In this article you will learn how you can build a Wisconsin top ranking site by first finding the best keywords to optimize your pages for in order for them to rank high in the search engines.

Just to let you know though:

There is no such thing as a guaranteed top search engine ranking for your beloved Wisconsin site. If you want a top 10 position in the search engines you will have to work hard to deserve it.

Do you want to know the real secret behind the fact why there is no such thing as a guaranteed Wisconsin top ranking site?

The answer is simple.

The search engines are in business to make money and they get their daily bread from the advertising dollars that comes when many people use their service.

That means it is in the interest of the top search engines to only list the top sites and pages high in their ranking positions.

That is how they make money, by ranking the most relevant pages high.

So, what do you have to do in order to build your Wisconsin top ranking site?

First you have to pick the most profitable keywords for you to target and that you do by using the Wordtracker service with Google supply.

My opinion is that any other keyword supply and demand service than Wordtracker is a waste of time when building your Wisconsin site. I don’t find their numbers accurate at all and have spent a lot of time in vain optimizing wed pages for those phrases.

When you have at least a hundred profitable keywords or more, it is time to begin building useful content around those top phrases.

And building pages you have to, a whole bunch of them. The more the better, you just have to start writing and the flow will come. When you have your best keywords, writing becomes easy.

When creating your Wisconsin top ranking site just keep in mind though that your content is high quality and that it will benefit your human visitors first and foremost.

Johnny is an author who thinks Wisconsin is the best place on earth. He also writes about ice hockey equipment and the NHL.

Here you will get a simple, but useful tip on how to improve your ranking for your Wisconsin top rank site even more. No need for any specific search engine optimization!

By now you should actually already know this, but since it is so important we will cover it one more time.

The best way to improve the number of free search engine visitors to your Wisconsin top rank site is not by trying optimizing your existing page more. The best way to improve the number of traffic from the engines to your Wisconsin site simply is to write more quality articles about Wisconsin.

Since search engine algorithms change over time, I say that it is a bad idea to tweak and optimize pages that are already ranking well. Build more pages around keyword phrases you haven’t targeted before and you most likely will see an improvement in your already high traffic stats.

Building more pages for new Wisconsin phrases will give you more chances to be found in the search engines. Also, if the phrases you target are less competitive your chances to rank high will increase.

I know that many of you already rank high with your Wisconsin sites, but if you don’t, the only way to get a Wisconsin top ranking site is to add content.

So, don’t delay any more.

Get those keyboards working for you, because there are no shortcuts and you always get what you deserve.

Johnny runs a hockey site and loves Reebok hockey equipment and the NHL more than anything.

In this article you will learn more about a few Wisconsin high search engine ranking optimization secrets.

To be honest though, these high search engine ranking tips are not really any secrets, merely basic search engine optimization. You have to understand that you never should try to trick the top engines by using computer generated or nonsense articles about Wisconsin.

All the top search engines want quality content and that is where you can find your payoff in the end.

The best advice I can give to anyone using tricks for their Wisconsin high search engine ranking optimization strategy, is to stop what you are doing right now.

It’s like biting yourself in the foot.

In order to rank high, and this is the most important secret, you have to prove to the engines that your sites is the strongest in the Wisconsin related niche you have chosen.

To get a Wisconsin high search engine ranking, optimization must be kept fair and clean to the top search engines. This is the only way you ever will see a top 10 ranking for any Wisconsin phrase.

I know that many people are having a hard time to improve their word processing enough to produce a great number of quality articles, but it is my belief that anyone can acquire this skill.

Should you ever get a writer’s block though, there are always copywriters available to write your Wisconsin articles for a fair market price.

Just make sure to get those articles written, because that is where the money is.

Johnny runs a hockey site and loves Reebok hockey equipment and the NHL more than anything.

Got one? Two? Three?

If you have competitors, then you should have at least one Unique Selling Proposition (USP). The more REAL ones you have, the better - for your Branding, your business recognition, and your sales!

We all have competitors, and the more you have, the more important it is that you have a Unique Selling Proposition (at least one).

