Search On Keyword Phrases In The Search Engines
Using your expanded list of keyword phrases, search for those terms in the search engine databases. Note the number of search engine results. The more results, typically the more competitive the term. See the differences in number of search results for plural versions as opposed to singular versions of your keywords in each engine. Note the descriptions that the search engine results bring up – are there any keyword phrases there that might apply to your website? Don’t forget the ads Google displays in their search results. Study the ads that come up with your search terms as well. While you are searching on your keyword phrases, check your competitor’s ranking, along with the new keyword phrase variations you come up with through the Overture Keyword and WordTracker tools.
Add Keywords Reflecting Your Local Cities And State
You can also target local areas by including them in your title/meta tags and text of your web pages. List only the cities and state you reside in and/or provide services to. You never know who will be looking for a local contact producer of “blue widgets” in your city or state. Some people prefer to work with a local company. Adding in those type of specifics, even on your contact page with your local information, can pull in traffic your local competitors are missing.
Check Your Site Statistics
Last but certainly not least, check your search engine stats program or raw server logs to see what terms your visitors are using to find your website. There may be combinations of words your visitors are using you have not thought of or that may not be in the content of your pages.
Incorporate Keyword Phrases Into Content Of Your Web Pages
Once you have your list of varied keyword phrases, work them into your web page. Incorporating these terms into your web pages should “make sense”, in other words, they should read well and not sound “spammy”. Most of all, they should realistically be part of the content of the page, not placed there only because you need them in the content. Have another person read your copy to see if it sounds reasonable to them.
Finding Targeted Keyword Phrases
Finding keyword phrases your competition is missing is easier than you might think. Combinations of two and three word phrases are often overlooked by your competitors when vying for the top competitive terms. This missed opportunity may be a benefit to you to overcome your competition in the search engine rankings.
Think Like A Searcher – Study Your Target Audience
Really look at the audience you want to bring to your website. Are there terms you might not ordinarily use, or that your competitors use, that would work for a small portion of visitors? Remember that single words tend to be more competitive. Find two and three word phrases that would work for a searcher looking for your website topic. If your visitors usually search on “vertical widgets”, look at “horizontal widgets” as well. Dig deep to find terms that might not be obvious to you. Be sure to focus your terms on the actual topic of your website, and terms that people would really search for. Have another person compile a list of keyword phrases used to find your website or product. You’d be surprised at the number of variations two minds can come up with instead of one. Think like a searcher – not a website owner.
View Your Competitor’s Source Code And Content For Keyword Phrases
Viewing your competitor’s source code is very easy and a good way to see what keyword phrases (if any) they are using. Using your browser, view the source code of their page. The title and meta tags should contain the same keywords or variations of keyword phrases if the competitor’s website is optimized. Look over the web page content as well as for keyword phrases worked into the text, image alt text, headings and hyperlinks of the pages. If their pages are not optimized you may gain an even bigger edge on the competition by optimizing your web pages.
Using Keyword Tools To Find Variations Of Keyword Phrases
The Overture Suggestion Tool will provide keyword variations. You can find the tool at http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170523/http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/
Clicking on the suggestion tool link will bring up a window that allows you to search for terms and variations of terms. Begin with your list and see how many variations come up with the results. You might be surprised at the popularity of some of the search variations you see. Be sure to add you new keyword phrases to your list.
WordTracker is a keyword tool as well, you can purchase a yearly subscription or even a one day subscription. Learn more about it here: http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170523/http://www.wordtracker.com/
Keyword Variations Make A Difference
Don’t miss out on the keywords your competitors might miss. Those extra keywords could translate into profits and increased viewing of your website by visitors who might otherwise not find you.
Author Bio:
Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing (http://www.searchinnovation.com/), 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.
Free Webmaster Tools
When working with my workshop or online SEO students, I’m often told of a really neat tool that I’ve never heard of before.
So, I thought it would be a great idea to share these tools with you, just like they were shared with me.
A special thanks goes to all of you who told me about these unique tools. And, if anyone else has a “cool tool” to share, be sure to let me know. I’ll publish a part 2 of this article!
Customer Focus Calculator (“We We Monitor”!)
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://www.futurenowinc.com/wewe.htm
This has got to be one of my favorite cool tools. It analyzes a Web page and lets you know if the Web page is focused on YOU or on your customers. After all, shouldn’t our Web pages be written for our customers . . . not ourselves?
Search Engine Optimization Tools
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://www.webconfs.com/
This site has three different tools that are really cool. One is a Search Engine Spider Simulator, which displays exactly what a spider would see when it visits your page. Another free tool is the Google Backlink Checker, which lets you know who’s linking to your site and what link text they’re using. The last tool is the Similar Page Checker. We all know that “duplicate content” is a no no. This neat tool will determine the similarity between two pages.
Marketleap Search Engine Marketing Tools
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://www.marketleap.com/services/freetools/default.htm
My favorite tool on this page is the Link Popularity Check. Enter your URL and up to three comparison URLs, and the site will let you know what your link popularity is in AllTheWeb, AltaVista, Google, Inktomi, and MSN. It also compares your site’s link popularity to other URLs you listed as well as other sites on the Net. The Search Engine Saturation tool determines how many pages a given search engine has in its index for your Web site. You can compare your site to five other sites with this tool. Finally, the Keyword Verification Tool checks to see if your page is in the top three pages of a search engine’s results for a certain keyword or keyword phrase.
