Posts Tagged ‘search engine marketing’

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – An Overview

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Run a search on any of the 200 major search engines, and the results will come up in similar orders on quite a few of them. How a website owner/operator gets their website to the top of a list is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. Optimizing a website involves many of the same techniques, whether the aim is to optimize for Google adwords, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves or others. There is a list of what not to do as well, and that list is applicable to all engines, as it mostly refers to tricks and hacks unscrupulous designers use to try to trick the engines. These kind of pages generally get removed by automated tools and don’t generally last very long, so they are not recommended to bother with.

Website optimization starts with content. If the content is irrelevant, the website will not last long in the rankings, no matter how many keywords are included. The best way to get relevant content is to get an expert to write the content. General content may be more friendly to beginners, but in the search optimization arena, content is what is going to keep readers coming back and webmasters linking to the page. Many search engines use link counters to rank sites. If enough people like and value the site, they will link to it from their own site as an example of expert help for visitors seeking more detailed information than they can provide, or are willing to provide. Often, general-interest sites will link to expert sites, thereby also driving their own traffic up as the initial portal to those expert sites and improving their own rankings in the optimization listings. The quality of the sites linked is also a major factor in the rankings, as quality sites such as Microsoft and Google are going to be more effective “heavy hitters” than a link to Bob’s House of Website Optimizing.

When the content is being created, keywords are the “anchors” that search engines hook onto, but just filling your content with keywords risks being dismissed as a spam site, as many spammers merely fill a page with keywords, hoping to hook anyone searching for anything. These kind of pages are usually removed quickly, but they exist nonetheless. Specific keywords are the key–instead of Search Engine, use Search Engine Optimization for Google, or combinations of the key words or phrases. Optimization for Search Engines in one area, then Optimizing for higher Search Engine rankings in another increases the chances of an engine ranking your website content a little higher than it may have otherwise.

The guidelines for content also go for Meta tags such as the title. Title is very important, as it is one of the bigger spots for an engine to catch, as well as the hook that draws a surfer in once the rankings have been displayed. A recommended length is 50-80 characters (including spaces), with keywords located near the beginning in case the window is resized on the screen. A good example would be “Search Engine Optimization tips and tricks for Google”, instead of “How to do important SEO for websites.”

Search Engine Optimization–what to avoid: Don’t use huge strings of keywords without relevant content–you may be labeled as a spammer and blacklisted off the engine(s) you’re trying to climb. Stay away from pop-ups, excessive load times (by keeping the page clean and using fast hosting servers), and lots of flash animation, as this takes time to load and also detracts from the readability of the site.

More specific information can be found by typing “Search Engine Optimization” into any major search engine like Google or Yahoo and following the links.

With one week marketing review, you can steadily increase your income. Get Your one week marketing today and no more worries about paychecks. See my honest and unbiased review here: one week marketing

Why Content Is Still King - Effective SEO Tactics

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

It was a year ago that I attended my first search engine strategies conference. It was also at this conference that I became a speaker.

Search Engine Strategies and PubCon are undoubtedly the two largest SEO/SEM conferences out there today so of course there’s huge attendance and lots of big industry names attending.

There’s also a guy there who you may have heard of. His name is Barry Schwartz and he’s from Search Engine Round Table. I bring his name up because he’s found one of the best ways to not only build an ever expanding content base up, but also a way to build quality relevant links. And it’s so simple one begins to wonder why others don’t do it.

Before I get into what he’s doing let me give you a little history. He started covering SES a few shows ago and would post summaries of the various seminars he attended at the SearchEngineWatch forum.

His posts were some of the most read posts during the conference. He soon also began posting longer summaries at his own site. Also very well read by those of us who couldn’t attend the show.

Now he’s become “the” reporter for the SES shows wherever they are. He even went into this one with a plan to cover as many of the sessions as possible, between himself and others known in the SEM industry. Some of the posts end up at the SEW forums but he also posts many on his own site.

Step one – there’s that ongoing content development.

You see, what the folks at SEO roundtable are doing is creating very long, but very detailed summaries of every seminar they attend. They then post these to their website daily or more often. Each post occupies it’s own static page, and most pages are well linked within the site.

Step two – relevant quality links and lots of them

Now here’s the great part. It is because of this coverage that people have come to realize that this site is the site to go to for SES coverage. Between this site and the SEW forums you can pretty much get your fill of SES in a very compact version. (Trust me for some of the sessions, a light summary is much better than sitting through 90 minutes of dry explanations of how ranking algorithms work :) ).

