Smartpages are highly optimized pages which draw stampeded of search engine traffic to your website….or so the sales blurb goes. The fantasy is that smartpages are the push-button answer to online success. The reality is quite far removed from that.

In the world of online marketing everybody is striving to gain any advantage over the competition. To that end some people are willing to go to any lengths to gain a foothold online. When smartpages first appeared they seemed the answer to every search engine optimizers dream. Feed in a list of keywords and out comes thousands of highly optimized pages for you to upload.

One small problem. Smartpages are nothing but redirects. The pages generated by these programs are filled with hyperlinks and Heading tags that "fool" the search engines into thinking these are actually relevant pages of content. Therein lies the problem. If you’re out to fool any search engine then you’re looking at short term benefit and long term problems for your business.

Let’s make this clear. Smartpages offer no true value to the search engine or web surfer. They are designed for one purpose - to send traffic to sales pages. The unfortunate fact is that any dummy can assemble a list of keywords and upload their smartpages in just a few minutes. Yet again the search engine results are skewed because they constantly have to filter these junk pages from their indexes. I wonder did the creator of these products ever pause and take account of the damage they’ve caused to search engine results worldwide? Not one of them has ever stepped forward to speak up on this matter.

Of course the guys marketing these products are going to defend them. Who can blame them really except to say a good product doesn’t need to be defended. If there’s nothing wrong with the product or the process then why does it need to be defended?

Can smartpages get your domain banned? Absolutely and even the product creators advise to never host smartpages on your main domain. They advise you to upload the smartpages to another domain with a different webhost on a different IP address. If smartpages are so totally harmless and ethical then why do you need to hide them like this?

Are smartpages still effective? To a lesser extent yes they can still be used as part of a search engine optimization policy. A far better policy however is to simply put useful, keyword rich content on your site and enjoy lots of legitimate search engine traffic for years to come.

This article was provided courtesy of Search Engine Fuel where you’ll find lots of useful information on effective search engine optimization.

I’m literally inundated with questions on the subject of invisible text & hosting so in I thought I’d debunk some myths and give you the facts straight up.

What is invisible text? Invisible text is the body text that’s the same or similar color to the background. You know, the stuff you can very easily see on a page if you press Ctrl-A or highlight everything on the page with your left mouse button.

Will invisible text hurt your search engine rankings? Undoubtedly! If you attempt to use the same color text as the background color of your web pages the search engines will penalize you.

Why? The use of invisible text is commonly considered black hat seo by the search engines and a blatant spam tactic. If your visitors can’t see or read the text then what good is it anyway? It’s deceptive period.

Trust Google when they say in their Quality Guidelines & Specific recommendations to avoid hidden text or hidden links.

http://www.google.com/webmasters/guidelines.html

Now here’s why this topic is so interesting… and I know you’re saying, why should I worry or care about invisible text if I’ve never used any on my web site? Well the answer is simple.

You may be hosting invisible text on your website right now & not even know it. In fact you were never intended to know it… That’s why it’s invisible!

WHAT? Yes… you may be getting duped!

So just what exactly am I talking about? I’m talking about your hosting company (usually the free ones) leeching your Google PageRank & building link popularity for their clients off your web pages & bandwidth. If you don’t think they do it… guess again. It’s a lucrative business.

Now with that said I’m not going to name or badmouth any specific hosting service. What I am going to do is tell you how to determine if you’re an unsuspecting victim.

Here’s an invaluable tool to help you detect search engine spam penalties!

http://tool.motoricerca.info/spam-detector/

Secondly, double-check your cached pages to see what the search engine robots actually see when they index your page. Look for additional links & advertising in the source code that isn’t in your original source code.

If you find additional advertising or links that aren’t on your current pages… your host MAY be killing your search engine rankings. The simple solution to this problem is to immediately transfer your domain to a trusted service provider.

Now let’s talk about the invisible text you can’t see at all on a page. Yes, you could still be hosting invisible text. Even if you press Ctrl-A or highlight everything on the page with your left mouse button & nothing shows up!

Just for the record you’ll find some content management programs employing this very technique. Imagine my surprise when I discovered my PageRank 5 realty site had two sets of Meta keywords on my pages, easily seen when I view Google’s cached versions….

I was choked… especially since their user agreement didn’t disclose this fact!

Is using invisible text in cascading style sheets good? Nope!