Allow me to explain. Let’s use a recent example of a company that sells laser toner cartridges… Do you think they have competition online? You bet they do, another category that is swamped with resellers. Sound like yours?

The task of coming up with a USP can sometimes be tough. But every company needs this, it sets you apart from your competitors. Let me stress this again, it is one or more reasons why prospects should work with you, or buy from you, or do business with you, instead of your competitors, period.

Let me narrow this a little further, it used to be if you had the best price, - you got the business. Although still a minor USP, price alone should not be the only consideration, it’s not really that unique… Yes, you still need to be competitive, but I don’t want to be the cheapest guy… we’re in this to make a profit, right? So don’t make price your ‘only’ USP. Combine it with more value, something your competition doesn’t do, or doesn’t offer.

O.K., back to our example. This company needed more than price, their product pricing is right inline with everyone else, so now what?

First of all, you need to know what your competitors do offer.

This is not a new concept. You can’t compete if you don’t know what you’re up against. So take a little time and check out what they have. Do some research, you’d be surprised what you might find - or not. Special offers, free shipping, a contest, great customer support?

Take a step back, imagine you are the customer and you do buy toner from someone a few times a year. If they do not get great service or it’s just average, then chances are you can sway them your way. This references "customer loyalty" another chapter, but it follows first getting the customer. So, let’s get the prospect as a customer first.

Now, what do we do to sway these prospects? We offer them what the competition doesn’t. This can be discovered with your competitive research. Oh, and if you still haven’t found a USP or a few - then Hyperformance Media can help you with this as well.

Write down every idea that you and your team come up with. Please don’t worry about how silly they might seem (at the time), just brainstorm with the data you have gained. The reason I say to include the silly ones, and others is because sometimes those little ideas that you laughed at can actually be morphed to create your USP. No idea is too far fetched at this point, and usually the ideas you laughed at are, in fact, some things your competitors don’t offer. That’s where we go next.

On the toner company we came up with all kinds, some were already offered by competitors, some were not. The idea is to initially come up with as many as possible. Here are some of what we narrowed the field to (we started with about two dozen);

* Price (of course) * Free Shipping (varied by quantity/price) * Great Customer Service (so everyone says) * A Contest / Promotion (a what?) * Free Gifts (vary) * Referral Savings (with parameters) * Reminders? (to buy)

The next step is again to nail down our list, get creative, really think here. This alone still makes us more competitive (once implemented), even if others use the same approach. Why? Because before we did this, there was a ton of competition, and as we add these USP’s we now narrow the list of our ‘real’ competitors. We are now more competitive within our industry, because we now offer things that (most) of our competitors do not!

We are getting more competitive immediately by implementing some simple offerings. Let’s take each one in this example and see how we can use it or discard it to our advantage.

* Price - Still very important in any market, but very tied to customer value (or perceived value). If your product or service is not competing here - it does not necessarily rule you out, more on this later. However, this is usually where a shopper starts (because it’s easy), and you want to be considered with this group. In this example, we agreed that (based on our research) we were in the market on price. So our price is competitive and that’s great, but not unique enough to get the business.

* Free Shipping - In our research, we found that most of the company’s who were offering this service were just a couple dollars higher in price (covering their "free" offer). So while it may have some perceived value, it was not enough for this company to offer that, so we discarded this one. If however, your costs are such that you can ship for free and still be competitive and profitable, this is a worthwhile USP.

* Great Customer Service - This is stated everywhere, making it tough for the consumer to know what is reality. It is hard to judge until you are a customer. It would be more valuable to offer testimonials of Great Customer Satisfaction. Not Customer Service, but Customer Satisfaction. There is a big difference here. So we DO want to take some of our really satisfied customers and put together, or request their testimonials. This is much more powerful than the words or promise of "Great Customer Service". So we will use this, but focusing on satisfaction with testimonials in our advertising pieces and website, etc.

