What makes a great "home" page? According to search engines like Google it's attributes like, page title, keywords, and most importantly relevant text based content. Obviously your home page is the most important page of your web site. Most internet users will leave your site within seconds if they don't immediately see something that they find useful. Of course a well designed web site making use of nice looking images and graphics will help, and a user friendly layout with easy access to navigation is a must. However the difference between a good home page and a great one is the content and how often it is maintained.

A common challenge web site owners face is the lack of time to update their home page on a regular basis. Others don't have access to their web site or don't know how to make changes on their own. Many leave their web site updates in the hands of their webmaster, designer, or other third parties often resulting in additional costs. Some have limits on how many updates or changes they can make per month.

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Labels: blog, blogging, carp, design, rss, seo

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In times like these with the economy heading in the direction it has been, is there still room in your marketing budget for SEO? Well, it depends how you look at it. I don't believe that right now we can apply the old saying that "it takes money to make money" even though this still may be true. I think during these times of financial uncertainty we need to approach our marketing strategy in general with care. Obviously if your business does not rely heavily on it's web site for generating sales then it would make sense for SEO to be one of the first budgets to be cut. However if your web site generates even one quarter of your revenue does it make sense to put your search engine optimization on hold?

Lets face it, the internet is not going anywhere, and even in times like these it continues to evolve while more primitive forms of advertising become less and less effective. Yet many business owners feel more secure using the old, newspaper or magazine adds, or other less "web friendly" forms of marketing during these difficult times. The fact is your web site has the power to get you through the tough times. People are still searching for products and services with Google, Yahoo!, and MSN in record numbers. Many people ask, how can I afford to keep my budget for SEO when my sales are dropping? The answer is simple. Find new and more creative ways of optimizing your web site. Of course hiring a company has been the easiest method in the past for business owners, where as now maybe reinventing is the way to go.

There are no guarantees in SEO, and likely never will be. What works today, may not tomorrow and thats why there are companies that stay on top it for you allowing you to take care of what you do best, running your business. Patience has always been key with SEO, and if you are looking to find ways to trim your marketing budget, this remains true. Learning search engine optimization is not the same as learning web design. Web design is like building cars for Chevy, whereas SEO is like tuning a Chevy for a NASCAR race. Having said that sometimes the do-it-yourself approach is the way to go when attempting to get more out of less.

One thing you can do is read forums, or blogs to reach people who have experience and explore new ideas of ways to build links, target specific keywords, and find niche markets that have less web sites competing. Talking with SEO companies can help as well. Many offer consultations at more affordable rates than large scale ongoing campaigns. The one thing I would not do is stop your SEO altogether. Not only would this likely have a reverse affect on any previous optimization you have done, it will also take you twice as long in the future to get back on track. If your competitors take their foot of the gas this is even more reason to keep yours firmly pressed to the floor. Take advantage of other slipping web sites and jump in front.

As a business owner myself I have felt the affects the slowed economy and the last thing on my mind is letting up on the SEO of my web site. In fact it's quite the opposite. Now more than ever search engine optimization is keeping thousands of businesses thriving in an otherwise unstable economy.

Labels: budget, do it yourself, economy, seo

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This is probably the most unspoken question amongst potential SEO clients - search engine optimization can be expensive. Sure, the payoff is great, but if you don't have the money to begin with, you simply can't afford it. So what to do? Optimizing your own web site can seem like a daunting task, but is it really all that hard?

The answer is no. As long as you have some time, basic html skills, a little creativity and patience. Assuming you already have a good domain name, decent hosting, and a web site designed, here's how I would approach it.

First, make sure the very first page everyone sees is search-engine friendly. Make sure your primary keyword phrase appears first in your title, and can be found throughout text on the first page and throughout the site. Make sure there is text on your first page and not just an entrance page or flash movie. Those types of intros and entrance pages look blank to search engines. You want yours to look relevant for your keyword or key phrase. Include few paragraphs about what the site is selling or offering. As well, be sure to include your geographic area if your service or product is geographically specific. Make sure that when people who don't know anything about your industry or product hit that first page, that they have no doubt as to what the web site's purpose is within seconds. If visitors have that experience, chances are, so will search engine robots.

Second, make sure the rest of your site matches the same search engine friendliness as your first page. Make sure there is a decent amount of textual information on each page, text that includes your keywords and key phrases. Your web site will never rank well on the search engines for any keyword or key phrase that can't be found on the site itself. You also need to clean up your code. Try to use CSS styles when designing the site, and include the styles in a separate style sheet as opposed to the page's header. Move all scripts in the header into an include file. You also want all of your inter-site links to use the full URL rather than just the file name or directory. These can sometimes count as incoming links.

The next thing you want to do is keep the whole site dynamic. There are a number of ways to do this. You can syndicate a frequently updated RSS feed on your site to keep the content fresh. You may want to have your own blog on-site and post to it frequently. You may accept submissions of content from web site visitors. There are many ways to keep your content fresh and growing. This shows the search engine that the site is not something that is out of date.

The final, and most important thing to do to make sure your site is well optimized, is launch an aggressive link development campaign. This isn't quite as simple as it used to be, just merely trading links with relevant sites is not going to do the trick. What you want to do is focus on one-way incoming links. There are plenty of ways to do this. You can offer something in return for a link to your site that is not a link from your site - perhaps a discount on services or products, a mention in your newsletter or custom-written content for their site. Be creative, you'd be surprised what people will give you a link for.

Another way to get one-way incoming links is article submission. Write articles, like I am right now, and submit them to good article distribution places. Find out which online periodicals are in your industry and submit your articles to them in hopes of publication. Be sure to include a link back to your site in your author bio. The links from the article distribution sites are not very valuable themselves, but if, from those site, good relevant web sites pick up your article, they must link back to you and those are the links that will fare well for your web site.

You can also ask your friends, colleagues, business contacts, and anyone else you can think of who have web sites, to link to yours.

If you follow all of these, and don't give up, you can see results anywhere from right away to 6 months from now. Be patient, nothing worthwhile is ever instantaneous, and hard work always pays off. Keep at it and you'll be in the top ten and getting more traffic than you ever have before.

Technorati Tags: seo, search engine optimization, diy, do it yourself

Labels: articles, back links, diy, search engine optimization, seo

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Internet marketers deal in a number of different strategies on a day to day basis when it comes to increasing the overall popularity of their websites, and driving more traffic to that website. It has been discovered that articles are considered the best internet marketing tool when it comes to search engine optimization. There are many different reasons for this, and more and more individuals are contributing their findings in order to establish credentials when it comes to this marketing technique. Here, you will gain a little insight as to why marketing articles may just be your key to success.

When you have an article that is properly geared for popular search engines like Windows Live Search, Yahoo, MSN, AOL, Google, and other ones, you will immediately find that your content climbs the ranks when it comes to popularity on those search engines. It is a proven fact that the higher your content ranks in these search engines, more visitors will end up on your pages. The individuals that will visit your website in this situation are referred to as 'targeted traffic'. Basically, this means that these individuals are searching for your products and services specifically. Traffic is virtually useless if it is not considered to be 'targeted'.

Article marketing is considered to be popular because of the fact that it is a cost effective method of advertising. Generally, it does not take very long to create an effective and properly optimized keyword if you are truly an expert in your field. Perhaps you feel that you do not have the knowledge or the ability to compose these articles on your own - this is actually really common. However, there is a solution for this issue! There are many article directories that will allow you to use the content written by other authors. Then, there are services out there that play host to freelancers who are willing to compose your articles for a small fee. Many find that having these types of services automates their campaign and makes them highly successful!

The next reason that article marketing is an effective marketing solution is that there are a number of directories where you can place your content, and then backlink to your website in order to increase your web site's search engine ranking. A good example of this type of directory is 'Extreme Articles'. Here, you can place all of your articles, regardless of subject, and even create an effective author resource box that will allow you to provide readers with the link to your website, free eBooks, free reports, and other important marketing tools. In addition to this there are other directories that are as popular, such as Ezine and even Associated Content! The best thing is that these articles can actually represent you for life and are free to post!
Articles that are properly optimized for the internet implement the use of keywords and phrases that are keyword based in order to establish rankings in major search engines. For example, if you are offering a free eBook on recipes, it is likely that your article will contain keywords like 'free recipes', 'cooking tips', 'free cooking recipes', and similar keywords and phrases. If you have an article marketing campaign, it is quite likely that those interested in this topic will search for these exact keywords. When they do, your articles will appear first on the search engines!

Can you think of a better way to let people know that your products and services are out there? Probably not!

For more useful tips & hints, please browse for more information at our website:- www.ezines-marketing-magic.com

by Suzy Lakra

Labels: articles, keywords, sem, seo

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It is easier today to build a website than it was just a few years ago. Not only is building a website easier but the point and click editing and design tools available make creating a professional looking website simple. However, there is one problem most novice website owners eventually encounter that can be the most frustrating part of owning a website: Targeted Organic Traffic.

Once novice website owners complete their website, getting people to view the website is the next obstacle that must be overcome. Simply building a website and uploading it to the host servers will not magically put the new website in front of the millions of people that surf the Internet everyday. New websites must be optimized in order to receive traffic and in order to get this traffic new website owners must implement proper Search Engine Optimization.

The search engine optimization process begins even before the website is built and designed. Before a website is built, a target market or niche must be chosen and this target market is what the website will be built around. New website builders must first determine the market, then do keyword research to locate the search words for the market that people are placing in the search engines that relate to the website theme.

