Copyright 2005 Timothy Spaulding

If you have an online home based business you know that routing traffic to your web page is incredibly important. Not only in order to make sales and increase revenues but to continue your business. H

however, you probably have realized that getting your web page noticed and getting a high ranking result from the search engines is difficult. In light of that, here are a couple of tips you can use that will help you increase the traffic to your web page.

First, you will need to do some research to see where your page ranks in several different search engines. Do this by performing searches on the keywords you think are relevant to your web page.

Once you have this information, you will be able to take action and become better than your competitors whose pages are being returned as higher relevant results.

No matter where you rank in the results, if it is less than number one you have some work to do. So, take a look at all the web pages that are ranked higher than yours and see what these pages have that yours does not.

Evaluating your competition will help your Web page become stronger and more competitive, something that is important to your bottom line.

You need to do this kind of research for all the different keywords that pertain most to your Web page and that people search for the most often. You want your web page to rank high in the results for a number of keywords, so be diligent about researching what other web pages are doing and what you can do to get your page returned higher in the results.

One of the best ways to improve your web page ranking for a variety of keywords and phrases is to use keyword rich articles on your web page. This will allow you to provide useful information for web surfers as well as include keywords that will help your page get noticed.

When it comes to keyword rich articles, you can either write them yourself or have them written for you. The first thing you need is a list of the most popular keywords and phrases people search for, and then write articles that include useful information which uses the exact keyword phrase multiple times.

When someone searches for that particular term, your page will be returned as a high result as long as you are outdoing your competition. The most important thing to keep in mind is that you need to provide relevant, useful and pertinent information.

When it comes to outdoing your competition regarding keywords and search engine results the relevance of your article is essential a higher web page ranking. If you are creating relevant, keyword rich articles, people will get to your page and will be more likely to stay.

Finally, if the keyword articles get your web page ranked higher in search engine results, as they should, do not expect that it will stay that way. There is more competition online every day, which means you will have to be diligent about continuously tracking your competition, what they are doing, and where your web page ranks in the search engine results.

You will have to make changes in order to keep ahead of your competition, but as a home based business entrepreneur you know this is an essential part of business.

About the Author:

Timothy Spaulding is the owner of the Work At Home Business Resource Center at http://www.workathome-awesomeopportunities.com and Home Made Profits at http://www.homemadeprofits.net which provide valuable tools, articles, affiliate programs and products for the home based entrepreneur.

Copyright 2005 Off the Page

Evaluation of a Home-Run Article

I've been writing articles and posting them online for several years. But it took a while before I learned writing well and developing a long list of places to post them weren't enough. Articles that deliver fresh, specific, how-to are a solid plus for readers. But writing each around carefully-defined keywords is a must for the search engines.

Other factors influence how successful your article marketing efforts will be - like the Page Rank of the posting site, whether they provide a LIVE LINK back, and how specific their niche or readership is. Some of that is beyond my control. But as a writer, it's up to me to craft each article to cover as many of those bases as possible.

Take the time to think through your article marketing strategy, rather than sending them out willy nilly http://www.promotewitharticles.com/strategy100.html There's more pay-off to write a number of articles, each adding greater depth, around a recurring theme.

My articles raised my name from 100 Google mentions to over 3,000 in a relatively short time. They established my expertise in several niches - article marketing and Yellow Page ads. These abilities come together in this example.

You don't Know the Winner until After the Horse Race

One never knows when sending out an article, which ones will get the most play. So write each one like your reputation depends on it (because it does). The article described below got widespread attention because it's timely. And there's considerable interest (and pain) on the topic.

It addresses a serious problem that no one is talking about - the declining response rates to Yellow Page ads. Advertisers feel they're paying too much for the amount of business their ads bring, but didn't know about their choices. Since this article went out, there have been so many additional changes working against Yellow Page advertisers that an updated article needs to be written. This level of online visibility indicates there's considerable interest.

Keep track of how widely each article you write is received. That's one of the ways to stay on the pulse of your readership - so you deliver more of what they want.

Your Title is the Hook for the Article

Most readers (skimmers, actually) won't get past the title. So make it a grabber. Give them the reason to keep reading. In this case, it's long (which I'm convinced works best). This title has three sections - which track with the body of the article.

Yellow Page Advertisers: Your Calls are Going to Decrease - Here's the Remedy

A. Tells who the information is for - Yellow Page Advertisers People can tell whether or not it applies to them. I increasingly write audience-specific articles and address them (consultants, speakers) in the title, rather than writing for the less-focused "everyone in business."

B. States the problem - Your Calls are Going to Decrease It backs up the claim with a bulleted list stating why

C. Tells there's a remedy for the problem - if they just keep reading The article provides a 4-step list stating how to get ready and protected

That's a lot to accomplish in 750 words - read it yourself at: http://www.yellowpagesage.com/article253.html Since the website itself provides visitors helpful free resources, it needn't all be included in the article itself. Interested readers can explore further at http://www.yellowpagesage.com Besides, I've sent a barrage of related articles, which further build on each other.

Build Your Professional Reputation

616 mentions in Google is an impressive yield for a single article. Admittedly, not all cites provide live links or appear on high Page Rank sites - but some do. (And there are duplicates in that number.) But given the amount of my effort involved, I'm well repaid.

Now, think past any single article, to the impact that niche-specific articles can have on your professional standing. Let me prove it. Search Google for "Yellow Page ads" (in quotes). When the query results show 38 million pages, enter "Lynella Grant" in the Search within Results box. The outcome: 5,000 pages related to Yellow Page ads refer to me. That's a ripple in the Internet universe, but certainly positions me for other activities in that arena.

Don't you think you or your website can profit from similar online visibility? Writing articles is the way to go.

About the Author:

--Dr. Lynella Grant Consultant and Author - Promote yourself, business, website, or book with online articles http://www.promotewitharticles.com Free how-to. Or let me write and submit your articles online for you. No learning curves (719)395-9450

More Article Marketing Resources and Tips

There are no hidden secrets on how to rank high with the major search engines. All that is needed is a basic understanding of how search engines work and a bit of know how.

Perhaps the biggest contributing factor to a successful web site is incoming links or Back Links. Without links, your website will more than likely go unnoticed. So how should you accumulate these links? Below are a few basic methods to accumulate quality back links.

Before you get started

You MUST understand how search engines work. Over 90% of your business will likely come directly from search engine results. Therefore, it is absolutely essential to optimize your site for search engines.

You could have the greatest deals in the entire world, but if no one knows about them then your efforts are wasted. Do a search on google for Search Engine Optimization (SEO).

You will find tons of great information on how to create a website that is both user friendly and search engine friendly. There are also countless numbers of companies and freelancers out there who offer SEO services.

Just be cautious of their offers and do your research first. Remember, NO ONE can guarantee top placement in major search engines, no matter what they say.

Where should back links come from?

1. Articles are a fantastic source of links and additional traffic to your site.

There are countless sites online that want your articles. It's a win win situation for everyone. When you write articles and submit them online, you are able to leave a link to your own site and sometimes even anchor text.

I know what you're saying, "I can't write about anything." I use to feel the same way. But the truth of the matter is, anyone can write. You just have to find a topic that interests you.

You can write about anything from dogs, to computers, to personal training, to web hosting, heck you can even write about writing. The bottom line is, articles are a valuable source of "relevant" back links to your site.

2. Submit to directories.

There are literally hundreds of "free" and "paid" directories online. With 3 hours of painless work, you can have your site submitted to hundreds of great directories.

There are many quality lists of directories that are regularly updated. One of my favorites is http://www.best-web-directories.com/ which is always updated and maintained.

3. Develop link exchanges with relevant sites.

The major search engines such as google see incoming links from relevant sites, and give them more rank compared a link from an unrelated site. For example, if you have a website about pet care products, your link strategy should target pet related sites. Again with a bit of hard work and determination, you can develop a great deal of "relevant" back links.

4. Forums are a great source for additional traffic and links.

Many forums allow their users to display signatures in their posts. These signatures can consist of both text and links. When you post a new message on that forum, your websites link will be displayed for everyone to see. This not only helps build valuable back links, but will bring additional traffic to your website.

5. Join a link co-op.

Co-ops such as the one found at http://www.digitalpoint.com/ are an amazing source of valuable back links and free advertisement. What is a co op network? A Co op network is a network of site owners/webmasters that offer ad space to the network.

In return, the ads they define are displayed across the entire network. The best part of ad networks such as the one found at digital point, is, they are free. Having your site in a co- op can literally mean thousands of back links for your site.