* A Contest/Promotion - This covers a broad area, but can be extremely successful when implemented and marketed properly, so be creative and if possible, develop one for your business, product or service. After our discussions, and research, we have begun developing this idea. Example: Every time you buy from us, you get another chance at winning "Free Toner for a Year". I know you’re saying… free toner for a year - what are you crazy? Bear with me on this… first of all, most of their customers use 4 to 6 toners in normal use in one year (In our contest, we can actually cap that in our rules, i.e., "Not to exceed 6 cartridges". So we associate our costs to that, which does not make this a cost prohibitive program at all, depending upon the program success. Again, the mileage and customers we gain from our contest is potentially huge, and if it works well, we continue it… at a maximum cost of 6 toners per year for a Grand Prize.

* Free Gifts - Don’t discount this one, many people grab hold of these ‘offers’ to feel like they are making out. All else being the same, the customer does get something for nothing. Now, if the item truly has no value, then the customer has little to no interest. And, it actually ‘cheapens’ the image

of your firm (be careful). We decided with our products and business customer profile, this would not work for this business. But it could work for you or your products.

* Referral Programs - Another potential attraction (savings) for your customer. I say potential because this type of referral program, like price, should not be the only USP. When used in conjunction with others, this can steadily grow your business (sales) as well. You need to develop a program that somehow rewards referrals. For example, it can be something simple like "Refer a customer to our business and when we ship their order you will receive or accrue credits, dollars, points, or 5% off your next order". Get the idea? The key is to make it of value, and still keep it cost effective.

* Reminders - This was it! The big one, it was unique, it has great value to the customer, and it reinforces our Customer Satisfaction! This was also laughed at when first mentioned.

So? What was the plan? We acquire a software program that can be set to automatically e-mail each customer based on their own usage when their toner and supplies were potentially running low (i.e., 30 or 90 days or any date we choose. Once set-up it is all automated (cost effective)! It also gave us their e-mail address (important anytime) and with our reminders we could include any special or seasonal offers that might further attract more sales.

So, what did this company find?

In a nutshell - Their products are priced well to compete. In this case, we discarded free shipping as not really cost effective. We stressed Satisfied Customers in all of our marketing materials with testimonials and real-life examples. We are also developing a contest to further set us apart from our competitors. We could not find a free gift we thought would add any value to the customer (but continue to look). They are considering a Referral Program as well.

The real USP in combination with the others was our unique E-mail Reminder System. At that time, no other competitor was offering anything like this! This IS a Unique Selling Proposition and was perfect for our example. Put all these together, and this company has numerous ‘edges’ on their competition. Once customers are aware of these differences that set you apart from all the rest - growth is almost certain! That company is in a much better position to ‘own’ their market online, or at a minimum increase their market share.

The more you get the word out, the more you’re sure to benefit from these type ideas.

I understand this was a pretty broad example but you should get the idea.

You won’t always come up with an idea that no competitor has or offers, but if only 3-6 competitors offer that same USP, you are still in the top tier of your competition instead of lost somewhere un-noticed while buyers continue to purchase through your competition. You decide.

Use this article for your training, website, or newsletter by simply adding the following footer;

Written by and Copyright © Scott Sedwick http://www.hyperformancemedia.com ss@hyperformancemedia.com

About The Author

Scott is the Founder and Sr. Project Manager for Hyperformance Media, Inc. a website marketing company since 1996. His 24+ years experience in the computer industry can help your business succeed online!

Copyright SS ss@hyperformancemedia.com http://www.hyperformancemedia.com

Part I of this article discussed some of the points that should be included in a search engine optimization proposal. Visit the resources section at the bottom of the page if you wish to get a copy of the whole article.

Part 2 will discuss the following topics:

Creation of Meta Information
Site Map Creation
Link Popularity Building
Web Site Load Time and HTML Validation
Downloading and Uploading of Web Pages
Browser Search Engine and Directory Submissions
Compatibility and Resolution Checking

Creation of Meta Information (title, description, keywords)

Meta information is used to provide additional information about HTML documents so that the search engine crawlers are able to index the information more accurately.

There are 3 important types of Meta tags as far as search engine optimization is concerned:

Title tag:

The Title tag is not a Meta tag. However title tags play a vital role in your site’s rankings. It is these words or phrase that appear in the title of your page in the hyperlink listings on the search engine results. I include the most relevant and specific keywords or key phrases in the title tag that best describe the contents of the page.

