Adapt or die. Like in life, in business in order to survive you must adapt and modify. In these times things change at such a rapid pace it seems tomorrows technology is here before we've had a chance to learn today's technology. What used to be a simple chain of supply and demand has instead become an information war. Whoever can learn the most the quickest and apply it wins. On the internet there are many ways you can advertise your business. Only one is sustainable however and this is called Search Engine Optimization. This means that you make a website as relevant to your industry as possible in the hopes that when someone searches for your product or service they can find it and more specifically find you with ease.
There are several reasons why an internet business needs to optimize their website to appear highly in any major search engine. First and foremost, you need traffic to your website, without traffic nobody will buy your product. So then how does one attain traffic to a website? Well you must market your website so that you can reach your target customers. There are several ways to do this. You can pay for advertising on major websites or search engines. You can send out mass e-mails. Or you can be one of the first results a user sees on any given keyword in a search engine. If you use mass e-mails this is usually a turn off as it is seen as an unwanted solicitation a.k.a. spam. If you pay for ads this can be effective but has much larger opportunities for malicious manipulation and also is statistically less effective than traditional search results.
Search engine optimization then stands alone as the most effective and trustworthy form of internet marketing. Search engine companies have highly intelligent think tanks that create algorithms or a set of well defined instructions. These algorithms determine how web sites are categorized and which ones come up in the top of any search result.
These often are changed or modified so there is no foolproof way to ensure that your website is going to be the first website to appear in a search engine. However, as any experienced SEO expert will tell you there are many methods that can positively influence your rankings.
In the world of search engines content is king, because search engines give you the most relevant website according to your search. If you truly want to be successful with your internet business, you must invest into search engine optimization. Making your website theme oriented and not overly stuffed with keywords is important. When considering SEO for your website, there are a few myths to dispel. Most important of all is that SEO is not a magic bean that will boost your business to the top of the internet and there are NO guarantees. In addition like any investment true SEO takes time. Don't expect to throw a few thousand dollars haphazardly into SEO and expect your site to be a runaway success. Creating quality isn't easy. Also there are fluctuations; at first you may be ranked at #1 and then suddenly drop or you may also start off of the radar and eventually work your way up to #1. Developing a content rich website with value and relevancy is the way to achieve high rankings.
As you begin to consider all these complications and minute details take time to consider your business and your goals. If you're willing to invest in yourself and your future, then purchasing SEO services is an absolute must. When you're ready to pursue SEO services look for those with a proven track record and fair prices. Be wary of an extravagantly designed website with no references or SEO case studies. Also mind the pricing, if it is exceptionally low, you're probably going to get what you pay for and that's poor service. In the same regard if it is exceptionally high, that companies' services are likely overpriced and results may not yield any better than other companies.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Saturday, November 3, 2007
Google Sitemaps and your SEO Strategy
Like many of you, I am always trying to find as much information as I can on Search Engine Optimization. And also like many of you, I am doing it myself. I read online and buy books on search engine optimization and many of them all say the same things, just in a different way.
Sadly with most search engines the solution is simply the number of links pointing back to your site. The search engines feel that they can control the quality of their search results by focusing on the websites that have a large number of links pointing to them. Simply put, it's a popularity vote. Their reasoning is that if nobody else thinks your site is important, why should they index it.
That doesn't mean you can't get your site indexed though. In 2005 Google created a submission system called Google sitemaps. Yahoo soon followed with one of their own as well.
Aside from taking advantage of this tool to insure your site indexing, Google sitemaps also provide a variety of statistics related to your site. You can see what the search engines see in regards to pages that they can't find, your page rank and even search statistics.
"That's really great Ben, but my site is HUGE and I don't know anything about xml and how to format these things". Well I had the same problem, I have sitemaps with over 6000 links in them, and frankly I was not about to try and manually create a sitemap with all of those links, I just don't have the time. So I went ahead and created a smaller sitemap of all of my sites with a dozen or less elements included so that I would at least get something indexed.
That was until I stumbled over a sitemap generator that did all of the work for me. There are others out there but this one has a web page that you can go to and have them generate your sitemap, as well as a desktop version. It's called the ROR Sitemap Generator. And all you have to do is key in your domain name and let it do the rest.
There is also another great tool which also handles the Yahoo sitemap and that program is GSiteCrawler.
Save the sitemap to your directory, and viola! I used the desktop version personally because I've found that it performs quicker and doesn't hang up on sites with thousands of links. They also have the "ROR Feed Generator" which I've used with equal success.
Oh Yeah, and the best part, these tools are free. You can find them at www.rorweb.com and www.gsitecrawler.com. You will be able to let this tool create your sitemap, save the generated map as sitemap.xml, upload it to your website root directory, then log into your Google Sitemap account and enter the path to your sitemap and let google do the rest.
I recently did this for a friend and his site was indexed in 3 days. That's uncommon, it might take up to 30 days, but you'll get your pages indexed on google, and many of the other search engines will be able to index your site now too. Is it guaranteed? No. But I've had 100% success getting my pages and sites indexed personally.
Just in case you need help with Google Sitemaps, here's how you want to do the complete process.
Set up your account with Google Sitemaps at www.google.com/webmaster/sitemaps
Generate your sitemap.
Place your sitemap in your root directory of your website.
Log into your Google account.
Click the "Add" tab to add a new sitemap with your account.
Select the "General Website Sitemap" option.
Click Next.
Put in your domain name and path to your sitemap.xml file.
