Posts Tagged ‘search engine optimization’
One of the greatest things about Internet Marketing is that the best tools for increasing traffic are free. All it takes to attract traffic to your website is a consistent investment of a small amount of time.
Discover How To Get Free Traffic To Website Today?
There are 5 excellent tools to attract free traffic to your website:
1. Submit to Article Directories
Article submission directories are websites that set up for the sole purpose of being a place to compile a significant amount of content before placing them into categorized databases. Webmasters read through the articles and decide what once they like best, after selecting an article the webmaster is allowed to post it on their website. Any person can draft a short article in the 500 word range that is connected to the subject matter of their website and publish it to an article directory such as Ezine.com or GoArticle.com free of charge.
It is pretty easy to submit content. You fill out a simplistic form and upload or paste your article to it. Be careful when you are filling in the author’s resource or bio box section of the form that allows you to post at least a single link back to your website. Every time the article is published, your link will appear on the new website. High grade articles are often published on different websites hundreds of times, and each reprint is an excellent opportunity for the reader to click through to your website!
2. Using Forums
The most beneficial forums for the purpose of Internet Marketing are the ones that you find populated with bloggers and experts within your niche. Employ Google Search to locate superior, high-traffic forums dealing with your topic and sign up. Introduce yourself, start commenting, you want to become a prolific member. Paste a back-link to your website in the Signature that appears every time you post on the board.
3. Building Hubs in HubPages
HubPages.com is a complimentary Internet community that allows you to publish one page content about your website topic on a single-page “hub”. It doesn’t cost you anything to create hubs and you can create as many as you want.
Hubs can increase traffic to your website in two ways. First is by the inclusion of a link to your website on your hub articles. Secondly, when you comment on other peoples hubs and paste a link to your own hubs with the comment.
4. Using Twitter
Twitter is a free micro-blogging and social networking platform that allows you convey and peruse very brief messages posted by users. While not a marketing tool per say, you can paste a link to your webpage in your messages.
After creating your Twitter profile and gathering more and more followers, you should notice an increase in the traffic you get for free to your website. You can Twitter about topics connected to your product, link to your online blog, or discuss news connected to your niche while letting the world know who you are.
All you have to do is create a Twitter account and start following as several people. The people you follow will start to follow you in response. Tweet as frequently as you can, make sure each Tweet carries your link.
5. Use YouTube
YouTube is a remarkably elementary tool you can use to bring free traffic to your website. Make videos about the product you are selling on your website, upload them to YouTube, and ask people to subscribe to your channel. Post your website’s URL both in the videos and video summaries so your viewers can visit your website.
Every single one of these tools can be used to create free traffic to your site and at the same time, you will increase your search engine rankings. While promoting your URL, you’ll also be creating back-links. Backlinks from high ranking sites and top content directories rate better with the search engines. Your improved page rank will translate into more free traffic to your site.
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Search Engine Optimization or SEO is a marketing technique that is used to make your website more useful for your potential customers. At the same time, it is incorporated to make your websites more transparent and more findable by search engines. Search engine optimization can be one of the cheapest ways of generating traffic to your site.
However, it takes some effort and work to make sure that your website or webpage ranks highly in search engines. There are no magic bullets that guarantee quick results. But there are a couple of search engine optimization tips that you can follow to help make your search engine optimization efforts a success:
Focus on the content
Focus on the content of your website. Search engines show search results that are relevant to a search, and they constantly tune their programs in to review and read website contents. When it comes to SEO, one of the most important ingredients is content.
Valid HTML
This is something that most web developers forget. However, this is an extremely important SEO step. Something as simple as a valid HTML gets your website spidered and seen by search engines quicker that meta tags and descriptions.
Good Keyword Phrases
Finding the appropriate keyword phrase can be quite difficult. But that is very important, and that is what you should use to optimize your page. There are numerous keyword phrases and combinations of words, but don’t use just any word you can find.
Focus on a keyword that completely encompasses what your web page is all about, but choose one that’s versatile as well. Make sure that the keyword or phrase appears repeatedly on your content, links, headlines and the like.
