Search Engine Optimization News

2005-03-06T00:06:00.000-08:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Online Market Segmentation

2005-02-19T21:56:00.001-08:00

The fact is that people like to do business in different ways. There will always be a segment of the population that prefers to walk into a store and make a purchase rather than shop online. However, buying products and services online is taking off. No longer is it just a curiosity, but shopping online is becoming mainstream. As consumers spend more time online, wise marketers are spending more of their advertising budget online. They understand and know who their audience is. Three distinct market groups are emerging: buyers, consumers and surfers. Here's an overview of these groups:

Buyers

Buyers are business professionals who may be executives, engineers, managers, researchers, in fact anyone who spends most of their working day online. This lucrative market segment does not get the attention it deserves. Often these people are responsible for making purchasing decisions that require sourcing supplies, materials and services all under very tight time pressures. What a perfect target for online advertising! Make sure you don't discount these very influential buyers.

Consumers

This category includes the home computer user who routinely checks out commercial online services. This group is a gold mine. They're already receptive to making purchases over the Internet. Marketers only have to make the online shopping experience easier and this market is hooked. No longer will consumers be heading out to the mall for goods and services, they'll be shopping online in droves and loving it.

Surfers

Surfers are the online fun seekers. They use online technology as a form of recreation, to play games, get music and expand their knowledge. They are typically younger and fickle. And these people have short attention spans. They move all over in cyberspace. If something catches their attention, they stick around. If a little bit of boredom sets in, they're off again and surfing elsewhere. This is the most challenging group to market to, but one with a huge potential. Surfers are an impulsive bunch. If a product catches their eye, they'll buy online with no second thoughts. It's a bit like positioning the candy at the check out counter in the supermarket...you have a captive audience who finds it hard to resist temptation.

When planning your advertising strategy consider the three market segments. They are all different, but each one deserves attention. Your bottom line depends on it!

Scott F. Geld is the Director of Marketing for MarketingBlaster.com, a company providing targeted traffic and direct links starting at just $5. For more information visit http://www.MarketingBlaster.com

Reasons To Archive Those Articles

2005-02-19T21:56:00.000-08:00

by James D. Brausch

When you send out your newsletter, you need to archive the article on your site. Each article should be on it's own page with an index to the articles on another page. A link to your index of archived articles needs to be on your navigation bar. You can see an example on this site:

http://www.AtHomeBusinessPortal.com/newsletters

Here are some of the reasons you need to do this:

It adds content to your site. The search engines love content. They will send visitors directly to your article pages. Your navigation bar will give those visitors a chance to visit the parts of your site that make you money.
It gives people a reason to bookmark you site and return often.

It gives people an idea of what they will receive if they sign up for your newsletter. A higher percentage of people will sign up if you have an article archive.

At the end of each article, you should have a courtesy notice like the one you see at the end of the articles on the above site. Some people will reuse these articles and include a link to both the author's site... AND your site.

You should also solicit articles from other authors. More authors will submit articles if they know you will be archiving them on your site.

There is a chance that some search engines will eventually ban any site that is low on content. An article archive makes your site a content site is everyone's eyes. It's insurance against such an event.

The author, James D. Brausch, is the coach and webmaster of QuitThatJob.com, a site dedicated to providing step-by- step instructions to start your own profitable Internet business and Quit That Job! For more info, please visit : http://www.QuitThatJob.com

Google blazes trail to Oregon

2005-02-17T21:46:00.000-08:00

Google has bought 30 acres of land from the Port Authority of The Dalles, Oregon, for a new technology infrastructure facility, the Web search giant said Thursday

Read the entire story here

Google founders in hunt for Asian talent

2005-02-12T23:21:00.002-08:00

Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page on Wednesday offered their most detailed glimpse inside the company’s operations since selling shares to the public in August, including the firm’s inability to swiftly hire enough computer engineers abroad to foster innovation.

Among the major challenges, said Eric Schmidt, chief executive of the Silicon Valley-based firm, is managing the transition from being a US company with an international presence to becoming a globally run company headquartered in the United States.

Most of the company’s foreign offices, to date, handle ad sales rather than focusing on research and product development.

Brin said the company’s inability to recruit more top-tier computer scientists and engineers abroad is slowing its plans to make Google available to users of cell phones and other portable devices. Google — which faces stiff competition from search engine competitor Yahoo in Japan — plans to hire more computer engineers in Asia, where wireless technology is ahead of that in the US. ‘‘We are unquestionably not getting the quantity we would like,’’ Brin said, in response to a question about hiring during a multi-hour session with Wall Street analysts. ‘‘The culture and utilisation of mobile in the US is so low compared to other parts of the world that this is not the best place to develop the best products in the mobile space.’’

Most innovation at Google flows from the company’s main campus in Mountain View, California, where more than 1,000 computer scientists work on an array of projects that interest them.

But the company’s young founders remain so hands-on that no new product is released without their input and review.

Brin, Page and Schmidt run Google as a triumvirate. They do agree on one thing: a 70/20/10 management model, in which 70 per cent of resources are devoted to improving the core search engine, 20 per cent are designated for products related to search, and 10 per cent are earmarked for pure research

Yahoo releases a Firefox toolbar

2005-02-12T23:21:00.001-08:00

Beta than before

SEARCH OUTFIT Yahoo has released a beta tool bar for the Open Source browser Firefox.
The move indicates the increasing popularity for Fireferret, which has been gobbling up small amounts of Internet Explorer’s market share.

It might also mean that Yahoo is following the lead of Google, which has had a search bar installed into the browser for yonks now.

The Yahoo browser does not do much other than look for information on the web, Yahoo or on a particular website. There's also a search history to check previous searches.

It does provides mail notification and alerts for subscribers of Yahoo's email service.

New SEO Software Plan beats Microsoft bCentral's Submit It

2005-02-12T23:21:00.000-08:00

ARNHEM, NETHERLANDS, February 10, 2005 – According to WhoIs Source, there are over 48 million active domains on the Internet. With each webmaster jockeying for first position in major search engine indexes, page optimization and web site submission are crucial to keeping Internet businesses online. Recently released by parent company InternetEffect, OptimizeKit is an innovative web based ( www.optimizekit.com ) seo software tool kit that gives webmasters the horsepower to make a strong showing in search engine page ranks. Compared to Microsoft bCentral's SubmitIt, it beats this and other tools on all features.

InternetEffect has been a leading consultant for Internet business since 1996 in the Netherlands. Keesjan Deelstra, owner of InternetEffect and founding father of OptimizeKit says, “Our goal is to provide the business owner with the most sophisticated online software tool for Search Engine Optimization available world wide at the lowest price. To make our consultancy available to small business we made OptimizeKit. It acts both as a database tool to monitor website improvements and as an online consultancy tool.”

OptimizeKit was released in mid January. The program trial is free and the Basic version of the program, with a one-year renewable membership, is available for a return link to the OptimizeKit home page. Geared to work for every business from single proprietorships to corporate marketing professionals and other independent consultancy firms, Pro and Premium versions are affordably priced and complete with a 30-day money back guarantee. Deelstra says, “Search engine marketing gives the best return on investment and conversion rates over advertising and banner advertisements. We’re so sure our customers will love OptimizeKit that we’ve made upgrades easy at all program levels.”

With OptimizeKit, the webmaster can set up a site submission in just 15 minutes. An intuitive control panel takes the user through the search engine optimization process in just a few easy steps. All necessary tools like keyword research, Meta Tag Control, Meta Tag Generator, Keyword Density, and Search Spider Tool make web promotion easy. An SEO Page Analyzer checks the page on 60+ points, then OptimizeKit automatically submits and can resubmit the site to up to 300 search engines. However, the program doesn’t stop there! An extensive knowledge base teaches even the novice how to effectively set up and maintain an optimized web site. In addition, daily updated search engine news feeds keep users at the cutting edge of search engine optimization. After submission, OptimizeKit generates flash charts reports about keyword ranking, link popularity, and site submission that users can export to their desktops in several formats.

OptimizeKit compares itself to the competition (see http://www.optimizekit.com/about_us/why_choose_us.php )
and beats them on almost all features. With a eager staff always looking for improvements and adding new features every month Keesjan Deelstra thinks he can offer the small business owner the best for less.

