If a website provides excellent, interesting articles and other content, and has many readers, that website could be called an “authority site”. Websites mention and point to, or refer to, articles and videos on the authority site.

Let’s step back a bit and explain links in an example:

If Sally’s site links to you, then you have one inbound link. However, if your website links back to Sally’s site, the links balance each other out and nobody wins — that is called a reciprocal link. Don’t look for reciprocal links. You should look for links back to your website from other websites where you don’t have to link to them.

Now who is going to do that? Any website marketer who has been around for some time does not want reciprocal links. That website owner wants inbound links to his site.

Sources of inbound, one-way links:

Links from directories – Directories aren’t as popular as they once were now that people use search engines to find what they want, but directories still offer free inbound links. All you have to do is apply for them. There are several companies that offer free software. Just search for a directory submitter. There are several to choose from. You will find one that is easy to use and makes submitting to directories a snap.

Links from articles you write – There is probably no better way to get people to visit your blog than to write good articles. When you write a good article, you need to send that article to a large number of article directories.

They will post your article at no charge to you and most of them will allow you to put a couple of self-serving links in the “resource box”. The resource box is where you can advertise your website, tell them what they will find, and perhaps send them to your subscription optin page.

As you might guess, sending your articles out to thirty or forty sites can be a daunting task. I would suggest that you do a search for article submitter software.

You may find an article submitter that works very well and saves you hours of valuable time. You type the information into the article submitter once and it will automatically fill it in to the article site. It even keeps track of your username and password for those sites where you have to register.

You should spend the time to find a company that will do this for you. It costs me money every month to submit eight articles to many, many article directories. I think it is worth the money, but if you are just starting out, perhaps the free way is better.

Comment on “dofollow” blogs

Some WordPress blog owners have installed a plugin called “dofollow”. This overrides the default of “nofollow” that the blog comes setup as. If the blog has this plugin installed and activated, you will get a backlink to your website when you make a comment on that site. (Most blog owners aren’t aware that this may be a reason they don’t get as many comments on their articles as they could.)

There is software that I use that finds blogs that have the “dofollow” plugin installed. I look for them and I am more inclined to comment on those blogs because it gets me a backlink.

Search for a blog submitter. It is the software that you use to help find those blogs. Most blog submitters are free too. All you do is type in keywords that refer to your website and it will find blogs that have similar keywords.

Free directories you *must* know about:

Most blog owners and internet marketers have forgotten this one. It is right under their noses, but they haven’t listed their sites in local directories. Here is a short list of local directories that you must do tonight.

* Google Local

* www.yellowpages.com

* Yahoo Local

* Yahoo Yellow Pages

* www.superpages.com

* www.yellowbook.com

* www.atlantaataglance.com

* www.your nearest big city.com

* www.big city chamber.org

Even if you don’t have a physical address where you accept the public, you can still put your website on these various directories. You don’t have to show your physical address, if you don’t want it to show.

To summarize:

Every website marketer needs backlinks. The website marketer’s goal should be to grow their site in size to become an authority site in his area of specialty.

It is not difficult to get backlinks, but it is time consuming and laborious. I would suggest that you use software to help you speed up these repetitive tasks. Get free software called directory submitter. Obtain an article submitter product. Use a blog finder to help you comment on blogs that give you a backlink.

Lastly, don’t forget the obvious. Use the list above to get listed in the local directories.

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You only have a finite number of hours, so spend your time effectively. For software to help you submit your articles to many websites, visit You can also join our newsletter and get frequent training emails at no charge

Ezine Marketing: How to Triple Your Ezine Opt-ins With a Squeeze Page

07 2009 Monday

20

By Donna Gunter in SE Positioning

For years I’ve resisted the urge to create a squeeze page for my email newsletter. A squeeze page is a one-page site, or a landing page on a site, that has one call to action: convince the visitor to enter her name and email address to join your list and/or receive your giveaway. On a traditional squeeze page, the visitor has only one option — to part with her name and email address to opt into your list. This is how the squeeze page term was coined, as the visitor is “squeezed” for her contact information to permit her to continue into the site.

I’ve most often seen this strategy used as the home page of a site, and the use of that strategy in that way made me hesitant to adopt it. Why? Because a squeeze page home page provides little content for search engine spiders to index and may block the indexing of the remainder of your site. You hurt your chances of using SEO to rank high in the search engines. And, I think that requiring contact info to enter your web site will turn repeat visitors away.

In the last year or so I’ve seen more of what I term a “wussie squeeze page,” in which all of the concepts of a squeeze page are in place, but the site owner has placed a bypass link underneath the opt-in box that invites the visitor to enter the site without being forced to opt into a list.

