Wednesday, June 13, 2007

SEO Services - Guide to Basic Internet Marketing That Deliver Traffic

SEO Services:

Search engine optimization or SEO has become one of the most important components of Internet marketing strategies. It is a tool that enhances the process of increasing the quality and quantity of web traffic improving and provides organic search results. The normal trend is that the higher a website is ranked on the search result page, the more traffic it will get. SEO services can vary from website to website depending on the requirement but is used on website headings, in text or body copy, design and even on images.

There are many people who have a website that displays some of the best products, has some well written content and offer great service and yet these sites don't receive even half the desired traffic. This is simply because they didn't understand the importance of SEO nor did they realize its potential in driving the targeted traffic. Great products, excellent services and a site that is very well written. To enhance your website, you will require the services of a SEO consultant or an SEO copywriter who knows his/her job very well.

A SEO copywriter will add more depth to your existing website copy by adding singular or plural keywords, synonyms and keyword phrases. Now that you have understood the common practices, let us take a look at the two broad categories of SEO services. They are:

  • On-Page Optimization
  • Off-Page Optimization

On-page optimization SEO services :

  • Well researched keywords
  • Correct use of Meta tags
  • Keyword density optimization
  • On-page optimization is the most commonly applied category within the SEO services and it focuses on two elements namely, your webpage content and the website structure or architecture. The key element is your web page content and you need to take special care while writing the content. Your web page content has to be relevant and in sync with the product or services you are selling or promoting. The best way to get your website on the top of the page ranking is by using various SEO techniques. Effective use of SEO techniques can actually bring results within a short period of time.

    Off-Page Optimization SEO services:

  • Increasing link exchange/link building/ link popularity: You can exchange your website links with another website and thus gain mileage without spending money. You can even display your link on various article directories
  • Using keyword rich anchor text
  • Submission to article directory: This is a cost free method of gaining mileage or promoting your website. There are hundreds of article directories available today for submission purposes. Most of them won't charge you anything but there are a few who would charge you a membership fee. You can do this yourself but a well optimized article will increase your relevancy thus its effectiveness.
  • SEO services or SEO techniques are based on certain common practices and these include:

  • Well researched keywords: SEO services are actually aimed at getting your site a higher rank in all search engines. To get the higher ranking, your website content needs to be keyword rich and hence you need to select the right keywords. This research for the right keywords or keyword phrase is an integral part of the entire search engine optimization process. The keyword phrase research is a process of selecting those keyword phrases, which are optimized and will help visitors to find your website. The important thing is to follow the right approach to find these keywords. If you are selling camping tents, then your keyword needs to be associated with the product and the activity for which it is used.
  • Heading of the web page: The heading is the most important part of any web page as it always catches the eye due to its positioning. Hence, you can always use catchy copy or tag lines to draw attention or create curiosity. Hence to create a higher visibility, you can use a primary keyword in the heading. There are two types of keywords: primary and secondary. Let's take an example: If you are offering web design, then your primary keyword will be web site design, graphic design, banner design etc. The search engines always give higher priority to the primary keyword or the keyword used in the heading. One more thing to remember is the length of text in single page. The ideal word limit is 500 because this helps to understand the keyword relevance. Not all the search engines will read through the entire page hence, try to keep the primary keywords in the beginning.
  • Meta tags: Meta tags, one of the SEO services, can't really be seen like the text. It is normally embedded in the code or the html. Meta tags help in letting the search engine crawler's index your website in an accurate manner. There are different types of Meta tags like the title tags, Meta description tags, Meta keyword tags and body tags.
  • What to avoid from a SEO company:

    Make sure that the SEO firm you hire does not practice black hat techniques that can get your site banned completely from the search engine… why would they do that? To get you the unrealistic goals they set and once they have "fulfilled" their end of the contract they leave you hanging with a banned site.

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    Tuesday, June 12, 2007

    Create Your Own RSS Feed And Add Fresh Content To Your Website Daily

    RSS enables people to have the latest information delivered directly to them. You can get the latest news, articles, photos, and videos all in one place and as soon as they are made available.