All that’s left for the user to do is to watch their quality traffic explode. Deelstra says, “OptimizeKit will deliver an average minimum of 50 new targeted customers a day. Even at a 1% conversion rate, OptimizeKit will generate over 182 new sales a year, 15 new sales a month.” To prove the value of OptimizeKit to his customers, Deelstra has infused the OptimizeKit website with a wealth of SEO information that is free to all visitors and made OptimizeKit one of the most affordable programs on the Internet today.
About InternetEffect

InternetEffect, (http://interneteffect.com) based in Arnhem, the Netherlands, is a company fully dedicated to providing its customers with top-notch service to get quality traffic to grow their online businesses. Search engine marketing, ppc management, content and link building campaigns are among the services they provide. Owner Keesjan Deelstra is a Dutch SEO professional and writer of the first Dutch SEO book Search Engine Marketing.

Booted Google blogger writes again

2005-02-10T09:35:00.001-08:00

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - Mark Jen is trying to turn lemons into lemonade. The former product manager for Google Inc. has restarted his Weblog and, to take advantage of the publicity surrounding his firing, has added advertising to it.

Suggesting there are apparently no hard feelings, or that he just wants to keep getting checks from Google's account, Jen's become an affiliate of the Google-owned AdSense network. It serves advertisements keyed to a Web page's subject. All of the ads on Jen's blog are, not surprisingly, for Weblog software and related products. "Don't worry, all proceeds will be going to charity (," Jen wrote. Read his Web log.

In the first post to the blog since his firing almost two weeks ago, Jen said, "I want to thank those in the community that have been so supportive." The Web log also drew critics who faulted him for criticizing internal company matters. "I have been trying to get hired at Google for two years," wrote JWFBean. "I can't believe the opportunity you wasted by being a little too verbose."

Why Optimize Your Site For Search Engines?

2005-02-10T09:35:00.000-08:00

Sometimes a search engine optimization company will miss that glaring question posed by potential clients and assume the benefits of search engine optimization are obvious to everyone. While shelling out a couple thousand on an SEO campaign is common sense to some, others may find it hard to part with the cash unless they know it is an investment in their business that is sure to bring a good return.

Search engines account for a huge portion of traffic to web sites. Data varies depending on what sources you read, but the bottom line is that search engines are used millions of times each day by consumers searching for goods and services. And having your business displayed at the top of search results is essential if you want to do any business from the major search engines. Nine in every ten users will find what they're looking for in the top 10 results and won't go to page 2.

It's obvious that people can make a lot of money from online sales, but how you advertise your products has a large bearing on what kind of profit you make. If you buy advertising space on Google AdWords or other services that charge per click, you may only shell out 10 cents for every visitor to your site - But what if it takes 100 clicks to make one sale? If your products only sell for $10 a piece, then there is no profit being made. Pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns will also never stop costing you money. Search Engine Optimization, on the other hand, can be very affordable over months and years.

Many SEO and Internet Marketing companies will say that ongoing maintenance is needed to reach and keep top search engine rankings. While this is true, be careful how the company says they do it. There is an affordable way and then there's a way to pad the pockets of the "experts." For more on this issue, read my other article entitled "What Constitutes a Complete and Effective SEO Campaign?" In short, the affordable way will involve an intense content optimization followed by work to raise link popularity. This link popularity development should be the bulk of any ongoing maintenance. A couple times a year keyword research should be done again and the content should be looked at. Search trends can sometimes fluctuate so you want to make sure your content is still aimed at the right audience.

What is affordable and what isn't varies greatly from company to company, industry to industry. In the bed and breakfast industry, $30 per month may be enough to keep a top 5 ranking on Google if the market is not very competitive. A web site competing for a top spot in a database administration field may be looking at several hundred a week if not more. The bottom line is, if you pick the right Search Engine Optimization company, your return on investment from an SEO campaign can be over 1000%.

While there are other ways to advertise a web site (No, search engine optimization is not the be-all and end-all of online advertising) very few can match the wide targeted audience and affordability that search engines provide.

Add your link to this page

2005-02-07T22:52:00.002-08:00

If you would like to see a link to your site on this page, please link this site on your Blog/Website/Homepage, like so : SEO News

Leave a comment by clicking on the link below, and mention the location of the URL with the link to this site and I will place a link to your page from this page and add it to my the section on the right hand column, under the appropriate heading.

Muse : The Blog

Google Extends More Gmail Invites

2005-02-07T22:52:00.001-08:00

Google Extends More Gmail Invites
By Nate Mook, BetaNews

February 7, 2005, 10:49 AM

Google's Gmail service may be preparing to leave its beta auspices for the first time since launching in April 2004. Some account holders of the search giant's Web mail have been granted the ability to invite 50 friends to the free service, indicating Google is preparing for an expansion.

Previously, each Gmail beta user was given only a handful of invitations to pass along. Google has been slowly ramping up its Gmail efforts as competition heats up from rivals MSN and Yahoo, which followed Google's strategy to attract customers by removing storage limitations. In November, Gmail was opened so users could retrieve mail using an external client such as Outlook.

Something has happened to Google!

2005-02-07T22:52:00.000-08:00

Tab writes "Sometime in mid to late November, many web sites no longer appeared in the search engine rankings when their owners used the search terms that they considered most important, or had most commonly found them under. There were some cries that the sites targeted were almost exclusively English language, or e-commerce, because Google wanted to drive the e-commerce sites to buy Adwords, boosting their revenues, and making their IPO more attractive. Quite honestly, if reports of Google's existing revenues are even close to accurate, they are not too worried. That doesn't mean I would buy the stock, just that there is no way Google would sacrifice integrity of results for a short term financial windfall. Search engines whose results decline in quality quickly fade from popularity. Altavista went through 3 bad months, and they never recovered..... Read more"

It's estimated that there are over 100 million searches per day run through Google, directly or through its partners. Thus, Google has become the main source of referrers for most businesses online. Naturally, many people have seen this as an opportunity, and have become professionals at finding ways to abuse Google's algorithms, and thereby generating undeserved high search engine rankings for web sites that are largely irrelevant to a query.

Webmasters and SEO experts have been making statements for a long time that Google was packed with irrelevant results as a result of 'Google Bombing' and assorted techniques designed to drive the link popularity of a web site through the roof, and thus get sites to the top of the search engines; regardless of the quality of the site. The people at Google actually listened to all the complaints, and did something about it: They made some algorithmic updates to the search engine. A new filter was put in place to try and target the most heavily spammed areas of the Internet. The filter was not without flaws. People quickly set out to test the new filters, and found that it could be defeated by entering what is called an exclusionary term. Exclusionary terms are when you search for something that is more specific. For example, if you wanted to search for only vegetables that were not green, you would type "vegetables -green" into the search box. To defeat the algorithm, you had to use a term like -abczxy2wyfjs in other words, something nobody would ever include on a web page. When you used a garbage term, you received search results, unfiltered; in other words, search results that may contain your missing web site, but also all the spam sites. From a practical point of view, this discovery was meaningless. How many members of the general public will actually search this way? It doesn't really matter anyhow, Google fixed the glitch in December.

The reality is the new filter may have hurt a lot of web site's search engine position, and in attempting to improve overall search results, the filter eliminated a lot of good, decent quality web sites at the worst possible time of year; the Christmas shopping season.

It may have been bad timing, and that may have been a mistake, but the rationalization behind the update is logical. Resulting search results have been mixed. On topic web sites that feature particular terms, like "software", "drugs", and other similar terms which are often spammed have been hurt, but only for a search query that includes that key term; overall they continue to perform well. Obviously the filter on these commonly spammed words is deliberate: the people at Google are trying to improve the quality of its results. Unfortunately, the a byproduct of this is that Google is making itself less relevant as a resource on the Internet. This at a time when not only is a contemplated IPO arriving quickly, but their competition is heating up considerably; On one side, Yahoo! is soon to replace Google with the results of combining and improving on the collective resources of Inktomi, FAST (Alltheweb.com), and Altavista. If you take the best elements of all three engines, there's no question which will have more accurate results. On the other side, Microsoft will unleash its new monster search engine (MSE) on MSN later this year. The people in Redmond have been hard at it for a while now; It should be interesting.

Therefore, the question for Google becomes what to do about it? It's a real mess. Google's integrity is on the line. Google doesn't want to become another footnote in Internet History. They want to help power the web.

What about you? What should you be doing to your web site to help compensate for these changes. There's strength in good solid content, and proper optimization. The proper use of your key terms within your entire web site will get noticed, just like it always has. However, overuse (spam), or misuse, (inadvertent or not), will also be picked up. Word density and the text on internal links may also play a role. Only on images that link will the alt tags be analyzed; don't stuff these with repetitive terms.