Keyword research is such an important part of the website building process that if overlooked or not properly done, could make the whole website building process in vain. People that are building their first website are usually excited about their new endeavor and quickly become disillusioned once they realize that there website is receiving little or no traffic.

Search engine optimization is a process that must be learned and is also dynamic and ever changing. What works today may not work three months from now because search engines like Google are always tweaking and changing their algorithms for two very important reasons:

The first reason is to deliver a better product. Google is the behemoth of all search engines with the lion share of searches done on the Internet each day, leaving Yahoo and MSN in their wake. Since Google is the market leader, they pride themselves on delivering the most up to date and relevant information being delivered to their users.

The first reason Google constantly tweaks their algorithms leads to the second reason: Because Google is the market leader among search engines, scammers, spammers and black hats constantly try to game the Google system to reach the top slots on Google to exploit the massive amount of traffic that Google produces each day.

This is why search engine optimization is such a difficult part of the website experience for the novice. Search engine optimization is better learned by trial and error rather than taught as theory in the classroom since SEO is an ever changing process. Utilizing the services of a reputable SEO firm is the best avenue for novice website builders that do not have the time to learn the ropes of SEO. However, it should be noted that proper SEO techniques are not exclusive to SEO firms. On the contrary, SEO concepts and techniques can be learned by anyone that has the time and discipline to do so.


About the Author

Doug Fisher writes about search engine optimization and various other subjects. Please visit his search engine marketing Memphis, SEO blog for more information.

Labels: google, search engines, seo, traffic, web design

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I was compelled to publish this article after noticing several SEO specialists writing in reference to meta tags being dead or obsolete. Meta tags are not dead. I will be the first to say, meta tags are utilized by all major search engines and are very much in use and extremely important to search engine ranking. If you need proof of how important meta tags are, try removing your meta tags and watch what happens to your search engine positioning. Your site will plummet to the depths of the unvisited web. Meta tags are frequently an overlooked factor which can improve the ranking of most any website.

This is an example of how vital meta tags are to your web page and to your search engine ranking. Our website ranks #6 and #7 consistently on MSN for the keyword submit site. To test the dead meta tag theory, our source code editor changed one word in the meta description tag and we dropped to #15 in the search results. Our rankings on Google and several other search engines suffered even more so. Needless to say we made changes accordingly. All major search engines definitely utilize meta tags for a description of the web page and for indexing within the search results.

The title tag is one of the most important on page factors to consider. This is because search engine spiders read this tag first and place a high level of importance on the keywords found there. The title tag is also used for the title of your listing in the search results. The contents of your title tag will also appear in the top left corner of the browser bar. Correct title tag optimization is essential and will result in a dramatic increase in your search engine ranking. The title tag should contain at least one or more keywords to be of any relevance to the web page.

Search engine spiders read the description meta tag next. This tag is often used as a website description in the search results. The description tag should also contain a few keywords. The keyword meta tag is also vital to search engine ranking giving search engine spiders a sample of relevant text and content within a web page. Other meta tags include robots, resource, author, copyright etc. These tags are not as important as the title, description and keyword tag, however they should be included if possible. To achieve high search engine ranking optimize your meta data. Proper on page optimization will greatly improve your search engine placement.

By: James Day

Author Bio
Article written by the CEO of www.submit-site.org

Labels: keywords, meta tags, rankings, seo

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You might be wondering the reasons your web site is not getting much Internet traffic. After all your web site took lots of financial and human resources, but unfortunately like so many web sites, it is quite unknown and as a result it does not get enough Internet traffic to make it financially viable.

Did you know that about 80 percent of all web site traffic originates from search engines? Yes, it is true! Listing near the top page of search engines and obtaining the attention of your target audience should be a main priority for any web site Internet promotion.

And the good news about this is that improving a web site position in search engine pages may be done for free. How? Using search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.

There are many ways to promote a web site. Some promotions are paid and some are free. Among the free ones, the search engine optimization techniques enable web sites to become search engine friendly. In other words, it makes website pages to accept the search engine crawler in a friendly way. These techniques will be some of the steps one will have to use to obtain a better position in search engine's pages, when searching for specific keywords, related to services or products offered by a web site.

Search engine optimization steps for a web page:

Title:

The html Title tag is a very important element and must include the most important keywords or phrases, which best represent the products or services offered by the web page. It should not contain more than 60 characters.

Keywords:

The html meta Keyword tag should have all the keyword phrases which best represents the products or services offered by the web page. Avoid repeating keywords and bad use of capital letters. It should not contain more than 250 characters.

Description:

The html meta Description tag is a description of the web page, which will be displayed by the search engine. Make sure it contains keywords phrases. Avoid repeating keywords and bad use of capital letters. It should not contain more than 200 characters.

Keywords in Headings:

Keywords in Headings tags (h1) will be interpreted by search engines as being an important keyword relevant to the web page, and it should be looked for and indexed by the search engines.

Web page text:

It is a good practice to include informative text one every page, using natural language and appropriate keywords. It should contain more than 200 words. Informative text should be placed in the html Body section of the web page.

Keywords in Alt Tags:

Every html picture "img" tag should contain an ALT tag with an appropriate description. Keywords should always be used when appropriate.

Keywords in Anchor Tags:

Every html hypertext link "a href " should contain a TITLE tag with an appropriate description. Keywords should always be used when appropriate.

Robots.txt file:

Make sure there is a robots.txt file in you web site directory. This is a text file created by the webmaster, which will guide the search engine´s crawler when indexing a web site.

There are some cases in which one might not want to have some web pages indexed. With the use of robots.txt, one will have control over which pages will be indexed and made available to the search engines.

User-agent: *
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /data/

HTML code validation:

Search engine's crawlers become more efficient when indexing web pages with no html errors. Beware that some html errors can make search engine crawlers to give up indexing web pages. So it is recommended for those web pages to be indexed, there should be no html errors.

Links:

Links are very important to search engines. The quality of links and whether it is reciprocal or not, are important factors in evaluating the importance of a web page. Links from web sites with higher page ranks are a plus.

Registering with Directories and Search Engines:

It is very important the registration of a website with directories and search engine web sites. It is a way of telling the world that your web site exists. Avoid using automatic search engine/directory registration.

Search engine optimization has become a very important set of procedures which helps web sites to become more relevant to search engines. To obtain an increase in Internet traffic will take some time. It probably will take some kind of additional promotion too. But anybody in need of higher Internet traffic, free search engine optimization might be considered his first option.

By: Roberto Sedycias
IT Consultant

Author Bio
This article can also be accessed in Portuguese language from the News Article section of page PoloMercantil
Roberto Sedycias works as IT consultant for PoloMercantil.

Labels: html, keywords, robots.txt, seo

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By now, you probably already have the theme of your website established, your keywords picked and your website ready to go live. You're thinking that you'll submit your site to the search engines, sit back and see how much traffic the search engines will send you, right?

STOP! There are many different avenues you can take to drive traffic to your site but they should only be taken after you make the search engines your first priority. The search engines should be your foundation. They'll always send you a certain amount of traffic if you have a high page rank.

IMPORTANT!

Your website must be 'set up' for a high page rank in the search engines and it's important to do it 'before' you submit your site for the first time. Here's the reason why:

Usually, after you submit your website to the search engines for the first time, your website will be 'spidered' fairly quickly and hopefully your site will be listed on one of the top pages.

Your website may not get 'spidered' again for months so if you make changes to optimize your site, you may not see your changes take effect for quite a while. You could be stuck on a back page, if any page at all, for a very long time.

Without getting into the mechanics of designing your website, here are the basics of setting up your website to be search engine friendly.

THE FIRST STEP is to establish the main keyword for your site. This is the word or phrase that you want people to type into the search engines to find your website. It's important to have your site focused around your main keyword.

Let's say you have a site dedicated to 'building your own home' so we'll use 'home building' as our main keyword example.

THE NEXT STEP is to create a title for your website and to place it in the 'title tag' of your site. The 'title tag' should be the first tag in the 'head' of your site and it's important because many search engines use the contents of the 'title tag' as the title of the listing. They also look for keywords in the title and your main keyword should be the first words in the title.

Generally, your title should be no more than 40 characters and, again, it should begin with your main keyword. Try to avoid using 'stop words' in your title. Stop words are transition words such as - and, but, or, for, with, etc.

Here's a possible title using our example main keyword 'home building' - Home Building - Home Construction Plans

Notice our main keyword is first, the title is less than 40 characters (39), there are no stop words and we managed to sneak in 3 secondary keywords - home construction, construction plans and home construction plans. Clever huh?

THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'keywords meta tag'. This is where you list all the keywords you want to use for your website starting with your 'main keyword'. A good rule of thumb is to use about 20 keywords and your main keyword should be contained in about half of them.

Using our example keyword 'home building' our keywords could be - home building, home construction, home building plans, home building cost, construction plans, etc.

Notice I didn't use our main keyword 'home building' twice in a row. For example - home building, home building plans, etc. Search engines might see this as spam and it could hurt your ranking.

THE NEXT STEP is to create a 'description meta tag'. This is where you describe your website and, again, you should start with your main keyword.

Keep your description to about 150 characters, use as few 'stop words' as you can and sprinkle in as many secondary keywords as possible.
Make your description interesting because search engines often use the contents in your 'description meta tag' as the description of your website in the listing.