    RSS feeds allow people to choose the content that they wish to view. RSS is a way of syndicating content, which means having all the information that you are interested in together in one central location.

    To create an RSS feed you have two choices. First, you can code your own feed by using XML or you can consider using a software application that creates the XML for you.

    You can create an RSS Feed without coding it yourself by using an easy to use software applications that can format your XML.

    One example is FeedForAll.

    You can also code your own RSS Feed.

    Just like HTML code XML code contains open and close tags to designate the title, description and link. They are enclosed in brackets just like standard html. The close tag contains a forward slash.

    The Item will contain information for each one of your listings. They contain the individual information that you are distributing, such as articles, etc.

    For each item in your feed you will have:

    a title

    a description

    a link

    The title and description should describe the content of that particular item or link. The link will reference the webpage that contains all of the actual content.

    The following is what an item in a xml file will look like once you remove the asterisks:

    Title Here

    Description Here

    linkhere

    It is very important that your links are fully qualified. If someone syndicates your feed then you want to make sure your links are working if your code is on another site or server.

    So, an RSS feed is simply a series of items which are all chained together to create a Channel. When you need to update your feed you just add another item at the bottom of your XML code.

    The Channel tag is found at the top of the XML file and explains how all the items are related. A Channel tag also contains a title, description and link tag. The open channel tag appears before the first item and the close channel tag appears after the last one.

    The Channel Title Here

    The explanation of how the items are related goes here

    linkhere

    Title Here

    Description Here

    linkhere

    Another Title Here

    Description Here

    linkhere

    Once you have all your items set up you then need to designate it as an XML file by inserting specific tags at the beginning and at the very end of your code.

    The Channel Title Here

    The explanation of how the items are related goes here

    linkhere

    Title Here

    Description Here

    linkhere

    Another Title Here

    Description Here

    linkhere

    You MUST save your file with an extension of .XML, for example UcanTo dot com/articles.xml

    Do Not forget to remove all the asterisks from the code above before using it!

    TIP: There is a free XML editor that will help you with creating RSS Feeds. Just Google First Object Editor.

    When you have finished your RSS Feed the next step is to upload it to your server and then validate it. This step is very important, it will make sure your RSS Feed is working correctly and can be accessed. Visit Feed Validator and enter the URL for your RSS Feed, which should end in XML.

    If you made it this far, congratulations! You should now let everyone know about your RSS Feed. Go to RSS Specifications for a list of sites where you can submit your new feed. Take the time to do this. I think it is much better to manually submit your feed then to use any of the free services.

    One Last Tip! Now that you have your own RSS Feed you need to update it regularly. To do this just add another item to your XML file and upload! Then go to Ping-O-Matic and enter your RSS feed. Ping-O-Matic is a service that updates different feed specific search engines when your Feed has been updated. So, every time you add new content to your feed go to Ping-O-Matic and let everyone know!

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    Thursday, June 07, 2007

    The Top Ten SEO Techniques and Page Design Elements That Will Get You Blacklisted From Google

    The biggest search engine of them all is without a doubt Google. What they say goes, and most website owners just have to put up with it. It is always good to know what SEO techniques that Google will allow, but most of all, what they will not allow. They can blacklist your site for as long as they want, and you will never be able to get a high ranking again if you cross them once.

    Knowing how important a great ranking is for your web site or blog site, here is a list of six SEO techniques you SHOULD NOT do for any reason:

    1. YOUR WEB PAGE TEXT IS IN GRAPHICS FORM ONLY


    Google considers "burying" text in your HTML code hides the text from their spiders that are trying to detect all of your relevant content. They feel this is manipulating their search engines and they don't like that one bit.

