Search Engine Optimizatoin (SEO) and Meta Tags
Let's clear up some misinformation out there on SEO and meta tags.
Full Article

In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method—search engine opti
In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method—search engine optimization
Entrepreneur

You can't resist the temptation. Fixated on your computer screen, you anxiously type keywords relevant to your business into your favorite search engine. A list of search results appears. You cringe as you spot several competitors, then grumble because your company's Web site is nowhere to be seen. Where is it? That depends. Where is your search engine marketing strategy?

Gone are the days when adding keywords in meta tags to your site produced rankings. Search engine marketing has evolved into a complex and competitive program. It's also profitable--according to a March 2003 report by Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Safa Rashtchy, online search is the most cost-effective direct-marketing method. The average cost per lead from search is 29 cents, far less than e-mail (50 cents), the Yellow Pages ($1.18), banner ads ($2.00) and direct mail ($9.94).

Gather your Web design and marketing staff; both teams are required. Understanding search engine marketing basics will help your team execute a strategy in-house or outsource it to specialists. The sooner your site is visible for relevant keywords, the sooner future customers will find your company.

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Many business owners are unaware that search engines feed their results to each other. For example, if you type a keyword into MSN Search on Microsoft's consumer information and entertainment site (www.msn.com), the Web site listings displayed could be from Inktomi, Microsoft or Overture. Overture provides search results not only to MSN Search, but also to AltaVista and Yahoo! Could a top site on Overture then appear as a top site on a distribution partner's site? Yes. Unfortunately, these distribution relationships change frequently, making it difficult to determine exactly where results come from.

The challenging part, however, is figuring out how to land a top position in the search engines. There are two complementary yet completely different types of methods: optimization and advertising.

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to enhancing your Web site design to make it more appealing to crawler-based search engines. An automated robot, also referred to as a spider, is sent out to crawl the Web looking for site pages to add to the search engine's database. A mathematical algorithm then determines the ranking of pages in the database for the keywords consumers use. These rankings are referred to as natural or organic listings.

Search engine advertising, on the other hand, enables you to buy listings for your keywords. Positions achieved this way are referred to as paid or sponsored listings. The most popular program in this category is pay-for-placement. These programs typically allow advertisers to open an account for $5 to $50, then bid on keywords for a minimum amount of 5 or 10 cents per click. Advertisers outbid each other for a higher position by increasing their bids by 1 cent per click. Only when a consumer clicks your listing is your account debited.

Are you disappointed to learn that search engines don't magically and objectively find the "best" sites on the Web? That's understandable. However, it was always possible to influence search results. Today, it simply costs more. Yet, for companies willing to invest the time and money, it's well worth it. The plan begins with the right set of keywords.

MAKING KEYWORDS COUNT

If you have the wrong set of terms, your site won't rank well in algorithm-based search engines. Plus, you'll waste money on pay-per-placement programs by attracting browsers, not buyers. To create an effective list of keywords, start with these suggestions:

* Company names: Start with the name of your company, products and services. Include misspellings and plural forms of words, if appropriate.

* Themes: Consider related words your customers might use to describe your business. People looking for an automobile insurance company might type in "car insurance" or "auto insurance." Perhaps drivers are likely to switch insurance providers when they buy a new car or used car, which would be good terms, too.

* Profile your competitors: Your competitors are excellent sources of ideas. Study the keywords in their Web sites and their metatags. From your browser toolbar, click on "View," and then select "Source." If they're using metatags, you'll see keywords listed at the top of the page.

Then, brainstorm ideas about how your customers are looking for your business. "Think like your customers," recommends Nacho Hernandez, 30-year-old co-founder of online Mexican grocery store MexGrocer.com, a La Jolla, California, firm that projects 2004 sales to hit more than $1 million. "A majority of our customers are English-speaking Americans, but most use Spanish keywords because they want the more authentic products. So they'll search for 'salsa verde' instead of 'green sauce,'" Hernandez says. "While we market hundreds of keywords equally split between Spanish and English, we were surprised to see [that] 440 percent more traffic and 200 percent more sales come from the Spanish words."

Of course, if nobody is looking for certain keywords, it's pointless to promote those. That's why a popularity check is important. Search engine marketers typically use Overture's free Search Term Suggestion Tool (www.overture.com) and the subscription-based program Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com). These tools reveal how many people search for your keywords. Moreover, these tools and Google AdWords' free Keyword Suggestions tool (https:// adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd= keywordsandbox) will provide suggestions of related phrases consumers use. Finalize your list to include relevant yet popular keywords.

GETTING OPTIMAL RESULTS

Modifying your site to please the search engine spiders can be tedious. Be prepared to wait weeks or months for your site's natural rankings to improve. Although top listings aren't guaranteed, time-consuming efforts can pay off.

"The credibility boost is huge," says Gary Salzman, 47-year-old co-founder of coffee resource retailer site WholeLatteLove.com. The Victor, New York-based business projects 2004 sales of more than $10 million. "Consumers see that natural listings are awarded to highly relevant sites. That's the match they want."

To make your site relevant for your keywords, it's important to realize that sites don't compete against other sites for rankings. It's Web page against Web page. Therefore, each site page needs to be assigned a set of keywords. Focus on the pages that have valuable content for your visitors and are good for new visitors to land on first. A few places your keywords need to be include:

* Meta tags: This tactic alone has absolutely no impact on your rankings, but your keywords still need to be in the meta title, description and keyword tags of each site page you'd like ranked. The page title and description are often used as the Web site listing in the search results.