I’ve recently done something similar with my ezine by placing a hidden squeeze page on my site where the top navigation links of the site are still visible but the page isn’t listed and can’t be accessed via the site navigation menu. So, while the invitation to bypass the opt-in box isn’t quite as obvious to the visitor, a method of bypassing the opt-in box is still available to visitors. If they choose to bypass this page, I have two backup plans to capture a visitor’s contact info: a subscription box on every page of my site, as well as an opt-in hover ad that pops up about 45 seconds after landing on my site.

Here are the 10 essential components you need to create an effective squeeze page for your ezine:

1. Domain Name. Pick a compelling domain name that accurately describes the result of opting into your list or the nature of the list to which the visitor is opting into. You’ll want to forward this domain to a hidden page on your site that is not accessible via your navigation menu. Don’t mask the domain when you forward it (i.e. hide the internal URL to which the domain is forwarded — your domain registrar usually offers this as an option). If you use this domain in your resource box when you syndicate your articles, you want to reap the rewards of strong inbound links from high-traffic article directories, and that won’t happen if you mask the domain name of your squeeze page.

2. Client Attraction Device. The most effective way to entice a visitor to opt into your list is by giving something away. Typically this giveaway, or what I call a Client Attraction Device, is in an electronic download format and helps solve a major issue faced by your target market. Many savvy online business owners put several electronic downloads together into a kit (audio, ebook, and checklist, for example) for their giveaway, as the expectations have increased as to what visitors expect when exchanging their contact info for free information.

3. Graphic of Giveaway. The adage of “a picture is worth a thousand words” rings quite true in the Internet marketing world. Have a graphic representation created of your giveaway, as that increases the perceived value of what you’re offering.

4. Value of Giveaway. Placing a monetary value on your giveway is another strategy to enhance the importance of this free item in the eyes of your visitors. Don’t be outrageous in your pricing — determine what you might actually charge for your giveaway if you were selling it as a product on your site.

5. Compelling Headline. A headline that grabs your reader’s attention will go a long way in convincing them to hang out long enough to finish reading the content on your squeeze page. Appealing to some emotion of the visitor is the most effective way to construct a compelling headline, like fear of loss, greed, vanity, lust, pride, envy, laziness…you get the idea.

6. Captivating Copy. It’s no longer sufficient to simply invite a visitor to opt into a list. Most visitors have become too savvy for that. In order to convince them to opt into your list, you must answer the “WIIFM” question, or “What’s In It For Me?” This means that you need to take a page out of the copy writing playbook and essentially create a short sales letter on your squeeze page. Outline the benefits they’ll receive if they opt into your list for the giveaway.

7. Enhance with Audio and Video. It never hurts to appeal to all information intake styles of your visitors. Record a quick audio or video that convinces your visitors that your giveaway is something that they cannot live without. Verbally instruct them how to opt into your list, as well.

8. Testimonials. Reading (or hearing) glowing reviews of how others liked the giveaway will often serve as the deciding factor to get a visitor to take action. Request written, audio, or video testimonials from others who’ve received your Client Attraction Device or from those who’ve purchased other products and services from you. Testimonials go a long way in convincing visitors that opting into your list is worth their time and energy.

9. Opt-in Box. You need an email marketing service to help you create an opt-in box to capture your visitor’s name and primary email address. If you plan on doing direct mail marketing in the future, you may also request their mailing address and phone number as optional fields. You’ll be surprised at how many visitors will complete the entire form with all of their contact info, even if the name and email address are the only two required items.

10. Informed opt-in. Let visitors know that they will also be receiving a complimentary subscription to your ezine when they opt into your list. Don’t hide this fact from your visitor. Give them a bit of info about your ezine, like how often you publish it. You may want to create a graphic image of your ezine to add to this page, as well.

A squeeze page for your ezine is an effective way to triple the opt-in rate to your email marketing list. Follow these 10 steps to skyrocket the size of your list today!

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Online Business Coach and Internet Marketing Strategist Donna Gunter helps baby boomers create profitable online businesses that they love. Would you like to learn the specific Internet marketing strategies that get results? Discover how to increase your visibility and get found online by claiming your FREE gift, TurboCharge Your Online Marketing Toolkit, at ==> TurbochargeYourOnlineMarketing.com

How to Transfer On Page Authority

03 2009 Wednesday

25

By Jeffrey Smith in SE Positioning

There are many ranking factors, but when it comes to SEO, certain on page changes are more significant than others.

For example, with the lingering impression of legacy content, links, and the search engine / cloud computing bin (the cumulative summary of each page in a website since it was first indexed) certain benchmarks are built into a pages quantitative SEO ceiling. Hence, the introduction of new content is paramount for exceeding the previous topical relevance for a websites global keyword density.