There’s a new school of thought claiming you can use an alternative cascading style sheet (CSS) approach to placing invisible text on your web pages without penalty.

The theory is predicated on the premise that you could employ an external style sheet in another directory. There you’ d simply define a special class for a tag like < P > where the font and background colors are identical.

The claim is there’s no way for the current search engines algorithms to distinguish the color codes and penalize you. While this may or may not be the immediate situation it’s fundamentally WRONG!

Invisible text is invisible text & it’s spam.

Since many invisible text tricks utilize CSS positioning properties to hide their contents, you’ll soon see (if not already) the search engines employing advanced algorithms to find hidden text in CSSs.

If you subscribe to the CSS theory you’ll undoubtedly be revisiting your strategy or paying later by being blacklisted or removed entirely from the various search engine indexes.

Incidentally, before you roll the dice on this one you might want to consider the fact that the tool I just referred you to is only the beta version and the developer is already planning to add support for identifying invisible text in CSSs! Just how much more advanced and further ahead do you think the search engine techs are?

So what does it all mean to you & what should you do?

1.Check your cached pages for invisible text.

2.If you find Invisible text or advertising determine it’s origin

3.Read every user agreement very carefully

4.Take action & do something about removing it!

The bottom line lesson here is simple. Trying fool the search engines with Spammy tricks or hocus pocus schemes has never worked for long in the past. Don’t employ unethical spam techniques and don’t become an unsuspecting victim yourself.

Copyright 2005 Lawrence Deon

Lawrence Deon is a Search Engine Optimization/Marketing Consultant Author and Developer of the popular search engine optimization and marketing model Ranking Your Way To The Bank. http://www.rankingyourwaytothebank.com

We all, meaning us webmasters want to have the best and top-rated website. But how do we get there? We start linking and submitting. If you are like me though, you don’t want to pay someone to do this. So, you so it yourself. This article shows a few tips and tricks on how to do that, mostly on how to get indexed by search engines.

The best way to get indexed is probably not through the fast submission services. For me the best results have been achieved by going directly to the "add URL" site. This may be more tedious but it works. Go to sites such as http://google.com/addurl/ and Google will crawl your site.

Also, trying to get one-way links will help. If you have no links to your site, chances are your site could be skipped or not seen. Many and I mean a ton of sites will offer to exchange link with you (you display their link and they diplay yours.) These links don’t hold much weight with search engines.

You see, the crawler can detect reciprocal links and they dont’t mean as much as one-way links. Sadly, it is very hard to get the prized one-way links. The best way is to have good content and diplay a "link to me" button. If a person likes your site they might just link to you.

Besides that try submitting to Dmoz.org and the Yahoo! Directory. Google says your site will be hard to miss if it is in these two directories. I hope these tips and helpful hints really are helpful.

Jason Lutterloh is a web designer, webmaster, and computer enthusiast. To visit the authors’ site please go to http://www.compjason.com

Virtually all website owners concentrate their efforts and energy into getting more visitors. With business owners this effort is spent on getting more and more new customers. What many people forget - with both their website and their business - is that getting new customers (or visitors) is only a small part of the equation for success.

Reason For Failure No. 1 - The ‘I am God’-Syndrome

God got his name from being able to do anything and everything and be everywhere at once. Despite what we are taught from an early age many people still insist on believing they themselves are God. Ever found yourself answering the phone, making a sale, running a sales meeting, welcoming customers and doing your company’s accounts all in one day? Sure you have. You’re trying to be God and do everything and be in more than one place at one time. You will fail. People do this with their website too.

Rather than just stopping at providing content (which is where you should stop and hand everything else over to the professionals) some people think that despite no professional training or education in the subject they are experts in web design, website marketing, graphic design and business consultancy. Remember - stick to what you know, leave everything else to the experts. Your job is to run your business - not to run around like a headless chicken trying to create a website, market a website, do the books, answer the phones and make the tea.

Reason For Failure No. 2 - ‘Build It And They Will Come’

Ah yes. The halcyon days of the early 1990s when anything seemed possible and merely owning a domain name or funky web address meant certain success and riches beyond your wildest dreams. "Build it and they will come" is what they said. They were wrong.

