As an article marketer, I say things that I believe will help other people accomplish their goals. As a widely published article writer, I am often criticized for the words I write. ;-)
In July of 2008, I wrote an article about meta-search engines called, "Look Beyond Google: Meta-Search Engines Can Help Online Marketers". In this article, the basic concept I was trying to share was that Internet Marketers should look beyond the presence of Google, to find more ways to drive traffic to their websites.
The Google Religion
This article apparently struck a chord of truth with a lot of people, as its reprint results are much larger than even I expected.
The article was also reprinted on the Link Referral website by someone who seems to have appreciated the article.
The first response to the post at the Link Referral website read as follows: "Thanks for the useless post. Google is everything. If you cannot be found on Google, pray for MSN and Yahoo. Anything else will give you 1 hit in 100 years. Link exchanging and buying ads would be so much more effective than buying into that article."
Now, don't get me wrong. I am not the least bit annoyed that someone criticized my article. The fact that someone criticized the article is only a testimony to the fact that my words touched the nerve of someone who worships the Google religion. I don't want to offend anyone's religion... That would be wrong...
Of course, this is not the first time I have offended those who preach the tenets of the Google religion. I also wrote about this subject in an article about Creating Page Rank, which can be read at: http://www.keywordtext.com/pudding/28.html. This article also drew criticism by those who mocked my assertion that people can truly generate substantial traffic from sources other than Google and that Google PageRank is not as important as many claim.
Answering My Critics
I will admit that if a website is not listed in Google, the task of trying to make monëy online is made more difficult.
But if a website is not ranked in Google, and it does not possess links to it from anywhere else either, then you might as well be working at McDonald's for extra money, as opposed to trying to make monëy online.
Honestly, Google is only "everything" when you have "nothing but Google" on the table.
The Proof Is In The Pudding
This is not just an opinion I hold. I can back up what I am saying with real data, from a real website that does not rely upon Google for its salvation... The statistics shown here are from my primary website: thephantomwriters.com, searchengineoptimizationdelhi.wordpress.com
Even though I do not rely on Google for traffic, Google delivers a great deal of traffic to my website. I actually do quite well in the Google game. I get lots of Google Love for my website, as described here:
http://article-blog.thephantomwriters.com/google-love/2008/08/09
Nothing But The Facts
The following data reflects the traffic for The Phantom Writers for both 2007 and 2008 (through Aug 15th):
Total Unique Visitors
* 2007: 244,000+
* 2008: 169,000+
Total Page Views
* 2007: 1.2+ million
* 2008: 1.0+ million+
Unique Clicks from All Search Engines (59 in 2007; 58 in 2008)
* 2007: 119,309
* 2008: 129,749
Unique Clicks from Google
* 2007: 61,923
* 2008: 75,750
Unique Clicks from Yahoo, Windows Live, Ask, and MSN Search
* 2007: 49,291
* 2008: 50,148
Unique Clicks from Other 54/53 Search Engines
* 2007: 8,095
* 2008: 3,851
Important Data Analysis
In 2007, with 244,000+ total visitors and 61,923 visitors from Google, I would have had to turn away 182,077 visitors or 74.6% of my traffic in 2007, if I had relied solely upon Google to drive traffic to my website.
In 2008, with 169,000+ total visitors and only 75,750 of those visitors coming from Google, I would have had to turn away 93,250 visitors or 55% of my traffic, if I relied solely upon Google to deliver visitors to my website.
With 61,923 visitors from Google in 2007 and 93,250 visitors from Google so far in 2008, it is sure that Google is important.
I wonder how many of my critics are actually seeing 61,923 visitors per year? I suspect that many of those who claim that my advice is bad would be tickled pink to see my Google traffic to their websites. And I bet they would be shocked to realize that non-Google sources account for more traffíc for my website than their Google God does.
Beyond Google
In 2007, my website receíved 119,309 total visitors from all of the search engines combined, but only 61,923 of those people came from Google. That leaves 57,386 people who arrived on my website from the 58 search engines that are not Google. In the search category, Google accounted for 51.9% of my total search traffic.
The top five search engines accounted for 93.2% of my search traffic.
Had I ignored those unknown search engines, as my critics suggest others should, I would have been forced to turn away a full 8,095 people or 3% of all of my visitors in 2007. That is a far cry from "one hit in 100 years".
So far in 2008, Google has accounted for 58% of my total search traffic and only 45% of my global traffic.
The top five search engines have accounted for 95% of my search traffic. Those itty-bitty search engines have delivered 3,851 visitors to my website so far this year, accounting for 2.96% of all of my gross traffic in '08.
Itty-bitty is historically worth at least 3% of my yearly traffic. If you want to ignore that 3%, then that is your business. But myself, I am happy to receive traffic from anywhere that I can gain that traffic.
Beyond The Search Engines
As the owner of a professional article marketing company, who practices what he preaches, 90% of my advertising budget is spent on article marketing alone.
This is where the following two pieces of data come into play:
Unique Non-Search URL's Sending Traffic
* 2007: 9,036
* 2008: 5,811
Unique Visitors from Non-Search URL's
* 2007: 27,397
* 2008: 23,907
The remainder of my website's traffic comes from articles published in newsletters and on other websites, recommendations by other websites, bookmarks and name recognition.
In 2007, my website receíved 27,397 visitors from 9,036 verifiable links to my website from articles that we wrote or from recommendations people made for my website. Of course, I am willing to bet that many of the 97,294 visitors who were untrackable in 2007 were the result of the many articles of mine that were published in newsletters.
In 2008, my website has so far pulled 23,907 visitors from 5,811 verifiable external URLs. There have so far been another 15,344 visitors that I receíved from untrackable sources, many of which were probably from the articles that we have successfully had published in newsletters.
The article marketing that we do provides a lot of verifiable traffic to our website, and potentially a lot of our untrackable traffic was also derived from the article marketing we do.
In the end, we credít article marketing for our great search engine placement, for hundreds of keywords, and our substantial search traffic as well.
One Quarter Million Reasons Why Google Is Not God
If I believed the poster who said that "Google is everything" and I had followed his advice for the last several years, then I would have had to turn away 275,327 additional visitors to my website in the past 20 months!