If you’re having a hard time looking for good keywords or phrases to use, there are plenty of search engine optimization tools out in the market that generate popular keywords related to your content. These tools are essential for quick results, but not all of them come for free.
Focus On One Page At A Time
Treat each page of your website as individual entry pages for your website. Focus on each page individually by finding appropriate key phrases for each page and optimizing it using the said key phrase. By doing this, your website gets more visibility and exposure, and your readers get plenty more ways to get to the website.
Search engine optimization takes quite a long time to produce results, and it can take days or even weeks for results to show. It is not easy to reach the top ten in search engine results, so don't stop trying. The results will be worth the effort and the wait.
When you launch your own Internet marketing plan, you should first decide whether you should take SEO campaign management into your own hands, or decide to outsource SEO.
Hiring search engine optimization firms to implement the technique for your websites has clear advantages over doing it by yourself or using in-house staff. Below are some great reasons for outsourcing your search engine optimizaton to experts.
Sure Optimization
SEO is a process that needs to be done right, and have continual monitoring and tweaking. If you do not have the time to learn, or the time to continually figure your content out and monitor it – then doing SEO work all by yourself isn’t for you. It is advisable that you hire a good search engine optimization firm or consultant in order to correctly plan the optimization for your business.
When you outsource SEO to a quality team they will ensure that your website content, name and keywords are the ones that will get you traffic.
Quality outsourcing firms and consultants use experts qualitifed to use dynamic techniques to keep tabs on the changing logarithms used by search engines. This is to make sure that they continuously incorporate new and current methods for better results.
Fresh and Original Content
If you decide to oursource seo for your website, you should be provided with fresh, original content. Search engines pick up websites with fresh information. Depending on the SEO packages, a service provider can also include the delivery of keyword rich SEO articles for inclusion on the client’s website or to be sent to article distribution sites. With the help of quality, original articles, the search engines will find the keywords they are looking for all throughout your website.
Increased Exposure
The right SEO techniques can create an increase in your websites exposure, and varied articles will promote your brand, company or service. Aside from providing traffic to your site, SEO campaigns also create an international profile for what you offer, and you will be perceived as an expert in your own field of interest.
Unlike attempting your own search engine optimization, hiring providers provide SEO solutions that you cannot provide by yourself because they have sophisticated evaluation tools and techniques. You get continuous coverage with management reports that tell you about the number and source of traffic hits to your website.
As well, a quality search engine optimization firm will also make adjustments to your campaign if you are not satisfied with the type of traffic, or the number of people that is generated to your site.
So basically, if you outsource SEO, you’re hands free off the campaign. But as owner of the website and as a marketer – it is your responsibility to make sure that the firm that you choose is a reliable one, oversee, ask questions and let them know what you want so that you get the best results in terms of traffic and conversions.
Article by John Black
Search Engine Optimisation or SEO as it’s become known by, is an essential ingredient for any web site to be successful. However it can be extremely mystifying for web site owners particularly for those new to the whole idea of marketing on the web. There are sometimes three reactions the entire idea of SEO ;
1. Some feel that it’s a waste of your time and that merely the act of putting a domain on the web is sufficient.
2. Some think that they can just do it all themselves and that there is not much to it.
3. Many feel that it is unquestionably something that should be delegated to a professional and that their precious time is better spent doing things for their businesses that they excel at.
All 3 views have merit, for some businesses just having a domain is sufficient. The type of business this would work for is one that’s unlikely to have people looking for their services on the internet. As an example a private Chiropractic practice in a fairly little town.
In barely larger towns, depending on the quantity of competing businesses have internet sites online, it may be feasible to get good results by doing a touch of promotion yourself.
For the majority getting it to work well truly does need the services of a professional Search Engine Optimization specialist.
Search engine optimisation is a field that’s consistently changing and the systems and systems that need to be used to get good search engine visibility are also an ever changing phenomenon.
the brilliant thing about using SEO services to get your site to rank well in the search engines is that it is advertising that not only is working for you 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s a way of bringing in buyers that are actively looking for what you are offering.
