Multilingual Websites - How Useful Are They?

Almost the whole world is now aware of the power of the Internet, its uses and its effects on our lifestyles and businesses and the fact that nearly every business in existence has a website of one sort or another. Whether it's an ecommerce site or a brochure and information site, each and every one of them can be visited by anyone from anywhere in the world, and for some businesses here lies the problem.

Language Barriers

Whilst the Internet has broken down a lot of communication and trading barriers and created bridges and links between nearly every country on the globe, there is still one problem that frustrates a large percentage of users – language!

We have all at one time or another visited a website written in a foreign language and quickly left it because we can't understand what's on it; it's extremely frustrating but more so when you can actually see what it is you're looking for but can't read about it. For a private individual's website it doesn't really matter too much, but for companies it could mean lost sales and a missed opportunity for future business dealings.

Business Opportunities

There are many companies trading on an international basis who are failing to make the best possible use of their websites because of this possibly costly oversight. For example; an English company trading with or looking to trade with German, Italian and Spanish companies should ideally have a version of their website in each of those languages; it would also convey a sense of courtesy and professionalism to current clients and possible future customers from those countries. Some truly global organisations already do this and have anything from three to eight or even more other-language versions of their website available for viewing.

Multilingual Speakers

For businesses planning to have additional languages on their website there is another point to consider. Whilst foreign customers will be able to order goods or services through the website, it is almost a certainty that at some point one of these customers will want to talk to a real person, perhaps to obtain further information or advice, or just looking for general support; employing a multilingual speaker or two may not only prove to be a good investment, it could also avoid any potentially embarrassing language-related incidents between clients and the company.

The Future

The advantages of multilingual websites may well become even more evident in future years as more and more countries adopt the Internet as their primary trading tool. Obviously it wouldn't be very practical to have a website that could be viewed in every single language of the world; however, this may be become a standard website feature as the Internet continues to evolve.

In the meantime, for any company who wants or is considering having extra languages on their site, a word with your web designer would be a good idea. Adapting an existing website to accommodate extra languages will obviously involve some costs such as translation fees and your web designer's time, but these would be far outweighed by the extra business a multilingual website could generate from other countries currently out of reach because of language differences.

This article is the property of the author and may only be reproduced in its original form.

Drive Increased Traffic to Your Website for Free

There are scores of websites out there on the Internet who claim they can get you increased traffic for a certain fee, which is usually quite expensive. But, did you know that you also could easily adopt the same techniques as those traffic "gurus" and get your extra traffic without spending a dime? Yes, it will take time and some work from your side, but it is worth the effort. Here are some methods of increasing your website traffic:

Firstly, content is king. If you keep uploading quality content on your website, its popularity will grow and visitors will keep coming back for more – and they might ask their friends to check out your website too. Your content must be keyword-optimized and you must make it a point to ensure that your website is found on the first search results page when the relevant keywords are searched for. Needless to say, the keywords you employ in your content must be relevant to your website.

There are a whole lot of websites that publish well-written articles; they allow these articles to carry a resource box that talks about you and a links back to your website at the end of each article. Even reprint directories accept articles, and you must submit articles to such sites and then other website publishers may pick up these articles and reprint them on their website, increasing the amount of websites that link back to you. Along with your website, you can publish a blog that carries snippets of the latest and exciting stuff happening at your website. Place a link back to your website after each snippet and this too will increase your back links. This exercise will increase your PageRank (PR) with the Google search engine.

Apart from maintaining a blog, you must post information on relevant forums. Forums are visited by people really interested in a particular topic, and if you come across a forum whose theme and content fits perfectly with your website, then you must make it a point to post on it. As in articles and blog entries, always create a link back to your site in your forum signature. This move, like the ones above, will increase back links to your site.

If your website keeps updating information regularly, then you must consider publishing a newsletter or an e-magazine. If you are regular in mailing your newsletter to your subscribers, you will automatically increase traffic by making them come back to your website for more information.

If you can afford it, then you must sponsor a free e-book or a special course for your visitors and their friends. Firstly, people love freebies, and if what you are offering has some solid informational value, then you will get loads of traffic at a very low cost, much lesser than what you were going to pay the so-called traffic experts.

Lastly, if you are selling a product or if your website generates revenue by giving out information, then you must start an affiliate program. Affiliates take your code and put it up on their website and it is your content that is displayed on their website. You can access your affiliates' visitors by sharing a part of your revenue with them (the affiliates).

These are some of the methods you can adopt to increase your website traffic for free.

Web 2.0 The Art of Long Tail SEO

In the two previous "Long Tail" articles, I wrote about how the principals of Chris Anderson' book "The Long Tail" can be applied to SEO. In this installment I'll go into some the tactics that are actually working today –these are the things I'm using to get free targeted traffic to my sites.

1. All of my sites are now blog based. Blogs are cheap, very simple to deploy and once they're configured with the appropriate plug-ins, very user-friendly to post content to. Blogs are also inherently spider-able, the search engines love to see organized content, and this is very easy to create with a blog.

