As you may already know, keywords are an essential part of search engine optimization (SEO). And the usual approach recommended to finding the right keywords to target with one’s site involves the ideas of demand, supply and KEI (and/or CID). I would like to propose that one thing is missing in this research approach.

What is missing is a consequence of one of the major advantages of the Internet. Let me explain . . . When I use the Internet to look for information, or software, . . . I don’t care about what country is hosting the site, nor do I care about the nationality of the owner of the site. I am only concerned about finding what I am after. So, for me, when I use the Internet, the fact that the world is made up of countries is not something I think about, nor is it an issue because the Internet has in some ways effectively removed the existence of country borders.

Yet, it is this very positive aspect of the Internet that, I believe, leads us to perform incomplete keywords research when we look for keywords to target with our site.

You see, while the Internet has helped us forget about the existence of countries, when it comes to keywords, we must not forget that the world is made up of countries. The reason for this is that the demand for keywords can be country specific. This means that a keyword in high demand in one country, may not be in the same demand in another country. And in some cases, a keyword in demand in one country will not be in demand anywhere else.

To illustrate this idea, consider the following demand numbers for the stated keywords, as reported by Overture (the research being done in June 2005).

Using the keyword "keyword",

- Australia: 669

- Canada: 17

- United Kingdom: 10,770

- USA: 125,177

Another example, looking at the keyword "meta tag",

- Australia: 127

- Canada: 15

- United Kingdom: 2,653

- USA: 10,851

And still another example, looking at the keyword "meta keyword",

- Australia: 10

- Canada: 0

- United Kingdom: 57

- USA: 552

If you had a web site that dealt with SEO and you were looking for keywords to target, then surely the above results would prove interesting. For example, you could see which of the 4 countries above had an interest in what your web site is about. This in turn would tell you which countries you should target, and which you could safely ignore.

In case you are wondering how we obtained the above results . . . We did some basic research at the Overture site and found that it wasn’t all that difficult to do. We also found that Overture provides the demand data in 19 countries around the world, covering Europe, Asia, North America, South America and Australasia. We need to point out that some areas were better represented than others. South America, for example, is represented by 1 country only, while Europe is covered by 11.

By going to the Overture site, anyone can likewise discover how to use Overture to research the demand for keywords in any of the 19 countries it supports.

To go back to the title of this article . . . I feel, and I hope that you will now agree with me, that any research on keywords that does not take into account countries is not complete. For one thing, don’t you want to know where your visitors are most likely to come from?

In case you are not convinced about the point I am trying to make, I will try to explain in my next article other reasons why I think that proper keyword research should take into account countries.

Serge M Botans

Serge M Botans is the CEO of Meta Keywords Advice, a web site that provides advice on keywords. Free evaluation available. He is also the inventor of CID, which is an altenative to KEI.

Often, when someone is beginning a reciprocal link campaign, they have a lot of trouble getting people to link back to them. This article will show you some common pitfalls that cause people to refuse your link request.

First, check the PR ranking of your home page. This will often, for better or for worse, influence people’s decisions on whether or not to give you a reciprocal link. Try to make sure that your PR is as high as possible, and you might even want to delay your campaign until you can get a higher ranking. As this only happens every few months, this might not be a viable short term option.

Second, don’t stick your reciprocal links all on one page. You need to spread things out and properly organize them. Who wants a link on a thousand-link page that Google isn’t going to index anyway? People want a good, well organized link page. They want their links to show up next to similar links that have the same content. Only put about twenty to twenty five links on a page at max, and put the descriptive text up as well that people suggest.

Third, don’t hide the links. Put a link to your “main” links page on your home page, and have a well-organized site map that includes all of your link pages. People want to have their links on a page that will be indexed by Google, and they won’t reciprocate if you hide it from the search engines.

Teve Torbes is an expert owner of a flea control site, who knows a whole lot about dog fleas. He has also created a valuable inflatable air mattress site.

Services provided by a search engine marketing company are high in demand as new internet businesses emerge and e-business continues to grow at rapid rates. Search engine marketing consists primarily of search engine optimization and management of pay-per-click search engine marketing campaigns.

