Webmasters always anxiously wait for a search engine update. Those who rank well want to see their sites get even better. Those who didn’t do well expect a major boost. Those whose sites get de-indexed anticipate a major comeback. Those who just started new sites bet on their sites will make into the first page of search engine result pages (SERPs) for their targeting keywords. Of course, not everyone will be happy about the results of search engine updates. After all, search engine traffic is a zero-sum game - someone loses and someone gains. Then, the webmasters start preparing for next update.

The Business Reasons Behind The Major Updates

All major search engines claim that they strive to present search results to users with the highest quality. But the business of search engine is business. What they won’t tell us is that there’re many business reasons for every major search engine updates. Search engine traffic is hot commodity - it’s free and has higher conversion rate since the searchers are very close to make their buying decisions. The downside of the search traffic for webmasters is that they don’t have control at all. Your sites may be ranked #1 today, but nowhere next day.

Search engine companies will, no doubt, use the search engine traffic to maximize the values for their stakeholders. Google’s Feb. 2 update (allegra update or Superbowl update) once again shocked the webmaster community like last Florida update. The noticeable change in Superbowl update is that well-established sites rank well even for specific keywords that aren’t even highly relevant to their pages. You may think the move is to fight spams and improve the quality of SERPs. That’s only part of the story. The results of the update is that the websites of well-established corporations (with never ending press releases) will get a major traffic boost from Google. Google does this by algorithm changes, not manual manipulations.

If we think search engine traffic from Google is really an incentive to try it free before you buy. This time, Google decides to lure the major corporations to test the benefits of search traffic. Major corporations will likely increase their spending in online advertising and those news agencies may even drop their law sues against Google if they see the traffic from Google justifies that their sites benefit from including in Google index database.

Is this the real driving force behind last update? Only Google knows. If you own Google, however, you will do the exactly the same.

Will this negatively impact the user experience? - maybe and maybe not. What is the real difference between the #1 spot and the site that ranks #100? - the backlinks. Backlinks don’t alter the quality of a page at all.

When they say technology, they mean business. Major technology changes are always driven by business needs. It has nothing to do with "good" or "bad".

Strategies to Cope with search Engine Updates

The Internet and the Web was once hailed as the new medium and the new opportunity for small business and site owners. They will be disappointed as big three peek into fortune 500 companies’s deep packets. There’re strategies they can use to cope with the search engine updates, however.

1. Create a portfolio of website using different SEO techniques. If some of your sites get hammered in a update the rest may benefit from the update.

2. Generate traffic from all major search engines.

3. Use the search traffic to build loyal user bases.

4. Build sites similar to the sites of well-established companies. The tags, on-page, off page optimization techniques will become less and less important as major corporations aren’t interested in those types of things that geek webmasters are interested.

Speculation on Coming Updates

The next Google update is around the corner. I won’t expect any noticeable change. If Google decides to let big apples try search traffic free. They will need a couple of months to realize the values of the search traffic.

There will be major re-distribution of search traffic in 3 or 6 months. If the same group of major corporations always get huge amount of free traffic from Google. They won’t bother to open their wallets. The major traffic distribution may be from one group of major corporations to another. The search traffic will unlikely sift back to small sites.

Copyright Bruce Zhang 2005

Bruce Zhang operates a website http://www.4th-media.com that automatically aggregates and categorizes SEO news, new articles, and forum threads from over 50 sources daily ( http://www.4th-media.com/newsbot/ ) to help webmasters and SEO professionals to keep up with the latest development in search engine marketing. The website also offers original thoughts on SEO.

Here you will learn a few things about search engine ranking and Wisconsin optimization for all your Wisconsin related keywords.

In this article we are assuming that you already have identified the top and high profitable keywords about Wisconsin.

Should you not yet have picked the phrases you want to rank high for in the search engine’s ranking, you can learn how to do that in other articles in this series.