2. I take full advantage of the Social Bookmarking sites. Sites like Technorati and ice-rocket will pick up "tags" from your pages. These tags will then become links to your site. This helps in getting spiders to your site and to help categorize what your pages are about —plus, many of these sites pass page rank. On the flip site, I use a plugin that gives readers easy access to several of these bookmarking sites —from an end-user point of view, posting any of my articles to some of the most popular bookmarking sites is as simple as clicking an icon below the post.

3. I post frequently. I try to post five or six days per week, often I post several times per day. This "teaches" the search engines that my site has fresh content – engines love fresh content.

4. I post mostly original content. This is the big one. Too many webmasters feel that if they simply buy a product and have tons of content auto-published to their sites, they'll rank high in the engines. A few years ago this worked, but not any longer. The search engines want fresh, original content – those canned content solutions simply recycle old articles that are available elsewhere. The search engines don't want to keep indexing the same content over and over again.

5. I post a variety of content. I don't just post original articles. For example, I post a lot of YouTube videos (videos that I've actually watched). I post these videos along with a brief review, so that you'll have an idea what to expect before you start watching. This allows me to get new content, in less time then it would take to write a full article.

6. I take full advantage of standard blog features like Trackbacks and comments. Yep, so many webmasters either turn these features off or simply don't use them (maybe they don't know how) –but they're a great way to generate traffic to your site. How, well I allow both of these features on all of my Blogs. Find something on my site that interests you or something you disagree with, post a comment and let me know – you'll get a link back to your site! Better yet, post a rebuttal on your own site with a trackback to my post, we'll both benefit with added traffic and the trackbacks will be opening up new paths for the spiders to find us.

7. Find other Blogs within your niche to post comments on and/or create posts about (with trackbacks). The most important thing is make sure your posts are well thought out. In other words, make sure you actually have something to add to the post. A few well written trackbacks can open your site up to a whole new audience.

8. Write (or have written) rich, well rounded content. The days of focusing on a specific keyphrase for an entire webpage are gone (thankfully!). Today, the engines reward content that's not so tightly focused. You don't have to worry about keyword density, just worry that your articles make sense and are compelling to a human readers. Once again, as we saw in the Long Tail, you won't get any "blockbuster keyphrases" this way, what you'll get is the low hanging fruit that you didn't even know existed.

In conclusion, follow this plan in your own niche for several months and you'll start to see high quality traffic. The traffic will be coming not just from the search engines but also from the trackbacks, comments and social bookmarking you've been doing. Remember, what they've been saying for years… Content Is King – well now it's finally true.

SEO Trends for Industrial Business - The Digg Effect

What is Digg?

Digg is a community-powered news and content website with a strong focus on science and technology. Huh? What that means is that all content is submitted by everyday users such as you and me.

How does Digg work?

After submitting content such as news, videos and humor, other users browse and read your submission and Digg what they like best. If your content receives enough Diggs, it is pushed to the front page for over one million users to see and comment on.

Definition: Power to the people Web 2.0 style.

What is "The Digg Effect"?

Digg is a global 100 site currently ranked as the 86th most popular website in the world according to Alexa.com. This means one thing; if your site hits the front page of Digg, prepare for a quick surge in traffic that reaches into the thousands.

Defined by Wikipedia.com, "The Digg Effect" is the phenomenon of a popular website linking to a smaller site, causing the smaller site to slow down or even temporarily close due to the increased traffic.

A close friend of mine works as a Web Analytics Manager for a company that has had content hit the front page of Digg on multiple occasions. According to him, you should expect at least 10,000 visitors when on the front page, and approximately 3,000 - 5,000 over the next 5 days.

That sounds manageable, right? Well that is just half of "The Digg Effect." Since making the front page of Digg most likely means that you have provided some sort of unique and interesting content; there are people that are willing and ready to share the content with the world.

And how do they share it with the world?

They share it through their blogs, social bookmarking, and even through some of Digg's competitors. My Web Analytics buddy said that they receive just as much traffic from the "sharing" on sites such as del.icio.us, reddit.com, and online blogs.

Will it help my Industrial Business?

This is the big question. And the answer is… maybe! Before attempting to hit Digg, research and answer the following questions:

1. Are people within my industry users of Digg?

2. Is content related to my industry popular on Digg?

If not, answer the following questions:

1. Is there something within my industry that will or has had an affect the mainstream?

2. Is there anything within my industry that people may find humorous?

3. Is there anything controversial within my industry that may have a mass appeal?

Remember, reaching the front page of Digg can't hurt your Industrial Search Engine Optimization.

The importance of incoming links to your SEO strategy is something to keep in mind when it comes to "The Digg Effect." If you in fact want your website to succeed with the chief search engines, a key component of your SEO strategy must focus on the importance of incoming links. Assuming that Digg users find your content unique and interesting, you will receive incoming links from a variety of sites around the web. Link building can be one of the most difficult aspects to any SEO strategy, which in my opinion, makes "The Digg Effect" a sweet deal!