Click "Add Web Sitemap" 10. Take a deep breath, let out a big sigh, let the dog out or take him for a walk.
Now you've taken a major step in the right direction with search engines and utilizing Google Sitemaps with your SEO strategy. I hope this helps anyone trying to increase their site visibility using the D.I.Y. method, which is all many of us can afford.
Thanks for reading and much success.
Sadly with most search engines the solution is simply the number of links pointing back to your site. The search engines feel that they can control the quality of their search results by focusing on the websites that have a large number of links pointing to them. Simply put, it's a popularity vote. Their reasoning is that if nobody else thinks your site is important, why should they index it.
That doesn't mean you can't get your site indexed though. In 2005 Google created a submission system called Google sitemaps. Yahoo soon followed with one of their own as well.
Aside from taking advantage of this tool to insure your site indexing, Google sitemaps also provide a variety of statistics related to your site. You can see what the search engines see in regards to pages that they can't find, your page rank and even search statistics.
"That's really great Ben, but my site is HUGE and I don't know anything about xml and how to format these things". Well I had the same problem, I have sitemaps with over 6000 links in them, and frankly I was not about to try and manually create a sitemap with all of those links, I just don't have the time. So I went ahead and created a smaller sitemap of all of my sites with a dozen or less elements included so that I would at least get something indexed.
That was until I stumbled over a sitemap generator that did all of the work for me. There are others out there but this one has a web page that you can go to and have them generate your sitemap, as well as a desktop version. It's called the ROR Sitemap Generator. And all you have to do is key in your domain name and let it do the rest.
There is also another great tool which also handles the Yahoo sitemap and that program is GSiteCrawler.
Save the sitemap to your directory, and viola! I used the desktop version personally because I've found that it performs quicker and doesn't hang up on sites with thousands of links. They also have the "ROR Feed Generator" which I've used with equal success.
Oh Yeah, and the best part, these tools are free. You can find them at www.rorweb.com and www.gsitecrawler.com. You will be able to let this tool create your sitemap, save the generated map as sitemap.xml, upload it to your website root directory, then log into your Google Sitemap account and enter the path to your sitemap and let google do the rest.
I recently did this for a friend and his site was indexed in 3 days. That's uncommon, it might take up to 30 days, but you'll get your pages indexed on google, and many of the other search engines will be able to index your site now too. Is it guaranteed? No. But I've had 100% success getting my pages and sites indexed personally.
Just in case you need help with Google Sitemaps, here's how you want to do the complete process.
Set up your account with Google Sitemaps at www.google.com/webmaster/sitemaps
Generate your sitemap.
Place your sitemap in your root directory of your website.
Log into your Google account.
Click the "Add" tab to add a new sitemap with your account.
Select the "General Website Sitemap" option.
Click Next.
Put in your domain name and path to your sitemap.xml file.
Click "Add Web Sitemap" 10. Take a deep breath, let out a big sigh, let the dog out or take him for a walk.
Now you've taken a major step in the right direction with search engines and utilizing Google Sitemaps with your SEO strategy. I hope this helps anyone trying to increase their site visibility using the D.I.Y. method, which is all many of us can afford.
Thanks for reading and much success.
SEO: Real Black Hat Secrets Unleashed and How to Avoid it
SEO techniques are classified by some into two, broad categories:
1. White hat SEO: They are techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design and will give lasting results. 2. Black hat SEO: These are those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing.
Cloaking: Cloaking or Masking is a black hat technique used by some companies for their websites to deliver one version of the webpage to a search engine for indexing while delivering an entirely different page to users who visit the website. The search engine assumes the page that is being submitted to it as the correct match based on the metatags and the keywords of that webpage and indexes it highly. But, this page is not the correct one. The correct page is the one that is been visited by the users which is having a good navigation and usability. Why do companies adopt Cloaking? Because companies want to increase the search engine ranking of their websites and also protect these highly optimized pages(by the search engines) from other SEO firms.
There are 2 types of cloaking or page swapping:
1. User Agent Cloaking (UA Cloaking) 2. IP Agent Cloaking (IP Cloaking)
User Agent Cloaking
When a visitor (a search engine or a human) requests a page, the cloaking script compares the User Agent text string with its list of search engine User Agent names and then sends the appropriate page. Now, usually if a search engine spider requests a page, the User-Agent variable contains the name of the search engine. Thus, a page designed for the search engines is delivered. But, if the cloaking script does not detect the name of a search engine in the User-Agent variable, it assumes that the request has been made by a human being and delivers the page which was designed for human beings.
IP Agent Cloaking
This is the more complicated method to do cloaking. It involves IP address of search engine spiders. When a visitor (a search engine or a human) requests a page, the cloaking script checks the IP address of the visitor. If the IP address is present in the IP database, the cloaking script knows that the visitor is a search engine and delivers the page optimized for that search engine. And if the IP address is not present in the IP database, the cloaking script assumes that a human has requested the page, and delivers the page that is meant for human visitors.
But, you may now ask, how can a Search Engine Detect Page Cloaking?
There are 3 ways, how a search engine detects Page Cloaking or Code swapping. They are:
1. User Agent cloaking method: When a search engine sends a spider to a website without reporting the name of the search engine in the user agent variable. Now, If search engine finds dissimilar pages - one that is accessed by a spider which reports the search engine name and the other spider which doesn't report, then it is likely to be considered as a page cloaking.