One search trick that is of interest relates to geographical terms. If you enter a place name, and then a keyword; ie. Sonoma Winery you get web sites discussing about a subject, However, if you search for a keyword, followed by a place name; i.e. Florist Victoria, you get florists in Victoria. This change may herald the start of Google's experiments with geo-locational search abilities.

Naturally, people are very suspicious of the latest Google update. This is the way it is in life with any major change. This is just Google's way of policing the web, and trying to ensure relevant search results. But like many new policing schemes, things often go too far at first.

The best thing we can recommend is: honesty. Don't try and spam the search engines, because they are constantly searching for spammers. Focus on good content, and the proper optimization of your site. Occasionally, an algorithm update will have adverse side effects. The search engines don't want that any more than you do. If you were not spamming, and you were affected, you can bet that lots of other people were too. The search engines know this and are constantly working to fix it.

Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!

2004-09-15T22:27:00.003-07:00

Read the entire article here : Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!

Amazon Unit Challenges Google, Other Search Sites

2004-09-15T22:27:00.001-07:00

A9.com is walking a fine line between working with Google and competing against it. By Thomas Claburn Following an April test, A9.com Inc., a subsidiary of Amazon.com, today officially launched A9.com, a search site that finds itself in competition withGoogle, Microsoft, and Yahoo, to name a few of the most prominent search engines. That's not how computer scientist and A9.com CEO Udi Manber characterizes his company's place in the market. "We don't concentrate on competition," he says. "We look at user

Source: InformationWeek

Click here to read the entire article : Amazon Unit Challenges Google, Other Search Sites

Five Reasons To Submit to Shopping Search Engines - By Corey Creed

2004-09-15T22:27:00.000-07:00

The shopping season starts soon. Christmas is only three months away.Can you believe it?Are you ready? Do you (or does someone you know) sell products on theInternet? If so, part of being ready should include shopping searchengines. What are they? The most popular ones are BizRate,Shopping.com, Froogle, and Yahoo Shopping. You have probably seen orused them already to research a product you were interested in, tofind the best price, or to read opinions.But are you using them effectively for your products? If not, whyshould you now?Here are five top reasons:

1. Their Popularity Is Growing Fast Ask anyone you know about Yahoo Shopping, BizRate, Shopping.com, NexTag or other similar sites. They will probably say the samething... "Oh yeah! I just recently used a site like that to buy my___." I have heard that from almost everyone I know.To support this, Hitwise (a leading online measurement company)recently reported that these sites are seeing an increasing number ofvisits. Interestingly, they are also seeing a corresponding decreasein clickthroughs from search engines. Why? It seems as if oncepeople use these sites, they come directly to them the next time.If people are using these sites more and more, shouldn't you want yourproducts there?

2. They Advertise For YouLet me put this another way. Are you tired of handing your wallet toOverture and Google AdWords? Let the shopping search engines do itfor you.Try this. Go to Google or Yahoo today and type in camera, digitalcamera, fabrics, or any other product name. Many times, BizRate,Shopping.com, or some other shopping search site will show up in thetop paid-listing spots. And you know those terms aren't cheap!

3. Lower PPC Costs This is basically a continuation of the previous point. PPC costs on Overture and Google AdWords are increasing constantly. How much doesa click cost from Froogle? Nothing! What about Shopping.com,BizRate, NexTag, and others? Although it varies, it is frequently less than 15 cents and seldom over 50 cents.

4. More Qualified LeadsWhen someone is looking at Google and they click your ad, do theyreally want to buy what you are offering? Perhaps.On the other hand, if someone is on Shopping.com and they click onyour ad, what do you think they are doing? Shopping maybe? The sameholds true for Yahoo Shopping, and the many other similarly namedshopping sites.

5. Start Now To Beat the Competition

Remember the "good ole days" when you could list on Overture for 5cents for most of your terms? You probably didn't even check yourReturn On Investment. You got plenty of clicks for a great price.

What happened? Your competition, that's what.

Now you have to pay more and work harder. Shopping Search Engines isthis year what Pay Per Click was a few years ago. The opportunity isripe to get started now and the price is right.

So now you want to list your products. Where do you start?

Begin by doing some searches in the major shopping search engines. Isanyone else listing the products you offer? If so, how does yourpricing compare? After all, these sites are not calledcomparison-shopping sites for nothing. Many people are looking forthe best price.

But price is not everything. In fact, shoppers are more frequentlylooking for reputable sites. So, does your site look reputable? Doesit have good navigation? Also, be sure to sign up for BizRate'sCustomer Certified Ratings Program. If you start now, you can getsome positive comments on your site within the next couple of months.Many will choose to pay a little more if the merchant is more reputable.

To get listed, you will need to sign up with each site. Then followthe instructions. The process usually includes creating a spreadsheetin a certain format and then submitting it via FTP to the appropriateserver.

Corey CreedShopping Search Info http://www.ShoppingSearchInfo.com

Surefire Google Adwords Formula

2004-09-13T01:09:00.001-07:00

Success with Google Adwords isn't quite as easy as some would have you believe.

Still just about anyone who is persistent can succeed if they'll but implement a consistent testing program. Since testing can produce a nearly constant improvement in your click through rate (CTR).

Here’s the surefire three-step formula that’s as easy as one...two...three.

Surefire Step #1: Develop Your Initial Test Ads

Notice I said ads not ad.

You want to present two competing ideas to your market right away. Letting your prospects tell you which they prefer.

Tip: Test headlines first while keeping the body copy the same. Headlines can have a huge impact.
Tip: Set it up so Google serves up both ads equally. Otherwise Google will present the ad that's producing the most click throughs more often which will skew your test.

Surefire Step #2: Monitor Results
After 40 clicks review your results. Google displays the ads under your listings. Showing the number of clicks each ad got.

Here’s early results from a campaign I tested:

High PR Reciprocal Links Easily Get More Traffic Fast! Access Directory of High PR Sites. HighPRLinkClub.com 39 Clicks 1.4% CTR Served - 49.5%

High PR Reciprocal LinksBoost Search Engine Ranking Fast. High PR Links Equals More Traffic. HighPRLinkClub.com26 Clicks 0.9% CTR Served - 50.5%

Each ad was served up half the time. Yet one outperformed the other by more than 50%. As one had a 1.4% CTR. While the other only .9% CTR. So by doing nothing more than setting up two ads I found one was clearly a winner.
In case you're wondering I have no idea why one ad worked better. And really don't care. Marketing is about "what works" not so much "why it works".

CRITICAL STEP: You've got an ad that produces clicks. Now you want to improve on that without wasting half your impressions on an idea that may or may not work. So here's the trick.
Surefire Step #3: Duplicate the winner. Add another contender.

With three ads being served up equally the winner will be presented two-thirds of the time. While the test ad will only be shown one third of the time.

From here on wait until the challenger accumulates 40 clicks before deciding if it's better or not. (Unless it’s dramatically out performing the reigning winner.) If so it's the new champ. If it is, or isn't, repeat Step 3 trying another idea.

CTR Boosting Ideas to Test
Here are five known CTR boosting tactics you can test:
• Put the target keyword in the headline. Google will bold it to draw attention to your ad.
• List the big benefit on the first line of text followed by the features. Does this generate more response than an ad that simply lists various features?
• Capitalize the first letter of each word verses using all lowercase.
• Do action inducing words like...sign up, new, right now, today, buy now, save now, apply here ...impact response?
• Qualify by including the price.

Result? Over time you'll improve your CTR driving more traffic to your site. Making you a winner in the Adwords game.
This is why I say you don't have to be a marketing Einstein to develop Adwords ads that work. Just know a little bit about your market’s hot buttons and the market will tell you the rest.

See? a surefire formula that's as easy as one...two...three.

So what you waiting for? Start testing today for more traffic tomorrow.

John Gergye shares more ideas like this in his just updated eBook "Traffic From Google in 35 Days". Find out more here: http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/j/tfg35cl.shtml Or test your search engine IQ by taking his seo quiz http://www.traffic-test-tube.com/search-engine-quiz.shtml and get the free special report "Coming Out On Top".

How Popular Are You,... Online That Is?

2004-09-13T01:09:00.000-07:00

With the web today you "sorta haveta" have a rank in the major search engines if you want to be seen. I mean with 250,000,000, yes 250 million searches a day on Google™ alone, how are your visitors and potential customers going to find you?

Now, there are numerous ways in which a Search Engine ranks a website; by keyword density, relevancy, content, etc. etc.. But Link Popularity is an ever growing statistic in how the Search Engines continue to rank websites.