Consider the traditional types of advertising – newspapers, mags, television, local papers or radio. They’re all a sort of shotgun approach, sending your promotion far and wide in the hope that your future clients happen to be reading, watching or listening to them at precisely the right time.
While with search engine promoting it is easily possible with good SEO services and a well set up internet site, to put your offering directly in front of the folk that have purposely looked for your service by typing it into a search engine.
Another great thing about using search engine optimisation to raise your business, is that it is measurable. Unlike more normal forms of advertising, it is entirely possible to track what quantity of folks come to your website. Not just that you can tell where in the world they come from, which keyword phrase they used to find you, which search engine they came thru and how many came via each of the keywords.
With more traditional advertising not only is it a shotgun approach, usually it is not measurable and generally the costs involved are unusually high.
For cutting edge SEO services at a fraction of the cost of other Search Engine Optimization services visit www.linxhurricane.com today
If you are thinking of using Google AdWords to generate money for your website, you have to bid on the right keywords as they play a huge role in your success. Most people often bid on keywords that are popular, which are also expensive. This doesn’t have to be so, you can find top keywords creatively and for free too. Here are a couple of ways for you to easily find top keywords for your site.
Read About Finding The Keyword Search Suggestion Now…
Using Forums
Forums related to your website’s topic are one of the best places to initially start your keyword search. All you need to do is to type in your topic and the word “forum” to find the relevant forums. For example, “health forum” or “Forex forum”. You can then join these forums and then start browsing through the threads and postings. Read through the conversations and pick out common terms, words and topics. As you do this, you can build your keyword list from these common words and terms.
Using Google AdWords Free Keyword Tool
Another excellent and easy method to find popular keywords is by using Google AdWords Keyword tool.. You can find the tool’s website by searching “Google AdWords Keyword Tool”. Once you get to the site, you can start your search by typing in your topic and the clicking “Get Keyword Ideas”. The site allows you to also search for synonyms. Make sure that you tick this option so that you get more keyword suggestions. The search engine will then churns out keywords and additional suggested words that are related to your topic. These keywords result also come with statistics like search volume, which is extremely helpful. A big benefit to this tool, is that it’s free to all.
Using Amazon.com
Book content is often overlooked as a source of great keywords. Amazon.com is a website that contains plenty of books, and you can use these books for information and keyword research provided that you know what to do. You do this by searching for the top selling books, preferably the top 5, related to your topic and then you can go through the books content page and look for keywords. Amazon.com allows you to go through the books’ first few pages and this gives you an opportunity to search for more keywords. With this, you get the keywords that you need and also a good idea about what your audiences are looking for.
Websites Of Other People
Another method to get popular keywords is by website or blog hopping. Of course, the websites have the same niche as yours. Take a look at the content, topics, common phrases and keywords. These blogs or sites are usually optimized for certain keywords in search engines. Take a look at the headers, page titles, meta tags, keywords as well as the website description. What you find here usually gives you a fair idea of the keywords that they are targeting at.
Use Online Keyword Tools
There are several useful keyword tools that you can use on the Internet, like WordTracker.com, KeywordSpy.com and KeyCompete.com. These tool come with membership fees if you want to use their services. These web based tools are very crucial for extensive keyword research because also you can extract keywords by the thousands. These tools can be a bit difficult to use, so you should learn them first.
You can use these methods to find keywords for your niche. Do remember that you can look for keywords anywhere and there are many ways of finding them. What is very important, is finding the keywords that are relevant to your site as well as to your audiences, so you can eventually make sales with them.
Find Out More About Finding The Keyword Search Suggestion And More?
There are a number of steps I always follow when optimizing a site for SEO (note these are just the high points, there are others that I don’t mention here, but these WILL take you a long way):
1) If it’s a new site, I will include the keywords in a non hyphenated domain name (if you can get a .edu or .gov suffix do so, otherwise a cheap .info will work just fine)
2) If possible, I will rename the URL to each money page to include the main keyword for that page.
3) Implement Google Analytics for the site and ensure the tracking script is added to every page.