2. IP Based cloaking method: When a search engine sends a spider to a website from a different IP address than the one that the spider has been continuously using so far, it becomes a totally new IP address for that spider which is not there in the database. So, when the page which is delivered to a spider having a known IP address is detected different than the page delivered to the spider with new IP address, then search engine knows that the page cloaking has been used by a site.
3. Human representative: When a human is assigned by search engine to visit a site in order to find out if the site has used cloaking. Now, if he finds that the page delivered to a search engine spider is totally different than the page he has viewed, then he identifies that the site has used cloaking.
Reverse Cloaking:
The DNS stores and relates many types of information with domain names, but most importantly, it translates domain names (computer hostnames) to IP addresses. At each and every step, the program queries a corresponding DNS server to provide a pointer to the next server which it should consult. However, if that pointer (PTR) is blank or misdirected, search engines-often-regard that site as cloaked.
Off late it was found that many websites were not been seen in the search engine results or were disappearing after a website migrates to a new server. After analysis, it was found that search engines could not resolve Domain Name Systems (DNS) with Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. That's where IP cloaking commonly begins.
If the DNS server points to 2 or more of your websites which are hosted on the same IP address, it is called reverse IP cloaking. It is a black hat technique. Why would anyone host a multiple number of websites on the same IP address? Because, to gain more back links for all those websites. As, most of the web pages of those the websites in this case are interlinked to each other to get more number of incoming links. So, this is considered to be a negative factor in terms of SEO.
So what to do to prevent such cases?
We should host multiple number of our websites in different IP addresses each, and then we can link a few number of pages of each of our site to each other. It is a valid technique in terms of SEO as the search engine treats each of the different IP address as a separate legal entity. So, your websites will now not be penalized as they are hosted on different IP addresses.
So, do not try to cheat search engines by using any of these black hat tactics. If you want lasting results, you should concentrate only on ethical search engine optimization.
1. White hat SEO: They are techniques that search engines recommend as part of good design and will give lasting results. 2. Black hat SEO: These are those techniques that search engines do not approve of and attempt to minimize the effect of, referred to as spamdexing.
Cloaking: Cloaking or Masking is a black hat technique used by some companies for their websites to deliver one version of the webpage to a search engine for indexing while delivering an entirely different page to users who visit the website. The search engine assumes the page that is being submitted to it as the correct match based on the metatags and the keywords of that webpage and indexes it highly. But, this page is not the correct one. The correct page is the one that is been visited by the users which is having a good navigation and usability. Why do companies adopt Cloaking? Because companies want to increase the search engine ranking of their websites and also protect these highly optimized pages(by the search engines) from other SEO firms.
There are 2 types of cloaking or page swapping:
1. User Agent Cloaking (UA Cloaking) 2. IP Agent Cloaking (IP Cloaking)
User Agent Cloaking
When a visitor (a search engine or a human) requests a page, the cloaking script compares the User Agent text string with its list of search engine User Agent names and then sends the appropriate page. Now, usually if a search engine spider requests a page, the User-Agent variable contains the name of the search engine. Thus, a page designed for the search engines is delivered. But, if the cloaking script does not detect the name of a search engine in the User-Agent variable, it assumes that the request has been made by a human being and delivers the page which was designed for human beings.
IP Agent Cloaking
This is the more complicated method to do cloaking. It involves IP address of search engine spiders. When a visitor (a search engine or a human) requests a page, the cloaking script checks the IP address of the visitor. If the IP address is present in the IP database, the cloaking script knows that the visitor is a search engine and delivers the page optimized for that search engine. And if the IP address is not present in the IP database, the cloaking script assumes that a human has requested the page, and delivers the page that is meant for human visitors.
But, you may now ask, how can a Search Engine Detect Page Cloaking?
There are 3 ways, how a search engine detects Page Cloaking or Code swapping. They are:
1. User Agent cloaking method: When a search engine sends a spider to a website without reporting the name of the search engine in the user agent variable. Now, If search engine finds dissimilar pages - one that is accessed by a spider which reports the search engine name and the other spider which doesn't report, then it is likely to be considered as a page cloaking.
2. IP Based cloaking method: When a search engine sends a spider to a website from a different IP address than the one that the spider has been continuously using so far, it becomes a totally new IP address for that spider which is not there in the database. So, when the page which is delivered to a spider having a known IP address is detected different than the page delivered to the spider with new IP address, then search engine knows that the page cloaking has been used by a site.
3. Human representative: When a human is assigned by search engine to visit a site in order to find out if the site has used cloaking. Now, if he finds that the page delivered to a search engine spider is totally different than the page he has viewed, then he identifies that the site has used cloaking.
Reverse Cloaking:
The DNS stores and relates many types of information with domain names, but most importantly, it translates domain names (computer hostnames) to IP addresses. At each and every step, the program queries a corresponding DNS server to provide a pointer to the next server which it should consult. However, if that pointer (PTR) is blank or misdirected, search engines-often-regard that site as cloaked.
Off late it was found that many websites were not been seen in the search engine results or were disappearing after a website migrates to a new server. After analysis, it was found that search engines could not resolve Domain Name Systems (DNS) with Internet Protocol (IP) addresses. That's where IP cloaking commonly begins.
If the DNS server points to 2 or more of your websites which are hosted on the same IP address, it is called reverse IP cloaking. It is a black hat technique. Why would anyone host a multiple number of websites on the same IP address? Because, to gain more back links for all those websites. As, most of the web pages of those the websites in this case are interlinked to each other to get more number of incoming links. So, this is considered to be a negative factor in terms of SEO.