However, there are several service options that a search engine marketing company can offer that the target market seeking search engine marketing services will find to be desirable. Consulting, coaching, training, copywriting, and actually providing hands-on marketing services are among the opportunities that are available to be exploited by a search engine marketing company.

While some seasoned internet business operators seek assistance from a search engine marketing company, the primary target audience for services offered by a search engine marketing company consists of new and aspiring internet entrepreneurs.

Since newcomers to the field of internet business and internet marketing don’t generally have much experience in dealing with internet marketing techniques, this target market is in great need of assistance regarding all aspects of internet business and internet marketing.

Thus, the range of services that can be provided by a search engine marketing company is virtually unlimited and the services and advice offered in addition to search engine marketing services will be both needed and appreciated.

The standard search engine marketing services provided by a search engine marketing company include research and planning for search engine optimization and pay-per-click campaigns and actual administration and management of search engine marketing programs.

Common tasks associated with the search engine optimization services provided by a search engine marketing company include keyword research, copywriting, development of metatags, website optimization, and linking campaigns. There are other types of tasks involved in search engine optimization that may change from time to time due to the nature of the search engines.

Ongoing optimization services such as monitoring the search engine ranking and adjusting the website for optimal performance are also search engine optimization services provided by a search engine marketing company. Pay-per-click services that are generally provided by a search engine marketing company include keyword research, search engine analysis, keyword bidding, budgeting, pay-per-click campaign management and ongoing monitoring and administration of a company’s pay-per-click advertising campaign.

While many internet business operators want to outsource their internet marketing and search engine marketing tasks wholly to a search engine marketing company, there are even more who really have a strong desire to learn about internet marketing, including search engine marketing, search engine optimization and pay-per- click advertising, so they can be responsible for their internet marketing tasks themselves rather than relying on a search engine marketing company to provide full-service marketing and search engine marketing services.

This is a niche segment of the target market that provides even greater income opportunities for a search engine marketing company.

An expert search engine marketing company is generally well- versed in many different internet marketing areas and can provide superb consulting or coaching services. Information marketing through the publication of books and e-books is another viable revenue generating possibility for a search engine marketing company.

Another possibility for a service to be provided by a search engine marketing company is training either through online courses, seminars or one-on-one or group coaching sessions. A search engine marketing company can offer a wide array of services for their customers, or they can limit the scope to niche markets providing individual services like search engine optimization or keyword copywriting.

So, if you are really interested in opening a search engine marketing company, review the different service options that you are capable of providing. Do some market research and identify a specific target audience, then begin to market your search engine marketing company and the services you have selected to provide.

Copyright Christopher J. Enders. Are you at the end of your rope, fed up and confused by all the scrambled internet marketing advice you’re getting? Whether you are new to internet marketing, or a website owner who wants to make more money from your website, learn the proven strategies that will sky-rocket your internet business at http://BiznessTips.com

Three Ways To Index Your Site With Google Sitemaps [Difficult, Hard, And Easy]

Google has recently implemented a program where any webmaster can create a Sitemap of their Site and submit it for indexing by Google. It is a quick and easy way for you to keep your site constantly indexed and updated in Google.

The program is appropriately called Google Sitemaps.

In order for you to best use Sitemaps, you must have an XML generated file on your site that will transmit or send any updates, changes, and data to Google. XML (Extensible Markup Language)is everywhere these days, you have probably seen the orange XML logo on many web sites and its often associated with Blogging because Blogs use XML/RSS feeds to syndicate their content.

Today RSS is known mostly as ‘Really Simple Syndication’ but its original acronym stood for ‘Rich Site Summary’. XML is only simple code like HTML and it is used to syndicate your content to all interested parties.

And the interested party in this case is Google. By creating Sitemaps Google is really asking webmasters to take charge of the indexing and updating of their sites. Basically, doing the Googlebot’s job!

This is a ‘Good’ thing! With the steady influx of new web sites growing rapidly, indexing all this material will become a challenge, even with the resources of Google. With Sitemaps, websmasters can now take charge and make sure their site is crawled and indexed.

Please note, indexing your site with Sitemaps WON’T improve your rankings in Google. You will still be competing with the other sites in Google for top positions. But with Sitemaps you can make sure all your pages are crawled and indexed quickly by Google.