4) Go through the “money” pages and make sure that the title, meta descriptions and meta keywords tags are different and optimized for the keywords on the page. In a competitive niche (over 1 million result pages in Google), I would limit the keywords to one main phrase, a couple of local modifiers and one or two more closely related terms per page.
5) Edit the non-money pages (i.e. pages that are irrelevant from an SEO perspective) and ensure the title and meta description tags are not duplicates of any of the money page tags. Google Webmaster tools will identify this for you once your site has been registered.
6) I nofollow any links to overhead pages from all of the pages on the site other than the home page. I leave the home page links as follow links, since I want the SEs to index all pages on the site and having privacy, contact, disclaimer, etc overhead pages enhance Google’s view of the “trust” for the site. On all other pages I just want the link to the home page to be a follow link, so I can build up the page rank of the home page. I handle this in Dreamweaver by using two different site templates. If your main keyword page is something other than the home page, modify your approach accordingly.
7) I then optimize each page’s content for it’s main keywords, modifiers and related terms. It’s important that each word or phrase used in the keyword META is found on the page to avoid keyword spam penalties.
At this point the on page optimization is complete enough to start with link building. As you may already know, building links is not a piece of cake. I use articles, blog posts, submit forms on relevant sites, reciprocal links, etc. There are ways to short cut this process, without going black or grey hat. Contact me at Mississauga Search Engine Marketing if interested.
As the internet has become increasingly sophisticated, the various professional fields in the internet marketplace have become more and more specialized. In each area there have been massive leaps in complexity, usability, design and technology.
Even just a few years back, there were relatively few separate specialties for people who work within the arena of the internet. These days there is a vast multitude of ways in which people can specialize online. These professionals include:
Web designers,Information architects,Google Adwords campaign managers, various types of program and software developers and last but not least, Search engine Optimization.
In my experience, most web designers these days don’t even know how to include Search Engine Optimisation in the sites that they design and build. There is ample proof of this; it is visible easily every day by just taking a look at what is out there. Sites that have empty, or in some cases, no Meta tags no headline tags and even in some cases, no title tags at all either! The most frustrating part of this is that all of these measures are very easy to include.
So where does that leave the buyer? It leaves them with a website that will no doubt look fantastic; however the chances are that few will ever see it. Let alone become customers of whatever service or product the site is offering. This seems to be particularly true in the case of websites that contain a lot of flash, it looks great, but it is heavy in the browser and as it is purely images, the search engines cannot read it, even if there are words as the words themselves are rendered as images not text.
Therefore, when shopping for a website designer, be aware that though most will have the words ‘SEO’ or ‘Search engine Optimization‘ somewhere within their marketing or sales material. It is a good idea to check that that they really do know what that means, many of them do not. The way to check it out is to look at sites they have already completed – particularly their own. Check to see if it has Meta tags such as the keyword and description meta tag, check to see if their title tags actually have something useful in them not just ‘welcome to company XYZ website’.
These things are very easy to check. The title tag is easily visible to you as you open the site in your browser, you will see it on the very top of your screen. To double check the other items you will need to view the source code, you can do this in Firefox by clicking on ‘View’ then on ‘Page Source’. This will show you all the code of the site, the meta tags should be near the top just after the the title tags.
Finally, check out the code to see if headline tags have been used. Between them should be the main title of the page, including the keywords that you want people to find your site with.
Article by Johnathon Black
I put a lot of my thought into developing strategies for search engine optimization (SEO) for my business’s many traditional websites and blogs. Basically, an Internet business has only two choices when it comes to improving SEO. One of those is to handle your optimization efforts in-house, while the other is to hire a consulting firm to assist you in the project. I have three primary concerns about such companies. Many of the consultants are not well informed about legitimate research about how the search engine algorithms determine rankings. Some of them seem to prefer to respond to the latest rumor rather than relying upon solid empirical data; perhaps they just lack the necessary analytical skills. Some of the simply disguise themselves as experts, and then go out and purchase links from link farms. Such links can sometimes have very short term success, but eventually the linking strategies are made useless by sophisticated search engine algorithms that can uncover such schemes and cause your site to drop back farther in the search results than it was before you hired the self-proclaimed masters. The last of my reservations about these companies, at least the last that I will mention in this article, is that they tend to be overpriced for the limited value that a business typically receives.