OMG!!! To think that I could have turned away a quarter million visitors or 67% of all of my websites' traffic, if I had simply followed the advice of my critics.
Wow! Some of my critics are absolute idiots!
Yes, Google is important. But, is Google really "everything" ? Only if you want to fail...
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Google Is Everything! Or Is It?
32 Most Important SEO Tips
Following these simple tips will definitely boost your traffic and search engine rankings for free.
1. Make sure your site is not under construction or incomplete with little or no unique content.
2. When your site is ready, submit it to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com. Consider also submittíng to other search engines but most of them are powered by these four leading search engines. Also submít your site to reputable high PR web directories, open directories, yellow pages and social bookmarking sites such as del.icio.us, furl,digg etc.
3. Submit your sitemap to Google, Yahoo, MSN and ASK.com (sitemap for search engines usually in XML format)
4. Offer a sitemap to your site visitors for easy page navigation. (sitemap for visitors in HTML format)
5. Create unique and rich content sites. Avoid duplicate content. Do not create multiple pages, sub-domains, domains, mirror sites or sites with different domain names but the same content.
6. Check your keywords and make sure they are relevant and actually are contained in your site. Avoid keyword stuffing.
7. Use text instead of images in your content, links and important subjects.
8. Make your TITLE and ALT tags descriptive, simple and keyword rich. Avoid irrelevant and repeated keywords.
9. Your Title tag should be 60-80 characters maximum length.
10. Your Meta tag description should be 160-180 characters, including spaces. (about 25-30 words)
11. The keywords Meta Tag must be 15-20 words maximum.
12. Optimize pages with Headings (H1, H2, H3..) containing your site's primary keywords.
13. Validate your CSS and HTML. Check for errors and broken links.
14. If your site contains dynamic pages (i.e., the URL contains a "?" character), make sure you use SEO friendly URLs. Search engine spiders have difficulty indexing dynamic pages.
15. Maximum links per page must be fewer than 100. Avoid the risk of being flagged as a link farm by search engines.
16. Use Lynx as text browser to check your site.
17. Allow search bots (good ones) to crawl your sites without session IDs or arguments that track their path through the site. Using these techniques may result in incomplete indexing of your site.
18. Check your web server/host if it supports the If-Modified-Since HTTP header. It tells search engines whether your content has changed since your site was last crawled. It will save you bandwidth, resources and avoid server overload.
19. Use a Robots.txt file to manage and control search engine spiders that index your site. You can allow and disallow spiders and choose directories you want to be crawled and indexed. With bad bots or spam bots you need to modify your HTACCESS file to properly and effectively manage bots or spiders. Visit http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/faq.html to learn more about the Robots.txt file.
20. Do not attempt to present different content to search engines than what you show to your site visitors.
21. Avoid dirty tricks and exploiting loop holes to improve search engine ranking.
22. Avoid links to bad neighborhoods such as web spammer, link farm, phishing, hacker, crack, gambling, pörn and scam sites. Linking to them will greatly affect your search engine rankings.
23. Do not attempt to join in link schemes, excessive reciprocal links or excessive link exchanging and link exchange web rings.
24. Do not use unauthorized programs or online tools to submit your site, check page rankings or perform other automated queries. Avoid the risk of being flagged as a spammer.
25. Do not use hidden text and links. Show the search engines what you show to your vistors. It will greatly affect your site's reputation.
26. Do not attempt to create pages that contain phishing, scam, virus, trojan, backdoor, spyware, adware or other malicious programs.
27. Make your site useful and informative.
28. Improve your link building. Link to high PR websites. Quality of relevant links is far more important than quantity. Links will greatly improve your site's visibility, popularity and ranking. Search engines consider links as votes to your site.
29. Check your page link structure. Every page should be reachable by a single static text link.
30. Be extra careful in purchasing SEO services. Some use illegal and questionable methods to improve rankings.
31. Do not buy or sell links.
32. Do not create sites that contain purely affiliate links and no valuable content that is useful to users.
I hope these tips will add more popularity and visibility to your site. Enjoy!
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
The Fast-Track to Using Google Adwords
Remember back when Al Gore allegedly said he "invented the Internet?" Well, he didn't, it was Google. Alright, I'm kidding, but sometimes it does appear that way. Google has consistently launched one killer application after another, and they weren't playing around when they entered into the pay-per-click arena with their "Adwords" program. Adwords is one of the largest online advertising networks, reaching more than 80% of all Internet users.
So how does it work? You choose keywords/phrases that are related to your products/services, write the text ads that will be shown when someone performs a search for your keywords, set a daily budget and the cost you want to pay every time someone clicks on your ad (C.P.C), and you're ready to run. There is no activatíon fee and no minimum monthly spend amount.
Ads are called "sponsored links", and appear along with search results on Google, as well as other affiliated search engines and "content sites" in the Google Network. This type of keyword based advertising will help you to reach a highly targeted audience quickly and easily.
Not only can you run text ads, but also image/animated ads - even video. If you're a beginner at pay-per-click marketing, I would suggest you start out with text ads. You'll need to "learn to walk" before you run.
So what does a text ad look like? It consists of a 25 character headline, a description that is 2 lines of no more than 35 characters, and what's called a "display url". This url can reflect any domain you like because when it is clicked upon, the browser will take them to your "destination url". This is set up behind the scenes and does not appear in the ad itself.
A 3 line text ad might sound like a lot of room, but it's not. You've got a small area to make a huge impact on the searcher and make them want to click. Don't underestimate the power of a well written ad. If you don't know a lot about how to write "good copy", I suggest you study up. You'll want to include what's referred to as a "call to action" somewhere in the description. You'll also want to include your keywords if possible in your title and ad copy so they will appear in a bold font when your ad is displayed. For help see:
http://www.google.com/adwords/learningcenter/text/18779.html
You also need to send them to the page that's most relevant to your ad copy. This page is called a "landing page", and you'll want to make sure it converts. A conversion happens when the visitor performs the action you intended. For example, signs up for your newsletter, buys your product, etc. With Adwords conversion tracking you'll be given a snippet of code to paste on your web page wherever any conversion takes place. For example, your thank you page. This allows you to track how well your pages are converting. You can also use Google Analytics. For more see:
http://www.google.com/analytics/
ow that landing page load time is being factored into "quality score", you'll also want to pay attention to your page's load time. Quicker is better. For more information on this topic see....