So what to do to prevent such cases?
We should host multiple number of our websites in different IP addresses each, and then we can link a few number of pages of each of our site to each other. It is a valid technique in terms of SEO as the search engine treats each of the different IP address as a separate legal entity. So, your websites will now not be penalized as they are hosted on different IP addresses.
So, do not try to cheat search engines by using any of these black hat tactics. If you want lasting results, you should concentrate only on ethical search engine optimization.
Saturday, October 27, 2007
Search Engine Optimisation for the Faint Hearted, the Lazy and the Dumb
Search engine optimization or SEO is almost a dirty word that every Tom, Dick and Harry wants to apply to their website to make it findable to the common man. But for some of us, its not working is it?
SEO is a very daunting task and it's not easy, it's hard, it's boring, it takes time. You have somehow pulled together a site, slapped some ads on and you want people to go on it. Or even more, you have spent time to make a great site and no one goes on it. You will be lucky if get 20 visitors a day. In SEO terms that's a great start. Some webmasters don't even manage that. There are several ways to get visitors. Either some one looks up the search engines and finds the website because you happen to have your site on the first two pages of the search engine results page (SERP). Or you have your site all over the web and people are bound to bump into it. Here are 10 things you should do as an amateur search engine optimizer.
1. The number of keywords in your pages or key word density is important. This tells the search engine the relevancy of the webpage for a particular word or term. It should be around 3% appearing on a webpage; more than that it will be called keyword stuffing that could be penalized. If you know how to add Meta tags in HTML then do so as its important for search engines to accurately index and list your pages.
2. Links are the top most criteria for good search engine positions. More you have from relevant sites, the better it is. You can either ask related sites to place your link on their site or you could ask them for a link exchange. Some experts are not too keen on buying links but some say that done in the right way, can be beneficial. Best avoided.
3. Every website should have an RSS feed to keep it fresh with contents, making the site dynamic. It's usually in the form of a link or HTML code that you need to "cut-and-paste". If not, than you could always update your pages by adding more content, as search engines love content. Apparently they cannot read images.
4. Writing articles is a great way to get one way links. Write as many articles as you can on your subject of interest and then submit to several article directories. Webmasters hungry for content will use your articles and include you link. Make sure that you use your keywords as anchor text for your URL in the resource section. Try writing between 500-1000 as reading more can be really boring.
5. Go over to other blogs in your subject and leave comments. You can often leave your name and website address. Many would come to know you gradually if you are good making sure you don't spam them. Be good.
6. Submit your site to directories. Some would want money while some would want a link back. It's your call. DMOZ is a must but it's difficult.
7. Attach your site in your email signature.
8. Post your sites at classifieds sites such as Craigslist and Gumtree. But don't spam.
9. You might want to leave your URL at yahoo answers if it's helpful to the asker. Make a 360 page and add your links. Sometimes people like to see who the answerer is and might come across you site.
10. Join forums in your area of interest and add your website in the signature. Don't ask people to view or review your site. People will have a look if they are interested or if your answers are good or if you establish yourself as an expert.
If you follow these simple steps, you will make it. Be simple and straightforward. Don't spam; it's illegal and can be harmful. God bless.
SEO is a very daunting task and it's not easy, it's hard, it's boring, it takes time. You have somehow pulled together a site, slapped some ads on and you want people to go on it. Or even more, you have spent time to make a great site and no one goes on it. You will be lucky if get 20 visitors a day. In SEO terms that's a great start. Some webmasters don't even manage that. There are several ways to get visitors. Either some one looks up the search engines and finds the website because you happen to have your site on the first two pages of the search engine results page (SERP). Or you have your site all over the web and people are bound to bump into it. Here are 10 things you should do as an amateur search engine optimizer.
1. The number of keywords in your pages or key word density is important. This tells the search engine the relevancy of the webpage for a particular word or term. It should be around 3% appearing on a webpage; more than that it will be called keyword stuffing that could be penalized. If you know how to add Meta tags in HTML then do so as its important for search engines to accurately index and list your pages.
2. Links are the top most criteria for good search engine positions. More you have from relevant sites, the better it is. You can either ask related sites to place your link on their site or you could ask them for a link exchange. Some experts are not too keen on buying links but some say that done in the right way, can be beneficial. Best avoided.
3. Every website should have an RSS feed to keep it fresh with contents, making the site dynamic. It's usually in the form of a link or HTML code that you need to "cut-and-paste". If not, than you could always update your pages by adding more content, as search engines love content. Apparently they cannot read images.
4. Writing articles is a great way to get one way links. Write as many articles as you can on your subject of interest and then submit to several article directories. Webmasters hungry for content will use your articles and include you link. Make sure that you use your keywords as anchor text for your URL in the resource section. Try writing between 500-1000 as reading more can be really boring.
5. Go over to other blogs in your subject and leave comments. You can often leave your name and website address. Many would come to know you gradually if you are good making sure you don't spam them. Be good.
6. Submit your site to directories. Some would want money while some would want a link back. It's your call. DMOZ is a must but it's difficult.
7. Attach your site in your email signature.
8. Post your sites at classifieds sites such as Craigslist and Gumtree. But don't spam.
9. You might want to leave your URL at yahoo answers if it's helpful to the asker. Make a 360 page and add your links. Sometimes people like to see who the answerer is and might come across you site.