THE NEXT STEP is to use your keywords often in the body of your website. Make sure your 'main keyword' is somewhere in the beginning and at the end of the body of your page.

It's a good idea to use your main keyword in an 'h1' tag and a few of your secondary keywords in an 'h2' tag. This tells the search engines that you put importance on your keywords.

It's also a good idea to underline your main keyword no more than once and to use bold text for your main keyword no more than once.

Although there are other factors that determine your position in the search engines, having the basics of what search engines look for will give you a much better chance of making that illusive first page and driving consistent website traffic to your site.

By: Mike Burke

Author Bio
Mike Burke is the author of numerous articles and has an affection for website marketing. Learn how to drive tons of targeted traffic to your site without spending a dime on advertising. Visit us at http://www.starttheprofits.com

Labels: keywords, meta tags, seo, title tags

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Search Engine Optimization is turning into a Culture whether we like it or not.

It just baffles me that people are still unaware of Search Engine Optimization, which frankly is a drag! There is one major reason why people are unaware (or stubbornly ignore it) is because they do not buy things they do not understand.

For marketing folks, SEO is a term difficult to understand. They would rather put all their money into Search Engine Marketing (SEM) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. In a nutshell, SEM and PPC are easy to understand thereby easy to buy.

But wait!

Search Engine Optimization isn't that difficult to understand. Actually, once you get the hang of it, it will slowly consume you. I mean this in the most positive way.

Search Engine Optimization offers the following benefits:

1. Your website will get immense exposure

2. SEO's effectiveness in marketing is easily substantiated with facts (i.e numbers)

3. Since the web is a dynamic environment, everyone has the chance to rank as number one.

If you are constantly updated with the trend of SEO, there is possibility of ranking as top and gaining immense traffic and ROI is just around the corner.

Search Engine Optimization requires hard work. How much effort you put in learning this marketing tool, will allow you to see the fruits of your labor.

By Maria Paula Tolentino

About the Author
Maria Paula Tolentino is an SEO consultant for NetBooster Asia and has been doing Search Engine Optimization for the past 2 years. Her expertise lie in technical writing, web content, SEO, SEM and SMO

Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Maria_Paula_Tolentino

Labels: ppc, search engine optimization, sem, seo, traffic

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Getting your website listed in Search Engines (SE) can sometime be a monumental task in itself, here are my top ten tips to get you started.

1. Page Title
Forget using 'Welcome to my website' as your page title, if you really want to attract target media specify your keywords and list your product keywords separated by an | (hold Shift + backslash key) symbol (eg: Digital Cameras | Video Cameras) will boost the strength of your chosen keywords, in this case Digital and Video Cameras.

2. Page File names
Still naming your page file names as products.htm or aboutus.php, why not add some weight to your website and help the SE distinguish from the multitude of pages with generic names and again utilize your keywords into your file names (eg: paper_back_novels.htm) for a Book selling site with this link to the list of Paper Back Novels.

3. ALT Tags
Again keywords play a huge part in the design of your site and another area to include these words is in your image 'ALT" tags.

4. Header Tags
Getting back to your Page Title, there is no point in making the heading text "Welcome to my Website" especially if you are selling Garden Tools. Using , and tags to emphasize your Products and Services in order of importance is a good idea.

5. Bold Text
Got something to say? Say it in Bold Text. This tells the SE that this text is important and relates strongly to your content and keywords, and should be taken notice of.

6. Keywords
Some say they aren't that important anymore to getting results in the SERPS (Search Engine Result Pages) but using them correctly can add to your sites overall effectiveness. Concentrate on 3 - 4 keyword phrases (eg: "custom website design" or "web site design" for web site designers) and make sure they are used in the first and last paragraphs of your home page content.

7. Google Toolbar
Not only a search tool, the Google Toolbar displays each sites Page Rank according to Google and it's link popularity and web presence.

8. Alexa Toolbar
Download the Alexa Toolbar from Amazon and sign up to their affiliate program, the toolbar is an essential tool in gauging the popularity and hit results of how your website ranks.

9. RSS Feeds
Want to increase traffic? Well consider starting an RSS Feed on your website with important news items relating to your business and your chosen profession then link these to your articles.

10. Article Writing
Article writing is another way to cross promote your site with helpful information for others and with links back to your site.

In conclusion
There are many facets to Search Engine Optimization of websites and these 10 tips are merely just a few and a good starting points to get your website promoted in the world wide web.

By: Craig Bucknall

Author Bio
Craig Bucknall is the owner and Managing Director of the Sydney based Website Design studio Bullie Graphics. You can view his website at www.bulliegraphics.com.au.

Labels: articles, back links, keywords, seo, tips

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If you have a website you really need to have a robots.txt file. It gives search engine spiders specific commands and it is easy to use and easy to maintain. Here is an easy guide to a robots.txt file in five minutes.

There are times when you don’t want a search engine to index a page or a folder on your website. Maybe you have some information you just don’t want to have show up in google. This may include your statistics page, a page of notes, or a dynamic page. And, importantly, if you use google adsense and the search tool that displays search results on your website google mandates you exclude this page from search engines. Which means they mandate you having a robots.txt file.

A robots.txt file is a simple document named robots.txt and saved in the root folder of your website. Search engines see this and follow any commands it contains. Create a simple text document using any word processor program like notepad and put these two lines it:

User-agent: *

Disallow:

The first line tells all spiders to listen up because the following command is for you. The second line means do not index any of the following pages. And it is here you put the url of any pages you don’t want spidered. So if you wanted the spiders to skip your private page it looks like this:

Disallow:/privatepage.htm

If you want the spiders to skip a whole folder you put the url of that folder with a slash like this:

Disallow:/privatefolder/

Simply place this text file in the root folder of your website and you are done. In the future you can add and remove commands easily.

The robots.txt file is a very easy file to write and maintain and it is a very powerful tool that will help you interact successfully with search engines. This disallow command is the simplest and most used command but there are also many other commands you can use and if you have a website it is well worth your time to have a robots.txt file and even to research it a bit further.

by: Will Kalif

For more interesting insights into being a creative webmaster and making your website work for you visit the authors site at: The Creative Webmaster – Forging the Iron of Creativity on the Anvil of a Website

Labels: index, robots.txt, search engines, seo

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When it comes to search engine optimization, the single most important sentence that you will write for your website is the title tag of your main page. If you write it properly then you will have taken a big step towards getting your site well placed in search engine queries for your important keywords.

Before I give you a step-by-step guide to writing title tags, let's define what they actually are and see why they are important. When you look at a web page in your browser, the writing in the blue strip above browser's commands (file, edit, view, etc.) is the title tag. On your actual html document the title tag is in the head portion between the notation <title> and </title>.

The title tag is important because it "tells" the search engine what the page is about, and in the case of your main page, what your website is all about. I remember back in my school days that we used to take standardized examinations in which we had to read a story and then answer the question: "What would be the best title for this essay?" Choosing a title tag is something like answering this kind of question. You've got to pick out the gist of your enterprise and highlight it in a sentence. So, take a look at your web page and get ready to begin, following these steps:

1. Make sure your three or four most important keywords or keyword phrases appear in the title tag. The most important words should appear near the beginning of the sentence, and they can be repeated within the sentence for added emphasis. For example, if I am offering low-cost web design, then my title tag might look like this: <title>Web Design: Affordable, Low Cost Web Design from the Acme Web Design Company</title>

2. Leave your branding and sales pitch for another part of the web page. Although it is a natural tendency to want to put your company name at the beginning of the title tag, you should remember that unless you are very famous like Coca Cola, people are not searching for you. So, put your most important keywords at the front of the title tag, and establish your brand name with your logo and other elements of the web page. If your company name includes your keywords, like our hypothetical Acme Web Design Company, then put it in the title tag, but not necessarily at the beginning.

Similarly, the title tag is no place for your sales pitch, so keep out flowery or extraneous adjectives, unless they are actual terms used in searches for your product or service.

3. Place your geographical or niche-defining term in your title tag. If you are trying for a top ten or top twenty position for a term such as "web design," then you are really in for a difficult struggle. However, suppose the Acme Web Design Company is located in Columbus, Ohio. Then instead of attempting the almost impossible task of getting the top rankings for the term "web design," it would be far better to get a high ranking in the geographical niche using a title tag such "Web Design, Columbus, Ohio: Low Cost Web Design in Columbus, Ohio by The Acme Web Design Company"

4. The title tag can be longer than you think. Some guidelines say that the title tag should be no longer than 70 characters. It is true that only the first 70 characters will show in the top bar of the browser, but search engine robots will read the rest of the tag and the search engines will not penalize you for going over the 70 character mark. Take a look at highly ranked sites in heavily competitive categories and you will see examples of long title tags. Write the tag according to your need to get your important words and phrases included in a sentence that best describes what your product or service is about.

5. Vary the title tags on the inner pages of your website. Even with a long title tag, it is not possible to highlight all the possible terms which someone might use to find your website. This is not a problem if you make use of the other pages of your website. Instead of simply having a title tag that says "services" our web design firm could highlight "low cost, web design services" on that page. The "contact" page could be used to emphasize the geographical location once again, and so on. Many websites make the mistake of repeating the same title tag on each of the inner pages of the site. Avoid this and use each of your page's titles to target important keywords and keyword phrases.

So, take a look at your web site's title tags, and see if you can improve them. The effort that you make will be well rewarded.