Google AdWords Help Center
Now, let's talk about keywords. The biggest mistake most people make is choosing single keywords. You're much better off with two and three word combinations. For example if you sell dog food, instead of targeting a generic term like "dogs", you'd be better off selecting "dog food". Remember, these keywords will be responsible for triggering your ads to appear, so do your homework and choose wisely. Targeting the wrong keywords can be a very expensive lesson. For help in choosing keywords use Google's tool located at-
Google Keyword Tool
When setting up your keywords, you'll also need to choose what's called a "match type". Here are your options:
1) Broad Match: The default setting. Searchers can enter your keywords in any order and your ads appear. Not the best option for targeted traffíc.
2) Phrase Match: Your keywords must appear in the exact order for your ads to appear. This is more targeted than Broad Match.
3) Exact Match: This is the most targeted option. The searcher must type in your key-phrase exactly for your ads to appear.
4) Negative Match: You choose words you don't want your ads to appear for when searched upon. For example, typing in the word "-free" would stop your ads from appearing if someone typed that word before your key-phrase.
So who decides which ads will appear at the top? This is called "ad rank". Ads with the highest ad rank will appear at the top. Here's the formula, at least at this time as it's always open to change.
Ad Rank = C.P.C. (cost per click) X Quality Score
To understand this formula you'll need to know what factors go into "quality score".
Quality Score is determined by :
1) How relevant the keywords and ad copy are to the search query.
2) "The historical Click-through rate of the ad, and of the matched keyword on Google".
3) It also includes your account history, which looks at the click through rate of your keywords and ads.
4) Landing page load time. And, according to Google "other relevant factors".
One tip to improve your ad rank is to raise your cost per click, and improve your ad copy and keywords in order to up your quality score.
Ad ranking is determined slightly differently for the search network compared to the content network. For the content network it looks like this:
Ad Rank = Content Bid X Quality Score
What is the difference between the Content Network and Search Network? Good question. I thought you'd never ask. This is another option you'll have to decide upon when setting up your account. If you choose "search sites", your ads are displayed on search results pages only. Google's search network consists of: AOL, Netscape, Earthlink, Compuserve, AT&T, Worldnet, Ask.com, Shopping.com, Froogle and of course Google itself.
If you choose for your ads to appear in the "content network", this includes community websites, online publications and other information based sites that choose to display Adwords ads. Partners in the content network include sites such as: Google's Gmail, About, Lycos, NYTimes.com, Infospace, Reed Business, HowStuffWorks, Business.com, Food Network, HGTV, MarthaStewart.com and many other content based websites.
Ads are targeted to the content of the individual pages. You'll also have some control over where your ads appear and don't appear with what's called "placement targeting". You can actually pick and choose from websites you'd like your ads to appear on, or not to appear on. You can opt ín to both search and content networks, or just one.
At this point you're probably thinking this is a lot to learn. And you're right - it is, but there are plenty of online resources to help you such as:
Adwords Help Center
Adwords blog
Google is a powerful Internet giant and makes for a mighty advertising partner. Make sure you harness some of that muscle, and you too can become an Internet force to be reckoned with.
About The Author
Article by Merle. "The Tricks to Paying for Clicks". Learn everything you need to know about pay-per-click search engines at..
For SEO Services visit: http://seoland.co.uk, http://qvtechnologies.com
Exploring the Search Engine Path Less Traveled
The vast majority of internet users will use a search engine occasionally, if not frequently. Search engines are routinely included in browsers, no matter if you use Firefox, Internet Explorer, Safari, Opera, or Netscape, with the intent of saving the user time.
It may seem odd to talk about saving time on the internet. Thinking back to 15 years ago, the internet was just starting to burst into mainstream America. The speed and reach of the internet was mind-boggling at that time. Now we've come so far with the technology that we actually find ourselves wanting better and faster results.
As is true with nearly all technology, the internet has evolved to be something much different than it was 5, 10, and certainly 15 years ago. But have internet users evolved in the way they use the internet?
We know that humans are creatures of habit. Most of us like to do what we're familiar with, see who we already know and get along with, and go places we already know we like. I think it's fair to say that the same can be applied to our internet habits.
New programs, applications, and websites are constantly being created and marketed to users. The ones that get a lot of media attention have a good chance of getting users to at least test them out, even if it's just on a trial basis.
However, there are other sites on the internet that have been around but aren't getting the attention they deserve. Let's go back to search engines. Most people are familiar with the "Big Three" of engines - Yahoo, MSN, and Google. If you've paid attention to web trends over the years, you know that each has had their heyday, with Google probably receiving the most attention in recent years.
This is a good illustration of the fact that what is popular one year on the web may be at the bottom of the líst the next year. Does anyone remember when Webcrawler.com or Excite.com were touted as the destination search engine? It's all a part of the natural evolution and progression of search engines.
Another evolution of the search engine is the creation of the meta search engine. Meta search engines are similar, in that you type in a term or phrase to be searched. The meta search engine then gathers results from several different search engines, compiles them, and presents them in its own search results page.
The results from a meta search engine will vary, depending on which other engines the meta engine is pulling from. Dogpile.com, for instance, pulls results from Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Ask.com, About.com, MIVA.com, LookSmart.com, and others. This quickly accomplishes what would take a user much more time to open all those browser windows and type in the same search term over and over again.
However, Dogpile does receive criticism for its compiled search results page. The sponsored results are mixed in with the "real" results, which can be confusing if you're not paying attention. It's also hard to believe that the search results are in any particular order of relevance when broken up with those sponsored results.
Another search engine, Widow.com, uses a tried and tested algorithm to compile its results and then order them in relevance, without sponsored results. When doing a side-by-side comparison of the five top search engines (Yahoo, MSN, Google, AOL, and Fastsearch), you'll see that Widow.com comes up with not only the most highly ranked results, but some very useful links that the other engines didn't pull.