Disaster after high profile disaster came crashing down into a pile of dotcom carnage as the millions poured into the idea pit were consumed by fast-spending entrepreneurs who possessed more pairs of trainers than they did explanations for where the profit was going to come from. Just remember - there are more web pages in the world than there are people so if you really think that just building a website is enough it’s time for a serious re-think. You’ve spent the money on graphic design, content, domain names, hosting, web design and testing and your site has just gone live. Congratulations - you have just completed step 1 of 1000,001 in having a site that generates business for you.

You now need to market the site - just as you need to market your business when it first starts - advertising, fliers, yellow pages, referrals, networking, cold calls, direct marketing, mail shots, radio slots, events, conventions, product launches, press coverage etc. A website is exactly the same. Don’t forget the new statement for the new age of new technology:

Build it and they will say - ‘I can’t find it!’

Reason For Failure No. 3 - You Choose The Wrong Website Marketing Company

It’s difficult isn’t it? There are so many to choose from how do you know where to start? Well word of mouth recommendation is always a good indication. Failing that you can look at the key areas that are likely to indicate the quality of their service. For example, ask these questions;

- Do they offer guarantees of any kind on their results?
- Do they proudly display testimonials from satisfied customers on their website?
- What is their profile on the web like, can you find them easily?
- Do they have detailed case studies explaining how they have helped other businesses?
- Do they have a long-standing track record in the industry and wide client-base?
- There is no real way to avoid making the wrong decision but if you keep learning more and more about website marketing you will be arming yourself with enough information to at least reduce the risk of choosing the wrong company.

Mike Cheney

You can get hundreds more proven, practical and painless internet marketing tips and tricks plus a Free Special Report "How To Turn Your Website Into A Customer Magnet" - worth £47 ($85) here: http://www.magnet4web.com/

Culture and Website Localization

With the rise in ownership of computers and internet usage growing daily, the internet is fast becoming the primary port of call for information, shopping and services. In addition, those computer and internet users are increasingly from non-English speaking countries. At the end of 2002, it was estimated that 32% of internet users were non-native English speakers. This figure is constantly rising. In response, businesses have quickly become aware of the benefits of website localization.

Website localization is the process of modifying an existing website to make it accessible, usable and culturally suitable to a target audience. Website localization is a multi-layered process needing both programming expertise and linguistic/cultural knowledge. If either is missing, the chances are that a localization project will encounter problems.

In the majority of cases it is the lack of linguistic and cultural input that lets a website localization project down. In order to give an insight into the impact culture has on website localization the following examples depict areas in which a solid understanding of the target culture is necessary.

Language in Website Localization

Translating a website from English into another language is not as simple as it may appear. There are numerous factors that have to be taken into consideration when translating a websites’ content.
 
Do all the words, phrases, sayings and metaphors translate directly to the target language? Would it be wise to translate the phrase “everyman for himself” in text describing a company or product if this is going to be read by a highly collectivist culture? Does the content of your website use humour and if so will the target culture appreciate or even understand it? Native alternatives should always be sought and used in any website localization.

When translating into another language carefully consider the variants. If it is to be an Arabic website then is aimed at Tunisians or Iraqis, Egyptians or Yemenis? If you are targeting all Arabic speakers then ensure Modern Standard Arabic has been employed by your translator.

One must analyse the style of the language and the target audience. If the audience is foreign business personnel, the vocabulary, grammar and punctuation must reflect this. If the audience is informal or youth orientated then a more relaxed language must used. Just as we in the UK would identify the difference between a site using ‘posh English’ and ‘street English’, other cultures will have the same perceptions of language. Using the wrong language for the wrong reader in your localization project will lead to a misunderstanding of the site or company.

It is essential to assess what information is necessary to carry over into the new site. Do not assume that all information on the English site is automatically transferred over. One must evaluate the target culture and society. Is it a culture that relies on information rich writing to fully understand a concept or product or is a culture that relies more on images or one that needs little text to grasp ideas and concepts? If your English site employs a lot of technical language then consider how best to transfer these concepts without the use of language.

Pictures in Website Localization

Images carry many subtle cultural messages within them. These can speak volumes about your company or product. Pictures or images may have certain negative connotations that may repel viewers. This is now an area that thankfully is receiving attention in website localization.

For example, if a travel site in a Muslim populated country used pictures of scantily clad women in bikinis, disco dancing and beer drinking, the chances are that they would not be very successful.

When including pictures of personnel it is wise to tailor these to what the target audience will look positively upon. A picture of the Director behind a desk in an office will be fine for a seniority respecting society, but for an egalitarian society it is better to show the Director mixing with staff.