Now forward with the Wisconsin optimization improvement lesson:

When writing your Wisconsin content articles, always include your main Wisconsin keyword in the site’s title. You can do this once or twice since search engine algorithms change over time.

I also add it once or twice to vary the language more.

Include the phrase you want to rank high for in your H1 tag as well as in the opening paragraph in the main body.

For the body text I never stick with the same keyword density, because I don’t think the top engines find this a very natural behavior. We always want to keep it natural, interesting and on topic for the search engines and foremost your visitors.

When working on your search engine ranking and Wisconsin optimization, you might also want to put your keyword phrase in the last paragraph as well.

I do that often, but not always.

The most important thing about search engine ranking for your Wisconsin site is to keep the language and subject interesting for your visitor.

Do this and you should be fine and on top of the search engine rankings.

Johnny runs a hockey site and loves ice hockey equipment and skates more than anything.

Welcome to yet another article in our series about how improvement in your search engine optimization can get you a top 10 search engine ranking for Wisconsin related phrases.

As always, please remember that it is not guaranteed that you ever will see a top 10 ranking in the search engines, but below you will find a few tips that many of today’s webmasters use to improve their search rank.

First, the search engines enjoy when you keep your site’s theme as narrow as possible. This makes it easier for the search engines to tell what your site is about and to show the most relevant page high in the ranking.

For example, if you are aiming for a top 10 search engine ranking for Wisconsin related phrases, build a page per phrase. Then build another page around another keyword phrase.

Just keep building content to your site. This has worked for me and many other webmasters and it might work for you as well.

Second, get a bunch of good incoming links to your site.

Personally I don’t engage in link swapping so much anymore, since I believe that the top search engines see this as a cheap try to spam the engines. Besides, those link pages rarely add any true value to your visitors.

What you should consider is to build good enough content so that other sites natural will want to link to you. I believe that this optimization strategy will work for a long time, but just remember that you have to keep your visitors in mind first, search engines second.

The top engines want sites to be natural and that is also a good reason for not growing your inbound links to fast.

Third and final:

Keep writing new, related and optimized content articles all the time. The more content you feed the engines; the more likely you are to improve your ranking enough to get into the top 10 for a bunch of keyword phrases.

For example:

To earn yourself a top 10 search engine ranking for Wisconsin related phrases you need to build articles about green Wisconsin gadget, red Wisconsin gadgets and so on.

Make sure that the search engines understand that your site is about Wisconsin and eventually you will have improved your rankings enough for a top 10 search engine ranking for Wisconsin related phrases.

Johnny is a sport freak and enjoys football, but his main interests are ice hockey equipment and the NHL.

In this article you will get a few advices on how you might be able to improve your high search engine ranking optimization for Wisconsin related terms.

Maybe you too sometimes have felt frustrated creating all that useful content on your site in order to make it more useful and to make it rank higher or closer to the top in the search ranking.

Let me share two little tricks with you that you might not have heard about before:

1. Search engines love good and natural content.

Write natural for your visitors and use simple search engine optimization just to make it clear for the engines what the page is about.

2. Use synonyms and related words throughout your articles.

The top search engines, not only in Wisconsin, are getting better and better at understanding synonyms and related words.

Also remember that you need many pages on your site as well as a great number of inbound links in order to be successful.

Here’s a top strategy that many use:

Build loads of slightly optimized and designed content as part of your high search engine ranking optimization for Wisconsin. Do this and other sites will naturally link to you.

When working on your search engine optimization, it is also easier if you can identify a niche that you know something about. If you enjoy writing it’s even better.

Please remember though, if you are writing and optimizing a site for your favorite state Wisconsin, always blend related words into the articles. Doing so will not guaranteed, but more likely get you a high or improved search engine ranking for you Wisconsin site.

If you work hard I have no doubt that you won’t succeed, but keep in mind that high search engine ranking optimization for Wisconsin will need some effort.

Johnny runs a hockey site and loves ice hockey equipment and skates more than anything.