There are some other big advantages of using Google’s Sitemaps — mainly you have control over a few key variables, attributes or tags. To explain this as simply as possible, your XML powered sitemap file will have this simple code for each page of your site:

< url>

< loc>http://www.yoursite.com/< / loc>

< priority>1.0< /priority>

< lastmod>2005-07-03T16:18:09+00:00< /lastmod>

< changefreq>daily< /changefreq> < /url>

Along with ‘urlset’ tags at the beginning and end of your code, and an XML version indication - that’s basically your XML file! File size will depend on the number of webpages you have.

Taking a closer look at this XML file:

location http://www.yoursite.com — name of your webpage

priority you set the priority you want Google to place on that page in your site. You can prioritize your pages: 0.0 being the least, 1.0 being the highest, 0.5 is in the middle. This is ONLY relative to your site. It will not affect your rankings. Why is this important? You have certain pages on your site that are more important than others, (home page, high profit page, opt-in page, etc.) by placing high priority on these pages, you will increase their importance in Google.

last modified when you last modified that page, this timestamp allows crawlers to avoid recrawling pages that haven’t changed.

change frequency you can tell Google how often you change that particular page. Never, weekly, daily, hourly, and so on — if you frequently update your page this could be extremely important.

Why do I need a XML Generator?

In order for this XML sitemap file on your site to be constantly updated, you need a Generator that will spider your site, list all the urls and automatically feed them to Google. Thus constantly updating your site in Google’s massive index or database. Keep in mind, Google also gives you the option of submitting a simple text file with all your URLs.

Now there is already a flood of these generators popping up! Different ways of generating your XML powered sitemap file. More are probably appearing as you read this. But lets look at Three ways to generate your XML file.

Difficult Google’s Python Generator

That’s a relative term, if you know your server like the back of your hand and installing scripts doesn’t scare the bejesus out of you, you’re probably smiling at the word difficult. Google supplies a link to a generator which you can download and set up on your server. It will cough up your sitemap XML file and automatically feed it to Google. Google XML Generator

In order for this Generator to work, Python version 2.2 must be installed on your web server, many servers don’t have this. If you know what you’re doing, this will probably be a good choice.

You don’t need a Google Account to use Sitemaps but it’s encouraged because you can track your sitemap’s progress and view diagnostic information. If you already have another Google Account gmail, Google Alerts, etc. just use that one to sign in and follow directions from there.

To submit your Sitemap using an HTTP request, issue your request to the following URL:

www.google.com/webmasters/sitemaps/ping?sitemap=sitemap_url

Hard A PHP Code Generator

This is a php generator that you can place on your server. This generator will spider your site, and produce your XML sitemap file. Download the phpSitemapNG and upload it your server. Run the generator to get your XML sitemap file and send it to Google. PHP Generator

Again, this is only hard to do if you don’t know your way around PHP files or scripts.

Easy Free Online Generator

These Generators are popping up everywhere, and Google now keeps a list of these ‘third party suppliers’ of generators on their site. Find them here: Google’s List of Third Party Generators

One of the easiest to use is www.xml-sitemaps.com, and you can index up to 500 pages with this online Generator very quickly and it will give you the sitemap XML file Google needs to index your site.

It will go into your site, spider it and index all your pages into an XML sitemap of your site. You can download this file, Compressed or Non- compressed and make minor changes such as setting the priority, changing frequency, etc.

Then upload this file to your site as sitemap.xml to the root directory of your server i.e. where you have your homepage. Then notify Google Sitemaps of your XML file and you’re in business.

Of course, the only drawback, if you constantly add pages to your site you will need to also add these pages to your XML sitemap file. This won’t be much of a problem unless you’re daily adding pages to your site — then you will need something like the PHP or Python generator to do all this for you automatically.

Google is still the major search engine on the web so getting your pages indexed and updated quickly is the major reason to use Google Sitemaps. If you want your site to remain competitive it’s probably the wisest route to take.

To learn more about the different Services and Programs offered
by Google click here: Google Adsense & Google Adwords

Copyright © 2005 Titus Hoskins of http://www.bizwaremagic.com

This article may be freely distributed if this resource box stays attached.