To illustrate my point, I looked at how the different search engines handle a specific search word. If we take a term that has been in the news a lot lately, "foreclosure", and type that in to different search engines, we'll see different results.
Not surprisingly, Fastsearch had no results on "foreclosure." Though it is one of the top search engines, its focus is on business and information technology. So it's really not going to be relevant for anything beyond those topics.
All of the other search engines (five of them!) had one or more sponsored results at the top of the page. Dogpile.com, as I previously warned you, had the most sponsored ads - an astounding 10 sponsored ads on the first results page. Plus, they're all mixed in with the other results, with just a note at the bottom to let you know it's an ad or otherwise paid for result.
The only search engine that returned no sponsored results or ads was Widow.com. It sorted through the results, performed its algorithm magic, and produced variety and depth in its results page. Better yet, Widow has a nifty search term bar on the left hand side that allows you to pull up search results for related terms. Talk about saving time and energy!
Of course, the main reason search engines were developed was because the internet is so expansive. No human can search the entire web on their own, hoping to stumble upon the answers and information they're seeking. Search engines are tools to help users find pertinent information in a timely manner.
Taking a traditional approach to search engines is fine if you have the time, the motivation, and the desire. Sometimes the best drives are the ones where you only have a vague destination, right? So I suppose the same can be true of using one of the top five engines we've mentioned.
But sometimes, thinking outside of the box, can not only inspire new ways of thinking, but can help push you or your research in a different, better direction. The most efficient way to do that is to utilize a meta search engine. Try stepping outside of your usual search strategies and see for yourself why it "is" sometimes greener on the other side of the fence. There's a whole wide world (web) to discover and explore!
About The Author
Trey Pennewell is a ghost writer, who regularly writes articles for clients of: thephantomwriters.com . Trey understands that the secret to successful article marketing campaigns is to write articles that publishers want to publish and readers want to read. We hope you enjoyed this article today.
Source: http://seoland.co.uk
For SEO Services visit: http://seoland.co.uk
How to write link texts that will increase your Google rankings
Good link texts can give your website a boost in Google's search results. Unfortunately, many webmasters still don't take advantage of the full potential of optimized link texts. This article explains how you can make the most out of your links.
What is a link text?
The link text is the link that is used to link to another web page. It is the text between the anchor tags. That's why some people call link texts anchor texts.
Why are link texts important?
Google and other major search engines heavily rely on link texts to specify the position of web pages in the search results. If many websites link to a web page with the link text "mp3" then Google thinks that the web page must be relevant to the keyword "mp3". For that reason, the web page will get a ranking boost for that search term.
The more often a keyword appears in links to your website, the better your rankings for that keyword will be.
How to write good links
There are a few easy tips that will make your links more useful for both web surfers and search engines:
Write your texts as if there were no links. Search engines like links that are in the normal text of your web page. Example:
Gettings link from another web page is a great way to improve your rankings on Google and other search engines.
Do not describe the mechanism behind the link but the purpose of the link:
Bad: Click here for more information.
Good: Further information about link building can be found in the free SEO eBook.
Use clear and descriptive text for your links. The link text should be meaningful enough to make sense when read out of context.
Bad: The software can be downloaded for free on the iBusinessPromoter website.
Good: The software can be downloaded for free on the SEO Services Delhi.
Avoid unpleasant surprises. If the link goes to a web page that starts a movie or downloads a file then you should mention this in the link:
Many website visitors do not read the text on a web page but scan the highlighted keywords. For that reason, your link texts should be easy to understand even if people haven't read the surrounding text.
Use keywords in your link texts whenever possible. The more often a keyword appears in a link to a special web page, the better are the chances that this web page will get high rankings on Google for that keyword.
For SEO Services visit: http://seoland.co.uk
Search Engine Optimization and SEO Tips
Conduct an Internet search for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips and you'll quickly find a great many sites that are eager to pass along SEO tips but violate some of the Universal SEO Truths that they endorse. Ironically, these sites rank well for the keyphrase "search engine optimization tips", but the SEO tips that you seek are:
1. Buried in dense blocks of text which make them difficult to find.
2. Featured on sites so unappealing to the eye that you don't care whether the content is good or not.
3. Bracketed by distracting ads that encourage you to Buy Their SEO Book!
For SEO Services visit: http://seoland.co.uk
Conduct an Internet search for Search Engine Optimization (SEO) tips and you'll quickly find a great many sites that are eager to pass along SEO tips but violate some of the Universal SEO Truths that they endorse. Ironically, these sites rank well for the keyphrase "search engine optimization tips", but the SEO tips that you seek are:
1. Buried in dense blocks of text which make them difficult to find.
2. Featured on sites so unappealing to the eye that you don't care whether the content is good or not.
3. Bracketed by distracting ads that encourage you to Buy Their SEO Book!
A Social Community for Webmasters!
Please bear in mind that achieving success through search engine optimization is highly dependent on a wide range of factors and any ethical Internet marketing consultant will tell you that up front. Some rules will apply to your website and some will not. But even when everything is done correctly, ranking well doesn't happen overnight as some sites lead you to believe. It takes time but if you're willing to be patient, search engine optimization will help you and your business achieve its goals.
Additional Search Engine Optimization Tips
1. Know Your Target Audience – Before any code or content is written for the site, think about your target audience and keep them in mind at every stage of site development. Consider age, gender, and especially, think about the things that will make your target audience want to visit your site often.
2. Build a Clean, User-Friendly Site – Web users have very short attention spans and the decision to linger at your site or clíck the Back button is made in a few seconds. Build a site that's easy on the eyes and structure it so that information can be found quickly and easily. Use bulleted lists, subheads, bold important text but don't overdo it, and use clean, intuitive page layouts. Avoid building pages with frames, .PDF's, and Flash. By the time these pages have loaded, your viewer is probably long gone.