Link popularity, is how "popular" your website is. That is how popular your site is compared to other websites. To put it another way; it is the number of "other websites" that have a link on their website to your website. Did you get that? :)

Now, although Link Popularity "building" is a large science and art in itself, I'll briefly touch on a couple ways in which you can see how popular you are and how to go about improving your link popularity.

A small side note though, is link popularity is a BIG way in which Google™ ranks their search results. They refer to this as "PageRank". With the Search Engine, FAST, they call it "link score".

Now there are quite a few software programs and sites that can help build your link popularity as well as check your popularity.

Now, there are many ways to check your link popularity. But if you simply want to get a small idea, a little way for you to do this is go to any search engine and type in, "link popularity", without the quotes, and there will be lots of results for you to choose from. And then simply pick a site and check your site popularity.

Now, a small way to build your popularity is by going to the altavista.com engine and type in "link:yourcompetitor.com", and the results that show up will tell you what sites have posted links to your competitor's websites.

Then simply visit a site and look for a contact method, be it an email address, phone number, etc. and express an interest to them in trading links. It is a win-win method for both sites so, you have nothing to lose. Some might happily oblige, and some might not. It’s certainly worth a try.
In summary, link popularity can be a never ending chore if you have a website. This is because having links on related websites to your website is a very good form of Targeted Traffic which never really quits, because most related links stay up for a long period of time, thus providing a continuous stream of targeted traffic, which, by the way is totally cost free.

And Search Engine traffic and reciprocal link traffic are the best forms of Targeted Traffic there is online. And both are free.

Burke Ferguson holds both a BSc. degree in Computer Science as well Certification in Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Strategies. He regularly publishes The ACE! newsletter, in which he shares his experience, methods, and knowledge about what works and about what is 'BS'. He can be contacted by http://www.the-ace-ezine.com or http://www.altacanweb.com

If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

2004-09-09T10:51:00.001-07:00

There has been a lot of to-ing and fro-ing in the searchengine world of late and there are lots of conspiracytheories as to why these things happen.

It is easy as a webmaster to get caught up in these webs ofintrigue.
You get email notes about them, you view so-called experts'thoughts on bulletin Boards - hey you probably even readthings in newsletter articles!

Well I hope so anyway....

The big driver for webmasters currently appears to becontent and link building.
While link building is important I don't believe it makesQueen. Maybe a Prince. Content and links DO go hand inhand but, without relevance, the Kingdom is doomed. Sorry Iwill stop the analogy now! :-)

If your site is about finance, then finance content is bestsupported by finance link exchanges.

Relevance!

If your site is about finance, then finance contentsupported by casino link exchanges from a PR8 site while inthe short term may help,…but all the signs are saying thisis not a long term strategy.

Okay,so what is the best strategy?

Keep EVERYTHING relevant. It is that simple.

Make sure that you only swap or link to sites that arerelevant to the content on your pages. Yes I am suggestinglink exchanging on pages of your site not a links page.
Links pages seem to be being abused. There are rumours thatpages called links, resources or partners are not passingpage rank. You could be wasting your time building linksthat are not giving you any benefits!

Delivering relevant links from relevant content is thefuture.
Look at sites such as www.bbc.co.uk orwww.independent.co.uk. News sites have the right idea.They have 2 or 3 relevant internal links to otherarticles on the same topic or links to internal tools thatare related. These usually can be found at the right handside of the article.
They also then have weblinks or external links to sites ofinterest that are related to the topic. These are relevant!

Another benefit of this is that with a content rich site youcan add hundreds of links quite legitimately and really addsome value both to your Rankings and your users.
With a content-poor site it is difficult, you have to addlink pages or create a links directory. A five page sitewill need to add 10 or 12 good link pages to compete andeven then with algorithm changes, this may not be prudent.

Having a site with 400 pages means you can easily add 3links per page, so you have 1200 link options straight away. Hopefully this explains that relevance runs a close secondto content.

Always bear in mind when writing content that relevant links will not only boost your search engine rankings, but you will also add a service to your visitors.

Jason Hulott is Director of J2 Squared, leading specialists in Internet Consultancy whose specific aim is to drive more revenue to websites. Their main area of focus are the insurance, finance, and automotive industries.

What is The Google Sandbox Effect?

2004-09-09T10:51:00.000-07:00

In the age of fair competition you may find it hard to believe that a search engine may hinder the appearance of a new website. This is what is currently believed to be happening on more web servers today. Some programmers have viewed Google as uncomfortable to rank newer websites until they have proven their viability to exist for more than a period of “x” months. Thus the term “Sandbox Effect” applies to the idea that all new websites have their ratings placed in a holding tank until such time is deemed appropriate before a ranking can commence.

However the website is not hindered as much as the links that are reciprocated from other users. Newer links that are created are put on a “probationary” status until again they pickup in rank from other matured sites or placed directly by an ad campaign. The idea behind the hindrance is to prevent a fast ranking to occur on a new website. The usual holding period seems to be between 90 and 120 days before a site would start obtaining rank from reciprocal or back linking.

Some advice has been given to have companies you are going to reciprocate back add your link

first to the website. This may help grandfather your site in, thus reducing the waiting time associated with “new” websites. People have noticed a 0 page rank when first signing up and receiving a bolstering 7 page ranking after 4 months. Why the delay? The fact is, that if people realized how easy it would be to get a high ranking, would that take away the credibility of the engine. It depends on whom you ask, but it does seem to be happening frequently to newer subscribers. Do not discontinue back linking, your rank will eventually appear.

Jakob Jelling is the founder of http://www.sitetube.com. Visit his website for the latest on planning, building, promoting and maintaining websites

One Way Link Building Strategies

2004-09-07T10:48:00.000-07:00

One-way link building is a great way to improve your link popularity and ranking in the search engines. One-way links are more difficult to obtain than traditional reciprocal links, but pay off in securing solid long-term search engine ranking results.

Why Are One-Way Links Helpful?

Link building in general is an important part of making sure your site ranks well in the search engines. Google and many of the other search engines include link popularity as part of the way they evaluate the web pages they include in the search engine databases. Links are seen as a positive "vote" towards the quality of the web page. Each individual page acquires link popularity based on the pages that link to it. Google and Yahoo both have toolbars showing the page rank of pages you visit, so you can use these tools to get a good estimate of your pages' link popularity. It is not necessary to get totally caught up in the minutia of which types of links from which types of pages are the most important. The bottom line is this: acquiring links pointing back to your website, particularly links from sites covering the same or related topics as your

site, is helpful in the overall scheme of search engine ranking.

The big "plus" of one-way links is that you don't have to worry about linking back to a "bad neighborhood". If your site has links pointing back to sites that serve as "link farms" or "free-for-all" sites, you may not gain, and could actually lose page rank. These sites are rarely focused, and tend to have links to and from all different sorts of sites. Since there is no particular topical emphasis here, it is clear to Google and the other search engines that the sole purpose of these sites is to artificially increase the number of links pointing to your site. Since there is no value added for the search engine's users, they in turn give no value to these links.

Another advantage to these focused, one-way links is that they will tend to stay in place. A website that features a link to your site probably does so because that site's owner thinks that their visitors will benefit from the content your site has to offer. Rather than simply trying to manipulate search results, they want to add to the experience of their visitors; you benefit from having a long term link in place. Sites featuring reciprocal links may simply drop your link when it no longer suits their linking strategy.

How Do I Obtain Natural Links?

Building good content helps interest your visitors and keeps them on your website. By becoming an authority on your topic, you will attract more visitors. When another website in essence "votes" for the quality of your website by placing a link pointing back to it, you are obtaining natural linking. The more you can build upon helpful articles, FAQs and white papers, etc., the better reason for visitors to link back to your website because of the quality content.

One-Way Linking Sources

There are a number of ways to get links from other sites back to yours. The most important principle to keep in mind is that you will get the most links when you offer something significant to link to. Think of what you can provide that people will want to link to:

Natural links given from topic-related websites that like your website
Providing free content, such as access to articles, e-books, FAQ's and white papers
Directory links, listed under the category related to your topic
Business directory links, listed under the category related to your topic
Blogs, submitted to a blog directory and archived online
Business associations, listed under the category related to your topic
Newsletter text ads promoting your business, archived online at topic-related websites
Original articles, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
Original press releases, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
Original newsletters, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
White papers, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
E-books, submitted to and archived online at topic-related websites
Free software tools provided with required link back to website

For each of these types of content, you will want to have an active link pointing back to your site. Of course, when creating your own original content, always archive your own work on your website to build your content and increase your own link popularity by growing the number of pages on your website.