Part 1

I had the privilege of beta testing Article Submitter Pro and I am very happy with it. Now I am using it regularly and it does save me a lot of work. It had a few starting difficulties but they have been sorted out and improved during the beta testing process.

Currently there are 95 sites in the semi automatic submission part, 46 sites in the manual submission part, that is sites you have to log in to, most of the form filling is still automatic. There are about 30 or so email announcement lists and you can add as many lists or groups as you want. In the next update which they just announced will come very soon, you will be able to add as many submission sites as you want. That means you can add your own favorite sites to submit to which are not listed in the submitter.

What I like the best, is that all the submission sites, lists and groups are at hand in one unit. There is no endless mouse clicking back and forth. The most time consuming part of using the submitter is learning how to use it and signing up for submission sites. To learn how to use it is not complicated though, the manual is easy to understand.

In the semi automatic submission part (currently 95 sites), you only need to check that the form is filled in correctly, and press submit. Then you go on to the next site. In the manual submission part, you need to order the submitter to fill in the fields so it takes a bit more time. But overall it saves a lot of tiring labour. When you have learned how to use it you should be able to do all the submissions (170) in 1-2 hours, depending on your own speed.

Everybody recognizes the value of incoming links, and article submission is a great way of increasing your link popularity and get more targeted visitors to your website.

I cannot brag about great results of incoming links yet, because it is too soon.

But I can tell you that it looks promising. I submitted an article to all the sites in the semi automatic submission section a couple of weeks back, and that has already about 60 links back.

I will update you with more results on my homepage as we go along. If you like to see, go to Google and do a search for "The dynamics of competitive mentality".

Many people are interested in comparing Article Submitter Pro and Article Announcer.

I have not used Article Announcer myself, so I can not really say how it works.

But I have asked someone who used it and they said it did not meet their expectations. The major complaint was that the submission process still involved a lot of cutting and pasting.

With Article Announcer everything is made in hardcopy, and sent by mail. You also have to pay shipping and handling charges on top of the purchase price.

Article Submitter Pro is instantly downloadable. The price of Article Announcer is 379$ and the price of Article Submitter Pro is 167$.

After beta testing and corresponding with the creators Ken Nadreau and Hubert Daul, I know that they are 100% committed to make Article Submitter Pro the best product possible.

There is an own discussion forum for the users of this software, and Ken and Hubert encourages everyone to come with wishes or ideas on how to expand the usability. All future updates are included.

Another major update soon to come is the (semi) auto submission of press releases.

Article Submitter Pro prevents spamming of article directories with the inbuilt Spam Preventer technology. This keeps track of which directories and sites one article is submitted to, and does not allow you to submit one article several times to the same directory or site.

You can always choose how many or how few sites or lists to submit to. You are always in control of how the submission form looks, and you have to press the submit button on each site.

The time that Article Submitter Pro saves me, I can use to create more high quality content for my web site and more interesting articles to submit.

To read the last part of the review and get the latest update, follow this link:

Article Submitter Pro Review

Visit the financial freedom resource directory.

The site contains book reviews, articles, biographies, free e-books, motivational quotes, abundance affirmations, practical tips, success tests, budgeting advice and resource directory.

Why am I SEO Stoopid?

I’m SEO Stoopid because I didn’t properly take notice of what my stats could have told me.

If I would have done, I would have noticed something sooner and factoring that something into my response would very probably have saved me a goodly number of lost posters and art print sales.

My site is about SEO. I’ve been doing it since 1996 or thereabouts and have clients of many years standing. Halfway through last year, I started adding posters pages to it. It’s restful and unoressured compared with a lot of SEO, plus I wanted to see how fast I could get unrelated pages indexed and where and with whom, plus unexpectedly I found that I enjoyed doing it, lots of reasons.

When the first two phases of Jagger hit, I was cool. It washed over my SEO clients the way I expected it to (it had no effect at all), and it washed over my (by now only mostly) SEO site the way I expected it to (it had no effect at all there either).

Then came the third wave. Oh dear!