It is through pictures that websites can either relate to an audience or repel them.

Symbols in Website Localization

As with pictures, symbols can cause problems in localization. Icons using fingers such as an OK sign or V-sign may mean different things to different cultures. Our Western symbols do not always mean the same abroad. An oft cited example is the representation of the house referring to a home page, or a letterbox to mail. The use of animals in logos can cause embarrassment and further problems. For example, pigs are considered unclean in the Middle East and cows as holy in India.

Colours in Website Localization

Colours are also loaded with cultural meanings that need to be analysed in website localization. Choosing the wrong colour for your logo or background will not always have disastrous consequences, but avoiding them is always advisable.
For example, in Japan white is commonly associated with mourning. In China red is auspicious. In Africa certain colours represent different tribes.

Navigation in Website Localization

It is even the most taken for granted aspects of website layout that must be analysed properly for a successful localization project. In the West we assume that how we present websites is how it naturally should be done. This is far from the truth.

A common problem experienced in localization is the effect on layout through translation. Foreign scripts can make your pages need more room or less room depending on the target language in the localization. Not all languages read from left to right. Arabic is from right to left and both Japanese and Chinese are from top to bottom.

Access to certain pages is also a factor that can be considered as relevant. Highly hierarchical cultures may view a site positively if it is ‘member only’ access, whereas an egalitarian culture may find it disagreeable.

Content in Website Localization

Examining your written content in any localization process in critical to its success. This is not only important for proper transfer of aspects such as dates, currencies, and units of measurement but for the presenting the correct image.

For example, will the site focus on a product or a company? Both bring with them certain considerations dependent on the target culture. If a company is marketing itself in a culture that respects seniority and hierarchy, readers will want to see information on senior members. Along with their titles and rank they will also want to evaluate them through information on their professional qualifications, experience and contacts. These areas in the UK may generally be avoided as in our culture it is bordering on self-indulgence and boasting.

Conclusion

Culture affects everything we do, say, read, hear and think and even websites cannot escape the influence of culture.

The impact of culture on website localization is huge. The above few examples are literally the tip of the iceberg. The number of variables that have to be taken into consideration requires the expertise of both a website designer along with a cross cultural communications consultant. In tandem they can identify the issues that will impact on the successful localization of a site.

At a time where the internet is entering more and more houses it is crucial that companies involved in the internationalization of their business consider website localization and take care to use effective cross cultural analysis.

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

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

Search engines constantly strive to advance their technology and algorithms in order to provide the most relevant search results for their users. Achieving effective results require the identification, and ultimately the complete eradication of, manipulative search engine optimisation tactics. As Internet marketers, it is up to us to achieve high listings for our customers and this requires that our search engine marketing tactics change and grow with the new technology.

Unfortunately there are many search engine optimisation strategies still being used by ill informed or unscrupulous Internet marketers and webmasters that became obsolete a long time ago. In many cases, these strategies are not only ineffective but are now considered spam and can have dire consequences for your rankings and even result in your web site being banned permanently from some engines.

The following is a list of what are now considered within the professional Internet marketing world to be the Top 10 worst search engine optimisation tactics:

1: Doorway Pages (or Gateway Pages, Information Pages, Ghost pages, etc.)

These are generally multiple web pages that are devoid of useful content but heavily optimised for search engine rankings with each page being created for a particular key phrase. The idea of this concept was to fool the search engines into thinking that these pages were highly relevant and provide top rankings for them under their targeted phrase. When a surfer came across on the page they were often shown a "Click Here to Visit Our Web Site" link that the surfer had to click on to actually arrive at the legitimate website. Isn’t that what they were trying to do when the ended up at this page?

Once among the most popular methods of attaining multiple search engine placements, doorway pages were widely used until 2000 by many Internet marketers and web masters. Since then, Doorway pages have become the most obvious form of Spam that a search engine can find and the repercussions are dire if such a tactic is employed. Unfortunately, many web masters and marketers still employ this tactic and then wonder why they suddenly drop from the search engines results after being banned for using this technique.

2: Invisible Text

Invisible text is used in a variety of ways in an effort to increase the frequency of keywords in the body text of a web page. Some methods are: making text the same colour as the background of the web page, hiding text behind layers, placing text at the very bottom of over-sized pages, etc.

This tactic is particularly perilously as it is obvious to search engine spiders. In 1999, search engines began implementing automated methods of detection and penalization.