Digg Competitors

Reddit.com

Slashdot.com

Netscape.com

Note: Your primary focus should be offering unique and valuable content to Digg users. The hits and links you receive in return are just gravy. If you do attempt to Spam Digg, users will recognize it and immediately "Digg Down" your submission.

Ecreativeworks is a Minnesota Web Design Firm offering SEO Services.

Option update 4-25-07: AAPL options active - Blogging Stocks

Posted Apr 25th 2007 11:51AM by Filed under: , , , ,

(NASDAQ: ) -- May OTM puts more expensive than calls, suggesting downside Hedging. AAPL is expected to report EPS of 64 cents after the close tonight. AAPL call option volume of 56,543 contracts compares to put volume of 25,270 contracts. AAPL May 105 calls have traded 172 times on transaction volume 20,030 contracts. AAPL May 85 puts have traded 133 times on transaction volume of 8,659 contracts according to Track Data. AAPL May 85 puts are bid 55 cents, above its theoretical value of 42 cents. AAPL May 105 calls are bid 45 cents, below its theoretical value of 49 cents. AAPL options suggest downside hedging tendencies.

(NASDAQ: ) -- elevated implied volatility suggests Risk as NAVZ at record High. NAVZ, a truck, bus, engine manufacturer, is recently up $1.13 to $57.93. MAN AG, Hino, F, Fiat, Isuzu, PCAR, OSK, (NYSE: ), (NYSE: ) and Iveco have been frequently mentioned as interested in doing acquisitions, partnerships or bolt-on deals. NAVZ over all option implied volatility of 46 is above its 26-week average of 41 according to Track Data, suggesting larger price risks.

Option volume leaders today are: (NASDAQ: ) and (NASDAQ: ).

Daily Option Update is provided by Stock Options Specialist Paul Foster of theflyonthewall.com.

Writing Good Content

Anyone that has been doing business online for any amount of time, or who has been involved in search engine optimization (or marketing online) in any form knows the importance of good content. You will never get a site ranked without unique, creative, great and amazing keyword dense content - period.

So what do you do when you are into a business that's hard to create good content for? How many different ways can I describe this DVD player? This is the problem that most new to Internet businesses find when it comes to the "setting up of the website" part of their business.

I do have some suggestions that could make ranking on the search engines easier for you based on the content alone on your site:

* Research the Competition (Competition Analysis) I know it sounds elementary, but you want to see what the top players in your field are doing because you are not going to re-invent the wheel. You are not going to copy (thats not what I am saying) but you are going to get good ideas as to what the top players in your area are doing. This could give you some ideas to find topics you normally would not have thought about through information from your supplier.

* Resist the urge to copy and paste the product information from your suppliers site to yours. If you do this, you have done what probably 100 other websites (you are going up against) has done and eventually someone is going to get hit with duplicate content issues when it comes to Google. So rewrite you product descriptions using the keywords you have researched out and try to add a twist and a flavor that makes it yours. We want the search engines to think that it is original so we don't get hit with any kind of penalties.

* Using Article sites to see what people are talking about. There are so many article submission sites out there, just do a Google search for "whatever product + article" and you will see a list of ideas and topics. If I had a site selling Mattresses I can learn (from these article sites) that a lot of people are wondering the proper memory foam mattress care. Then I can create a page talking about that adding great content and value to my site.

* What are bloggers talking about when it comes to your products? You can do a search on places like Google Blog Search or SERPH.com to find the "hot" topics in your field and stay up to date.

* Pay a free lance writer to do it for you! You can find many affordable quality writers on places like elance.com, guru.com or getafreelancer.com. I have had content written for me for as little as five dollars a page. You give them keywords they need to focus on, and they can do the rest!

It really is not that hard to find interesting topics on almost anything if you put a little work into it. It will make all of the difference in the world when it comes to your sites visibility on the search engines and how you do in business long term. I just read a great article this morning talking about the better the content you have the better rankings you get on the search engines - especially Google. Now, content alone will not do it for you, but its a good place to start and one of many of the most important pieces of the Internet marketing puzzle that people miss!

Why Surfers Coming From Search Engines Still Won't Buy From You!

You've given your web site a rigorous SEO. You know you've done well because you've got some good search engine listings. People are coming to you site – but they are still not buying. What is happening?

Whilst this is very important to completely optimize your web site for the search engines, please don't forget that you can get a #1 listing in the search engines and still not get a sale! The reason for that is that when someone comes over to your web site they are looking for what they have just searched for.

1) Does your search engine listing lead to the product or service that they were looking for? Check your web stats and find out what search engine terms are being used and then what page they are landing on. Make changes to your pages so that they find what they are looking for where they land. If this is not feasible then put a link on these pages to the correct page and review the keywords you are using for the offending page.