3. Well-Written Content – Make sure the content on your site is well-written, gets right to the point, and doesn't insult the intelligence of your readers with wild claims and hyperbole. Good content encourages readers to explore the other pages of your site and creates high-quality inbound links.
4. Let Keywords and Keyphrases Occur Naturally – Both search engines and readers alike will notice obvious keyword stuffing immediately and your credibility will suffer. Let the words and phrases that you want to optimize occur naturally in the content without overdoing it.
For SEO Services visit: http://seoland.co.uk
5. Use Short, Relevant URLs – Give your page URLs good file names which include the keywords optimized for that page and definitely avoid query strings. Try to limit page titles to relevant words separated by hyphens. For example, instead of ".com/seo" try ".com/search-engine-optimization-tips" or ".com/seo-tips. "
6. Good Meta Descriptions – Keep meta descriptions between 200-250 characters and make them relevant to the page and informative. Good meta descriptions raise confidence that the page will contain the information that web users seek therefore making it more selectable.
7. Quality Inbound and Outbound Links – The quality of your inbound and outbound links far outweigh quantity for SEO purposes. Link farming is frowned upon by search engines and readers alike. If someone clicks on an outbound link from your site, make sure that it takes them somewhere interesting and informative or they're not likely to clíck on another.
8. Limit Keywords and Keyphrases – Feature two or three optimized keywords and phrases on each page and again, make them occur naturally in the content. If you want to rank well for other terms, simply build other pages optimized for those terms.
9. Update the Content Regularly – Add new content to your site on a regular basis. It gives your site visitors something new to read and the search engines will be inclined to index your site more frequently.
10. Avoid Unethical SEO Methods – Link farming, duplicated content, cloaking, spamdexing, and other attempts to fool search engine crawlers will get your site penalized and buried where no one can find it. Search engine algorithms are increasingly sophisticated and Black Hat SEO methods will destroy any possibility for ranking well.
These are just a few search engine optimization tips for you to consider that will help your site rank well and there are many, many more. For a more thorough understanding of how these strategies and others work together to bring positive results, explore the other pages of this site and contact an experienced Internet marketing expert. The guidance and counsel of an ethical search engine marketing consultant is the best SEO tip of all.
About The Author
Brick Marketing offers full service Website Marketing services such as: Search Engine Optimization, Pay Per Clíck Management, Social Marketing, Blog Services
For SEO Services visit: http://seoland.co.uk
1. What Google's improved Flash indexing means for your website
A month ago, Google announced that they had improved the way it indexes Flash files. Has something changed in Google's search results in the meantime? Is this change good news for you if you have a Flash site?
What has changed?
Google can now index the textual content in SWF files of all kinds, including buttons, menus and self-contained Flash websites.
Google can also discover URLs that appear in Flash files and it adds these URLs to the crawling pipeline.
What has not changed?
Google still doesn't recognize the text that appears on images. FLV files, such as YouTube videos also won't be indexed because they don't contain text.
As many Flash websites consist of images and other multimedia elements, the only text that Google finds on these websites might be "Loading", "Please wait" or "Copyright".
Google also cannot execute some JavaScript types. If your website loads a Flash file via JavaScript, Google might not be able to find your Flash file.
In addition, Google cannot attach content from external sources that are loaded by Flash files. If your Flash page loads an HTML or XML file then these files will be treated as separate documents.
Why is Flash still a problem for search engines?
Flash content and regular HTML pages are fundamentally different. Just because Google can now index some text from Flash files doesn't mean that Flash files are now search engine friendly. Here's why:
It's hard to divide the text into meaningful sections. Flash doesn't use or tags to separate different sections of text. It's hard to tell what's important and what's not. Even worse, Flash designers often break down words into their individual letters to create "cool" text effects. That means that search engines cannot index these texts.
Usually, the complete content of a website is presented on the same URL. You cannot link to a special part of a Flash website. That means that it is also difficult for search engines to find the relevant section of the Flash site.
In addition, this means that Flash websites don't get good inbound links to the right pages. Most Flash websites only get links to their home page.
The structure of Flash websites makes it difficult to get high rankings. Many Flash files are linked from other Flash files and no other websites link to these internal Flash elements. The lack of links from other websites makes it very difficult to get high rankings for these elements.
Flash doesn't use the basic SEO methods. You won't find proper link texts, headline tags or even properly optimized title tags in most Flash sites. That makes it very difficult to get good rankings.
Most Flash content is still not crawlable. As mentioned above, Google won't index content in images and it has problems with JavaScript calls.
What can you do to improve your rankings if you have a Flash site?
If possible, avoid pure Flash websites and use Flash elements only when needed. If you must use Flash on your website, the following tips will help you to get better rankings:
Include the text and the links from the Flash file in an HTML version on the same page.
Use JavaScript and CSS to find out if the website visitor can parse Flash and then present the CSS DIVs that contain the corresponding content. Regular website users will see the Flash file, visitors who cannot parse Flash (for example search engines) will see the HTML version.
Use CSS and create a layer with your regular HTML content and then position another layer with the Flash content above the HTML layer so that your website visitors only see the Flash content. Note that search engines might misinterpret this method as a spamming attempt.
Use different URLs for different sections of your website. Each set of content should have its own unique URL.
Flash has not been designed for search engines and it is extremely difficult to get high rankings with pure Flash sites. Using regular optimized web pages is the best way to get in Google's top 10 results.
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The Myth Of Being Successfully Solo In Business
There's a breakneck pace that many new solo business owners assume. With an infinite number of things to do, and about a dozen hats to wear, it gets overwhelming, fast.
And, that's nothing compared to what happens once the business actually has some momentum under it. That's why one of my clients with a brand-new business was asking me: "Mark, how do you get it all done? Your business has about 100 times more going on in it than mine does, and I'm overwhelmed just with what I'm trying to get done."
Here's my answer: "I don't get it all done."
Which strikes at the heart of the most dangerous myth in business: the bootstrap myth, known in this particular instance as the myth of the successful solopreneur.
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Why This Myth is so Dangerous
The myth says that you can do it on your own, you can bootstrap your way to success, and that when you go solo, you don't need anyone else. That's the whole point of being self-employed, or running a personal-sized business, right?
