First of all, it’s nothing personal.

Just because a search engine that’s popular the world over doesn’t show you love is no reason to sell your house and head out to the desert with no canteen.

And, truthfully, Google doesn’t really hate anybody. It’s just very very good at ignoring you.

Luckily, any reasons for Google’s cold shoulder to be turned on you are wholly technical, and we can turn that cold gaze into a loving embrace, provided we do things right.

Know Your Enemy -

First things first, we have to look at the world through Google’s binary-colored glasses. What is it that makes Google’s world go ’round? What is it that search engine optimization is really all about?

One simple word: results.

Google, in fact all search engines, pride themselves on their results. When a user types a search query in the search box, they expect the results to match and match well. A query on dalmations better bring up plenty of sites about dalmations and not much else. If a bunch of random subjects come up as a result of your search, it wouldn’t take long until you got fed up and stopped using Google altogether due to its inaccuracy. You’d skip over to Yahoo! or MSN and there goes Google’s revenues out the window.

Is it all about money? Sure, why not. That and bragging rights in the endless search engine battle.

Scratch Google’s Back, It’ll Scratch Yours -

If Google’s interest is in relevant results, it follows that whatever we can do to help them achieve that will boost us up in their rankings, and that’s where search engine optimization comes in. If our site is formatted and designed properly, meaning that Google can readily derive its contents and approves of them, we’ll be rewarded by a promotion through their ranks. See? Optimized.

Note, however, that how high you go is not dependent upon this factor alone. There are all sorts of elements that go into the algorithm that drives their index, some of which we know about and some which are as highly guarded as Colonel Sanders’s original recipe. But every little bit helps so let’s check out just how to make Google as happy as we possibly can.

Search Engine Optimization for Google -

The factors that help Google determine whether or not it likes your site, in no particular order, are as follows:

- Page Title

- Page URL

- Anchor Text

- Meta Tags

- Content

- External Links

- Site Maps

Much has been written on all these topics and search engine optimization, some of it in great detail down to the letter, so we’re not going to go over it all here too specifically. The main thing to understand is that neither of these by itself is going to make or break your rankings in search engines. It’s more of a holistic package, since each of the items listed will help your rank just that little bit more.

However, aside from the actual page content which is the most important, there is probably a bit more weight granted to external links. The more sites that link to you the better. And the better the sites that link to you (ie, those with good page ranks themselves) will be the best. Take caution that not all external links will help you out. In fact, you may even be penalized if lousy sites with no relevancy link to you.

The reason for this is simple, especially if you consider it in the light of what we discussed earlier: results. Google knows, or at least assumes, that a huge site with a great page ranking and lots of visitors has good content. It will further assume that your site too must have good content if you’ve earned a link from the other.

Further Information -

As I said earlier, there are plenty of sites out there with further information on each and every single aspect of search engine optimization. There are also companies out there who will do what most of us really don’t want to do: that is, optimize our own sites. Sure it can be fun and a good learning experience to do it ourselves, but it’s also a long road; nipping and tucking and fine-tuning can be really aggravating. Apparently some people like it, such as the folks at SEO Elite. You can read about them HERE. They do search engine optimization for a living and have a great track record of being quite good at it.

In the meantime, good luck with your search engine optimization.

Keep on tweaking and keep on updating!

C. Pabst is an author, entrepreneur and the owner of Work From Home Businesses. He is also an expert in the field of Search Engine Optimization.

Link building is a waiting game. Many clients have asked me why they do not see changes in traffic or ranking before a month goes by. It takes time for the search engine robots to find those new links and index the pages they are linked to.

The Process Of Indexing Links

Links are what make the world wide web go round. Links are how we travel through the web pages of the world wide web. The indexing, or spidering, of links on a web page works much the same as the search engine submission process. In order for your new link to provide link popularity back to your website, the page the link is on must appear in the search engine databases. In other words, the link page must be indexed. Just like pages that get included in the search engine databases, the search engine robots must index the web page to be included into the search engine databases. If the web page is already in the search engine database, it is a matter of indexing the updated information on the web page and having that link show as a backlink in the search engine results.

Why Do I Have To Wait So Long For Results?

When it comes to link building, it is quite simply a slow process. Even if you pay for a link, the page the link is on still must be indexed by the search engine robots in order to be included in the database, thus showing up in the search engine results. Just like your web pages may take time to be indexed in the search engine databases, the same is true of the links you submit for link popularity. A link is on a page, it must be indexed to count.

What’s A Backlink?

A backlink is a spiderable link (typically a text hyperlink) that points from another web page to your designated web page.

The preferable type of backlink is one that is topical in nature. If your web page and keywords focus on gardening books, you would want to have backlinks from other gardening websites, especially gardening book sites, pointing back to your web pages. The link pointing back to your web page counts for just the one page as a backlink, unless you have multiple links on multiple pages on the link website.