Website Security Report
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://security.computer-concierge.net/security/website_security_report.asp
This very cool tool lets you find out how secure your Web site is. When I first used it, it found more holes in the security of my Web site than the laws allows, and I promptly changed to a different hosting company!
Your Computer’s Security
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://grc.com/default.htm
Gibson Research Corporation offers a really neat (and free) tool for checking the security of your computer: ShieldsUp. Scroll down on
the page to the Hot Spots area, where you’ll find the link to ShieldsUp. Be sure to go through each of the checks in the ShieldsUp section (File Sharing, Common Ports, etc.).
More Free Webmaster Tools
Reverse DNS Lookup
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://remote.12dt.com/rns/
This service converts an IP address to the host name by searching domain name service tables.
Doctor HTML
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://www2.imagiware.com/RxHTML/
Click on Single Page, and the free service will analyze your Web page based on document structure, image syntax, table analysis, browser
support, verify hyperlinks, and much more.
GifBot by NetMechanic
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://www.netmechanic.com/accelerate.htm
GifBot will compress your GIF, JPEG, and animated GIF images by decreasing the file size without sacrificing the quality of the image. So, your pages load faster!
Bobby Online
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://bobby.watchfire.com/bobby/html/en/index.jsp
This online service allows you to test Web pages to help expose and repair barriers to accessibility and encourage compliance with existing accessibility guidelines. It’s very important to make sure your Web pages are accessible for those who surf the Internet with disabilities.
AnyBrowser.com Screen Size Tester
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://anybrowser.com/ScreenSizeTest.html
Have you ever been to a Web site and not been able to scroll to the bottom of the page? The scroll bar is there, but you can’t get down that far to scroll. It’s not a pleasant experience. At the Screen Size Tester, you can test your Web pages in different screen
resolutions so that you can be assured that all of your visitors can view your site in its entirety.
Anti-Spam and Security Fix for FormMail.pl Script
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://mailvalley.com/formmail/
Formmail one of the most-used perl scripts on the Web, is designed to send data entered into a Web form to an e-mail address. This script could be exploited by a malicious user who could use Formmail as a spam server. If you use this script, spammers may be able to use it to send spam freely using your server’s resources.” This site offers a patched version that prevents the script from being used by spammers.
Comprehensive Guide to htaccess
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://www.javascriptkit.com/howto/htaccess.shtml
Though not a “tool” per se, this comprehensive tutorial about how to use the htaccess file is excellent.
Top Ten Web Design Mistakes for 2002
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605170440/http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20021223.html
Though also not a tool, this handy list is something that we should all be aware of. For example, don’t use horizontal scrolling!
Again, thanks to all of you who shared these wonderfully helpful tools with me. If I missed any (which I’m sure I did), please let me know. I’ll send out a part 2 of this article.
Author Bio:
Robin Nobles with Search Engine Workshops teaches SEO strategies the “stress free” way through hands-on, search engine marketing workshops in locations across the globe and online search engine marketing courses. Visit the World Resource Center, a new networking community for search engine marketers. (http://www.sew-wrc.com/)
Introduction
ExactSeek.com has teamed up with Alexa to provide a brand new search engine ranking algorithm that ranks sites based on content relevancy and Alexa user popularity data.
This unique ranking system not only provides relevant search results, but it also enables website owners to increase their site’s ranking in ExactSeek simply by increasing their Alexa ranking.
ExactSeek.com, a Jayde Online company, is a search engine and directory that indexes over 25,000 websites each day. It currently indexes over 2 million websites and is
expected to exceed 5 million by the end of the year.
Alexa Internet, an Amazon.com company, provides the Alexa Toolbar — an invaluable tool for the Internet marketer. This little browser plug-in provides a wealth of information, including site statistics, traffic data and contact information for every site you visit. Best of all, it won’t cost you a dime.
You can download and install the Alexa toolbar here:
Alexa Toolbar
I recently had the opportunity to interview Jayde Online’s CEO, Mel Strocen. The Jayde Online Network includes ExactSeek.com, GoArticles.com, SiteProNews.com, AllBusinessNews.com, EzineHub.com and FreeWebSubmission.com. Jayde Online Inc. has been internet-focused from its inception in 1998 and primarily involved in the publication
of email newsletters and the development of niche and general search engines.
Here’s what Mel had to say about the new ExactSeek search engine ranking algorithm…
The Interview
Shelley: Mel, thank you for taking time out of your busy schedule to talk with me.
Mel: Shelley, I appreciate the opportunity to provide some insight on recent developments at ExactSeek and our new site ranking algorithm.
Shelley: Now that ExactSeek has teamed up with Alexa, how exactly will websites be ranked?