The extra value of one-way links is the fact that you are also promoting your website from the listing as well as the active link. Articles, newsletters, white papers, directory and business association links may bring in traffic from visitors who are interested in the description of your website listing.

How Do I Know The Links Are Valid?

To gain the most benefit from your links, the link back to your web page should be one that can be followed by the search engine robots. Plain old text links and image links usually can be followed by the search engine robots. More exotic types of links, like JavaScript links, cannot typically be followed by the search engine robots. When you provide suggested linking code, the simpler the better. Don't be afraid to suggest linking formats to owners of sites that link to you. The types of links that serve your purposes best will generally provide their visitors with the best experience as well.

Check to see if the page where the link will be located can be found in the search engine results. You can search via the entire website or by individual page. Different search engines use different syntax in looking for individual pages and links; refer to the advanced search function for each search engine for details.

Google Search Example:

Shows indexing of all pages listed in website site:www.websitedomainname.com
Shows indexing of a specific web page in website info:www.websitedomainname.com/pagename.html

If the page is listed in the search engine results, this means the page has been indexed by the search engine robots. This means the web page is valid for indexing and that your link will be picked up as well.

Research And Quality Content Equal Success

One-way link building means hard work and long term determination to achieve good link popularity. By improving the quality of your website, you improve the chance to obtain good quality natural links. Spend a set amount of time each week to seek out quality one-way links to achieve your goal. By using this long-term game plan you will be able to safely build links for optimum link popularity success.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation, a Search Engine Promotion company serving small businesses. Besides running her own company, Daria is an associate of WebMama.com, an Internet web marketing strategies company. She has specialized in search engine optimization since 1998, including three years as the Search Engine Specialist for O'Reilly & Associates, a technical book publishing company. You can read more of her articles at the Search Innovation Articles page.

The Great Internet Gold Rush - How You Can Cash in Now!

2004-09-04T09:22:00.001-07:00

Never before in history have we had such an opportunity to cash in on the explosive growth of the Internet. Why it's only been a few years since the web really became popular, and now hundreds of thousands of people are connecting to the Internet daily.

Many of these people are like you and I, searching out the ultimate home business. Fortunately for us, the time is here. We now have the opportunity like never before, to sell our products to a worldwide market. In fact, we can even do this without leaving our homes. In my case, my favorite chair; my "Lazy Boy" to be exact!

Perhaps the easiest product to market is Information Products. An item that can be purchased on line and easily downloaded. Information Products include any type of media that someone else would find of value. A good example is a "how to" pamphlet or book. Most of us have some type of interest or hobby that could make us perhaps a subject matter expert, or at least a very informed enthusiast. People everyday are using this knowledge and creating on-line books, otherwise known as eBooks. They are selling these products to others interested in the same type of information and in turn, making gobs of money!

Personally, this is my preferred method. I can either sell my own creation such as en eBook, or sell (through affiliate marketing) some of the many great products already out their. With this method, I can either work from home or from anywhere else in the world. It really doesn't matter. How would you like to run your own business from your mountain top home; or even from your condo in Hawaii? It's entirely possible. In fact, once set up, your business can be completely automated. Work as often or as little as you like.

Many people prefer to market a combination of electronic products and hard copy media. This provides the opportunity to capitalize to those that prefer reading an actual book or manual. Something they can throw in a brief case and read anywhere at their leisure. In this case, the order could still be processed on line but you would have to make a few trips to the post office each week to mail out your product. Either way, it's still a great way to go.

Others prefer to sell tangible products such as wholesale products that can be purchased at huge discounts. These are sold over the Internet and drop shipped from the supplier directly to your customers home. With this method you can market your products through traditional online methods and with your own web site or possibly through the many popular auction services such as eBay.

Regardless of the services offered, online marketing is truly a wide open market. Today, like never before can you market your products to a worldwide audience from the comfort of your home and achieve so much. To your success! Alan

Alan Nelson publishes Home Business Tips, a fresh and Informative newsletter dedicated to supporting people like YOU! If you're looking for the *best rated* home business Opportunities, the latest time saving tools and helpful support from an honest friend in the business, come by and grab a F-R-E-E subscription today at: http://planyourfuture.biz

Optimal Website Design

2004-09-04T09:22:00.000-07:00

The idea behind good website design is to offer your viewer a logical flow while making it interesting and easy to navigate.

Lead your viewers to the starting point and then direct them through your site without confusing them.

Here are some excellent tips that can help you develop a user friendly site and please your visitors senses. Give yourself a chance before they get away.

1. Use lots of white space. Don't feel that because you have a whole screen that you need to fill it up with stuff. Your page should follow a clean outline. Include your site name at the very top. Below that list the subject of your page and below that expand on your topic. Leave adequate space between each section. Don't cram a lot of pictures and ads. If you have an ad keep it off to the side or subtly intersperse it between your text. The idea is not to overwhelm your reader.

2. Don't use animation and flashing objects. As advertisers we feel the need to get our viewers attention. This is important but we need to do it gracefully. Flashing objects and scrolling images distract your visitor and take away from the content. If your product is better demonstrated with animation or some other multi-media, allow your viewer to select the option. Don't force it on them.

3. Every page of your site should contain an 'about' link. The internet can be a rather cold and quiet environment. If someone can come to your site and find out about who you are and what you are about, they can feel a little better about doing business with you or taking advice from you. Always include your business address and phone number and email address as well. This lets viewers know that you are serious about your business and that you welcome contact.

4. Include a 'Privacy' Link Viewers like the reassurance that you have a policy that follows privacy guidelines. They want to know that you will not sell or give away their information. In these days of rampant spam, your privacy policy needs to be prominently displayed. Many viewers and business partners won't do business with you unless you have it.

5. Always keep your links in blue. Why does that matter you might say? It's an expectation that viewers have along with the links being underlined. There's certainly no law that says they need to be as such but people spend a lot of time on the internet and it's good practice to keep your navigation consistent and recognizable. If it's not you may lose out on clicks.

6. Keep navigation consistent Keep your site's navigation consistent. What you do on your index page should be done the same way on the rest of your site's pages. Keep the colors consistent as well. Don't force your viewers to relearn each page of your site. Keep your navigation bars and links the same for each page.

7. Understandable buttons and links. Title your links appropriately. Don't use cute or misleading names. For example, if you have a link to sports equipment don't label the link 'Great Outdoors', call it 'sports equipment'. If you have a link to 'cameras' don't label the link 'hotshots', label it 'cameras'. Your viewers don't want to waste time figuring out what things are. Be clear with your labeling.

8. Focus on the 'YOU', not the 'ME'. Make it obviously clear to your readers that you are there for them. What can you do for your reader? What benefits are there for your viewer? How can you make their life or business better or more profitable? Request feedback on their success. Find out what they want to know or how you can offer them what they need.

9. Make sure your page loads fast. If viewers have to wait for a page to load they will click elsewhere. Here's a site that will help you determine how well your page loads. If a page doesn't load in 8 seconds you lose 1/3 of your visitors. Here's a great free tool to help you check your website's load time:

About the Author:

Elizabeth McGee has spent 20 years in the service and support industry. She has moved her expertise to the world wide web helping businesses find trusted tools, enhance customer service, build confidence and increase sales. You can contact Elizabeth at mail@pro-marketing-online.com or visit her website at
http://www.pro-marketing-online.com/

Official Blogs

2004-08-26T05:18:00.000-07:00

The Official Google Blog

and

The Official Yahoo Blog

The Google Browser

2004-08-25T22:21:00.002-07:00

Last summer, Anil Dash suggested that it would be a good move for Google to develop a Google browser based on Mozilla. Give that kid a gold star because it looks more than plausible. Mozilla Developer Day 2004 was recently held at the Google Campus. Google is investing heavily in JavaScript-powered desktop-like web apps like Gmail and Blogger (the posting inferface is now WYSIWYG). Google could use their JavaScript expertise (in the form of Gmail ubercoder Chris Wetherell) to build Mozilla applications. Built-in blogging tools. Built-in Gmail tools. Built-in search tools. A search pane that watches what you're browsing and suggests related pages and search queries or watches what you're blogging and suggests related pages, news items, or emails you've written. Google Toolbar++. You get the idea.

Read the complete article about the Google Browser.

New Search Engine

2004-08-25T22:21:00.001-07:00

Anoox is a new search engine, supposedly a "Revolutionary search engine - The best search Engine. It'g got a very interesting not-for-profit model, worth a look at.