This rugged homage to individualism isn't just in the U.S., as some have claimed. I have seen this myth in action across the globe: Canada, the UK, mainland Europe, Asia, Australia and Africa.
It seems as if it's just hard to get it: we can't do it ourselves.
The Physical Reality
When you're an employee at a company, you get to do your job. And, unless you think upon it, you might not realize how much other people do just so you can do your job.
Who prints and signs your check? Who makes sure the office building gets cleaned? Who stocks the office supplies closet, or goes out and sells to clients so there is revenue to pay you?
It's humbling, but when you become self-employed, all of those functions fall into your lap. And it is impossible, literally impossible, to do them all. If you're overwhelmed trying to make your business work yourself, there is good reason for it.
Frustrating - but don't despair. It may help to understand why it is this way.
The Spiritual Reality
As my Sufi teacher tells me, "Be the earth for your brothers and sisters. If you don't carry them, who will?... When you look into another's eyes, see the reflection of God looking at you."
The depth of this teaching really struck home when I realized that he wasn't talking to me personally - this teaching was for everyone. We're all asked to carry each other. Which means that we also need to allow ourselves to be carried.
When someone offers help, do you say: "Yes!" or do you say: "Nah, I can get it."
If the bootstrap myth is operating in your business, there may be a hundred subtle and not-so-subtle ways that you avoid or turn away from help."
Lord knows I do.
And yet we are meant to both help and be helped by each other. This is one of the ways that we experience the Divine in our lives, through the actions, support and love of others.
Yes, I mean you. :-) You are supposed to receive the Divine through the actions, support and love of others. You can't do everything yourself. And that's as it was designed to be.
Watch the wing-stretching and contortions you go through as you learn to receive more help. It will do much more than help your business, it will be a real experience of healing and growth for you as well.
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Who can afford to hire an entire company of help?Of course, not all of the help you get will be free, and there's so much of it to get. And you can't hire it all, especially early in your business. So what do you do?
After going through some big transitions ourselves, having grown up in a small retail business, and having worked with hundreds of clients, let me share some insights into how to prioritize.
Keys to Being a Successful Pseudo-Solo
First, Invest in Information and Learning.
I know, I know - it seems like a lot needs to get done, right now. Remember - millions of people have already done what you've tried to do. So, the best thing to do is to learn from some of them.
Get books from the library, or buy them. Take classes, free or otherwise. Find people you admire who have successfully navigated what you're trying to do and take them to tea or lunch and ask them questions. I've done about a dozen interviews with folks I admire and have them up in our online community for just that reason: The Business Oasis.
Make sure the information resonates with you. As just one example, marketing professionals out there are all saying more or less the same thing, so you can find one that your heart really resonates with and is speaking your language.
Second, Get Help With the Numbers.
I'll say this once: if you're running a business, you shouldn't be doing your taxes yourself. There are too many deductions and pitfalls and details. You want to hire it out, even if you think you can't afford it.
Related to that, as soon as you can, hire a bookkeeper to keep your accounting clean from month to month. Not only will it help you at tax time (imagine filing your taxes in the beginning of February!), but it will also help you understand your business better, simply knowing how money flows in and out.
Third, Experiment With a Virtual Assistant.
You may not be able or ready to hire out help. You also may have no idea how or where to start. I suggest finding a virtual assistant you like, who has strengths in areas that you get overwhelmed by easily, and hiring them for a very small project, maybe an hour or two. Then repeat in a month or so.
Over some months, as you both get to know each other, you'll get more comfortable with asking for help, and receiving it. Your business may need to develop before you hire a significant amount of help, but if you start small, it will be a much easier transition. And you'll get there much more quickly.
Getting help in your business is a huge topic. The trick is to face the simple truth that you can't do it all yourself, and that spiritually it's enormously beneficial to receive help.
Then, first get help by learning through books, classes, and other resources, second get help with the numbers with an accountant then a bookkeeper, and finally practice outsourcing to a virtual assistant in small, do-able, bites.
And watch how much more successful you can be as a 'pseudo' solo business owner.
The best to you and your business.
About The Author
Mark Silver is the author of Unveiling the Heart of Your Business: How Money, Marketing and Sales can Deepen Your Heart, Heal the World, and Still Add to Your Bottom Line. He has helped hundreds of small business owners around the globe succeed in business without losing their hearts. Get three free chapters of the book online.
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7 Tactical Reasons To Use Mini Campaign Websites
How many websites should your company have?
That's a question that comes up often in discussions with clients, but perhaps the idea hasn't crossed your mind. Why would any company need more than one website? Not to be glib but the answer is as many as you need, but how many is that?
If you're a large corporation, it is fairly obvious that you need a separate site for each brand you offer, and a separate site for corporate background material and perhaps investor information.
But what if you're a small or medium-sized company with a limited number of products or services? Then the question becomes, do your products relate to one another? Does one item flow into the next? Is your audience for each product or service the same? And what about totally different audiences for the same product: audiences that need to be approached with totally different tactics? And then there are special circumstances like new product launches, time sensitive marketing campaigns, and limited availability offers?
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Mini Campaign Websites and Alternative Marketing Websites are an effective method of enhancing your marketing efforts and targeting optional audiences you wouldn't have otherwise reached using your traditional sales marketing approach.
7 Tactical Reasons To Use Campaign Websites
1. Focus Your Presentation: eliminate distraction and non relevant clutter.
It is human nature to want to get your money's worth, but when it comes to website marketing this can be counter-productive. Wanting to cram everything you provide into one website aimed, or more to the point not aimed, at every interested audience only creates clutter and confusion. Forcing visitors to sift through reams of material only creates frustration and irritation, and with a click of a mouse they're off to the next competitor listed on their favorite search engine before they even get to your relevant information.
A campaign or brand specific website allows you to get right to the point. Greet your targeted audience with a signature video Web-host supported by appropriate images and text. If a lot of text material is required, then have it turned it into an audio presentation so the material is made more accessible, understandable, and easy to absorb.
A focused brand or campaign site shortens the sales cycle by making what you provide clear and distinct; it provides visitors with the sense that you are both competent and innovative in what you do and how you do it.