Mel: The main factors in determining website ranking will be page content relevancy and the site traffic data provided by Alexa Internet with the emphasis being on the former
versus the latter. It will be several weeks, or possibly even longer, before we finalize the exact weight we give Alexa data. What this means is that for the short term webmasters might find their website ranking changing fairly frequently. Think of it as ExactSeek’s version of the “Google Dance” 🙂
Shelley: Prior to the new partnership, ExactSeek ranked sites according to keywords displayed within the Title, Meta Description and Meta Keywords tags. Will these tags still play a role in ranking a website? Or, will sites be strictly ranked according to content and their Alexa ranking?
Mel: Yes, Title and Meta tags will continue to play a role, but not to the extent they did previously. The information from these tags will be shown in the actual search result
listings and will also be compared to page content as an additional check of overall relevancy.
Shelley: As I’m sure you’re aware, some “experts” may make a case that Alexa rankings can be manipulated. How would you respond to this analysis?
Mel: As mentioned, Alexa traffic data will be an integral part of the ExactSeek ranking algorithm but not the dominant factor, that being page content. Essentially, we’ve opted to emphasize user popularity over link popularity. Either one can be manipulated by savvy webmasters or SEO experts but, in our view, user popularity is less subject to manipulation over the long term because it is more difficult to manipulate the surfing public than it is to manipulate SE crawlers. The bottom line is that people will always be able to better evaluate content than search engine spiders.
Shelley: Will an increase in traffic from other sources affect how a site ranks in ExactSeek?
Mel: Yes, the good news for webmasters is that regardless of what they do to promote their websites, their efforts will result in a better ranking on ExactSeek. So, increased
traffic from any source, be it ezine advertising, PPC campaigns, search engine marketing, etc., will help boost site ranking in our search engine.
With other search engines, webmasters have been forced to learn what is important to each engine and tailor their sites accordingly. The beauty of ExactSeek is that webmasters can focus on making their sites relevant to people, not our search engine.
Shelley: How does ExactSeek’s new ranking algorithm compare with other search engines?
Mel: With the exception of Google, the major search engines have offered little in the way of innovation. Factoring user popularity into a ranking algorithm is ground-breaking. User popularity is a far more reliable indicator of where websites should rank and gives the surfing public some input on the search results they see.
Shelley: How will this new ranking system benefit website owners?
Mel: I’ve already mentioned the most obvious ways that webmasters will benefit as a result of our use of Alexa traffic stats. Indirectly, they will also benefit as searchers recognize the importance of user popularity in delivering quality search results. More search traffic for us will translate into more traffic for webmasters who have listed their websites in ExactSeek. In addition, we will be introducing other ranking factors specifically geared to webmasters which will give them an opportunity to boost site ranking in some very unique ways never before employed by any search engine.
Shelley: Is ExactSeek.com the only search engine that will be utilizing this new ranking system?
Mel: No, the new ranking system will be implemented on 6 search engines, those being ExactSeek, Aesop.com, OnSeek.com, SitesOnDisplay.com, MaxPromo.com and Best-SearchEngine.com. Four of these are using the new ranking algorithm now and the remaining two will be within a week or two.
Shelley: What are your submission policies? Should a webmaster submit just their main page or can they submit additional pages? How often should they submit and how?
Mel: We prefer that webmasters submit primary URLs, but additional pages can be submitted if they have unique content and title and meta tags that reflect that unique
content. Once a URL has been incorporated into the ExactSeek database, follow-up submissions are unnecessary. All URLs in our database are recrawled monthly. We also provide webmasters the option of scheduling their own recrawls with our recrawl tool (http://web.archive.org/web/20040605184955/http://www.exactseek.com/srank.html). Using this tool, a webmaster can have sites recrawled on a weekly basis.
Site submissions to ExactSeek can be made at:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040605184955/http://www.exactseek.com/add.html
Shelley: It’s been a pleasure talking with you, Mel. Thank you for allowing me to interview you.
Mel: My pleasure, Shelley. Thank you.
Conclusion
Since Alexa site rankings will play a major role in determining how well your site ranks in ExactSeek, I highly recommend that you download the Alexa toolbar — not only to
track your site’s status, but also to locate quality sites for joint ventures and link partners. It’s a win-win proposition no matter how you look at it.
Author Bio:
Shelley Lowery is the publisher of Etips — Web Design, Internet Marketing and Ecommerce Solutions. Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a free subscription and receive a free copy of Shelley’s highly acclaimed ebook, “Killer Internet Marketing Strategies”.
Accepted Ethical Practices
Unfortunately, the marketplace today is still littered with many unscrupulous search engine optimization firms that claim to be experts in the field. During my day-to-day job as an SEO, I often encounter so-called search engine marketing companies, SEO firms or individuals that always promise you the world but fail to deliver any worthwhile results or any serious ROI.
They often use forbidden techniques by the search engines such as invisible text, invisible links, one-pixel links, doorway or gateway pages etc. You would think that after all these years they would have learned something worthwhile, but apparently such is not the case for some of them. Let’s not generalize here: most SEO firms make a great job at professionally positioning a website in the major search engines and provide a valuable service to the business community.
However, some of them don’t, and these are the ones you have to watch out for. For the sake of clarity, this article will explain the right and “acceptable” techniques that are recommended by the major search engines and these are the techniques that will make your site stand out from your competitors– without risking of getting your site penalized or banned altogether. Beware of people that promise you otherwise.