2) Can people get around your web site and find out about you, your business and what you sell? Again get someone to check this out for you by visiting your web site and following all the instructions and menus on your web site.

3) Can people easily buy your stuff? Is it easily explained, logical and appears safe to use? Use a good and recognized payment processor and explain all of the payment and deliver processes and what will happen next. People are still confused when buying things so spell it out very clearly.

4) Can people contact you if there are problems? This makes people feel much safer, able to contact you about questions they have and also allows you to sell your product or service directly to them. Nothing like the personal touch to open a wallet!

If you get these things right - then you are getting closer to making your business profitable! Good luck.

Earn Free Money Online With SEO

When I first started out with my internet home business, I spent lots of money on solo ezine ads, ppc ads, and so-called leads. Results were pretty average and not worth the money spent, so I began to look for ways to earn free money online. The idea is to utilize free methods of marketing your web site, such as blogging, article marketing and SEO (or search engine optimization). This means a greater profit yield and often better traffic rates in the long term. So, let's look more closely at SEO.

SEO is simply optimizing your site with the effective placement of relevant keywords and undertaking a linking campaign to increase the number of back-links pointing back to your site. This increases your ranking in the search engines, with the aim being to get on page 1 for your keyword phrase. If you can get on page 1 for your keyword, you will have lots of people clicking on your listing and visiting your site. Provided that you maintain this position, you can earn free money online indefinitely.

The first step in your SEO campaign is keyword research. Grab a pen and paper and write down all the keyword phrases you can think of, that visitors might type into a search engine to get information on your niche. Once you have your list, go to your favorite keyword suggestion tool and start entering your phrases into the tool. Each time you enter a phrase, it will give you a heap of other related keyword phrases as possible options.

I always target low-competition phrases that have had about 1000 searches in the past month. I then enter this phrase into the main three search engines, within inverted commas, to see how many other competing sites there are for this term. I try to aim for less than 100,000 results per phrase.

My strategy is to build a web page around each low-competition keyword phrase (and have lots of phrases). That way, if I can get just 20 visitors from the search engines per day for each page, and have at least 50 pages, this is a total of 1000 visitors per day to my site. To me, this is more achievable than targeting a highly-competitive phrase and working my butt off constantly to maintain a high ranking for that phrase. Now, let's look at on-page and off-page optimization.

On-page optimization is the work that you do on the actual web page itself. What you need to do is place your keyword phrase in your URL (if possible), in the title tag of the page, in the description tag and in the keywords tag, Then, sprinkle your keywords in the body of the text, in the first and last paragraphs, and make sure that you bold, underline or italicize the keyword phrase to give it more emphasis in the search engines. Don't over-do it though. I aim for about 1 to 2% keyword density on my pages.

Off-page optimization is basically your linking strategy. The more back links you have pointing to your site, generally the higher your ranking with the search engines. Two great ways to increase your links are by submitting your URL to the link directories (preferably with a high PR), and to write and submit articles (with a link pointing back to your site) to quality article directories.

Once you have implemented all the steps of your SEO campaign, you need to keep the momentum going. Keep adding more and more pages to your web site, targeting good keyword phrases, and continue getting more links pointing back to your site. The results and the pay-off are definitely worth it. There's nothing better than getting highly-targeted, free traffic from the search engines and earning free money online.

Search Engine Optimization - How Can You Stay On The Cutting Edge With SEO?

There are a number of articles around that proudly proclaim their prowess with different
topics relating to search engine optimization and these articles all discuss the different
ways to make search engine optimization work.

While these articles do serve a somewhat useful purpose there are other topics within the
greatest umbrella of search engine optimization that really need to be fully addressed and
one of those topics is the evolution of the field.

Search engine optimization is one of the most dynamic fields within the internet simply
because the search engines are always making changes to their ranking algorithms and
unless you are able to keep up with these changes you might end up seeing your website
suddenly disappears from the search engine results.

So how can you stay on the cutting edge and keep free, targeted traffic from the search
engines? Simple, make sure you keep up with the search engine news! Subscribe to all of
the different news groups that give out news about the internet and make sure you
frequently browse all of the search engine optimization forums.

Some of the best give and take on all of these topics is available through these online
communities and if you are able to keep up with them you will be giving yourself a very
good chance at keeping your ranking and therefore keeping all of that vital and free
targeted traffic.

The great things about using SEO forums is that you will be talking about these
concepts directly with people that are in the same business as you.

Inbound Links and Search Engine Marketing

The World Wide Web has much to offer your business and its website. This article is about using outside sources to better optimize your search engine popularity. It begins with inbound links.

Why You Need Inbound Links

Inbound links are links that bring the viewer to another page. This can be a link from an external site or a link from the same site. Inbound links optimize search engine marketing due to the high traffic linked to the site. The more inbound links the greater "PageRank" it receives.