In other words, Google and other search engines are transparent in their approach. Essentially, the website with (a) the most coherent amount of information on a topic (b) the most relevant and authority links from other websites and (c) the most favorable on-page site architecture (to ensure frequent crawling and indexing) has the highest propensity for long-term search engine visibility.

For a site with such magnitude (over 500 pages) ranking is more of a side-effect than an objective. In fact, developing an authority site is an endeavor that makes perfect sense in a word riddled with pay per click advertising, which is like renting when when you take away the mask.

If you are still obsessing over keywords vs. looking at the big picture of market share, it’s not too late to stop throwing away time, money and resources for short-term gains only to forgo the big picture of long-term search engine prominence.

Knowing this, if your website is light in the pants and only has a few targeting keywords appearing sparsely in context, your chances of ranking higher for select keywords diminish. In fact, each page represents another opportunity for sculpting on page relevance (which can be transferred) or leveraged across multiple pages to fine tune specific rankings for specific keywords.

Your primary naming conventions and navigation play a much larger role as far as aggregate ranking factors are concerned. A thematic page consists of (1) a clear ranking objective (2) a sufficient amount of internal links (3) a sufficient amount of external links to that page with the primary root phrase (and or link flow) and (4) the culmination of trust that occurs when you have maxed the page out as far as the tipping point is concerned.

In the past, it was possible to leverage a page within a site with hundreds of thousands of inbound links to cross the threshold. Now, with the onset of pliable content management systems, once domain authority is produced, the approach for producing top rankings has shifted from the old (80% off page factor) to (80% on page SEO / 20% domain reputation) which is somewhat divisible by links.

The objective is not TRYING to rank for a specific series of keywords as much as it is gaining an authoritative position in a market or niche. It is the websites that have clever underpinnings that refer to a much larger piece of the pie / industry that exceed the smaller GEO specific / targeted niche sites when it comes to devouring and exceeding short term keyword benchmarks.

Instead of ranking for A, B and C in a niche, why not rank for hundreds of keywords, modifiers and thematic synonyms with the same effort. Obviously the old method of applied SEO (static pages and meta tags) is still appealing for some, the new SEO method is more about using a collective series of layers to meet and exceed the necessary ranking factors exhibited by (a) the competition and (b) the search engines yardstick when it comes to assessing who is THE AUTHORITY on the topic.

Back to the subject, which is how to transfer on page authority. First creating it is the main objective, which means understanding the range of phrases a page can funnel back to itself while remaining optimal. Second, understanding that once that page has achieved its ideal synergy, how does it fit into the big picture as a hub for producing additional leverage and rankings for other key landing pages.

Each page is an opportunity to unify a theme. A theme meaning at the helm is a one word vertical market whereby once all of the silos (key phrases that stem and comprise the topic) are appeased and present, become buoyant and the site ranks for the root phrase and everything in between.

By constructing your content in this fashion and merging the themed and siloed elements with static flat site architecture (where pages are isolated deliberately). You can produce phenomenal keyword coherence and rankings for specific keywords and pages while still maintaining broad match funneling capabilities which means you capture the long-tail of search as well as the more moderately competitive keywords by default.

To funnel the on page authority a page has you simply do two things.

1) cap the outbound links to relevant anchor text. Each link leaving a page is like a leak unless the link weight moving in to the page and leaving that page are stabilized.

2) Make sure the target page is linked prominently from pages with the highest authority on the topic.

I have provided a link to an in depth post about funneling link flow to key landing pages. But the initial process begins with creating a phenomenon similar to a cross-pollination of keywords within your site by (a) identifying pages with the most on page and off page relevance and then (b) linking out from them to the new preferred landing page.

Over time, the process matures to multiple pages equally capable of enforcing SEO defense on your behalf (whereby one page fights with another for a top ranking or indented double ranking) to stave off competition on your behalf.

This tactic is also ideal for producing the double listing which can increase site conversion by 200% for every keyword nestled within this optimization tactic.

If a page ranks for a main keyword (higher up the ladder of relevance) then it is a candidate to pass on page authority to another area of the site. If that page exceeds 10 outbound links, then the chance of it passing its ranking factor is also diminished.

So, the exercise is one of (1) knowing or understanding the cycles of authority (which could be 2-8 months to produce for each competitive keyword) and then (2) knowing when to harvest that authority by going back to edit key pages in the site to stem and produce multiple pages ranking for a plethora of related synonyms or related searches.

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

The Importance of (KPIs) Key Performance Indicators for SEO

09 2008 Thursday

18

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By admin in Jerry Bader's Blog

When it’s time to determine how effective an SEO, advertising or marketing campaign is, the need to establish KPIs (key performance indicators) as benchmarks to measure goal conversion, time lines and tactical objectives is necessary

Performance benchmarks exist for a very specific purpose, to measure conversion and marketing objectives, but KPIs also allow us to extend beyond one-dimensional thinking and truly develop long-term strategic and pivotal advantages.