6. Buying ezine ads is a paid method of advertising, but it works, because it is the most targeted of these approaches.

Write a concise ad for your business, and link to either a lead-capture page or directly to your autoresponder. Then, begin contacting ezines to place your ad. (Do a search for "ezine directories," and you will find enough lists to keep you busy.)

When you contact an ezine, look for rates for both classified ads and solo ads. The advantage to a solo ad is that your ad goes out by itself in a separate email, but they can be more expensive.

Because these ads are targeted (you should NOT advertise in an unrelated ezine), you will definitely see traffic, but you will need to track your results to see which ezines bring you the most and best traffic.

7. Ad Swaps can be an exellent source of advertising.

Start by writing some killer copy (to coin a phrase...there are many free articles and ebooks writen on the subject). Simply use your favorite search engine and type in...how to write ad copy. I googled this as I am writing this and it showed 12,400,000 results. WOW!

Once you have your ad written, search out Ezines that are in the same catagory as your business or service. Again use your favorite web search. Build yourself a list of ezines and then email them asking if they except ad swaps. Include your ad in your corrospondance with the ezines so they can see what you are offering.

Another place to check for ezines is to type in Ezine directories in your seach engine. Look up ezines in your catagory of business or service. Most listings will tell you if they except ad swaps and the peramiters of the ad such as how many lines and how many characters per line. Don't forget to ad your website url in your ad.

If you want to have a successful site, whether-it-be a hobby or for business, you have to understand how search engines work. Part of that understanding, is knowing about link development.

Maybe in the early 90's the idea of "if you build it they will come" might have been true. But in the year 2005 the internet is a far more competitive and complex place. To be successful today, you have to work at it. Without a quality source of back links the search engines will all buy ignore your site.

Richard D. Moore is the President and Founder of IncomeNow! Marketing Masters. We offer Free support to every subscriber to IncomeNow! A No Hype, No Bull, Honest and Real source to help you start or grow your business and/or Ezine

http://www.incomenow.9k.com

By Scott Buresh

We are often asked if professional SEO (search engine optimization) can be done effectively utilizing in-house talent. Despite our obvious self-interests on the subject, our answer is always a qualified "yes"- you can achieve professional SEO results using existing talent.

However, for every company we have known that has met with great in-house SEO success, we know of many more that have seen their in-house efforts fail. We have also discovered the companies that have succeeded share some common traits.

If your company is considering doing SEO in-house, there are some critical questions that you should address before you proceed.

1. Do I have the proper resources at my disposal to achieve professional SEO results?

Search engine optimization takes time, and your internal SEO expert will need to have a great deal of it at his or her disposal - especially at the project's outset when target audiences, keyphrases, and optimization schemes are first being established.

Even after the initial optimization effort, the nature of SEO will require this person to spend ample time keeping up with industry trends, monitoring campaign progress, performing A/B testing, and expanding the campaign as new product and service areas are added.

Perhaps even more important than time, achieving professional SEO results requires a unique set of aptitudes. The person responsible for your internal SEO initiative must possess the ability to learn quickly and to look at your website from a macro-perspective, marrying together the needs of sales, marketing, and IT.

He or she can not be an aggressive risk taker, as this is often a surefire way to get your website penalized and potentially removed from the major search engines. These gifted people exist in many companies, but given the unique attributes that these individuals possess, their time is often already spent in other crucial areas of the business.

Without enough time to invest in the project or the right type of person to execute it, an internal SEO initiative is likely doomed to fail.

2. Do I know which departments of my company should be involved, and will they work with an insider?

As mentioned above, professional SEO, by necessity, involves marketing, sales, and IT. The SEO expert must work with marketing to find out what types of offers and initiatives are working offline to help translate them effectively online. He or she must work with sales to identify the types of leads that are most valuable so that you can target the right people in the keyphrase selection process.

And, finally, your SEO expert will need to work with IT to determine any technical limitations to the SEO recommendations, learn of any past initiatives based on a technical approach, and get the final optimization schemes implemented on the website.

Sadly, in many businesses, these departments have a somewhat adversarial relationship. However, it is the duty of the SEO expert to act as a project manager and coordinate the efforts of all three departments if you are going to get the most out of your campaign.

No professional SEO project can be completed in a vacuum. For whatever reason, it is often easier for an outsider to get adversarial departments on the same page, in the same way that a marriage counselor might convince a woman of her undying love for her husband while the husband is still grimacing from a well-placed knee in the parking lot.

3. Will someone be held accountable for the results?

This may seem like a small consideration, but it can have a tremendous impact on the success of the campaign. If you have added this responsibility to some poor soul's job description with the direction that he or she should "do the best you can," you'll be lucky to make any headway at all (especially if the person is not enthusiastic about SEO).

Whether SEO is done in-house or outsourced, someone will have to take responsibility for showing progress, explaining setbacks, and continually improving results. Without this accountability, it is very common to see an initiative fade as the buck is passed.

4. Can I afford delayed results based on a learning curve?

It's a reality - professional SEO expertise has a steep learning curve. While the information on how to perform the basics of optimization are freely available on the web, much of the information out there is also contradictory, and some of it is actually dangerous.

It takes time for someone unfamiliar with the discipline to sort the SEO wheat from the SEO chaff (on a side note, a "quoted" search of Google reveals that this may actually mark the first occasion in human history that the phrase "SEO chaff" has been used - we're betting it's also the last).

Simply put, if the person you are putting on the job has no experience, it will take longer to get results. This may not be a consideration if you aren't counting on new business from SEO any time soon. However, if you are losing business to your competition due to their professional SEO initiatives, time might be a larger factor.

5. Will it cost me less to do it in house than it would to choose a professional SEO firm?

Often, companies will attempt this specialized discipline in-house in order to save money, and sometimes this works out as intended. However, accurate calculations of the cost of in-house labor that would be involved versus the price of the firm you would otherwise hire should be performed to make an accurate comparison.

When making this calculation, also factor in the opportunity cost of the resource - the tasks that your in-house people are not able to perform because they are involved in SEO.

In addition, if worse comes to worst and your in-house SEO expert is led astray by some of the more dangerous "how-to" guides available, it can cost even more to repair the damage than it would have to hire a professional SEO firm to perform the optimization from the outset.

And an internal SEO campaign gone wrong can cost even more than the stated fee - websites that violate the terms of service of the major search engines (whether intentional or not) can be severely penalized or even removed, costing you a lot of lost revenue when potential customers can not find your website for a period of time.

6. Do I believe that the end result I'll get in-house will be equal to or greater than the results I would have gotten from a professional SEO firm?

Search engine optimization can create huge sales opportunities, and slight increases in overall exposure can have not-so-slight increases in your bottom-line revenue.

If you believe that your talented in-house resource will, given enough time, achieve results equal to or greater than those that could have been achieved by the professional SEO firm you might have chosen, it may make sense to do it internally.

However, in addition to a better knowledge of industry trends, one clear advantage that search engine optimization firms have is the benefit of the experience and macro-perspective that comes from managing many different websites over time.

Professional SEO firms can watch a wide range of sites on a continual basis to see what trends are working, what trends aren't, and what formerly recommended tactics are now actually hurting results.

This macro-perspective allows professional SEO firms to test new tactics as they appear on a case-by-case basis and apply those results across a wide range of clients to determine what the benefit is. It is harder for an individual with access to only one site to perform enough testing and research to achieve optimum results all the time, something that should also factor into the equation.

7. Do I have at least a slight tolerance for risk?

Neophytes to SEO can make mistakes that can lead to search engine penalization or removal. This happens most commonly when they have an IT background and treat SEO as a strictly technical exercise.

We are often called in to assist companies who have had an internal initiative backfire, leaving them in a worse position than the one they were in before they started.

The simple truth is that you cannot perform effective SEO without marrying your efforts to the visitor experience, but this is not something that is intuitively understood when people approach SEO for the first time.

However, professional SEO firms are not perfect either. Some firms use those same optimization methods that violate the search engines' terms of service and can get your site penalized.

So, if you do decide to outsource, educate yourself on SEO and do some research on the firm. Know the basics of the business, find out who the firm's clients are and how long they've been in business, and ask for professional references - just like you would do with any major business purchase.

If you have considered all of the above questions, and your answers to all seven are "yes," your company may be uniquely equipped to achieve professional SEO results in-house.

