Are you using search engine optimization tactics that lead to SEO overkill? You may not think so, but according to several SEO experts at the Search Engine Strategies conference held recently in Chicago, Illinois, you might be using what is called “SEO Overkill”. Michael Murray from Fathom SEO, Matt Bailey from the Karcher Group, and Heather Lloyd-Martin from SearchEngineWriting.com all discussed SEO Overkill.

According to Mark Murray Fathom SEO (www.fathomseo.com), SEO is not a shopping spree. You need website traffic, but you need to pace yourself—even sound practices may fail if they’re rushed. When picking a domain name, short domain names are easy to read—if you use multiple hyphens or forced capitalization, it looks like spam and visitors are immediately suspicious of your website. And when it comes to search engine optimization, you need to pick your priorities—don’t manage too many keywords at once.

Mr. Murray goes on to say that it’s easy to have folder and page name “excess”. Using too many keywords or repeated keywords in your domain name, folder name, and page name (or file name) can lead to disaster. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that they match the content—but don’t go overboard with it. Limit you repetition of keywords in the domain name, folder names, and page names. Although having those keywords in the URL can help rankings, don’t overdo it.

Title tags are important, according to Mr. Murray. It’s important to tame your title tag, especially because long title tags are useless. “It’s important to pick one or two search terms and call it a day” when you’re writing title tags. Meta description tags are needed as well, but “don’t have meta description overload”, says Mr. Murray. “The description tag still counts…but you need to avoid long descriptions.” The meta description tag still shows up in the search engine results, so optimize your meta description not only for the search engines but for your website visitors—you need a good description to lure people to click on your web site’s listing so they visit your site. The meta keywords tag is a hard tag not to include, but some search engines downplay this tag due to past abuses. It’s good to limit your meta keywords tag to a few keywords – again, don’t overload your meta keywords tag with a lot of useless keywords. When it comes to other meta tags (other than the meta description and keywords tag), you can go ahead and skip them—according to Mr. Murray, “they do little for search engines…why spend the time and potentially mess with density issues?”

Other issues that Mr. Murray talked about were issues such as overdone visible text. “Massive keyword repetition in a small space may annoy site visitors…it looks blatant.” Heading tags are commonly misused, as well. “Don’t overstuff and avoid misuse. Complement the design and don’t ignore the overall look and feel of your site.”

According to Heather Lloyd-Martin from SearchEngineWriting.com, SEO overkill is where good content can go bad. Title tags can get overstuffed quickly. Remember that the SERPs (search engine results) page is the first opportunity for conversion. Your title should be hot and compelling. It’s important to make your title clickable and reflect the content on the page. Stuffed title tags are more than spammy–they provide a bad first impression and inhibit click-throughs. Think of your conversion and your customers first. Searchers won’t click on your search engine listing if they see a spammy or undesirable title. “It’s one thing to create headlines that grab attention…it’s another when it has nothing to do with the ad”, says Heather Lloyd-Martin. “Titles and content can be creative, but please make the content relevant – and hit the pain points of your client.”

“Don’t be a linkarama loser”, says Ms. Lloyd-Martin. “Lots of links isn’t helpful for seo or for customers – it’s confusing. Too many links on a page will overwhelm your reader – and they won’t know how to take action. Focus on your most important page links, and promote those on the page. Think about the rule of three and use those links to pre-qualify powerful landing pages.” She goes on to say that you need to avoid what she calls “conversion confusion”. “Many pages include a lot of text on the page and have a lot of good content and talk about the product a lot. But there’s no conversion step or way for people to take action. People need to be told what to do. If you do not ask for the sale, they won’t take action.” What action do you want your customers to take? How easy is it to take that action? Don’t rely on a “contact us” button or “contact us” in the footer navigation. When you create landing pages, it’s important to give the visitor an action they can take as well as an incentive for taking that action.

Bad misspellings are something you want to avoid. According to Heather Lloyd-Martin, “misspellings are a myth…customers will notice misspellings pretty easily…which makes your company look unprofessional, like you can’t spell, and like you don’t care.” She goes on to say that “if they can’t get their site right, why can they get my order right?” Don’t trash you brand with misspellings.

Matt Bailey from the Karcher Group says that it’s important to realize how readers scan a web page. According to Jakob Nielsen, 79 percent of users scan a web page. 16 percent read the page’s copy word for word. When creating a web page and trying to avoid SEO overkill, you need to realize that screen reader users scan by listening. Mr. Bailey explains that they “listen to the first few words on the page”. It’s important to also be aware that “mobile devices and cell phones ignore hidden text, stuffed alt attributes, hidden z-layers—they’re all visible in PDAs and to screen readers. Some people turn off images on their phones when they’re browsing the web to save bandwidth.” If you overstuff your web pages with useless content and stuff your web pages with useless keywords the screen reader users, as well as people using mobile devices will not be happy with your web pages—they’ll leave right away.