In this section we look at industry-accepted standard SEO practices and technology that are either recommended by the major search engines or that these techniques and related technologies are what the industry is doing, in the cause of better, more relevant searches by the users. Briefly, here are accepted and recommended techniques and/or technology that are sanctioned or approved by the engines and that are thouroughly enforced at Rank for $ales:
* The proper use of the title tag
* The proper use of the description tag
* The proper use of the robots.txt file
* The proper use of the keywords tag
* The proper use of the H1, H2 and H3 tags
* Good body text, keyword-rich marketing copy
* The proper use of a sitemap, helping your users
* Submitting once to the major search engines
* The proper use of internal links to your inward pages
* The proper use of text links, recommended over picture links
Remember that the Google Page Rank (PR) is an important measure that will determine where in the Google search engine and others, where your site will rank. Google relies heavily on heir complex algorithm to precisely calculate a site’s page rank factor that will directly determine all of the above. There are two ways that Rank for $ales strongly recommends to achieve high PR: Put a lot of informative content on your site and go into a reciprocal link exchange program. Nothing beats a good reciprocal link exchange program to increase page rank in Google. Click here to get all the information.
The Proper Use Of The Title Tag
Correctly using the title tag is as important as ever. More and more today, the major search engines give a tremendous weighting factor to the title tag. On top of informing your site visitors what the page is all about, it also helps the search engines get a better understanding of the topic of that page and what it should expect to see on it.
What’s more, the title tag is a great place to write that important keyword or key phrase that you are optimizing that page for! If your page’s main topic is ‘blue widgets’, then you should call the title tag Blue Widgets. As is usually the case with a lot of things, in SEO, keeping things as simple as possible usually will go a long way too. If you are using a W3C standards-compliant HTML editor as it is strongly recommended, the TITLE tag is always located under the HEAD tag and that is where you need to write it, along with your main keyword or key phrase.
The Proper Use Of The Description Tag
When you do a search on Google, after you have seen the title of the page, you will see a short description, usually of only a line or two that will further inform you of what to expect from that page. To be effective, always write a short but descriptive sentence or two in your descriptive tag. It is also a good idea to use at least once your main keyword or key phrase, as some search engines still look at the contents of some of the META tags (the description tag is part of the meta tags).
On a W3C standards-compliant HTML editor, the description tag is always located under the TITLE tag. Here is how it looks:
The Proper Use Of The Keywords Tag
In the early days of the Internet, placing your keywords in the meta keywords tag would almost be a certain recipe to success. However, due to such increasing abuse and spam techniques used by many unscrupulous Webmasters and site owners, today the only search engine that still looks at them is Inktomi. Since it only takes a minute or two to write them, you might as well do, since it won’t hurt your rankings. Just don’t spend too much time on them or over-emphasize their importance, as they are almost dead.
On a W3C standards-compliant HTML editor, the keywords tag is always located under the descriptive tag. Here is how it looks:
The Proper Use Of The H1, H2 And H3 Tags
After the TITLE tag, if there is one place where the search engines will reward you, it is with the use of the H1 and H2 tags. Simply put, H1 and H2 tags are your main headers when you need to place a headline or you simply need to write the main topic of that page that your viewers will read. Placing that headline in bold (H1 and H2 tags are ALWAYS in bold) H1 and H2 tags will signal the search engines that whatever is in there is real important.
Almost invariably, I always make strong use of H1’s and H2’s and the sites I optimize usually rank very well in the major search engines.
Good Body Text And Keyword-Rich Marketing Copy
In real estate, it is ‘Location, Location, Location’. In SEO, it is ‘Content, Content, Content’. The more text and the more content you have on a given page, the more the search engines will see all that content and the more your page will rank high. It’s just as simple as that. Beware of anybody that tells you differently.
For that reason, stay away from Flash technology or site designs that make heavy use of graphics in any way. Always remember that all search engines are ‘picture blind’ and cannot see any photographs, pictures or graphics on any of your pages! Write good copy, keyword-rich sales copy that will read well, both to your site visitors AND the search engines. The more content you have, the better.
The Proper Use Of A Sitemap, Helping Your Users
The sitemap is still the search engine’s ‘best friend’. When designing your sitemap, always make certain that all your files are in it and that they are all linked to that sitemap. Search engines today are programmed to encounter sitemaps ‘by default’ and if you have one, you are increasing your chances that all your pages will be spidered (or crawled) by the search engines.
Ideally, all your site’s files are supposed to be in the search engine’s database, for the best visibility on the Web. The proper use of a sitemap will greatly increase that visibility. Also, you should always call that filename sitemap.html (all in one name- avoid using a hyphen or underscore). Also, be sure to link your sitemap to your homepage.
Submitting Once To The Major Search Engines
Never submit your site more than once to the search engines. Today, most modern search engines such as Google, AltaVista and many more have automated crawlers (or spiders) that visit the Web and index new or updated files and then include them in their databases. It is also strongly recommended that you include your site to the Open Directory Project (ODP) or DMOZ. Google uses that directory for its main index of categories and it will usually benefit your site to be listed in it. The ODP is a free directory.