10. Join forums in your area of interest and add your website in the signature. Don't ask people to view or review your site. People will have a look if they are interested or if your answers are good or if you establish yourself as an expert.
If you follow these simple steps, you will make it. Be simple and straightforward. Don't spam; it's illegal and can be harmful. God bless.
Top 10 Most Common Mistakes in Participating in SEO Contests
In the past few years the SEO contests are popping up in the search engine optimization world like crazy. There are always contests running, and everytime there is a prize to win, sometimes a big one, sometimes a small one. But it doesn't matter in what contest you're participating, you will allways find things that have gone wrong, or could've done better. In this article I point out the top 10 most common mistakes in participating in an SEO contest.
1. The first mistake is the fact that webmasters get so excited when they see a lot of money, that they point links to their contest page from all the pages of their already existing websites. You would have thousands of backlinks in just a few days, which would cause a sandbox penalty. You need to remember that you can allways point those links to your contest page, you are not in a hurry, are you?
2. The second mistake is that people don't plan. You have to make yourself a scheme where you write down what you do every day/week. Make a linkbuilding scheme, a content writing scheme etc. Just make sure that you do what you tell yourself to do.
3. Make short term goals, the long term goal is offcourse the winning of the SEO contest. But if you make short term goals you don't get demotivated and you have offcourse more chance of winning the SEO contest. For example doing 5 article submissions, 40 link directory submissions and write 20 quality pages by the end of may. Or make a goal like this: I will be indexed by the first of may. Or, I will be on the third page in week 5 of the contest.
4. Write content, A lot of people start a contest blog, but they forget to write content. In the beginning you often write a lot of posts, but in the long run you get more focused on backlinks. Remember that content is still king. And if you have it, and others don't, you already have a head start.
5. Quality backlinks over crappy backlinks. A lot of people start by searching for easy backlinks like directories and buying high pagerank links, but you can do that any time you want in the contest. Do that half way, you have all the time! The first thing you do in participating in an SEO contest is writing content and finding topic related backlinks. The crappy backlinks can wait. You are not in a hurry!
6. Article submission, it's easy and really effective, this article is actually written to boost my ranking for the pvmultimedia seo contest. If I wasn't participating, this article would've never been written. The good thing with article submission is that you can decide what the article is about. So in some way you control the onsite optimization of your backlink, so you can make yourself a highly onpage optimized quality backlink that is related to your contest page. You can also use the main contest keyword as much as you like, so right now I'll take the opportunity to use the words pvmultimedia seo contest once more if you don't mind :).
7. Onsite optimization, don't do it!!! Why? very simple, if you can rank yourself to the top without using for instance your main keywords in your title, you have a backup plan, namely your onpage optimization. A few weeks before the contest you can highly optimize your website for the main keyphrase to get a good boost that can get you to the top, or if you already are at the first spot, you made yourself a really more solid position. And onpage optimization is something you can manipulate and control, offpage optimization is a component that can't be manipulated quickly. But make sure you don't overdo your onpage optimization in the end, because that could cause a penalty or even a ban.
8. Old and wise. If you have a question, would you ask an old wise man or a little boy? Probably the old man, right? Search engines think the same. If a website is new it is less valuable than if there is an old website/domain about the same topic. So stop registering new domains for your contest websites, just use an old one, or a subdomain of an old domain. Maybe you won't have the perfect url, but you do have the perfect age to take advantage from.
9. Authority, like I said before, I'm participating in the pvmultimedia seo contest. On dutch forums there was some discussion about how the hell it was possible that the top 10 for pvmultimedia seo contest was dominated by blogspot blogs. Well, because blogspot is an authority domain, even owned by google itself. Use that authority if you can. Or if you have yourself an authority website it's even better to use that website.
10. Analyse other participants, most people don't look at other participating websites. But if you do take a look at them you can actually find out how they're getting links, how many links they get in a specific period of time, from what websites the links are from, are the links quality topic related high pagerank links? How can I get those links? What do they do with their onpage optimization? etc...
So in fact there are many things you can do or must not do in order to get a chance to win an SEO contest. One last tip from me: start small, if you can win a small/local SEO contest with a small price, you can later on participate in the bigass SEO contests and become rich...
1. The first mistake is the fact that webmasters get so excited when they see a lot of money, that they point links to their contest page from all the pages of their already existing websites. You would have thousands of backlinks in just a few days, which would cause a sandbox penalty. You need to remember that you can allways point those links to your contest page, you are not in a hurry, are you?
2. The second mistake is that people don't plan. You have to make yourself a scheme where you write down what you do every day/week. Make a linkbuilding scheme, a content writing scheme etc. Just make sure that you do what you tell yourself to do.
3. Make short term goals, the long term goal is offcourse the winning of the SEO contest. But if you make short term goals you don't get demotivated and you have offcourse more chance of winning the SEO contest. For example doing 5 article submissions, 40 link directory submissions and write 20 quality pages by the end of may. Or make a goal like this: I will be indexed by the first of may. Or, I will be on the third page in week 5 of the contest.
4. Write content, A lot of people start a contest blog, but they forget to write content. In the beginning you often write a lot of posts, but in the long run you get more focused on backlinks. Remember that content is still king. And if you have it, and others don't, you already have a head start.
5. Quality backlinks over crappy backlinks. A lot of people start by searching for easy backlinks like directories and buying high pagerank links, but you can do that any time you want in the contest. Do that half way, you have all the time! The first thing you do in participating in an SEO contest is writing content and finding topic related backlinks. The crappy backlinks can wait. You are not in a hurry!