Google, the world's number one search engine, originated the PageRank idea. Google logarithms calculate the number of votes cast for a page. The more votes casts, or links used to a page, the more votes it receives. Thus increasing its importance on the PageRank scale. If you are not using Google as your main search engine it's recommended that you optimize your page first by listing your site on Googles' engine.

How To Get Inbound Links

There are a number of ways you can get inbound links. Some of them are through directories, forums, and email requests.

When submitting to a directory you will more than likely be asked to reciprocate the request. The forum will ask that you place their link on your site as well. This is cost effective, but it appears more useful than it actually is. You are optimizing another site that is not specific to your subject/ category, leaving little credibility.

Forums are helpful because you can make posts and add links after your signature or about author line. Make sure that the link lines are visible to the search engines spider or crawler; checking the robots.txt file can do this. Ensure that the forum is a member only; this will keep desirable searchers in and floaters out.

Email requests are as simple as searching your main phrases and keywords in Google search engine. This will bring up your competitors and then search "www.cometitor-domain.com" and find which sites link to them. Email them and ask for a link exchange.

Also use Google again to search for sites that relate to your topic but are not direct competitors. Email them and ask for a link exchange.

Competition is getting tight and search engines are using different logarithm techniques to develop more credible search engine marketing strategies. Inbound links will open new communication waves and broaden your audience.

Search Engine Ranking-How To Increase Your Search Engine Ranking With Keywords Rich Page Content

It is the fervent wish of every website owner that his or her website attains a position
of prominence with regard to search engine rankings. It is easier said than done and this
is why so many website owners are giving up with search engine optimization and turning
to SEO consultant to increase their search engine rankings.

One of the main aspect of SEO is creating keywords rich page content. Search engine
optimization with keywords rich page content involve rearrangement or addition of
keyword rich web content to specific location on your web site.

You should start by positioning the keywords and a good place where to start is the page
title, and at the very least, in the first paragraphs. It pays to have the keyword
appearing frequently on your page body. Keeping your keywords frequency between three
and five percent is recommended. More than that is considered ''Spamming'' By the
search engines.

Try to find targeted keyword phrases that your competitors are missing. Combinations of
two and three word phrases are often overlooked by your competitors when searching for
the top competitive search terms. Doing a proper keyword research is a must!

Make sure to spread your main keywords and keywords phrases in a natural manner.
Also, using sub-topics will effectively make the keywords work well together.

Making use of keyword rich content on your site will increase both your relevancy and
search engine rankings leading to more traffic that convert in more sales.

Because that's all want you want don't you?

Maximizing Inbound Links Using RSS and Atom Feeds

Publishing an RSS or Atom feed for your blog or other website and allowing others to syndicate it (ie. post its content on their websites in HTML format) can boost your search engine position by getting inbound links from related websites.

If you've studied search engine optimization, you know that there's only so much you can accomplish by optimizing the content of your webpages. That's because, while on-page optimization can tell the search engines what your site is about, only inbound links tell them how important your site is. Unless you have the only site in the world covering your particular topic, it needs to be both relevant to the topic and important (as evidenced by many inbound links) to rank high in search results.

Inbound links are SEO silver, and inbound links from related sites are pure SEO gold.

How do you maximize the number and value of inbound links generated by your feeds? Here are nine key tips:

Tip #1: Keep your feed focused on one topic.

If someone is looking for a feed use to add content to their site and your feed covers exactly the topic they're interested in, you'll have a better chance of getting syndicated than if your feed contains information irrelevant to their site. If you publish information on a variety of topics, publish multiple feeds, each covering one topic area, either instead of or in addition to a monolithic feed containing everything.

Tip #2: Publish only interesting information.

You might think that goes without saying, but the temptation may arise to go for volume over quality. If someone syndicating your feed decides that the signal to noise ratio is too high, they may go looking for a better source.

Tip #3: Publish often.

You'll have to figure out for yourself the optimal balance between this and the previous tip. But keep in mind that if someone is syndicating your feed in order to get regularly updated content, they'll be less likely to look for a different feed if you provide new content regularly. If you can't always publish regularly, publish anyway, but if you can publish regularly, by all means, do.

Tip #4: Write well.

"Well" is, of course, defined in relation to your subject matter and target audience. If your target audience uses lots of slang, write with lots of slang. Just don't let your writing style stand between you and your target audience. Webmasters want content that speaks to their target audience.

Tip #5: Publish summary feeds instead of full content feeds.

There are two reasons for doing this. First, most people who syndicate only want to display a summary of each item, and some webmasters won't know how to make their RSS to HTML converter truncate the content. Second, there are those who want to rip off the full content of your site and use it as the sole content of their site. A summary-only feed won't help them do that.

Tip #6: Tell people how to syndicate your feed.

Provide a link from your website or feed to an RSS to HTML converter like CaRP with a brief note about what it's for.

Tip #7: Give explicit permission to syndicate your feed.