By: Donald Nelson

Author Bio
Donald Nelson is a web developer, editor and social worker. He has been working on the Internet since 1995, and is currently the director of A1-Optimization (http://www.a1-optimization.com), a firm providing low cost search engine optimization, submission and web promotion services.

Labels: keywords, search engine optimization, seo, title tags

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When you begin the task of acquiring quality and relevant backlinks to your website there are many factors that can increase or decrease your search engine rankings. This article outlines the difference between good and bad backlinks.

A quality backlink pointing to your site should be in the same category and relevant in content to your website. The page where your link is located should be indexed by Google and the page should also have a Google page rank. The webpage where your link is located should also contain no more than 30 other out-going links to other websites. Link pages with more than 30 out-going links are less relevant to the search engines. Having your link posted on this type of webpage can affect your search engine rankings in a negative way. Other excellent techniques of acquiring backlinks are directory submissions, posting articles, blogs and forums.

For directory submissions select the proper directory category and take a look at how many other websites are contained in the category where your link would be posted, if you can manage to get on the first or second page of the listings, this is a quality backlink. Also look at the Google page rank of the landing page for your link. If the page has a Google page rank this is also a quality backlink.

Stay within your category, relevant content is very important to the search engines. Write an article preferably relevant in content to your website and submit the article to high quality article directories. Blogs are an excellent way to get quality one-way backlinks, Blog sites also receive tons of traffic, which in turn give your site more exposure. Posting your link on forum pages is also an efficient method of aquiring backlinks instantly.

Backlinks to avoid would be a zero page ranked webpage, especially if the home page has a zero page rank. Links posted within framed webpages which will also steal your traffic. Especially avoid link farms, webpages which contain more than 100 unrelated outgoing links, This type of link page is frowned upon by many major search engines. Avoid Webpages with mirror sites containing the exact same content with a different URL, also pages that utilize redirects and URL cloaking. Never post your link on a webpage that contains a "no follow" or "no index" robots meta tag within the source code. Dynamic websites with question marks in the URL should be avoided because they are not always indexed by the search engines.

Avoid posting your link on a page that opens very slow or contains mostly ads and flash banners. Try not to acquire or purchase great numbers of backlinks in a short period of time, backlinks should be accumulated gradually. Also avoid webpages and directories that list their results in alphabetical order, as their database increases your link could be moved to a less relevant page with less pagerank. Quality backlinks are one of the most important factors involved in the process of achieving high search engine ranking.

By: James Day

Author Bio
Article written by the CEO of www.submit-site.org

Labels: back links, link building, search engine optimization, seo

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If you have a website you've probably heard of blackhat SEO tactics, an optimization method to help your site climb the all-important rankings of the major search engines. While there is nothing actually illegal in blackhat SEO, it's doomed to fail every time, regardless of what the peddlers and proponents of the technique tell you. This is something I explain to clients of mine when putting together a PR campaign, and I won't work with any that wish to use blackhat SEO.

What is Blackhat SEO?
There are two main forms of search engine optimization - whitehat SEO and blackhat SEO. Whitehat SEO tactics are the everyday optimization techniques that reputable companies, SEO specialists and Internet marketers use to make their website(s) more visible to the search engines. Keyword placement; quality backlinks; blogging; social networking; meta tag optimization - they're all ethical ways to optimize a website, which in turn helps that site climb the all-important Google rankings and similar.

Blackhat SEO techniques, on the other hand, are very dubious, largely unethical methods to make your website look more popular than it is. These include spamming; building thousands of irrelevant backlinks; cloaking keyword-stuffed pages so they don't show up on search engine spider indexes, but do contribute to keyword searching; duplicate content and more. Blackhat SEO is very popular with unethical Internet marketers that set up hundreds of automated websites to sell you something that you probably don't need, and more than likely doesn't work.

Blackhat SEO Saves Money - A Fallacy
Many "SEO specialists" that recommend using blackhat SEO techniques will usually try and tell you that it's worth it because it saves you money. They'll try and convince you that building and promoting a blackhat SEO website costs a lot less money that what you would spend on traditional SEO methods. This is a crock.

While you can certainly set up a website free of charge today, thanks to the likes of Wordpress and SynthaSite, and you can then stuff hundreds of keywords onto that site to try and get it noticed, it'll only be a short-term gain. Google and the other search engines are constantly updating their search engine algorithms to combat blackhat SEO techniques, and websites found using these methods will be blacklisted by Google.

Now, considering that Google is the most popular search engine on the planet, having your business blacklisted because of unethical search engine techniques is quite possibly the worst thing that can happen to you. Potential customers won't be able to find you through keyword searches, leaving your competition to clean up, and businesses won't want to be associated with you for fear of being connected to your site. Basically, you'll be killing your business online.

So, is blackhat SEO really worth it? Definitely not - after all, you wouldn't tolerate an employee who continued to cause you problems and money, would you? Instead, use tried and tested search engine optimization methods and leave blackhat SEO to the fast-forgotten crowd.

About the Author

Danny Brown is the owner and Managing Director of Press Release PR, providing search engine optimized press releases and SEO-friendly web content for the commercial and consumer market. With a BA in English and a Certified Associate of Marketing degree, Danny now resides in Canada, where Press Release PR continues to draw plaudits and clients alike.

Labels: blackhat, blogs, seo, whitehat

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By: Duane Jacobson

I don't know how many times I've been asked. "Many People ask How do I get traffic to my website?"

To best discuss this topic I should break this down into categories

1. Title Tags
The title Should contain keywords and keyword phrases that is important to your site. Our recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 60.
Also when counting your characters remember that spaces are considered as well.
Titles should appeal to the reader otherwise even a top position will lose a lot of clicks.
For example, "shoes,nike shoes,best shoes,review shoes," is unlikely to induce a click. What may induce a click would be like:
Shoes - Find out the latest styles on name brand shoes.

2. Description
The maximum number of characters I recommend for this Tag is 150. Any longer than this and it will only be cut off and may count against your site being listed high in the search engines. Try to repeat your keywords that you used in your title in a proper sentence and in 3rd party. Avoid I, Me, Myself etc

3. Keywords
keywords My recommended maximum number of characters for this tag is 250. Any more than that may be considered spamming. Keep your keywords focused upon what your site is about.
Don't think that if I use an assortment of different keywords that your site will be a seller. Targeted marketing is associated with your keywords.

4. Keyword Nesting
Description: A term used in searching to indicate the sequence in which operations are to be performed
Enclosing words in parentheses identifies a group or "nest." Groups can be within other groups.
The operations will be performed from the innermost nest to the outermost, and then from left to right.
keyword nesting is nesting your top 5 most important keywords in the html page that the public will see. I would recommend using the keywords that you've used in your title, description.

5. Head Tags not to be confused with (head) tags def.
HEAD or HEADER (of HTML document)
The top portion of the HTML source code behind Web pages, beginning with and ending with . It contains the Title, Description, Keywords fields and others that web page authors may use to describe the page. The title appears in the title bar of most browsers, but the other fields cannot be seen as part of the body of the page. To view the portion of web pages in your browser, click VIEW, Page Source. In Internet Explorer, click VIEW, Source. Some search engines will retrieve based on text in these fields.
Head Tags should be a repeat of your title tag. Most webmasters put their head tag right after the body tag. A head tag will look like this (h1) (/h1) with the ( and ) being replaced with < >

6. Anchor Links
Anchor Links is one of the most important html tags that your site needs to gain search engine page rank
especially in google and msn.

Author Bio
For more information please go to: http://www.newworldproducts.com

Labels: back links, basics, keywords, seo, title tags

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By: James Day

Search engine optimization has evolved into a competitive, growing industry. There are plenty of hoaxes and scams on the web. It seems that as the Internet grows more complex, so do the scams. Choosing an effective company can be quite a challenge. There are many factors to consider when hiring an SEO service. This article gives advice on how to select a credible website optimization service.

Assess the services and credibility of the SEO company. Customer service is always the key factor that one should look at. There are many ways of assessing an SEO service. One can try to inquire by placing a call or by sending an email to the company. Depending on the courtesy and time of response, you can initially assess its customer service. Does the company provide an "about us" page on their website? A reputable online business will provide an informative look at the personal side of their company and who they are. Look for other company details such as, the company address and location.

Avoid a guarantee of instant results or the #1 position. There are many factors to consider when optimizing a webpage. Search engines use different algorithms and their spiders can vary. Any SEO company that guarantees the #1 position in the search results should be avoided. A legitimate company will be straight forward and honest and will tell its clients that no single company can give a guarantee of the top positions in the search results. A desirable SEO service should also provide reports and details regarding the standing of a client's website. They will be able to track the developments of their clients website in terms of keywords, links and their rankings in the major search engines.

A customer testimonial can provide a valuable insight when assessing a company's credibility. A satisfied customer is always a good indication of the effectiveness of a company's operations and will always be the most valuable piece of information about its integrity. If possible try to locate and contact people who have received benefits from hiring an optimization service or at least try to validate the testimonials.

It's important to consider the cost of website optimization. Keep in mind a higher price does not necessarily mean the expensive services are more effective than the less expensive ones. The optimization rates companies charge may vary greatly. Search engine optimization is a trial and error process which requires research, hard work and dedication. Make sure the SEO service is primarily involved in search engine optimization and does not treat it as a sideline.