Wisconsin is one of the most beautiful places on earth as well as the home Green Bay Packers (my favorites).

Many people also want to get a top search engine ranking in Wisconsin, because this is a place where people have money.

Scoring high in the search engines often means money for those who can improve their sites enough to reach the top of the search engine ranking for Wisconsin related phrases.

Since the search engines are getting better and better for each month, it is often not enough just do get the on-page search engine optimization factors right on the pages you write.

It is key to get many inbound links to your site as well.

You might not have thought about this, but search engines are in business and they too want to make money. Search engines are after the advertising dollars spend by advertiser and the more people that use their search engine, the more money they make.

The bottom line is that search engines only want high quality pages show on top of their ranking. This way people will continue to use their service and they can continue to rake in the advertising dollars.

Let’s just say that your Wisconsin site is about as good as other related Wisconsin sites. If the on-page factors of the sites are equal, the site with the most inbound links will show on top of the search engine ranking.

This is the reason for you to make sure you get enough inbound links if you want a top search engine ranking in Wisconsin.

But, how do you get those links pointing to your Wisconsin site?

One good way to get inbound links is to submit your site to a Wisconsin directory or to write press releases.

Johnny runs a hockey site and loves ice hockey equipment and skates more than anything.

The closest you can get to a guaranteed high search engine ranking is to add a high number of quality articles to your Wisconsin site. This might earn you the top ranked site in Wisconsin.

What you need to understand though is that the search engines want content and they want lots of it. There are a few basic optimization skills you need to know about, but basically you need to fill your site with high ranked content articles about Wisconsin.

Keeping the content narrow and about Wisconsin only is how the search engine likes it and this is how you eventually will improve the ranking for your Wisconsin site.

When I build new sites I usually aim for at least a hundred optimized articles or pages about the niche I am working on. This gives me, and you as well, more chances for being found by the top search engines.

The more optimized pages you got, the more chances you have to receive traffic from search engines. Just consider this example:

1. You have one page on your web site. This optimized web page is likely only to receive search engine traffic when people search for this exact phrase.

2. You have a hundreds search engine optimized pages and there is a possibility that your site will get found for all these Wisconsin related phrases.

The bottom line is just to keep building and writing those pages and one day you might get a top ranked site in Wisconsin.

But remember, there is a lot of work involved and when it comes to search engine optimization and it is never guaranteed that you will get a top ranked site in Wisconsin.

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

What many people in Wisconsin don’t know is that in order to get a top ranking site in Wisconsin, you will have to build your site around a small and focused niche.

However, you most likely are in a good situation, because very few people have worked to make improvements to their sites in Wisconsin and that will make you even more likely to get a top ranking site in Wisconsin.

Maybe it will be a top site about your current business or it will be a high ranking site about your hobby or passion.

Just do the work and the choice will be yours. There is no guaranteed rankings though, but here are a few tips to help you along the way.

First, the search engines like sites that are designed around and optimized around a small niche.

For example:

If your business is green widgets, your site and articles should only be about green widgets and closely related topics, such as maybe blue widgets.

You will also need to know what Wisconsin related keywords are the most profitable. With search engines you can never get a guaranteed top or high search engine ranking, but you will be more likely to be ranked high if you improve your position by targeting the top keywords.

Second, you should only design your optimization around one keyword per web page on your site. You also need to build lots and lots of pages, because then you are more likely to be found by the search engines.

For example:

A page about blue widgets will not be found in the top search engines when somebody searches for green widgets. But if you have one Wisconsin page about blue widgets and one Wisconsin page about green widgets, you can be ranked high for both of your keyword phrases.

Identify the best keywords, build many pages and you will see that you can get a top ranking site in Wisconsin. Keep in mind though, that keywords with few searches per day and little competition often are the ones that will get you the most traffic in the long run.