If you answered "no" to any of the first three questions but "yes" to the rest, it does not necessarily mean that you can't perform SEO in-house - just that you may not be in a position to do so at this time.

Taking the actions required to get you in the right position to answer in the affirmative might be worth your while. However, if you answered "no" to any of the last four questions, you may want to consider outsourcing the project to a professional SEO firm.

A professional SEO firm has the resources, the time, the expertise, and, most importantly, the experience, to launch an SEO initiative for your website that will have a positive effect on your bottom line.

Whichever option you choose, it is important that you fully embrace the channel. A half-hearted initiative, whether done internally or outsourced, can be as ineffective as taking no action at all.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is the CEO of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing. He has contributed content to many publications including Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004), MarketingProfs, ZDNet, SEO Today, WebProNews, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. Medium Blue, an Atlanta search engine optimization company, serves local and national clients, including Boston Scientific, DuPont, and Georgia-Pacific. To receive internet marketing articles and search engine news in your email box each month, register for Medium Blue's newsletter, Out of the Blue, at www.mediumblue.com .

The recent patent application filed by Google details numerous items the search engine uses to rank web pages. The specific application is summarized as:

"A method for scoring a document, comprising: identifying a document; obtaining one or more types of history data associated with the document; and generating a score for the document based on the one or more types of history data."

The patent application sheds significant light for those pursuing search engine optimization with Google. Patent applications can be difficult to understand, so following are highlights that you should consider for your SEO efforts.

Update Your Site

Updating your site is important when it comes to maximizing your rankings on Google. In addition to the manipulation of keyword density and meta tags, the patent application reveals that Google places significant value on how often your content is updated. The more often you update, the timely and relevant your site will appear to Google. In turn, this leads to higher rankings.

To appease mighty Google, consider the following plan of action:

1. Update pages frequently,

2. Add new pages to your site,

3. Interlink the new pages with others on your site, and

4. Add new pages on a weekly basis instead of all at once.

When Google returns to the site, you want to make sure that there is new content. The high rankings of blog sites are evidence of this approach.

Google's Looking at Your Domain

In a new twist, Google claims that it analyzes the number of years of domain registration as part of the ranking process. The application suggests that domains that are registered for longer periods of time are given more value because such a commitment shows the site is not a fly-by-night jump page.

It is recommended that you extend all domain registrations for as long as possible as part of your search engine optimization efforts. It is difficult to tell how much the registration process impacts the ranking process, but every little bit helps.

Google claims that it also digs deeper into domain names to evaluate the legitimacy of the site. Factors in the evaluation include the web host and the "who is" information. According to the patent application, Google maintains a database of hosts that facilitate spamming of the Google search engine.

While such hosts are not detailed in the application, pray to God that you are not using one. You should evaluate your host if your optimization efforts are not producing results.

If your search engine optimization efforts for Google are failing, the patent application may provide answers. Talk about a perfect E-book!

Halstatt Pires is with Marketing Titan , an Internet marketing and advertising company comprised of a search engine optimization specialist providing meta tag optimization services and Internet marketing consultant providing internet marketing solutions through integrated design and programming services.

by Stephan Miller

Yes, it does seem to be open season. And it does seem that anyone who tries to make their website rank higher in search engine results is lumped together with search engine spammers.

Now, I would understand this a little more if search engine technology was at a level where I type a phrase in and find what I am looking for. But people's minds works differently and no search engine will ever be able to account for this factor.

A newbie to a certain technology, doesn't matter which, doesn't use the same terminology as an expert. He will use terms that relate to his areas of expertise and as he progresses, this terminology will evolve until it is more precise. Therefore, there will be many levels of vocabulary that he will use in this progression. As SEO's, we recognize this.

A person may type in "change belt in my car", not knowing that there are multiple belts in a vehicle and each vehicle may have different procedures for changing this belt.

The more "authoritative" website may never use this exact term. They will use "change a timing belt in a 94 Toyota Camry" or "changing the drive belt in a 95 Chevrolet Corsica." While the SEO, who has researched search terms on internet users, will know the vague terminology that newbies may use.

This is the job of an SEO. To bring people the information they are looking for. Maybe make a sale while they are at it, but still an SEO knows the pulse of what people are looking for more accurately than the run-of-the-mill textbook webmasters.

People looking for something on the web are looking for something quick. They do not care that the language they may use is inaccurate. They don't want to read a manual before they type words into Google. They just want the info. As SEO's we bring it to them and reap our rewards.

To do this, we learn a little about the search engines we submit to. It's a necessity. And I think this makes the internet a better place to find things. To suggest otherwise would be like saying that people born with bad eyesight should be forced to live without glasses.

Of course, I am only speaking for those on the white-hat side of SEO. Presenting a false front to search engines is not good practice. Just give people what they are looking for and add value to your site.

Let the blind continue to lynch SEO's. Let search engine's change their ranking algorithms. Let spammer's continue their games and get banned. Let the non-SEO webmasters continue to website equivalent of Siberia. Then sit down, know your audience, know your competition, know your search engines, and write.

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Stephan Miller http://www.profit-ware.com
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About a month ago I had the privilege of giving a demo of the next version of Sonic Page Blaster to the attendees at Yanik Silver's "Underground Online Marketing Seminar". I fielded a couple questions afterwards that bear a better treatment than I could manage on the spur of the moment and in less than 60 seconds.

Q: If we create "feeder" sites that point to our main sales page or "money site", won't they be adversely affected by Google's sandbox?

A: Let's first define what we mean by the "Google sandbox". Over the last seven months or so it has become apparent that new web sites do not tend to show as high a page rank as older established sites. The reason for this is not a raw prejudice against new sites.

According to my sources, it is instead an attempt by the search engine giant to discount the effect of reciprocal linking, especially paid linking. If links cost you money and they have no immediate effect, chances are most people will abandon the practice.

And that's exactly what Google is hoping for. Frankly, I understand and support this move. The reason is that Google's motives and mine coincide. Google is trying to make sure they return the most relevant and highest quality results available for a given search term.

If I have the most relevant and authoritative web site for a given subject that encompasses those same search terms, I want Google to return my results at the top of the heap. I don't want spammy link farms to change this.

The key is quality. Really, over time, the best search engine marketing strategy is to create a killer web site. Wouldn't it be nice if all the energy we direct towards search engine optimization could instead be focused on the quality of our web site?

Google feels the same way, believe me, and the refinements they make to their alogorithms are designed to move in that direction. For that reason alone, the quality and focus of your web site is your best long-term SEO play.

Q. Could automatically generated web pages be penalized as "spam" by search engine spiders?

A. I call Sonic Page Blaster "SPB" a lot, and I definitely don't think of the "S" as standing for "spam". On the contrary, Sonic Page Blaster simply saves you time in creating search engine-friendly web pages that contain really good articles that pertain exactly to the content of your web site.

No "automatic" content system can find the content that best fits your niche. You need to either write or find the articles that will help your web site visitors or subscribers the most.

I know that a few of the seminar attendees I talked to had spam-filled stars in their eyes when they saw SPB churn out a bunch of pages at the push of a button.

Trust me, you don't want to go there. Google will eventually punish you in a big way.

Here are some rules that I believe will not only help your search rankings, but also drive the right kind of traffic to your primary web site (at the seminar Jeff Johnson called these "money pages").

1. Do not post duplicate content at multiple web sites, especially if you own them all, if they are on the same server, and if they link to each other. SPB makes it so easy to generate article mini-sites, why would you want to duplicate content, anyway?

With SPB you have a huge advantage over those who have to manually create web pages. Use your advantage. Create many web sites that focus on narrow subject matters, each having their own set of articles.

Worried about duplicate content and potential search engine punishment? Good. You should be. Don't do it.

Ah, but what about duplicate content on other people's web sites? If they don't link to you, you don't have anything to worry about. I'll save a further explanation about that for later, but I don't believe it makes sense for Google to punish you for something that is not giving you any advantage. Besides, they understand content syndication. Google's developers and designers are anything but stupid.

2. Your money site does not necessarily need to be extremely narrowly focused on a few key words, but your feeder sites should be. For example, I will soon be starting a web site for those folks trying to develop an online business in their spare time. That is, they hold down a regular job and do this stuff at night.

The site is called MidnightMarketer.com and it is not live yet (but the sign-up page works). Anyway, that will be one of my "money sites". It will cover a plethora of topics related to internet marketing, time management, technology, and even health.