Author Bio
Article written by the CEO of: www.submit-site.org

Labels: credibility, customer service, seo, seo company

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Search Engine Optimization companies are making a fortune by doing the menial work that is overlooked by many designers. It is ridiculously easy to do most of the work done by most SEO companies, all you have to do is create good habits.

There are 9 main points you should focus on:

- Keywords
- URL Text
- Description, Meta tags
- Title tags
- Image Names
- ALT tags
- Heading tags
- Content
- Hyperlinks

The focus of these 8 steps is to load your pages with as many "keywords" as possible.

Keywords
Keywords are the most important aspect of good SEO, this is where you tell the Search Engines what your site is about. Search Engines use an algorithm to determine the "Keyword Density" of your site, this formula is:

Total Words divided by Keywords= Keyword Density

Use this formula on your competitors web site and see how they score, then aim to beat that score.

Choose keywords that best relate to the information, products or services that you are offering. For instance, if I am designing a site about "Web Design", I want my site to include the words "Web Design" as many times as possible.

However, most people don't just search for just one word, they type phrases, so you should consider the phrases that best suit your sites target market. For example, if I am creating a site about "Web Design" in New Orleans, I would include "New Orleans web design" in my keywords. Another way around this is to not separate my keywords with commas, just use spaces, and the Search Engines will make the phrases for you. The most important thing to remember is that the content of each page is different, so only use keywords pertaining to that page.

URL Text
When you name a new page you have the option to call it anything you could possibly think of, why not use a keyword? After all, the URL address is the first things a search engine comes across when indexing your pages. You have to remember content doesn't come easy to everyone, so you gotta slip in your keywords when the process gives you an easy one.

Description Meta tags
These tags are dwindling in importance since Search Engines are now looking at content, but every little bit counts.

Optimize your meta tags to match your content, products, and services, and the Search Engines that still look at meta data will reward your efforts.

Title Tags
Title tags are the tags that tell the Search Engine the title, or formal description of the document or page. This is the word or phrase that is seen at the top of the browser window. The most important rule about title tags is, don't put anything in the title tags but keywords. Once again this is an easy time to slip in your keywords, so don't miss out.

Image Names
As I said before, content doesn't come easy to everyone, so slip in your keywords whenever possible, this applies to image names. If you are saving a picture of a guy working on a computer for your web design web site, don't call it "some_dude.jpg", call it "web_site_design.jpg". The Search engine will look at the code for the site and see the image pertains to the content of the site and this will be another relevant element on that particular page. You have to take the easy ones when you are given a chance.

ALT tags
Alt tags are keywords that you can attach to images, giving more weight to the image since Search Engines can't analyze the content of the image itself. Here is a chance to slip in more keywords without writing great content, use it.

Heading tags
Heading tags are associated with the bold font that leads into a section of text. Like this:

Web Design
Web Design Inc. offers custom web site designs...

Your heading tags should only be keywords, and should be presented in the order that your Meta tags follow.

H1= first meta tag, H2= second meta tag...

Try to utilize all 6 heading tags on each page to ensure maximum page optimization.

Content
As every expert will tell you, "Content is King." Each web page should have at least 350 words on it, and the more the better, but keep in mind the formula for keyword density. You don't want to fill a page with 1500 words of jibba-jabba and only 5 keywords in it. Some people get hung-up on how browsers display text, and use images with text in them because they want a cool font, but browsers can't read the text embedded in images, so this content ads no weight to the page in a Search Engines eyes.

Linkbaiting is the new trend among high ranking sites. Linkbaiting means writing quality content, or articles that other web sites can display on their pages as long as they give credit, and a link to your site.

You don't have to be a vi or emac expert to write good web content, just be thoughtful of how you word things and incorporate your keywords.

Hyperlinks
Hyperlinks are text links to other pages on your site. The rules of SEO and hyperlinks are easy:

- Use hyperlinks so the Search Engine will have a text link to follow to the next page
- Don't use one word links, use long link phrases, preferably keyword phrases
- Use bullets, or some sort of small image that you can attach an ALT tag to, this will ad more importance to the link, and throw in a couple of free keywords for you.

Keep these 9 aspects in mid when designing a site, and you are sure to have a leg up on the competition.

Author Bio
Murry Daniels is the owner of Goatsmilktavern Studios, www.goatsmilktavern.com, a web design and internet marketing company in New Orleans, Louisiana.

Labels: keywords, link building, meta tags, seo

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In the vast world of SEO, there is no shortage of opinions on how, why, and when to do what to your site to make it rank better on the search engines. I have been performing SEO for some time now, but in part it's been on my own website and for my own small business. Now that I've started my own SEO company it gives me far more time to research new techniques, try out the latest fads, and above all else discover what the truth is behind this relatively new form of marketing. Yet, there is something to be said for grabbing the bull by the horns and trying the do-it-yourself method for your small business. SEO is not particularly complicated. All you really need is some basic html knowledge, a few commonly used free online SEO tools for keyword research, and most importantly time. This is where I fell short in my do-it-yourself SEO attempts.

In the business world there is one major factor that contributes largely to all others. Sales. Without sales you have little if any operating budget for marketing, but without marketing where are your sales coming from? From my own experience running a small business, I found that my number one problem was having the time to do enough marketing to generate the sales I needed to run my business profitably. If you're a large company with investors, or at least have a large staff and/or marketing department, perhaps the issues of time aren't as dire. However for the small business owner with just a few employee's, or as it was in my case just myself and the volunteer help of a few friends, I found myself wearing lots of different hats. On the one hand I had to run and maintain my business and develop the products I was trying to sell in a very competitive market. This in itself was a full time job and left little time for much else. And yet on the other hand I had to find a way to market my products so potential customers would know about them and know how to buy them.

I began learning about SEO and how it could benefit my bottom line. I talked to people in the industry and discovered that if I had the time I could in fact do it myself. This of course was extremely appealing because I would be saving money on not having to hire a company or staff to do it for me. Pretty simple. The more I learned, the more work piled up and my product development suffered. I wasn't getting the results on the search engines I had hoped for quick enough, and in turn, I wasn't spending enough time working on my product development either. It became a true catch 22 situation. I didn't have the time I needed to spend on product development and marketing at the same time.

My business was in a state of disarray, so I put it on hold and decided to use what I had learned about SEO and offer my marketing services to other small businesses at an affordable rate in an effort to make enough money to save my company. The venture allowed me to spend all of my time learning about SEO and the ins and outs of the Search Engines. I never did go back to my other business. I found that Search Engine Optimization was a better market for me, and I like helping the small businesses compete against the giant corporations. I continue to provide affordable SEO services to small businesses and take a personal approach to each client simply because I know what it's like on that side of the fence too. Business is about one thing. Sales. A slick SEO campaign will generate nothing but sales. The return on investment is exponential and any small based business is a big step ahead of the rest with the right Search Engine Optimization company behind them.

John Simmonds
Affordable SEO Services

Labels: do it yourself, seo, seo company, small business

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Inbound Links are the life blood of a website and the Pathway to Success revolves around these links. In a broad sense these inbound links can be categorized under three groups, Good, Bad and Useless Links. The good links can indeed sky-rocket your website up the popularity ladder to fame and fortune while on the other hand the bad Links can dump your website out of sight in the internet. The useless Links will be of no help or value to you. So it stands to reason that you cultivate good links if you want to be successful in your online business.

Useful Good Inbound Links:

These links will bring enormous benefits to your website. They can increase your search engine visibility which will indicate the popularity of your site thus increasing your link popularity, page rank, traffic and sales.

If you have unique and useful content in your site other websites will link to your site to provide their website visitors a good website experience. This will give you useful inbound links and valuable targeted traffic.

Listing your website in both paid and free high ranking web directories can give good one way inbound links. Some free directories might insist on reciprocal linking but this should not be of concern to you as they are all useful links.

Writing quality authoritative articles and submitting them to article directories and article distributors with your website URL in the resource box is a smart way of obtaining one way links. This will soon grow viral as webmasters publish them in their articles and ezines bringing you hundreds or even thousands of valuable one way links.

Search Engines do not devalue all reciprocal links. They do appreciate quality, theme related reciprocal links. In addition it will be a great bonus if you can identify sites that the search engines consider as authority sites in the same theme as your site and exchange links with them.

Social Book marking is becoming increasingly popular day by day. Here you can maintain a personal collection of links online and also allow access to any others online. Linking your site or articles to popular social sites is another great way of obtaining useful good links and traffic.

Bad Inbound Links:

These are inbound links that are disliked by search engines especially Google and can do enormous harm to your website. By linking to these websites knowingly or unknowingly, you can be penalized or blacklisted by the search engines.

Avoid linking to sites search engines consider as Link Farms. These are sites that have hundreds of assorted links linking to each other in a page. By linking to them your credibility will be at stake and probably be penalized by the search engines.

Search Engines disapprove Free For All sites also known as FFA sites. Here you can place an advertisement with your link in it. Your advertisement will appear along with thousands of others and would probably get an exposure of an hour or so. It is wise to keep away from these sites.

You should also avoid Bad Neighborhoods because these are websites that have been penalized or banned by the search engines. By linking to them you too risk being penalized by the search engines.

Useless Inbound Links:

Some inbound links are neither good nor bad. They are in fact useless and of no benefit to you. You should avoid linking to sites that are irrelevant to the theme of your website even if they are of high page rank. Search Engines are not going to give any credit for this and you will hardly get any targeted traffic from them either.

Similarly linking to websites with very low PR even if they are of the same theme will not be of immediate benefit.