If you read the first paragraph of this article, you know my recommendation: Do it yourself, unless you can afford the extremely high prices of someone like a Brad Fallon or a Leslie Rohde.
But to take the do it yourself approach, you will need to take the time to educate your in-house staff on the fundamentals of search engines and optimization for them, and you must also be willing to spend some money for well designed software to assist in the gathering and analysis of the immense amount of data that will be required. I wrote a comparison of the important SEO software that is available at one of my sites.
I have long been a long term supporter of SEO Elite (see sales page). This software is one of the products of the Callen brothers’ company, and it has been a leader in the SEO software niche for many years. I generally recommend it without any reservations. I recently learned that they are getting ready to release a new version, SEO Elite 2.0, so I recommend it now only on the basis of two conditions: 1) That you can get assurance that you will be able to get a special upgrade price for the new version when it is released in the future, or 2) that you decide to buy the same company’s highly recommended Keyword Elite, because they extend a substantial discount for buying both simultaneously (it comes as an upsell). I bought both at the same time and, together, they are still among the best investments I have ever made!
The other top level SEO software is Leslie Rohde’s Optilink (you’ll land on the sales page). Leslie Rohde is the patron saint of optimization, a genuine genius. Much of what I have learned about search engine optimization I learned from Rohde. Pardon the lack of modesty…I know an immense amount about SEO.
To those companies that can afford the expense, I strongly recommend buying both products (along with Keyword Elite). But if you are in a financial pinch and want to begin with just one of the two, I’m going to break with my longstanding position of suggesting SEO Elite and recommend Optilink, instead–temporarily, at least, until I have an opportunity to thoroughly test SEO Elite 2.0.
Both SEO Elite and Optilink are comparably priced at just under $200 each, which is a bargain. Only if you are really pinched for cash, Rohde’s company also offers a less sophisticated aid, Optispider, that is only half as costly as the robust Optilink. Furthermore, if you are shopping in the bargain basement, another software tool you could consider is Mark Ling’s Traffic Travis in the same price range as Optispider, that is about $100. If you follow the link in the first paragraph of this article, you can get to my comparison of all of these alternatives, and there are direct links there to each of the software products.
I am a frequent user of both SEO Elite and Optilink, and I believe that they compliment each other marvelously. They are tremendous time savers in both gathering the data and in helping make sense of it all.
Here is one example of the financial results that a company achieved by optimizing a single keyword that moved from the bottom of the second page of Google to a number 4 position, above the fold on the first page.
A client’s website had a ranking of 18 for their primary target keywords on the second page of Google’s natural search engine results. Considering the number of companies competing for a high ranking on this keyword, a position on the second page seemed like a good accomplishment, but the volume of sales leads was disappointing.
SEO Works
A marketing strategy focused optimization efforts on improving the natural keyword ranking for this one target keyword. After some time and effort, the ranking for the keyword first moved to the number 9 position, and then to the number 4 position of the first page search engine results. The improved search engine ranking for this single keyword generated an increase in sales leads far more than expected, which subsequently converted to an increase in sales revenue amounting to over $1,000,000.
Tracking the Moves
The list below shows the search engine ranking relative to the number of sales leads that were generated from the company’s primary target keyword:
- Nov 08 – position 18 = 6 leads
- Dec 08 – position 9 = 31 leads
- Jan 09 – position 9 = 126 leads
- Feb 09 – position 4 = 102 leads
- Mar 09 – position 4 = 207 leads
- Apr 09 – position 4= 221 leads
Summary of Results
The increase in the number of monthly sales leads can be seen as the target keyword ranking moved up over the six month time period. The full benefit of the keyword moving from the 18th to the 9th position is reflected in the January total because the change occurred later in the month of December. The same applies to the move from position 9 to position 4 because the change occurred later in February.
For marketing managers and business owners who are wondering about the difference between having a major keyword listing on the first page of search results compared to the second page of results, this case study should provide some insight based on our experience.