2. Use Alternative Tactics: experiment with non traditional campaign and sales' approaches.
Most companies follow a consistent sales approach that they have found successful. This is both a good thing and a bad thing: following a plan that has worked in the past aimed at your traditional customer base makes sense, except that it also limits you in reaching new audiences for your products and services.
There may be markets for what you provide that you haven't ever thought of, or that you are afraid to approach because they conflict with your current methods, promotions, or initiatives.
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Why give up on these potential customers when you can create an audience specific Web-presentation on a separate campaign website aimed specifically at that market. With a series of highly targeted websites you speak to the needs of specific audiences and at the same time insulate your regular clients from the alternative approaches.
In a highly competitive marketplace, your competition will be looking for every opportuníty to take advantage of markets you ignore. Don't let them. You can get to them first and establish your company as the niche leader. All it takes is a little imagination, effort, and a budget to implement. This way you can have your cake and eat it too.
3. Create Urgency & Impact: campaign sites urge quick response, while creating a memorable impression.
Website visitors are always complaining how much time it takes them to search for and find the products and services they need. This often translates into complaints about download times, but the fact is, with the extensive availability of broadband, it's not download times that frustrate people, it's having to search through multiple pages and levels, in a hide-and-seek game to find what they want.
A campaign or brand-specific alternative marketing site gets right to the point and delivers the information or the promotíon referenced in your email, banner, and print ads, or television and radio commercials.
And if you use a signature video Web-host to deliver the information, you are making sure the presentation has impact; so even if a visitor doesn't view everything, they at least get the core message in a way they won't forget.
Your targeted marketing sales pitch won't get watered-down by extraneous information that just gets in the way. Depending on how the site is constructed and what the marketing objectives are, a campaign specific website can create a sense of urgency by building in a time sensitive expiry date.
For SEO Services visit: http://seoland.co.uk 4. Target New & Alternative Audiences: create new markets for old products and services.
Not every audience for a product can be approached with the same tactics. Specific brand or campaign sites allow you to customize your approach for new or alternative audiences appealing to their specific lifestyles or behavior patterns.
If you've had experience running a sales staff or rep network, you know that salespeople who call on one specific market are rarely successful when asked to simultaneously call on another. Different markets require different approaches. Like a one-size-fits-all hat, it rarely fits anybody. Customize and isolate your approach to different markets, so you can speak directly to that market's needs and attitudes.
The marketplace is often more innovative than the marketer in finding new ways to use old products; ways the manufacturer hadn't realized existed. Ask your customers how they use your products and then go after that market with a direct campaign that takes advantage of that specific niche.
5. Isolate & Differentiate Brands: target specific audiences with specific tactics.
Companies that provide a large number of products or services often confuse potential customers by presenting far too many options and alternatives. The result is the Web-visitor doesn't buy anything because they don't want to purchase the wrong thing, or not get the best deal. Even if you get the sale, you may lose the customer because they made the wrong decision.
You want to provide prospects a limited number of distinct alternatives, just enough so they feel they have been given a choice, and don't have to look elsewhere. But too much choice within the same product category creates buyer indecision. If a product or service is aimed at a particular market because it has specific features, create a separate website to sell it. Isolating a product line on a separate website allows you to create a distinct image and brand story for that offering.
6. Accelerate Comprehension & Shorten Sales Cycle: be clear, be understood, be direct, and sales will follow.
Campaign websites get right to the point. They present the marketing message quickly, and promptly direct people to take action without making them wade through mission statements and corporate histories that for campaign purposes just get in the way.
The longer it takes for someone to understand what the campaign is all about, the less likely they are to stick around long enough to make sense out of it. This is why we strongly recommend adding video and audio to the presentation. Video and audio allows you to say what needs to be said in the most understandable, persuasive, and memorable manner.
When it comes to website visitors you probably only have one shot at making a lasting impression, so don't blow it by delivering a boring or confusing presentation.
7. Support Other Advertising Efforts: supplement other marketing material with engaging, viral presentations.
Campaign websites can function as landing sites and contact venues for print, television, radio, online video, banner, and display ads, as well as for articles, newsletters, and news releases.
By segregating your campaign site you can more easily track responses better than if the campaign material was integrated into your corporate site. Separating your campaign website from your main site allows you to experiment with marketing tactics aimed at new or alternative audiences, with approaches that may not be suitable for your regular site visitors. You may not even want your regular customers to know that it is your company that's running the campaign, so people will regard it as something completely new.
A Final Word or Two
You've heard about the "Long Tail" and 'niche markets' but what have you done about it? So many companies sell the same product, the same way, to the same audience, that people no longer pay much attention. Look no further than the search engine optimization market, when was the last time you actually read something truly different, truly innovative about SEO? What makes one company's promise of top ten ranking any different from the next? And if everyone who paid for optimization was in the top ten in their category, you'd have to redefine what the number ten means.
Today companies, especially small and medium sized companies, have to be different to be heard. They have to be bold and innovative and constantly try new approaches to reach their audiences.
By trying different tactics using different websites delivering alternative presentations, to alternative audiences you expand and build your business without the concern that these bold new approaches will negatively affect your more conservative existing clientele.
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design firm that specializes in Web-audio and Web-video.
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Ten SEO Mistakes Made on Database Driven Websites
earch engine friendly websites is one of those often heard phrases, both from web site development companies and from their clients. Everyone knows that this is important to have, and yet it is one of the things that is actually often overlooked. Search engine optimisation companies actually spend a lot of their time analysing a website and removing barriers to the search engines ranking a site highly. At the web development level, it is possible to build a site that is perfectly search engine friendly. One of the hardest types of sites to get right though are database driven websites. Listed below are ten of the most common issues that are created, often unknowingly, in the development process of a dynamically generated web site. 1. Pages with duplicate content - not enough differential areas within the pages, so that only small areas of the page change from page to page. It is essential that enough of the page text changes for the search engines to see an appreciable difference between one page and the next.