For more information about who to link to, see our article:
http://www.searchinnovation.com/link-building.asp

Finding Backlink Results

Google has limitations on the number of links that show up in their backlink search results. You may have many more links in Google than what is shown in the link query in the search engine results.

AlltheWeb generally shows many of your backlinks, it picks up most pages that link to you. Yahoo also shows quite a few backlinks.

To find your backlinks, search in the search field using: link:www.yourdomainname.com

This query should show the number of backlinks you have pointing back to your web page.

If this search does not work in the search engine you are using, try using the advanced search feature of the search engine.

For an overall report view of your backlinks, visit http://www.marketleap.com and choose the link selection to see how many backlinks show in the search engines listed. You may list your top competitors websites in this query and see their backlink results along side of your own results. As always, use any search tool as an estimation of the number of backlinks pointing to your website.

Is The Link Page In The Database?

You can check to see if the page your new link is on is in the search engine database by using this search in most search engines search field:

allinurl: www.yourdomainname.com

or

site: www.yourdomainname.com

or by page name: info:www.yourdomainname.com/articles.html

Or use the advanced search features offered at each search engine.

Of course, to find out if you are listed in a directory, you must click through the categories to the category you submitted your information to. To shortcut your search, look for the directory link results that usually accompany regular search results at directories. If you are listed in the directory, the next step is to wait until the link is indexed by the search engine robots and shows up in the search engine results and your backlink results.

Waiting For Results

Link building is time consuming and you must wait to see the full results. Most importantly, work on your content for natural linking from other websites. Become an authority on your subject and other websites will think the same thing. Think of link building not as an immediate payoff but as a long-term goal to better your overall ranking in the search engine results.

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

Copyright © 2002-2005 Search Innovation Marketing. http://www.searchinnovation.com All Rights Reserved.

Permission to reprint this article is granted if the article is reproduced in its entirety, without editing, including the bio information. Please include a hyperlink to http://www.searchinnovation.com when using this article in newsletters or online.

Any time you use a URL in an Article, Web Page, Classified Ad, Pay Per Click ad or anyplace else you should always use Ad = Tracking Links. Not only will this Article show you how to build your own Ad-Tracker in 2 simple steps it will also tells you 7 reasons why you should always use Ad-Trackers

Building a Tracking Link is as Simple as using a Free Web Site Counter with a Meta Tag Refresh Link.

For a Sample how to do this Visit http://www.ewguru.com/hbiz/sample-Ad-Tracker.html

The Redirect part of the Code takes place in the lines Between the Head and /head statements. This Page is redirected to Google. Just change http://www.google.com to point to any URL you want re-direct too.

The Tracking Code Appears between the Body and /body tags. You would put in the Java Script code for your Web Counter here. Sitemeter offers a free Web Counter that has some very nice features and has been tested to work with this method. http://sitemeter.com Any Java Script Type Web Counter should work with this Method.

Here are 7 reasons why you should always use Ad-Tracking URLS

1. - You get great visibility. You can See who came to your web page. Who referred them. What page did they enter or exit on. How long they stayed. How many pages they visited. Pretty much everything except their hair color
2. - Split Testing. Do you want to see which classified ad pulls better. Use a Different ad tracker for each classified ad and let them each run a few weeks and see your results.
3. - You are in control. If you are promoting an E-book about how to profit on e-bay and you find a better e-book you just change your tracking link to point to the new E-book. Or Set up a 2nd tracker link to your new E-book and see which one sells better
4. - If you are Promoting an Affiliate program and they go out of business, you can find a similar Affiliate program and point your ad tracking links there.
5. - Cascading Trackers. Lets Say you want to Redirect many URLS to http://main-Redirect.

You Build a Page called http://the-Redirect and Point it to http://main-Redirect (don’t place Java Web Counter code on this Page)

You now Point all you other Redirects to http://the-Redirect s0 http://the-Redirect1, http://the-Redirect2 …(with Java Web Counting Code ) are all pointing at http://the-Redirect. Now if the URL of http://main-Redirect1 changes you change http://the-Redirect to point to http://main-Redirect1 and all the URLS that point to http://the-Redirect should still work with no change.

6. - Free Web Based trackers go out of business.
7. - You can often get better statistics when you build your own Ad-Trackers

About The Author:
Mike Makler has been Marketing Online Since 2001 When he Built an Organization of over 100,000 Members

Get Mike’s Newsletter:
http://ewguru.com/newsletter

More Articles by Mike:
http://ewguru.com/tips

Permission Based E_Mail Marketing Methods
http://ewguru.com/hbiz/amazingoffer.html

Copyright © 2005-2006 Mike Makler the Coolest Guy in the Universe

Your search engine optimization strategy should focus on two fundamental goals:
- deliver as targeted as possible visitor traffic;
- acquire high conversion rates (visitors taking the desired type of action on your web site).