My site’s serps (not my clients’ - they’re all fine) went into a decline that they still haven’t come out of. I was getting damp postcards from my serps telling me what depth they were reaching. They told me in one message they’d dived deeper than any known footballers. Imagine! If they ever come back up they’ll need time in a decompression chamber before they can surface again.

I decided that since I was tanking anyway no-one would be finding my poster pages from the engines and so now was the time to hive my poster pages off to their own site, something I’d been meaning to do for some time as a site is unlikely to do well for two such diverse subjects. I got myself a new posters-oriented domain for them too, in anticipation of the day when I have more time and can settle them down on their own dedicated space - the demand I had for them shows that they deserve it and I’ll be attending to this in the new Year.

I put them in a little backwater personal hosting space I have with my Broadband ISP. I have a custom 404 on my main site and I adjusted it to make it plain to folk that I’d moved the posters to a new domain as they were swamping my SEO efforts.

Now I always kept a good eye on my stats but I’d failed to note that results from Google, these days, aren’t just from Google any more. They’re from Google Images too - and despite the fact that I’d tanked in Google etc for text searches, unknown to me as my old stats package didn’t make the distinction, my posters were still very very well ranked in Google Images. I only found this out by studying my Google Analytic stats, a service I’d only recently signed up to in anticipation of clients expecting me to keep them abreast of Search Engine and SEO events.

I checked out one of my artist’s pages. I was in the 80’s in Google but to my amazement I was at positions 1 and 3 in Google Images. I checked out another and another. Same kind of deal, I was well off the main map and out in the boonies in the text-driven Googles but top 5 in Google Images.

So, what was I to do? All those potentially hard-to-get SERPS were going to waste as when people didn’t see the result they expected when they clicked through, just my 404 page (polite though it was) they just went somewhere else.

Hurriedly put all my pages back up again is what I did, and on my SEO site too, thinking to catch what business I can from what’s left of the Christmas rush. I’ve left all of the links to the new site in place as they’ll get people hopping back and forth from each site to the other, hopefully without realising. All the posters and art prints, the wall tapestries too, will have to be moved over eventually and on a permanent basis. You can have a site about SEO or a site that uses SEO to sell posters, you can not, not for any length of time, have just the one site that does both.

Not the way Google are ordering the universe anyway.

I’ll change over slowly using individual 301 redirects and this time they really will be permanent.

For now I don’t believe it’ll matter as Google, according to their own stats via Google Sitemaps, have no info about my new posters domain and given everything else they have on their plate just now I don’t suppose they’ll be indexing it all and handing out a content penalty before I’ve moved everything over permanently.

But look at the sales opportunity I very nearly missed, eh?

Moral of the story is, make sure your stats package is the best that it can be. I don’t think I’ll be using my old stats package too much from now on, but I’ll keep it on as it does have some individual visitor tracking capabilities that Google’s version of Urchin currently lacks. Reading your stats regularly will save you money and time in the long run.

But do make sure they’re as detailed as possible - you may miss important information if they aren’t! Don’t be an SEO Stoopid!

"Big" Bill Kruse has been running the seo services site Kruse Internet Services since 1996. He has a hobby too, running the Posters & Art Prints site.

You probably do this already - complete regular searches in Google for your key phrases and see how high you rank. It’s well known that the first three results are far and away the sites that get the most clicks. If you can get one of the top three results in your key terms then you will have more targeted visitors coming to your site. If you can get the first result, well that is even better. Of course all your competitors want to do the same.

One of the great things about Google is that is updates quite frequently. That little GoogleBot is busy 24/7 indexing the web to make sure everyone gets the best answers to their search questions. I’ve recently been playing with a technique that I thought might be worth testing and because Google has updated so quickly I’ve been able to get a result within a few weeks, and I got the perfect result - a number one ranking for one of the key phrases I was after. In fact this technique worked so well that I got the number one result for a related search phrase too!

A Quick and Easy Google SEO Trick

The technique I used was to place an ad in a particularly highly ranked classified site. In this case it was the famous site Craigslist.org for London (http://london.craigslist.org/). This site is the original free classifieds trading community that has become a world wide phenomenon driven by word of mouth. But that’s not important. What is important is that Craigslist is very popular and has a high PageRank, and most importantly you can place a free ad on the site anytime you want to. There are restrictions and limitations but it is easy to do, there is no reason you shouldn’t make an ad or two. It’s free promotion for your business that may happen to also help with your placement in Google SERPs.