* Alternative text (ALT tag): Mouse over an image, and you may see a text box appear if the Web designer has used alternative text. Try to use a different, but related, phrase for each ALT tag on a page.

* Page copy: The keywords you want your site to rank well for must be in your page copy. The thought is, if your site visitors can see them, then your page is relevant for those terms.

* Hyperlinks within your site: Don't link "click here" copy to other pages within your site. Hyperlink keyword phrases instead, because search engines follow these links and the keywords in them.

Link popularity is also a chief ingredient in an SEO campaign. Your site needs to link to other related sites and, more important, well-ranked and content-relevant sites should link to yours. Run a search for your keywords in Google or Teoma (www.teoma. com) and evaluate the natural listings. Contact sites that aren't direct competitors, and offer to trade links or buy one. Marketleap (www.marketleap. com) has a free Link Popularity Check tool which shows you how many pages link to yours and how many link to your competitors.

You're not done yet. Once your site is optimized, a majority of search engines need to be notified to crawl your site. Unfortunately, most search engines now require an inclusion fee. It may be a per-URL fee, a fixed per-click fee on any site rankings you achieve, or a combination of both. Inktomi, Overture and Teoma are examples. Google is still free and will index your site on its own; however, you can use the "Add URL" form if your site isn't in its database.

"Analyze, optimize, submit, monitor, then repeat the process," says Shari Thurow, webmaster and marketing director of SEO firm Grantastic Designs and author of Search Engine Visibility. "Getting top-10 positions and maintaining them is an ongoing process. A site should always get consistent, high-quality traffic from the search engines," Thurow adds. "It's also an ongoing challenge to determine what competitors are doing to achieve search engine visibility."

Thurow recommends evaluating site statistics reports monthly. Once your site is fully optimized and submitted to the search engines, maintenance can usually be done on a quarterly basis.

Is your anxiety level increasing yet? Don't worry. There's a quick way to get any position you want. Just buy it.

BUYING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

Pay-for-placement is the easy way to get a top position in search results. Open an account, then choose your keywords, set keyword bids, write a title and description for each keyword or group of keywords, then designate a landing page for each keyword or group of keywords. Your ad listings will be live as soon as editors approve them. Typically, these listings are placed under a "Sponsored Listing" type of header to set them apart from natural listings.

On FindWhat.com, Kanoodle.com and Overture, positions are awarded to the highest bidder. A one-penny bid over an advertiser moves your listing above his. On Google AdWords, positions are given based on the combination of bid amount and click-through rate. That means the highest bid doesn't automatically get the number-one spot. Consumers are part of the voting process. Ad listings that aren't clicked will drop.

Wondering how often to update your bids? Watch your competitors. If they perform daily or weekly updates, you'll probably need to do the same to keep the positions you want. Maintaining a top-three to top-five position is important, because those generally appear as sponsored listings across the distribution network. That means greater visibility and resulting traffic.

Bid management tools such as BidRank and PPC Pro automate this process for you. Companies such as Atlas OnePoint (formerly Go Toast, www.atlasonepoint.com) and Did-it.com even offer tools that manage your bids based on your cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale goals. Pay-per-click is still time-consuming to manage, but at least the results are instantaneous and often rewarding. For example, these campaigns added more than 60 percent to WholeLatteLove.com's total growth in 2003.

Tools alone won't improve your conversion rates. Compelling ad listings and landing pages that persuade people to complete an intended action make or break your results.

"Don't misrepresent your offer," warns Salzman. He noticed that out of 60 competing ad listings for "espresso machine reviews," only 38 percent showed what they said they would in their ad copy. "Consumers make snap judgments in seconds. Lose their trust, and they'll back out of your site to click on your competitors' listings. The back button is not your friend."

Don't panic over this crash course in search engine marketing. In addition to the resources listed here, you can turn to SearchEngineWatch.com, the educational hub for search engine marketers. You can also meet with search engine representatives and marketing experts at Jupitermedia's Search Engine Strategies conferences, or breathe easier by outsourcing your campaigns. Just make sure your Web site can be found by using relevant keywords. Your customers are waiting.

GET PROFESSIONAL HELP

Do you prefer to let a team of specialists worry about fluctuating algorithms and bids? You're not alone. However, finding a quality search engine marketing firm is challenging, especially for search engine optimization (SEO), because much of it happens behind the scenes, and you can't easily tell if a company is using ethical tactics. Here are a few tips:

* Find the experts. Read articles and books, and attend conferences to identify the companies with strong industry visibility. Even if they're not good matches for you, they could recommend other reputable firms.

* Interview firms. Don't be afraid to quiz companies about their marketing philosophies, process, tools, reporting and results. Ask them to define spam, then refer to your resources to see if experts agree or disagree.

* Avoid responding to e-mail spam. The "Get a number-one position for $99" spam is likely from companies that will spare the search engines, too.

* Speak to client references. Ask them to describe their experiences, results and recommendations for working with the company you're interviewing.

* Outsource. Some companies manage their own paid placement campaigns in-house while other companies manage SEO. Find out what your options are.

Programs and pricing vary tremendously in this industry. However, with a little research, you'll find the right marketing partner.

TABOO TACTICS

There are good and bad search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Good methods can improve your rankings. Bad tactics put your site in danger of losing rankings, getting kicked out of the search engines' databases, and possibly being banned forever. The following activities are considered spam, and, if caught, your site could pay the penalties:

1. Stuffing keywords in your meta tags: Repeating a keyword too many times in your meta tags is a red flag. Study other top-ranked sites to see what seems to be an acceptable range.