This is what SEO can do for you and your business: ultimately bring you customers and/or partners.

These goals are most likely to be attained when the following conditions take place:
- search engines index the site;
- search engines crawl the site frequently;
- high ranking among SERPs for your web site’s keywords;
- high link popularity;
- high page rank.

For every query performed on search engines there is a human being at the end of the keyboard looking for information, products, or services. You have to direct your focus towards grabbing as much search engine traffic as possible with your most important keywords while keeping the objectives of the search engine optimization in clear focus.

Before you get too excited about attaining a top 10 ranking on the search engines, you should be clear on the objectives behind bringing visitors to your website.

It’s not a good idea to go from 1,000 visitors to 10,000 visitors over a month if your website is not relevant to your visitors’ search terms. Having “forced visitors” onto your web site will simply eat your resources (bandwidth, for one) but for sure these visitors will not become your customers if the topic of your web site is of no interest to them.

Such an accomplishment, like a major increase in traffic stats, may make you SEO hero of the day, but if your web site visitors are not interested in your products or services you will have just squandered your efforts.

Your goal is to help the search engines return the most relevant pages from your web site in response to user queries. Using tricks and tactics to get your pages to show up under search terms that are irrelevant and have nothing to do with your site only annoys web surfers, and can get you banned from the search engines.

Ultimately, the number of hits measured in your web server logs will make no difference if your visitors are not taking action on your website to sign up for a newsletter, download your software, submit a quote request, or buy your products and services online.

Most of the web sites in the top positions for even moderately competitive keywords got there because:

- they used highly targeted keywords effectively throughout their website; - they gained substantial link popularity from relevant websites and directories.

Although simplistic in terms of today’s very complex search engine algorithms used to return relevant search engine results, the two above key points lay the foundations for all our future discussions about how to gain top rankings on today’s search engines.

Apisith Chawla is an author, consultant, and SEO Trainee. His eBook is available at http://www.equalseo.com/ebook

Finding Targeted Keyword Phrases Your Competitors Miss

Finding keyword phrases your competition is missing is easier than it seems. Combinations of two and three word phrases are often overlooked by your competitors when vying for the top competitive terms. This missed opportunity may be a benefit to you to overcome your competition in the search engine rankings.

Think Like A Searcher - Study Your Target Audience

Really look at the audience you want to bring to your website. Are there terms you might not ordinarily use or your competitors use that would work for a small portion of visitors? Remember that single words tend to be more competitive. Find two and three word phrases that would work for a searcher looking for your website topic. If your visitors usually search on "vertical widgets", look at "horizontal widgets" as well. Dig deep to find terms that might not be obvious to you. Of course using a keyword phrase that no one searches on might give you lots of search results, this is why you should focus your terms on the actual topic of your website content. Have another person compile a list of keyword phrases used to find your website or product. You’d be surprised at the number of variations two minds can come up with instead of one. Think like a searcher - not a website owner.

View Your Competitor’s Source Code And Content For Keyword Phrases

Viewing your competitor’s source code is very easy and a good way to see what keyword phrases (if any) they are using. Using your browser, view the source code of the page. The title and meta tags should contain the same keywords or variations of keyword phrases if the competitor’s website is optimized. Look over the web page content as well as for keyword phrases worked into the text, image alt text, headings and hyperlinks of the pages. If their pages are not optimized you may gain an even bigger edge on the competition by optimizing your web pages.

Using Keyword Tools To Find Variations Of Keyword Phrases

The Overture Suggestion Tool will provide keyword variations: http://inventory.overture.com/d/searchinventory/suggestion/

Clicking on the suggestion tool link will bring up a window, you can search for terms and variations of terms. Begin with your list and see how many variations come up with the results. You might be surprised at the popularity of some of the search variations you see. Be sure to add you new keyword phrases to your list.

WordTracker is a keyword tool as well, you can purchase a yearly subscription or even a one day subscription. Learn more about it here: http://www.wordtracker.com/

Search On Keyword Phrases In The Search Engines

Using your expanded list of keyword phrases, search for those terms in the search engine databases. Note the number of search engine results. The more results, typically the more competitive the term. See the differences in number of search results for plural versions as opposed to singular versions of your keywords in each engine. Note the descriptions that the search engine results bring up - are there any keyword phrases there that might apply to your website? Don’t forget the ads Google displays in their search results. Study the ads that come up with your search terms as well. While you are searching on your keyword phrases, check your competitor’s ranking, along with the new keyword phrase variations you come up with through the Overture Keyword and WordTracker tools.

Add Keywords Reflecting Your Local Cities And State

You can also target local areas by listing them in your title/meta tags and text of your web pages. List only the cities and state you reside in and/or provide services to. You never know who will be looking for a local contact producer of "blue widgets" in your city or state. Some people prefer to work with a local company. Adding in those type of specifics, even on your contact page with your local information, can pull in traffic your local competitors are missing.