Sometimes your website has all the right ingredients, but lacks proper execution. Increasing landing page conversion by 15% for example is one KPI. Improving lead generation, product inquiries or phone calls by 43% within a specific time-line using four new marketing methods.

Such examples of performance are based on gap analysis (from existing performance levels of where you are and where you want to be) however they provide valuable insight into the effectiveness of a campaign.

For example, if it is implied that you will increase traffic, increasing traffic alone is not a (KPI) key performance indicator. If the traffic is not converting into sales, then you need to look beyond the surface level and delve deeper into the root cause (the content and the offer) that produce the effects. Often it resides in usability, how obvious navigation is, how obvious is the conversion objective is, or if the message diffused from too many competing elements.

When looking to fine-tune performance, determining metrics such as time spent on a page, the keywords used to deliver the traffic, which related keywords are relevant and overlapping. Determining the existing bounce rate or engagement metric for the page and what calls to action exists on the landing page in question.

Managing those factors allow you to create a base-level KPI analysis to improve performance individually or across all of these metrics simultaneously. However, without analytics or performance tracking, you are just grasping straws when it comes to delivering or reproducing consistent or future sales volume.

The necessity to specifics is all part of the SMART model:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Achievable
• Result-oriented or Relevant
• Time-bound

Combine this with the KISS model (keeping it simple) and the who, what, where, when and how factor and you can essentially craft a series of objectives for each landing page in your site by assigning unique, yet attainable benchmarks.

The real value of KPIs are the ability to reproduce the effect, or know which affect your adjustments are having on traffic, conversion and visitor engagement. Without knowing where to look, or how to measure the outcome, you are destined to repeat past performance over an over again.

The only horrible thing about that is, what if that performance (such as an exceptionally high bounce rate) could have been avoided from a simple SEO intervention from installing analytics or testing another offer.

In closing, without key performance indicators, such as a 110% increase in search engine traffic or other distinct objectives, your SEO will not reach its full potential.

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

Six Simple SEO Techniques to Improve your Search Engine Ranking

09 2008 Monday

1

By Peter Nisbet in SE Positioning

There are some very simple SEO techniques available for you to improve your search engine ranking. In the course of my normal analysis of competitors’ websites, I find an amazing number that does not employ all of these techniques, yet every one can help you get closer to that coveted #1 position.

Using these will not in itself allow you reach the top position for your keyword, but they definitely help, and there is no single factor that will enable you to hit the top. A #1 position on Google is attained by a combination of many factors, such as internal and external linking strategies, relevance of your content to the keyword and the overall look and feel of your site. Plus those detailed below.

So let’s get started on these: these are the nuts and bolts of SEO, and if they are not right then you are starting off on the back foot. These are the essential SEO techniques that you must have as a minimum if you want to improve your search engine ranking, and although intended mainly for beginners, many established web pages do not contain every one of these.

I write ‘pages’ deliberately, because Google and the other main search engines list web pages, and not entire domains. That means that every single page in your website should be optimized in the same way: each should contain every single one of the SEO techniques listed below.

TITLE TAG

The title tag is contained within the ‘HEAD’ tags of your HTML, before the ‘BODY’ tags. This states the title of the page, and must contain the major keywords of the page. The contents of your title tag do not appear in the text of the page: its purpose is to inform the search engine spiders what the topic of your page is, and what words are important (i.e. your main page keyword). For example, the TITLE tag of a page based on this article would be “SEO Techniques – Improve your Search Engine Ranking”.

DESCRIPTION TAG

The description Meta tag is used by Google, and other search engines, in the search engine listings. I have tested this with them all and Google uses it as is, while Yahoo uses part of it. You should provide a description of what the web page is about, and a simple check of the descriptions in other sites using your keyword on Google will show you how many words you can use to have the whole description included. About 20 words are fine.

KEYWORD TAG

Search engines rarely use the keyword Meta tag: Google ignores it completely. However, it doesn’t hurt, and can help in a small way. Include your brand name and your own name. That way some engines might show your pages if somebody is looking for your name. The other Meta tags have no SEO value, and do not help to improve your search engine ranking whatsoever.

HEADING H TAGS

Heading tags (H1, H2, . . .) are used by Google to determine the importance of the text contained in your headings. Use H1 tags for the main title of your page (you also use it in the TITLE tag, but that isn’t seen by readers, only by the spiders). Put subtitles in H2 tags. You can change the font size of the text within these tags.