2. Hiding keywords: For example, avoid hiding text on your pages by making it the same color as your background.

3. Using tiny text: Think tiny text is too difficult to read? Maybe by your visitors, but not by spiders.

4. Using redirects: This code is placed on a Web page to send visitors to another page without the visitors clicking any links.

5. Linking with free-for-art sites: These sites link to each other for the sole purpose of improving their link popularity. Don't link to or from them.

These aren't the only dangerous SEO tactics. But they're some of the oldest and most obvious forms of spam, so avoid using them.
Full Article

In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method???search engine opti
In the click: want all the right people to notice your business? Then you need to make the most of today's hottest marketing method???search engine optimization
Entrepreneur

You can't resist the temptation. Fixated on your computer screen, you anxiously type keywords relevant to your business into your favorite search engine. A list of search results appears. You cringe as you spot several competitors, then grumble because your company's Web site is nowhere to be seen. Where is it? That depends. Where is your search engine marketing strategy?

Gone are the days when adding keywords in meta tags to your site produced rankings. Search engine marketing has evolved into a complex and competitive program. It's also profitable--according to a March 2003 report by Piper Jaffray senior research analyst Safa Rashtchy, online search is the most cost-effective direct-marketing method. The average cost per lead from search is 29 cents, far less than e-mail (50 cents), the Yellow Pages ($1.18), banner ads ($2.00) and direct mail ($9.94).

Gather your Web design and marketing staff; both teams are required. Understanding search engine marketing basics will help your team execute a strategy in-house or outsource it to specialists. The sooner your site is visible for relevant keywords, the sooner future customers will find your company.

HOW DO SEARCH ENGINES WORK?

Many business owners are unaware that search engines feed their results to each other. For example, if you type a keyword into MSN Search on Microsoft's consumer information and entertainment site (www.msn.com), the Web site listings displayed could be from Inktomi, Microsoft or Overture. Overture provides search results not only to MSN Search, but also to AltaVista and Yahoo! Could a top site on Overture then appear as a top site on a distribution partner's site? Yes. Unfortunately, these distribution relationships change frequently, making it difficult to determine exactly where results come from.

The challenging part, however, is figuring out how to land a top position in the search engines. There are two complementary yet completely different types of methods: optimization and advertising.

Search engine optimization (SEO) refers to enhancing your Web site design to make it more appealing to crawler-based search engines. An automated robot, also referred to as a spider, is sent out to crawl the Web looking for site pages to add to the search engine's database. A mathematical algorithm then determines the ranking of pages in the database for the keywords consumers use. These rankings are referred to as natural or organic listings.

Search engine advertising, on the other hand, enables you to buy listings for your keywords. Positions achieved this way are referred to as paid or sponsored listings. The most popular program in this category is pay-for-placement. These programs typically allow advertisers to open an account for $5 to $50, then bid on keywords for a minimum amount of 5 or 10 cents per click. Advertisers outbid each other for a higher position by increasing their bids by 1 cent per click. Only when a consumer clicks your listing is your account debited.

Are you disappointed to learn that search engines don't magically and objectively find the "best" sites on the Web? That's understandable. However, it was always possible to influence search results. Today, it simply costs more. Yet, for companies willing to invest the time and money, it's well worth it. The plan begins with the right set of keywords.

MAKING KEYWORDS COUNT

If you have the wrong set of terms, your site won't rank well in algorithm-based search engines. Plus, you'll waste money on pay-per-placement programs by attracting browsers, not buyers. To create an effective list of keywords, start with these suggestions:

* Company names: Start with the name of your company, products and services. Include misspellings and plural forms of words, if appropriate.

* Themes: Consider related words your customers might use to describe your business. People looking for an automobile insurance company might type in "car insurance" or "auto insurance." Perhaps drivers are likely to switch insurance providers when they buy a new car or used car, which would be good terms, too.

* Profile your competitors: Your competitors are excellent sources of ideas. Study the keywords in their Web sites and their metatags. From your browser toolbar, click on "View," and then select "Source." If they're using metatags, you'll see keywords listed at the top of the page.

Then, brainstorm ideas about how your customers are looking for your business. "Think like your customers," recommends Nacho Hernandez, 30-year-old co-founder of online Mexican grocery store MexGrocer.com, a La Jolla, California, firm that projects 2004 sales to hit more than $1 million. "A majority of our customers are English-speaking Americans, but most use Spanish keywords because they want the more authentic products. So they'll search for 'salsa verde' instead of 'green sauce,'" Hernandez says. "While we market hundreds of keywords equally split between Spanish and English, we were surprised to see [that] 440 percent more traffic and 200 percent more sales come from the Spanish words."

Of course, if nobody is looking for certain keywords, it's pointless to promote those. That's why a popularity check is important. Search engine marketers typically use Overture's free Search Term Suggestion Tool (www.overture.com) and the subscription-based program Wordtracker (www.wordtracker.com). These tools reveal how many people search for your keywords. Moreover, these tools and Google AdWords' free Keyword Suggestions tool (https:// adwords.google.com/select/main?cmd= keywordsandbox) will provide suggestions of related phrases consumers use. Finalize your list to include relevant yet popular keywords.

GETTING OPTIMAL RESULTS

Modifying your site to please the search engine spiders can be tedious. Be prepared to wait weeks or months for your site's natural rankings to improve. Although top listings aren't guaranteed, time-consuming efforts can pay off.