Conclusion:

Ultimately the secret of your success will depend on the inbound links you obtain from useful good websites and ignoring all the others. The obvious results will be increase in link popularity, good search engine placement and great traffic.

Copyright © 2008 Kanaga Siva.

Kanaga Siva is an experienced Author and Marketer. For more Tips and a useful Internet Marketing experience you are welcome to visit his Free Home Based Business Website and Blog.

Labels: back links, link building, search engines, seo

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The success of a search engine optimization campaign depends largely on the number of back-links from other websites. Websites are windows to the products and services that you offer. It is hence important that your website ranks high on search engines in order to increase sales.

Statistics show that over 70% visitors to a website come from search engines. There is little doubt now a days that search engine ranking is important for a business to succeed in today's internet driven economy.

There are approximately 40 million websites online today and only a handful can appear on the first few pages of search engines. The number of other websites that link to a website is the most important factor that decides which website appears on the first page of a search engine when a search is performed. Why is it important for other websites to link to your website? Search engines treat links to your website as a sort of a voting system. The more the sites that link to you the higher the vote your website gets. When another website links to your website it adds authority to your website. It is one of the most important factors for coming on top of search engines. Google uses its own set of rules called page rank to determine the importance of a website on its searches. There are about 5 million variables that decide which website appears on search results of a search engine. Links to your website is the most important of them all. In order for a business to maximise the benefits of the internet, It is important to have an ongoing search engine marketing strategy that focuses on getting related websites linking back to yours. An effective search engine optimization campaign should identify other related websites to get back-links from.

www.kronikmedia.co.uk/blog

Labels: back links, links, search engines, seo

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The banner page should clearly indicate what the site is about. Provide a navigation scheme on the first page and stick to it throughout your website. Your logo should be clearly placed above the fold of the page, and the page should clearly state to your visitor EXACTLY what your website is all about. If you fail this, you will lose your visitors faster than anything. Your banner page should be informative, and should call your visitor to action. The banner page is the place where the visitor decides whether it will be worthwhile staying, they will either click on some of your links, or will leave the site. If you have a discount, or if you offer a certain free service in an attempt to make contact with your potential customers, take care to provide the link to this service on your banner page. If you decide to apply some kind of fancy introduction to your first page, take care to offer the possibility for the user to skip the introduction. The link “skip introduction” should be separate from any flash on the page, because you will force the visitor to wait until the whole thing has downloaded. Nothing irritates visitors more and makes them leave faster than being confused or kept waiting.

Structure of navigation
A commercial website is NOT the place to experiment with navigation. We expect to see navigation on the left or the top of the site because we read from left to right and top to bottom. Placing navigation on the right of the page can be a fundamental but fatal flaw. Users are becoming used to advertisements on the right of a page and this can create a strange kind of menu blindness. Remember the cardinal rule, if they are confused or kept waiting they will leave. Make it as obvious as you can when it comes to navigation, don’t be tempted to experiment for the sake of being different.

Your navigation should be consistent on every page of your website, don’t mix and match different menu placement for different situations. Be clear and consistent. While we are on the subject, avoid the need to open menu links in a new browser in a new frame or new window. It is acceptable to open “external links” this way but a frame is always more acceptable. New windows don’t always open fully and can look like pop up ads.

Size of font
Your font size should be large enough so that your text can be read without effort. There are many people who will not take the trouble of reading tiny fonts. If possible, add an option to re size the font on the page. This is a “requirement” on education and government sites, it is seen as discrimination not to do so. To keep your visitors (and keep them happy) the optimal size seems to be 12-13 point. The visitor should be able to read your text easily and without any effort. Creating breaks between paragraphs makes text easier to read and avoids overloading the visitor.

Line length
The length of a line of the type should be comfortable for reading. The optimal line length for printed materials seems to be approximately 10 to 12 words, or 60 to 70 characters. Lines slightly shorter at approximately 40 to 50 characters can be more suitable for longer texts. Long, awkward text looks amateurish and tends to turn the reader off.

Creating emphasis
It is important to create emphasis and, handled with taste and good judgement, it can help direct and inform the reader. When these qualities are missing, or each word is given equal importance then your Web page begins to resemble a battle field and it becomes difficult to read!

Graphics
It is well-known that a picture is worth a thousand words (more like a million). This rule applies to the Internet too. Make your best effort to show clear, attractive photographs of your product. If you offer a service, find a photograph which will describe it better. However, pay attention to the size of the file. Try not to compress your photograph to the point where it ceases to be clear. Also don’t leave the photograph at full quality. That will make the file much too large, and the loading time will increase.

GIF Vs JPEG
Less experienced Web creators mistakenly think that JPG must be better since it optimises pictures and makes them smaller. Well that is half right but if you have pictures or logos with less than 16 or 32 colours why would you need JPG with it’s 16+ million colours? Gif can reduce down to 16 or 32 colours and can also include transparency information if needed. Whilst JPG is generally a safe option, it makes sense to be aware of it’s limitations (reduction of picture definition, lots of colours) and also the benefits of the GIF format. Personally I have never been a big fan of GIFs, but that doesn’t mean that I refuse to use them if the situation warrants it.

Mike A.

Mike runs a Web Design and SEO site in Oxfordshire. Visit his site at The Meeting Junction.

Labels: gif's, images, jpeg's, seo, web design

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There are several techniques in SEO which every webmaster should know in order to achieve higher search engine rankings for the website. The more you come to know about these techniques, the better will be the performance of your web pages in search engines.

As SEO is the real way to attract traffic to your website, so it is very important that you understand the basic tricks involved in higher search engine rankings. Some of good seo tricks and techniques are:

The title tag is one of the most useful SEO Services technique that should be used with creativeness. Place the exact keyword used for the webpage in the title tag.

Link popularity is the other major aim of SEO Services . Generally most search engines do not like those websites that do not have links pointing to them. This will not only increase the traffic but also provide good rankings and enhance value of your website.

It is essential for all webmasters to have basic understanding of all simple SEO Techniques in order to have the top search engine rankings for their website. The more you know about search engine optimization techniques the better your web pages will be in google.

Keyword density is an important aspect of SEO and it should be properly researched. The keywords should be used only once in the title tag, heading and body text.

Use different title on each of web page with its own primary keywords at the beginning of page title. Get your keywords in much of the anchor text of both internal and external links.

While offering SEO Services it is essential to make a website that is rich in theme because search engines are more interested in themes. Built the content that is related to your website and that is minimum of 250 words per page because the speed of your web page indicates a lot to your visitors and search engines. Always add unique and fresh content on the regular basis that attracts visitors to come back to your website.

Always remember to add sitemap to structure your website for spiders.

Submit article to article directories with link to your sites. Find forums related to your niche. Join these forums, actively participate in it and advertise your website there according to the rules and regulations of these forums.

Submit your website to the good directories.

These techniques listed above can really help you to optimize your website in search engine results and enhance the search engine rankings. But it is necessary for you to follow them regularly.

About the Author

Rajeev Guglani writes articles for SEO.He has vast exposure in writing for Web Promotions.He is working for NDDW. For Website Promotion ,Internet Marketing , SEO Services India visit www.nddw.com

Labels: keywords, links, search engines, seo, techniques

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A site map basically is a page that features or lists the links you have on your web site. This will make it easier for search engines to proceed and spider your web site. It is usually found near the bottom page of a web site.

The following tips will be very useful in designing a site map:

1. Link the sitemap only to your homepage. This is to ensure that the spider starts searching from your homepage down to all the pages listed in your sitemap. In this way, no page would be left unvisited by the spider.

2. Do not go beyond 30 pages for a sitemap. Large websites having 50 or more pages should not go beyond 30 since this adds more pages to the site, and might make search engines think that the sitemap is a link farm. Also, this prevents overcrowding of links which could be tiring to view.

3. Check all the links listed in your sitemap. It can be discouraging when you click on a link only to find out that nothing is displayed. Test your sitemap; click all links in every page to make sure that all links are indeed linked to the right page.

4. Give keyword-rich titles to sitemap links. Keyword-rich titles give your site more advantage in being searched properly under the right category. But be sure to have this sitemap link linked back to the sitemap (e.g. back to sitemap).

5. Provide a short description for the links in the sitemap. Doing so would give readers a better idea of what to find in the link and save them time on surfing.

6. Be consistent in designing your sitemap with the other pages of the site. Employ a recurring design and the same HTML template for all pages to establish identity and build character to your website.

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There are at least three major types of sitemaps: indexed, full categorical, and restricted categorical. An indexed site map appears as an alphabetical listing or directory. A full categorical map displays all links classified into categories; while a restricted categorical sitemap displays all links listed in a chosen category at a time. The full and restricted sitemaps are very similar except that the former displays all links in all categories all at once in a page, while the latter focuses only the links under the selected category for easier and less eye-straining viewing.

Some tips in setting up your sitemap

1. No page would be left unturned Going back to the purpose of sitemaps, having one would mean faster and easier tracking and crawling of spiders all over your site. As a result, search engines would surely get to the view all the pages of your site and not just the pages containing random keywords.

2. Easier navigation for site visitors Once a web user has accessed your sitemap, they need not go back to the search engine page to look for what they need. If what they are looking for is in your site, then they would have an easier and faster way of locating it.

3. Potential advertising value If it so happens that a relevant product or service company reaches your site, then it would be easier for them to see how best they can position themselves in the different pages of your site as a paid page advertisement.