For legitimate ways to use text to greater effect within your web site download a copy of our book “Start at the Beginning” here: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/book_2.html

3: Content Misrepresentation

Misleading search engines into believing your web page is about topic ‘A’ when it is in fact about ‘B’. This tactic was used primarily for the promotion of adult, gambling, and other extremely competitive search markets.

Unfortunately this tactic is still in use by unscrupulous web masters and marketers. The fact is that this tactic is the simplest for a search engine to identify and the result will be swift and complete; banishment from the search engine index indefinitely. The worst offence against the search engines is to try to fool them.

4: Redirects

Redirects have some innocent uses (practical, legal, etc.) but they are also used to mislead search engines by making them believe that the page they have indexed is highly relevant to a particular search phrase. When a surfer visits the page, however, they don’t see the original page and are redirected to an entirely different one.

In most cases search engines have advanced enough to see this technique being used and act accordingly. In fact they usually ignore any page with a redirect (assuming correctly that the content is useless) while spidering the redirect destination instead, i.e.; the page that the surfer sees. Redirects, unless blatantly Spam-related do not directly result in intentional ranking penalties; however, they have no positive effect either.

5: Heading Tag Duplication

Heading Tags were created to highlight page headings in order of importance. Thus the Heading Tags that are available: H1, H2, H3, etc. This duplication technique involves implementing more than one H1 tag into a web page in order to enhance a particular keyword or phrase.

This tactic is still very prevalent and likely still works on some search engines; however, none of the major search engines will respond well to this technique as it has been identified as a common manipulation.

6: Alt Tag Stuffing

Alt Tag stuffing is the act of adding unnecessary or repetitive keywords into the Alt Tag (words that appear when you hover over an image with you mouse pointer).

The Alt Tag is meant to be a textual description of the image it is attached to. There is nothing wrong with tailoring the Alt tag to meet your keyword goals IF the tag is still understandable and if it appropriately describes the image. The offence occurs when an Alt tag has obvious keyword repetition/filler that a search engine can key in on as spam.

7: Comment Tag Stuffing

Comment Tags are used to include useful design comments in the background source code (html) when creating a web page. These tags should be used only for adding technical instructions or reminders; however, these tags were often used to artificially increase the keyword count for particular search phrases.

At one time there was some argument that this technique worked, but it has always been a "Black Hat" search engine optimisation technique that even then could result in placement penalties. Nowadays this technique will not help an optimisation campaign, if anything it will be ignored or produce a negative result.

8: Over Reliance on Meta Tags

Meta Tags is a broad term for descriptive tags that appear in most web pages and are used to provide search engines with a concept of the page topic. The most common tags are the description and keyword tags.

At one time, extinct search engines such as Infoseek relied a great deal on Meta Tags and many took advantage of this factor to manipulate rankings with relative ease. In today’s far more advanced climate the search engines place cautious weight on Meta Tags and when considering rankings Metas play only a fractional role. Some webmasters still consider Meta Tags the ‘end-all and be-all’ of ranking producers and forget to optimise the rest of their web page for the search engines. With this line of thinking they miss that the search engines place far more importance on the body text (or visible text) of the web page. This is a critical error that will ultimately lead to low or insignificant rankings.

Note: An extremely common example of Meta Tag over-reliance are web sites that have been designed totally graphically and are devoid (or nearly so) of html text that a search engine can read. A web page such as this will have no body text to index and may only provide a small amount of relevance to the web page which ultimately leads to poor rankings.

Over reliance on Meta Tags does not produce intentional search engine penalties, however, the simple act of ignoring other ranking principles often means a lower ranking.

For more detailed information on how to use all Tags more effectively, download our book “Start at the Beginning” here: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/book_2.html

9: Duplicate Content

This tactic is blatant Spam and is very common today. Essentially the Webmaster will create a web site and then create duplicates of each page and optimise them differently in order to obtain varying placements. By doing this you are saturating the search engine databases with content that is essentially eating valuable bandwidth and hard drive space.

Duplicate content is a dangerous game often played by full-time marketers accustomed to trying to attain placements in aggressive markets. Avoid this tactic like the plague unless you are willing to sustain serious ranking damages if you get caught - which you likely will.

10: Automatic Submission

Automatic Submission is the use of automated software to submit a website to the search engines automatically and often repeatedly.