6. Article submission, it's easy and really effective, this article is actually written to boost my ranking for the pvmultimedia seo contest. If I wasn't participating, this article would've never been written. The good thing with article submission is that you can decide what the article is about. So in some way you control the onsite optimization of your backlink, so you can make yourself a highly onpage optimized quality backlink that is related to your contest page. You can also use the main contest keyword as much as you like, so right now I'll take the opportunity to use the words pvmultimedia seo contest once more if you don't mind :).
7. Onsite optimization, don't do it!!! Why? very simple, if you can rank yourself to the top without using for instance your main keywords in your title, you have a backup plan, namely your onpage optimization. A few weeks before the contest you can highly optimize your website for the main keyphrase to get a good boost that can get you to the top, or if you already are at the first spot, you made yourself a really more solid position. And onpage optimization is something you can manipulate and control, offpage optimization is a component that can't be manipulated quickly. But make sure you don't overdo your onpage optimization in the end, because that could cause a penalty or even a ban.
8. Old and wise. If you have a question, would you ask an old wise man or a little boy? Probably the old man, right? Search engines think the same. If a website is new it is less valuable than if there is an old website/domain about the same topic. So stop registering new domains for your contest websites, just use an old one, or a subdomain of an old domain. Maybe you won't have the perfect url, but you do have the perfect age to take advantage from.
9. Authority, like I said before, I'm participating in the pvmultimedia seo contest. On dutch forums there was some discussion about how the hell it was possible that the top 10 for pvmultimedia seo contest was dominated by blogspot blogs. Well, because blogspot is an authority domain, even owned by google itself. Use that authority if you can. Or if you have yourself an authority website it's even better to use that website.
10. Analyse other participants, most people don't look at other participating websites. But if you do take a look at them you can actually find out how they're getting links, how many links they get in a specific period of time, from what websites the links are from, are the links quality topic related high pagerank links? How can I get those links? What do they do with their onpage optimization? etc...
So in fact there are many things you can do or must not do in order to get a chance to win an SEO contest. One last tip from me: start small, if you can win a small/local SEO contest with a small price, you can later on participate in the bigass SEO contests and become rich...
Search Engine Optimization Why You Need it
E-commerce is a cut throat business. You have to arm yourself with the proper know-how and the tools to make your site a cut above the rest. Each day, more and more sites are clambering to optimize their rankings in websites and if you lose your guard, you may just get trampled on and be left in the abyss filled with so many failed e-commerce sites.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.
Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.
But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.
So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.
With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let's just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.
So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site's existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.
Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.
You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site's content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.
You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.
Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.
If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.
Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.
Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a term widely used today by many e-commerce sites. For the past few years and the next ten years or so, search engines would be the most widely used internet tool to find the sites that they need to go to or the product or information they need.
Most people that use search engines use only the ten top search results in the first page. Making it to the first page, more so to the top three is a barometer of a sites success in search engine optimization. You will get a higher ratio of probability in being clicked on when you rank high. The more traffic for your site, the more business you rake in.
But, it is essential to grab a hold of that spot or make your ranking even better. As I aforementioned, each day is a new day for all e-commerce sites to make them selves rank higher using search engine optimization. It is imperative to make your site better and better everyday.
So just what is search engine optimization and do you have to use it? The answer to why you have to use it is an easy one. You need search engine optimization to be number one, or maybe at least make your site income generating.
With search engine optimization you can get the benefit of generating a high traffic volume. Let's just say you get only a turn out of successful sales with 10 to 20 percent of your traffic. If you get a hundred hits or more a day, you get a good turn out of sales already. If you get only twenty to ten hits a day, you only get one or two if not any at all.
So once again, what is search engine optimization? Search engine optimization is utilizing tools and methods in making your site top ranking in the results of search engines. Getting yourself in the first page and better yet in the top half of the page will ensure that your site will generate public awareness of your site's existence and subsequently generate more traffic, traffic that could lead to potential income and business.
Search engine optimization requires a lot of work to be fully realized. There are many aspects you have to change in your site or add as well to get search engine optimization. These will include getting lots of information about the keyword phrases that are popular in regards to your sites niche or theme.
You may also need to rewrite your sites contents so that you could get the right keyword phrases in your site without making it too commercial but light and informative. There are certain rules and guidelines to be followed with making your site's content applicable and conducive to search engine optimization.
You will also need to collaborate with many other sites so that you could get link exchanges and page transfers. The more inbound and outbound traffics generated by sites among others are one of the components search engines uses to rank sites.
Try to search the internet for many useful help. Tips, guidelines and methods for search engine optimization are plenty to be found. Read many articles that can help you optimize your site in search engine results. The more knowledge and information you gather the better. This will all help you in getting those high rankings. This may require a little time and effort in your part but the benefits will be astounding.
If you can part with some money, there are many sites in the internet that can help you in search engine optimization. There are many sites that help in tracking keyword phrases that can help your site. There are also some content writers that have lots of experience in making good keyword laden content for your sites that have good quality.
Act now and see the benefits garner with search engine optimization. All of these will result to better traffic and more business for your site and company.
Selecting a Search Engine Optimization Company
A Search Engine Optimization Company can be an invaluable asset in your Internet marketing campaign. They specialize in knowing how to raise your search engine positions, monitoring those positions on the regular basis, and adjusting their strategies to account for undesirable results in any given month. Since this takes a lot of time, effort, and specialized knowledge, it can be in your best interest to go to an outside source rather than try to maintain high search engine positions on your own.