Meta description tag

This gives a short and concise summary of the content of your web page. The description appears in the SEs just below the title tag. I ensure that the meta description tag is brief but includes some of your top keywords. The words used must inspire the visitor to check your site out further. Each page must be customized so all your web pages will not have the same meta tag descriptions.

Meta keywords tag

Although not as relevant as the other tags mentioned above, the Meta keywords tag is still recognized by some SEs. I include a number of meta keywords for you that are relevant to the content of your web pages.

Site Map Creation

The creation of a site map page enables SE spiders better crawling of your site. It also helps visitors to quickly scan your whole site for relevant information. A link and a short description of that link is created for each page of your site. The site map page is then added to your main navigation menu.

Link Popularity Building

Link Popularity refers to the number of links pointing to your site, from other sites on the web. There are other terms used for Link Popularity, such as Link building, In Bound Links, Back Links, etc The Search Engines consider your site important and rank it higher if other sites link to your site. There are two types of links you can establish on the web. One type is to trade links (Link Exchange), where you give a link from the links Page on your site to the partner sites. The second method is to establish only "incoming links" also called ‘one-way links’ or ‘non-reciprocal links”. With non-reciprocal links, you do not need to link back to them.

There are several ways of developing Inbound links.

Some of the techniques I follow in one way link building are:

a) Submitting to Free Directories

b) Writing articles and submitting to various sites for publishing to increase the link popularity of your site.

c) Press releases

d) Sending requests to established sites explaining the site quality and asking for links. In the link exchange process, you trade links with prospective partner sites by offering a link to their site from your own site. I provide reciprocal link building services to increase the link popularity of your site.

Web Site Load time and HTML Validation

Search Engines don’t like sites which take a lot of time to load. They sometimes ignore these sites and place them lower in their index than fast loading sites. Some reasons for slow load times include html errors and bad image optimization. Sometimes sites are coded badly which can be a big block for visiting search engine crawlers. I will check your site’s load times and make the necessary changes to the html where necessary.

Downloading and Uploading of Web Pages

To make the necessary changes to your site, web pages will need to be downloaded to my computer. After changes are completed the pages will then be uploaded to the server.

Search Engine and Directory Submissions

Your site is submitted by hand to all the major search engines, directories and some specialized directories. Not all SEs and Directories have the same rules for submission, therefore care will be taken to submit to the appropriate search engines by following their specific guidelines.

Browser Compatibility and Resolution Checking

People view sites in different browsers and at different resolutions. I make sure your site can be viewed in all the major browsers and in the most common resolutions. Adjustments will be made to the site’s code where necessary.

Resources
Increase Web Site Sales with a SEO Proposal - Part 1 & 2
http://www.isitebuild.com/seo-services

Why You Need a SEO Maintenance Plan
http://www.isitebuild.com/seo-maintenance-services

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com

To choose a Search Engine Optimization Plan or SEO Maintenance Plan that fits your web site, visit: http://www.isitebuild.com/sitepromotion

Many online business owners and marketers use a variety of tools to make their business successful. Good strategies include maintaining a web site, publishing an ezine, joining affiliate programs, advertising on other people’s ezines, and much, much more. As any good Internet "guru" will tell you, getting your name and product "out there" is the most important part of your success. So, the general rule is: Use as many strategies as possible.

What I suggest is that you take this rule one step farther. What I think works best is combining as many of the strategies together, as possible. In other words, when you can, build your own network, using the tools you already have in place. And I’m using the word network, as it relates to networking your online systems — not in the sense of a prospect or client network, though I have some tips on that, near the end of this article.

So, let’s break down this concept. Suppose you have a web site that promotes a product or service. You probably have a sales letter, some testimonials and a merchant account, so people can buy your product. Now, what I would suggest next, if you don’t already have it, is your own ezine (online magazine, operated by an e-mail autoresponder). You get visitors to subscribe to your ezine, using a pop-up or another type of FREE subscription form on your web site. Again, this may not be new to most people, but here’s another spin on it. In addition to your pop-up or basic sign-up form on your site, why not add a page to your site, with a link on your home page, that does nothing but promote your ezine.