In order to "feed" it potential customers, I am also developing "feeder" sites that will focus on each of those more focused topics. The feeder sites will contain as many highly focused articles on their subject matter as I can find. My goal is that the search engines will (rightly) see them as quite valuable and relevant results for some important search terms. Then visitors will see the links and ads for MidnightMarketer and head on over. I can even make a little money off those that don't click through to MidnightMarketer.com, thanks to Adsense ads mixed into each page by Sonic Page Blaster.

3. Don't use reciprocal links, especially between your feeder sites and your money page. Yes, I know that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. But try to understand Google's motivations--that is the key to predicting what they will eventually do. They understand that one-way links are usually more meaningful than reciprocal links, which are often just trades between webmasters. A one-way link usually points to something useful.

OK, I'll back off on this just a little: When you can, get one-way links. When there is no other choice, reciprocate. And yes, you can be sure Google keeps track of all links into and out of a web site.

4. Do use a blog, hopefully even more than one. Blogs don't have to be on your server(s), they're not owned by you, and it is going to drive Google's software gurus nuts trying to sort the wheat from the chaff in the blogging world. Even though I support Google in most things, it is kinda fun to do something that makes them a little crazy. [I mean that in a good way, Sergei.]

== Rossaroni, no baloney ==

The MidnightMarketer

Copyright 2005 Ross Lambert

About the Author:

Ross Lambert is a senior software engineer for a fast-growing telecommunications firm in Kirkland, WA. He is also the founder of MidnightMarketer.com and TheVentureForge.com .

When it comes to search engine optimization strategy, there are basically two camps - those who view search engines as adversaries to be conquered at any cost and those who regard search engines as partners in their online marketing efforts.

Long-time readers of my articles probably already have a good idea of which camp I fall into; however, I believe both approaches can be effective optimization methods.

Adversarial Optimization Methods

Service providers who have this "adversarial" philosophy will tell their prospects that the formulation of a search engine optimization strategy is much like a high-stakes game of chess. It's an "us vs. them," "winner-take-all," and "every man for himself" mentality.

It's also rooted largely in technology - under this philosophy, success is defined as unraveling the latest search engine algorithm to find new optimization methods and exploiting its technical aspects for immediate benefit.

The underlying premise of this search engine optimization strategy is that you must use optimization methods that trick the search engines into showing a website predominantly in the results since the site isn't currently offering attributes that the search engines consider valuable.

The primary benefits of this approach are that it doesn't require much work on the part of the client and that results can be realized more rapidly. These qualities both stem from the fact that there isn't a large amount of additional content needed, nor are there many wholesale changes to make to the website when using such optimization methods.

While this is not the methodology that I recommend, it is a valid - albeit potentially volatile - search engine optimization strategy.

Partnership Optimization Methods

Those who view search engines as partners have a very different search engine optimization strategy. These service providers embrace the idea that the attributes and optimization methods that give a website high rankings in search engines are, by and large, the same ones that make the site more valuable to website visitors and potential customers.

This theory makes sense. Every search engine needs to return results that their users find to be the most relevant and useful. If search engine R&D people operated in a vacuum, they would probably find their market share rapidly diminished while they lamented about how "people are stupid".

This means that each of the major search engines spend endless research dollars to determine exactly what it is that search engine users find valuable, and each has a high stake in the results of the research.

No search engine marketing or web design firm has the resources or motivation to conduct studies of this magnitude. It is, therefore, highly advantageous to use the findings of these studies, deduced from common algorithm traits of multiple search engines, to improve your search engine optimization strategy and website.

I consistently hear from companies who are puzzled as to why their expensive, cutting-edge website is perpetually outranked by a site of perceived inferior quality - "our website is better than theirs" or "we are a much bigger company" are common remarks.

Beauty is, as always, in the eye of the beholder. The sites that consistently rank highly are almost always using optimization methods that offer something of value to people who entered the search query.

Search engines care as much about the size of a company or how much it spent on its website about as much as they care about what you had for breakfast this morning (I had blueberry muffins, but Google hasn't called to ask).

The advantages to the "partnership" search engine optimization strategy are numerous. Rather than chase the ever-changing technical attributes that can get you short-term results, you instead use optimization methods that leverage your company's knowledge of your industry to create something useful for the searcher.

You can improve your website and offer the information and products that prospects are seeking, even if those prospects are in the earliest stages of the buying cycle. In general, you will not have to watch your rankings swing wildly based upon new spam filters and algorithm shifts, and thus will enjoy a higher level of predictability when it comes to your website (although with search engines, there are never any guarantees).

Since you aren't constantly forced to re-address your site's search engine optimization methods, you'll have more time to focus on other online marketing areas that need attention, such as the website's conversion rate, an e-newsletter, or online PR.

Conclusion

It's a fact that websites rise and fall in the rankings all the time. The only real constant is that the sites of TRUE value, the ones that offer something relevant and important to the searcher, are generally always near the top - even after the latest algorithm shift has sent the "adversarial" crowd into a frenzy of activity as they attempt to reformulate their search engine optimization strategy.

While it may take a little extra effort, I like to think of the relationship with search engines as a "partnership" in a real sense. We use optimization methods that apply the attributes search engines have deemed to be valuable to a website, which improves both the website and the website's search engine rankings.

The search engines, in turn, send highly-targeted visitors who have shown an interest in your industry, products, or services. Sure, it may seem that we get more out of the deal, but the engines don't complain. They haven't even acknowledged our partnership.

About the Author

Scott Buresh is managing partner of Medium Blue Search Engine Marketing. His articles have appeared in numerous publications, including ZDNet, WebProNews, MarketingProfs, DarwinMag, SiteProNews, SEO Today, ISEDB.com, and Search Engine Guide. He was also a contributor to the recently released Building Your Business with Google For Dummies (Wiley, 2004). Medium Blue is an Atlanta search engine optimization company with local and national clients, including Georgia-Pacific, DuPont, and Boston Scientific. To receive Scott's monthly articles, sign up for Medium Blue's e-newsletter, Out of the Blue, at www.mediumblue.com .

By Titus Hoskins (c) 2005

Has Google finally embraced RSS with their new XML powered Sitemaps program? Well, sort of, but it seems more like a hug than a strong impassioned embrace!

It does use XML technology which allows for the crawling and updating of your site's web pages. You can even include your entire web site (all urls) with this indexing program. For anyone targeting the search engines, especially Google, this program (still in beta) is a MUST HAVE.

If you require timely updating of your most popular pages Google's new Sitemaps may prove indispensable. It's a little premature to assess the importance or impact of Google's new program but anyone wanting to give their site a competitive edge should be gearing up.

How it works:

There are several ways to set-up a XML Sitemap, perhaps the easiest way is to use the open-source Generator which you can download from Google. This is a Python file that you can upload to your webserver and this generator will create a sitemap from your 'URL lists, webserver directories, or your access logs'.

It would probably be wise to check with your hosting provider to see if they can accommodate this Generator on your webserver. It you have a small site there should be no problem but if your site runs into the 1,000's of URLs or pages - check to see how much bandwidth such a system will take up. It's better to be safe than sorry!

Once done, you have to then submit your newly generated XML sitemap to Google - the search engine will use this XML sitemap to update and index your site whenever you make changes on your site. You will need to have a Google account.

You may also submit text files containing URLs from your web site to be included in Google Sitemaps but these text files will have or will be given low priority for the time being.

To get started on your own Google Sitemaps Account you can click here: https://www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/login

What's great about it:

Besides seeing Google finally grab the RSS wildcard, it gives you better control of how and when the search engines update your web site pages. Perhaps, the most important aspect for Internet Marketers, you can now assign the importance that's given to any of your particular pages.

As most marketers know, certain pages on your web site are more important than others; these pages earn money, build your contact list, or direct your site's visitors in the right direction. In other words, you can now place more emphasis on your web site's 'bread and butter' pages. A BIG Plus!

With Google Sitemaps you can decide the importance placed on these pages by using the priority XML tag. This rating system is relative - it only relates to the pages on your own site.

Likewise, you can also indicate how frequently your pages change by using the changefreq XML tag. More or less instructing Google when your page will be updated or changed.

This is a win-win situation for everyone - Google gets the freshest content for its users and you gain more control of the frequency of the updates done with your site or web pages. This may have a direct influence on the profitability of your web site.

For those who are actively marketing thru the search engines and keywords - Santa may have come a little early this year. Of course, the jury will be out for awhile but Google Sitemaps will probably have a positive impact on your bottom line.