TEXT FORMATTING

Text in bold, italics and underscored are seen by the search engines as having greater weight, and so will be used in determining the relevance of your site. Always bolden your titles, and it also helps to underline it if it doesn’t make it look out of place.

WRITING STYLE and CONTENT

Do not write for algorithms (spiders): write for your readers. Always write for humans and you won’t go wrong. If your page content reads well, and has good vocabulary relating to the topic, then it will have a better chance of a higher listing than if you stuffed it full of keywords. I rarely use more than 1.5% – the keyword densities of the terms ‘SEO’, SEO techniques’ and ’search engine ranking’ (the main keywords) of this article are 1.5, 0.87 and 0.87 respectively. Too many keywords is bad SEO, and could result in a poor listing for your page – if it is listed at all.

So there you are: six simple SEO techniques to improve your search engine ranking. It is surprising how many experienced webmasters fail to apply all of these: there is no excuse, and they are failing to get the nuts and bolts properly fitted and tightened on their web pages.

Apply these to every page and not only will you improve your SEO, but also your chances of a good search engine ranking. It is amazing how many web pages lack these basic SEO techniques.

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Peter Nisbet – If you would like more advanced SEO techniques to help improve your search engine ranking considerably, check out SEOcious where Pete show you screenshots of how got two of his sites listed at #1 in the main search engines against strong competition.

Search Engine Optimization Concepts

08 2008 Monday

18

By Jeffrey Smith in SE Positioning

Sometimes another form of language and imagery is required in order to communicate vast ideas for common consumption. This is one of such instances where an array of algorithmic functions will be given a conceptual vehicle to map their role in the creation of a top 10 ranking.

Since the concept of the universe is a great model, we will borrow concepts originating from planetary forces ranging to universal phenomenon like gravity, orbits, the concept of the internet being a giant nebula of computers sharing virtual space and employing data retrieval, etc. Bear in mind, this is only an interpretation.

If you can visualize your website as a dot and each keyword as its own orbiting sphere of concentric influence, you have to create a series of eventful transactions (like creating content over time, building links, having a supportive format for internal linking) that classify and elevate your website as a candidate for relevance within the center of the sphere of influence for that keyword.

By viewing each keyword as a cumulative objective (like peeling away the layers of an onion) once you reach the center, your site radiates a beacon in all directions whenever a broad match or more general search is conducted with those keywords as search queries.

When you first start a website, since the site is empty your relevance is also at zero. As you continue to add content to your site (like filling up a glass with liquid) the site begins to take on a particular persona based upon what content is contained within the site.

As a result, your site creates its own orbit and gravitational pull where the content and subjects traversed within the context of your pages become beacons that attract similar orbiting keywords, concepts and semantic variations.

The analogies presented are to elaborate on the function of search engine algorithms which essentially consolidate each site into a type of conical tube that best describes the subject matter it contains. Then based on the vacuum created when someone actually invokes those qualities (through a linear search) the search bridges the gap and projects through all of the other spheres of influence (from the web) to extract the most relevant pieces of data and reformats them for communication via retrieval.

In order to appear as the most relevant result, your site must have enough supporting relevance from external clusters (others sites) that also contain the same type of data cloud (a collective summary of the sites content) which can change forms (like a liquid to a gas, a gas to a solid) and act as a homing signal to create continuity between its own orbit (on the micro level) and serve as a piece of the puzzle for the main theme in the index (as a part of the whole like a planet in the solar system, which belongs to a galaxy, etc.).

The Job of search engines is to be able to index, retrieve and create order from all of the orbits created from each websites signature as it occupies the cloud of online space (data shared across multiple servers), gauge a metric and then determine the usefulness of the metric and how it applies to a query (which like a vacuum) is seeking the most relevant result.

Just think of a search as pure potential that does not exist until executed, then on assembly its purpose is to seek out the most likely orbit (website) using the nebulous data cloud (the web) to bridge the gap using a vacuum that through traversing aggregate links and other sites (through assessing their relevance score) until it finds the most suitable supporting environment.

If you can use this visual map as a blueprint, then you understand that rankings are all a result of how strong the broadcast signal is, signal strength in this capacity is based on relevance, continuity and popularity. In order to produce a ranking of such magnitude (such as a competitive keyword) you must move from the outermost bounds of the keywords sphere of influence, into its center to attain the top ranking result.

The stages involved are research, planning, execution, testing, refinement, collaboration and strategy.

If any of the steps are excluded in does not mean you still cannot create top 10 placement for your website, it is just that if reproducing the phenomenon is important to you, then understanding the proper chronology and strategy behind the tactics should concern you. For example, topical relevance, site synergy / persona, authority and orderliness all impact placement for your website.

1) Research - You need to research the appropriate keywords to develop the appropriate gravity in your own site to attract the search engines crawlers (who index the content and include the site approximation of relevance score).