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

The world of search engine optimization (SEO) can be a big scary place for newbies. Most SEO professional companies charge astronomical prices that may or may not guarantee success.

The search engines are forever changing the way they rank websites and what is important to achieve a higher ranking. Even with these everchanging factors, there are 8 important points that you must use with your website that are not likely to change any time soon.

1. Domain Name
It is better to register a domain with a keyword in it, unless you are trying to brand yourself (think Coca Cola or Ebay). For instance, if your name is John Smith and you sell golf items you would be better off by registering a name like www.golfproducts.com instead of www.johnsmith.com.

Unfortunately with millions of website domain names being purchased all the time, finding a related domain name not already taken can be a daunting task. Still it is worth it in the end because it will carry more significance with the search engines.

2. Title Tag
This is an often overlooked place to input keywords. Have you ever been to a website and the bar at the top of the page just said ‘untitled’ or ‘homepage’? That reflects how little the site designer knew about SEO. Always put a descriptive title on EVERY page of your website. Put something like ‘Find golf clubs, golf clothes and the latest pro golf tips’, instead of ‘John’s golf shop’.

Make sure not to go overboard and just list 10 or more keywords or long sentences in a row or the search engines will think you are trying to spam them. Think quality over quantity. The title tag should contain one keyword rich descriptive sentence.

3. Meta Tags
The importance of meta tags in today’s SEO world is still being debated. It is still advisable to include a meta tag keywords and meta tag description in your code. A lot of times the search engines will pull your description tag to show in your websites search result. If nothing is there it may not show anything at all or it may pull the first sentence off of your page which might be completely irrelevent to your intended audience.

Do not, I repeat do not list 100 or more keywords in the keyword tag. This technique used to work years ago, but the search engines recognize this technique and will consider it spam. Place no more than 10 keywords in the meta keywords tag.

4. Link Strategies
Another important tip is to include keywords when linking to other websites or pages within your own site. For example it is better to have a sentence like this ‘Find out the latest professional golf tips.’ then to say ‘click here for the latest professional golf tips.’ This also applies to any outbound links to other related websites. Include keywords on the part you want the visitors to click on.

Same goes for incoming links to your site. If someone wants to link to your site give them the code to paste in their website instead of leaving them to do it on their own. Have something like ‘Check out John’s Golf shop for the best golf clubs, golf info and golf tips." This is much better than ‘Click here for John’s Golf Shop’. Search engines also like longer more descriptive links than just one or two words.

5. Relevant Content
Make sure that you provide only relevant information to what your actually offering or selling. If you have a bunch of unrelated info on a wide range of topics than the search engines will have a harder time pinpointing exactly what it is your site is about. So if your selling golf stuff stick to golf content, don’t throw in articles or links about scuba diving.

6. PageRank
This is still a relatively new term and applies to an algorithm that google’s search engine uses. Other search engines use similar strategies to google’s PageRank also.

Basically PageRank is used to define how popular your website is. The more relevant inbound links you have coming into your website the higher your PageRank will be. Google also has a toolbar that you can download for free that will show you a site’s PageRank. The best way to go about getting inbound links is to find related websites with a PageRank of 5 or higher. Then asking them to include a link to your site (giving them the proper code to paste in).

Another way you can receive a higher PageRank is to have a ton of content on many different pages and then linking all the pages together in a way that will raise your PageRank. With that said this type of strategy will not boost your PageRank tremendously, so if your site doesn’t contain thousands of pages don’t stress over it. It is important though to link strategically with keywords between the pages of your site.

You can download google’s toolbar at http://toolbar.google.com/

This is an HTML header tag used to define size of text within the tag. Search engines place more importance on text that is placed within the H1 tag. It’s like telling the search engines that ‘hey this text is important to my site’. The problem is that it can look unsightly. There are ways around this if you know about CSS styles, but for this basic intro article just know that in the end most people won’t be bothered by how the heading looks, and it will make the search engines like you more.