What it means for Google:

For those of us who have been following and watching the RSS wildcard for the past couple of years - it takes away some of the frustration and a little of the puzzlement from Google's seemingly total disregard of RSS.

RSS is not a fad, it is not a trend and it's not going away. Instead, its importance is growing. It is fast becoming 'the' way data is moved on the web.

One could even speculate that in the very near future all web pages will have an RSS component - perhaps a hybrid of 'XML/HMTL' or an embedded XML code that will work with all browsers, search engines and servers.

For Google to ignore the growing importance of RSS, blogging, podcasting, broadcatching, the RSS featured Firefox browser, MyYahoo, not to mention all those orange XML logos popping up on most of the major sites on the web - is beyond comprehension.

Why Google does not have an RSS search on its main search engine page still seems baffling. Bringing out a homepage and not including an RSS feature is just foolhardy (They may introduce this feature later).

For those firmly in the RSS corner, Google's continued disregard for RSS became more than a little frustrating to observe. It was downright rude! Perhaps Google was waiting to incorporate RSS in a program like this new XML sitemaps?

Can this mean that Google has finally accepted the importance of RSS and they're starting to make amends? More importantly, could there still be a few more RSS goodies in the Google Jar left to be announced?

One can only speculate but when it comes to RSS and Google, let's just hope this is the start of a beautiful friendship.

To add RSS to your Site within minutes -download this simple RSS Report and Guide . Copyright ? 2005 Titus Hoskins of BWMagic's Free Marketing Tools & Guides . This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Pay attention to the titles of your web pages. They are more important than most web authors realize. If you understand why the title is so important, you can write web page titles that will enhance your site exposure and will attract more visitors to your web site.

1. Web Page Titles

In your web page HTML code, the page title is the text that is enclosed by the opening and closing TITLE tags.

The title should be placed between the HEAD tags, ideally just after the beginning HEAD tag and before the first META statement. It should be one of first things that a search engine spider sees when crawling your site.

2. Why are Titles Important?

The title is important for a variety of reasons.

- Most browsers will display your page with the title at the top of the browser window.

- If someone bookmarks your page in their browser, their bookmark list will show your page using the title. So if the title of your web page is "Home Page", as many are, your visitors' bookmark lists will contain a lot of "Home Page" listings. How will they determine which "Home Page" is yours two months from now?

- Google and other search engines present the results of a search by displaying page titles as links in the first line of each query result. Search engines doesn't like to display "Home Page" as the best they can do for a user searching for "purple people eaters," for example.

- Most search engines will order the results of a search engine query based on the relevancy of your page to the keywords used for the query. One of the factors in determining this relevancy is how closely your title matches these keywords. If your small startup company makes purple people eaters, don't give your home page the title "Unknown Business, Inc." It's not relevant to the search. Of course, many people will consider "CNN" or "Time, Inc." as relevant for the keyword "news." When you get to be well known, you can use your name as your title.

You can see that the title of your web page is highly visible to others, and it can impact the search engine ranking of your web page. It is therefore worthwhile to spend some time carefully writing each page title.

3. Practical Title Writing Tips

Here are some practical tips you can use for crafting an effective web page title.

- Start by thinking hard about how your potential visitors will search for your site. What keywords or keyword phrases will they use in a search engine query? Use one or two of the most important keyword phrases for your title. In our example, the home page title could be "Purple People Eaters."

- Don't just use the same title for all your web site pages. Your About page title could be "About Unknown Business, Inc., your Source for Purple People Eaters." Your Order page title could be "How to Order Purple People Eaters."

- Don't include your company name in the title unless it is a commonly recognized name or the page is about your company. Use the limited real estate in a title for relevant keywords. You can include your company name in the description META tag of your web page.

- Make sure the title does not exceed 66 characters. Google will not display more than 66 characters of a title in the search results page. Truncated titles irritate search engine users.

- Don't use more than 7-10 words in your title.

- Be careful when using some web page generators or editors. Many will either ignore the title or make up an ineffective title like "your title goes here." You may need to dig into the underlying HTML code to actually see your page title.

Understand what the title element of a web page is, why it is important, and follow these practical tips for writing your web page titles. Remember: it's all about your keywords. As a result, your internet visibility will be improved, you will improve your search engine ranking, and you will get more visitors to your web site.

About the author:

Kempton Smith is a web marketing specialist who helps internet businesses increase their site exposure and gain more visitors. He operates the Ad Buddies banner exchange network at http://adbuddies.com

Visit http://kemptonsmith.com for web versions of this and other articles by Kempton Smith.

Today, being on the first page for your most popular keyword phrase is like having the most memorable prime time television commercial in 1973.

Essentially, that's where the power of advertising is going. It's all about Search. And Search is only going to become more important over the next ten years. If you can get on that coveted first page organically, well then, more power to you!

I know you probably have read other articles about writing SEO copy and how it relates to achieving high search rankings, there are plenty of them to go around. But some of the articles are complicated; some are too long, others boring.

Still others don't explain that great SEO copy is rarely effective just on it's own - in order to get those high rankings (which is the goal after all), you have to do other things too.

So, we decided that what most people really needed was a "down and dirty", easy to understand, ten step method. You ask, and we deliver. Here are the official ten steps in order:

1) Check your Competitors

Who are your competitors? Do you know? If you don't, you may want to go online and do a search for your product or service. Who is on the first two pages? That is your target. Those are the companies that you want to compete with. Because right now, they are getting your customers.

Take a look at their website. Notice the copy. Analyze their business. Are they successful? What are they not doing right? Look for the holes. You're going to meet the needs of their customers (that they are not fulfilling) so they become YOUR customers.

2) Research your Keyword Phrases

Remember, Keyword Phrase research is critically important. It can also be a little tricky. Do you know what keywords or keyword phrases your customers search for when they look for you? Are you sure? See what your competitors are using. You can do this by right clicking on their home page, selecting "View Source" and then checking their keyword meta tag.

Next, go on to Overture.com (Now Yahoo), click on "Visit the Advertiser" section, and use their Keyword Selector Tool. Its great - and its free. You can also use Wordtracker.com, but it does cost $7.50/day.

3) Write Good Copy

Now its time to start writing. Or re-writing. And if you can't write, you can hire a website copywriter to do it for you. The bottom line is to write about benefits, not features.

Don't tell them how great your company is. They will discover that for themselves when you overwhelm them with your service and deliver the perfect product that meets their every need.

Make the copy to the point and snappy. Make it sure it has impact, and asks the potential customer for their business.

4) Integrate Your Keyword Phrases

After you figure out which keyword phrases you want to use on your site, you need to integrate them into the copy of your site. Think Home Page and Services page as the most important pages to use them on.

Essentially, you want to them to make up 5% of the total words on the page. It's not that hard actually. Just don't use them all over the place like some stupid copywriters do - you could get de-listed from the search engines.

Definitely use them in your headlines and sub headlines. That will get you extra points, so to speak.

5) Check your Links, Build if necessary

Do you have any inbound links pointing to your site? If not, no amount of awesome copy is going to get your site high rankings. Links are very important. And even more so for Google. Go to linkpopularity.com and see what you have. Also check your competitors. If they have more than you, you need to get some high quality links.

You can either do that yourself or hire someone to do it for you. It can be time consuming and expensive. But you gotta do it. It makes you look important to the search engines. A good way to do it is to make sure you are listed on directories, including DMOZ and industry related sites.

Go to incominglinks.com to see which ones you should be listed on. Then write articles and submit them to article submission sites. That could potentially give you hundreds of links for free.

6) Use Go Rank's Analytical Tools

GoRank.com is a fantastic free resource for SEO. They have a Keyword Density Analyzer, Link Popularity Analyzer, Top 10 Keyword Analyzer, Research, News and lots of other great stuff. It's a great tool and something I use every day. It will help you in your SEO copy efforts.

7) Submit to the Search Engines

After you've ensured that your website copy and all the other important SEO considerations have been completed, it's time to submit to the Search Engines. Do it manually.

Go to the search engine and do it yourself. Definitely don't pay someone to do it for you. You may have to resubmit a few times, but eventually, your site will get noticed.

8) Tweak the Copy as necessary, Add New Content

After your site has been up for a while, go back and take a second look. Ask friends and customers what they think of it. Can anything be improved? You'll be surprised what you may hear. If something isn't working, fix it. Make it sound better.

The other thing that you should also be doing is adding content regularly. Build free resources into your website. This will make your customers and potential customers happy, and it will make you appear to be more important in the eyes of the search engines.