It also shows an example of the potential benefit from having keyword search results listed above the fold of a web page as opposed to below the fold where viewers must scroll down to see more search listings.
Based on these results, there is clear evidence that a higher organic search engine ranking can dramatically affect sales lead generation and company revenue, in this case over $1,000,000.
Wriiten by Rick Smith at 10th Degree Online Marketing and Jazel Automotive SEO.
Blogging can be a fantastic way to get more traffic charging full speed to your website.
The good news is that setting up a Blog for your website is surprisingly easy but there are a few caveats and things you need to change to ensure your blog is setup correctly to get maximum exposure in the search engines.
Before we start discussing what you should and should not do with Blogs, let’s take one step back and define what a Blog is.
A Blog can be thought of as a simple, public online diary where you can write entries (posts) into the diary.
Being public, the posts can be viewed by anyone who happens to surf by your site, and hopefully you have lots and lots of people reading every post you make, and contributing to your Blog in the form of adding comments, looking at relevant links you add to your blog, watching audio and video, and fingers crossed linking to your blog from their site, if they happen to have one.
What is particularly attractive about Blogs, is that the entire process of Blogging is very simple to do, mainly due to the great quality of Blog software available that you can install on your website.
Decent Blogging software provides all the functionality you need, the management of posts by yourself (and others), the categorization of posts (something that is essential) and even the process of telling other blogging websites every time you make a new post automatically.
Automatically telling other sites about your posts is a huge plus since it’s getting known on the Internet, without the need for you to be having to manually “submit” your blog in order for people to find out about it.
Now in my opinion, one of the most important things to ensure is that you don’t just use the Blog as a sales page (I recommend you leave the selling of your products and services to your actual sales page on your website).
Obviously you will want to talk about your products and services, and the benefits visitors will get in using them, but I believe it’s important not to have an all out sales pitch, as that will tend to turn off visitors who may be seeing your message for the first time. I also recommend you talk about non-business stuff, information about you, the person, what you like and dislike, things you have found of interest on the Internet, etc.
When considering finding out more about search engine marketing; it pays to visit professionals to help you achieve the best and most rapid results.
When people read these personal posts, they get to know the real you, and form a relationship with a “real person” and not a nameless website, and this can only assist you in future sales with these people.
A Blog also allows (and in fact encourages) participation by visitors, who can post responses to your entries, and this is often a great way to stimulate interesting conversations. Good Blogging software will allow you to remove spam responses (where visitors or programs “write” messages directing people to their site) as well as to moderate conversations that are in appropriate or off-topic.One of the best reasons to use Blogs is to help you rank highly in the search engines. The search engines love Blogs, provided they are providing relevant and quality content.
To give you an idea of how important search engines see Blogs, Google bought one of the largest Blogging sites out there (blogger.com). Having a focused relevant site with interesting and useful content can only help you in your journey to find true search engine love.
If you have read any of the other articles on this website, you’ve probably gathered that I preach relevant useful content. Blogs are no different than other web traffic techniques, you need to ensure it’s relevant, and ensure your separate your posts into logical categories.
For example if you have a website about software development, you may make posts discussing programming generally, other posts about training for software developers, and more posts about a specific computer language like Java.
It’s vitally important that you don’t lump all posts together for several reasons. Firstly, people coming to your Blog may have a specific interest in some of your posts (training for example) and may find it hard and frustrating to easily find all posts you have written on training if you have not clearly defined categories (and allowed posts to be searched/sorted by these categories).
Likewise the search engines may view your Blog as less relevant if you lump all your posts together than another Blog elsewhere that has posts clearly defined in categories. Search engines very much prefer categorization of information and reward websites that categorize correctly with high er rankings in the search engine.
The most popular open source blogging package is wordpress. Check that out online.
Wordpress is a free blogging package (yes nothing to pay!), and is extremely flexible and easy to use without sacrificing anything in power or flexibility. I use this package and can fully recommend you do as well.
Because of its popularity many Web host’s have it available for installation on their websites for you with “one-click” installs.