At Enable UK the word ‘automated’ is a disturbing when used in reference to search engine optimisation and submission. The fact is that automated campaigns are not as effective as manual (by hand) ones.

Automatic Submission Tools can only submit to search engines that allow such submissions. These search engines make the majority of their profit from surfers like you viewing their advertising, be this at their web site or by the emails you will receive as a result of submitting to them. Automated tools have also been known to repeatedly submit sites and sometimes each individual page within a site and if a search engine is submitted to too often it will consider the submission as Spam and the website being submitted will not fair well.

The more established and popular search engines do not allow automated submissions, in fact the submission companies continually try to upgrade their software to try and subvert the search engines’ latest effort to stop their programs.

All in all, this leaves the submitter in an unstable position where they may or may not have their submission ignored. The cardinal rule of search engines… submit ONCE and it may take a while (usually no more than 2 or 3 months) but the site will get spidered at some point. If within a few months a site is not listed, then resubmit. As for the major engines like Google… be patient and definitely don’t submit more than once if you can help it.

I hope that this article has told you a lot of things you already know and that you have not already fallen into any of these traps. If you are intending to outsource your Internet marketing campaigns, be extremely wary of any search engine optimisation company that suggests any of these tactics. Some of these tactics may work in the short term; however, that outcome is not only rare it is also a great way to get banned from the major search engines completely.

Our full guide on the legitimate way to optimise your web site for both “organic” search engine listings and your users can be found within our book “Start at the Beginning” which can be downloaded here: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/book_2.html

For a complete guide to marketing on the Internet, including:

· The General Principles of Internet Marketing
· Start at the Beginning
· Writing Text that Sells
· Building Online Relationships
· Maximising Your Pay Per Click Campaign
· Measuring Success

Why not purchase the whole series of downloadable guides for the discounted price of £64.95. Click for more information: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk/html/promo_ebooks.html

Justine Curtis
Enable UK
Internet Marketing Information and Resources
Make your web site work harder!
Web: http://www.enable-uk.co.uk
Email: info@enable-uk.co.uk

Article from Internet Marketing Tips Newsletter, a monthly publication of Enable-UK

Copyright © 2004 Enable-UK.

You’ve selected an appropriate Online Business Opportunity. That is not ALL!

To run a successful online ecommerce Home business, getting the targetted users to visit your site and converting them into customers is the first and foremost thing.

You can exploit Internet Web Site Promotion Processes to increase websites potential exposure. Or engage any SEM company to apply skills and the expertise to achieve your search engine ranking goals.

I’ve organized Internet web site promotion process into three phases to give you an understanding of what to expect from Internet marketing services. The different phases of Website Optimization Process includes:

PHASE I:- Keywords analysis & selection for a significant Traffic increase:

Keyword analysis is the foundation for creating an effective search engine and Internet marketing strategy that will increase traffic at your site. You need to make keyword analysis and based on it choose the most effective search terms for your Internet web site promotion.

[Keyword(s) are basic raw material used in Search Engine marketing. Keyword selection or Keyword Research as it is called technically, where in we use special tools to find out a list of Keywords (search terms) searched by targeted audience, is one of the most important step in SEO. Keyword can be single word, two or three words, multiple words and theme based.]

PHASE II:- Optimization:

The goal of optimization is to create search engine and user-friendly pages that increase both traffic and top rankings. Writing targetted Meta tags for each page will help improve rankings to increase traffic and click-through rates.

If possible try to provide page content based on a focused objective for each page. Create and implement a site map to improve search engine spider navigation and rankings.

PHASE III:- Submission, Tracking & Link Building:

In the Internet web site promotion stage, submit your site and ensure that your pages are included in major search engines and monitor your progress.

Further, there are many ways to get people to come to your site:

- Publish your own newsletter

- Participate in online forums

- Publish articles about your site on Internet

- Publish your URL on everything you distribute (books, business cards, brochures, etc.)

- Trade links with sites that have high ranking and content similar to yours.

- Generate sales using search engine marketing techniques

- Use low cost online advertising strategies that pay for themselves

Doing the above will help you promote your website on the Internet and will help you capture the targeted audience generating sales.

I’ve opted for Nimbustel Partnership Program which offers both Online Business Opportunity and also manages their partners Search Engine Marketing process. Available for all USA citizens at http://partner.nimbustel.com.