Key Term: SERP - Short for Search Engine Results Page, the Web page that a search engine returns with the results of its search. The major search engines typically display three kinds of listings on their SERPs. Listings that have been indexed by the search engine’s spider, listings that have been indexed into the search engine’s directory by a human, and listings that are paid to be listed by the search engine.

A Practical Test

For testing I was after the search phrase "Thesis Proofreader" for my business site’s thesis proofreading service. I entered the term into Google and noticed that a Craigslist entry was receiving a high result, but the subject and keywords were not highly targeted. However they were good enough to get a third page result in Google for that term. I went in and created a very simple ad in Craigslist that directly targeted my keywords and a week or two later I had the number one result for that term in the Google global SERP. Also because I had used the term "Essay" in the subject of the ad I managed to secure the first page result for "Essay Proofreader" as well. Not bad .

A Bit Hit and Miss

I was surprised that it worked as well as it did but I know better than to expect that good a result every time. One important consideration in my test is that there just isn’t much competition for my search phrase; hence it was easy to get the top result. If your market is more competitive your result likely won’t be as good. Craigslist deletes ads in 45 days so it’s not a permanent result either, you will need to keep going back to recreate your ad if you want to keep the result.

You should be sure to check the current results in Google to see if any free listing sites like Craigslist are pulling up high results for your terms. If you have some advertising cash to spend, see if any pay-for-entry directories or classifieds are pulling high results too. If there are then there is a good chance that if you create a well targeted ad you will have positive results.

It’s important to do search research first so you know which city listings in Craigslist are pulling the high results. Ideally for an online business that can service the world you would have a Craigslist listing for every city, but that just may not be feasible and may break the Craigslist rules anyway. With search research you determine which city is pulling the best results for your terms, which could be caused by a whole number of reasons - backlinks to that particular Craigslist city, key terms - the amount of variables to consider are beyond human comprehension, let Google handle that and just take the results on face value.

Take the time to locate the best city based on current search results and place your entry in that city at the very least. If your business is specifically targeted at a geographical area then it is a good idea to do a comprehensive ad in your Craigslist city (if available) as well, it certainly won’t hurt.

It’s also important to note that there is nothing stopping competitors doing the same thing as you. The SEO war may spread into Craigslist and muddy the site, which would no doubt prompt a clampdown on commercial listings in Craigslist. Perhaps this technique is best for those operating in small or unique industries since it is unlikely that competitive action will ruin it for everyone.

Also note that Google itself is a completely uncontrollable variable in this equation. Google may decide that it will no longer count Craigslist entries. Maybe it will decide to only index for certain terms. Just accept that you can’t control what Google decides to do, but you can test to see what results you can get. Not trying guarantees no results.

It’s Too Easy Not to Test

There is no good reason not to use this technique. Classified sites want listings, it’s what they do. You may or may not achieve better search engine results but at the least there is a chance that a browser may stumble across your ad and come shopping at your business. It takes very little time and usually is free so get out there and start creating those free ads. Just remember to use the right keywords and don’t go overboard, you don’t want all your incoming links to come from free directories because in the long run Google may penalise your results.

By Yaro Starak
http://www.entrepreneurs-journey.com

Do you want to profit from your own successful home based Internet business?

Learn from Yaro Starak, a young entrepreneur from Australia. He works part time from home on several web based business that generate between $2,000 and $8,000 per month. Get your free articles and audio now - visit his Internet Business Blog.

Yes, the best and easiest way to build Web site traffic is to write articles. And save A lot of time submitting them.

It is through well written articles and keeping your visitor wanting to learn more that you will see more traffic on your Web site. More traffic means more profit for you.

There are many reasons why you need to write articles. Here are just a few. 1. It is easy to do. You can write articles based on your area of expertise or niche. Even if you are not an expert you can learn by surfing the Web. Reading a few articles on the subject will enhance your knowledge to allow you to write an article.

I feel that an article should be more than 400 words but leas than 1500. Unless it’s a sales page you will tend to lose your audience with more than 1500 and not build Web site traffic.