Well-designed pages and content equal credibility. According to Mr. Bailey, there was a study done by the Stanford University Persuasive Technology Lab. “Participants made credibility-based decisions…based upon the site’s overall visual appeal.” They base the credibility on the site design. Typically, consumers assess the credibility of web sites based on the overall visual design of a site, specifically noting layout, typography, font size, and color schemes.

Mr. Bailey says that when it comes to over optimization, “you have two choices–write for search engines or write for conversions…there is an over-optimization penalty. Do things in moderation. You need to write for conversions, not the search engines.”

Bill Hartzer manages the Internet Marketing division of MarketNet, Inc., a leading full-service interactive design and development firm in Dallas, Texas.

Hartzer has infused MarketNet with his enthusiasm and vision for search marketing. Bill Hartzer is focused on developing results-oriented paid and organic search marketing programs to help clients increase visibility, broaden reach and maximize their return on investment.

With search engine algorithms changing seemingly daily, the quest to rank high in the search engines and stay there is proving to be quite the challenge for most webmasters. One of the more recent popular ways of achieving this is through buying text links on websites that have high PR’s (page ranks) on Google and that also rank well in the other major search engines. Is buying text link placement worth it?

Purpose
The primary purpose of buying a text link on a website that ranks better in search engines than yours is to receive a backlink to your site, without having to reciprocate a link back (as this dilutes the quality of a link). This backlink counts as a “vote” for your website and especially if coming from a site that is credible to the search engines, helps your site establish credibility as well. For example, a website has been online for three years and currently has a PR of 7. Your site is three months old and has a PR of 2. The 3 year old website places a link to your site from their homepage. As this site has history and is therefore established, this “vote” from a PR 7 website holds a lot of value. Compare this to a site linking to yours that is only a year old and holds a PR of 1 – it makes sense that you would want links coming from older sites that have high PRs. The higher the number and the better the quality of backlinks your website receives, generally the higher your rank on the SERPs (search engine results page).

Not only are text links great for search engine purposes, but if placed well, can actually drive traffic to your site. And whose website nowadays couldn’t use more traffic? Enough said.

Those are the benefits behind purchasing text links. But what are the disadvantages?

1) Cost – it’s not uncommon to pay $100 monthly for a 3 word textlink on a PR 6 website. If you do choose to go this route, choose your text carefully and budget wisely.

2) Relevancy to search engines – if you’re running a homemade toys website and have a popular online pharmacy website linking to yours, this won’t be as relevant as say having Mattel® linking to you. Remember that search engines are becoming more and more sophisticated and they can tell whether two sites have complimentary, competitive, or completely unrelated website content.

3) Limited link length - rarely are you given the option of selecting more than three words when purchasing links. You may have difficulty coming up with only three keywords relevant to your website, so this can often prove to be a difficult task.

4) Page is already populated with other text links – online auction sites that have sellers auctioning off website text links are notorious for selling textlinks on websites that already have 50 more on the same page. Look for sites that limit the number of textlinks sold.

5) Search engine spam – your site linked on every single page of a 3000 page website using the same keywords and url can be considered spam to a search engine. If you choose to purchase multiple text links on multiple websites, make sure your linking text varies.

The lesson is to be simply cautious. Using a textlink broker to find relevant and complimentary websites to buy links from can prove to be highly beneficial – just do your research first. Would a $100 monthly textlink investment be better spent on a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign, or will the long term benefits of buying a text link outweigh a temporary influx in visitors? Return on investment is key – whichever route will yield you the highest ROI should be your ultimate determining factor.

Veronica Dubak is an SEO expert, internet entrepreneur, and the owner of the successful free online paid surveys directory, SurveyBounty.com. With a comprehensive listing of market research companies classified by region, and background information on the online survey industry, SurveyBounty.com is the legitimate source for online survey information.

Viral marketing can work wonders for any business, web site or product. It can be a great source of sales leads, one-way links and targeted traffic. Yet, many marketers are not taking full advantage of this ‘viral factor’ in their marketing efforts.

How about you? Are you using any viral marketing methods with your web site? Or does the word ‘viral’ make you cringe?

Many people believe ‘viral marketing’ is a myth, one of those Internet follies that only happens on rare occasions when some fantastic product or site comes along.