Check Your Site Statistics

Last but certainly not least, check your search engine stats program or raw server logs to see what terms your visitors are using to find your website. There may be combinations of words your visitors are using you have not thought of or that may not be in the content of your pages.

Incorporate Keyword Phrases Into Content Of Your Web Pages

Once you have your list of varied keyword phrases, work them into your web page. Incorporating these terms into your web pages should "make sense", in other words, they should read well and not sound "spammy". Most of all, they should realistically be part of the content of the page, not placed there only because you need them in the content. Have another person read your copy to see if it sounds reasonable to them.

Keyword Variations Make A Difference

Don’t miss out on the keywords your competitors might miss. Those extra keywords could translate into profits and increased viewing of your website by visitors who might otherwise not find you.

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

Copyright © 2002-2005 Search Innovation Marketing. http://www.searchinnovation.com All Rights Reserved.

Permission to reprint this article is granted if the article is reproduced in its entirety, without editing, including the bio information. Please include a hyperlink to http://www.searchinnovation.com when using this article in newsletters or online.

Now that you’ve built your new website you can sit back and let it do all the work, right? Well no. Unlike in “Field of Dreams” if you build it, they won’t necessarily come, at least not until you ask them to! That’s where web site promotion comes in. Web site promotion provides that vital link between that great site you’ve built (or had built) and everyone that you want to come see it!

Often new site owners either don’t know that they need to promote their new site or they follow the trend of only promoting their site on the search engines like Google and MSN. While it is always important to get your site listed with all the major search engines (and most of the smaller ones), you might be overlooking a vital part of promoting your site, promoting your web site locally.

A small business will often it’s website to provide a “Showroom” for their products, information about their business, and directions to help potential customers find their business. Their main goal often is to attract customers locally or from nearby towns and cities, so some additional strategy is useful in promoting their site.

Local website promotion checklist

1. Local Newspaper: Many local papers have a section to introduce your business to the area. Write a small article about your business and submit it to the newspaper.

2.Press Releases: This is a formal release about your business. There are many places on the Internet that will publish press releases for free. This can be a good way to be sure your business can be found on the Internet. Often local papers will also run these releases.

3.Niche Marketing: For local businesses, be sure your keywords (both in your content and in the Meta Tags) include local cities and towns. When some one types in “Used cars” in the search box it will return thousands of results. When they narrow it down to “Used cars ‘YourTown’”, you want your web site to be high in the listings.

4.Email Signature: Most email programs allow you to add a signature to the bottom, include your web site address. This allows you to tell a little about your business and maybe announce a special your company is having. Keep these short and to the point.

5.Business Cards: Be sure your web site URL is on all paper correspondence and on your business cards.

6.Phone book: When you put your listing in the phone book for a little extra you can add your website URL, which may also be added to the yellow page phone directory. Google keeps a yellow page directory based on phone number listings, in time your business and URL will be listed there.

7.Be Creative: The more often someone sees your web site URL the more likely they will remember it when they need your product. Find ways to display your web site URL in your store and any other place the public may see it.

Dwayne Goerges is the owner of ADAC Programming and Top Website Tips.

Specializing in data driven websites for inventory display and client management.

SEO Firms Websites that gets found in Google, Yahoo, and MSN, etc. is not hard to do, But most people are confused where to begin.I can offer some search engine optimization tips as per my knowledge.

Try not to purchase a new domain unless you have to. Google’s aging delay is trouble for all new domains, it is better to use your existing domain/website if at all possible. If you’re redesigning or starting from scratch and you have to use a brand-new domain for some reason, you can expect to wait a good 9-12 months before your site will show up in Google for any keyword phrases that are important to you.

Optimize your site for your target audience, not for the search engines The content should ne relevent. The search engines are looking for pages that best fit the keyword phrase someone types into their little search box. If those "someones"(http://www.kvcindia.com) are typing in search words that relate to what your site offers, then they are most likely members of your target audience. You need to optimize your site to meet their needs. If you don’t know who your target audience is, then you need to find out one way or another. Look for studies online that might provide demographic information, and visit other sites, communities, or forums where your target audience might hang out and listen to what they discuss. This is crucial information to your website design, keyword research, and copywriting.

Do Research on your keyword phrases . The phrases you think your target market might be searching for may very well be incorrect. To find the optimal phrases to optimize for, use research tools such as Wordtracker, Google AdWords, and Yahoo Search Marketing data. Compile lists of the most relevant phrases for your site, and choose a few different ones for every page. Never shoot for general keywords such as "travel" or "vacation," as they are rarely (if ever) indicative of what your site is really about.