2) Planning - After finding your semantic base, create topical fields of information (multiple keyword-rich pages) within the site (using a content management system) or supporting site architecture.If search engines cannot retrieve the data (based on crawling errors from bots, poor site architecture or otherwise) then you is automatically excluded from participating with other forms of life contained in digital space (the web).

3) Execution - Build links, either through internal linking (if you have an authority site that is enough) or through external links from other sites (data clusters with relevance) that have similar signatures containing the topical relevance shared by your own site.

The closer the relevance between things like (a) is the site from the same industry or niche (b) is there related content between the sites (c) what keywords are used to link to and from the two sites (the vacuum) and (d) where each site resides in the overall relevance model for each of the overlapping keywords they both share, gives the target site the opportunity to receive a jolt of authority through osmosis and synergistic infusion. The bottom line is the quality of the links, but topical relevance also add even more weight to the orbit of the site receiving the link from an external site.

4) Testing – Test the results, ping the site from using a beacon in the nebula, use a search engine to determine how close to the center of the keywords your site has become. If you targeted 10 keywords for example and dedicated an ample amount of time, effort and energy to build a coherent series of pages on the site, created strong internal linking and then found at least 5 sources for links to each page (with a wide array of IP diversity) in other words not from the same series of sites, then you should have created enough orbital relevance as well as made a strong impression on the ethers in the data cloud (your sites algorithmic counterpart) to appear as a relevant result.

5) Refinement - If your website did not make the grade (is not ranking yet) then you can always (1) wait for all of the factors to settle a bit more and then re-evaluate the keyword saturation (2) build more content and shore up your main subject or subjects or (3) look for other sites with authority that can augment your sites reputation online (in the nebulous data cloud known as the web).

6) Collaboration - Moving a website closer to the center of a series of keywords requires understanding. You need to know that each time you add a page or a link it changes (1) the sites internal topical relevance and orbit / signature and (2) how other sites and keywords within the web react to it based on the search engines algorithm. The translation here is, by viewing each keyword as a cumulative apex, you can set in motion a series of events to create a chain reaction to close the gap for those keywords.

More competitive phrases may take many months to a year or more, other phrases in the nebula (the web) may only take a few hours or a few days at best to acquire. The point being, your websites orbit is entirely up to you, how others link to it and the collective blueprint it leaves on its environment in the nebula however is another part of the equation that you have to sculpt over time through releasing consistent information on a topic to reinforce the basis of its existence.

7) Strategy - the strategy is simple, rank for as many keywords that either funnel relevant traffic to your site or overlap with a series of other keywords that have latent potential down the road. The web is all about multiple layers overlapping and linking through internalization and expression. These two dynamic attributes are responsible for moving from site to site or from page to page within a website. Depending on your ability to see beyond the immediate goal (which is to create relevance) the real goal is to create a hub where your site literally overlaps with thousands of keywords and then refines each branch to delve deep into the long-tail as well as hit the high notes with the most sought after two word phrases as well.

By using the concepts such as topical relevance, gravity, orbit, continuity, the query-based vacuum, the nebulous data cloud and information retrieval in a way that anyone can understand, creating a systemic method for creating relevance is a by product which means multiple top 10 rankings to claim as trophies that increase website traffic.

Jeffrey Smith is an active internet marketing optimization strategist, consultant and the founder of Seo Design Solutions Seo Company http://www.seodesignsolutions.com. He has actively been involved in internet marketing since 1995 and brings a wealth of collective experiences and fresh marketing strategies to individuals involved in online business.

Break Your Search Engines Habits To Get Better Information

08 2008 Wednesday

6

By Bill Platt in SE Positioning

With the ever-expanding enormity of the Internet, desirable search engine results are more important than ever before. Search engines are generally an efficient way to narrow down the millions of pages of information available, to a few relevant results.

Advanced Search Features

The relevancy of results can depend on several factors. For one, the search terms used make a difference. Boolean search rules are probably the best-known and most widely used. These consist of separating specific terms with AND, OR, or NOT, to include or exclude results. To get an overview of the Advanced Search Features available in a number of search engines, check out this chart: http://www.mlb.ilstu.edu/ressubj/subject/intrnt/srcheng.htm

One rule to remember is that the more specific your search terms are, the better your results will be. For example, instead of searching for “dogs”, try searching for “terriers”.

Another rule is that less is more. Be concise with the search terms you pick – putting too many search words into the engine can result in confusing or too few results. In fact, most search engines limit the number of words that can be used in a search request to ten words.

Finally, you can also add filters to whatever you are searching. For example, if you are searching full text files, you can enter title:oxygen to find only files with the word “oxygen” in the title. The same can be done for URLs. If you know “oxygen” is part of the URL you’re looking for, you would enter inurl:oxygen. I use this tool all of the time to find information provided on a government website by adding inurl:gov to my search criteria.