In reality, viral marketing techniques can be used by any web site — big or small. They can be used by any marketer who takes the time to put some simple steps into place. Viral marketing ‘done right’ can have many benefits. It will:

* increase your link popularity (often one way links)

* increase targeted traffic to your site

* build your brand recognition

* create targeted leads for your products

* automate your marketing efforts

Here are some simple viral marketing techniques you can try with your web site, product or business:

1. Word of Mouth We have all seen this phenomenon displayed with many products . People spread the word about some great movie or gadget and suddenly everyone knows about it. Human nature dictates we tell our friends about some great product we have bought or found. Nature of the beast, it’s just the way we are; so why not take full advantage of it?

If you have a web site — put up a simple ‘tell a friend’ form so your visitors can easily tell others about your great site. Easy and very simple to do but many webmasters don’t do it. Similarly, if you have a newsletter, service, product or with any aspect of your site… just include a few sentences at the end of your copy, asking very politely, "if you found this service, product or web site helpful — why not tell your friends, family and colleagues about it."

2. Branding Make sure you have a logo on your site or product. Branding your site is very important if you want your site or product to be noticed and talked about. For that matter, a catchy brand name can be a ‘viral technique’ in itself; so try and come up with one that springs from the lips with a distinctive ring to it!

People recognize brands, it gives them a clear image of your site or product. Include your brand or logo on every page of your site and on every product, service, material coming from your site or business.

3. eBooks Savvy marketers jumped on this new invention very quickly, they knew the ‘viral’ power of these little ebooks. Ebooks are electronic files that can be downloaded from any web site and distributed easily around the web. You can also have other webmasters or marketers, ‘re-brand’ these ebooks with their own links. High quality ebooks get passed along very quickly and are great viral tools.

Anyone can write a simple ebook on the topic of their site. If you can’t write, just get permission to use a collection of articles from the numerous ‘article directories’ on the web such as www.ezinearticles.com or www.goarticles.com . Ebook compiling software (in both .exe or pdf format) is relatively cheap or can be found for free on the net. Just Google to find it!

4. Viral Software Some simple software products or applications can be very viral, often passed around or downloaded from the web by thousands each day. These have to be useful or handy products that the users will desire: ecalendars, organizers, personal planners, link checking software, and so on. Many are desktop products that sit on the computer user’s desktop; prime location in the marketing arena.

And the best examples of this kind of viral software have the company logo, sales message and contact email — with LIVE LINKS to all of the above — conveniently displayed within the product. These simple software programs can be great viral promotional devices that spread like wildfire across the web. (get an example of this below in the author’s resource box)

5. RSS Newest player in the viral game! RSS which stands for ‘Really Simple Syndication’ and just by the nature of what it does; RSS is an awesome viral tool. Originally used by news organizations to syndicate their news stories, it is usually associated with Blogs because blogs use an RSS feed to distribute their content. Good quality RSS feeds are picked up and displayed by different web sites all across the web.

Since Microsoft has announced the next version of Windows will have RSS integrated into its operating system, new RSS applications will take viral marketing to heights that have not been witnessed before. Alert marketers are already gearing up for this viral explosion.

You should also be gearing up for RSS if you haven’t already. Using a simple site like blogger.com (owned by Google) will give you a basic blog and RSS feed to spread your message or product to all interested parties.

These are just some viral techniques that will help increase your web presence. They will also boost your traffic and increase your links. Used properly, these viral techniques will also spread your web site, product or service around the globe.

What more can you ask for?

Get a Free DATEwise eCalendar & Personal Planner for your Desktop. It’s
a perfect example of ‘viral marketing’ in action! Click here for Free Desktop Calendar
Copyright © 2005 Titus Hoskins of Free Marketing Tools

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

To maximise your website traffic through the search engines you need to focus on the Big3!

What/who are the Big3? They are Google. MSN and Yahoo search. This article will take you through these three search engines and what you can expect from them in terms of achieving results both in a short term, as well as a long term basis.

As a search engine, Google still continues to dominate, with Yahoo and MSN the next two choices for people utilising the search market. While in general Google is a clear leader as first preference for internet users when trying to find something of interest on the internet, this is not necessarily in all categories. In some categories you will find the website traffic coming from MSN and Yahoo search is considerably more than Google.

So it is important when optimising your website to target not just Google but all of the Big3 (Google, MSN, and Yahoo).

Some of our websites have achieved top 10 rankings and first place positions for main keywords in MSN whereas Google can take up to 3 times as long by comparison.