8. Creating Credibility
An often overlooked part of free publicity for your website is writing free articles like this one that relates to your intended audience. There are many websites on the internet where you can submit your articles for other people to place on their websites. I even employ this same strategy for my website. It’s really a win win situation. They win because they get quality relevant content for their site and you win because your name and website info is included at the bottom of the article, driving traffic to your site.

You increase your inbound links (PageRank) and provide free publicity for your website. It gets your name out there branding you an expert in your field of expertise and provides free web traffic to your site.

Leah West

http://www.westmarketing-design.com Providing complete search engine optimized website design and internet marketing services for your small business success. Sign up for my Fr*ee ezine at http://www.westmarketing-design.com/ezinesubscribe.htm

By now, you know that to rank well in the Search Engines, you need to have the keyword in your URL’s directory name and filename, if not in the domain name as well.

So, if you want to target a keyword, say, ‘Woolen Socks’, the best way to do it is (a) to have a domain name that contains the word ‘woolen socks’ in it (like: BuyWoolenSocks.com), (b) place the information page in the ‘woolen-socks’ directory and (c) write the filename as ‘woolen-socks.html’. So the URL should look like:

http://www.BuyWoolenSocks.com/Woolen-Socks/Woolen-Socks.html

This definitely gives you much better chance to rank well in search engines with the keyword ‘Woolen Socks’. There are other aspects too which help you to rank well, but inserting the keywords in domain name, directory and file name definitely give you a boost.

It’s not always possible to have a separate domain name for each and every product. But, you can easily change the directory name and filename to match with your keywords.

But you are afraid to change the alrealy popular URLs for three reasons: (a) you have to manually insert the redirect code in every page, (b) a standard 404 page may lead visitors nowhere or disinterest them and (c) annoying search engines with the constant 404 error page codes so much so that they might ban the site.

But there is no need to worry. Internet has enough provisions to meet every technical need. The only thing you have to know where to look. You can change the filenames without disturbing anything by simply changing one single file.

USE 301 REDIRECT

A 301 redirect is the most efficient and spider/visitor friendly strategy around for web sites that are hosted on servers running Apache (check with your hosting service if you aren’t sure). It’s not that hard to implement and it should preserve your search engine rankings for that particular page. If you HAVE to change file names or move pages around, it’s the safest option.

A 301 code inteprets ‘moved permanently’.

HOW TO DO IT?

Locate a file named .htaccess in your public_html folder (home page folder). If it’s not there, just open Notepad (or any text editor: which saves files in .txt mode) and write the following line for each filename change:

redirect 301 /OldFolder/OldFilename.html http://www.you.com/NewFolder/NewFilename.html

Obviously you need to replace ‘OldFolder’, ‘OldFilename.html’, ‘NewFolder’, ‘NewFilename’ with your own old and new filenames.

For example: if you had a page whose URL is: http://www.YourDomain.com/wp-01.html and the new page’s URL is: http://www.YourDomain.com/Woolen-Socks/Woolen-Socks.html write the following code in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /wp-01.html http://www.YourDomain.com/Woolen-Socks/Woolen-Socks.html

If you had a page whose URL is: http://www.YourDomain.com/wp/wp-01.html and the new page’s URL is: http://www.YourDomain.com/Woolen-Socks/Woolen-Socks.html just write the following code in your .htaccess file:

redirect 301 /wp/wp-01.html http://www.YourDomain.com/Woolen-Socks/Woolen-Socks.html

The line is written like this: ‘redirect 301′ + ‘one spacebar space’ + ‘old file directory/filename’ + ‘one spacebar space’ + ‘new file URL’ + ‘[Enter]’

You can write as many lines as you wish!

If you already have .htaccess file in your folder, write these lines AFTER all other codes already existed there.

Save the file. Check that the filename has not become: .htaccess.txt. If it’s so, rename the file to .htaccess and upload it to your public_html directory.