Even among those who know that it can be done, not everyone will be comfortable syndicating feeds without the express permission of the publisher. Don't wait for them to ask -- post a note in the feed or on your website giving permission to syndicate your feed. You may wish to include a condition requiring that they preserve links back to your site in a search-engine-visible fashion (eg. no use of JavaScript links or 'rel="nofollow"').

Tip #8: Don't put ads in your feed.

Advertisements, especially banners, are likely to mess up the formatting of sites on which they're syndicated. And obviously, other webmasters don't want to display advertisements on their site if you're going to be the one making money from them. Most webmasters won't know how to filter the ads out of your feed when syndicating it, so if you include ads, they'll probably look for another feed instead.

Tip #9: Consider not offering a JavaScript version of your feed.

A JavaScript feed has no SEO value, because it's not visible to search engines. The tradeoff is that JavaScript feeds are easier for many webmasters to use, so by not offering a JavaScript feed, your feed might get syndicated on less sites, and thus bring in direct traffic from less sites. You'll need to decide which is more important to you: the SEO value of being syndicated, or the clicks from sites that syndicate you.

If you'll follow these 9 tips, you'll increase the number of people who syndicate your feed on their sites, increasing the number of inbound links you receive from sites related to yours. This will boost your search engine position and bring you more traffic, both from the search engines and from the sites that syndicate your content.

The Bots Inside My Head

I had been bemoaning the fact that many search engines seem to rank pages with little content, many ads, lots of paid links, and some obvious to readers, but not to bots, paid ads cleverly disguised as information links were getting great "page rank" while many deserving sites, full of good info, but not as seo savy, went virtually unnoticed, and then, a bit of information popped up in an seo newsletter that cheered me up a little. They are taking notice! There is some sanity in the search engine world after all!

This should really come as no surprise, since most of us think very similarly, either as a result of our Aristotelian thought training, or just a general sense of fair play, which seems to pervade much human thought in an open society. In other words, if I am thinking about it, there must be others doing the same.

Comments made to Rand Fishkin, by Vanesa Fox of Google, seem to indicate that Google is trying to pay more attention to at least one, and it looks like more, of the concerns many of us share. In particular, the issue of paid links. Paid links, seem to be a part of what looks a lot like "paid page rank", and this is not always a cash exchange, it may come in the form of mutual back scratching, or what used to be called the "Old Boy" or "Good Old Boy" network or system.

In the system as it is at the moment, a website may be penalized for linking to it's own, or other informational sites which might share certain key information content, or even appear to be link farms, while pages with little relevant information, might be ranked higher due to having great links. I understand the need to do this in the current "algorithm" structure since a pages importance is ranked by it's perceived popularity, and hence, it's usefulness, but if popularity can be bought, or faked, as it obviously is, then the system needs adjusting.

This seems to be what Google is doing.

Here is another thing that the bots inside my head tell me that there is a need to look into. If someone writes a useful article on a given subject, which is then picked up by other publishers, or is quoted from extensively, in very short order, it may propagate itself throughout the Internet, and become a liability to publishers, and the original writer, because of "duplicate content", and could eventually become a problem, for writers, ezines, and news aggregators as well. This may encourage new content, or newly redesigned content, but not necessarily relevant or important content.

The duplicate content issue needs to be revisited, and revised. It can be skirted by the linguistically clever. Content can be manipulated by being professorial on one hand and doing the old "fatback and grits" routine on the other. True, it may appeal to different audiences, and therefore may be valid in some respects, which only serves to strengthen the above stated opinions. If it is relevant, it is relevant, and it may be relevant to different people, in different ways, so why punish it's author, and publishers for disseminating it widely in it's original form?

If an article on irrigation is relevant to the contractor who does installations, it may also be relevant to the home owner having the system installed, who will look for the information in a different place. Why is it bad for this information to be both in the "Irrigation Contractors Weekly" and in the "Wary Home Owners Corner"? It may be relevant to both, but they will search for it in different ways.

Well, at least, Google seems to be taking some steps to level at least part of the playing field, and the system is always in a state of flux, so there is always hope that the changes will be good ones.

Web Site Traffic Secret Uncovered

Where does web site traffic come from?

It is a question that leaves many new Webmasters scratching their heads in frustration and bewilderment. After all, traffic is the life-blood of any website and if your site isn't getting any then you have a problem. But it need not be that way because there is more than one solution and some are much easier to achieve than others.

The biggest secret to getting web site traffic is... wait for it..., backlinks. Yes, I know it's not much of a secret, but it is the type of inbound links and how you go about getting these all-important links that is important. Get it wrong and, at best, you will be wasting your time, at worst, you could actually damage the credibility of your Website. Alarmist I know, but true all the same.

How do you damage the credibility of your site? By procuring links from sites that have been given a black mark by search engines for using questionable SEO tactics such as hidden text or keyword spam. Such sites are known as 'bad neighbourhoods' and as the name suggests; should be avoided. In fairness, the search engines know that you have no control over who chooses to link to your site, so don't get paranoid about the idea, but do try to concentrate your efforts on links from good neighbourhoods.