How to Predict Yahoo Web Search Listings

2004-08-25T22:21:00.000-07:00

Predict listings for yahoo , a very interesting piece.

How long before I get into Google?

2004-08-23T23:57:00.000-07:00

There is no easy answer to the question of how much time it takes to be listed on google. There is no fixed period of time before any website gets listed on google. Infact, it depends on a variety of factors such as the popularity of the website, it’s design, content etc. The time it takes to get listed on google may range from a few days to upto 3 months.

To understand how you “get into” google, or get indexed by google, it’s important to learn how Google actually works. The “Googlebot” is Google’s indexing software. This Googlebot visits millions of websites, records the contents of these websites and makes them available to search for the users of Google. The Googlebot is essentially a software, it has a set of capabilities and limitations and algorithms it uses to index content.

What the Googlebot does is, in theory, very simple, when it visits a page it records all the links listed on that page and makes sure to visit them. This activity is known as “Crawling”. By crawling the Googlebot should be able to visit a majority of the websites on the internet. Therefore, having many sites link to you increase your chances of being visited by the Googlebot and thereby increasing chances of being indexed on Google quicker. The Frequency of the visit of the Googlebot also depends on the “Pagerank” of a particular website. The greater the pagerank of a website is, the more often google will index it.

Google adds thousands of websites each time the Googlebot crawls the web. Submission to Google is not necessary, since the Googlebot jumps from page to page via hyperlinks, it is more likely that google will find your site this way before being indexed via the URL submission form. Multiple submissions of your website does not increase the chances of being indexed on google.
For a brand new website, without a pagerank and without any links pointing to it, it may take months to be indexed. It is easier to start a reciprocal linking campaign and chances are your website will be picked up much quicker this way.

The process of being indexed on google maybe broadly classified into three stages, the crawling of the webpage, the indexing and finally listings on SERP or Search Engine Results Page. A webpage maybe crawled but it might not be visible in SERP’s for weeks to come.

If your site is not listed in the major directories, then adding it to the directories will have a significant positive impact. If you pay for expedited review of your site at Yahoo, Business.com and others, than you will see improvement the next time Google, update it’s indexes.

In the end, a bottom-to-top rebuild of your website will result in an improvement in your search engine rankings rather quickly. You should continue to see improvements for 6-9 months, as the changes to your site are indexed throughout the databases that drive the major search engines.

Understanding Google AdWords

2004-08-18T23:40:00.000-07:00

Understanding Google AdWords By Sharon Housley (c) 2004

Google AdWordsUnlike many search engines Google, to its credit, clearly denotes search listings that are paid placement. In fact, Google AdWords appear in a separate section down the left side of the screen.Google AdWords provide an inexpensive advertising venue for businesses to advertise products or services to a targeted audience. Advertisers have the ability to control their budget and target their advertising based on keywords. Advertisers are also free to determine the ad content.

Google AdWords allow for nearly instant traffic, which can be turned on and off. Traffic results can be measured, providing information on what is successful, what isn't and what needs to be changed. AdWords can be found that work by running a test campaign.
Benefits to AdWordsAdvertisers bid on keywords. The more an advertiser is willing to pay, the greater the likelihood the ad will appear higher in position in the list of ads served. Google, invariably wanting to make the most from advertisers, determines placement based on a combination of click-through rate, bid amount and budget. Of course, in order to maximize revenue and please searchers Google does have guidelines for ads served and all ads must receive a minimum percentage click-through or they are removed.

AdWord GuidelinesClearly and accurately describe the website. This is to the advertiser and searchers benefit. Ultimately, the more qualified the visitor who clicks the ad, the higher the likelihood the clicker will convert into a sale. By providing clear and accurate information, searchers who click the ad are qualified leads, which tend to convert more consistently than unqualified leads. The most effective advertising communicates a clear message to a targeted audience.

Avoid excessive capitalization, superlatives and lavish exclamation marks in the ad. By doing this, you are not only serving the visitor, you are filtering unwanted clicks from non-buyers. Due to space limitations your ad message will need to be concise. Select keywords that are relevant to your product, service or content. Call to action phrases are not allowed (i.e. you cannot use phrases like "click here" in your ad copy.) There are also no pop-ups.

Increase Conversions by Analyzing Your Server Logs

2004-08-12T07:31:00.000-07:00

Most people now understand the "front end" of search engine optimization (SEO): compiling keywords and optimizing content, page titles and meta descriptions in order to increase rankings on search engines.

Yet, judging from my experience with clients, few people pay much attention to the "back end" -- analyzing their server logs. Either they don't look at them at all -- or worse yet, they don't have any!

Effective SEO is based on real data: number of unique visitors, the keywords and phrases people used to find your site, the pages that are downloaded most frequently, and that all-important metric-- conversions.

The easiest place to get that information is from your server logs. If you haven't looked at your logs and don't know where to begin, the first step is to contact your hosting company. Many ISPs and Web hosts such as Earthlink, Readyhosting and GoDaddy offer Web analytics as
part of their monthly hosting fee -- all you do is log on to your server's control panel and type in your account password.

If your site sits on your own server and you don't have server logs, purchase a Web analytics program such as Urchin or WebTrends, pronto!

Once you have your server logs in hand, you want to pay particular attention to the following data:

Number of Unique Visitors and Page Views

Don't be swayed by the number of "hits" to your site. This is a misleading indicator as it is simply a measurement of every downloaded image and file on your site.

Instead, pay attention to the number of unique visitors and conversion rates. To determine simple conversion rates, take the number of unique visitors and divide by the number of people who took the desired action, e.g., downloaded a brochure, submitted your contact form,
signed up for a newsletter, purchased your e-book, etc.

Top Pages

The "Top Pages" metric can give you a wealth of detailed information. You'll see which pages are most popular on your site, which in turn can help you plan future content. Pay particular attention to the page or pages you want people to click on -- for example, I want people to
click on my newsletter sign-up page. Using the number of "unique visitors" to my site, I can determine how many actually went to that page, and then measure that against how many actually signed up for my newsletter. I can also quickly see how many click through from my
newsletter to special offers or landing pages.

Top Keywords

Analyzing your keywords will show you which phrases people are using to find you, and which ones they aren't using. Remember, just because you think your prospects should use specific words to find you doesn't mean they are using them. I learned this the hard way a couple of years ago. I had always assumed my top keyword phrase was "freelance copywriter." It's what others and I used to describe what I do. But, it wasn't until I started analyzing my server logs -- and purchasing
Overture search phrases -- that I learned with a jolt that my number-one keyword phrase was "marketing communications." I have since revised my page titles and content using variations on this phrase -- significantly increasing traffic and conversions.

Top Referrals

Sites that rank highly in search engines also have a number of sites that link to them. You can quickly see which sites are sending you traffic by looking at your "Top Referrals" metric. Most of these referring sites will be search engines -- but if you drill deep enough, you'll get some meaty information. For example, I paid $250 last year to be in a marketing database. Not one person has clicked through from this database to my site, which means I won't be
purchasing a listing this year.

Top Domains or Robots/Spiders

While you're reading your logs, do a quick check to make sure the top search engines are visiting your site. Some programs will show this information as "Top Domains" or "Robots/Spiders." Make sure you see listings from "googlebot," "MSIECrawler," "Inktomi Slurp" and other
spiders or bots.

Good search engine optimization practices include regularly analyzing your server logs and giving visitors the content they want by:

* analyzing top downloaded pages,
* researching and continually tweaking keyword phrases,
* building a solid external link structure (and making sure it's
working).

If you are continuously doing these things, you'll see a steady rise
of site traffic and conversions over time.

Dianna Huff
25 Ways To Grow Your E-Newsletter List
http://www.growalist.com

Google Search Engine Analysis

2004-08-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

Google is the fastest growing search engine, and is one of the largest public databases of information that exist today. Approximately 80% of all Internet searches are done using Google, through Google.com and the network of sites licensing the Google search results (AOL, Netscape, iWon, Compuserve, Alexa, and many of others).

Google is an amazing search engine. You can add your url for free. Google doesn't care what kind of files you have on your site - it will index almost anything. And Google ranks your site according to pretty standard algorithms, except for one really neat factor - your site is ranked in part based on the number and quality of sites that have linked back to it. A critical element of the link to your site is the phrase in the link. If the link has the words really amazing website, then your site will get a slightly higher search rank for the phrase really amazing website.