"The credibility boost is huge," says Gary Salzman, 47-year-old co-founder of coffee resource retailer site WholeLatteLove.com. The Victor, New York-based business projects 2004 sales of more than $10 million. "Consumers see that natural listings are awarded to highly relevant sites. That's the match they want."

To make your site relevant for your keywords, it's important to realize that sites don't compete against other sites for rankings. It's Web page against Web page. Therefore, each site page needs to be assigned a set of keywords. Focus on the pages that have valuable content for your visitors and are good for new visitors to land on first. A few places your keywords need to be include:

* Meta tags: This tactic alone has absolutely no impact on your rankings, but your keywords still need to be in the meta title, description and keyword tags of each site page you'd like ranked. The page title and description are often used as the Web site listing in the search results.

* Alternative text (ALT tag): Mouse over an image, and you may see a text box appear if the Web designer has used alternative text. Try to use a different, but related, phrase for each ALT tag on a page.

* Page copy: The keywords you want your site to rank well for must be in your page copy. The thought is, if your site visitors can see them, then your page is relevant for those terms.

* Hyperlinks within your site: Don't link "click here" copy to other pages within your site. Hyperlink keyword phrases instead, because search engines follow these links and the keywords in them.

Link popularity is also a chief ingredient in an SEO campaign. Your site needs to link to other related sites and, more important, well-ranked and content-relevant sites should link to yours. Run a search for your keywords in Google or Teoma (www.teoma. com) and evaluate the natural listings. Contact sites that aren't direct competitors, and offer to trade links or buy one. Marketleap (www.marketleap. com) has a free Link Popularity Check tool which shows you how many pages link to yours and how many link to your competitors.

You're not done yet. Once your site is optimized, a majority of search engines need to be notified to crawl your site. Unfortunately, most search engines now require an inclusion fee. It may be a per-URL fee, a fixed per-click fee on any site rankings you achieve, or a combination of both. Inktomi, Overture and Teoma are examples. Google is still free and will index your site on its own; however, you can use the "Add URL" form if your site isn't in its database.

"Analyze, optimize, submit, monitor, then repeat the process," says Shari Thurow, webmaster and marketing director of SEO firm Grantastic Designs and author of Search Engine Visibility. "Getting top-10 positions and maintaining them is an ongoing process. A site should always get consistent, high-quality traffic from the search engines," Thurow adds. "It's also an ongoing challenge to determine what competitors are doing to achieve search engine visibility."

Thurow recommends evaluating site statistics reports monthly. Once your site is fully optimized and submitted to the search engines, maintenance can usually be done on a quarterly basis.

Is your anxiety level increasing yet? Don't worry. There's a quick way to get any position you want. Just buy it.

BUYING YOUR WAY TO THE TOP

Pay-for-placement is the easy way to get a top position in search results. Open an account, then choose your keywords, set keyword bids, write a title and description for each keyword or group of keywords, then designate a landing page for each keyword or group of keywords. Your ad listings will be live as soon as editors approve them. Typically, these listings are placed under a "Sponsored Listing" type of header to set them apart from natural listings.

On FindWhat.com, Kanoodle.com and Overture, positions are awarded to the highest bidder. A one-penny bid over an advertiser moves your listing above his. On Google AdWords, positions are given based on the combination of bid amount and click-through rate. That means the highest bid doesn't automatically get the number-one spot. Consumers are part of the voting process. Ad listings that aren't clicked will drop.

Wondering how often to update your bids? Watch your competitors. If they perform daily or weekly updates, you'll probably need to do the same to keep the positions you want. Maintaining a top-three to top-five position is important, because those generally appear as sponsored listings across the distribution network. That means greater visibility and resulting traffic.

Bid management tools such as BidRank and PPC Pro automate this process for you. Companies such as Atlas OnePoint (formerly Go Toast, www.atlasonepoint.com) and Did-it.com even offer tools that manage your bids based on your cost-per-lead or cost-per-sale goals. Pay-per-click is still time-consuming to manage, but at least the results are instantaneous and often rewarding. For example, these campaigns added more than 60 percent to WholeLatteLove.com's total growth in 2003.

Tools alone won't improve your conversion rates. Compelling ad listings and landing pages that persuade people to complete an intended action make or break your results.

"Don't misrepresent your offer," warns Salzman. He noticed that out of 60 competing ad listings for "espresso machine reviews," only 38 percent showed what they said they would in their ad copy. "Consumers make snap judgments in seconds. Lose their trust, and they'll back out of your site to click on your competitors' listings. The back button is not your friend."

Don't panic over this crash course in search engine marketing. In addition to the resources listed here, you can turn to SearchEngineWatch.com, the educational hub for search engine marketers. You can also meet with search engine representatives and marketing experts at Jupitermedia's Search Engine Strategies conferences, or breathe easier by outsourcing your campaigns. Just make sure your Web site can be found by using relevant keywords. Your customers are waiting.

GET PROFESSIONAL HELP

Do you prefer to let a team of specialists worry about fluctuating algorithms and bids? You're not alone. However, finding a quality search engine marketing firm is challenging, especially for search engine optimization (SEO), because much of it happens behind the scenes, and you can't easily tell if a company is using ethical tactics. Here are a few tips:

* Find the experts. Read articles and books, and attend conferences to identify the companies with strong industry visibility. Even if they're not good matches for you, they could recommend other reputable firms.