So if backlinks are so important to the success of a Website then surely it would be worthwhile spending some cash to achieve the desired results, which begs the question: Is it worth paying for links?

The short answer is that it can be. But before you reach for your wallet you should be aware that some paid links are more effective than others, and there are of course plenty of ways of building backlinks for free. So, before spending any cash perhaps we should determine just what a 'quality' inbound link is.

A worthwhile, or indeed 'quality', inbound link is one that will add some value to your website. That value could be click-through traffic or page rank that will boost your own site's ranking in the SERPS (Search Engine Results Pages), but preferably; both. If you haven't already done so, then you should install the Google toolbar (you can find it at http://toolbar.google.com) so that you can check the page rank of prospective link partner sites. But be aware that page rank does not necessarily equal traffic! However, it can be a good indicator of a site's worth.

If you do intend to buy a link on another website then it is perfectly reasonable to ask the Websmaster for some evidence of traffic statistics. A quality site with a good amount of traffic should happily provide this information in return for a paid link. If not, then look elsewhere; it is their loss.

In conclusion: one way of building traffic to a website is to invest time and effort in building inbound links, or backlinks, from other quality Websites. Avoid 'bad neighbourhoods' and concentrate instead on getting quality links. Finally, if you are going to pay for a link then try to get some evidence of how many visitors the linking site is getting.

SEO New York is an Innovative Promotion Method

SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. The term SEO is very popular these days all thanks to the popularity of the World Wide Web. Traditional media has undergone a vast change and more and more people are opening up to newer forms of communication. This in no way suggests the traditional media is losing its hold over the public; it is just that people have more alternatives now. They do not need to stick to the traditional medium to find information about anything. Search engine optimization or SEO is a simple method through which an online site can be made popular on the web. Publicity is required for everything and SEO is the publicity method which can be used for online sites. You can have a huge advantage of using SEO services if your company is set up in New York City.

The reason for this being the fact that a numerous companies are operating there and you will easily be able to find out a good SEO New York company for this. If you have a web presence of your business your first goal will surely be to promote the site. Well if no one has any knowledge about your web presence then what is the use of having an online presence. Remember that promotion on the web is very different from the traditional methods of promotion which are used for other media. First you need to understand the different aspects associated with this process. There are different methods that can be used for doing search engine optimization for a site on the web. The first thing which a sit owner must take care for this is to make the site flawless.

Imagine what would happen to your reputation if some visitors wants go visit your site and for some reason or the reason the site is not accessible. Yes, your reputation will be in tatters, so the first thing is to put up a site that is easily accessible and available to anyone. Another thing which can help you in the process of search engine optimization is to put up some great contents in the site. Just make sure that the content is keyword rich as this can help you in getting good rankings from search engines. It is only through major search engines like Google, yahoo, MSN and Alta Vista that site owners can reach out to their target audience. Search engines give high priority to sites that have good content written regularly.

Being the site owner you will surely like to have content about all the things that you are providing to clients. Otherwise how would you attract customers to visit your site? Another thing which you can do for the purpose of search engine optimization is to exchange links with other sites. Exchanging of links can be done manually as this yields more results. Link exchange can be of three types, first is one way link exchange, second is two way linking or reciprocal linking and the last is three way link exchange. Depending in your requirement, you can use whichever you want.

Web Site Traffic - How to Get More Traffic to Your Web Site

The key to getting more traffic directed to your website is link popularity. Link popularity is a measure of the quantity, that is, number and quality, that is, popularity of the sites that are linked to your web site. Link popularity is of such tremendous importance because it is the quantity and quality of links on your site that determines the occurrence, recurrence and registration of your site on the top internet search engines.

Quantity of the links is by far the most important thing to increase web traffic to your web site. However, quality should not be ignored either. Google, which is the largest search engine, lists the sites in a number of pages. Each indexed page is assigned a page number or rank. And, the higher the rank among these numbered e-pages, the better it is for the popularity of your site. For if your web site is linked among the first few indexed pages, then the chances of people clicking on the link and visiting your web site goes up.

A high page ranking is a requirement and very much, instrumental in getting more traffic to your web site. However, it is also important to remember that the subject matter of your website and the link also matter as much as the page rank. The higher the quality of the links on your web site the more the value attached to your web site by the search engines.

Guaranteed Search Engine Optimization

At first, you might think that this is an odd subject for a search engine optimization company to be writing on. Should you use a search engine optimization company that takes your money and guarantees nothing? No!

Search engine optimization is simply relevant content, fresh content, and link population. It is a science. If the proposed services will enhance ALL of the three pillars of optimization, then your search engine optimization company should guarantee you that they will perform all of these task. That is imperative. Make sure there is this guarantee that exists in your service agreement and not just the proposal. Furthermore, make sure that you are entitled to a report of some kind to show evidence of your search engine optimization company performing the tasks which were guaranteed.