And because people rely on these summaries of the show that they begin to refer others to them. Either through word of mouth or, more importantly, links.

This is where the relevant quality links kick in. What is a link to an SEM site from another SEM site worth? What would you pay to have your competitors link to you with lots of one way links, many from high authority sites? Because of this article, they even have a link from here.

Plus they get links from Searchenginewatch, in both the forums and the blog entries, not to mention other high profile industry sites. What’s link from Matt Cutt’s blog with a photo worth to this site?

You see, this site is building its online reputation the way everyone needs to – by posting relevant timely information that others want to see. Then the others link to that content in a natural way.

Let me put it to you another way – of the over 3,000 links this site has, how many do you suppose are from content? More specifically, how many are due to the site’s summaries of the various SES shows they’ve attended? Links may not be directly to the topics in question. In fact many are not.

In fact, if you scan through the top 100 links or so listed in Google you see a virtual who’s who of the SEO industry. Let me point out a few of the more notable links: Links from Yahoo Search Blog, as well as the MSDN MSN search blog. Of course there’s many from Searchenginewatch, but also from other industry sites like searchviews.com, seomoz.com and searchenginejournal.com just to name a few.

So what has the site accomplished by attending all the SES shows since late 2003? Well, they’ve built lots of good content which helps relay their authority status to engines like Google.

Further, they’ve gotten lots of quality inbound links from high profile related sites that are also considered authorities. Plus they’ve also built a reputation for being the place to go to find out about SES which means increased traffic to the site. Not to mention that they’ve now probably got a well known brand.

In other words, if someone doesn’t already know how to find the site, but they know the name of it, a the person will search on an engine like Google looking for the domain name. Even if it’s ranked #7 or 8 for the search term the site will get the click because the searcher is looking for that brand.

How’s that for building quality content and links at the same time?

With one week marketing review, you can steadily increase your income. Get Your one week marketing today and no more worries about paychecks. See my honest and unbiased review here: one week marketing

Let’s Talk About Why You Need Article Marketing In Your SEO Strategy

Thursday, August 20th, 2009

Extra extra read all about it!

Article writing has become a very important piece to the overall aspect of SEO and Internet Marketing. Providing solid information and how to advice for readers can convert traffic to your website while creating an expert status about you and your business.

Keep in mind that Article Marketing is not an ad, so you can not just start writing about how great your product or service is but rather supply helpful informative content for readers.

Here is were the true importance of Article Marketing comes in to play, IT IS VIRAL! Supplying this content for other webmasters to use on their websites and visitors can create a viral marketing affect.

Here is how:

Because search engines like Google love new content and seems to award websites that constantly update their website with new fresh content. Webmasters have taken notice of this fact not only for search engines but for their visitors, giving them fresh information will give them more reason to come back to there website. This makes your articles valuable to them and other website owners are on the hunt for your articles.

How do articles placed on other websites generate traffic to me?

Traffic is generated to your website from your signature box. At the button portion of your article is an area, which you dedicate for a signature line. This is were you can place a small but powerful message about your self and your business, almost like a text ad. Your signature line will contain atleast one active text link to your website which convert traffic to your website.

How do webmasters find my articles?

Article Marketing can be done through article distribution websites. These are websites that not only list your article themselves but also are places that provide your articles to other website owners for free as long as they include your signature. There are hundreds of these article distribution sites so one article if written with powerful headline and riveting copy could truly generate high amounts of traffic for a extended amount of time.

Note: Article Marketing is a great way to build your link popularity fast as other websites list your information, your signature line contains that ever important link.

Example: If your write three articles and distribute it to 120 distribution websites and it is picked up by 4 webmasters from each distribution site and even if each website only supplies 6 hits to your site per month your article marketing could convert over 8,400 hits per month. This is very realistic. Now imagine putting out dozens of articles on a regular basis, your traffic and link popularity could be amazing

With one week marketing, you can steadily increase your income. Get Your one week marketing today and no more worries about paychecks. See my honest and unbiased review here: one week marketing review

How To Choose The Most Profitable Niche Markets

Monday, August 10th, 2009

In this article I will be discussing the difference between various markets that you can profit from…

There’s TWO Types of Profitable Online Markets:

1. Mass-markets where there is a TON of demand for one-off purchases

2. Specific markets where the average customer value is sky-high (since they usually purchase multiple products)

In my case, one of my most profitable overall affiliate campaigns has been in the “public records” industry - where people search for background checks, property records, bankruptcy records and so on.