While the Googlebot will pick up a new website quickly, usually only a business name will achieve high ranking quickly, not your main keywords. Often new websites listed in Google’s search results will not achieve high rankings for many months, and for very competitive key words six months plus. In saying that Google loves unique content; so for websites that are not in such a competitive market and providing something new and different, top 10 rankings can be achieved within a month or two.

Due to the amount of time it takes to achieve these ranking it is important that your website is always monitored and keywords are tracked on a regular basis to ensure you are keeping ahead of your competitors. Continual optimisation of your website may be necessary to ensure that not only do you achieve top rankings in the first place, but that you maintain them.

Note: Using a professional search engine marketing company like Quantum Web Solutions will benefit you considerably towards achieving these rankings. We also know various techniques that help drive traffic to your website much sooner.

The BIG3

Google Search: For those that monitor their website statistics (which is highly recommended if you want to ensure your website is doing well) you will notice that the Google spider can visit your website within as soon as a day of your website being launched for the first time. However, unless your website provides something new or unique, at this current time* it is highly unlikely you will achieve high rankings for anything other than your business name in a short period of time.

It is also possible there may be keywords that attain higher rankings, but if they are competitive keywords in a competitive market then this will be very unlikely. If you are offering a service or product that is new and/or unique, then you will certainly have more opportunity to achieve these high rankings as Google loves new content.

For very competitive markets you can look at up to six months plus to see your keywords bringing in the desired search engine traffic you are looking for. In these instances if you need to bring in traffic quickly, we suggest setting up a pay-per-click campaign. There are also other sources that can help bring in traffic to your site sooner than this, which we are able to provide as part of our services.

For new and/or unique website offerings, Google will give high rankings faster for a couple of reasons:

1. It is the opportunity to provide something new to the WWW.

2. There is less competition so there are not as many search results to compete against; therefore if your website is properly optimised achieving high rankings will be much easier and faster.

MSN Search: MSN is generally much faster in not only picking up a new website and listing it, but also if your website is properly optimised it is possible to achieve high rankings in the MSN search results in less than a month, even in markets that are relatively competitive. This is by no means guaranteed, but I have seen this happen on many occasions. So while generally MSN search will not always bring you the same volume of traffic that Google search will; it does have the advantage over Google that in the short term it will drive more visitors to your website.

Yahoo Search: While Yahoo Search can bring a steady flow of traffic into your website; the challenge lies in being listed in the first place with them. I have seen websites picked up by the yahoo spider and listed within a month, but these are rare occasions. Normally it can take at least three months if not more for Yahoo to visit your website in the first place, no matter what techniques are used. Once Yahoo search picks a website up however, it does not take very long for a website to achieve good rankings and to start driving traffic to a website.

There are many different search engines out there, but many of them feed their results directly from one of the Big3. By focusing most of your search engine marketing efforts around these three, you are highly likely to see website traffic coming in from other search engines. For anyone that is new to search engine marketing, the process of achieving high listings for your business may seem daunting. However with the right approach and focus it won’t be long before you see string results coming not just from the Big3 search engines, but many other sources on the web.

* As the Search Engine market is constantly evolving, so too are the way search engines list websites in their results.

Andrew Seidel - SEO Specialist and Search Engine Placement Consultant in Sydney, Australia.

Don’t put the cart before the horse.

You can’t do SEO (optimize your web site for search engines) until you’ve researched keywords. You can’t research keywords without a clear view of your target market, your prospect types, and how your offerings fill their needs.

Affordable Small Business SEO

Affordable small business SEO not only uses the same old business and marketing basics, but also leverages the depth of accessible metrics for creating increased online traffic and better web site ROI.

When small business people ask me how their web site could be improved by SEO, I give them some version of the following list of questions. When you know the answers to these questions, you’re much less likely to waste money on SEO efforts, and more likely to succeed online. You might even pull off some of this stuff yourself- and that’ll save you big in consultant fees!

To find the right keywords to target with SEO and/or PPC, consider the following…

Goals: How much monthly traffic and sales do you get now? Where would you like these numbers to be? What are your most wanted responses- what do you want your ideal prospects to do on your site? (e.g. buy something, sign up for your ezine, etc.)

Market Segmentation: Who’s your ideal customer or target market? If there is more than one group, characterize each.

Keywords that work: How do people find your site? What search phrases show up in your web logs?

PPC Metrics: Do you already use pay per click (PPC) advertising? What are your conversion rates? Are your bids profiting, or at least breaking even?

Getting more traffic is pointless if your site isn’t an efficient sales machine.

Profit Margin: What is your online profit margin for each offering?