You see, many people pass up your subscription form, because they are afraid of SPAM, or they don’t know enough about your ezine. Will it interest them? Or, will it just bombard them with more advertising?

A separate page can explain exactly what the ezine does, promote articles that you have in it, even give a sample issue, so prospects can see what they are getting. Be sure to have several subscription forms on this page between sections of your text, so people have plenty of opportunity to subscribe. Also, be sure that visitors are linked back to your home page, once they’ve subscribed, so they get back to looking at your product. Any good autoresponder will have this feature, which is crucial, because although you desperately want people signing up for your ezine, you also want them to read your sales letter and, hopefully, buy your product.

Make sure your ezine articles always link back to your web site, so you are constantly promoting yourself. After all, this is really what ezines are for.

Another part of good online networking is to set up affiliate programming, in a similar fashion to the aforementioned ezine promotion. That is, instead of just offering your own product as an affiliate program, set up a separate page on your web site for affiliate programs you use. So, you might have a link on your home/sales page called "Other Great Products." Obviously, you can use your own creativity for this title.

This link will take visitors to a site that promotes other products, for which you gain a commission as an affiliate. If you are unfamiliar with affiliate programs, visit ClickBank, the largest free affiliate program on the Internet. Most Internet marketers only offer their own product to people, who want to join affiliate programs, or they may offer just one other related product, with a link on their home page.

Plus, don’t forget any other web sites of your own. Always be sure to link to them on all of your URLs and in your ezine articles. The key to building your own online network is to be sure you have promotional pages for all of your products and affiliates on your web sites and to link everything together. Remember, you want every visitor on your e-mail list, and you always want them landing back on your promotional pages.

One final thought. Promoting your business network offline is also critical to your success. Some basic techniques I use are:

• URL on return address stickers

• Business cards with ezine address and web site

• Fliers at community businesses and public places (be sure your community knows you above all others)

• Free seminars in regional communities, discussing my topic (remember, you don’t need to make money here – all you want is to get your name out there and to get e-mail addresses, so you can add them to your ezine list)

• Teach a class at a community college (get more e-mail addresses)

• Give free information away at community festivals, like Home Days

• Advertise in your local Money Saver magazines. It’s cheap, and it reaches tens of thousands of people, who love cheap or free stuff.

• Anything else you can think of that get people to your site and to your ezine

Stay positive. Building a network takes time and hard work, but it’s well worth it in the end.

Mark Barnes is author of Winning the Mortgage Game and several other finance books. He is also publisher of Biz Sense Online and Let’s Talk Sports, weekly business and entertainment ezines. See Mark’s work at www.winningthemortgagegame.com and www.bizsenseonline.com. To get Biz Sense Online, send a blank e-mail to bizsenseonline@getresponse.com

To get Let’s Talk Sports, send a blank e-mail to letstalksports@getresponse.com

You can easily get confused by all the search engine optimization companies and SEO experts that offer SEO services. It’s hard to know who to trust or what should be included in a SEO proposal. I will endeavor to clarify some of these points for you in this article, so that you can make the best choice when looking for SEO services. I don’t profess to be a search engine optimization expert but have attained top rankings for my own site plus some of my web site design clients.

What a SEO proposal should include:

SEO objectives
Site Analysis
Keyword Research
Competitive Analysis
SEO Copywriting
Creation of Meta Information
Site Map Creation
Link Popularity Building
Web Site Load Time and HTML Validation
Downloading and Uploading of Web Pages
Browser Search Engine and Directory Submissions
Compatibility and Resolution Checking

THE PROCESS

The process will differ for new sites versus established sites. If a new site has been built with SEO in mind, many errors can be avoided. An established web site may already contain SEO or design errors that need to be repaired so it can attract visitors and make sales.

SEO objectives

Increase your search engine presence, rankings, number of visitors and ultimately the sale of your products.