2. You will get a pre-targeted audience. People who read your article are those who are interested in your target. Once they are interested, it doesn’t take much to get them pre-sold, increase your Web site traffic. And then ka-ching - a sale.

3. Better links. One of the ways that search engines give a site higher rankings is based on the number of "back links". If those reading your articles are interested they will check out your Web site and bingo, you have another back link.

Links back to your site give more points to your rankings then those from your site to other Web sites.

4. Need a call for action. In most of your articles you need to let your readers know what you would like them to do. Either sign up for your e-zine, go to another page that will pre-sell them or purchase a product. In most articles you will have a way to use a "resource box". This is where you will put your "call to action" as well as possibly a little bit about you the author. Here is my resource box for my orchid site articles. "Sign up for tips in our monthly Orchid Newsletter and get your copy of "All About Orchids" e-book and your 10% Discount on an orchid. http://www.orchids-plus-more.com/orchidaceae.html "

I find that the best way for me to write an article is to read 3 or 4 articles about orchids or internet business. Once I finish this I usually have a good idea about what I will write about. Possibly then read a few more articles on the topic and begin writing and watch the Web site traffic increase.

At times, some webmasters don’t have the time to write. There are many free lance writers out there who will write articles for you and not charge a lot of money. Some examples are Elance and Rent A Coder.

Once you write an article I suggest that you submit it to article directories. These are some of the best places for "new visitors" to find out about you and what you are saying. Once you get it into the directories you will notice an increase in your Web site traffic.

What a wonderful surprise when I started doing this I noticed a 30% increase in traffic within the first week. It seems the more I submit the more traffic.

You do need to know that submitting to directories is tedious work and takes time. It was taking me about 6 hours to submit to about 40 directories.

Now it takes me about 11/2 hours.

Do you want to see how I freed up 5 hours? Go to my Web site page http://start-internet-business-from-college.com/web-site-marketing-strategy

The easiest, best time saving way to submit articles to hundreds of site. Saves you hours! http://www.start-internet-business-from-college.com/web-site-marketing-strategy.html

My name is Bob Roy and I enjoy helping to make a new internet business successful. I have expertise in using the only all-in-one internet business package. I kinow that if you start an internet business you want it to be a success and I will be able to help you. Go to http://www.start-internet-business-from-college.com/ for more information.

The complexity of search engines like google gets confirmed with the diverse suggestions given by SEO specialists and the search results themselves.

The gap between theory and practice gets widened as we see that "keyword optimization" is not everything….after all. The answer lies in having as many inbound links as possible and ….let’s face it…nobody can deny the rationale behind a higher rank for a larger number of inbound links with proper tags to follow suit.

Google’s algorithm is perfectly done and the search results only reflect the complexity of the whole exercise…and google is where it is….at No 1.

Can the search engine be blamed for "google bombing" and what can the search engine do about it ? Can the No. 1 search engine do anything in the first place ? These questions crop up when a seemingly harmless search for "miserable failure" in the search engine gives an output which you or I won’t ever imagine will find a No 1 position at the No 1 search engine.

The result: http://www.whitehouse.gov/president/gwbbio.html

This is the result at the time of writing this article on 02nd Jan 2006.

When you point your browser to this page, it will lead to the United States President, George Bush’s biography and I presume that this webpage is obviously not "keyword optimized" for "miserable failure".

This is the result of google bombing and at the same time, it is the result of a large number of inbound links to this webpage with "miserable failure" as the subject tag.

Let’s look at it both ways. The No 1 search engine obviously has sound logic as is evident from the fact that a large number of websites link to a particular webpage only if it is popular. It is a different matter that popularity can sometimes fall flat on the face as is refelected in this example.

The second way we can look at the validity of large number of inbound links is that the search results may not be what one expects…..after all. Can somebody do anything about it ? Is it possible to differentiate between "positive popularity" and "negative popularity" in terms of search engine rankings ? Can a group of web users or a small community target a website with "negative keywords" ? Can a well-knit community shape the rankings of a website ?

Is a sound linking strategy the holy grail for higher search engine rankings ? Has "keyword optimization" run it’s course ? Will the search engines alter their algorithm to reflect "positive keywords" and "negative keywords" ?