Conversion Rate: What percentage of your offline prospects make the purchase? (to gauge expected conversion rate for your services and find disparity in online results)

Customer Loyalty: How many people are on your ezine list? How often do you email them? What do you send them?

5 Common Critical Website Errors and How to Fix Them

About 75% of the web sites I’ve seen make all of these mistakes. As a result, their rankings and traffic suffer, and they lose potential sales revenues.

No Sitemap. No matter how well your pages are designed and no matter how nice the graphics are, every site need a good ‘sitemap’ page for search engines to index it more easily. This is a simple page of links- no frills except perhaps a bulleted outline structure. Even better, you can use the new Google sitemap xml template, and upload it to Google to increase the chances they’ll index your whole site.

Insufficient Search Engine and Directory Submission. In the ideal cyberworld, you wouldn’t have to submit your site anywhere- it would just get indexed and put where your prospects could find you. The reality is we still have to meet these services halfway. There are only a half dozen super-big sources of traffic (e.g. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.), but you have a better chance of showing up in them if you’ve submitted your site to the 100-200 minor directories and search engines. Also, there are niche directories that will help you rank on your best keywords and attract more prospects directly. Submit your site to these places with a free tool like WebCEO.

Mysterious Website Owners. Your visitors want to know, "who are the people behind this website? Can I trust them?" Unless you have a particularly snobby target market, put your picture and brief bio on the very first page of your site (if not every page). Let them know who you are. This might be taboo in offline marketing (not really- look at Ben & Jerry, Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, etc.), but online, genuine personality is a competitive advantage. It fosters trust, creates credibility and emotional bonds, and bridges the cold gap of cyberspace. You can do it appropriately for most target markets. The real question is: are you ready for the prime time?

Confusing Site Structure. Does your site confuse people? Do you know where they want to go, what they’re really looking for? Where do you want them to go? Good site structure both guides your various prospect types to the places you want them to go and satisfies their needs. Get some of your target market to sit in front of you and use your website- watch what they do- it’ll surprise you. And put a search engine on your website that gives you reports on what people search for- you’ll get clues about what else to put online.

Ezine Neglect. The ezine signup form isn’t prominent on some sites – make it obvious and ’sell’ your visitors on signing up. Tantalize them into ezine subscription with a free bonus. Why? Not everyone will become your customer the first time they reach your site. They may like your offerings but not trust you enough yet or be ready to buy. They may have questions. Once you have them on your list, you can sell them on you and your stuff (by helping them with tips) every week or two until they buy.

Not only do they need a free bonus to stimulate them to sign up, they also need to know what kind of thing you’ll be sending them, that you’ll keep their email address private, and that they can unsubscribe anytime. And I’d suggest using double opt-in to avoid spam- that means they sign up (you don’t add them), and they confirm via email before they ever get an email from you.

Since 1999, San Diego SEO Consultant Brian B. Carter, MS, has reached more than 2 million readers online. His most popular site ranks in the top 1% of all major websites. Brian’s second book, "$1000 Keywords: How I Made as Much as $1,200.64 a Day Online With My Secret Keyword Analysis Techniques" will be available in October, 2005. See his site Ranking High on Search Engines for more details.

DMOZ editors are supposed to be professionals in the category that they choose to edit and review. They are also supposed to have high standards when it comes to giving the general public quality websites with content that pertains to the category in which they are editing. But, is this really the case or does the absolute power given by DMOZ corrupt these editors into making decisions based on just what they like or as favors to the owners of the websites they are reviewing?

When you submit your website to the DMOZ directory it is then handed off to an editor to review your website, all of your website pages and to intelligently write the description of your site. Whether your website is included is in their hands, they have the power to include, delete, and even ignore your submission. How the power that DMOZ gives influences their overall behavior is another subject. You will find that the thought of having absolute power does affect each editor and reviewer in various ways.

If the editor is honest and upholds the standards that are set by DMOZ then power has not gone to their head and they understand that working as a team member to create the largest directory with quality websites is the main goal then your website will reviewed on its own merit. This is the type of editor you hope will review your website. Your website will have a much better chance of being included and at a much faster rate.

But, remember, the editors and reviewers at DMOZ are also human. No matter where you go you will find people that are not honest in their dealings. DMOZ gives them power and many do not know how to handle this responsibility in a business like manner and have unscrupulous behavior, as with any group. When one of these editors, reviews a website, it may not be gone over with the DMOZ standards in mind. The “God Syndrome” as I like to call it takes over, and they will make their decision from their own standards and ignore quality websites.