* Interview firms. Don't be afraid to quiz companies about their marketing philosophies, process, tools, reporting and results. Ask them to define spam, then refer to your resources to see if experts agree or disagree.

* Avoid responding to e-mail spam. The "Get a number-one position for $99" spam is likely from companies that will spare the search engines, too.

* Speak to client references. Ask them to describe their experiences, results and recommendations for working with the company you're interviewing.

* Outsource. Some companies manage their own paid placement campaigns in-house while other companies manage SEO. Find out what your options are.

Programs and pricing vary tremendously in this industry. However, with a little research, you'll find the right marketing partner.

TABOO TACTICS

There are good and bad search engine optimization (SEO) techniques. Good methods can improve your rankings. Bad tactics put your site in danger of losing rankings, getting kicked out of the search engines' databases, and possibly being banned forever. The following activities are considered spam, and, if caught, your site could pay the penalties:

1. Stuffing keywords in your meta tags: Repeating a keyword too many times in your meta tags is a red flag. Study other top-ranked sites to see what seems to be an acceptable range.

2. Hiding keywords: For example, avoid hiding text on your pages by making it the same color as your background.

3. Using tiny text: Think tiny text is too difficult to read? Maybe by your visitors, but not by spiders.

4. Using redirects: This code is placed on a Web page to send visitors to another page without the visitors clicking any links.

5. Linking with free-for-art sites: These sites link to each other for the sole purpose of improving their link popularity. Don't link to or from them.

These aren't the only dangerous SEO tactics. But they're some of the oldest and most obvious forms of spam, so avoid using them.
Full Article

How to Optimize Internal Web Pages for Maximum Adsense Revenue?

Meta Tags

Title Text

However, you can try to mix the high paying keywords with traffic attractor keywords too.

Give Headings

Again, you can use these headings either to optimize for traffic, fighting competition, or getting more payouts.

Embedding Keywords in the Content

Some people follow a strategy of hosting less content on a web page. This helps focus ads on specific keywords and avoids dilution of ads by other keywords that you may have mentioned even once in the web content. This works when you are optimizing for Adsense, but has some traffic drawbacks too. Furthermore, Google may consider it as SPAM. Therefore, it's never advised to host 2 or 3 lines and expect good earnings. Chances are that you will be hit by smart pricing.

On the other hand, don’t make lengthy web pages as it might mislead Ad-bots to get some wrong ads, resulting in dilution of relevant ads. Sometimes, Ad bots can be very sticky to a certain keyword you used just for a reference. If you are getting irrelevant ads, changing meta tags and Title text is the first thing to start with, then move on to your content.

Internal Linking

Increasing Penetration

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Benefits of Search Engine Marketing Company
Search engine marketing company performs certain tasks for your website like keyword research, copyrighting, development of Meta tags, website optimization and linking campaigns. New aspiring internet operations and beginners in the online business need the guidance of search engine marketing company to accomplish their online goals and objectives. Search engine marketing company can offer unlimited range of services and advise to their prospective clients and customers.
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Search Engine Submission Tips
This link covers search engine submission, placement and marketing issues. It explains how search engines find and rank web pages, with an emphasis on what webmasters can do to improve their search engine rankings by properly submitting, using better page design, HTML meta tags, and other tips.
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What Activities Does Search Engine Optimization Specialist Performs
What does a search engine optimization specialist does. Well the simple answer is he looks after your website.First of all he analyses your website from search engine point of view. In the coding part he is only concerned with Meta tags, title, description and alt image tags. Then he pays attention to the rest of the site. Then he compares text and the tags. This gives his attention on which point he needs to focus more. Then he revises the code, checks all the keywords, replace the keywords if there are substitutes for it. Replaces those keywords in the text and places alt keywords in images and then uploads the final layout. Submit the site to search engines and directories.
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How to write Meta tags?

Meta tag (definition of Meta tag) is the HTML tag added in the head section of the HTML code as seen in the screenshot below. The purpose of this tag is to inform the search engine about the web page and its contents. There are quite a few Meta tags that provide description, keywords and copyright information to search engines. In this article we are going to concentrate on Meta description tag and Meta keywords tag.

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Everybody wants a piece of the Google Pie.
Follow the Google guidelines for a place in the SEO hall of fame-seems to be the motto of every organization with a website. Learn the tips and tricks of the trade such as reciprocal linking, search engine submissions, META tags and more.
Full Article

How to Optimize for Google Search Engine
This post is very important for Search engine optimizer. So follow this post very carefully and realize these tips and tricks for web marketing and web promotion.I find this article from sitepro news.

THE RIGHT KEYWORDS
This article is not about keyword research so I will not spend too much time on this topic, however, I felt it was important to at least brush on this slightly. If you are interested in reading more, please see Keyword Research for Organic SEO.

Make sure that your targets are achievable. If you select the wrong keywords, it can make your entire optimization experience essentially a waste. Choose keywords that are attainable but yet still provide a reasonable search frequency for your industry. Your phrase selection should also be targeted to bring qualified traffic to your site.

Using the hotel industry as an example, targeting the word "hotel" would make very little sense but by narrowing it down to "Victoria BC hotel" you now have less competition, and a more qualified audience. Keep your targets in perspective and go after the obtainable rankings.

WEBSITE OPTIMIZATION
There are many on-site factors that play a role in your search engine rankings. Here are a number of those factors and what you can do to increase your chances of success.