The Proper Use Of Links To Your Inward Pages
One important technique that some Webmasters still neglect to follow is the use of inter-linking techniques used throughout your site. Your inner pages are as important as your homepage or your products or services pages. All of these pages can be used as legitimate ‘doorway’ pages that the search engines will like to see and will usually reward you for using them. For an example of what a good inter-linked page looks like, simply look at this one.
If you have a page on blue widgets, it should also be linked to your green and red widgets pages too, as they are all related together. Following these simple techniques will usually give you some ‘good mileage’ as far as visibility is concerned.
The Proper Use Of Text Links
If at all possible, you should always use text links over graphics or Java-based links that the search engines cannot see. If you really have to use graphics or Java-based hyperlinks to the rest of your site, make sure you include a ‘bottom-of-page’ footer text link menu that the search engines will love and properly index your page in their databases. If you have a large site that is composed of many sections, divide all those sections into smaller ones, using ‘families’ of footer menus that will be different from one section to another. It’s a bit more work, but you are significantly increasing your chances that the engines will reward your site in the rankings.
Conclusion
As I have said so many times before, search engine optimization and positioning is a science as well as an art. What really counts are the results you will get from your efforts. If you carefully implement all the tips and techniques that are in this article, your website should rank well in the search engines and your Web-based business should be a success.
Be extremely careful of anybody that will tell you otherwise. Also, bear in mind that for a site to rank well, it can usually take anywhere from 60 to 90 days and sometimes more. Calculate a minimum of 2 to 3 Google monthly updates, which will set you off to at least three months away, in most cases. I have even seen delays of up to 4 to 6 months after the site was launched. What can speed up things here is a reciprocal link exchange program.
Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales
Optimization Of A Website For Your Local Market
Having a site globally optimized for certain keywords is great, if you happen to have a business that sells its products or services all over the planet. But what if your industry is a local one, or if the products you sell only cater to a specific city or county? Does it make sense to be in competition with hundreds or even thousands of other companies like yours when dealing for a local, smaller market?
In the same way that the good ‘old Yellow Pages have helped local and small businesses thrive before the advent of the Internet, today, a properly positioned website for a specific city or local market can do the same, even better and faster! Having your site optimized for your local market can bring you a lot of sales, not to mention the repeat business spread over many years. In this article, I will show you how to concentrate your SEO efforts to just one specific geographic location or city.
Your Geo-Title Tags
Can you think of a better place to start than on your title tags! If your title tag for an important products page is ‘black widgets’ and you only sell those black widgets in the city of Toronto, by naming that title tag ‘Black Widgets for Toronto’ or ‘Toronto Black Widgets’, just that simple step alone would drive a lot more sales to your site, providing people would type ‘Toronto’, either before or after the keywords ‘Black Widgets’. If you are living in San Francisco and you only want to sell those black widgets in that city, you would name them: ‘San Francisco Black Widgets’ and so on and so forth.
Going a step further, if you are only interested in a specific district, you should name that district as part of your title tag. A good example would be: ‘North Miami Black Widgets’. You wouldn’t rank as highly if people would type only ‘Miami Black Widgets’ in Google, but you would probably beat most of your outside competitors if they would type: ‘North Miami Black Widgets’, as your title tag would appear mostly at the top of the results page in Google, or just about any other major search engine for that matter. The whole idea here is relevancy, and North Miami is more relevant than just Miami, for a person living in North Miami.
Your “Geo-Headline” Or Descriptive Header Text
If you are optimizing your site for your local market, placing a ‘Geo-Headline’ in bold H1 or H2 tags will also help you a great deal. If your market is strictly the city of Calgary, you could write a Geo-Headline that would look something like this:
“City of Calgary Black Widgets” or “Black Widgets made for Calgary”. Either one of these would drive a lot of targeted traffic to your site, since they are Geographically (Geo) specific.
Today more than ever, the major search engines are using complex algorithms and sophisticated ranking formulas that take geo-physical location under consideration, further increasing your chances of a better ranking for a specific local market.
Your Body Text And “Geo-Sales” Copy
The same principles need to be applied to the body of your text for maximum local visibility in the search engines. If your local market is the city of Edmonton Alberta, instead of writing: ‘Visit our green widgets page and check our great prices’, you could write: ‘Our green widgets have been formulated to withstand Edmonton’s harshest winters and are Albertan’s first choice when it comes to after-sale service and warranty’.
Such strong Geo-Location copywriting is certain to get your site ranked well in the search engines. If you noticed carefully, I have included Edmonton and Alberta as two separate but very relevant geo-physical locations, as probably many searchers would type in the search box.
Use my “Geo-Linking” Strategy To The Fullest
If you really want to go all the way with my ‘Geo-Thinking’ that I spoke about so far, then consider using my Geo-Linking strategy! What is Geo-Linking? My Geo-Linking strategy is to use the name of your city or local market in the text link from one page of your site to another. Here are a few examples:
1- Please click here to view our New York City Red Widgets
2- Click here to examine our Washington apartments
3- Compare our low prices on our Quebec City rental cars
4- Take a virtual tour of our Madison County City Hall
5- Read Denver-West’s real estate history since 1940
Conclusion
Optimizing a website for a local market or just a single city can be as simple and as straightforward as this. These are the basics and if you stick to them, you should do great. Always try to put yourself in the ‘shoes’ of your average searcher.