Adding articles to your site is a great way to give your customers new, free content. Write about things that they would find interesting.

9) Partner with a Great SEO Firm

You may want to also consider partnering with a great Search Engine Optimization firm. There are probably a hundred very good ones out there. There are also 1000 bad ones.

For the good ones, check out topseos.com. and marketingsherpa.com. They both list reputable firms. Whoever you go with, make sure they have a list of client success stories complete with stats to back it up.

10) Measure Your Success!

Finally, measure your success. (or progress) Get a software program that will provide you with some web metrics as it pertains to your site. WebTrends and Statcounter are great ones. There are quite a few others as well.

As you can see, Search Engine Optimized copy is only part of the overall SEO story. There is a lot to it, so make sure you cover every area. After all, we want to get your web site to the very top!

C2005 Jon Wuebben. Do you need Search Engine Optimized (SEO) Web site copy that moves customers to buy? Are you looking to create an effective newsletter/e-zine article or ad for your business? We provide world class copy that helps you to be found on the web. 10 years experience providing superior copy to businesses nationwide. Contact us for a complimentary Website Copy analysis. Subscribe to our Better Business Writing (BBW) Newsletter and receive 2 free reports. http://www.customcopywriting.com

by Stephan Miller

Every day you want to wake up to a thousand more hits than the next. It doesn't matter if you are selling something or are just writing a blog. You want traffic. Why have a website if you can't get visitors?

But it doesn't matter how valuable your content is. It doesn't matter if you created the greatest thing since sliced bread and you're selling it exclusively from your website. No one will find you if you don't reach out. And how do you reach out? With links.

In the brick and mortar world, a retail business depends on demand and location. If you put a store selling something that somebody wants in a high traffic location, you will be successful. And sometimes it doesn't matter if your price is a little bit higher than everyone else's. Look at convenience stores that set their prices twice as high as any grocery store. So they make a profit? You bet they do.

Now if we use this model for an website, location can be compared to your search engine rankings. The higher you rank for your chosen keywords, the more people come to your store. If you provide something that your visitors want, valuable content, they may buy something or they may just remember your site and be back for more.

Getting people to link to your site is one way to increase your ranking with the search engines. But a lot of people go about this the wrong way. By posting to free for all links pages, spamming blog comments, or worse. I had a blog that got about 10 comments a day from people that were just trying to get a link to their site. The site was a family photo blog. It was an easy target, but do you think that anyone looking at a picture of my family wanted to click on the Cialis website link in the comments?

Well, search engines don't think so either. Links like this are being downgraded in many search engines, including Google. It's a good thing. And this brings us back to valuable content.

Valuable content will convince people to link to you. Did you know that most blogging software can put a "blog this" link on Internet Explorer's toolbar? This button puts a link to your site right from their blog. And once your site gets into the blogosphere, there's no telling where is will stop. Maybe with top rankings for keywords you never optimized for, but that fit your site perfectly.

Did you know that there are site rating groups like stumbleupon.com that can send your site to thousands of people within a week? If people like your content they will pass it on to other users. You could have 500 people linking to you by the end of the week.

What about the "Link to Us" page? I know. I thought it was "old school" too. Until I tried it. It works. Just give your visitors the code they need to copy and paste to their site. Make it easier for them and they'll link to you.

Linking membership sites are great also, especially when you get hundreds of requests for link exchanges because of the caliber of your content.

Yes, things are changing with search engines. But if you have been providing the type of content that people look for, you have nothing to worry about.

Stephan Miller http://www.stephanmiller.com

by Stephan Miller

Google's Patent Application contains a lot to read and reading it may take some time, but if you own any type of website, this is all information you need to know. It also brings some interesting points up. While I go over some of the important points, know that no one knows which of these factors is given more weight than the others.

Domain Name Registration - Google is now going to track when a domain is registered among other things. An older domain will get a higher ranking. No more throw away domain names. No more jump to the top of Google results in thirty days.

They will also be tracking the length of renewal on the theory that a person that renews for ten years will be more likely to build a worthwhile site than someone who only holds their domain for a year.

Google will also be keeping a blacklist of known spammers and will be using this list when checking dns records of websites. So spammers who make sure to get their new throwaway domains with different nameservers in order to throw Google off may have to try something new.

Google Spyware? - They are using "user behavior" to rank sites. In my book, if spyware removers try to remove Alexa every time I run it, then this function of the Google toolbar can only be called spyware. Yes, you may check the box on the terms of service for the toolbar, but it still tracks your internet browsing.

But, I think the theory will make search engine results much better.

Google will be tracking the number of times a document is selected from the search engine results. This is a great idea. It means you now have to write the titles of your pages to grab the searcher's attention. And since the search terms are highlighted in the results, maybe placing them at the beginning of sentences in your page may make then stand out due to capitalization. But I also see a way that this can be spammed by a network of "search and click" spammers.

They will also be tracking the amount of time a person spends on the page that they find. I don't know about you, but I have been around long enough to notice a spam page and I am gone in two seconds. This may help drop them out of legitimate results.

Content Changes - I think this comes down to just updating your information the way it should be updated. If you have a forum that hasn't been active in a week, the one that is very active with new posts every minute will definitely rank higher.

But the document also mentions that some stale sites may not be ranked lower if not updated that much. For example, a site on the Civil War will not be expected to change as much as a news headlines site and an older, more stable site may get the rank boost.

Query Analysis - A search for "American Idol Winner" will produce different results than it did last year, even if a page on last year's winner has more links pointing to it.

Google will be following trends by the increase or decrease in the usage of certain search terms or phrases. I am not sure how this will be implemented. Will there be a quicker ranking algorithm for new trends? Or will sites that have a tendency to break new topics get top billing for such terms?

The search engine will also be sensitive to terms that could be used for different subjects. When you search for "Deep Throat" are you looking for Mark Felt or a Linda Lovelace movie? Google will track what searchers are actually looking for and changes in searching trends.

A Google Browser? - Google also says that they will attempt to track bookmarks and favorites files along with cache files to help determine the ranking of sites. The only way I see this happening is through their own browser and again, this brings up the question of spyware.

Topics - Pages will now be tracked for the topics they cover. Maybe this is what Site Flavored Search is all about. Google says that changes in topic will traced for scoring. So a drastic change in a site may drop in down in the search results. I think this must already be in effect, just for some of the things I have seen with my own sites.

Anchor Text - Google says that links to pages from other sites tend to have differing anchor text if they are obtained naturally. Artificial linking campaigns tend to produce anchor text that is the same.

Anchor text that changes when the page the link is on changes will be counted as being more relevant.

Anchor text that changes with time may indicate a change in topic on the site.

Anchor text that is no longer relevant to the site linked to may be discounted.

Traffic - Google will track traffic to a page to determine if the content is stale or not. This is a cue that sites will no longer be create and forget. Google will also factor in Advertising traffic.

Linking - Google says that legitimate sites attract links back slowly. Whether this is true or not depends on the definition of "slowly". I know of sites like stumbleupon.com, where users comment and rate sites constantly and one site sent into the mix can get hundreds of links to it within a day just from comments posted about it.

Google also says that exchanging links, purchasing links, or gaining links from documents where their is no editorial discretion are all forms of link spam. Does this mean that if you link to someone and they link to you, that is spam? Than a lot of bloggers out there who aren't really trying to spam may get accused of doing so.

They will also be measuring the authority of the page that the links are on, mentioning government documents specifically. This smacks of information control. Who assigns this authority and what makes one person more of an authority of another? If a political issue is searched for, will a Democrat's or a Republican's page come up first?

The freshness of the page that the link is on will also help determine the freshness of the linked-to page. This is a good argument for using a blog and pinging after your entries.

A page that is updated while the link on that page remains the same is a good indicator of the relevant link.

Ranking History - Ranking change is another feature that Google will use to detect spam. Not that all sites will be flagged as spam sites if they see a huge jump in ranking. Some of these sites could be topical. The authors of the site may have caught onto a new trend just as it was rising.

But Google also will measure the change in a sites ranking to determine if the content is becoming stale, i.e. a drop in links to the site.

Now this must mean some sort of balance and I hope they have leeway for traditional SEO. For example, If you have written new software and have created a PAD file for it, you can literally get hundreds of new links in a weeks. It only takes a second to submit.

What about if you started your own affiliate program. You can get a lot of links quickly that way? Will Google see this as spam? We will have to wait and see.