This is kind of like putting a child in a room full of chocolate and asking him to only choose the best ones out of the bunch and leave the others alone. In his mind, all chocolate is good, no matter the size, the manufacturer, or the ingredients. He will of course not pay much attention to what he is really choosing and will probably choose the flashy and colorful packaging. As a DMOZ editor looks over a website, do they really look for quality content that is useful or do they just say “This one looks fine” and goes no farther than the front page. I believe this does happen quite often as many of the websites in DMOZ only have one page and no other content. As an example, you can check out under Home, Cooking, under Chili and you will see what I mean. Many of these only have one webpage, only one to three recipes and several advertisements. Is this really considered a quality website with original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the category’s subject?

I am not saying that every editor at DMOZ lets this absolute power cloud their judgment, but we are talking about human nature and it takes all kinds of people to create a large directory such as DMOZ, good and bad. The quality editors will do their best to include websites with high standards and will only be out to benefit the directory as a whole. But, you will also find editors that are out to make a name for themselves, get something in return for including websites or just don’t really care who or what they include.

So, does absolute power corrupt absolutely? I would have to say, yes, in certain individuals that do not have the integrity it takes to be a team player, only consider themselves or their own group of acquaintances, clients, or affiliates, and love the feel of absolute power over others. If world leaders can be corrupt when given power then you must agree that an editor of DMOZ can also be corrupted, absolutely.

If you want to take the guesswork out of directory submission try the list of free directories at the author’s site at http://www.info-sales.co.uk

This is a story about a poor guy with an inept domain that wanted to build a site geared for a very competitive keyword and his long, agonizing journey toward the true light of SEO wisdom.

Here’s a little foundation for what I’m about to cover here. A while back I bought a stupid domain name. It was one of those fairly useless domain names that might have been good for maybe selling cellphones or something. The thing is, though, I’m a poor guy. I don’t have time to taylor a site for cellphones with the pitiful amount of money I have. This was my thinking not long ago at least.

After sitting on this domain name forever I decided to put a site up there and give myself to the study of SEO or search engine optimization. It seemed like an interesting subject and I knew to those that managed to learn SEO, marketing, and some web design would fall infinite riches. It really sounded good to me.

So I went for the throat so to speak. More precisely I picked out some search terms that I will probably never be able to get traffic for in my lifetime. Smart I know. This had the grand side effect of having the site sandboxed by Yahoo and Google until pigs flew.

Recently they flew, however, and I’ve come out of the sandbox altogether and hit face to face with a few SEO surprises. I did manage to get a tiny trickle of traffic but not from the terms I tried to get it from. After trying to optimize those pages for the key terms I received traffic from I got more traffic. This of course started me down a long road of speculation and hair pulling.

After many a night of such I’ve come up with a few things that I believe will give anyone the power to eventually pull traffic off the net and covert it into a good decent living. I’ll probably write an ebook and make millions one of these days.

Optimize by the page
Don’t fall into the trap of focusing totally on building this far flung and far reaching site that will rule the world or make you millions instantly. Unless you have lots of money you’re going to need to work for your traffic. Plan your site out carefully and make sure each page is a precision crafted piece of art.

I love serverside scripting and dynamic websites but I’ve come to realize there is a danger that people will overuse these things. I know I have. If your site is dynamically generated, make sure every page isn’t a total cookie cutter image of every other page. It’s good to have the same navigation and same general layout but each page also needs to be special. Each page should have careful, proven SEO techniques applied to maybe a single key phrase.

Don’t try to optimize one page for a handful of phrases. Just focus on one phrase. Do your keyword research and, whatever you do, don’t haul off and pick a key phrase with 2 billion wealthy competitors in Google. Pick something that can be attained and can get you some traffic relatively fast. Select a phrase that is as specific as possible to your particlar niche and still gets a couple thousand or so searches per month from Yahoo.

Whatever you do, make sure that one web page has good, solid, desirable content that is keyword rich and one of a kind. This will help make it special. At the same time your content obviously needs to lead the customer toward your intented goal for monetizing your traffic.

Keep it simple
I’ve found to my dismay that building a complex web site with all the content management stuff and all the database thrills isn’t exactly what really gets the attention of search engines. Weirdly enough this can be true for internet surfers too. A nice, clean layout with very accessible content and intuitive navigation will be recognized by both search engines and surfers alike. If you can figure that part out you’ve just pinned down about 90% of SEO in my opinion.

Engineer your site for your traffic
When you start getting search engine traffic to your site take a very close look at what they are searching for. I assume you have some kind of statistics program and can mostly see what search terms people are using to get to your site. When someone comes in on a keyword or phrase you haven’t optimized for do a little research. Does the page they are coming to need touched up to include the search term or would this search term merit its own search engine optimized page to handle the traffic.