2. Pages with duplicate page titles - the page title is a great indicator to the search engines of the primary content of the page. Whilst this is often unique on sites such as e-commerce websites, it is often overlooked in other sites, particularly where small areas of the site are generated from a database, such as news pages.
3. Pages with duplicate meta descriptions - again, this is easy to overlook and set a global or category level meta description. These give the search engines a reason to penalise your site for not giving them enough information, and again, creating a unique meta description for every page is an essential SEO task.
4. Using auto-generation of pages as a shortcut instead of creating good content. This is linked quite closely to point 1, where it is possible to create pages that have only a tiny percentage difference between them. Databases are fantastic ways of storing information, but you still need to put the work in to fill them with content. Unique information about the subject of the page will immensely help both the long tail and the ability of the search engines to determine that a page is valuable.
5. Creating pages that are hidden behind form submissions or javascript postbacks that cannot be accessed by a search engine crawler. This is far more common that is generally realised. For instance .NET creates postback links by default instead of proper links - potentially making huge sections of a site unreachable. Likewise, it is easy to hide lovely content rich areas of your site behind a drop down selector in a form that means certain areas of the site are not visible.
6. Too many query strings - this is a common bugbear of the professional SEO, where complicated database selections create deep levels of pages, but with seven or eight &id= type strings. Additionally, some bad development methodology can leave pages with null query strings that appear in every URL but don't do anything. The answer to this is generally URL rewrites, creating much more search engine friendly and user-friendly URLs!
7. Putting query strings in different orders when accessed through different places - this can create duplicate content issues, which can cause major penalties.
8. Not using user language to generate automated pages - if you are going to create a database driven website that uses words in the query strings (or better in rewritten URLs) make sure that you use words that will help you with SEO - if you sell widgets, make sure you are using the word widgets somewhere in the URL instead of just product= or id= - keyword research can assist with this.
9. Not allowing the meta data and title to be edited easily after the site build. It is possible to hardcode the generation of meta information into a database that doesn't allow it to be edited later. Creating a mechanism for modifying this information initially helps everyone at a later stage when the information needs changing without shoehorning it into an already developed structure.
10. Creating keyword stuffed pages by using auto-generation. Once upon a time, search engines quite liked pages with high densities of your keywords, but now these are likely to get you marked down rather than up. So be aware when creating pages that long pages with lots of your products on can create too high a density. For instance listing blue widgets, light blue widgets, navy blue widgets, sky blue widgets is going to create a page with a very dense page for the phrase "blue widgets".
These are just 10 of the most common potential optimisation pitfalls when creating dynamic websites. There are many more facets to producing a great database driven site, including user friendliness, speed, performance and security, but they all add together to make the best solution to your needs.
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How Digg Got Me On ESPN and Fox News
What is Digg? For those who do not know, I will use the description right off their web site:
"Digg is a place for people to discover and share content from anywhere on the web. From the biggest online destinations to the most obscure blog, Digg surfaces the best stuff as voted on by our users. You won't find editors at Digg — we're here to provide a place where people can collectively determine the value of content and we're changing the way people consume information online."
Is Digg beneficial to the "obscure bloggers" of which I count myself? It can be if you remember the key phrase coined by Viacom movie mogul Sumner Redstone "CONTENT IS KING!". I actually thought my brother Mark Cuban coined the phrase until I read about Redstone. This is the golden rule that drives the Digg community.
What is your blog about? Is your blog about getting traffic from front page postings regardless of quality of the content because you are ad supported? I see a lot of that on Digg. That kind of content in my opinion is not king when it comes to blogging because it is almost always content generated by someone else. Why not spend some time building a loyal readership base with quality and or original content? If you don't, people are not going to come back until you have another popular submission. I want reader loyalty. I want people to stick around and look at my multiple posts. The only way they are going to do that is if they enjoyed the initial post I submitted to Digg. When a Digg submission of mine hits front page, it is just as or more important to me how many other of my articles are clicked.
There is nothing wrong with writing about other people's news. Unless you are writing an original screenplay it makes sense to write about the world happening around you. The key for me at least is to take an event, even if 500 other people have written on it, and make it mine with original ideas, thoughts and viewpoints. If I cannot add something new (at least new to me) to an event, I tend to stay away from it.
Do not be afraid of the comments. When a submission goes front page there can be hundreds of comments. Many of them are hateful and tough to read but, if you shrug those off, and find the meaningful ones you can learn a lot about ways to improve your writing and content selection skills. I routinely got tortured for my grammar before I started working harder on it. I still get tortured to a degree but the complaints have reduced dramatically.
Here is an example of how Digg recently worked for me resulting in two ESPN interviews and an appearance on The Fox News Channel.
On June 6 2008 I wrote an article entitled "Why Athletes Go Broke". It went popular and generated 814 Diggs. This is a fairly modest number for a front page submission. In contrast, the actual article on my blog receíved 30 thousand hits. This is again, not an unusually large number of hits from a front page submission. The real benefit is the other search engines and blogs that pick up on this large number of hits. This process got my post noticed by the New York Times. The Times linked to my blog in their Freakonomics Section in a post entitled: Why Do So Many Celebrities Go Broke. It was also posted in their "Whats Online" section. The Times postings resulted in my submission being picked up by news blogs all over the world. This resulted in two ESPN interviews and a national appearance on the Fox News Channel. I have also receíved several offers to write for publications.
What lessons can be learned from this? There are some that will say that this only happened because my last name is Cuban. I dispute that assertion. I have written many blogs that have gone front page and not generated any interest beyond Digg. It proves that Digg does work for bloggers even in the face of any disdain by the Digg community towards the blogging community. I have no idea if this disdain actually exists, but I read about it frequently. It proves that regardless of any Digg variables, content will always be king. If you have content that is timely, interesting and hits a "public nerve", Digg will work for you. Digg is not just for distributing hard news around the internet. Digg can work to distribute your thoughts on that news as well. You just have to have something worth saying. Digg can pull back the curtain, but the audience still has to like the show. Be original - Be timely - Be bold as a blogger. The Digg community will stand up and take notice.
About The Author
I am a Dallas attorney working for Mark Cuban companies. I am an avid writer and part time actor.
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