Title Tag
The title tag plays one of the most important roles in search results at Google, and is almost always the heading Google chooses for each of its listings. Placement of your target phrase is best used near the start of the tag and repeated again in the middle or near the end. Three uses of your target phrase may be helpful in some instances, as long as it is not too overwhelming. For best results each page on your site should have a totally unique title tag.

It is also important to remember that because Google will use this title as the main heading for your listing, you will want to keep it attractive to potential searchers. Try to also add a call to action, or other wording to help make your listing appear attractive to searchers.

Strengthen Your Positions in Google!

To help illustrate the fact Google takes this tag into consideration, simply do a search for your target phrase and take a look at the titles of the top 10. I tried a search for a rather broad term "hotel" and saw that all 10/10 listings had it in the title tag, and 6/10 had it as the very first word. A quick scan showed that the entire top 30 either had the word hotel, or hotels in their title tags.

If you do only one thing to your website, make sure that all your title tags are relevant, unique, and contain your target phrase for each page.

Meta Description Tag
The Meta Description tag is still occasionally used by Google as the description which appears in the search results themselves. While this used to be a more common practice Google tends to use it most often on sites with very limited content, or those which are flash based. I have seen it still used for content rich sites, however this is less common.

The Meta Description tag still has an impact on search rankings. Your best bet when using this tag is to keep it short and sweet with your target phrase close to the start and not repeated more than 3 times. Like the title tag, each page on your site should have its own unique description tag.

Meta Keyword Tag
When it comes to Google this tag is useless, and won't influence your rankings. There is some speculation as to whether a spammy keyword tag can however, have a negative effect on Google rankings. As a result, if you do utilize a keyword Meta tag for the smaller engines, it is best to keep it clean and play it safe.

Density
Keyword density plays a role in overall rankings; however, it is not as cut and dry as it once was. Once upon a time there was a magic number that when used could almost guarantee top rankings.

This is no longer the case. Today the ideal density varies from industry to industry, phrase to phrase. To find out what density you should aim for, take the top 10 or 20 search results and see what percentage those sites are using. In most cases you will find that the majority of these sites have a very similar density to one another, and this average density is a good estimation of what you should aim for.
Forget Expensive PPC Advertising - There is an Alternative!

Body Text and Keyword Placement
The location of relevant text on your site will help establish the overall importance of your target phrase. While you do not want to overwhelm the engines and site visitors with a bombardment of target phrases at the top of the page, try to sprinkle in some instances as close to the top of the page as possible.

Synonyms
Be sure to include various synonyms for your target phrases within your body text on your site. Google will use these synonyms to tie in the overall relevance of the page for your main target phrases, which in turn can improve your odds.

To find possible synonyms you can use a thesaurus, but the best way is to search Google itself and see exactly what they consider to be similar. Simply search in Google for your target phrase preceded with a tilde, such as "~hotels". Next scan through the search results for any text Google has bolded. These are all words that Google considers to be related. Using the "~hotels" example Google brings up phrases such as 'travel', 'tourism', 'accommodation', as well as various hotel chain names such as 'Hilton Hotels'.

Keywords in Domain
There is still some speculation if having a target phrase as part of your top level domain (TLD) is of use to search rankings. From my experience, yes, there is value here, although, nothing like it was several years ago.

If you are starting off in the online world and are contemplating which domain to go for, consider one that uses your target phrase, assuming that it is both relevant to your business name, and uses no more than a single hyphen. While multiple hyphens in a domain can be successful, they are very common with highly spammy websites, so it is best to not take that route if possible.

While having a keyword located within your domain can provide some ranking juice, I would not suggest heading out and doing a domain swap. In most cases you would be better off working on your existing site than starting from scratch with a new domain.

Keywords in page specific URL
Using keywords for specific page URL's can also help add a little bit of value to your site, providing you use them responsibly. Consider using a keyword as a directory name and as part of a file name where it naturally makes sense to do so. If you have a website that focuses on tourism and includes local hotel listings, you may want to consider the following structure for your page on the Hilton:

MyTourismSite.com/Victoria/Accommodations/Hotels/Hilton.html

Heading Tags
Placement of target phrases within heading tags helps to establish the importance of those given phrases. That said do not over do it, or abuse it. Only place target phrases within a heading tag if it makes sense to do so, and don't flood a page with numerous tags. Heading tags are not as critical as they once were, but still a good contribution to a well optimized page.

Link Anchor text
This is the actual text you clíck on as part of a link. When full or partial target phrases are used within your text links they help pass on some value to the linked page for those phrases. This is also true when considering surrounding text. When the content around the link is also relevant, the link holds slightly more value.

While a link that simply states "clíck here" or "www.domainname.com" does have its place, they provide considerably less value than a link that would use "discount hotels" as its anchor.

Image Alt Text
While image alt text still plays a minor role, its biggest part is within the use of image based navigation. If you have an image linked to another page, the alt text will be attributed much the same way as standard link anchor text is.

Image Alt text should always be short and to the point and should accurately describe either the image itself, or the page the image is linking to. Do not use alt tags as a place to stuff keywords.

Inline Links
These are links that are found mid sentence or mid paragraph as opposed to a simple listing of links as found in a menu or possibly on a sitemap. Links found mid paragraph tend to pass on a little more value from the surrounding text and can provide more relevance to the linked page.

Site Navigation
It is absolutely imperative that your website be fully spiderable by the search engines. This may seem obvious, but often webmasters overlook Google's ability to crawl a website. Google has become very advanced in what links it can follow and how it can spider a website, but there are still some things that can cause significant roadblocks.