If you are selling real-estate in just the eastern tip of a large city, use the many examples I gave you in this article and, in less time than it takes to have a Yellow Pages ad approved, printed and distributed in your city, your website should start generating targeted and strong local sales from many of your local prospects, searching for YOUR local products or services.
Author:
Serge Thibodeau of Rank For Sales
Google Adsense
If you’ve been looking for an easy way to increase your website’s revenue, Google AdSense may be your answer.
Google AdSense is a phenomenal new advertising revenue program that is taking the Internet by storm. It was specifically designed to enable content rich sites to increase their advertising revenue simply by displaying Google AdWords ads.
Google AdSense makes selling advertising space easy, as they handle everything for you. With access to a database of 100,000 advertisers, you’ll never have to worry about finding advertisers for your website again.
The concept is simple. If you have a quality site that provides content, such as articles, you may qualify to display Google AdWords text ads on your web pages. If your site is approved, you will receive a portion of the pay-per- click payment.
The great thing about Google’s sophisticated advertising system is that the ads that display on your web pages are relevant to your content. They scan each page to determine what your page is about and display the ads accordingly. This will increase your click-through rate considerably, as relevant text ads combined with quality content are highly effective.
Although the AdSense program is free to apply, your site will be reviewed and must be approved in order to begin displaying the ads.
As there have been many sites turned down, you’ll need to ensure your site meets Google’s criteria prior to applying. You can find the guidelines at the following web address: http://web.archive.org/web/20040605173906/https://www.google.com/adsense/policies
They’re basically looking for quality sites offering content. The keywords here are “quality and content.” If your site is under construction, loaded with advertising and/or broken images and links, don’t even waste your time applying, as you won’t be accepted. However, if you have a quality site and provide your visitors with content, you will most-likely be accepted.
The more content pages you have, the more advertising revenue you can make. It’s really that simple. If you don’t have your own content, there is a wealth of content available on Internet completely free. Subscribe to any of the following article announcement groups to receive new article submissions each day:
Article Announce – All types of articles
AABusiness – Business oriented articles, including: Business, Ecommerce, Sales, Networking, Business Communication, Internet Marketing, Promotion, etc.
AAInternet – Internet oriented articles, including: Ebooks, Ezines, Search Engines, Web Design, Web Development, Web Sites, etc.
AAHome – Home and Family oriented articles, including: Parenting, Relationships, Cooking, Recipes, Crafts, Gardening, Home, etc.
AAHealth – Health and Fitness oriented articles, including both physical and emotional health.
AAGeneral – General Interest oriented articles.
With your subscription to any of the above groups, you’ll not only receive new article submissions delivered to your email, but you’ll also have access to the archives which contain thousands of quality articles.
Visit the following web address for further information: http://web.archive.org/web/20040605173906/http://www.web-source.net/articlesub.htm
Once you’ve located articles that are relevant to your website, simply create a page for each. For example, if you find ten appropriate articles, you can create ten new content pages in which you can display Google AdWords ads. Not only will you be adding valuable content for your visitors, but you’ll also increase your website’s traffic and revenue. It’s a win-win deal no matter how you look at it.
Once your site has been approved, you simply select the style of ads you’d like to display and paste the code into your web pages where you’d like the ads to display.
Although all of the ads are text ads, there are currently four layout options to select from:
Although all four ad styles can be effective, the “skyscraper” ads placed toward the top right side of your page or the “Leaderboard” ads placed at the top of the page generally will provide a higher click-through rate than the other two styles.
However, each page is different and will produce different results. For this reason, you may want to test your pages and display the style that produces the highest click- through rate.
Once you begin displaying the ads on your website, you can visit Google and log in to your account to see how the ads are performing. You can view the number of impressions, clicks, click-through rate and your earnings.
If you’re concerned about displaying ads that may compete with products or services you’re promoting, Google offers an option to filter out unwanted ads. In addition, you can display the ads along with any affiliate programs you may be promoting, as long as the ads don’t look like Google ads.
Google AdSense is the hottest advertising revenue program on the Internet. Isn’t it about time you got paid for your content?
Visit Google AdSense for further information:
https://www.google.com/adsense
Author Bio:
Shelley Lowery is the publisher of Etips — Web Design, Internet Marketing and Ecommerce Solutions. Visit Web-Source.net to sign up for a free subscription and receive a free copy of Shelley’s highly acclaimed ebook, “Killer Internet Marketing Strategies.”
Pursuit of high search engine ranking has other marketing benefits.
If you run an on-line business or operate a website in support of your traditional small business, you have probably desired at some time to improve your ranking in search engine results. Wouldn’t we all like to be ranked #1 in Google for a term related to our business? Of course we would. The traffic could be staggering, and your business would gain considerable exposure.
Of course it is not that easy to do, since everyone else in the world who has a website wants the same thing. You’ve probably read articles that tell you all about the tips and tricks of climbing the Google ladder, and you’ve also read articles that tell you to forget about it. They say its simply too hard and will require too much effort to build your website up to that point.