Design and categorize your site architecture and navigation based on your keyword research. Your research may uncover undiscovered areas of interest or ways of categorizing your products/services that you may wish to add to your site. For instance, let’s say your site sells toys. There are numerous ways you could categorize and lay out your site so that people will find the toys they’re looking for. Are people looking for toys to fit their child’s stage of development? (Look for keyword phrases such as "preschool toys.") Or are they more likely to be seeking specific brands of toys? Most likely, your keyword research will show you that people are looking for toys in many different ways. Your job is to make sure that your site’s navigation showcases the various ways of searching. Make sure you have links to specific-brand pages as well as specific age ranges, specific types of toys, etc.

Program your site to be "crawler-friendly." The search engines can’t fill out forms, can’t search your site, can’t read JavaScript links and menus, and can’t interpret graphics and Flash. This doesn’t mean that you can’t use these things on your site; you most certainly can! However, you do need to provide alternate means of navigating your site as necessary. If you have only a drop-down sequence of menus to choose a category or a brand of something, the search engine crawlers will never find those resulting pages. You’ll need to make sure that you always have some form of HTML links in the main navigation on every page which link to the top-level pages of your site. From those pages, you’ll need to have further HTML links to the individual product/service pages. (Please note that HTML links do NOT have to be text-only links. There’s nothing wrong with graphical image navigation that is wrapped in standard < a href > tags, as the search engines can follow image links just fine.)

Label your internal text links and clickable image alt attributes (aka alt tags) as clearly and descriptively as possible. Your site visitors and the search engines look at the clickable portion of your links (aka the anchor text) to help them understand what they’re going to find once they click through. Don’t make them guess what’s at the other end with links that say "click here" or other non-descriptive words. Be as descriptive as possible with every text and graphical link on your site. The cool thing about writing your anchor text and alt attributes to be descriptive is that you can almost always describe the page you’re pointing to by using its main keyword phrase.

Write compelling copy for the key pages of your site based on your chosen keyword phrases and your target market’s needs, and make sure it’s copy that the search engines can "see." This is a crucial component to having a successful website. The search engines need to read keyword-rich copy on your pages so they can understand how to classify your site. This copy shouldn’t be buried in graphics or hidden in Flash. Write your copy based on your most relevant keyword phrases while also making an emotional connection with your site visitor. (This is where that target audience analysis comes in handy!) Understand that there is no magical number of words per page or number of times to use your phrases in your copy. The important thing is to use your keyword phrases only when and where it makes sense to do so for the real people reading your pages. Simply sticking keyword phrases at the top of the page for no apparent reason isn’t going to cut it, and it just looks silly.

Incorporate your keyword phrases into each page’s unique Title tag. Title tags are critical because they’re given a lot of weight with every search engine. Whatever keyword phrases you’ve written your copy around should also be used in your Title tag. Remember that the information that you place in this tag is what will show up as the clickable link to your site at the search engines. Make sure that it accurately reflects the content of the page it’s on, while also using the keyword phrases people might be using at a search engine to find your stuff.

Make sure your site is "link-worthy." Other sites linking to yours is a critical component of a successful search engine optimization campaign, as all of the major search engines place a good deal of emphasis on your site’s overall link popularity. You can go out and request hundreds or thousands of links, but if your site stinks, why would anyone want to link to it? On the other hand, if your site is full of wonderful, useful information, other sites will naturally link to it without your even asking. It’s fine to trade links; just make sure you are providing your site visitors with only the highest quality of related sites. When you link to lousy sites, keep in mind what this says to your site visitors as well as to the search engines.

Dont overemphasise any one keyword phrase or worried too much about rankings. If you’ve done the above 9 things correctly, you will start to see an increase in targeted search engine visitors to your site fairly quickly. Forget about where you rank for any specific keyword phrase and instead measure your results in increased traffic, sales, and conversions. It certainly won’t hurt to add new content to your site if it will really make your site more useful, but don’t simply add a load of fluff just for the sake of adding something. It really is okay to have a business site that is just a business site and not a diatribe on the history of your products. Neither your site visitors nor the engines really give a hoot!

Seo Consultant working for improvement of the ranking of websites in various search engines like google, yahoo & msn by using different SEO techniques.

Maximizing traffic from the search engines to your web site is not a difficult task but it does require you to think ahead and plan your Search engine optimization strategy carefully. If you have not yet built your web site and are still in the initial planning stages then you may have an easier time of it. If you already have an existing web site, then you may need to take the time to read up on these SEO strategies and make some changes to incorporate them into your web site.

I will discuss 13 ways in which you can improve on your existing web site or boost a brand new web site into the stratosphere of high rankings. These are NOT SEO tricks but rather tried, tested, ethical and true methods that we know to work effectively. We all know that in reality there are no real SEO tricks. True success is achieved through hard work, research and implementation of a thorough and complete SEO strategy.

Without further ado here is a checklist of important items to consider and implement into your SEO strategy.