As a partner, you can exploit their Search Engine Marketing (SEM) packages to increase your websites potential exposure. Their SEM Team has the skills and the expertise to achieve your search engine ranking goals. Further they’ll review your site SEO reports to determine what steps need to be made to continually increase your top search engine positions and increase traffic.

Warm regards,

Lakshmi
http://partner.nimbustel.com

This could be the most amazing article to ever be released
as you read this please keep in mind that the tips I am
about to share with you are from my experience with my own
successful website HaileysComet Weekly Ezine.

(1)List Building: One of the most POWERFUL ways to promote
any website is to have your own list to promote with. This is something that you have heard many times and it is the
first thing you should be doing to start your way down the
road to success. Building a list is not something that is
hard nor is it costly. There are many ways that you can do
this one would be to start your own newsletter or safelist.
This is something that is easy to do and it is very very
profitable.

(2)Ezine Advertising: Still the most powerful advertising
that you can get on the internet. Ezine’s have subscribers
that are looking for ways to make money or increase their
incomes. Solo Ads are the best! They are sent to the
publishers data base by their self with no other adverts,
Also TopSponsor Ads are a great source of advertising
because it is the first thing the readers will see when
they start reading the Newsletter Issue for that day.

(3)SearchEngine Advertising: Now with Affiliate programs
you do not have much control over the way that the webpage
is built. So in order to get your affiliate program ranked
in searchengines is to use a Frames Page Template. This is
a text template that can be put in HTML to mirror your
affilate page with your affiliate link. This way you can
add your own meta tags that will help you get a higher page
rank. 

(4)Leads And Traffic: This can be very responsive
advertising because you can target your market of buyers,
Alot of time these lead companys are using FFA and
Classified Ads lead pages to get email addresses of people
that are looking for ways to make a income. Good Lead
companys use a Double Optin Process to capture leads of
people that are looking for ways to get advertising or
affiliate programs to join. You can do a search for Leads
and Traffic sites through your searchengines like google
and excite.

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About The Author,
Damon Smith is the publisher of one of the most sought after newsletters on the internet today. He is also the marketing director of ISORegister which is the internets #1 Resource Center for marketing and advertising. Come by and signup for his newsletter and you will receive all the tools and information you need to succeed online. Signup today at
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Some web sites receive hundreds or thousands of unique visitors a day, whilst others only get a handful or none. The reason is often because the web designers or Webmaster has built the site in one ‘really bad way’ or other. This can end up hindering the potential success of the web site. If you want to make sure your site is not a ‘traffic flop’ then here are some simple rules to follow.

Bad Move 1: Build the site using a frameset.

Framesets may save designers time but are bad news for search engines. They can struggle to follow links into the web site or read text on the page unless you use a no frames tag effectively. In addition to this, if an engine does keep a cache of a site with frames it will often pick up the individual frames/ pages and not the complete frameset. The downside of this is that you may lose your navigation for many of your pages, which is likely to turn visitors off. Whilst one or two partial fixes to framesets are out there, it’s still no wonder that many web site promoters still cry “Please No Frames”. For more information on why framesets can cause problems visit http://www.html-faq.com/htmlframes/

Bad Move 2: Build the site purely in flash.

Flash intros and web sites can be visually stunning, but at the same time they can be rather limiting when it comes to search engines. If your main site is all one flash site it will typically play in just one html page. Some search engines simply can’t read Flash and so your web site to them is just one relatively empty HTML page. If your competitors web site has 15 or 20 pages in HTML talking about their good sand services then they will have a big advantage on you. If you must have a Flash site for graphical reasons then it would be wise to budget for a separate HTML web site to have along side the Flash so your site content can be read and indexed by search engines.

Bad Move 3: Decide that graphics are more important than words

Be careful. As great as some images can be, try not to let designers convince you that you don’t need copy on your web site or that a few lines is enough. Only very occasionally is there ever an excuse to fill your web site with graphics at the expense of text. If the graphics look great, then match them with great copy. Sales copy is important to tell your audience why your goods and services are important. Search engines also like to index plenty of useful copy too. 250-500 words is a sensible starting guide for most pages or ½ of the amount you would place in a brochure. Text copy is important and will always be so make sure web site has some!

Bad Move 4: Leaving out the Meta tags

This is a bad move as Meta Tags are important to search engines. Clear and concise title tags should be written for every page reflecting what it contains. Avoid writing things like ‘Home’ or ‘welcome’ as it’s fairly meaningless. If you page is selling blue widgets then get ‘blue widgets’ in the title and keep the title to 10 words or less.