These are the million dollar questions ….and we are waiting for the answers…Mr. Google….or should we turn to the SEO experts for the answers ?

Jayadeep Rath is the founder of a manual traffic exchange - http://www.eatsleeptraffic.com and believes strongly in the power of manual traffic exchanges to make your internet marketing strategy go places. He has a newsletter for sharing internet marketing ideas, innovations, strategies,opportunities and resources with EatSleepTraffic.com community members. EatSleepTraffic.com is a free to join community and provides free traffic to its members in exchange for clicks.

Before you make drastic changes to your website after a rocky search engine update, take time to study your web server logs, changes in traffic to your site, and your ranking in the search engines.

Making Changes Before Analysis

Making rash decisions when you are hearing one thing then another from forum postings and articles is not the best choice to make. Much of the talk about fluctuations in the search engine rankings is just that–talk. Cold hard facts come from established tests of what is going on and why. Don’t jump ship before examining what is going on with your website first. Panic will lead you nowhere.

Let’s talk about basic search engine fundamentals you need to know.

Search Engine Rankings Fluctuate

First, you need to know that search engine rankings fluctuate; that is just the way it is. Google is a prime example of ranking changes happening throughout the day. The best way to find out how you are faring is to study the traffic coming to your site over time. Nope, not just a day or two, try a week or two at least to see if your rankings return. A search engine update may last a week before finishing and the rankings settle. Most importantly, are you receiving traffic at your website? Are you still making sales? Okay then, something is working. Don’t jump on the "change everything" bandwagon. Pay attention to what is true in regard to your website.

No One Knows Algorithms Like The Search Engines

The truth is much of the talk about organic (natural) search engine marketing information is speculative. The people who know exactly what the search engine is doing are the engineers who created it, and they are not going to give away their secrets. This means that understanding what happens when updates occur may be difficult to pin down. Keeping tabs with leaders in the industry through articles, forum postings and blogs may give you a general idea of what is happening. Take that information and then apply it to what is actually happening with your website traffic and sales.

You Need A Log Statistics Program

If you do not take anything else away with you from this article be sure you heed this advice: you need a log statistics program in place. With a good log statistics program you will be able to see various reports showing the number of unique visits taking place on your website, what keyword phrases visitors use to find your pages, what pages are being visited, which search engines are being used to find your website, and much more. Knowing what the "normal" website traffic of your website is will give you a good idea of what may be actually changing over time when updates do occur.

Resubmitting Doesn’t Help

Don’t resubmit your web pages in the crush of an update. Search engines have crawlers, known as search engine robots or spiders, that are able to pick up a web page through links in order to add it to the search engine databases. For this reason you do not need to submit your pages to search engines anymore. Even if you mysteriously go from "top ten" to number 500 in the rankings, the fact that you are still listed means that you are still in the search engine’s database, and you do not need to resubmit. Watch search engine robot activity in your server logs and you will be able to see when your web pages are being revisited by the robots.

Google PageRank Should Not Rule Your Life

So many people fixate on Google’s PageRank. I suggest you should be more concerned about the traffic coming to your website, sales, the amount of content on your site and the number of on topic or directory backlinks you have acquired. PageRank is part of a much bigger equation of over 100 ways in which Google evaluates your website. Don’t forget about the traffic that comes from the other search engines as well. Google may not always be the leader in search engines, keep current with the other major search engine players in the industry.

Common Sense Makes Sense

Use common sense. If you are a small business you can ill afford to make changes that may adversely affect your bottom line. Observation and patience will gain you more than quick fixes. In my experience, the true test of an update is watching the search engine results settle over at least a week or two worth of time. Let the dust settle, analyze the situation, and see what happens from there.

Moderation may be helpful, whether in gaining backlinks, making website changes or your reactions to changes. Don’t panic. If it isn’t broken…don’t fix it.

Daria Goetsch is the founder and Search Engine Marketing Consultant for Search Innovation Marketing, a Search Engine Optimization company serving small businesses. She has specialized in Search Engine Promotion since 1998, including three years as the Search Engine Specialist for O’Reilly Media, Inc., a technical book publishing company.

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