Site Analysis

An overall analysis is first done on your site, to assess what is needed to best optimize it for the search engines. Based on this analysis the proposal is adjusted to include the necessary work to be done. This may include: design, layout, navigation, colors, background, fonts, images, broken links, meta tags, web copy, html validation, browser and resolution compatibility, loading times, search engine rankings, site statistics and creating error pages.

All of the factors listed above have some influence in attracting search engine spiders and visitors to your site.

These factors are already taken into consideration (which makes it much easier) if I design your site from scratch.

An established site already indexed by the search engines will need to be thoroughly analyzed for errors before optimization can begin.

Keyword Research

One of the basic steps in search engine optimization is keyword research. Here competitive keywords relating to the site and unique to your domain are found. Keyword research is done to maximize the impact of search engine optimization. When your site ranks well, more relevant customers come to the site leading to an increase in conversions and hence income for the site. The accurate identification and careful selection of these important keywords and key phrases can literally make or break any web site or online business.

Competitive Analysis

This is for better search engine ranking performance. I study the sites of all your competitors who have high search engine rankings and find out the keywords for which they are ranked. I analyze your current meta tags and recreate them based on the keywords I have researched. I also analyze your recent web site stats (if you give me access). I can then see how many visitors you are getting, where they are coming from and what keywords they are using.

SEO Copywriting

SEO copywriting is rewriting the text on your site in such a way that it becomes search engine friendly while remaining appealing to the surfer. Keywords relevant to your site are optimized so that your site ranks high when search engines crawl your site. I direct targeted traffic to your site, ensure they are provided with the specific information and hence increase sales for you. My copywriting services include modifying your site headings, HTML text, layout, design and even images where needed. Some pages may only require a small amount of editing or none at all, whereas others may need a more extensive rewrite.

Part 2 of " Increase Web Site Sales with a SEO Proposal " will discuss:

Creation of Meta Information
Site Map Creation
Link Popularity Building
Web Site Load Time and HTML Validation
Downloading and Uploading of Web Pages
Browser Search Engine and Directory Submissions
Compatibility and Resolution Checking

Resources
Increase Web Site Sales with a SEO Proposal - Part 1 & 2
http://www.isitebuild.com/seo-services

Why You Need a SEO Maintenance Plan
http://www.isitebuild.com/seo-maintenance-services

Herman Drost is the Certified Internet Webmaster (CIW) owner and author of http://www.iSiteBuild.com

To choose a Search Engine Optimization Plan or SEO Maintenance Plan that fits your web site, visit: http://www.isitebuild.com/sitepromotion

Keeping it clean could give you a boost.
By Mark White

Everyone is striving to be at the top of the

pile, we all want to get a better google PR and want this

to reflect in more visitors to our site. But after we have

followed all the advice about keyword placement and alt

tags is there anything else we can do?

I recently asked Tinu Abayomi-Paul the well

respected google expert from freetrafficdirectory.com

if having tidy html coding helped.

She told me that although there is no absolute proof that

it helped she had noticed that site’s with good xhtml

code often seemed to get a higher ranking .

It is my belief that when the spiders visit they prefer

a clean house.

So how do you know if your pages are up to

scratch and up to search engine standards? There are a couple

of sites that you can visit and get your pages spring cleaned

for free so it’s worth a visit.

The first site is site

valet and this is in my humble opinion the most useful

as they use an online version of html tidy , the program

was originated by Dave Raggett and now at Source

forge and it offers to tidy your pages straight off

your hard drive, did I mention the word free, yes this valuable

resource is free.

The big bonus for me is that if Tinu is correct then this

site can convert from html to xhtml, what a bonus it could

be to raise my google PR at the same time as making my code

better. The online report gives you a not to complicated

list of warnings about missing tags, attributes and offers

advice about what you could add or change for people with

non graphical browsers.

The magic is that site valet gives you your page code back

in tidy form, just copy and paste the code for a spotless

site. As well as tidy the site offers the more rigorous

but more technical page tidy so if you know exactly what

you want and are a techie then the page tidy option is for

you.

The other site is net

mechanic.com and is incredibly useful, they offer a

free limited look at your site and offer advice similar

to site valet. You can get a report for up to 5 pages of

your site free and they offer other resources for you to

try such as image optimisation programs, online link checking

and browser compatibility checks.