Finally Hope - Competition always inspires a better product and more options for internet users. Despite the focus on Google in search engine forums and its name being used to define "search for something on the internet", i.e. I Googled him, Google hold on the market has actually dropped.

When once you could optimize for Google and leave it that, now the combined use of MSN and Yahoo is greater than Google, with Yahoo nipping at Google's heels.

This leaves options for us as search engine marketers and internet searchers. If one search engine doesn't suit us, at least we know that it isn't the only one we have to choose.

Stephan Miller http://www.stephanmiller.com

Copyright 2005 Torgeir Sunnarvik

The first months my website was online,I was constantly checking the search engines to see if my site was listed under the keywords that I was targeting. And always with the same negative results.

The truth is that the keywords that you are targeting are often not showing your site the first months at all on the first 200 search listings. OK,if you try to get your site listed for hoooohjgaagga or something like that,it could get you a first place in no time. But who wants to target that keyword?

In fact, I get a lot more traffic from keywords that I haven't thought of using as a keyword in the first place. One tool that I have found online can easily show you the keywords that your site is ranking well for.

You can find it at: http://www.googlerankings.com/ultimate_seo_tool.php

Here you simply enter your domain name and hit the "Analyze Keyword" button. If you want to,you can change the different settings on this page before you hit the button. But I usually leave this at default.

Then on the next page you can see a detailed report on keywords that are found on your site. You can see their numbers and density. It shows the number of 2 Word Phrases and 3 Word Phrases.

Step 2 Create Position Report

Now to the cool part of this tool. When you hit this button, the tool will search Google for the keywords and keyword phrases that it have gathered from your site. After a few seconds it shows your position for each of them. So now you don't have to wonder if your site is listed in Google.

But as I said,the first months you shouldn't be worried if you don't find your site under any keyword at all. Google use a lot of time to index new websites. I have found that MSN are a lot faster to show my pages under the keyword that I want.

I hope you'll find this tool as useful as I have.

About the Author:

Torgeir Sunnarvik, Norway mailto:webmaster@everypleasures.com Torgeir Sunnarvik is the owner and webmaster of http://www.everypleasures.com/ His site offer free ebooks, ebooks with reprint rights and review of business ebooks.

By S. Housley

Highly targeted, focused sites that are related to specific market segments are highly advantageous and can often be created using existing web content. The key is to provide value.

Think of the time spent surfing the web gathering resources and information. By creating a topic-centric resource compiling information, webmasters are providing a service or value. In many cases that value is simply the compilation of topic-specific information in a single resource. The compilation of this information in itself is the value.

These highly focused content sites can be great supplemental portals that are invaluable as a marketing tool for niche products. Niche portals help define expertise in a specific market segment, not to mention the added benefit of providing valuable topic-specific links.

The topic-centric portals also tend to achieve high search placement and will often provide advertisers high quality exposure, allowing webmasters the opportunity to capitalize on their efforts.

What to put in topical portal?

ARTICLES

Many article writers allow webmasters to republish their articles.

Search the large article directories for quality topic-specific articles using keyword searches. The articles contained in these directories often allow publishers to freely reproduce the article's contents as long as the hyperlinks in the article and article resource box remain intact.

Resource for finding articles for publication: GoArticles - http://www.goarticles.com

RSS FEEDS

By nature, RSS feeds are designed for syndication. Most RSS feeds can be freely reproduced. Locate topic-specific feeds using keyword or category searches. The contents of the feeds can be used to populate web pages. There are a number of free scripts available that allow webmasters to display the contents of an RSS feed (see http://www.rss-specifications.com/displaying-rss-feeds.htm for instructions on displaying feeds).

Resources for finding RSS feeds for syndication: RSS Network - http://www.rss-network.com RSS Locator - http://www.rss-locator.com

LINK DIRECTORY

While this takes a little more time, compiling a collection of niche websites on related topics can significantly enhance the value of a portal. Topic-specific directories and search engines can achieve high search engine rankings with the larger engines like Google and MSN, and can easily be optimized for a collection of search terms. The process can even be automated if you have programming experience.

Sample Link Directory - http://www.investing-partners.com

TOPIC SPECIFIFC FORUM

The most successful forums are those that are highly focused and niche-oriented. Establishing a community of individuals with common interests will result in return visitors. Managing a forum is not overly complex and there are free forum scripts available that will provide the forum structure. Many of the forums have scripts available that will allow for search engines to spider the contents and forum posts. As the content flourishes, the site will increase in value.

Free Forum Scripts: http://www.phpbb.com

More on topic-specific portals or information radars can be found in Robin Good's book 'Newsmastering'. http://www.masternewmedia.org/reports/newsmasterstoolkit/

A site that is focused on a relatively narrow range of goods and services will find that there is less competition. Topic-centric websites that provide a gateway to niche information related to a particular industry, sector, topic or market segment are becoming increasingly valuable and popular.

Compiling the resource using free resources will minimize the capital investment. Regardless of whether you are marketing a product, service or advertising, narrowing the topic focus will attract a targeted audience who genuinely are interested in the website topic, allowing you to monetize the portal, and minimize the expense.

About the Author: Sharon Housley manages marketing for FeedForAll http://www.feedforall.com software for creating, editing, publishing RSS feeds and podcasts. In addition Sharon manages marketing for NotePage http://www.notepage.net a wireless text messaging software company.

Since the inception of Flash, it has been the programming medium of choice for many companies. Most professionals recognize the superior visual aspects that Flash has to offer. Unfortunately, Flash is also very hard to optimize.

Many SEO firms would rather tell you Flash can't be optimized than to try and optimize it. No, optimizing a Flash site is not simple by any means, but it is entirely possible.

The absence of quality content that cannot be indexed is a huge factor regarding any flash presentation. You can add META and keyword tags. Unfortunately, many search engines such as Google do not use these tags.

Large companies shell out big bucks for Flash sites. They don't want to hear that their site can't be optimized because of the format. They love the effects of Flash, but more importantly require search engine optimization for their content. Here are some things you can do to increase a sites ranking when dealing with a flash format:

Ideally, you want to get in on the ground floor of a Flash site being developed. Try to persuade the client to have flash headers and the rest of the site HTML based. This would be the most cost effective option. The other option is to create a duplicated HTML. If neither of these is an option, move on to the next step.

Add your META, keyword and description tags to the opening page to be displayed while flash is running. While some may feel that it can clutter a page, the results are hard to argue with. Follow standard SEO protocol. Use keywords in your TITLE tag. Build your link popularity to boost your client in the search engines. Try to link with sites that are pr 4 or more. Never link to sites that have more than 100 links on their link pages. Also, link to sites that allow you to use descriptions. Use keywords in your description. Stay away from sites that only allow banners or no description in linking. Those types of links do not help at all. Remember, links pointing to your site are more important then links going out, so concentrate on those first and foremost.

The next and final tip is controversial. The infamous page re-direct. There are some re-directs that work better than others. My understanding is that Google allows redirects.

Google states on their site that a using a "301" code in HTTP headers site direct is recommended if you have moved your site. So, using this to redirect an HTML page to a Flash site should not be a problem.

In other words create an HTML page. Fill it with relevant content. Do not stuff it full of keywords. You will then need to create an .htaccess file. To learn more visit http://www.freewebmasterhelp.com/tutorials/htaccess/ and follow the directions. You will need to download the .htaccess file in the root directory of the location where all your web pages are stored.

redirect 301 /old/old.htm http://www.you.com/new.htm

That is all you need to do. Save the file and upload it. Typically you would type in the old url (old domain name) and it would take you to the new url (new domain name). But, in this case we will change the old index file to another name. Create a new optimized HTML page. Then, name it as the old index page. Google will index the new page that is redirected to the flash page. It will look like this

redirect 301 (the instruction that the page has moved)

/old/old.htm (the original folder path and file name)

http://www.you.com/new.htm (new path and file name)

Basically, we are just forwarding one page directly to another. Not to another domain name. This sounds more complicated than it actually is. This is usually the best way to utilize a redirect. You could also use a java script redirect.

<script language="javascript"><!-- location.replace("url") //--> </script>

Never use the META tag redirect. Those have already been recognized as a blacklisted move.

I cannot guarantee that these will not get you banned. But, from my research, the 301 re-direct is the best bet. If your site is 100% Flash and you need to rank higher, this will get you results. These are your SEO options for clients with Flash sites.