Conclusion
With every page you add you are gaining another potentially valuable piece of internet real estate. If you’re doing your job right then eventaully each page should get its own traffic and you should begin to attain your goals. Patience and learning are the name of the SEO game.

Budget Web Hosting
Windows Web Hosting
Oregon Coast Experience

I am ranked #1 for that silly phrase at Google. So What?

Here’s a secret. You can be ranked #1 at Google for the phrase "Waterfall Watches" if you put the phrase on your page 4 times and in metatags twice. How do I know that? I did it in 2001 and still rank number one in Google for the phrase in 2005. On another of my sites I rank #1 for the phrase "Screeching Camels" by simply putting it on the page once in a comment about silly SEO guarantees.

I’ll wager that many phrases you’ve targeted for your business are almost as silly and deliver NO traffic to your pages from the search engines. Don’t take that too personally. Simply look at your traffic statistics to see what phrases are bringing visitors to your web site. If your logs show no delivered traffic for keywords you thought were golden, you’ve targeted the wrong phrases.

I’m always fascinated when discussions of search engines focus excessively on ranking of a particular site in one particular search engine without checking corresponding statistics about referred traffic delivered to the site from the targeted keyword phrase. Referred search visits from engines is not taken into account. Anyone who looks at their rankings without looking at how much traffic is referred and DELIVERED to your site through the rankings is missing the most important part of the story!

When you check your site traffic statistics for where visitors are coming from and in what numbers, for which keyword searches and from which search engines, you will be astonished to see that things you think are important are sometimes not so important. I’ve struggled for years to gain top rankings for "Small Business Ecommerce" and have achieved #1 at Google #5 at MSN and #13 at Yahoo (at this writing).

But guess what? Nobody searches for that phrase in significant enough numbers to deliver any traffic from it! I’m not saying that this was wasted effort, because in the over 1000 pages at WebSite101 we have enough related phrases that the targeted phrase contributes to the rank of hundreds of related phrases. "Open Source Ecommerce" gets huge traffic for one single page, ranked at # 29 in Yahoo, #7 at MSN and #1 in Google (as of this writing).

But the really interesting thing is that even on phrases that rank equally well across all three major engines, Google delivers referred traffic at a rate of 65% compared to MSN at less than 1% and Yahoo about 5% of all referred visitor traffic. In NO case does Yahoo or MSN refer any clickthroughs at higher than 10% of all referred traffic.

Referred traffic being visitors that clicked on your link from search results or links. This applies both in single instances for specific keywords and cumulatively for all referred traffic.

Hear this very clearly - it has nothing to do with ranking! There are dozens of search phrases that visitors have searched on all three of those engines that deliver traffic to my site that I can’t find my own site for in the top 100 results at ANY search engine. In every case, Google delivers more than twice the traffic for every keyword combination than does MSN or Yahoo!. In many cases, I rank HIGHER on both Yahoo and MSN for many of those phrases, yet Google delivers far more referred traffic for those phrases ranked higher at MSN and Yahoo! Does that make any sense?

If your referred traffic from top rankings at MSN and Yahoo send you no traffic, why be concerned that you rank well with either of them? This same scenario has played out across dozens of client sites I’ve reviewed traffic statistics for. No matter how the site is structured, no matter how many pages they have, no matter what keywords they are targeting.

Search engine referred traffic from Google is always ALWAYS 2 times higher than the other two and very often as much as 10 times. If we ranked engines, NOT on number of searches performed, but on how much traffic they refer, then Google would be more than twice as highly ranked in all cases.

If Google disappeared tomorrow, there would be some dramatically reduced visitor numbers for ALL sites across the web. We would, every single one of us, lose over half of our (organic) search engine referred traffic. Look at your traffic statistics for natural search engine referred traffic (not PPC) volume and which keywords are currently working to deliver that traffic as far more important than your specific # keyword ranking on those search engines.

Avoid the practice of "Keyword Voodoo" to rank for words that nobody searches. Google "Keyword Voodoo" and you’ll find me ranked 5 times for that phrase on page one of the search engine results page. "Reciprocal Linking Turkey" will give you the same result, showing my article on several web sites. Each of those does me no good at all and brings no more search engine referred traffic than does my number one ranking for "Invisible Entrepreneurs" used in the title of this article.