The cost of a years membership to sort out your site is

really good value and well worth it if you have a larger

site as the tools could save you weeks of work over a year.

If you use the full resources available to

you on both of these site then you should end up with very

clean precise code that has the engines all in a tizzy over

your level of code hygiene, they may even reward you with

a better rank.

About the author.

Mark white has built and run 3 sites for the last 4 years,

has worked in I.T. for 15 years and is

actively involved in traffic/search engine related sites.

His sites are

$10

dollar downloads.com

sunspeks.com

and phone-bits.com

Please feel free to reproduce this article

ensuring all content and links are left intact.

Benefits of Website Localization

Maximising profit today involves reaching beyond national markets. Accessing an international customer base is vital if a business wants to expand and participate in international trade.

‘Localization’ relates to the act of modifying a product to make it both usable and suitable to a target market. Website localization therefore refers to the process of taking an English, western-orientated, website and moulding it to conform to a foreign audience.

The World Wide Web, as its name suggests, is a means by which businesses can reach an international audience. Companies are now recognising that a key step in successfully approaching and selling to international customers is through website localization.

Website localization brings with it numerous benefits. The three main benefits of localization are:

Website localization crosses language barriers

32% of internet users around the world are non-native English speakers. With PC ownership and access to the internet most rapidly increasing outside of North America and Europe, this figure will increase even more. Website localization breaks linguistic barriers and opens doors to other continents.

Companies are now waking up to the fact that English is no longer ‘the’ international language but one of many including French, Spanish, Arabic and Chinese. With the number of companies now realising the benefits of website localization, there are more pages in foreign languages than ever before. This means if your company’s site has not undergone the localization process yet, it will be playing catch up in the future.

Website localization builds credibility

If your company only has a site in English and your competitor in all major languages, which one will gain more credibility? Localization of your website demonstrates that you are a truly international player. In addition, through localization it shows that you understand, value and have respect for that particular country or region.

Website localization increases revenue

Billions of dollars, pounds and francs in potential revenue are lost each year due to lack of investment in website localization. Most internet users will naturally feel more comfortable and understand a company better if their information, products or services are presented in their native language. By undergoing the website localization process you access potentially millions of new customers.

It is clear that website localization is a must for any truly international business. In addition to the technical and programming elements of website localization many cultural factors must be borne in mind.

For example, has language been translated properly and cultural variations in terminology, phrases, metaphors and sayings been taken into consideration? Have symbols, graphics, pictures, colours and general layout been viewed for their cultural applicability?

Website localization is a huge investment and should not be viewed as a straightforward process. When localizing your site, ensure you get the expertise of both a website designer and a cross cultural communications consultancy to ensure your site has maximum impact on the target audience.

Neil Payne is Director of cross cultural communications consultancy http://www.kwintessential.co.uk

Permission is granted to reproduce the article in full on the condition I am made aware of any intention to use it. npayne@kwintessential.co.uk

Today’s topic is going to cover a favorite subject of mine, search engines. I am naming this one How to Dominate the Rankings.

Must be asking, what in the world makes you an expert on dominating the rankings? What’s your credentials. Your right, I have none and I’m no expert. I’m not sure how to dominate anything but my monkey. It’s a joke people, just jokes. What I do know is some of my sites are at the top of the rankings and new websites I am working on are rising everyday.

Ok Ok, enough already. I think you get the point. I may not be an expert, but I have somewhat of an understanding of how to rank on the 1st or 2nd page. Sooooo. Do I have your attention now. Goood!

How do you get your site to the top of the rankings for your keywords. No one really knows the true answer as the search engine world is very complicated. However there are things that you can do to take your website from a site that only you (and maybe some friends) know about to thousands of people knowing.

There are 2 factors that you want to consider in your search engine optimization. They are called.

On-page optimization
Off-page optimization.

Just from the wording you can probably take a good guess at what they are. So I’m not going to go into it. You take it from here. Good luck.. . .