4. Encourage greater traffic to your site If your company website has a sitemap then potential buyers would have an easier time in accessing your latest products and services. Moreover, they would not miss out on any product that might be off future interest to them since the sitemap would display all information found the site.

Now that you have learned basic things about sitemaps, maybe it is time for you to build one for your site.

About the Author

Anne-Marie Ronsen is the author of many wealth and self development books. Download FREE e-books from www.e-bestsellers.com, http://www.plrbestsellers.com or http://www.universalpublishingltd.com ...You will learn about the best tips and recommendations to improve your health, weight and wealth. You'll also discover FREE Premium content at http://www.ibestof.com/ and Manual Submission Directory at: http://www.webdirectorybank.com

Labels: ebooks, keywords, seo, sitemap

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In order to grow your business through the web and optimize your homepage, you have to work with search engine robots. These bots look for relevant web pages and filter out those that are not. They are that simple. But how do you get these bots to find your site and place it in the top ten items searched? One of the most important factors for promoting your site is a good search engine optimization (SEO) copy. Effectively written SEO copy will enable users and bots to find your site with ease and interest.

Let us use a vitamin business as an example. First you need a worthy topic and engaging title to begin writing. Because we are in the vitamin business, an article about phytonutrients, cholesterol blockers or nutrition would be ideal. Next you want a catchy title that will relate to the information and that would have keywords that are relevant to your business. How Phytonutrients Can Save Your Life or The Truth about Cholesterol: the Silent Killer are examples of eye-capturing titles. Now we have to find the right keywords for optimization.

You might want to use a tool like WordTracker or Keyword Optimizer to find out which keywords are viable and which ones will relate best to your product or service. These tools will also help you track your keywords and see how many times the words were used in a search. Google and Google AdWords also have great tools that suggest relevant keywords. If you have high relevance on your SEO copy, you will automatically receive high rankings on Search Engine Results Page (SERPs). However, if your relevant keywords are too competitive, then you will need to do some research in order to succeed.

Finally, when you check out the competition, be sure not to model your SEO campaign after their efforts. Rather, use their campaigns as a base for newer ideas on how to push your site to the top. Some things to look for on competitor sites are layout and format, SEO, sales copy and linking.

About the Author

Converting visitors to buyers is the ultimate objective of most websites. The Web Success Team has an arsenal of online direct response marketing techniques to entice visitors to take action while on your website. Contact the Team today and we'll show you how to beef up your online marketing efforts make your website capture more buyers and generate more income for your products and services. http://www.websuccessteam.com

Labels: articles, content, copy, keywords, seo

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SEO is the acronym for search engine optimization. This title refers to the process of improve the page ranking of your web site through careful use of keywords, keyword placement and links to and from other web sites.

What is it?

SEO is a carefully created method of improving the probability of your web page appearing on the results page of a search engine query. The nearer the top of the search engine results page your web site appears, the more likely that searchers will click on your web site link and go on to purchase the product or service you represent. You can perform search engine optimization yourself, or hire an expert to do it for you. There are approved ways to improve your standing and ways that can get you banned. It's important that you do the optimization correctly to avoid getting your web site shut down.

Who needs it?

Any small business owner with products or services advertised online should make the effort to optimize their web site so as to achieve the best results when the search engine spiders visit your site. There are SEO algorithms that are used that are generally proprietary and different search engines look for different components in order to determine the rank of the specific web page. Naturally, each web site owner wants to achieve the highest possible page ranking for the products or services that are displayed on the web site. Getting your page ranking as near to the top of the search results as possible gives you more web browsers seeing your link.

How to get the best results

The best results for SEO is to determine the specific algorithm used by a particular search engine and write your web site to use the best possible mix of keywords, links, and placement so as to improve your ranking. Attention should be paid to using the keywords or keyword phrases correctly. Not only the number of times they are used, but in what context they are used. Even the placement of keywords on the page is important for best results. Another factor that is important is that of links to other web pages.

How does SERP apply?

SEO best results are returned on the SERP or Search Engine Results Page. When a searcher on the internet uses terms in a search engine query box, the search engine returns results on a page called the Search Engine Results Page. This can be a few links up to thousands of links, but few searchers look beyond the first page or two of results, since the results often are less relevant as you move further down the page. The ranking of your web page up toward the top of the list is what can increase your sales significantly.

Page rankings

Page rankings are the somewhat arbitrary number assigned to web pages based on the SEO results identified by the search engine spiders or robots. Each major search engine relies on a different algorithm for ranking, although there are similarities between the three major search engines, MSN. Yahoo and Google. The goal of search engine optimization techniques is to have the web page appearing on the first page of search results for the specific query.

Optimization techniques and resources information can be found at Search Engine Marketing or Search Engine Optimization. SEO is the goal of each business and web site owner in order to increase the sales revenue for the

Author - Alan Lim

Labels: keywords, link building, page rank, search engine optimization, seo

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of improving traffic to your Web Site from Search Engines using targeted keywords. This means that the more you focus your website on your niche the more traffic for your niche you will receive, which translates into More Qualified Buyers!

Optimizing your site means more recognition by Google, Yahoo, MSN, and all the search engines. The Keywords you want to use in your website are words that people would type into the search engines to find your product.

It is best to design your website for one particular niche and not a wide variety. For example if you sell Shoes, you would want to design a site for the different types or Brands of shoes. You build a website for 'Ladies Shoes' or 'Nike Shoes' or 'Golf Shoes'. Focusing on 1 product or 1 type of product.

Having to many different or non-related products will dilute your keyword relevance and lower your ranking in the Search Engines. It is inexpensive and well worth building multiple sites for different types of products rather than trying to pile them in one site.

Why is Search Engine Optimization important? 100% Free! - You don't have to pay for traffic 100% targeted! - What could be more targeted than a person who actually SEARCHED for what you're offering? 100% Auto-pilot! - You don't have to send any emails or place any ads. Your visitors will come round the clock regardless of where you are or what you're doing. There is many online articles and online training courses available to help you learn about & understand SEO. There are also several software packages available that help make Search Engine Optimizing your site easy.

Erog Lee

Labels: search enignes, seo, tips, traffic

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Getting Your Site Noticed

Today's marketing the internet business calls for many types of media avenues.

Submit articles to directories within specific industry sites including your link at the bottom of your articles. In addition don't forget the most powerful tool which is social media marketing.

Write articles that are up-to-date for the particular industry of your product. Use unique content and ADD your link to them as well. Adding your link and getting it on a social media site will ensure that it will be crawled by the search engines.

Things that you need to remember when posting is to:

Watch these sites and familiarize yourself within them.

Start posting after you have become accustomed to them. Comment on other posts. Be respectful and objective.

Add your profile with your link along with your picture, and participate on a regular basis.

Add RSS feeds.

Use many types of these sites, not just one as this will give yourself more opportunities.

Put your article on your site.

Update your site on a regular basis with refreshing.

Link with other sites for more exposure. Promote the RSS feeds of those who link back to you. More links creates more exposure to your site. Many of these other sites are looking for visibility as well as you. They want the exposure as well in many different mediums.

Use RSS feeds. Also purchase RSS feeds for maximum presence.

Blogging is an essential tool to getting attention to your site. Having these links back to your website is advantageous to search engine optimization.

Creating your website is your first step but don't just stop there! Get YOUR SITE NOTICED!

Sandi Baker See my other articles for more tips letusgetitdone.info

Labels: articles, blogging, seo, social networking

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I wanted to review 7 long held SEO misconceptions and discuss the truths. In order to separate the SEO truths from traditional misconceptions or errors, you always must first examine the truth.

For example, if an expert is trying to determine a counterfeit $100 dollar bill from a real $100 bill, he only gains insight by examining the real bill first. You could examine many different counterfeit bills for a long time and never gain any ground at all. But once you know and understand the real government issued bill, then you can spot the false things much more quickly.

A Word about Hats: White, Grey or Black

First let me say that most SEOs are not all bad people. They are not all schemers who are just out to get your money. Like anything else, there are people who are good and bad in every area of life. When it comes to practicing SEO skills, there are many people doing many different things, but it all comes down to the intent of the individual person.

People pegged for being "black hats" usually think quite a little bit differently than the SEO professional. The Black hat is more prepared to lose the domain and knows that they are always on the run and they often view the search engines as the enemy. Search engines MUST be "outsmarted" or so they are convinced. Some tend to enter more like a game with throwaway domain names that they'll purchase in quantity knowing that they'll have to do the same types of things over and over again each time they get penalized.

White hat SEO professionals are more focused on creating high quality, useful content that serves a purpose and satisfies the reason why the user searched. They are not on the run, because they have nothing to fear being caught at. They tend to do the job once for long term stable rankings that can last for years.

Black hat technique tends to relate to "tricks" and little "short cuts" to try and fool the search engine.

Okay so this fits in part, with the first misconception or idea that was first pitched years ago. However, this first misconception is a major misconception. Here it is...

Misconception 1. You are at war with the search engines to gain top rankings. Therefore you must learn to do sneaky tricks to outsmart their algorithm. Therefore you must learn ways to beat the search engine to gain top visibility in search results. Have you heard this story before?