Target the wrong keywords and you will become one of those Invisible Entrepreneurs.

copyright © July 14, 2005 by Mike Banks Valentine

Mike Banks Valentine practices ethical search optimization through content aggregation and creation for your website Optimizing press releases for keyword density - distributed online for visibility & more effective link building

Contact Mike at: http://www.seoptimism.com/SEO_Contact.htm

Download Free link popularity software - check inbound links http://website101.com/download/link-popularity-software.html

Check your link popularity at major search engines and Alexa

DMOZ is known all over the internet as being the largest open source directory online, but is it really worth your time and effort to try to get your website listed in their directory?

You must remember when submitting your website to DMOZ that this directory is one of the human powered directories which means that a person must go over your submission, your website, and determine if your website is worthy of being in the directory from their own standpoint of view. All of the editors at DMOZ are volunteers just like you and me that have applied to become editors and reviewers in their special field of interest.

It does not cost to have your site listed in DMOZ, so that is a plus, but they do have certain standards that they expect but once again the volunteers are just people and they must also stick to these high standards to ensure that DMOZ keeps its high regard for submissions.

DMOZ wants to achieve a high quality, content rich resource in which the general public will consider useful and indispensable. DMOZ expects their editors and reviewers to keep this high standard and only allow websites with original, unique and valuable informational content that contributes something unique to the category’s subject. So, before you submit your website go over this check list to ensure you have the type of website they include and then remember the rest is up to the editors and reviewers.

1. Do not submit websites that have identical content but have different URL’s.

2. Do not submit websites that have similar content to another website you already have listed in DMOZ.

3. Do not submit your URL with each page as a separate submission.

4. Do not submit websites that have pages that are not working properly, are under construction, have broken graphics, or broken links, or are redirecting to another website.

5. Do not submit websites with illegal content such as child pornography, libel, fraud, or violence.

6. Do not submit websites that are just a bunch of links to affiliate programs.

None of this will ensure your inclusion into the DMOZ directory but it will help. The wait to get into DMOZ can be a very long wait if indeed you are ever included.

I would not submit to DMOZ and then wait around for something magical to happen. DMOZ is not the only directory out there. I would submit and then forget about it. Submit to all the directories you can and do not worry if DMOZ does not include your website. I believe having your website listed in the major search engines is much more important than a link back from DMOZ. It would be nice to find your website in the DMOZ directory, but you are relying on the integrity of the volunteer editors and reviewers which have their own opinions as to what makes up a quality website. If your website meets the criteria of DMOZ and you do in fact get an editor that agrees with these standards then you will be lucky enough to have your website included.

Can’t wait for directory backlinks? Try the author’s site. Lee Munson has huge lists of free, niche and paid directories at http://www.info-sales.co.uk

Without a doubt one of the biggest things to hit the Internet today is the amount of SEO "Search Engine Optimization" sites popping up all over the place. Even "Web Hosts" are now advertising to SEO your site for a fixed fee who you might be hosted with. It really does seem to be the hottest internet craze and many people cashing in on the rush to create new forms of SEO software to sell!!!

So why is SEO so important?

Let’s say you running a site about CARS and your trying to get new members to come and join. Your faced with a big problem, there are also hundreds if not thousands of other CAR sites out as well - all fighting to get new members. So any tool you can use to point new users to your site first by ranking it high in search engines like Google etc is a big plus factor for your sites future growth (even more so if your selling a product).

So what does SEO do to help me?

What SEO does in a nutshell is convert all your web or forum pages into much more user friendly links, which in turn can then be indexed by search engines much easier and faster. Which means they will get ranked higher along with many more pages listed.

The benefits of this are quite obvious: The more pages you have indexed in search engines, along with a higher rank. Means your going to bring many more users to your site. Which in turn can be converted into more members joining your site faster than if you didn’t use SEO. Simple case of mathermatics.

Will it cost me money to SEO my site?

Well the short answer to this is: Yes and No.

There are many guides out there on the internet which can be found quite easy using Google as a search tool to find them, that will explain how you can SEO your site yourself "DIY". There are also paid products out there that can make this easy for you (designed for certain forum boards like "vBSEO" is for use with vBulletin forum boards).

Which route you take depends on your knowledge of being able to understand how it all works and make the code changes yourself accordingly. If your a novice, off course you can always just buy a product and make things easy for yourself.

Are there any disadvantages of using SEO?

The only thing you need to remember is that nothing last forever - other sites are also choosing to SEO there sites also just like you. And over time this will effect your ranking as more and more sites go the same SEO way. So while in the short term you might be impressed with the results. Over time as more sites get SEO’d, this will have an adverse effect on your site in general as there sites begin to take advantage of a higher rank with more pages listed in search engines.

GB Chat