In this writer’s opinion, they are both wrong. You should pursue a high ranking in Google with all of your available resources, but not necessarily with the goal of hitting the top of the search engine mountain. You’ll see why after a quick review of the two most commonly mentioned tips to increasing your ranking in Google.
Building Relevant Inbound Links
When somebody else’s website links to yours, they are essentially ‘voting’ for your website. They are telling visitors to their website that in their opinion, it would be worthwhile for them to visit your site as well, as it may be of interest to them. Google counts relevant inbound links in your favor, as they believe that the more people willing to give your site a ‘vote of confidence’ through a link must be an indication that your site is worthwhile. Building relevant inbound links can be accomplished through direct communication with other website owners, or through the practice of article writing.
Articles (like this one) carry a resource box at the end that contains a link back to the author’s website. If your article seems worthwhile to another business website owner, they may post it for their readers. In doing so they generate an automatic link to your site as their way of saying ‘thanks for the information’.
You’ll notice that I keep using the word ‘relevant’. Links from non-relevant sites or from pages that contain only links and no valuable content may actually downgrade your site ranking in Google, as it may be perceived as ‘SPAM’.
Establishing Free, Relevant Content
Your site won’t rank very well if it only contains one page filled with sales pitches for your product or service. The Internet is about information, and to improve your ranking you need to offer free information on your chosen topic to your visitors. Some people do this in the form of articles from themselves or other authors. The more content that you have, the more likely people are to find something valuable on your site, hence the more likely you are to rank well in search engine results.
Which brings us back to why you should pursue a high Google ranking. The reason lies in the tactics mentioned above. Simply put, the process of establishing links to your website from other quality sites related to your topic, and the fact that your site has quality content on it, will greatly improve your chances of making sales to your customers through your website, regardless of whether or not you rank well on Google. Your efforts will be well placed if you focus on links and content. A number of quality inbound links can generate significant, highly targeted traffic to your website even without a high ranking search engine listing.
Conclusion
The effects of pursuing inbound links and relevant content on your website’s traffic will be positive, regardless of your ranking on Google or any other search engine. So go ahead and try to drive your site as high as possible in the Google ranking. You will certainly build a solid foundation for your website along the way.
Author Bio:
Will Dylan is the Author of ‘Small Business Big Marketing’ a powerful e-book for small businesses available through his website http://www.marketingyoursmallbusiness.com/. Will also offers article and news release writing services. You can contact Will at askwill@marketingyoursmallbusiness.com
Banner Exchanges – Are They Useful?
For those who don’t know, a banner exchange is a service that offers to show your banner ad on other sites if you show their ads on your’s. They often have thousands of sites in their networks so you can get your banner shown in a lot of places. They will offer an “exchange” rate – the most common is probably 2:1. This means that for every two banners you show on your site, they will show one of your’s on other peoples. You can get better exchange rates such as 4:3 or 5:4.
On the surface, they seem like a good idea and, because they are free to join, there is no real need to be critical. However, it’s important that you have a good idea of the kind of response that you are likely to receive.
For a new site, they are pretty pointless. If you taken into account that you are likely to receive a 1% clkick through rate on your banner (and it will usually be much less) then they are not going to drive any traffic to your site. Using the above exchange rate of 2:1 you would need to show 200 banners on your site to get one new visitor – showing 200 banners earns you 100 of your’s shown and at a 1% click through rate, that’s one visitor. Let’s say you get 50 000 pageviews per month on your site, you would get your banner shown 25 000 times on other sites and get 250 new visitors. This looks OK but a 1% click through rate is often hard to achieve so this should be treated as a maximum.
The other issue is that Banner Exchanges are often not very well targeted. This means that your banner may not be shown on sites that match your’s. Therefore, the visitors you do get may just be surfers rather than potential clients. Most Banner Exchanges these days do offer some form of targeting but it’s never going to be as targeted as it would be if you just approached a site and offered to exchange banners at a 1:1 rate.
Having said all that, they do have some good points. Firstly, they are free which is always a good thing. Secondly, they will get you a bit of extra traffic assuming you already have some. Thirdly, they do offer some value in terms of branding – even though only one person in a hundred may click on the banner, many more will actually see it and, if you have a good banner, remember your name.
To sum up, Banner Exchanges are of value as part of your overall marketing strategy but are generally not the way to “get your site going”.
Author Bio:
Sean Burns is the author of the WebmastersReference.com Newsletter – http://www.webmastersreference.com/newsletter. More than five years of experience in site design, marketing, income generation, search engine optimization and more is passed on to subscribers – hype free. Sign up today to get real information of real value to webmasters.
Pay Per Click Advertising
If you are using pay per click advertising, I don’t need to tell you that it can get very expensive if you have a lot of unnecessary click throughs. In this article I will explain how to screen your visitors and how to apply it to your pay per click advertising campaign, so that you can screen your visitors before they click through.
How It Works
To minimize the amount of unnecessary click throughs, we are going to talk about a screening technique that is used in copywriting. A good copywriter has the ablity to screen the serious individuals from the test pilots, before the sale is initially made.
By using this screening technique you will dramatically decrease the amount of refunds that you could be receiving. In this case, you need to be specific about your product or service without giving too many details, this will eliminate unnecessary click throughs.