Visit Joe's blog at http://mr-seo.blogspot.com/ to read more articles on SEO. You can also visit his other web sites www.jnb-design.com and www.mr-seo.com for more information on SEO and to try out his services.

by Robin Nobles

I've long been an advocate of a form of online marketing that I personally call "article marketing." Yahoo! has recently added a layer to article marketing which is extremely exciting, and any one who uses the power of articles needs to take notice.

Introducing Yahoo!'s Creative Commons Search in Beta http://search.yahoo.com/cc

Here's what it says as means of explanation at the site:

"This Yahoo! Search service finds content across the Web that has a Creative Commons (http://creativecommons.org/) license. While most stuff you find on the web has a full copyright, this search helps you find content published by authors who want you to share or reuse it, under certain conditions."

Obviously, if you're not a writer and are in need of content on your site, this is a great place to go. You can find content through Yahoo!'s Creative Commons search that you can use for commercial purposes, and you can also find content that you can modify, adapt, and build upon.

What forward thinking on Yahoo!'s part!

Now, let's talk about forward thinking on your part.

Why is this Important to Article Writers?

Let's think about it for a minute. The links pointing back to your Web site from your articles and the relevant link text in the bio are extremely important to a savvy article writer. By allowing other Web sites, e-zines, online publications, and print publications to publish your articles, you're widening the scope of your visibility.

And in walks a powerhouse like Yahoo! with their new Creative Commons Search.

Wouldn't you like your articles to be available in a select search on Yahoo!?

Do you have to think twice? (Or even once?)

How About an Example?

Disclaimer: It's rather dangerous to give an example in print. As soon as you do, your example could slip in rankings. Forgive me if that happens here.

Please go to:

http://search.yahoo.com/cc

Click on "Find content I can use for commercial purposes."

Type "seo articles" (without quotes) in the search box.

Click Search CC.

The #1 page at the time of this writing is: http://www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles.html

Click on the link, then scroll to the bottom of the page. You'll see the Creative Commons License that says "Some Rights Reserved."

It says, "This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License."

Click on the link. You'll see the actual license and what rights are available under the license as well as what conditions have to be met.

So, if you want your articles to be available through a Yahoo! Creative Commons Search, you simply allow it to be licensed out through Creative Commons.

How Can Article Writers Take Advantage of Yahoo!'s Creative Commons Search?

Follow these easy steps:

1. Go to Creative Commons: http://creativecommons.org/

2. Click on the Publish graphic at the top of the page on the right.

3. Answer the questions: Allow commercial uses of your work? Allow modifications of your work? Jurisdiction of your license? Format of your work (such as text)?

4. You can also click to add more information about your work. If you're only going to create a license for one article, you can get very specific about your article.

5. Click on Select a License. You'll see how the license will look on your page. You can then copy and paste the text to your Web site.

You can even add a Creative Commons License to your blog!

How Long Does it Take for Yahoo!'s Crawler to Find the CC License?

After I put the licenses up on our Web pages, our pages were found in a Yahoo! Creative Commons Search within two weeks.

What about All of the Typical SEO Ramifications?

Does the same Yahoo! crawler crawl Creative Commons licenses? (To my knowledge, there isn't a different crawler.)

Will having a Creative Commons license get your pages into Yahoo! faster? (I haven't done any testing on this yet to see if new pages will get into the regular index as well as Creative Commons, but it's an interesting concept.)

What about a brand new Web site with an articles directory? (You need to have a link from another Web site, because of your site isn't indexed at all, you can't expect Yahoo! to find and spider those article pages quickly.)

Does having a Creative Commons license on your articles affect your regular Yahoo! rankings? (I've seen no evidence of this to date.)

What about Relevancy of Search Results?

That's an interesting question. Let's look at another example.

Again, go to:

http://search.yahoo.com/cc

Choose "Find content I can use for commercial purposes."

Type in "wordtracker." Click on Search CC.

The #1 result is our articles page again:

Marketing on Internet Search Engines - articles by Robin Nobles and John Alexander www.searchengineworkshops.com/articles.html

"Wordtracker" is being used 11 times on the page, since we've written several articles about Wordtracker. It's not being used in the title, description, etc. This page is not focused on Wordtracker at all. However, this page definitely has a higher link popularity than our other pages.

We have several Wordtracker articles in those same results, yet our articles page is #1. I'll let you study the rest of the results yourself.

Some of the Search Results Aren't Exactly "High Quality"

We have seen some SERPs that aren't exactly high quality. Will your results float to the top? We'd like to think so.

Will Yahoo! or Creative Commons find a way to police the results that are less than quality? After all, this fabulous tool definitely has potential for abuse if not policed in some manner.

In Conclusion . . .

Article writers, if you don't mind others using your content on their sites, be sure to visit Creative Commons and add the CC licenses to your articles. How easy can increasing your online visibility get?!

But don't abuse the system. If the beta tool gets abused, it may never make it to the full version, which will be a shame for us all.

For those of you who are looking for valuable content to add to your sites, be sure to visit Yahoo!'s Creative Commons Search. This is an ideal spot for finding relevant content that's available to be used on your site.

Just remember that the #1 ranked result may not be the best article for you, so do your research.

Robin Nobles teaches 2-, 3-, and 5-day hands-on search engine marketing ( http://www.searchengineworkshops.com ) workshops in locations across the globe as well as online SEO training ( http://www.onlinewebtraining.com ) courses. They have recently launched localized SEO training ( http://www.searchengineacademy.com ) centers through Search Engine Academy.

An excellent article by Fredrick Marckini in the Search Engine Watch newsletter highlights the fact that quality content still gets the best rankings.

Some tips from the article on why and how to leverage your content:

• Higher rankings in search engines go to websites with higher quality content that earn more links.
• Make no mistake, this law of search engine marketing is clear: less content, lower rankings.
• By providing valuable textual content, a site can not only increase its search engine visibility, but also improve the site's conversion rate.
• Keyword research is important and the content needs to be created in such a way that it does not negatively influence the user experience.
• You can achieve Number 1 position without an optimized site if the content is good
• Don't focus entirely on "big money" keywords while ignoring secondary keywords
• Identify important keywords through keyword research process
• Include seasonal topics (events or holidays)
• Create catchy titles to increase the click through rate
• Keep the length of pages between 250-300 words
• Generate content ideas from customer correspondence
• Use message boards for additional content inspiration
• Search engine spiders don't have credit cards, but people do. Pay more attention to your users than to the spiders
• No matter how good the content copy is, if you can't find a way to meet customers' needs, they won't buy
• Content should not attract unqualified traffic
• Content should inform and persuade visitors
• Placing trigger words in links can increase user click-through rates
• Wireframe your content to provide an interconnected flow and personality
• Create different personas based on different archetypal visitors
• Define three dimensional personas: Topographic, Psychographic and Demographic
• Create internal linking of the site based on the personas

For more tips on how to leverage your content for high search engine rankings get a copy of my search engine optimization guide, Number One In your Niche.

In a previous post on Blog Linking and the Comment Spam Fix , I voiced my support for this move by Google which I believe will deter comment spam in blogs.

According to the latest issue of Search Engine News from Planet Ocean , evidence suggests that Google was already discounting links from blogs and guestbooks. So the necessity of this tag may be somewhat questionable.

The implications for bloggers, webmasters and rankings.

• Your readers will be less likely to post comments for the sole purpose of gaining link popularity. I believe this is a good change because comments will now largely be posted by those who mean them


• The change will affect the linkage structure of the web and we will see significant ranking changes taking place. Good for some, not for others.


• The change will make it easier for webmasters to start hoarding Pagerank by adding the tag to all off-site links. Not good for anyone!

Not everyone is happy with the change however. The text link broking guys are not amused and make their views clear, with a hilarious take on the new tag and how it will get abused at Link Condom

Linda Bruton in her article Should Bloggers be Helping Google Fix Their PageRank System? questions whether bloggers should be penalised because Google’s Pagerank system is screwed. After all blogging software already has a number of plug-ins and an active developer community that helps prevent comment spam.

Hmm, she does have a point there! A good one I might add.

Another excellent point she makes is that the problem to bloggers isn't that those comment links pass PR. It's the fact that those spam posts make your blog look like garbage.

It's the time it takes to get rid of unwanted comments and the detraction to their sites that affects bloggers more than the PR issue. The nofollow tag won't prevent that problem.

True, but like I said earlier, it will deter people from posting comments for the sole purpose of boosting link popularity.

I believe that the tag wont deter genuine comments made for the purpose of voicing opinion – which is what you ultimately want on your blog.