Using Javascript or Other Unspiderable Code

If you intend to use Javascript on your web page it is best to use it sparingly or not at all. Search engine spiders cannot read Javascript and it is possible that along with ignoring it when they come across it on your page, they may also get hung up on it if you are using a lot of it. If you really need to use Javascript you can safely use it by putting the code into a separate JS file and calling it with a single line of code which you place between your head tags within the header of your web page.

Using Style Guidelines Effectively

If you are using CSS style commands, do not include them within your actual web page source code. You don’t want search engine spiders to have to wade through 100 lines of unreadable code before they reach your actual content. Instead, place your style guidelines into a separate CSS file and call them with a single line of code from within your head tags again by using the following code:

Primary Keyword Layout

Examine your web site from a source code point of view and ensure that your primary keywords or phrases will be spidered first. When search engine spiders read your page they read the source code just like we would read a book from left to right - top to bottom. We know that search engines place higher relevancy on keywords and phrases which appear closer to the top of a page so it stands to reason that if you’ve got a large table full of graphics appearing at the top of your source code before your primary keywords, then you can achieve higher rankings by adjusting your layout and placing a well written search engine optimized paragraph above that table full of graphics.

Spiderable Text Present on Each Page

Many times I have seen some very pretty web sites, but their chances of ranking high for any relevant keywords have been dashed by the use of only graphics and very little or no text on the pages. It is very important to your SEO strategy that you make sure that you’ve taken the time to write some quality textual content for your pages. Don’t write nonsensical text filled with blatant sp@m. Instead, take a few extra minutes and write 4-5 quality paragraphs which clearly explain the theme of your site and the particular page you’re writing for.

Proper Use of robots.txt File

On several occasions I have performed an analysis of a client’s web site only to discover that they had inadvertently blocked spider access to their web site by incorrectly formatting their robots.txt file. It is critical that you know what you’re doing when you use a robots.txt file. If you are unsure of the correct syntax when modifying or creating a robots.txt file, I recommend you not use a robots.txt file at all. This may sound counterproductive, but it’s better to be safe than sorry. Accidentally blocking the spiders can result in a loss of all your rankings. It would almost be like starting over again to repair the damage. For help on correctly formatting your robots.txt file, visit robotstxt.org.

Dead Links and 404 Errors

If you are not checking for broken links on your web site, then you should start immediately and make this a part of your SEO strategy. You can never be 100% sure of your link integrity, especially when your site has 100, or more, pages. Aside from losing potential customers into a vortex of 404 errors, you risk more than that from a search engine perspective. When a search engine spider visits your web site and finds broken links, the impression left is that your site is not regularly maintained and updated. Not much is known about how the engines view this, but your crawl status may be assigned a low priority by visiting search engine spiders. In other words, the spiders may not visit your site as frequently as they visit sites with 100% link integrity. So make sure you download some link checking software and begin a regular schedule of verifying your link structure.

Using Images For Primary Navigation Links

Many webmasters like to use fancy looking navigation links but, in doing so, they fail to establish a theme for their sites. For instance, using a graphical link back to your home page does not tell the search engine spiders what that link is about unless the spider actually visits that page. If you use optimized ALT text on that graphical home page link, then that would be a step in the right direction. But to maximize the effect and clearly define the theme of your web site, you need to use a text link that has your primary keyword or phrase within the link text. This is called Link Reputation.

Home, Site Map and Contact Page Links

The Home, Site Map and Contact pages are your site’s primary pages and should be your SEO strategy top priority. It is essential that these pages be spidered and exposed to your site visitors. To ensure that they are spidered, place links to them near the top of your source code on every page of your web site. Your home page is, of course, the main entrance to your web site so you want that to be the focal point in the search engines. Your site map page should (if properly optimized) have links to all of your sub pages and use primary keywords belonging to each sub page within the link text pointing to those sub pages. Your contact page is just as important because it’s used by visitors who have questions or who wish to order products and services.

Redirected Pages

When a web page has outlived its usefulness, webmasters will, on occasion, redirect visitors hitting that page to another page. Search engine spiders, however, take a dim view of page redirects. If you change the content of your site and find that you have no further use for a page, do not place a redirect on that page. Instead, remove the outdated content and replace it with something relevant. Include a text link to your home page or to a new replacement page. When you remove a page or place a redirect on an outdated page, you’re cheating yourself out of better rankings and search engine traffic. Moreover, using page redirects can result in the removal of your site listing in search engine databases with a consequent loss of revenue.

Excessively Small Type Font Sizes

Text in a font smaller than font size 2 is normally reserved for copyright information and the legal jargon often seen at the bottom of web pages. Use font size 2, or greater, for the majority of text on your page. Font size is a major factor in SEO strategy because the font size used defines the relevancy a search engine spider assigns to the content it finds on your page. An example of this would be the text within heading tags (H1 through to H6). Text surrounded with H1 tags has a higher relevancy placed on it than text surrounded with H6 tags. Visit the w3.org website for a better understanding of how on-page text is viewed by search engine spiders with regard to importance and relevancy. Search engine spiders tend to follow the W3 HTML standard.