Google also doesn't seem to have any editor "quality rating" system, a system adapted by AltaVista, Yahoo!, and LookSmart affiliated search engines which gives higher ranking to sites based upon subjective evaluations of editors.

Your Search Engine Optimization Plan

2004-08-11T08:58:00.000-07:00

A complete guide to search engine optimization would be book-length, and would be out of date as soon as it was published, but here are several tips for building a website with search engine optimization in mind:

1. Every page on your site must have a unique title tag, meta keywords tag, and meta description tag.

2. Follow W3C recommendations for HTML document structure. Begin the body copy of your page with your keyword phrase, and repeat it as needed as the theme of the page throughout your copy. Feature your keyword phrase prominently by including it in headers and making it bold or italics.

3. Use text navigation on your site, and use the keyword phrases you have selected as the links. If you cannot use text navigation, include a footer on every page using text links.

4. Build a text site map, and link to it from every page of your site.

5. Organize your navigation according to the importance of your keyword phrases. If you break your site into many pages, link to the most important pages from every page of your site, and link to the other pages from section header pages and the site map.

6. Establish your site by submitting to the major directories, The Open Directory and the Yahoo! Directory, then build your link popularity by submitting to web directories, search engines, and requesting links from related websites.

7. Be patient. A search engine optimization project can take quite some time to work.

Designing for Search Engine Success

2004-08-10T23:02:00.000-07:00

Feature article Shane Borelli

When preparing to build a new website, or redesign an existing website, planning for success in the search engines is a crucial First Step. Even before you choose a color scheme, choose a design strategy that will enhance your chances for success - not work against them.

While many website designs work well in the search engines, some work much better than others. And there are a few website designs that are just plain difficult and best avoided. If receiving traffic from search engines is important to your website, then discuss design implications with your web developer or SEO consultant before the website design is agreed upon, and the actual building begins.

What difference can website design make?

By "design", we do not mean background colors and font styles, but rather how the website is pieced together both structurally (site architecture) and contextually (information architecture). The difference between good and bad design choices can be clear as night and day. The difference may mean having all of your website information indexed in the search engine databases - or none of it.

Take Flash for example:
Flash is a powerful, vector-based animation software that allows web designers to create beautiful websites with rich graphics and robust interactive functionality. Sounds good, right?

The problem is that, until very recently, no search engine could "see" Flash files, or any of the content inside them. Even now, Google is the only search engine that does read Flash files. Google reports this is only a trial period, and they will read only links inside Flash files - not any other content, such as text. This means that even the most appealing, informative, and useful website may never see any significant traffic from the search engines if the site is built with Flash and without regard to how search engines work.

Patch it up or start over?

Virtually any existing website can be modified to perform better in the search engines; starting over from scratch is seldom necessary. However, sometimes starting over is the smartest thing to do.

Workarounds have been developed and refined to enable the use of advanced design features, including Flash, without losing important exposure in the search engines. If properly implemented, these workarounds do work and you can seemingly "eat your cake and have it, too."

The caveat is that once you start implementing large-scale workarounds - it's hard to stop. Each time new content is added to the website, the necessary workarounds must also be added or modified. Therefore, a website that is rife with workarounds may easily become more expensive to maintain over the long term than simply starting over with a better design strategy.

The lesson here is to plan well - speak to an experienced developer or SEO consultant - and build your website right the first time.

Getting Honest With The Search Engines - Part II

2004-08-10T22:58:00.000-07:00

Feature article by Daria Goetsch
SearchInnovation.com

SEO Methods that Work

Good Content
Content is one of the most important items you need for your website. Once visitors arrive, you need to keep them there. Adding keyword-rich text that makes sense and serves the concept of the web page improves your ranking and keeps your visitors interested. The more text, the better for search engine spiders when they index a website.

Good navigation
There is nothing worse than arriving at a website and having difficulty understanding where to go for the information you are seeking. Have easy to use, clearly marked navigation so your visitors click through instead of click-away in frustration. Search engine spiders (robots) index text and links; having good navigation is important to the indexing of your web pages.

Title/META tags
Individualized Title and META tags for each of your important web pages gives you the best chance for optimum success in ranking. Title tags are necessary for search engine ranking, in particular with Google's search engine. META tags have decreased in importance, but are worth using for clarity and search results. The META description is still used by some search engines as the default text indexed by search engine spiders for the search results. The keyword tag is the least important but is still used by some engines. My theory is, you never know when the rules of the search engines will change, or a new engine will want them, so take the time to include these tags in all your web pages.

Link popularity
Links from other popular websites back to your website are one way of increasing your site's popularity. Finding websites with similar content (but not your competitors) and high link popularity, then trading links to be posted on each site, is one way of increasing your site popularity. Good content is vitally important because visitors who stay longer while visiting a website help measure the popularity of the site in the search engines.

Paid Inclusion
Paying a one-time fee or (as is most recently the case) a yearly renewable subscription fee to be included in the search engine results. Directories also use this style of service to accept submissions. Paid inclusion does not guarantee that you will be listed with the search engine or directory, but gives a shorter time-line of acceptance if they do.

PPC (Pay-Per-Click)
Overture is the most popular PPC engine. You bid an amount per keyword phrase to get the highest ranking in the Overture search results compared to your competitors.

Google AdWords Select
Google AdWords is a program that uses your chosen keywords in an ad in the Google search engine results in order to promote click-throughs.

Log Stats programs
Having a log stats program is very helpful in tracking your visitors, finding which keywords they are searching on to enter your website, tracking which pages they leave from and much more. Analog is a good free log stats program. WebTrends is a popular paid logs program used by many businesses.

Free submissions take patience
After paying for inclusion, try submitting to some of the secondary search engines and directories. Long before Google was a household word, I thought it might become popular and submitted the company website. It certainly paid off a year later when Google became the best of the upcoming search engines.

Another avenue to venture down are specialty directories. As the web grows larger over time, specialty directories (also known as vertical portals or "vortals") focused on your business area may help you get more link popularity and your company name out to the public.

Maintenance Programs
There are times when a page drops from the search engine listings or you re-design the page which might give you a reason to re-submit the page to the search engine. Re-submitting your pages every month is not always necessary. Having a log stats program in place will help you see which pages are still listed, along with a monthly ranking report. If you have these tools you should be able to see if any of your pages have changed. Be wary of people who consistently re-submit your pages, since re-submission can sometimes cause your pages to be dropped if they are already listed in the database.

My own experience with a very large website I did search engine marketing for, showed that the older (longer) the pages were in the search engine results, the better for link popularity and ranking. Of course, paid inclusion can give you more security in having your web pages stabilized in the search engine results.

A good maintenance plan will include providing a ranking report, tweaking keywords in your source code as needed for a monthly/six month/yearly fee and may also include log stats so you can see where your traffic is coming from and what keywords your visitors are using to visit your website.

Bottom Line: Stay Honest
Stay honest, create good content and do your homework when hiring for services. Using affordable search engine marketing services you will add to your audience exposure on the web. In this way you will always be ahead of the game and hopefully, ahead of your competitors.

Getting Honest With The Search Engines - Part I

2004-08-10T22:53:00.000-07:00

Feature article by Daria Goetsch
SearchInnovation.com

I spend a lot of time reading newsletters and forum postings about search engine marketing. More often than not, people are asking about methods used to improve search engine rankings: what works, what doesn't, and what will get you in trouble.

Search Engine*:
A program that searches documents for specified keywords and returns a list of the documents where the keywords were found.

Algorithm*:
A formula or set of steps for solving a particular problem.

Frankly, no one can predict what will happen from day to day with the search engines. Only the search engine companies themselves know if the algorithms will change from one day to the next. Even the search engine rules change from month to month, sometimes daily. Think of the changes that have happened since pay for inclusion and pay-per-click have taken over the market for search engine results.

It seems so simple to try and comply with the search engine rules. Even though optimization adds to the basic content of a site and source code, there are ways to approach this without stepping over the line.

We personally do not use the methods mentioned below (methods to avoid, methods to be wary of) in order to play it the absolute safest way, using a long term plan in providing you optimum ranking in the search engines.

SEO Methods to avoid

* Keyword stuffing. "Stuffing" keywords into places where keywords don't belong, such as comment tags, image ALT tags where the keywords have nothing to do with the specific image

* Invisible text. Text color the same as background color

* Automated submissions. Using automated tools to deliver huge numbers of pages to submission pages of search engines

* Submissions to "thousands" of search engines. A waste of time, since the major search engines/directories drive the majority of the traffic to websites

* FFA (free for all) links. Link popularity is good, but only when the links are relevant; a link from a page of random links is not worth nearly as much as a link from a site that is relevant to your site

* Search engine marketing companies hosting your pages on their server. The marketing company "owns" your pages, and if you decide you want to move them, you may have a hard time wresting them away. (This is not always the case with marketing companies that also provide hosting, but you need to carefully choose when using this option.)