    2. YOUR SITE HAS A BLACKLISTED WEB PAGE LINKED TO IT


    A good rule of thumb regarding this issue is never to link to a "link farm" or a "Free for ALL" link page. These websites deal in every under-handed cheap trick they can find to bypass Google's strict submission rules, thereby bringing every other website linked to them down in the gutter. Make sure that all of your links lead Google and your site visitors to reputable pages at all times.

    3. BAD LANGUAGE ON YOUR MAIN PAGES


    This also includes using ethnic slurs of all types, as Google really looks down on racist sites that result in hate crimes or other controversial events.

    4. LINK BUYING


    Google really hates when you have to pay another site just to link with yours. If your site is worthy of being included in Google's main pages, why on earth would you have to buy a link? It does not make much sense from a business standpoint either, because you should put your promotion budget somewhere else entirely.

    5. CLOAKING


    When you present one web page to your readers and another page just for the spiders from Google to search for relevant keywords, this is known as "cloaking". If an SEO specialist says it's OK to do it his way, tell him firmly "No way!" and go with another SEO company that is more reputable.

    6. YOUR SERVER IS DOWN DURING A GOOGLE SEARCH


    You say that this is not your fault, but in a way it is. You cannot afford any down time as far as your main web pages are concerned, because that eats into your profits on a weekly basis if it happens too much. So always find the best server possible for your site, no matter the cost. And when Google sends out their spiders to your main pages for ranking purposes it is a HUGE error if your server is down and Google comes back with an error message. Big problem time!

    7. ZERO LINKS

    Your website must have a least one back link coming in from a reputable website for Google to recognize you as worth their time. So before you submit your web pages, make sure you link to somebody first.

    8. KEYWORD STUFFING


    I went over this is another recent article, but it is a very important technique to remember to avoid. If Google thinks your pages are filled with certain keywords that you have included over 10% in the content's overall body, you will be heavily penalized by Google for keyword stuffing that will be hard for your site to recover from.

    9. COPYRIGHT VIOLATION


    If somebody has reported your site as having stolen their exact wording on content pages, or have accused your website of stealing images and graphics from their own pages, Google will come after you and make sure that you eliminate the text and images from your site immediately. But just to make sure that Google never has to do this, ALWAYS refrain from plagiarizing anybody else's website for any reason whatsoever.

    10. USAGE OF FLASH PAGE AS MAIN PAGE


    If you really want to make your visitors pay attention to your main page, just get creative with an animated logo or put some very nice HTML coding on your front page for some really nice graphics. In other words, use every other "flashy" technique to get a web surfers attention except for using a flash page. Google's spiders cannot read the text in a flash page, so Google thinks that you are manipulating that page for their search engine rankings.

    Stay away from all of these SEO techniques and page re-designs and you should be OK in climbing up the much-coveted rankings of Google's main category web page.

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    Tuesday, June 05, 2007

    Targeted Rss - 4 Ways to Rss

    RSS is one of the most commonly used marketing tools these days. Many of the websites use this tool to market themselves. RSS means Rich site Summary and by using this technique the content of one website is placed on another website. This is a completely legal process which is mutually beneficial for both of the websites. As the competition amongst the websites is growing it is becoming really important for the websites to market themselves so as to get the attention of those who are surfing the internet in search of something related to them. This is the reason that RSS like other marketing techniques has grown in importance a lot during past few years. The text which is present on both of the websites is imported by the permission of both the websites.

    RSS feeds technique is being used by many of the websites today. If you want to market your product and your website through RSS, you must select the appropriate partners for this act. The websites to which you provide these Rss feeds should be related as far as the nature of business or the kind of business is concerned. The number of Rss arrangements is also important. You must have this arrangement made with an appropriate number of websites so that it may help you in generating some revenue by increasing the flow of web traffic. If these links are properly placed, you will get quality web traffic. Thus the way you use Rss technique will decide how much benefit you can take out of it.

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    Monday, June 04, 2007

    Chasing Down The Bogus Leads

    These are some of the keywords that led you to this page. This is something any online communication manager or web strategist learns first. But what's often overlooked is the importance of knowing which keywords to avoid to keep unwanted traffic away.