However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.
When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's index.
A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, one of the largest and most important search engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this technique!
Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.
Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company's track record of results. However, don't take the company's word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.
Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of search engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You can access this at www.searchenginewatch.com.
Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes" will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.
Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.
When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company's results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.
It's important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.
Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.
Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.
Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.
Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.
If you have to find a company and can't wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.
References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don't use a company that won't show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.
When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.
Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both search engines and site visitors without compromising either.
The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.
However, like every business, there are good companies and there are lemons. Knowing the right questions to ask and the criteria to look for will help you in choosing an affordable, effective search engine optimization company.
When looking at different companies, begin by considering the approach they employ to raise your search engine positions. Steer clear of companies that use cloaked, doorway, or bridge pages to raise your positions. These techniques violate most search engine policy, and in the worst case scenario, will only get your website severely penalized, if not removed entirely from a search engine's index.
A cloaked page is a page that is created which is invisible to the regular visitor to your website. The cloaked page is coded to detect a search engine spider and divert them to this special page, which is set-up to artificially boost your search engine position. Doorway or bridge pages utilize the same concept, but often reside on an entirely different server. Google, one of the largest and most important search engine on the Internet, will remove your website from their index if they detect you have cloaked pages. Never, never employ any company that uses this technique!
Another important element is to get a guarantee that the company you hire will not work with your competitors while they are working for you. Obviously, this would seriously compromise the effectiveness of the search engine optimization campaign. Be aware that some companies will use the success they achieve for your website to sell their services to your competitors. So get your guarantee in writing, and make sure it is legally binding.
Of course, one of the most important factors you want to check out is the company's track record of results. However, don't take the company's word for it. They will undoubtedly be slanting their results in order to sell their services to you. To go beyond their simple statement of success, ask them a few pertinent questions, and verify their answers.
Ask them which engines they have achieved the best results on. The ones that are important are the most popular engines, and these are the ones you want to see good results on. Since the popularity of search engines can change with the landscape of the overall Internet, check out the Nielsen Netratings page at Search Engine Watch. You can access this at www.searchenginewatch.com.
Next, find out what keywords and phrases they are claiming great results with. It's easy to get high rankings with unpopular words. For instance, the keyword "cat leashes" will get high popularity ranking because no one else would think of using it. What you are looking for is good results using popular keywords. Check out the software Wordtracker, available at www.wordtracker.com. You can order a free trial, or a subscription ranging from 1 day to 1 year. This software rates the popularity of keywords and phrases based on actual search engine use.
Next, look for good results over an entire site that the company claims to have successfully worked for. You want to see a wide range of positions over a number of different search engines using different keywords or phrases for the entire site. Request a report for any client the company claims to have done well for. This report should show good positions on a number of the most popular search engines for a variety of different, popular keywords and phrases.
When you are checking out search engine optimization companies, make sure they have actually done the work they are claiming to have done. Some companies will use other company's results in order to get you to sign on with them. If you are in doubt, call the company they are showing you results for, and ask for the name of their search engine optimization company.
It's important to keep in mind that a successful search engine optimization campaign will result in maximum exposure across a wide range of popular search engines using a variety of keywords and phrases. This is the formula for a successful campaign, and you should keep it always in the forefront of your marketing strategy.
Ask the search engine optimization company you are considering for a report that shows you rankings across a number of popular search engines for a period of at least six months. Remember: search engine marketing is a process that is continual, and you need a company that not only understands this, but keeps constant tabs on your search engine positions. That company must also be able to adjust its strategy in the event that search engine rankings drop.
Since search engine marketing is an on-going process, your positions must be constantly monitored. If you want your search engine optimization company to do this for you, request a sample of a monthly report. It is essential that this report should show rankings for the most popular search engines. Don't be impressed by a report that only shows great results for a limited number of small search engines. These are fairly easy results to acquire. Also confirm that the popular search engine results they are showing you are indeed the popular search engines currently.
Be sure the sample report the company shows you is in a format that you can easily understand. For example, it could be in the form of a chart that covers a period of at least six months and presents data such as the top 50 positions broken down on a monthly basis or the top 5 pages each month. Then, ascertain that the company you are considering actually monitors these positions or pages every month, and that the sample report they show you includes findings and recommendations for the specific site. This insures that the company will actively monitor and make adjustments to their strategy on a continual basis rather than simply gather statistics on your positions. You need a company that is actively participant in your search engine marketing campaign, not just an information gatherer.
Obviously, your finances have to figure into your choice of company, but bear in mind that a search engine optimization company is crucial the success of your marketing campaign. It is not just a casual accessory. If you cannot afford a company that will do a thorough and reliable job for your website, you might consider waiting until you do have the finances in place.
If you have to find a company and can't wait for your finances to catch up, you may be able to find an affordable company that will also be able to supply quality, reliable work, such as a fairly new company. Just remember that there are risks involved with using a company without a proven track record - and that risk is your money! Don't take that leap unless the company can supply you with a least a few references.
References are the most reliable indicator of a good company. Don't use a company that won't show your references because of any reason, confidentiality included. Remember - even doctors will provide references! The firm you choose should provide you with a minimum of two references, one that is from the past, and one that is current.
When you contact these references, be prepared to ask precise, specific questions so that neither of your time is wasted. Ask them what their experience was like with the company, such as their availability to answer questions and deal with problems and their ability to meet deadlines. Ask the reference to rate the overall performance of the company.