When it comes time to develop an ad that best describes your offer, you need to use precise wording. If you use any ambiguous words, phrases or statements in your ads, you will confuse the viewer, making them either click through or leave. You need to keep in mind that every click through is costing you money, so you need to make sure that you are targeting your market and that each of your visitors are qualified.
Applying The Headline
When placing a pay per click advertisement there are two things that you need to pay attention to, the headline and the description. The headline is used to grab their attention, build their curiousity and force them to read on. The difficult part is that the pay per click ads only allow you a limited amount of characters, usually up to 50. Your attention grabbing headline will end up being only three or four words. You need to make your headline jump out at the viewer, but at the same time, you need to be specific.
One of the biggest mistakes I often see, is that people use their business name for the headline of their pay per click advertisement. A business name is not going to grab their attention or motivate them to read the description. For example, let me ask you which headline would grab your attention and motivate you to read the description, “Elites Marketing” or “Earn $47 – $270 Per Sale”. Do you see the difference between the two headlines and how specific the second one was?
Applying The Description
As far as the description goes, you have a little more to work with, unless you are using Google’s Adwords. Google’s Adwords gives you two lines and each line only allows up to 35 characters. You will need to be as specific and descriptive as you can. The description is very crucial, and it will determine whether or not your visitor will initially click through.
Let me give you another example, now which description is precise in wording and is descriptive enough to screen your visitor, “You can join our Two Tier Associate Program at no cost or obligation”, or “Snowball in cash by promoting info-marketing products. Join for Free!” I hope you picked the second description!
The first description, “You can join our Two Tier Associate Program at no cost or obligation” is vague and wide open. This description does not describe what kind of product or service they would be promoting or kind of associate program I am offering is, pay per lead, pay per click, pay per sale, or two tier. You don’t want to use a description that is too vague, that is how you get a lot of unnecessary click throughs.
On the other hand, the second description, “Snowball in cash by promoting marketing info-products. Join for Free!” is very clear and concise. Even though the description did not say what kind of associate program it was, in the headline it was clear. It said, “Earn $47 – $270 Per Sale.” Moreover, I was able to tell my visitor that they’d be promoting information marketing products and was free to participate. I was also able to hit them with a couple psychological triggers, “Snowball” and “Cash”.
Conclusion
To screen your visitors more effectively, you need to choose keywords that are relevant to your product or service and that target your market. If you select keywords or phrases that are too general, you will still have a lot of unnecessary click throughs. You can only screen so much, so don’t select inappropriate keywords or phrases when starting your pay per click advertisement campaign. Take your time and brainstorm for the appropriate keywords and phrases that best desribes your product or service.
Author Bio:
Rich Hamilton, Jr is the CEO/President of http://www.elitesmarketing.com/. You can start earning cash today by joining our FREE Two Tier Associate Program and make $45 – $270 per sale hhttp://www.elitesmarketing.com/assoc/.
Big Site? Make The Most Of It On Google – Intro.
For many people a five or six page web site is all they need or want, but for others, selling services and products on the internet, a hundred page site is barely adequate ‘ if you’re one of those companies then here are some tips on making the most of your site on Google and other deep search engines.
One of the sites we manage is 520 pages packed with content and informative articles. It has some 10 / 12 levels of pages in its structure and we became aware that Google only indexed 126 of those 520 pages, what was going on?
Maximising Each Page
We worked diligently with the web site owner to optimise each page, ensuring it had a unique and the page content was rich in the KEYWORDS for that topic, for instance if you?re trying to get onto Google with ?content management systems? and the phrase ?content management systems? does not appear on the page in HTML text then you won?t hit the top 1000!! Similarly if the phrase ?content management system? appears lots you will still fail because Google sees ?system? and ?systems? as 2 totally separate words
Remember, each page has a , , , and ALT TAGS if you, or the designer has simply duplicated another page, as a template, in the design all your pages will have the same attributes as far as the spider is concerned.
Spider Depth
Most spiders do not index below level 3 and therefore they do not find what may be very important pages at all. In addition we noticed with Google Page Ranking that the Index Page was 5/10, a level 2 page on the same site was 4/10 and a level 3 page was 3/10. Presumably pages beyond level 3 are considered so insignificant that the spider has been programmed to ignore them.
In addition the spider was stopping dead at drop down menus and graphic links it could not move beyond. Spiders essentially follow HTML text links and that’s about it. If you stick to that rule you won’t go too far wrong.
Our challenge was therefore to bring every page, no matter where it was in the site, to a level 3 position at least ‘ without changing the structure of the site itself, so the spider would index it and the page ranking would be higher. This would give us 520 marketable, optimised pages rather that 126.
The solution was quite simple. A site map ‘ we simply spent a few hours setting up a site map with a link from the index page (making the site map level 2) and then an HTML text link to every page on the site, making every page on the site at least level 3.
The next time the site was spidered by Google, there it was, 520 content rich optimised pages and an increase in traffic of 1000%.
Big sites, make the most of them, don’t keep your content hidden under a bushel!!
Author Bio:
John Saxon is technical director of site-pro limited a site offering free tips, tools and articles for web site optimisation ‘.