- Flash: One of the most commonly made mistakes is the use of flash. If flash is used as a sole means of site navigation then you can count on Google not viewing your internal pages, and having a significant disadvantage in terms of site rankings.

- Java Script / DHTML: These days most Java Script and even DHTML menus can be spidered by Google, however, this is not always the case. If your site utilizes any kind of fancy navigation and you are wondering why Google has not indexed your internal pages, check out Google's Cached Text version of your page. If you do not see any text links, then your navigation may be invisible to Google.

- Images: Image based navigation has been safe for many years now, but if your site uses this form of navigation it is essential to have brief, relevant alt text on all your buttons. This alt text will act much like standard anchor text for text based links. This is not only for the purpose of search ranking value, but take a look at Google's cached text version of your page. If you have image based links that do not have alt text, those links do not appear. This doesn't mean Google won't follow them, but for anyone viewing your site on a text based browser, your links will be invisible to them.

URL Structure
Avoid long elaborate URL's with extraneous characters. While Google has reached a point where they can index massive URL strings, it is best to avoid them if at all possible. For dynamic sites consider utilizing mod rewrites to significantly clean up the URL to not only make it more search engine friendly, but more user friendly as well.

About The Author
Scott Van Achte is the Senior SEO at StepForth Web Marketing Inc., based in Victoria, BC, Canada and founded in 1997. You can read more of Scott's articles and those of the StepForth team at news.stepforth.com or contact us at StepForth.com, Tel - 250-385-1190, TollFree - 877-385-5526, Fax - 250-385-1198
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META tags secrets many pros don't know

First of the title of this post may be a little misleading because META tags are no secret. We all know that proper meta tags contribute to a sites search engine position.

Not so secret #1
Good meta tags are reasonable meta tags.

Search engines are designed by human beings, and often times over worked, over stressed human beings who are not going to work harder at any given task then they have to. This is one of the reasons that search engines don't like too many keywords in their meta tags. The developers don't want to write code that is going to parse 100 keywords, they want it short and sweet so their algorithm doesn't have to work too hard.

Not so secret #2
So then what are meta tag guidelines? You can find this stuff everywhere five to ten keyword sets, repeat the keywords in the description, make sure the most important keyword or two are in the title. How simple is that?

A little more secret #3
Ok so we know all this stuff already so what are the juicy secrets? Well here it is; Vary those meta tags. Don't stick to one hum drum meta tag pattern. Most SEO companies will enter meta tags the same way for every page;
Title -> Keywords -> Description | Title -> Keywords -> Description
but different search engines give different relevance to meta tags and how they are displayed in a page what if one page has.
Title -> Keywords -> Description
and another page has
Title -> Keywords -> DC-Keywords -> Description -> DC-Description
well then maybe one of those pages is going to rank extremely well in Google and the other is going rank extremely well in Yahoo or Ask or Bing. And what if I have 5 keyword sets in one of those pages and 15 in another well again some search engines will see five as better then fifteen but others will see exactly the opposite.

There are lots of ways to create meta tags different variants for each search engine, so to me the saying 'you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time' applies to search engines as well, sometimes you have to do different things for different search engines and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that making pages that are varied is good SEO sense. Look around the web and find a list of all the meta tags like this one and use some, use sparingly but don't be afraid to experiment.

 

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This weblog is sponsored by SpiderLoop SEO control panel.
Full Article

META tags secrets many pros don't know

First of the title of this post may be a little misleading because META tags are no secret. We all know that proper meta tags contribute to a sites search engine position.

Not so secret #1
Good meta tags are reasonable meta tags.

Search engines are designed by human beings, and often times over worked, over stressed human beings who are not going to work harder at any given task then they have to. This is one of the reasons that search engines don't like too many keywords in their meta tags. The developers don't want to write code that is going to parse 100 keywords, they want it short and sweet so their algorithm doesn't have to work too hard.

Not so secret #2
So then what are meta tag guidelines? You can find this stuff everywhere five to ten keyword sets, repeat the keywords in the description, make sure the most important keyword or two are in the title. How simple is that?

A little more secret #3
Ok so we know all this stuff already so what are the juicy secrets? Well here it is; Vary those meta tags. Don't stick to one hum drum meta tag pattern. Most SEO companies will enter meta tags the same way for every page;
Title -> Keywords -> Description | Title -> Keywords -> Description
but different search engines give different relevance to meta tags and how they are displayed in a page what if one page has.
Title -> Keywords -> Description
and another page has
Title -> Keywords -> DC-Keywords -> Description -> DC-Description
well then maybe one of those pages is going to rank extremely well in Google and the other is going rank extremely well in Yahoo or Ask or Bing. And what if I have 5 keyword sets in one of those pages and 15 in another well again some search engines will see five as better then fifteen but others will see exactly the opposite.

There are lots of ways to create meta tags different variants for each search engine, so to me the saying 'you can please some of the people all of the time and all of the people some of the time but you can't please all of the people all of the time' applies to search engines as well, sometimes you have to do different things for different search engines and it doesn't take a genius to figure out that making pages that are varied is good SEO sense. Look around the web and find a list of all the meta tags like this one and use some, use sparingly but don't be afraid to experiment.