Find out if the company requested that the reference make significant changes to their web pages that affected the visitors coming to their site. You are looking for a search engine optimization company that can balance the needs of both search engines and site visitors without compromising either.
The most essential question to ask is whether the work of the search engine optimization company resulted in higher profits for the reference. Without profits, it doesn't matter whether your positions are at the top of the list or not.
5 Killer SEO Article Tips For Home Internet Business Ideas
In this article I present 5 killer SEO article tips, which have worked effectively for my own home internet business ideas.
1. Keyword Selection.
As a first SEO article action you have to select the keywords very carefully. They are in the main role in this strategy. As you may know keywords are the words, which the searchers type into the Google search bar when they search the things they are interested in.
The best way is to use your website keywords, because they are targeted and the pre-selling of your SEO article happens exactly about the right topic. I would prefer keywords with Overture demand around 1.000 per month to quarantee that your SEO article will reach the first page position on the Google search results.
2. Research The Competition
You can type the main keyword of SEO article into the Google search bar and research whether there are any SEO articles on the first result page. If there is, it means in principally that also a SEO article can rank well with this keyword.. You can also analyze the keywords and their density and also the other SEO factors.
It is also important to analyze the onpage SEO factors of the first 5 sites of the results. If you will find errors in onpage SEO, the chances of your SEO article will increase dramatically, when you will prepare the article along the decent SEO rules. If there are sub-pages among the top 5 sites, even better.
3. The SEO Rules
Write the selected keywords into the headline, teaser and the bio box of the SEO article plus of course into the body copy so that the keyword density will be around 6 % of all the total words of your SEO article. You can also use H1 and H2 tags ( sub-headlines ) and write your most important keyword into the H1 tag and the second most important into H2 tag.
You can also write your major keyword once in bold, italic and underlined font. These are the candies for the search engines. If you use weaker keywords, cast them here and there into the body copy.
Because keywords of your home internet business ideas SEO article are normally keyphrases, one working strategy is to build a major keyphrases with 5 words of which you can build several supportive keyphrases and thus find more profitable markets, like: internet home income business opportunity, home income business opportunity, income business opportunity, business opportunity, internet home income business, etc.
Make a list of these keyphrases and use them each with the same density in your home internet business ideas SEO article. Your article has now much better chances to rank high in several search results.
4. The Same Content In The SEO Article, Blog And Webpage
A good idea is to use the same home internet business ideas content in several locations. Some article directories can however penalize you, if you do it in the wrong way. So publish your SEO article first in your blog and webpage, wait for 24 hours, then write around 30 % more and after this submit it to the directories. In this way your home internet business ideas SEO article will be in safe.
5. Use The Submission Software
The marketing of home internet business ideas is a numbers game and that is why the publishing has two targets. To bring targeted visitors and to reach a high search engine ranking. Of course you will get much more visitors, if you will use the submission software, which will publish your SEO article in hundreds or thousands of directories and websites with one click of the mouse.
1. Keyword Selection.
As a first SEO article action you have to select the keywords very carefully. They are in the main role in this strategy. As you may know keywords are the words, which the searchers type into the Google search bar when they search the things they are interested in.
The best way is to use your website keywords, because they are targeted and the pre-selling of your SEO article happens exactly about the right topic. I would prefer keywords with Overture demand around 1.000 per month to quarantee that your SEO article will reach the first page position on the Google search results.
2. Research The Competition
You can type the main keyword of SEO article into the Google search bar and research whether there are any SEO articles on the first result page. If there is, it means in principally that also a SEO article can rank well with this keyword.. You can also analyze the keywords and their density and also the other SEO factors.
It is also important to analyze the onpage SEO factors of the first 5 sites of the results. If you will find errors in onpage SEO, the chances of your SEO article will increase dramatically, when you will prepare the article along the decent SEO rules. If there are sub-pages among the top 5 sites, even better.
3. The SEO Rules
Write the selected keywords into the headline, teaser and the bio box of the SEO article plus of course into the body copy so that the keyword density will be around 6 % of all the total words of your SEO article. You can also use H1 and H2 tags ( sub-headlines ) and write your most important keyword into the H1 tag and the second most important into H2 tag.
You can also write your major keyword once in bold, italic and underlined font. These are the candies for the search engines. If you use weaker keywords, cast them here and there into the body copy.
Because keywords of your home internet business ideas SEO article are normally keyphrases, one working strategy is to build a major keyphrases with 5 words of which you can build several supportive keyphrases and thus find more profitable markets, like: internet home income business opportunity, home income business opportunity, income business opportunity, business opportunity, internet home income business, etc.
Make a list of these keyphrases and use them each with the same density in your home internet business ideas SEO article. Your article has now much better chances to rank high in several search results.
4. The Same Content In The SEO Article, Blog And Webpage
A good idea is to use the same home internet business ideas content in several locations. Some article directories can however penalize you, if you do it in the wrong way. So publish your SEO article first in your blog and webpage, wait for 24 hours, then write around 30 % more and after this submit it to the directories. In this way your home internet business ideas SEO article will be in safe.
5. Use The Submission Software
The marketing of home internet business ideas is a numbers game and that is why the publishing has two targets. To bring targeted visitors and to reach a high search engine ranking. Of course you will get much more visitors, if you will use the submission software, which will publish your SEO article in hundreds or thousands of directories and websites with one click of the mouse.
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