Methods to be wary of:

* Cloaking
* Doorway pages
* Maintenance programs

Cloaking*:
Also known as stealth, a technique used by some Web sites to deliver one page to a search engine for indexing while serving an entirely different page to everyone else.

Cloaking is very difficult to do correctly, if you do not have an expert providing this service you could well be banned by the search engines. There are ways for this to be done that are accepted by some search engines. In general, cloaking is not always accepted by the search engine rules and can be a gamble unless you are certain your service provider knows what they are doing. Check credentials and get referrals from people who have used their services.

Doorway page**:
A page made specifically to rank well in search engines for particular keywords, serving as an entry point through which visitors pass to the main content.

Doorway pages are not accepted as they used to be by the search engines. A carefully crafted doorway page done by hand is entirely different from an automated doorway page generated by software. A few well-designed pages are a far cry from mass generated automated pages sent in large numbers through the search engine submission page, which are often considered as spam. Again, check credentials and get referrals from people who have used their services.

: Creative Methods for Adding Text Content to Your Website

2004-08-10T22:45:00.000-07:00

Feature article by Alex Bennert, Beyond Ink

There are two strategies you can use to develop content for your site. One is to create your own and the other is to acquire content.

If you were to open a store on Main St, the necessary ingredients for success are clearly established. It’s been said that if you build a better mousetrap the world will beat a path to your door. But when your door is a file on a server, it takes more than a road sign to direct traffic. What it takes, in a word is… words.

In regards to website traffic, always be aware that the words on your site are sifted through increasingly sophisticated software programs. These programs send out an army of virtual site reviewers, known as “spiders”. Words are the food those spider bots love to gobble. It is impossible to over estimate the importance of relevant textual content in getting highly ranked. Without words, you cannot achieve rankings.

So how do you develop your own word-based site content? The most important thing to remember is that the words must be relevant to your site. It’s not so hard really, just a mental exercise. A little creativity can yield a lot of good words.

Strategy 1: Creating Your Own Content

Exercise a: Write an FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page.

This one is easy. Review the questions you get from your site visitors over and over. What are the same things they are asking you about in 90% of the emails you receive? Do yourself, your customers, and your site a favor. Make a list, and answer each question. And use this opportunity to provide descriptive responses peppered with your key phrases. Let’s say you often receive emails asking how long it takes for your special ordered doorknockers to ship. One question in your FAQ might read:

Q: How long does it take for your custom doorknockers to ship?

A: Our personalized, engraved doorknockers ship within 3 weeks of order.

Make the page look good… neat, orderly, and professional. Go ahead and add a few of your product photos in a column along the text.

Exercise b: Getting into the psyche of your site’s visitors

Take a little time to think about your customer’s related needs. The best way to illustrate this strategy is with an example. Let’s say you’re an independent realtor. If your site visitors are looking for available houses and prices in your area, they might also want be interested in a layman’s breakdown of the various neighborhoods, suburbs or towns in the area. How close are they to the highway and downtown? What are the local public schools like? On another page, you could discuss how to price your home for sale, as well as tips on selling a home quickly. Even a simple glossary of real estate terms provides not only relevant, useful information, but also food for those hungry, hungry spiders.

Strategy 2: Acquiring Your Content

Exercise a: Pillage your wholesalers

If you have a product-based site, your suppliers can be a terrific source of content. One e-tailer who sold hand woven rugs received permission reprint promotional material provided by the rug maker on the details of weaving and hooking the rugs. This content was beautiful written by a professional copywriter and was naturally loaded with pertinent keywords. Additionally, it was supplied in digital format so adding to the site was a snap. A few product photos were placed along side the content, and it didn’t take long before the site was ranking highly for handmade rugs, hand woven rugs braided rugs, rag rugs, and hooked rugs.

Exercise b: Lazy SEO method for adding more words to your site

The reason this is a great “secret” is because everyone wins. And that’s my favorite method of doing business. Bear in mind, authorities and experts in a given field are often seeking collateral exposure, which you can provide them. The exercise is to find an article published online that contains content related to your industry and ask for permission to “reprint” it on your site. The trick is to identify complimentary, not competing materials. And it’s out there.

Let’s go back to the realtor example. There are numerous associated trades that go hand in hand with selling homes (i.e. home appraisals, financing, etc.). So get on the web and do your homework. Find a really good article that has something useful to say about the associated subject. If you are a regionally based business, it would be even better if you can find something from the site of another local business. When you find it, send a gracious email requesting permission to reprint their article on your site. Mention how helpful and informative their article is and how valuable it will be to your site’s visitors. Naturally you will give appropriate credit to the author as well as a link back to their site. This provides them with additional credibility and exposure, as well as a nice reciprocal link. So… what if they ignore your request, or even say no? Just keep looking. The beauty of this process is that the information is readily available. Trust me, it won’t take long before someone says yes. And voila… you have content. Juicy, relevant, wordy content. And all you had to do was a little surfing and a little sweet-talking.

< style="font-family: arial;">Creating or finding content for your site is not rocket science. Think about it. Every product or service solves a problem for the consumer. Identify that problem, and in theory, you’re an expert on it. So, write about what you know, or find related content that someone else has already written. Just get those words on your site. By doing your homework, providing pertinent content, and supplying your customers with a wealth of resources, you are building not only business, but also relationships. And there’s only one word for that – success!

What is Internet Marketing?

2004-08-10T04:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of definitions to help you understand what Internet Marketing is :

Strategies and techniques applied on the Internet to support the organization's overall online marketing objectives. Goals may include driving targeted traffic to a Website and features on the Website to create a desired call to action. Internet marketing may include keyword and meta tag strategies, newsgroup and mailing list postings, banner advertising, reciprocal links, online promotions, content positioning, online image development, email strategies and other interactive features.

The use of the Internet to advertise and sell merchandise or services. This involves use of Web sites and e-mail to inform customers about a product, solicit their questions, and accept their orders directly through the electronic medium.

What is Search Engine Optimization?

2004-08-10T04:08:00.000-07:00

Here are a few definitions to give you a better understanding :

A form of online marketing, search engine optimization (or search engine marketing) is the process of making a site and its content highly relevant for both search engines and searchers. Successful search marketing helps a site gain top positioning for relevant words and phrases.
Search Engine Optimisation. The art of optimising a website so that it appears near the top of search engine search results.
Acronym for “search engine optimisation”. Search engine optimisation is a process of crafting a site's content so that the site gets high rankings in the various search engines (both the site and individual pages), and includes tailoring on-page text (such as headlines and subtitles) as well as choosing the proper keywords for a page's meta tags.

Search Engine Optimization News

Online Market Segmentation

Reasons To Archive Those Articles

Google blazes trail to Oregon

Google founders in hunt for Asian talent

Yahoo releases a Firefox toolbar

New SEO Software Plan beats Microsoft bCentral's Submit It

Booted Google blogger writes again

Why Optimize Your Site For Search Engines?

Add your link to this page

Google Extends More Gmail Invites

Something has happened to Google!

Attack Of The Killer Google Zombies!

Amazon Unit Challenges Google, Other Search Sites

Five Reasons To Submit to Shopping Search Engines - By Corey Creed

Surefire Google Adwords Formula

How Popular Are You,... Online That Is?

If Content is King, then surely Relevance is Queen!

What is The Google Sandbox Effect?

One Way Link Building Strategies

The Great Internet Gold Rush - How You Can Cash in Now!

Optimal Website Design

Official Blogs

The Google Browser

New Search Engine

How to Predict Yahoo Web Search Listings

How long before I get into Google?

Understanding Google AdWords

Increase Conversions by Analyzing Your Server Logs

Google Search Engine Analysis

Your Search Engine Optimization Plan

Designing for Search Engine Success

Getting Honest With The Search Engines - Part II

Feature article by Daria Goetsch SearchInnovation.com

Getting Honest With The Search Engines - Part I

Feature article by Daria Goetsch SearchInnovation.com

: Creative Methods for Adding Text Content to Your Website

Feature article by Alex Bennert, Beyond Ink

What is Internet Marketing?

What is Search Engine Optimization?

Feature article by Daria Goetsch
SearchInnovation.com

Feature article by Daria Goetsch
SearchInnovation.com