Hidden Text, Door Way Pages and Other Tricks

Nowadays search engines are pretty smart and trying to trick them is not a wise course of action. Take some time to stop and examine your approach before proceeding with your SEO strategy. The rule of thumb is that if it looks like spam or could be perceived as spam by the search engines, then it probably is spam. The last thing you need is for a competitor to report unethical SEO tactics to the search engines. Such tactics could result in a loss of existing site listings as well as a ban on future submissions. So, to ensure the longevity of your online business, stay away from any technique that looks unethical.

Using HTML Frames

In short, don’t. Frames are not very search engine friendly because search engines cannot read a framed source document that tells your browser to load more than one page in your browser window at the same time. Thus, achieving a high PageRank on your home page is difficult. Frames also make it hard for search engine spiders to find all of your sub pages.

Non-Spider-Friendly URL’s

If the URL’s for your web site contain characters such as &, $, =, %, etc., that is they are dynamic in nature, then search engine spiders may not be able to read them. And, if they can’t be read, then the search engine spiders won’t be able to follow them to index your pages. However, there are solutions available to fix this problem. For example, webmasters who have sites hosted on servers with Unix operating systems can use Apache mod_rewrite to rewrite URL’s that contain a session ID, or other nasty characters, into search engine spider friendly URL’s.

SEO, of course, is not just limited to the 13 areas covered in this article, but if you apply the SEO strategies outlined in these 13 areas to your web site, you will find that your site rankings and traffic improve dramatically.

Brendon Turner maintains ProfitGazette.com - a progressive weekly edition of real-world online marketing business tactics that work!

Bring those visitors back for more, applauding you and saying BRAVO! They will create a buzz about your great site, and send you many more visitors through word of mouth. These visitors are your personal marketing force.

If you are a non-techie like me, you may not have heard of what a "sticky" Web site is (it is the stuff that lures visitors back again and again). But we do know we want that!

Forget getting to the top of the search engines. Let your Webmaster do that. Instead, try out some of these low- maintenance ways to bring ‘em back to your Web site for more.

1. Upload new, original, and useful content often. Do not think of your Web site as a virtual brochure. Avoid blatant ads such as banners, which turn visitors off. Give them information only they can’t find anywhere else—and give it free. People want and need how to’s, especially.

Always think benefits when you post some new article. Helping your visitors get what they want will bring their trust and respect as an expert, and eventually, bring you profit from your book, other products, or service.

2. Update your Web site content regularly and often, perhaps daily or weekly. If someone visits your site and finds nothing new, they will disappear into cyberspace and spend their time on other sites.

If you don’t want to write articles, copy and paste other people’s articles or tips from their ezines or Web sites with their permission, of course. Keep the pieces under 1200 words. Common lengths are anywhere from 75-1000 words. You can include a tip list, past feature articles from your ezine, an excerpt from your book, poetry, a heart-felt story, or a character sketch from your fiction book.

3. Publish your own ezine. Make it short and sweet. Start with a monthly, then see if you can do it bi-weekly. If you don’t stay in regular touch with your possible buyers, they will forget you and your book’s message.

People want to know you better, so they can trust you and think of you as an expert in your field. Your free information, tips and resources will keep them as subscribers. If they like your ezine, they will recommend it to others. The opt-in eNewsletter tops all other ways to drive traffic to your site, and it can be mass mailed free, too. Check out www.topica.com.

4. Include a recommending service on your site. Your repeat visitors create new traffic. Check out www.Recommend- It.com. It’s free, fast, and versatile. Each time someone recommends your site, they are entered in a contest to win a Palm V reading device and a chance to win $10,000.

5. Host a forum on your site where people can interact fully and you can share your knowledge and offer suggestions. It’s a great way to help others and get these people visiting your site often because they want to know you as a real person. Without a chance to interact with you people lose interest.

Allow your visitors to post a message or reply to other messages. They will check back every few days for new messages or replies. To find these services, do a search on "free webmaster resources." Two specific ones: http://www.delphi.com and http://www.evryone.net. Check out this discussion group http://www.ablake.net/forum/

6. Remind your visitors to bookmark your site. Tell them you update material every day or week. If you omit this, you pass up a great opportunity to lure repeat, loyal visitors. You want more visitors, and you want them to spend a lot of time on your site. The more time they spend on your site, the more likely they will check out your products or services pages.

The biggest complaint from clients is that they get hits, but not enough sales. When you follow the above tips, you’ll be much more likely to succeed at increased sales.

7. Serialize some of your content. If visitors get it all in one visit, what’s to keep them coming back?Put one part of an article, special report, or excerpt from your book on your site each week or so. Let people know this through your ezine.