In addition to this create a well-written objective Meta description for each page, and list your Meta Keywords. These keywords should also reflect the content on your web page. Leaving these 3 things out, or doing them badly can be disastrous. The impact of Meta tags on rankings may vary from engine to engine, but without them your pages could be ignored. Most HTML editors allow you to easily insert Meta Tags into your web page and it only takes a few moments to add to a page. So there are no excuses. Make sure you have good Title tags, Meta Description and Meta Keyword tags on your pages today!

Bad Move 5: Use lots of JavaScript

Search engines have a few problems understanding JavaScript in pages. At the best of time they struggle with it, at worst they may even ignore it. On its own, it can be an unreliable way to make web site navigation. If you must use JavaScript for your navigation make sure you have some alternative ways to get to pages by using HTML text links at the bottom of the page. If you have a large amount of JavaScript think about linking to it as a separate JavaScript file.

Bad Move 6: Don’t have sites linking to yours

Unless you want your web site hidden from the outside world you want to be found right? Well search engines ideally find a new web site by following a link from another site. This happens when people link to you and this kind of underpins the Internet. By having sites link to you search engine crawlers will find your web site and you never need to submit your web site to the likes of Google. It is still the case that web sites that rank highly on Google and Yahoo for relatively competitive key phrases often have scores if not hundreds of web sites linking to them Google help to explain the importance of linking here http://www.google.com/technology/. So “think links” and be sure to get your site listed in some quality web directories as part of the process.

Bad Move 7: Focus on submitting your web site to thousands of search engines and forget the ones that matter

Now and then you will see some companies attempting to promote this idea - often by using Bad Move 8! It is true that there are thousands of search engines but the highest volume of traffic comes from less than 10 major search engines. The logic of “If I get one hit a day off each of the 1000 mini search engines I’ll get a 1000 visitors a day” unfortunately in practice does not ring true. It is a fact that a huge volume of search engine traffic comes from a small handful of search engine: most notably the Google, Yahoo and Msn.

Bad Move 8: Using unsolicited/ Spam email

This may seem obvious that this is not the best way to promote your business but is always worth stating. If you’re in any doubt simply ask yourself: “Do I like getting Spam emails?” It’s common sense to avoid using techniques that annoy people or damage your brand. Using unsolicited email campaigns could result in complaints and at worst your ISP could ban you. If you want a successful email campaign it is advisable to target genuine opted in newsletter subscribers and to always offer an opt-out button in every email.

Written by Gareth Davies 2005. You are free to reprint this article with both disclaimer and copyright notice in tact. Gareth Davies is a web promotion consultant working for GSINC Ltd based in North London, UK. For feedback on how to build better sites for search engines email Gareth via garethskettyATyahoo.co.uk or visit http://www.garethsketty.com

Many major search engines (Google, Fast, Inktomi, MSN) now have the capability to index PDF files and return them in search results. If you are a Web site owner with PDF files on your site, this is good news. If you are an SEO, you also know that the new capability presents potential usability problems. And what exactly is the big deal? Let’s find out.

Searching for "blessing of a Christmas tree" on Google returns a link to a PDF file as the first result: http://www.google.com/search?sourceid=navclient&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=BLESSING+OF+A+CHRISTMAS+TREE

If searchers click on it, the link automatically opens a PDF file with no navigation back to the main site. Users are trapped! So, what’s going on and, more importantly, how to do we fix it? Essentially, the PDF format is not the culprit; the real problem is the author’s failure to create the files with Web users in mind.

PDF authoring software, such as Adobe Acrobat 5.0, offers the ability to include both a navigational structure and hyperlinks on a PDF page. Ideally, the best solution is to create your pages in HTML, rather than PDF format. Depending on the purpose, however, a PDF format can be preferable. For example, PDF files offer better functionality for pages that are commonly printed, such as order forms and price lists.

To avoid the PDF USER TRAP, you will have to republish your files, adding some type of navigation structure and/or link back your main Web site. This is the best option for SEO’s, because it allows the pages to still be indexed. If this is not an option, the next best solution is to place all of your PDF files in a single folder and do a robots exclusion.

Craig Geis, SEO Technical Specialist, The Karcher Group. For more information on this topic, contact him at Craig@thekarchergroup.com or http://www.thekarchergroup.com