Nah, I’m kidding. Let’s talk about On-page. On-page optimization is factors that you change on your page. Off-page is factors on other people’s websites. What’s more important you may ask? Both are important, but off-page is more important than on-page. Back in the hay day of the internet, on-page ruled. But due to spammers and cheats, on-page became less important but still holds some revelance. So make sure you get it right.

Today’s post is going to focus on on-page for right now. Like my momma always told me, "make sure your backyard is clean before you worry about someone else’s" I never understood that when I was young. But it sounded good. I do now though. Anyway, back to the subject. What are factors that you can change on-page to help your rankings. Several. Let’s talk about a few here.

I think one of the most important ones to change is your Title. Really!! Yes really. You should come up with a good clean title to your website. Not just any Title. The Title of all titles. Your title should be readable to users, such as you and me, but contain YOUR keywords that you want to focus on. Let’s look at this in more detail.

The Onla Adult Entertainment Site’s title is Adult Entertainment Online. Remember above our keywords that we are ranking high with.

To name a few

1. adult entertainment
2. entertainment online
3. adult entertainment online

Ooooohhhh. Is it making sense now! Notice anything between the keywords we have and the Title of the page?

Alright now on to the next factor meta description and meta keywords. Thing to note: With Google, meta keywords mean nothing. It does not consider it. But most of the others do, so it’s good to have in there just in case. I try to optimize my sites for all the SE’s, not just one. Word of caution here. Do not go crazy with the keyword. You do not need to put every instance of the keyword or keyphrase in your meta. For instance if your keyphrase is going to be baby momma. You do not need to stuff it with baby momma daddy uncle sister cousin best friend mom. Just put a few key pharses, around 15-20 is a good number to target.

Your meta description should touch on your keywords as well. After that, next you want to do is make sure your keywords or phrases appear in your content of your page. Bold or underline one or two just to add importance to it. A side trick that some seo experts say to do is add h1 and h2 tags. Some even go as far as adding h3 or h4 tags. These are called header tags. You add them into your code. Myself personally, I only go up to h2.

If your website is full of pictures and banners, search engines cannot see them. Change the alt text of the banner or picture. The alt text is the text that is viewed if a user puts his/her mouse over it. It appears in a little box. Search engines can see that. Put some of your keywords in there. Again, do not spam. I trick I do to not appear to spam is put the keyphrase or keyword and end it with banner or image or picture. For example, keyword baby momma and I have a picture on the site. I would put the alt text for picture to be baby momma picture 1.

There are more things to do in which we can speak on it later. What I can tell you is to put your keyword in the search and find the website that is ranking number #1 and copy what they do. Their number #1 for a reason right? So duplicate the format and you should get similiar results.

Let’s talk about a few things not to do. These will get you banned or penalized.

1. Do not make the keywords or phrases the same color as the background. So to the user, they never see, but the Search engines will. They do not like it and it’s consider spammed. If your site does not have the content to fit the keywords and you cannot get creative enough to mix it in so it flows, change up your keywords. Focus on some that you can make flow. But do not do that trick. It’s an old trick and SE’s are smarter than that. They will know that it’s being done and ban you. If your site is doing this now, this is probably why your not ranking well.

2. Keyword spam. This is just repeating the same keyword over and over and over again in your title, meta description and through your page. Again another no no. This will get your site banned from the SE. They see this as spam.

In summary, as I always state in my post, focus on your content. Overall that is the best advice. Set your page up right and focus on the content and the rest should fall in place. With most SE’s, when your webpage optimized, it’s a waiting game. A little known fact is most websites, probably in the high 80 percentile are not optimized at all to rank well. Your well optimized website will stand out to SE’s and move up. Just stay focused on your content. Change up your content regularly, say once every 2-3 weeks, monthly at the worse. This is a good thing as the SE’s will see your site as important and keep checking back due to the updated content.

We will get into Off-page on another post. I think it needs to be talked about separately. Right now I will let you guys run so you can get working on optimizing your websites.

Feel free to share your seo tactics with everyone. Happy optimizing.

John Cal
Adult Entertainment
Work at Home Based Business Ebooks

SEO Expert. Own and operate several high pageranking sites and top 10 positions with the SE’s.