8. Post a monthly special only for your Web visitors. Call it "Discount of the month," or"Freebie of the month." Without incentives your audience will go elsewhere. Go to your files now, and see what you can use. This fabulous technique has worked well for the author.

9. Enjoy the journey. Each day, you can learn something that will make your Web site more real, more YOU. Let your passion show! Add some personal information such as the personal column. ‘The Coach’s Corner" is a new column in the ezine, "The Book Coach Says." It mentions personal writing and marketing set backs, boo boos, along with a tip or so. Put personal messages on your site too.

10. Allow everything you do on the Net to be easy and fun. If you don’t love to create ad copy, or if you don’t like the technical side, delegate it to someone who loves it. Do what you do best and hire the rest. It’s far smarter to eliminate all struggle from your adventure, so you will shine at what you do.

The biggest complaint from clients is that they get hits, but not enough sales. When you follow the above tips, you’ll be much more likely to succeed at increased sales.

Judy Cullins ©2005 All Rights Reserved.

Judy Cullins, 20-year Book and Internet Marketing Coach works with small business people who want to make a difference in people’s lives, build their credibility and clients, and make a consistent life-long income. Judy is author of 10 eBooks including Write your eBook or Other Short Book Fast, Ten Non-Techie Ways to Market Your Book Online, The Fast and Cheap Way to Explode Your Targeted Web Traffic, and Power Writing for Web Sites That Sell. She offers free help through her 2 monthly ezines, "The BookCoach Says…," "Business Tip of the Month," blog Q & A at http://www.bookcoaching.com and over 185 free articles.

===============
Email her at Judy@bookcoaching.com or Cullinsbks@aol.com Phone: 619/466-0622 — Orders: 866/200-9743

Google has recently gone through an update which has seen many websites that had previously held strong rankings vanish from view. There are a few aspects this latest update has focused on. Part 1 focuses on "Reciprocal Linking" and the impact this has had from a search engine positioning perspective.

With many of the updates in the past, site rankings have somewhat fluctuated, but with the most recent Jagger Update, many website owners may still feel stressed, wondering where their websites have vanished to!

Firstly, let me explain why Google has regular updates.

A Google update is a change to the way Google determines rankings of websites listed within its search engine database. The latest update is referred to as the "Jagger Update".

Google’s main focus has always been to ensure relevance in the return of search engine results. To achieve this, Google periodically makes algorithmic changes to the way it returns results from its search index keeping them as accurate as possible.

The reason Google does this is due to:

- Technology changes and the type of websites created using these technologies.

- Unethical manipulation of search engine rankings by website owners or SEO specialists.

In the latest Jagger update, a few areas have been targeted to improve search engine results.

I will cover these in subsequent articles. The first of these is Reciprocal Link Building.

Reciprocal Link Building

Reciprocal Link Building is where two websites place an external link to each other’s site,

i.e. Website A points to website B. Website B links to website A.

Google has always placed a lot of weight on is the popularity of one website linking to another. The reasoning behind this is that if a particular website has many links from different domains pointing to it, then this website must be important. This concept is behind Google Page Rank. In essence, this concept is a good measure for determining the relevance of a website, because website owners will often provide a relevant link from their website to different websites they feel would benefit their visitors.

Many website owners and SEO specialists would (and still do) use the Reciprocal Linking method to inflate a website’s ranking.

The problem with this being such an important measure in Google’s eyes is that this was not difficult to manipulate. Many companies offer "reciprocal link building" as a method to improve a website’s rankings. One of the major problems has been that many of the links added in the Reciprocal Link building schemes have no relevance to the websites they are linking from or to, e.g. a Search Engine Positioning Company swapping links with a Pet Food Distributor.

Google still rightly maintains that external website linking is a good measure of popularity, and has focused algorithmic changes around ensuring their rankings are not so easily manipulated.

Some of the changes include:

- Relevance of the link from website A, to website B, i.e. Website A is a Beauty Therapist, and links to website B which offers skin care products.

- Anchor text* in the link, and the relevance of that text associated with the website that the link is pointing to, as well as the page it derives from. *Anchor text is the text you view within a link, i.e. Web Design Sydney

- The age of a link on a particular web page.

- How many links are on a web page, as well as the age of the links weighed against the web page they are linked from.

- The rate at which links appear or disappear from a web page over time.

One thing these changes prove, is that manipulating search engine rankings through unnatural or unethical methods will only cause websites to vanish very quickly like many websites in the most recent Jagger Update

The latest Jagger Update continues to have components associated with aging delay, which cements the fact that SEO is no longer a short term solution, but one that will gain benefits over time (providing it is done properly).

Andrew Seidel - SEO Specialist and Search Engine Positioning Consultant for Quantum Web Solutions in Sydney, Australia.