Organic and Paid Search Results

If you’ve ever used more than one search engine, you’ll quickly realize that not every search engine returns the same results or links. There will be similarities and differences across most search engines, especially the “Big Three”: Google, Yahoo, and MSN.

The Big Three search engines tend to include sponsored results (basically, results that somehow fit the search term as defined by the advertiser, and which appear above the real search results). Usually the sponsored results will note that they are “sponsored” results somewhere, so as not to be confused with the “real” results. Except, the search engine companies actually hope – that you’ll click on the paid results instead of the real results, so the search companies can get paid for you visiting their clients’ websites.

The results from the different search engines can actually overlap. If you want to have a wide variety of relevant links, you may spend time typing the same words into different engines, only to come up with mostly the same search results.

There is a tool that makes the similarities between the search engines abundantly clear; although this search tool is not good for much other than to show you how similar search results can be between Yahoo and Google: http://www.langreiter.com/exec/yahoo-vs-google.html

A variation on this theme can be seen here: http://ranking.thumbshots.com/

Meta Search Engines Combine Results From Many Search Engines

Instead of relying on the Big Three search engines alone, don’t be afraid to try some different search engines. Meta search engines are a good way to be more efficient with your searches, and they will help you to get a much more diverse set of relevant search results. Meta search engines, such as http://www.Clusty.com and http://www.Widow.com are both good at returning a wide variety of results.

For demonstration purposes, let’s take a look at some different search terms in each of five different search engines – Google, Yahoo, MSN, Clusty and Widow. The three search terms used for this unscientific experiment are: unemployment, weather, and Myanmar.

Test Search: Unemployment

For “unemployment”, Google, Yahoo and Clusty first returned sponsored links. MSN and Widow both returned online encyclopedia results – MSN using Encarta’s encyclopedia; Widow returning Wikipedia.org results. Wikipedia also showed up in the other three search engines, as well, but further down in the results lists.

A similarity between all of the search engine results was they each turned up specific states’ unemployment links in the first page – primarily California, New York, and Ohio. Google and Yahoo also brought up current news items related to unemployment.

Widow.com (the meta search engine) provides additional tools in the left sidebar for related-keywords and clustered search options. For the search term “unemployment”, the clustered results offered: insurance, compensation, unemployed, rate, workforce development, benefits eligible workers, information employers, data, individuals, and welcome Ohio. All of these additional search terms are just a click away.

Test Search: Weather

The next term is “weather.” In this search, only Google and Clusty returned a sponsored result at the top. The top result for the other three engines was weather.com. The secondary results in each of the engines included, in varying order, Yahoo weather, and NOAA’s National Weather Service website.

Differences for the term of “weather” included MSN showing MSN weather in their results, as well as a UK weather website on Widow.com. Again, I was impressed by the optional clustered search engine results on Widow.com. These included options for city searches, Doppler, and the latest weather news.

Test Search: Myanmar

The final search word for the five search engines was Myanmar, to test the relevance of findings for a region that’s received a lot of media attention in the last few months since the Myanmar Cyclone. The results on Google started with several colorful maps of the area, a feature that really stood out for me.

As for similarities, each of the five search engines contained one or more Wikipedia results. The search engines also included current news links and some tourism links. Once again, many of the clustered search results on Widow.com caught my eye: travel, Burma (Myanmar’s previous name), culture, cyclone, statistics, politics, government, and tours.

Search Lessons Learned

What are we to learn from this little search engine experiment? There are several things that you can take away from this. For starters, the Big Three search engines tend to have pretty similar results. Occasionally there are differences, but not anything spectacularly different.

Another conclusion that can be drawn is that you are more likely to get sponsored results when you use more general terms (unemployment, weather), as many advertisers can link their products to a wide variety of general terms.

The most pleasant feature is the availability of diverse range of clustered and related terms, available with a single click of the mouse, on Widow.com.

The potential for Meta search engines to cut down on multiple searches is there, if users are willing to break out of their typical searching habits, to uncover jewels of information within the existing data.

The Widow.com Meta search engine goes above and beyond what I have experienced with other Meta search engines. The Clusty.com Meta search engine also offers clustered search terms, but for some search terms, some of its offerings are simply nonsensical.

How I Discovered Meta Search Engines

In the course of my own work, I spend a lot of time searching on the web for information on a variety of topics. As a ghostwriter, I frequently write on topics that I know little about ahead of time, so I do loads of research to help me cover the topics I write about in a much more logical and educated manner.

I used to use Google almost exclusively. But, one day I was researching an article topic that I had written about previously. Imagine my aggravation when the only material that Google would show me on the topic was material I had written myself!