    The subject of this article is keywords search relevancy. Most online communicators understand search relevancy as how a search engine determines whether a Web page or site is important for a particular search query. But I'm looking at it from an online business perspective.

    These days, with the numerous online tools available, most business websites can quickly figure out the basic set of keywords that will drive traffic towards them. Once regular traffic has been established, the next step is in ensuring that a higher percentage of traffic results in sales. This means focusing on the quality of your traffic, rather than quantity.

    As always, the first step is measurement. Which of your keywords are resulting in sales and which are not? Most good web analytical tools will tell you this, once you've set your conversion goals. But they won't tell you what percentage of each keyword is bringing in people who have no interest in your product or offering.

    For example, if you're selling the Volkswagen Beetle, you may be driving a large number of naturalists to your site, who may be more than happy to fill a form for a free-test drive. But as a target they are unlikely, if ever to make a purchase. And if you're paying for every naturalist who clicks on your Beetle ad, that's just money down the drain. This gets further compounded when multiple teams are involved in following each lead up.

    You will therefore need to track backwards (from your sales team, registration page or whatever your conversion goal), every bogus lead based on the keyword search. And then identify which keywords are resulting in the highest misses.

    This is basically the opposite of lead conversion. By tracing bogus conversions and knowing which keywords are resulting in high misses, you can then take action.

    Unfortunately, once you find the problem there's really no single way to solve it. It's often a combination of trial, error, fine-tuning and getting specific with negative keywords.

    f you know of another way, do let me know.

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    Saturday, June 02, 2007

    6 Key Ways to SEO

    Content – Content is one of the ways to SEO. For best SEO you will need best content. Your content should be keyword rich. All the keywords should be used after proper research. Use the related keywords in your content. Keep the content relevant and make it informative.

    Link – Links are very necessary for SEO. Both inbound an outbound links are useful in making the best SEO. Links will help you to get a better rank in the search engines. You should try to get more and more inbound links from other websites. Try to get quality links because the link quality also matters. Try to reduce your outbound links as less outbound links are better for better ranks.

    Search Engine submission – Submit your website to the search engines available. Use only the best search engines. There are some free and there are some paid search engines submissions.

    Directory submission- It is also needed for the best SEO. You should submit to the related directories only. Use both the free and paid directory submission services. Good directories will improve the search engines ranks for your website.

    Site Map – Create a correct and complete sitemap and submit it to the search engines. Correct all the broken links and get the sitemap reworked.

    Meta tag – Meta tag can be another great tool for the best SEO. It is a way for SEO on your pages. Use meta tags to get the search engine attention by adding keywords to the meta tag. In the description, use related and well searched keywords.

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    Saturday, May 26, 2007

    Intermediate Tips for Site Promotion

    Profitable site promotions can come in many forms, and range from simply making sure your content is keyword rich to RSS and podcasting. However, you may find yourself in between those extremes and just need a few intermediate suggestions. Here are a few of those to help you with your website promotions.

    Blogs
    Register with a blog site that allows you to post information about your business. Some even allow links. Even if they don't, you can write a blog that covers what you do and request people to email you for information.

    Forum Postings
    This is very similar to the blogging but is a little easier. Here you simply converse with people. It's like a cross between a blog and a chat room because people respond to your posts.

    Secondary PPC Advertising Outlets
    PPC through the major players--Google, MSN, and Yahoo--can be expensive, especially if you're just starting out. Try secondary PPC outlets. Kanoodle is one such secondary PPC promotional outlet. Also try FindWhat.

    Develop a Mailing List
    Get emails of people who want service or product updates from your site. You can set this up as simply a mass email, or start into advanced profitable website promotions by taking advantage of RSS and podcasting.

    Check Your Site for Errors and Problems
    While this seems like a no-brainer, sometimes sites break in other places when you add new things. Check it frequently whether you change anything or not, and make sure all your content is readable and up to date. Profitable site promotion is often times making sure it's operating to its fullest capacity.

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