While this whole concept (probably dreamt up by a marketer years ago sometime) it cleverly appeals to a human beings somewhat carnal side of being "sneaky" or being able to beat the search engines at their own game by using "secrets" and "tricks." Even though the pitch may appeal to some people, the only trouble is that the concept is 100% FALSE from beginning to end. Some of you may be disappointed to hear this because for years, you thought you were at war with the search engines. Think a little bit more and let's separate marketing pitches from the real truth.

Truth 1: The truth is that you have never been at "war with the search engines." You are not required to "outsmart" or fool" the search engines at all to gain top visibility for your Web pages.

Listen up now. The only one you are truly competing with for visibility is your competitors, NOT the search engines. The whole idea that you must "beat" the search engines or "outsmart" the search engines is a completely false concept.

You never need to compete with any search engine. You never need to trick it or even try to "fool it" in order to get excellent visibility. A search engine does not really care whether you rank number 1 or not. They are fine with it, so long as you are offering relevant content that is useful and satisfies the reason why the user searched. Obviously any search engine does not want junk showing up in the results.

The only competition you have now or you have ever had, or will ever have in the future is with other competitors pages, not the search engines.

Being "sneaky" may appeal to some emotionally in a marketing pitch. It may make you even feel like the service or the course or publication will ultimately "make you smarter" somehow. But people need to learn to distinguish truth from error and you'll be blowing far less money on e-books, tool sets and memberships that appeal to the emotion but are founded on untruths.

Many marketers come across with this anger or emotion in their messages using words that are planted to trigger your emotions.

You can be sneaky... I am angry because... I am so embarrassed by what happened... You are going to learn a secret... I am going to show you something exciting! etc...

Don't let your emotions be exploited.

Learn to recognize a marketing mailer that is attempting to exploit your emotions. Recognize these types of messages. Separate them out from communications that offer advice based on truths. I'll do an article on this in the future.

Misconception 2: You must submit your Web site to the Search Engines, therefore you need to buy our services and we will submit your site to 30,000 search engines for only $29.95 per month. The misconception here is that a submission to a search engine is beneficial.

Truth 2: You are far better employing strategies that allow search engine robots to find your pages on their own (without submitting.) Any company that bases their whole concept of traffic or SEO on submitting does not understand how search engines work themselves. If you are using this type of service, save your money. There is no valid reason to be using a submission service for search engines. It is still being offered today widespread because there are always new people coming online to be exploited.

Misconception 3: If a Web site has been banned, the person must be an evil or unethical person.

Truth 3: Search Engine Workshops reject anything related to Spam or short cuts or tricks that are outside of the search engines guidelines, but we do not believe people are "always evil." Many people that get banned or penalized by the search engines, are not even aware of SEO best practices. The only thing they turn out to be guilty of in the end, is of never having had any real structured SEO skills training.

In other words they were listening to some bad advice or perhaps were not even aware that each search engine has guidelines. In some cases it's their Webmaster that may have gotten their site banned. Every situation is different but ultimately it's far better to gain your skills sooner than later. It is not always about good and evil but there most definitely is always a story behind the story and it boil down to user intent.

Misconception 4: SEO is a nightmare to try and learn.

It is extremely important to measure each SEO influence and get each factor exactly right. Therefore you need to research how many characters go in a title tag, keyword density, keyword prominence, keyword placement, how many keywords can go in a Meta tag plus all of the other factors for each individual search engine. This concept is what people seem to talk about because it's what some people are selling, but it is also completely false.

Truth 4: Sure you can spend your days measuring these types of things, but chances are you will be burning out after a while and getting very few success stories. This is because there are for more important things to understand that have an extraordinary impact in the results. SEO influences all affect one another, plus each search engine grades on a curve based on each specific industry.

Any researcher that tells you he is giving you the latest criteria based on these old fashion units of measurement will not make much impact. These days you are looking for the big picture, not individual influences one at a time. We have seen cases where people spend hours working on one page, when they could have dozens of pages performing for them in minimal time with much less stress. Yes I mean all 100% white hat strategies too, because these are all that we teach our students.

Misconception 5: You need to spend hours tweaking your source code each month to keep those top ranking positions. Therefore you cannot possibly manage your own in house search marketing. False again.

Truth 5: There are advantages to having your SEO handled by a professional firm that has been structurally trained. But don't buy it if someone says they must continually "tweak your code" to keep you in top place. It is just not true. Yes, you may want them creating fresh new content. Yes, you'll want continued practices if you're Blogging maybe for example. But if a page is ranking in top spot, leave it alone. If you do look at making changes, make sure you are grabbing a look at the entire search landscape for your industry.

Misconception 6: SEO is Dead. This myth makes a great attention grabbing article headline although in my opinion it has been a little bit over-used and rather gimmicky. If you've read it, it is completely false.

Truth 6: SEO is merely more competitive these days but SEO is far from being dead. SEO is alive and well!

It may feel like it is dead if you are relying on old second hand advice or listening to some marketers who are pushing their next big thing. Most Webmasters have access to all of the same old common tools that everyone else has, so there feels like there is less advantage than a few years ago.

Misconception 7: There is only one correct solution to solve a specific SEO challenge. If it is not my way, it is the wrong way. Needless to say this is also false.

Truth 7: For any specific SEO challenge there are often multiple solutions to choose from. In many cases there are alternative strategies that are all white hat and yet very solid solutions. Don't let anyone tell you that there is only one way. Every Web site is different with different challenges and you need to be equipped with the full range of solutions.

To gain a real significant advantage, the answer rests with building your genuine SEO skills and less reliance on tools.

* If you are interested in building genuine skills or managing a team overseeing SEOs then the surest why to close the gaps in your learning time is with a focus on live skills training and ongoing mentoring at a workshop or else study a course that focuses on teaching you the genuine skills. It is safe to say that you will be far less likely to ever be taken advantage of again, once your own knowledge is up to speed. * That being said, there are many who do not feel they can learn the skills. Maybe you're looking for hiring an SEO firm instead of managing your own projects. One of the easiest ways to separate the trained experts who have had good structured training from the hit and miss individuals (or worse,) is to simply examine the evidence of their work. Examine it closely so you can determine that behind them, the results show the evidence of their skills. - Ask them for a list of their recent client's phone numbers. - Ask them for a list of their oldest client contacts and their Web sites. - Dependable SEO services will never have trouble providing you with the evidence of their success although they may want to offer you client contacts in a different business category than the one you are in (out of respect for their clients.)

* While many SEOs will offer you typical proposals, try and watch for those who also have alternative approaches that will serve your best interest at reasonable cost. Optimization is only one aspect of visibility these days. It is not just about how many pages show up in the top rankings for specific keywords anymore. There are a lot of additional things that a well trained graduate can bring to you that are beyond SEO.

* Beware of any service that builds their whole success platform for SEO on "search engine submissions." Submitting to search engines is one thing you don't need to do and you don't need to do certain things over and over to get results. * Due diligence is the word of the day when hiring an SEO firm or seeking SEO skills training.

About the Author

John Alexander has taught live SEO workshops to people from over 80 different countries at http://www.SearchEngineWorkshops.com and also teaches live Webinars online at http://www.SEW-WRC.com

Labels: misconceptions, search engine optimization, seo, techniques

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Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a process of making web pages attractive to get high rankings on the search engines. As better the page optimized is, the higher a ranking it will get in search engine results. The objective of Search Engine Optimization is to improve the ranking of the web sites in major search engines like google, msn, yahoo etc. through optimizing content, building link popularity, search engine submission, directory submission etc.

As a part of a large marketing effort, SEO plays a very important role for the initial design and development of the site that help you to popularize your site among your targeted visitors. SEO involves a wide range of ethical strategies and techniques to improve search engine rankings. Below are some ethical seo techniques which are often widely used to utilize SEO:

DESIGN:

Optimising Web design of a web site is one of the important steps in SEO . Your website must be well designed using required applets to be easily noticeable. Here are given some mistakes which people often do not care but you must avoid them otherwise it will be difficult to get better rankings in search engines. You should avoid frames and also if you use flashes in your content as search engine spiders would not able to read flash text. you must add a description while using images.

KEYWORD:

The First and the most crucial step for optimizing a website is to research and define the best keywords. Right keywords selection can make you more visible and help you reach your target visitors and improves your search engine rankings too.You need some relevant or well known keywords which are usually used by people to get listed in search engines. In absence of right keywords search engines will not list your website.

TITLE TAG:

Title Tag have also an important role in SEO. Don't ignore them, they are a powerful tool and must be used to their fullest advantage. The Title tag helps the search engines decide the theme of the web page being crawled for indexing. When a search for keywords is conducted, the Title tag is given heavy consideration by major Search Engines like Google, Msn and Yahoo. You should remember that each page in your website is unique and needs a different Title tag. Place the most important keyword phrase for that particular page in the Title tag, and the page will get higher rankings in the search engines.

META TAG:

META tags are HTML tags that are used to include information about your web page they are created to give search engines the important information about your website. Search engines have recognized that website owners and administrators can use this resource to control their positioning and descriptions in search engine results.

ALT TAG:

ALT Tags are commonly omitted from web pages, from the smallest personal pages to the largest web corporate sites. Yet, if properly used, ALT Tags can be quite useful. Among other things ALT tags provide further detail about an image and other needed information. It also enables and enhances access for people with various disabilities.

Webexcel Solutions (ISO 9001:2000 Certified) A Software Development Company and an SEO Company
Author involve in research and analysis of various search engine strategies and algorithms. For more articles by author please visit- Latest Google SEO Tips and Strategies

Labels: design, on site, search engine optimization, seo

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