While I had written about that topic previously, I was not an expert on the subject. I did not want to simply rehash what I had written before; I wanted to write on the topic in a new and different way.

I tried Yahoo and MSN and met the same disappointment with the search results. Then I went to http://www.DogPile.com. I thought their results were awful, but I liked the concept of the Meta Search Engine.

I tried many Meta Search Engines, and then I came across the Widow Search Engine. I liked it so much that I made it one of the default search engines in the article search tools on my website. The thing I like about Widow best is the Clustered Search Listings. With Clustered Search, Widow brainstorms the keyword variations for me, so that I don’t have to figure out the related search terms on my own. As they say in the MasterCard commercials – this is priceless!

In the end, this article is not about which search engine will send the most traffic to a website you own. Instead, this article is about which search engine will give you the best information to help you find the answers you want and need.

Good luck and happy searching.

Bill Platt is the owner of http://www.thephantomwriters.com article ghost writing and article distribution services. He has been helping small business owners promote their online businesses, using reprint articles, since 2001. In 2007, Bill wrote an ebook titled, “Article Marketing For Traffic, Sales And Profit”. You can get Bill Platt’s ebook here.

How To Select The Best Keywords For Your Site

07 2008 Thursday

10

By Jennifer Horowitz in SE Positioning

As more websites compete for valuable search engine “real estate,” Search Engine Optimization is becoming much more complex.

And *keyword selection* remains one of the most important (yet least understood) pieces of the puzzle.

“Why keyword selection is so important and how to select the best keywords for your website”

To clear up the mystery, let’s break it down into bite-sized pieces by answering our most frequently asked questions about keyword selection:

“What’s the difference between a keyword and a keyword phrase? And which should I use?”

Put simply, a keyword is a single word, like “Maui.” But a keyword phrase is a more descriptive string of two or more words, like “Maui vacations.” Your approach to keyword selection will vary, depending on your industry. For certain niche markets, using single words can be a good strategy (as long as they are specific to your product or service). But regardless of your industry…

Well-researched keyword phrases will attract quality, targeted visitors to your website who *specifically* want what you are selling.

Let’s assume you sell Maui vacations, and your website is listed at the top of the search results for the keywords “Maui” and “Maui vacations.” Let’s look at the characteristics of two groups of visitors you’d attract.

Those who perform a search on “Maui” are searching for a wide variety of topics. Such as Maui’s history and culture, snorkeling, botanic gardens, hiking trails, sailing, golfing, and yes – some will be looking for Maui vacations. But only a small percentage of the people who perform a search on the keyword “Maui” are qualified prospect for your vacation packages.

Now think about the prospects who find you by searching for “Maui vacations.” Every prospect who performs this search is a qualified prospect for you. And by getting a top ranking with this more descriptive keyword phrase, you attract people who are more likely to become paying customers!

You see, someone who wants to take a vacation to Maui is not likely to search for “Maui.” They’re not going to search for “Vacations.” And they’re not going to search for “Hawaii” either. They’re much more likely to enter a keyword phrase like “Maui vacations.”

Today, more than ever, your ideal prospects are going to enter precisely what they want to find, rather than general, open-ended terms. Which means your keyword selection must target your ideal customer with laser-beam focus.

At the same time, the search engines and directories themselves are also becoming much more strict with the pages that they’ll accept and index. They’ll be watching your submissions like a hawk to make sure that they’re completely relevant to the topic reflected by your keyword phrase.

In a previous article, we weighed the pros and cons of doing your search engine positioning yourself versus hiring a reputable company to handle this time consuming task for you. Many of you have wisely realized that it can be much more time-effective and cost-effective to leave your search engine placement in the hands of experts, so you van focus on your core business.

So the most important question of all now becomes:

“If I hire a company to do my search engine placement for me, should I be expected to provide my own keywords and keyword phrases, or do they have a responsibility to advise me?”

Frankly, any company that doesn’t provide hands on consultation in this area is not helping you to maximize your search engine rankings. Keyword selection is the entire foundation on which your search engine campaign is built. Can you imagine hiring a contractor to build your house… only to have him say, “Okay, YOU lay all the bricks and pour the concrete – then I’ll do the rest?”

It’s senseless.

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Jennifer Horowitz is the Director of Marketing for EcomBuffet.com. Over the past 10 years Jennifer’s expertise in marketing and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) has helped clients increase revenue. Jennifer has written a downloadable book on SEO and has been published in many SEO and marketing publications. Jennifer is the editor of the popular Spotlight on Success: SEO and Marketing newsletter. Follow Jennifer and stay current on SEO, marketing, social media and more. http://twitter.com/EcomBuffet

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