The guarantees to be wary of are those which guarantee top placement in a short amount of time, discontinue billing should the guarantee not be met, or give you the opportunity to close your contract. Wow, we have a lot to discuss.

First, if your search engine optimization company is promising a short turnaround of less than three months, ask them how. Do not buy into "proprietary process" or "snake oil" like mysteries. Also, if the specialist has pricing that is incredibly low, this is a sign that they are not the group to work with.

A popular offer made by many solid white hat search engine optimization companies is the time frame guarantee with discontinued billing should that time frame not be met. Another words, if you pay them $500 a month for 10 months and you are not on the first page of Google for (example only) "pet shop" then they will continue to work for free until you are number one.

Sounds good, right? Well, not really. Check with your lawyer on this one. Once you discontinue paying a company, they do not work for you any longer. So if they stop performing search engine optimization, you are out (in this scenario) $5,000.00 for the 10 months without any means of ramification because they don't legally work for you. (Once again, confirm this with your legal council.)

Another marketing offer made by search engine optimization companies is easier to identify as a bad idea. First, they require that you enter into a contract. Then, they guarantee a term to be ranked in a high position in a certain amount of time. Should they fail, you get to close the contract.

This one is easy to avoid…never sign a contract. Not having a contract is much stronger motivation for your search engine optimization company to perform. If you are guaranteeing them income for a year, they will not respond with as much vigor, generally speaking. However, keeping a relationship "month to month" will allow you and your search engine optimization company to maintain a stronger relationship which is kept together by the best business formula around. That formula being: good company providing good service keeps happy customer which is seeing results.

So lets review. Don't work with search engine optimization companies that are cheap and guarantee quick "unrealistic" results. Next, read your agreement vary carefully should you go with a company that offers free SEO services after failing to meet a deadline. Finally, do not sign a contract. Only sign a service agreement which outlines BOTH parties' responsibilities and make sure that your billing is monthly and on a 30 day term period.

Promoting Your Website Online

I started my online venture back in August of 2006, since then I have been able to optimize my site to achieve top standings with MSN and Yahoo and some of their partner search engines. My website is a mortgage website and as we all know the mortgage industry is a very competitive industry. Search engine rankings change daily but if you go to either of these search engines and type in the keyword Minnesota mortgage or Minnesota mortgage broker you will see my website on the first page, normally in the top 5 spots. Thanks to the search engine optimization tool I use, which only cost $15 a month, I have picked up "exclusive" leads that have turned into sales.

This optimization tool can do the same for you, no matter what your business is. You get all the information you need to track your websites progression. It will search the internet to find how many links you have coming in to your website, this is a major factor in how the major search engines rank your website. This also allows you to track the honest website owners who actually link back to you.

Also included is a tool that allows you to find out a websites Google page rank and Alexa traffic rank. You will learn all about link relevancy and how this is used to achieve a high ranking with Google. Another important factor is the keyword density of your website compared to how the search engines determine what your website is about.

This tool will also help you create the top keywords and meta tags to produce the best results for your website. Tracking you progression has never been easier with the unique Search Engine Coverage reports that you can run at anytime.

Even if most of this does not make sense at the moment, you have a free 3 day trial to find out how this program will encourage your online growth. After that it is only $15 a month which is a lot cheaper then hiring a SEO company who knows nothing about you or your company to do it for you. If you want things done right you have to do it yourself.

Build Better Search Engine Results

There is a lot of buzz about how to get better search engine results these days. Let's get right through the buzz part and talk about how this is done. Some of this might be old hat to you, but I think you'll learn something new and very useful. Let's go through the whole process, from basics to something new.

First, build your keyword "wish list", research your keywords, prioritize them, and then optimize your web site with each applicable keyword. Areas best to optimize and work with initially are: Meta tags, alt tags, page content, links, etc.

Now we'll discuss the powerful stuff that truly can build visitor traffic, customer loyalty, your business and ROI.

Here's the secret, keep your site fresh by adding content to your web site in the way of "how to" articles, industry articles and tips. What does this do for you? Google and the other big guys will index more often, your pages will be more sticky, so search engines have something to grab and hold on to, plus you'll offer more value to your visitors. Whether its writing articles or tip's, write about what you know.

Writing articles: make your articles about 300 words, and don't write only with search engines in mind, write with your readers in mind to inform them. So by having a balance between writing for search engines (incorporating your keywords), and writing for your readers you'll have the right mix.

Writing tips is a great way to keep your site fresh because they can be shorter than regular articles and quick to put together. This is another good way to get better rankings, again for two reasons, Google will keep coming back more often to index your site and there is more content to grab.

Of course after writing articles and or tips you'll want to place them in a designated area on your site. The articles can be submitted to ezines or other article type directories also. You will get solid links coming back to your web site from the article directories.

And last but not least, you can put together a blog to add both articles and tip's here. The search engines will index them giving you more visibility for both readers and search rankings.