Now, open your browser (Aren’t you using FireFox? Oh boy, you’re missing a lot!!) and browse to your old filename. You got redirected to the new page location!!

Voila!!

Search engines read your old filenames as 301 code and not a 404. Eventually they should drop the old filenames and index new ones.

Your visitors seamlessly visit your new page following the old filename.

You save lots of time if you have really huge files to change.

Great. Isn’t it?

Subhendu Sen is the owner and webmaster of http://www.IndHosts.Net/hosting.html — A Low-Cost Web Hosting Service Provider with Apache Server — and is in the business of web hosting since 1998. He also owns other sites of interest : http://www.TheWebContent.com — An Article Directory and http://www.PopAccount.com — A Free Email Address directory.

The Internet can be a confusing place to do business. It often seems like there are a million ‘gurus’ on the Net, all speaking at the same time, and telling you how they have "the" road map to success.

The truth is … there is no one map. There are many roads to the destination we call success. How long the trip will take depends a great deal on the choices you make.

They say that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. So here are five steps to get you started on your road to online success.

1. Sell What People Want To Buy.

For a thousand years (or more) small business has thrived on one motto. Find a need and fill it. The Internet is no different that Wal-Mart. If Wal-Mart didn’t sell what people want they would go out of business in short order.

The best way to find what people want is to ask them. Contact the people you know and ask them what their #1 problem is today. Then tally the results and look for a pattern. Once you find the pattern, find a product or service to meet that need and contact them again.

When you do, good things will begin to happen.

2. Follow Up With Everyone

The people who come to your website will fall into two broad groups. Those who buy and those who don’t buy yet. Create a follow up system for the people who don’t buy and you will make time your ally, not your enemy.

You don’t have to be a great writer to do this. Just jot down the five top reasons people should buy your product and create a short message for each reason. Then put those in an autoresponder and offer people more information. Over time, many will buy your product.

It’s equally important to follow up with those who do buy. Be sure to offer them products and services that compliment your own.

For example, it’s only logical that someone who buys a car will eventually need their oil changed. In a like manner, people who buy your offer may want products or services that enhance your product’s benefits.

3. Use A Simple Sales Site

There is a lot of discussion about how many words should be on your web site. While this debate will continue to rage on, the sites that sell the best seem to be one-page, very simple sales sites. After all, why use more words than necessary.

People are in a hurry today so give them what they want. Tell them clearly why they should buy your product, ask for the order and offer them more information if they choose not to buy now. Simple.

4. Use Automation To Your Advantage

‘Automation’ is simply a fancy term for letting a computer do the work you would normally do. Perhaps the best example is an autoresponder.

A sequential autoresponder is a program that sends emails out over a period of time. Rather than having to remember who should get which message when, the computer remembers and sends them for you. That is how you are going to follow up with the people are aren’t quite ready to buy yet. And you’ll use a separate sequence for your customers - to offer them complimentary products and services.

There are ways to process orders, send email follow ups, ask for referrals, place ads and more - all using the power of automation.

While it is important to maintain a personal touch, automating everyday tasks means you will be able to respond faster to inquires and have the time you need to follow up with clients and expand your business.

5. Give Yourself Time

Just as in any business, it takes time to succeed in an online business. Since time is going to march on anyway, why not make time your ally?

Using tools to automate your business will help you save time every day. Having clearly defined goals and objectives will help you have ’staying power’ for the long haul.

Using time wisely and being committed to long term success are both vital to your online business.

Success is simple if you keep it simple. One key is to find people who are successful and learn from what they are doing.

When you are offering a popular product using a simple sales page website, are following up using automation to your advantage and are patient enough to let your business grow, you will find that the path to success is short indeed.

Dr. Jeanette Cates is an Internet strategist who works with experts who are ready to turn their knowledge and their websites into Gold. Her reputation as a speaker and trainer has earned her the title of The Technology Tamer. Jeanette shares her news and views in OnlineSuccessNews.com