This is a perfect example of a “Mass Market” where - though the average customer value is probably around the $25 - $35 mark, there is so much traffic volume - and so many topics from which to drive traffic - that generating traffic & sales is very easy.

In addition, with the “mass market” offers, you don’t really need to pre-sell or otherwise make a case for the products or services, which are generally very straightforward.

You just drive traffic to the merchants and get paid. End of story.

This market alone accounts for a good 6-figure chunk of my affiliat income.

Other SIMILAR markets that will have similar results would be things
like dating, ringtones, gaming-related products, etc. There is a
virtually endless amount of traffic (and content choices) in markets like these - and the selling process is easy.

Now, the trade-off when you promote “mass market” stuff is that your conversions will typically be low, and your client base doesn’t really want to “connect” with you.

Meaning that building opt-in lists is, generally, not a good idea in some of these markets - and certainly not in the public records industry (where the client typically wants to be anonymous).

So it’s all about NEW traffic, fresh sales, etc. It all comes down to continual influxes of search engine traffic.

HOWEVER -

I also recommend that you go after the “Type 2″ markets, where you CAN build opt-in lists, and where selling to customers multiple times is not only viable, but expected.

And in addition to that, there is some crossover. Some “specialty” niches are ALSO mass-market, with literally endless amounts of demand, traffic and topics around which to build content.

These include things like:

- Learning Musical Instruments (Guitar, Piano, etc.)

- Fitness & Weight Loss

- Beauty/Cosmetic

- Investing, Trading, etc.

- Real Estate

And so on.

So in this case, you can build up tons of traffic, see higher conversions and avg. client value - AND build up a list (and do so fast).

Keep this in mind when you’re choosing what kinds of sites to build, and what to promote.

The idea is to get into markets where you can build truly endless amounts of content - therefore building up massive amounts of traffic in the process, and sales.

Your market depicts how much traffic - and money - you can generate.

Linking and SEO alone does NOT.

Always remember that :-)

For more information on becoming a successful affiliate marketer check out the Wealthy Affiliate, you will also find some useful resources at the Rich Jerk reviews.

Link Building: The Most Important Strategy Of SEO

Sunday, July 26th, 2009

One of the most important aspects of your online marketing plan is link building. Link building is a way of putting links to your site that are located on other websites online. The links are simply used for people to click on to bring them to your home page, also called your landing page. You should try to use link building as much as possible to create more visitors to your website. When you get more interest in your site you’ll have higher sales meaning more profits.

Another reason that link building is essential is that many search engine sites use links as part of their search ranking criteria. The more links to your site the better your search rankings will be. When you’re trying to get more business to your site even a slightly higher ranking can often make a big difference. Some of the search engines that use links as a ranking criterion include Google, Alta Vista and Excite. There are certainly other search engines that also put importance on linking. In general the higher number of websites with links to your site the better.

There are several ways to use link building to create a successful outcome. One of the important considerations for link building is to choose placement sites that have a good amount of visitors of the type that are your potential customers. To be successful with link building you will need to do some basic research. You can search online yourself to see what sites are at the top. Then look at them to see what makes these high-ranking sites tick.

While you don’t want to link from your biggest competitor’s website you can look for other more neutral sites where you can use link building. You can also see where similar businesses post their links. While this can take some time and energy it is well worth it to end up with excellent link building opportunities. Good link building will give you a large amount of possible clients.

Once you locate these possible posting sites that’s only part of the equation. Next you’ll need to make sure that this is where you want to use link building. Then you will need to locate and talk to the site owners to see if they will allow you to post a link. Locate the owner of the site and send an email explaining your question and include your website address for them to look at. You may even be able to swap link placements.

Link building is so important to getting business to your site but it can take a lot of time. Link building is a specialty type of online marketing that may sometimes be done by professional SEO company. These companies are experienced at all types of online marketing including link building and often have experience in your specific type of business. They know what works and what doesn’t and have access to the latest tools for Internet marketing.

The main purpose of link building and any online marketing strategies is to get more traffic to your website. You can use these techniques to get more people to visit your site and then turn those visits into sales. After your links are placed you need to keep track of them to make sure that they are still valid. You should also continue to keep looking for new websites that could be a good place to do your link building. When you use link building and other tips you’ll likely be able to see an increase in your site visits and also in sales.