 

---

This weblog is sponsored by SpiderLoop SEO control panel.
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What Is Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is a process of choosing the most appropriate targeted keyword phrases related to your site and ensuring that this ranks your site highly in search engines so that when someone searches for specific phrases it returns your site on tops. It basically involves fine tuning the content of your site along with the HTML and Meta tags and also involves appropriate link building process. The most popular search engines are Google, Yahoo, MSN Search, AOL and Ask Jeeves. Search engines keep their methods and ranking algorithms secret, to get credit for finding the most valuable search-results and to deter spam pages from clogging those results. A search engine may use hundreds of factors while ranking the listings where the factors themselves and the weight each carries may change continually. Algorithms can differ so widely that a webpage that ranks 1 in a particular search engine could rank 200 in another search engine. New sites need not be
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How Do Search Engine’s Spiders Crawl My Sites?
Spider visits an internet-site, read the content on the actual web site, the site's meta tags and likewise follow the links that the web site connects. By checking how pages link to one another, an engine may both find out what a page is with regards to, whether or not the keywords of the linked pages are alike to the keywords on the basic page. The frequency with which this happens is determined by the moderators of the search engine. A spider is an automated program that is run by the search engine scheme. dissimilar search engines create dissimilar rankings because not each search engine uses the same algorithm to search through the indices.
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Adsense Secrets: Getting More Clicks on Your Ads

Do you own a High CTR website?

Your Ad Position and Color: Old, but very effective

https://www.google.com/support/adsense
/bin/static.py?page=tips.html#17954

Get Targeted Traffic - The Most Essential Part

Choose the Right Anchor Text for Back Link Campaigns

Wisely Choose the Title Text of Your Web Page

Help Google Detect the Theme of Your Web Page

Meta Tags

Title Text

Headings

Google Mediabot gives importance to the Heading text enclosed in

Boost Relevancy Artificially - Use Google's Section Targeting

For more information on the same topic, visit:
https://www.google.com/support/adsense
/bin/answer.py?answer=23168&topic=371

Use Channels for Analyzing Your Ads' Performance

Block Junk Websites and Competitor Websites from Showing Ads

https://www.google.com/support/adsense
/bin/answer.py?answer=21593&ctx=sibling
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Looking at your search engine optimization as a big picture

Search engine optimization is more then meta tags, it's more then page text, it's more then back links.

I meet people all of the time that say "my meta tags are all done why doesn't my site rank?" or "I have been getting backlinks why isn't my traffic better?"

The answer is; when it comes to SEO "2 out of 3 isn't bad" does not apply. If you are going to search engine optimize your web site you've got to do it all. And you have to do it all, all of the time. There is always a competitor waiting to take your place.

First it's important to note that SEO is not just about your web site, it's also about the websites that surround your web site. To rank well for a specific keyword you need other sites that are similar in nature to recommend "link to" you, talk about you, refer to you. You also need content throughout your web site that is relevant to that keyword, meta tags with that keyword, alt text tags with your keyword, images relating to your keyword, internal linking that relates to your keyword. The list goes on.

The point is you need to have a plan that incorporates everything. You need to see your SEO as a bigger picture then just meta tags or backlinks. So how do you do that?

OPTIONS:

1. Hire an SEO company if you have deep pockets
2. Research research research.. Write your own plan, get to work, and stick to it
3. Use SpiderLoop SEO software "my personal favorite but I'm biased"
4. Hire your web developer to do your SEO, make sure he/she knows what they are doing (professional SEO is a better choice)
5. Advertise in papers, magazines, radio, TV
6. Forget it buy Pay Per Click ads
7. Forget it close your web site and stick with your full time nine to fiver

If you are not selling start with SEO if you are still not selling it is time to look at your site and find out what it's lacking but that's a topic for another post.

---

This weblog is sponsored by SpiderLoop SEO control panel.
Full Article

Looking at your search engine optimization as a big picture

Search engine optimization is more then meta tags, it's more then page text, it's more then back links.

I meet people all of the time that say "my meta tags are all done why doesn't my site rank?" or "I have been getting backlinks why isn't my traffic better?"

The answer is; when it comes to SEO "2 out of 3 isn't bad" does not apply. If you are going to search engine optimize your web site you've got to do it all. And you have to do it all, all of the time. There is always a competitor waiting to take your place.

First it's important to note that SEO is not just about your web site, it's also about the websites that surround your web site. To rank well for a specific keyword you need other sites that are similar in nature to recommend "link to" you, talk about you, refer to you. You also need content throughout your web site that is relevant to that keyword, meta tags with that keyword, alt text tags with your keyword, images relating to your keyword, internal linking that relates to your keyword. The list goes on.

The point is you need to have a plan that incorporates everything. You need to see your SEO as a bigger picture then just meta tags or backlinks. So how do you do that?

OPTIONS:

1. Hire an SEO company if you have deep pockets
2. Research research research.. Write your own plan, get to work, and stick to it
3. Use SpiderLoop SEO software "my personal favorite but I'm biased"
4. Hire your web developer to do your SEO, make sure he/she knows what they are doing (professional SEO is a better choice)
5. Advertise in papers, magazines, radio, TV
6. Forget it buy Pay Per Click ads
7. Forget it close your web site and stick with your full time nine to fiver

If you are not selling start with SEO if you are still not selling it is time to look at your site and find out what it's lacking but that's a topic for another post.

---

This weblog is sponsored by SpiderLoop SEO control panel.
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Tips: Meta Keywords and Meta Description Tags Optimization

Have you ever wondered why some web pages get higher search engine rankings than others? You can optimize your meta keywords and description tags to improve your page rangking.

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